Matthew Bates - Original Oil Paintings

2007-02-02T01:42:00.000+01:00

Tuscan Summer Road
by
matteopaints

Get this custom poster at Zazzle

Matthew Bates Prints at Zazzle

2007-02-02T01:09:00.000+01:00

Leonardo, la televisione delle tendenze

2006-11-03T11:17:00.000+01:00

Leonardo, la televisione delle tendenze

Social Search: the new trend in website promotion

2006-10-10T23:32:00.000+02:00

"Social Search: the new trend in website promotion"
Date Published: 2006-10-10 - Time: 12:33:42

For years I have been creating and promoting my personal website, www.mattbates.net . I was really excited when I finally got 100 people to visit my site a day, all based on good search engine optimization, (SEO). I thought that the answer to getting more traffic was simply creating my site to play to the major search engines, like Google, MSN, and Yahoo. Of course this is a great way to get traffic, but lately I have found a whole new way to bring literally 1000s of new visitors to my site. Once you have done the work, and your site is up online, (if you need some help getting there, read my article about how to make your own artistic site, named: How to Make Your Own Website) you are now ready to join a whole new trend, Social Search Optimization. The difference here is that you are joining a community of like thinking people who are internet savvy and want to find your site and hopefully help you promote it! Let's face it, if you search on Google for "Oil Painters" you are going to get the same tired old sites, the Wiki page and some very overseen sites. This is going to happen every day of the year. It is a major hump to overcome if you want to find interesting new sites. What is one to do? Well there is a whole new way of searching the web, it is with sites like Stumble Upon. Stumble Upon is a website that asks people to install a toolbar onto their browsers and to rate sites that they visit. If you like a site and you give it a thumbs up then that site will go to the forefront of the search. This means that when you search for "oil painters" with Stumble Upon, you will get a popular page that has gotten lots of Thumbs ups from actual people! Stumble upon goes a step further, they give you a free blog where you can signal your favorite pages, and photos. For artists this is a manna from heaven because you can add pages from your website and images of your paintings to your blog, where you can share with others. There are hundreds of groups of "Stumblers" where you can share your art and ideas.

Maybe the best part is that you get to take part in the search results by adding quality to their system. Here is my page: http://matteopaints.stumbleupon.com/

I have become hooked, maybe you will too!

P.s. I have tripled the hits on my website since I signed up for this great new way to surf the web!

Learn How to Promote Your Website! on Squidoo

2006-09-15T12:03:00.000+02:00

Learn How to Promote Your Website! on Squidoo

Matthew Bates Original Paintings on Squidoo

2006-09-14T16:12:00.000+02:00

Matthew Bates Original Paintings on Squidoo

Furl for Matthew Bates

2006-08-18T11:20:00.000+02:00

matteopaints's reviews

2006-08-17T16:29:00.000+02:00

matteopaints's reviews

Artist of the Month

2006-08-15T11:31:00.000+02:00

Matthew Bates is Art Periscope's Artist of the Month for August 2006! Check out their website for more details: ART PERISCOPE

Art periscope- The first internet artwork competition

2006-08-15T10:00:00.000+02:00

Art periscope- The first internet artwork competition

Matthew Bates' Italian Landscape & Still Life Tile Murals

2006-05-21T15:12:00.000+02:00

Matthew Bates' Italian Landscape & Still Life Tile Murals

Exponentially Expanding Knowledge Syndrome

2006-03-24T16:44:00.000+01:00

by Stephen Bates

(Stephen Bates is an artist and philosopher. for 30 years he has played clarinet and bass clarinet for the Opera House Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Perfoming Arts in Washington, D.C. and is an accomplished abstract painter.)

