ELEMENTAL VISIONS

Artist Michael Scott explores the mythology, symbolism and science of an existence born out of a chain of chemical— and alchemical—reactions.

- JOHN O’HERN

My conflation of Michael Scott with fire began when I sat in his living room contemplating a large painting of a snowy owl rising phoenix-like from a fire as he cooked dinner for his guests over an open fire in his kiva. Over the years I’ve thought more about that conflation and about his representation of the four elements in his landscape paintings. I thought of them as representations of themselves-earth, air, fire, water as discreet elements in the landscape. Recently I saw his study, Geyser and Sky Fire, and suddenly grasped the depth of his representations of the elements, their interrelationships and their intimations of something other. The geyser became more than a visible explosion of water and steam. The phenomenon is caused by invisible fire deep within the earth. The sky fire is caused by the light from the nuclear fusion of the gases that make up the sun.

The landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) wrote, “The magnificent beauty of the natural world is a manifestation of the mysterious natural laws that will be forever obscured from us.” Scott contem plates the “mysterious natural laws” but also delves into their scientific bases.

Bierstadt was a student of Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Cole emigrated to the U.S. from Northeast England and returned to Europe for several years in 1829. On his return in 1833 he began a series of five paintings known as The Course