Making Connections:
Painter Bob Beck Reaches Across the Centuries
By Mary Shafer

Lumberville, PA - Bob Beck moves through his Bucks County studio with a fluidity born of familiarity. The lanky, bearded artist settles into a favorite chair to discuss his latest work, “Second Crossing.” The 60" x 30" painting is his vision of George Washington’s famous re-crossing of the Delaware River to engage the British in the decisive winter of 1776. The clash would come to be known in history as the Battle of Trenton, and proved to be the turning point of the Revolutionary War.

What was it that moved Beck, most often a painter of smallish plein air oils of local buildings and landscapes, to create an epic rendition of an historical event often chronicled previously?

His motivation had as much to do with pushing his own artistic comfort zone as it did with challenging our collective cultural iconography. At 48, with several prestigious awards under his belt and a growing reputation as one of the region’s finest painters, Beck has finally turned the corner of establishing financial viability as a painter, a goal so many full-time artists struggle toward. Having reached such vaunted status, he is all too aware of the danger such unprecedented personal tranquillity presents. Believing that kites rise only against the wind, Beck didn’t miss a beat before finding a draft he could ride in pursuit of creative growth. His chosen challenge this time was depicting light or, more accurately, the lack of it.

In general, Beck views himself as a painter of tonal contrasts, of the relative balance of lights and darks in a scene. Most of the landscapes and genre scenes for which he is noted are paintings of the surrounding countryside and its hamlets, bathed in high midday sun or silhouetted against a waning orange glow. As he has gained confidence in his technical skill, Beck has occasionally moved indoors to depict the effects of natural and synthetic light on the human form and interior structures. It was logical, then, that his next move was to dim the lights still further with his current series of nighttime paintings called “Things That Happen After Dark.”

This body of work, encompassing such diverse images as a carnival midway after dusk and a yard full of fireflies, led to a larger question for Beck, whose mind is constantly turning over artistic possibilities even when he’s not painting. While mulling over other potential subjects for his “After Dark” series, he got to talking with his friend Pat Petrezio, educator at Washington Crossing State Park. They discussed the fact that most paintings of the historic crossing portray it inaccurately. The paintings show it taking place in full sunlight, Washington standing resolutely in the bow of the boat, when in reality the great general was known to have a fear of water. He would, in fact, probably have been hunkered down with the rest of his beleaguered party against the sleet and wind of a storm moving in at 3 a.m. the morning after Christmas.

This led Beck to become preoccupied with how the scene must really have appeared. He considered the combined effects of an overcast sky which precluded starlight, the river’s surface choked with ice floes, and a veil of sleet playing its own refractive tricks.

“I painted this scene many times in my head before I painted it on the panel,” Beck explains, then goes on to detail the process by which subject ideas develop in his mind. “I'm a predatory painter,” he asserts. “I see movement in the bush that captures my attention. I circle. I identify. I learn its habits. I plan. I engage. I capture.”

One can imagine the hunt in which Beck engaged to eventually bag so compelling an image: The artist turning over in his mind all those things that caught his attention; profiling their attributes; interpreting them into a singular moment in time, captured on a panel that would cover half a wall.

Large as it is, “Second Crossing” doesn't shout, it whispers. Those without imagination will walk right by. But those whose sense of mystery forces them to stand before the dark panel will peer into the depths of the murky night it portrays. Just as a person entering darkness from a bright room must pause to orient themselves, soon they will be rewarded with the shadowy presence emerging from the middle of the picture. As their eyes adjust to the barely contrasting values of foreground and background, they will just make out the ghostly outlines that advance and then recede, haltingly delineating multiple figures in a boat. Then they will notice the boat's prow breaking the water's surface, pushing ahead of its pressure wave large chunks of floating ice.