There is a new malady which I call Exponentially Expanding Knowledge Syndrome, or EEKS. This condition is the product of the internet. The current thirst for knowledge generated by the internet is categorically different from information sources of the past: books, libraries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and phone books. All of these are contained in the internet, however, the addition of new categories of information increasing at a constantly accelerating speed, has created an entirely new concept of the nature of knowledge.
To begin with, the information on the internet, including print, pictures and audio, is only partially reliable. This means that the reader must understand that what he is seeing is simply the free expression of anyone with a computer. This makes the world itself one large cocktail party. At such an event, one is not surprised to encounter the most outrageous opinions and ideas parading as usable information and knowledge. Up until now, most items in print were subject to careful review by publishers. The internet has created a venue that purports to look like a reliable source of information. This is because blogs look alike and are not trying to be for sale. Supermarket tabloids immediately look highly suspicious and cater to a taste for the unbelievable. One of course needs to separate the wheat from the chaff on the internet as well. However, in the process of doing searches, the chance that information will be more suspect than in published books is likely. This means that we are now engaged in a different experience while on line than in a library. This new mental condition, which I call EEKS, is a development in consciousness generated by the overflow of human consciousness in general.
I refer to it as a malady, but that half in jest. On the one hand it is a malady because we find ourselves deluged with the possibility of endless searching egged on by the very fact that it is possible and extremely facile. On the other hand the condition is also pointing to a new way to look at thought. This new way to look at thought recognizes that the old ways, largely ruled by a systematic approach , is now being challenged by an entirely new paradigm. The new paradigm has been brought about by the following law; enough of a difference of degree produces a difference of kind. The mere volume of what's available, changes our approach to knowledge in general.
Some will argue that much of what is on the net is trivia, wrong headed, casual, useless, even destructive. This is true, however, the same can be argued for well established institutions. One must use intelligence and discernment. But what is the value of all this available information as such?
I think that the mere idea that we can instantly look something up has changed the way we think. This means that now we are developing an entirely new basis for confidence when it comes to expanding our ability, authority and power. This very stance influences what we explore. And given this new possibility of exploration, the mind begins to start coming up with many more angles of vision. Now we see as relevant something that just a few years ago we would think was in no way connected. This new approach to relevance trusts what used be thought of as mere chaos. The links between things is becoming the very nature of thought itself. That is, if we are not making these links, then our thought process is stymied. Everything is influencing everything else. But where does that lead us?
To begin with we need to keep track of the ideas that pop into our heads throughout the day regardless of what they may be and how irrelevant they may seem. This will require a notebook at hand or a palm pilot. When the thought hits, one needs to instantly record it. If not, the thought will probably vanish. This is because the character of the ideas and thoughts are so varied and numerous that they no longer fit into a logical pattern. Unless one keeps jotting down whatever arises in the moment, it will quickly pass into oblivion. But what things are we speaking about? The slightest notion needs to be respected as part of this process. For example, one might be trying to remember a scene from a particular movie or an actress in the movie. This minutia my seem irrelevant. But now that it is always possible to find out about anything that comes to mind, we can’t know the relevance unless we respond to that moment of curiosity. Even the thought of reconnecting with someone from the past(now so much easier to do than ever) may have enormous value if pursued.
Then there is the question of whether this condition that I am referring to(EEKS) is beneficial or a waste of time and energy. I think that the notebook at one's elbow is the key to developing a useful relationship to the vast resource now at our disposal.
The world is in great need of a new way of thinking. The old ways maintain strong ties to the identities of nationhood and culture. Now it is possible to begin the needed shift. Every time one has a quirky moment of wondering about some foreign phenomenon, we are called upon to take a look at it. This moment of looking immediately changes notions that we have had all along. This is because the internet is a different sort of information source. It is wide and complicated specific and vague. Perforce this means that we are thrown back upon ourselves to establish notions of accuracy and authority. This very change that we are going through is a development in consciousness itself.

Lovers In Santa Croce is Available as a Poster!

2006-03-12T16:56:00.000+01:00

Lovers In Santa Croce is now available as an affordable poster!

Click on the banner above to buy your poster today!

Art Blogs at absolutearts.com - "Life Decisions: Becoming a Fine Artist" by Matthew Bates

2006-03-06T18:27:00.000+01:00

Art Blogs at absolutearts.com - "Life Decisions: Becoming a Fine Artist" by Matthew Bates

Matthew Bates Original Oil Paintings | Blogger Party

2006-02-22T23:53:00.000+01:00

Matthew Bates Original Oil Paintings | Blogger Party

Art Blogs at absolutearts.com - "The Creation of an Idea" by Matthew Bates

2006-02-03T20:25:00.000+01:00

Art Blogs at absolutearts.com - "The Creation of an Idea" by Matthew Bates

How to Prepare a Painting for the Internet by Matthew Bates

2006-02-02T01:35:00.000+01:00

How to Prepare a Painting for the Internet by Matthew Bates

Life Decisions: Becoming a Fine Artist by Matthew Bates

2006-01-24T16:41:00.000+01:00

Life Decisions: Becoming a Fine Artist by Matthew Bates

Tuscan Summer Road

2006-01-21T14:49:00.000+01:00

Here is a new painting by Matthew Bates which depicts a beautiful Tuscan landscape which he visited last Summer, a place called La Foce. The reseach of detail is evident in this painting which also has a sense of warmth from the Tuscan Sun which warmed this scene last July. The design entices us to follow the road back behind the trees into the unknown. Click on the painting to see a larger version.

Matthew Bates - Original Oil Paintings: Why Google Adsense is Good For The Internet

2006-01-18T11:25:00.000+01:00

Matthew Bates - Original Oil Paintings: Why Google Adsense is Good For The Internet

The Creation of an Idea

2006-01-17T13:56:00.000+01:00

By Matthew Bates www.mattbates.net

January 16th 2006

I have been painting for 22 years and in that time I have come across many different ways to create a piece of art. In art school we drew from the model almost every day until our fingers hurt. I was always covered in chalk and personally I didn’t like to look like a bum all of the time. Our teachers would describe to us the beauty of sitting in front of a subject to understand it’s qualities while we searched out for the contours and prayed that we would get better at drawing. Looking back at my time in the academy, I realize now that we were just trying to master the skills involved, with a sense of competition that really had nothing to do with art at all. We rarely talked about ideas, it was mostly about how the art would look as a finished product, something to present, something to sell. We talked a lot about styles and design, but I was not asked about inspiration, and it is of this that I will talk today.

