Dorothea Barlett Schoenstein
Often Dorothea Barlett Schoenstein can be seen sitting with her easel, canvas and oil paints by a lake or at Lower Falls in McCloud or out in a field of lavender or sitting by a river’s edge. She is one of many artists painting plein air California Impressionism. Dorothea feels that painting “en plein air” is not just a representation of nature but an expression of the varying elements of nature offered to the artist while working in the open air studio. This intimate relationship with nature cannot be duplicated while working from a photograph. “It is an inspiring experience with the wind blowing, the hot sun directly on me, and bugs being attracted to the odor of my oil paints. Swiftly changing natural light creates real time compositional variations but this is just one of the challenges for a ‘plein air’ artist.
“I am fascinated with the way a tree stands abruptly in a landscape with branches reaching skyward or twisted downward, how the sky hints of a sunset approaching or a river’s water flowing rapidly over rocks and how green the green is in the valley. How many shades of purple can I see?” It is all open to artistic interpretation which continues to motivate her pursuit of painting nature on canvas. “I try to bring to my plein air paintings my personal experience in nature as well as my unique artistic interpretation.”
Quoting Edgar Payne, one of California’s greatest plein air painters, “In painting from nature the artist is faced with the problem of judging between the influence of realism and the power of artistic ingenuity. Nature always challenges”. No art experience equals the challenge and joy of painting from life, be it the human figure or Mother Nature. It is personal and a record of the time and place.
Dorothea Barlett Schoenstein is a recognized and collected artist. Actively practicing as an artist for more than 45 years, she holds art degrees from Penn State University, UC Berkeley, and has studied in Venice, Italy, with New York University. For 18 successful years she owned the Barlett Fine Arts Gallery in Pleasanton, CA, and taught Life Drawing, Basic Drawing, Color and Composition, and Art History at Chabot College, Hayward. Dorothea has exhibited extensively, including one person shows in the United States and in Italy. She has juried and judged numerous shows. Originally known for her work with the female nude and large mixed media abstracts, her recent work has turned toward realism doing ‘plein air’ landscape oil paintings. She and her husband, Alan Schoenstein, retired to McCloud, CA.
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