If you stand there long enough, you will find yourself there, transported to an ice floe in the river, where you are watching the boats come across. You can almost hear the soft, brushy sound of sleet hitting skin, homespun wraps, wooden boat seats. You'll think you hear the splash of oars dipping into the slushy surface, or the dull “thunk” of ice bumping the hull. There are other boats, but you feel more than see or hear them, everything clammy and all sound muted by the thick atmosphere.

Mostly you see only the ice-choked surface irregularly reflecting the far, snow-covered bank dotted with sentry fires. Color is nearly non-existent, the surrounding gray contrasting only in warm and cool tones. Drawing in a long breath, you really believe you smell the freezing water, the wet wool on shivering bodies, the fear of an army heading for battle. Your own shiver jerks you quickly back to the present, and once again you are standing in front of a painting; not reality, but a haunted vision of it.

The man who created that vision came to paint it as his answer to other images, more famous, but which sacrifice accuracy in an effort to arouse patriotic passions. “It is not my intention to challenge a national icon. My view is merely different,” Beck contends. “You don't have to add symbolism or make anything up. The facts are more than enough: Washington’s men were underfed, ill-clothed and ill-equipped. One week from the end of their enlistments, asked to again engage an enemy that had on all occasions delivered decisive defeat, driving them back into Pennsylvania and waiting for them to pop up and be finished off.

“The symbolism is all there in the event,” he continues. “Re-crossing the river, awful weather conditions, navigating the floes. Those men did not know they were at a pivotal point in history. This painting is about spirit. This painting is about courage.

“History isn't pretty,” he says, gesturing toward the painting. “Heroism has lots of different faces.” At that moment, you become aware that his painting shows not a single face.

“There is a difference between what something is and what someone sees. You don’t see everything, you see what catches your eye. I go for what catches your eye and what is necessary to support that information. To use a musical analogy: If you play all the keys of a piano at once, you get noise. The painter picks out the chord. To include more, the artist must pay attention to timing.”

Indeed.

Beck pays attention. He is an artist’s artist. Technically accomplished, practiced, striving always for “the good painting,” he follows an almost academic regimen that seems to have lapsed into disuse in this age of instant expertise and early recognition. Rarely without his paint box, he is always prepared for the next picture to offer itself up for capture. Yet his style resists labels. A representational painter, yes. But Beck defies “isms.”

“My visual memory of things is usually distilled down to one or two frozen images. Events of great personal significance are often represented by a few snapshots. I think it’s the same for other people.” The artist pauses, reaching into his well of experience to describe his process. “Sometimes I wait and see what I remember of something, then go back and paint that. If I can identify and paint what does that for me, and someone that processes like I do sees it, then I make a connection.

And so Beck is a Connectivist? He chuckles.

“The purpose of my art is to define, not be defined. I record things that pass through my life. My subjects are things that catch my attention. Painting is my way of saying, ‘Hey, look at that!’ ”

And apparently people want to look. Beck has just learned that his work will be represented in a four-person show at the prestigious James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown. In a region rife with artists feeding off a rich heritage of creativity, this is no small accomplishment. Following a recent studio visit by the museum’s directors, Beck has been tapped to participate in the Bucks County Invitational III in March of 1999.

Before then, Beck will keep busy just getting through a hectic end to this year. “Second Crossing” will be unveiled to the public in its own exhibition at the Visitor Center in Washington Crossing State Park. Opening on Thanksgiving Day, the show will run through the end of December.

Petrezio, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art, is looking forward to his friend’s exhibition, and anticipates a good turnout for the opening.

“It’s very possible that’s what it really looked like,” he says, referring to Beck’s take on the actual imagery. “It will be interesting to have people see another version of the event.”

As for Beck, he’s happy that once again, if only for a while, the Center will house an original painting. Asked if he has plans to pursue another historic piece, he says he has no intention to repeat this performance. Still, he admits, you never know. If he sees another movement in the bush, there’s always a possibility…

“My friends will tell you,” he says, smiling, “if it stands still long enough, I'll paint it.”

Which, given the recent acceleration of his career, means it’ll probably be a good while before Bob Beck does any self-portraits.