Inspiration is one of the best things that I can hope for in my life as an artist. The best way to get inspiration is to go out and look for it. I take it as a given that there are thousands and thousands of subjects out there that are worthy of my attention. Life has a myriad of beautiful things just waiting to be captured by my imagination. I go out with the explicit intention of getting an idea. The tools that I use are my eyes and my trusty digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 5700. I used to take pictures with a normal camera, but since the advent of the digital age I have been able to increase the number of photos that I take while decreasing the time it takes to develop them. I use my camera to store my ideas. I also use my camera to see if an idea that I have had will work to create a painting. I may want to make a still life, and in my head I can picture what it should look like, yet when I see that results of the photos, I am often surprised to see that my idea won’t work as I had imagined. This helps to avoid bad unruly projects. I want my idea to be lucid before I start painting, so that the painting process is but an exercise.

For a subject to be truly inspirational, it must have depth. This means that the idea must include an emotion that sparks interest in the hearts and minds of people. It also should include space and if you are lucky, a sense of time as well. When I start a painting, I have a white 2 dimensional blank canvas. My goal is to create an image that seems to have depth. Without inspiration, the idea runs the risk of falling flat, probably because without inspiration, there is little or no passion and I lose interest in finishing the painting. That is one of the reasons that I spend so much time working out whether an idea is any good or not. Here is my checklist for creating an idea for a painting:

1) Either get an inspiration, or go out looking for one
2) Take preparatory photos to see if the idea works or not
3) Elaborate the photos on the computer to enhance the idea, in some cases I put many photos together to create a larger image. I like to use design elements such as the Fibonacci series or other mathematical elements to enhance the idea and place it in a sound structural format. I also figure out the size of the painting, whether it be a big painting or a small painting.
4) I usually wait a while to see if I still like the idea after the initial rush of creating it. If the idea falls flat, I dump the project, if the idea looks great even after a few days of sitting on the desktop of my computer, then it will look great forever.
5) I buy the materials and get to work!

Creating art is a opportunity to express our inspirational moments. Sometimes the idea that I get is so strong that I get chills down my spine, and it is all that I think about until the project gets started. I am always wary about my ideas, because I know that they can be less than perfect. By elaborating my ideas through the camera and the computer I am able to see clearly what I am up against. I spend months on one project so I want it to be a good one before I get started. I guess that I am lucky that I like realistic subjects, this process would be harder if I was still making abstract art. Inspiration is a very personal experience, to be able to translate this experience into a work of art is a wonderful thing to be able to do and I want to present the best translation possible.

Matthew Bates Painting Galleries:
Flowers - Still Life - Cityscapes - Landscapes - Statues - Email

Why Google Adsense is Good For The Internet

2006-01-13T14:35:00.000+01:00

By Matthew Bates www.mattbates.net

I am the webmaster of my own site which is dedicated to the promotion of my artwork and has been on-line since 2000. Now, thanks to my website www.mattbates.net thousands of people have seen my paintings and I have a worldwide marketing tool. Try and get an agent to work so hard for you! In the creation of my website I have had to follow the ups and downs and trends of internet use. My website is generating lots of traffic and people are seeing my portfolio on a daily basis all over the world. So what is next? I believe that the future of my on-line business and the future of the internet is in the form of Google Adsense.

Google Adsense is an ingenious program that brings together people with websites, and people who want to advertise on the internet. What is really cool about this program is that it is able to scan each one of the pages on your website and look for keywords which match the ads that they provide. For example: if you have a website about gardening, Google scans your site and determines which of its ads will fit into your site, providing interesting links to other gardening sites, and you have full control to block any ads that are in direct competition with your site. Whenever anyone clicks on one of the ads on your site, you get paid. Certainly you don't get paid much, usually between 10cents and 50cents per click, but they start to add up, and when you have accumulated $100,00 Google sends you a check.

So why is Google Adsense good for the internet? Simple, one of the big problems with the internet today is that it is stagnant. Most sites are so static that they beg people to never come back. It seems like most people have no interest in updating their websites at all, and this is not good for the internet. The internet should react like a TV station, always in movement and always something different. Google feels the same way about this and that is why they love sites like WashingtonPost.com (they gave it a Pagerank™ of 9 out of 10), it is different every day, adding fresh content to the internet on a constant basis. Of course, you probably don't have a large staff to update your site, however, if you put Google Adsense ads on your site then they will add new links every day, updating your site, links that are pertinent to the subject of your site, and links that your visitors will like to see.

Another reason that Google Adsense is a good idea is simply because the links that are placed on your site have paid to be there. This means that when your visitor clicks on the adsense link, they are going to a professional website which is up to date. Nobody would pay to advertise a site that is under construction or otherwise unavailable. Every so often, I have to go through my reciprocal links page and check to see if the sites that I have exchanged links with are still there. It is upsetting to find that someone has dropped your link, or closed their site down without telling you. It happens all of the time and it is bad for the quality of the internet, and for search engines, that get confused following dead links when they should be indexing new content.

