The Dark Meets the Light, the Old Mingles with the New in ‘Pentimento’

A show of work by Greg Goldberg called “Pentimento Paintings” remains on display at the Cornwall Library in Cornwall, Conn., until Sept. 4.

In art history classes, professors often refer to pentimento in rapturous tones, particularly when discussing paintings from, say, the Renaissance, or the oil panels by 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painters. In Italian, pentimento means repentance; in English art historical speak, it refers to the underlying layer of drawing or painting that was later deliberately covered by the artist. It’s exciting because it reveals evidence of an artistic thought process, a glimpse into the stages of a work of art.

Artist Greg Goldberg employs this term for the title of his exhibition as a way to refer to the visual evidence of underpainting being intrinsic to how he creates these images.

Goldberg’s “Pentimento Paintings” were made in West Cornwall, Conn., over the past 11 months. While abstract, the works respond to their natural surroundings and seasonal changes in color and light. And of course, those unseen layers are an integral part of the work as they help to determine the ultimate visual structure. They are visible as edges along the perimeter of individual marks, at the intersection of colors, and beneath transparent and translucent colors. The marks range from sweeping to staccato and develop slowly, over many months, to gradually create a visual and spatial logic that implies the passage of time. Both meditative and dramatic, each painting is a visual history of this accretion of defined brushstrokes.

Using oil paint on linen, Goldberg’s choice of colors is sensual. Inspired by the radical palette of Renaissance master Jacopo Pontormo, transparent ultramarine blue and quinacridone violet are played off against opaque tones (tertiaries, muted grays and earthy browns).

Many of the colors are found in the natural surroundings of Cornwall, while others are overtly artificial. Structurally, there is nothing predetermined; the works are a flowing improvisation.

A native of New York City, Goldberg splits time between the Garment District in Manhattan and Cornwall. His works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Estée Lauder Foundation and numerous private collections.

His website is www.greggoldberg.art. Learn more about the exhibition at https://cornwalllibrary.org/events.