Google has been on the forefront of internet technology for a while now and I think that their Adsense program is absolutely their best yet. When people start really surfing the ads, then the internet will start to become the dynamic, ever changing environment that it was meant to be. It is free to join and there are no expenses to you at all. All you have to do is place a small bit of code unto your existing pages and you will begin to see actual revenue created by your website.

If you have a website and would like to sign up for the Google Adsense program, then click on this banner to get started right away.

Sign me up for Google Adsense

Matthew Bates Painting Galleries: Flowers - Still Life - Cityscapes - Landscapes - Statues - Email

Promoting Your Artistic Website on the Internet

2006-01-11T13:43:00.000+01:00

A Simple Introduction to SEO

January 10, 2006

By Matthew Bates www.mattbates.net

Part 1 / Part 2

I like to surf around the internet looking for interesting sites by fellow artists. One of the things that I have noticed is that even if a website is well made, in many cases it is right off the map in a no-man’s land that is paramount to internet death. If your site is getting little or no visitors, you have two choices, one is to forget about having a website, and the other is to read this article and learn what it takes to get thousands of visitors to your site.

The Internet is like a TV, with several billion channels. Every web page is a different station and every page is competing for your attention. One of the best things about having an artistic website is that you have art to show, which in internet is absolute gold. Most websites have very little actual content to show, and without content there is little to talk about. Your artwork is content, and very good content at that. Given that you are starting at an advantage, let’s talk about what you should do to get your website on the map.

1) Get indexed by Google. This is a very simple procedure all you have to do is click on this link and fill out all of the necessary forms. It is free and without strings attached.

2) Add your site to DMOZ. This is also free, and is a listing that will add credibility to your site. This directory is put together by people, and not by random internet spiders that happen upon your site. This means that someone will actually look at your site and approve of it for insertion into their directory. This may take a few weeks as there is always a line, but it is also without strings attached, so it is worth the wait.

3) Join a large arts organization, such as Absolute Arts. They have a free inclusion and a premium inclusion, both offer you the chance to show your art in another place other than your personal website. They give you the chance to link back to your website from theirs which is a great thing because it shows that you have important links coming in to your site. All of the major search engines look for incoming links to your website and the more links you have the better it is for you.

4) Create a reciprocal links page. This is a part of your site where you put links to other artistic website's. Make sure that the links you put are reciprocal, in other words that the outgoing links have a incoming link to your website from the other website. The best way to go about getting reciprocal links is to surf the web looking for sites that are similar to yours. Then add a link to their site in your links page and send a very brief email to the webmaster of the other site saying: “Hi! I love your site and would be honored to exchange links with you. I have already placed a link back to your site at this page http://www.mysite.com/links.html and will keep it there for two weeks. If you will add a reciprocal link to my site, your link will become permanent. If your would like to change to link description please let me know. Thanks again for your time. Best regards,". By doing this you will create a network of artists that will link to your site adding much needed incoming links for your site.

5) Here is a tricky part which most people overlook completely. I want you to go back over your site and rename everything. Most people don’t realize what a goldmine they have just sitting in their web site. With the advent of the image search on all major search engines the artist has been given a free "get exposure card" by the search engines. The reason for this is that at least half of your website is made up of images. I have been getting so much traffic from the image search that it is really worth a good hard look at how this works. Every image has an alt tag which names it. Many people forget to use this when making their websites. Sure, you may have named the artwork below it on the page, but for the search engines that means very little compared to the alt tag. In Dreamweaver, open your page and click on the image of your artwork, in the properties box you will find a section marked alt. Write in the name of the artwork, and here is the kicker, name the artwork something that someone will actually write into a search engine. I can guarantee you that no one will ever search for “Yellow chrome #115”. It is much better to name your artwork “Still Life with Sunset in California” These are words that will be typed by someone who will by total chance see your art and be happy. Another very important factor is the title of your page. Every page should have the title of the artwork in the title tag and your name, and a short description of your work. Here is a good title tag: Still Life with Sunset in California by Yourname who paints in Oils. It is a good title because it fits nicely on the top of the browser and includes some juicy keywords for the search engines to find. I think that the title tag is the most important factor in making your website visible, so be smart about using it. Never add too many keywords to the title tag, as this will spell death to your website. Too many people have tried to trick the search engines with these ridiculous attempts to get exposure, when after all, the best way is to show that you have content and to make it known what this content is. The rest will come with time.

Part 1 / Part 2

Matthew Bates Painting Galleries: Flowers - Still Life - Cityscapes - Landscapes - Statues - Email

Make Your Own Artistic Website

2006-01-07T15:18:00.000+01:00

How to Make Your Own Website

by Matthew Bates www.mattbates.net

This is an article specifically oriented for visual artists who want to create their own websites, however the principals involved work for the creation and promotion of any website.

Step 1 / Step 2 / Step 3 / Step 4

Let me introduce myself, I am an artist who works primarily as a painter of realistic subjects in oil paint on canvas. This article is about how I created my website www.mattbates.net and how I have promoted it to help my evolving artistic career. Visual artists are particularly suited for website promotion because the medium of the internet is very good for the transmission of our images. In the next few pages I will describe how I made my website and all that I ask you to do is to take a few deep breaths and relax, this stuff is easy, it only becomes difficult when we rush through certain steps and make a mess of things. When I started out 5 years ago I had no idea what to do to make a website, now I have made many, and my personal website has had thousands and thousands of visitors from every country you can name.

Step 1: Gather Your Primary Materials

You will need good photographs of your artwork, if you do not have them, I suggest that you focus on this first. You can take good pictures yourself with a digital camera. I prefer digital cameras for internet use because you go from digital to digital, it is a smooth transition. You don·t need to spend a fortune on your camera, because the image that you will be using will be optimized (and small) for use on the Internet. I will get into how to optimize the images a little later in this article. Place the artwork on an easel, or flat on the wall. You should have at least two good light sources on the right and left of the artwork coming in at a 45° angle. If you do not have good lighting, sunlight works well as a substitute. Be sure to place the lights in a way that there is no glare on the artwork's surface. You want to create an image of the art, not what it looks like in a room. Now place your camera on a tripod in front of the artwork. Position the Camera so that it is exactly in the center of the piece. Turn off the flash on your camera as this will only splash unnecessary light onto the painting. Place your head down by the camera and look again at the painting to make sure that there is still no glare on the art, it can change from a standing position to the point of view of the camera which is lower. Now place the camera setting on automatic and make sure that you have it on it·s highest quality setting for the photo. If you can make the camera take a TIFF image instead of a JPG as the quality is much higher. Now that you are ready, the lighting is perfect, the artwork is centered, set the timer on the camera to 10 seconds and take the picture. Just for safe keeping, take at least another shot as well.

Set your Artwork on an easel and light the piece from the sides avoiding all possible glare.

Now take the camera over to your computer and download the images into a folder in your hard disk. Create a folder which has your name on it, then in a sub-folder, called Artwork place your images. To elaborate the images I use Adobe Photoshop. If this is out of your price range, there are several low cost and free programs that you can use. A free program is The Gimp, which is a valid alternative to Photoshop. A great low cost program is Jasc·s Paint Shop Pro which costs considerably less than Photoshop. Photoshop also has a discount version called Photoshop Elements which can be used as well. Open the file in your graphics program. You will find that all around the painting there is extra borders from the wall that need to be cropped out. Take the cropping tool and carefully crop the painting so that only the image remains. In Photoshop go to the image menu and choose Adjustments>Auto Levels. Nine times out of ten the image looks great and ready to be saved. Sometimes you need to try the Brightness and Contrast which is Image>Adjustments>Brightness & Contrast to get the desired look. When the painting looks right we need to change its dimensions for the web. Go to the Navigator and punch it up to 100%. You may find that your image is incredibly large. At this point go to the Image menu and choose Image Size. You will find lots of numbers on the width and length sides, these are pixel numbers, it is a form of measure. If the amount of pixels is not showing then from the drop down menu choose pixels. Your image should not exceed the normal viewing area of a computer screen which is somewhere around 800 x 600 pixels. This is the maximum amount which will fill many screens and take a longer time to download on a dial-up modem, so I would suggest that the width should not exceed 600 pixels. Enter this amount and press Return. Now go to the file menu of Photoshop and choose Save for Web. This is an ingenious tool which customizes your images to be published on-line. Set the quality setting at 65% and make sure it is set to Jpeg, then click on Save. You will be asked to save the file in a certain folder, choose your Artworks folder and name the artwork its name, not "painting number1", its actual name. This is important because you will receive traffic on the internet because you remembered to actually name your painting. Most of my paintings show up favorably on Search engine results because of these simple factors. The name of your painting becomes a keyword, a keyword is simply what people write when they make a search. So name your paintings with keywords in mind. Think of what people will write and use those words. This is a good strategy to drive traffic into your site. Now that you know how to prepare your images, set up all of your paintings or Photos, or whatevers in the same file, which can contain sub-folders if you have a lot of work. Name the Sub-folders with keywords as well. Don·t write ·July 2005 Paintings· as a folder name. ·Landscapes· is much more useful keyword to promote your site. Try to be truthful about your keyword descriptions. Search engines hate it when people try to cheat their systems. Remember, there are no shortcuts to getting visibility on-line, there is a system, a system that awards content. You as an artist have lots and lots of content. This is absolutely in your favor.

Now you are going to make the thumbnail image of your artwork. A thumbnail image is a smaller image which works like a button on your webpage. Thumbnail images are really important because they give your internet visitor the possibility to see many of your paintings all at once before they commit to downloading a larger image. It is also nice to be able to show several of your artworks at once to give an overview of your body of work. Operating in Photoshop, you still have the image that you saved for the web up on your screen. Go to the image menu and choose Image size. In the width section write: 115 pixels, making sure that the "keep dimensions" box is checked. Press Return and you will see a much smaller version of your artwork on the screen. Now go to the File menu and choose Save for Web. Save the image in the same folder as its larger version and name it the same name as the original artwork, with Thumb at the end of the name Example: Artwork-Name-Thumb.jpg. Photoshop will add this little minus symbol between the words, and it is a good idea because in hypertext markup language blank spaces are substituted with ugly symbols like %20 which are not good for your placement in the search engines. Remember that the more organized your site is the better it will be for the search engines to index your material.

Now that your artwork is optimized for the web, you should put together a short, and I mean short, biography. No more than two typewritten pages are necessary. Nobody on-line is going to read the book of your life. Include all of the shows you have participated in, your contact information, and a small photo of yourself. This should be the most boring page (graphically) in your entire site, so that if people feel like it they can easily print this page for their records. So remember keep it simple! Save the file in the folder with your name on it and put it in a sub-folder with the title Biography.

Step 1 / Step 2 / Step 3 / Step 4

Matthew Bates Painting Galleries: Flowers - Still Life - Cityscapes - Landscapes - Statues - Email

Palazzo Vecchio

2005-12-19T13:07:00.000+01:00

Carved by Michelangelo on the side of the Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio Open 9-19; Thursday 9-14 Price: € 6
Tel. 055 2768224

Palazzo Vecchio is one of my favorite sightseeing attractions in Firenze. This ·Old Palace· has a magnitude to it that is only rivaled by our modern skyscrapers. Its bell tower reaches up into the sky as a symbol of Florentine might. The square in front of it has been the center of Florentine society for many centuries. I can imagine a young Michelangelo being taunted by Leonardo da Vinci, (It is well known that they were rivals, not friends) right in the square! In fact, if you go to the corner of the Palazzo Vecchio, the one nearest to the Uffizi Gallery, you will find a carving of a man·s face. The legend says that it was carved by Michelangelo on a dare, that he couldn·t carve a likeness of a man while chiseling behind his back. This is the only sculpture by Michelangelo that you can actually touch. Palazzo Vecchio has been many things during its 700 year existence. Mostly it has been the seat of power for the Florentine government, a role that it still holds today as city hall. A large portion of the immense building is used for government offices, but most of it is open to the public in the form of a museum. You can see the incredible power of the Medici Family, who were the leaders of Florence for several centuries. In the Great Hall, as you enter the museum, you can see the beautiful and imposing military scenes depicted on the two long walls which was designed by Giorgio Vasari, who was the architect of the Ufizzi as well as a great Art Historian. He wrote ·The Lives of the Artists·, which is a must read for anyone who is interested in the art of the Renaissance. These scenes show the domination of local cities such as Pisa and Siena. It is hard to believe that these peaceful towns were once at war with Florence. Before the war scenes were in place, there was another kind of battle that took place in this room. It was a competition between Michelangelo and Leonardo. Each was given a wall to design a fresco, showing Florentine domination in battle. As the story goes, Michelangelo made a ·cartoon· on several large pieces of paper, which would be then transferred onto the wall, of Florentine soldiers caught of guard while bathing, right before a surprise attack. In the design, called ·The Battle of Cascina·, the soldiers are almost all nude, some getting dressed, all in apprehension for the upcoming fight. The drawing showed all of Michelangelo·s skill as a draftsman, and his incredible knowledge of the human figure. The fresco was never made because Leonardo, who was not fond of the fresco technique, tried to fix his finished painting of ·The Battle of Anghiari· to the wall using incredible heat. It was a technique which was supposedly lost from antiquity. Leonardo tried his best to reproduce the correct amount of heat, but alas the painting was ruined and Leonardo was sent away from Firenze in shame. Needless to say the competition was called off and Michelangelo never made his fresco. The drawing by Michelangelo was studied for years until it was finally destroyed and taken apart piece by piece by the followers of Michelangelo. So from the competition, nothing remains. Continuing on in the Museum you climb the stairs to see the Great Hall from above. Following along the museum, glorious rooms depict the life and times of the Medici Family from when they lived in Palazzo Vecchio. Keep walking up, all the way to the top to see some of the best views of Florence. From the top floor, the Duomo looms larger than life, and the red roofs span out into the landscape.

One of the best attractions about this museum is that it is open on Mondays while the Uffizi and Accedemia are closed, so plan your trip wisely and go on a Monday to Palazzo Vecchio.

Article by Matthew Bates

©2005, Matthew Bates, All rights reserved, No reproduction of any of the contents of this page is allowed without written approval by Matthew Bates

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Are There Crop Circle Designs on the Duomo?

2005-11-03T12:27:00.000+01:00

By Matthew Bates

On May 1, 2003 I started a painting of the Campanile di Giotto, the bell tower of the Duomo, or Cathedral, of Florence, in Italy. The painting included all of the intricate details that are carved and inlayed in marble all up the entire length of the tower.Even though I have lived in Florence for many years, I had never really taken in the incredible artistic undertaking that the Florentines produced when they built the tower until I started the painting. I worked about 5 hours a day, everyday, until on August 31, 2003 I finally finished the painting. You can imagine the amount of effort that it took to create such a painting, and at what level of detail I was involved with. Most of the details of life are lost to us because, well, there are just too many details all around us. We train ourselves to focus on a few things at a time so that we can get through the day, in so doing, we miss some vital clues to what may be going on around us.

Several years ago I was watching an Italian TV station called La7 which was transmitting a show about the crop circle phenomenon. Up until then I had never heard of a crop circle, and during the transmission I became captivated. I had never seen anything like it and, as an artist, I could tell that there was some incredible mastery in the designs, and in the execution of the circles. I knew, instinctively, that whoever was making these creations had to have some fantastic tools at their disposal. These were not hoaxes, and although there are hoaxes, there are definitely real crop circles. Which brings us to question, why now, why are we receiving these messages and have they ever appeared before. History has a funny way of popping up when you least expect it. I think that I have found crop circle designs right on the top of the Campanile di Giotto, right there for us to see.

Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance. From the ashes of the Medieval age, Florence was a light where human accomplishment was a valued prize. Among Florentine firsts we can include the invention of capitalism through its banks and trade, to the understanding of our place in the Universe thanks to Galileo, to the invention of eyeglasses, and the use of the fork at the dinner table. Also modern political practice was invented by Machiavellian thought, not to mention that Florence was the first city in the world to have paved streets. All of this and I didn’t even mention Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo because we all know who they are and what they did! Given all of this wealth and power, of the spirit, mind and pocket, is it outrageous to think that crop circles may have appeared to these pioneering men, as a guide? Certainly there is no record of crop circles, but why would there be, it would be dangerous at best to advertise such knowledge when the fear of excommunication was very real, and the other side of the city wall was a cold place to be.

Here are the pictures that I took myself of the top of the bell tower. I would have never noticed this myself if I had not painted it. You can judge for yourselves, and I certainly encourage debate.
matteopaints@aliceposta.it

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Magic Realism an essay by Matthew Bates

2005-07-08T09:55:00.000+02:00

“I am a painter. My goal is to create images on a two dimensional plane which challenge our perception of reality. I am not a photographer, that is another field altogether.”

-Matthew Bates, Firenze 2005

Magic is a beautiful word, it conjures up images from our youth, it gives us hope, and it is something out of our normal understanding and perception. Realism on the other hand is something that we have lots of. It encompasses every aspect of every day of our lives, except for when we have moments of magic. As a painter I have to choose carefully what I am going to paint because each painting is a journey which will last several months, and I have to be sure that the subject of my painting is actually worth painting. Before I start, before the canvas is stretched, when the ideas are all that I have, I look for the magic around me. The world is filled to the brim with beauty. Everywhere I look I see it. When I look at a glass of water I see the reflections and play of light on the glass, the way you can see through it and the way reality gets bent and reshaped into something else through the glass. I love that.

So learning how to look is fundamental. You may ask, what are you crazy, I know how to look! But the fact is that an artist looks deeper into the reality surrounding him, he has to. Just like a writer knows words, and a chef knows food, a realist painter knows how to look.

What am I looking for? I am looking for the details on the small scale and the overall design on the bigger scale. Details are useless if they don’t fit well into the design of life. But is there an overall design to the universe? Yes, there is a design to the world, even though we watch the news and see all of the disgraces that they can find, the overall design works wonderfully. The sun rises and sets and we live our lives on a random ball in space, as if it were the most normal thing to do, when in fact it is not. The universe is incredibly empty, cold and devoid of life, and here we are, as if we deserved to be here! Amazing really, actually it’s Magic!

I have looked for that very pattern which makes life on earth possible. I want to see it, to touch it, and to try and understand it. My studies have taken me to an understanding that the universe is based on a mathematical anomaly. There is a pattern which is such extreme simplicity that it is amazing that it works. Here is the sequence:

1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987,1597..……

To find the next number just add the last two numbers in the sequence. What is amazing is that when you divide the last two numbers in the sequence there is always a result of about 62%, and the bigger the number gets in the sequence, the closer it gets to perfection, this irrational number is known as the golden ratio, and it is truly one of the most magical discoveries I have ever made in my journey into how to look. When we look at the world we find the golden ratio everywhere! Seashells, leaves on a tree, and all of the proportions of our bodies have the golden ratio in their basic design. Almost as if the golden ratio were a blueprint? I don’t know enough yet to say so but I have a feeling, yes a feeling, not anything else, that we are a creation. Just like when you go to Greece and see ancient ruins, and you know that someone, a long time ago built something, we may be looking at the golden ratio and be seeing “ruins” left by a creator, a longer time ago.

Use of the golden ratio in Piazza Fescobaldi, Notice how the yellow lines follow back to the end of the street along the grid made by using the golden ratio in the initial design of the painting.

By using the golden ratio in my initial plans for a painting I am using a system that works naturally everywhere. Therefore I am using a Magical sequence to find Reality.

An old friend once told me that we eat with our eyes. I asked him what he meant and he said that we don’t miss a thing, we gobble up reality all of the time. I liked that. It also reminded me that my paintings have to be extremely detailed to fool the eye into believing that there is more than a bit of paint on a flat surface, that there is a world in there. In my paintings I like to make the objects seem real, while I exaggerate the color. I realize that this is not the traditional use in Magic Realism, but I feel that like all movements need to evolve in time. I use a high grade Italian oil paint made by Maimeri called Puro, which in Italian means pure. The tubes have a higher content of pigment and the colors are incredibly vibrant. A big part of my use of magic realism is the electrifying of the colors in my paintings, as if there was a perfect light everywhere. Photography tends to have many dark areas where the detail is non existent. Pick up the newspaper and look at the front page, pick out a photograph and look at the dark areas, what do you see, not much, the dark areas always fade to black, without any detail. Now look up in the room where you are. Look at the shadows, any shadow will do, what happens is that your eye adjusts to the light and you can see the detail in the shadow. Cameras can’t do that. So as a painter, I like to adjust the light in my painting so that the dark areas have just as much detail as the light areas. I do this because that is what we do when we look.

The experience of looking at a large object like a skyscraper or a cathedral, or the Grand Canyon, is unlike staring at the TV. When we watch TV we fix on one point and that’s it. When we are at the Grand Canyon, we look around, because we can’t see it all at once. This feeling of taking it in all around us is one that usually makes people smile and say "WOW!" and "Look at that!", while in fact everyone is looking at something different because there is so much to see. People travel the world to have these experiences. I know that they have been some of my favorite, like the first time I saw Firenze from Piazzale Michelangelo, or when I was on top of the Empire State Building, or the view from Twin Peaks in San Francisco, and the list goes on. We live through the daily grind to hope for a few days like those. Naturally I was inspired to encompass that WOW! experience into my artwork. I have made paintings where the experience of looking gets expanded into the fourth dimension. By making a panoramic view of my subject I let the viewer see what they would see by looking around, all at once. The image gets curved making it look as if it were in motion, as if it were bowed in time as well as space. This is a magical experience, that of seeing something look so real, and at the same time, impossibly larger than life.

In Santa Trinità Bridge fourth dimensional design is being used because in reality it is impossible to see both sides of the bridge at the same time from that location.

The creation of art is a great freedom. Since it is up to me to decide what to paint I have chosen to paint what is beautiful and magical. I feel like it is my obligation to create only beauty, in respect for all of the beauty around me. Making reality “magic” isn’t that hard. Life really is magical already.

New York Still Life

2005-07-05T18:44:00.000+02:00

This painting was made in October 2001, right after. Now that some time has gone by I look at this painting, and it reminds me of those days. Since then New York has become a much bigger part of my life, I have visited every year since, and am glad to see that the city keeps going. New York represents, like no other place, the American dream. What is amazing is that when you are there the melting pot is boiling over, the whole world is all over that city and in every form imaginable. Let's take New York's example and learn how to live all together in a bigger sense.

Exhibition History of New York Still Life:

Oct. 2001 - American Consulate, Firenze, Italia

Nov. 2002 - Agora Gallery, Soho, New York City

Jul. 2004 - Figaro Gallery, Annandale, Virginia

©2001, Matthew Bates, All Rights Reserved

Matthew Bates Prints

2005-07-01T13:41:00.000+02:00

Matthew Bates Original Oil Paintings are now available as Prints! Thanks to his collaboration with Europicture, a leading German print company, high quality Giclèe prints of Matthew Bates's paintings are now on sale. Click on this Link to reserve your prints today!

The Use of Technology in Painting

2005-06-04T22:45:00.000+02:00

Technology according to Webster’s dictionary is “The study of mechanical arts and applied sciences”. Technique is “method of performing or doing something”. So to study technology is to learn how to use mechanisms to create art, and the technique is the way it is done. This is interesting, it would create the basis for an argument that to use the latest technologically advanced tools is to use the most advanced techniques available. Is this true? When one uses his own eyes and hands to create something is it not a better result than when one uses advanced computer technology to create the same thing? Is it even the same thing?

What is most important to me is that the artist creates an idea which is only available to him in his head, an image which can only be called imagination. When this image is clear, then the artist has a myriad of possibilities to make the artwork come to life. I would argue that it is important that the artist have at his disposal every possible type of technology that he can afford to create his image. That means that if he makes a digital photo, which then goes into the computer, which then gets digitally manipulated by the artist, so that he can see what the image may look like in an eventual painting, well then, he should absolutely take advantage of this technology. The other option is to not take advantage of this technology and to sit with a canvas and paints in front of the subject and simply paint what he sees. This may be a problem, some subjects are fleeting, sometimes it rains, or is windy, or a thousand other things that will never happen in the calm of the studio. But most of all, it is the creation of the idea that must be preformed, before the painting is started. I have found that when I have a computer work up, I have done at least half of the actual work in the creation of a piece of art. The painting becomes a physical exercise to complete the idea on canvas. Also the painting is the material expression of the non material idea which initiated in my head. I love the way that a painting takes on a life of its own. The idea becomes less imaginary, and more real. To finish a painting is to complete an idea.

Matthew Bates, Firenze
http://www.mattbates.net/