David Ligare

David Ligare’s commitment to history painting presents something of a paradox: a contemporary artist devoted to the past, seeking ancient solutions to present-day problems, defying the status quo by embracing tradition. For over forty years, he has embraced classicism as a means of renewing humanity’s passion for knowledge, frontrunning a new kind of renaissance. In A Specific View, his fourth solo exhibition at Hirschl & Adler Modern, David Ligare presents nine new paintings that build upon his resolve to follow his own set of rules.

Ligare’s artistic practice is guided by a tripartite criterion of his own making: carefully devised compositions, a representational aesthetic defined by reverence, and subject matter grounded in secular humanism. Informed by the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato, Ligare aims to combat what he deems “the current decline of rational thinking, a lack of desire for knowledge in general, and the loss of the perspective of history in particular.”

Unfettered by time and uncorrupted by civilization, Ligare’s landscapes of the Monterey region in California embody an ancient idealism, taking the form of an American Arcadia. The titular landscape, A Specific View (SCIENTIA, ARTE, VENUSTAS) (Knowledge, Skill, Beauty), features a rock arch set in a placid sea. Inscribed in Latin are the eponymous principles, uniting the philosophical and aesthetic ideals that define Ligare’s work. These landscapes, like all his paintings, are bathed in the late-afternoon sun of “the golden hour.” In using the language of sunlight, Ligare imbues his work with life, highlighting the beauty of idealistic thought.

Sunlight, and the meaning it holds, is the subject of the aptly titled SOLIS (Sunlight). Although well known for his still-life paintings, those which Ligare presents in A Specific View are not the offerings to the gods (Aparchai) we are used to. Instead of altar-like arrangements set against the sea, branches of leaves are featured, solitary against a dark ground, selected for the symbolic meaning they held in antiquity. Each is labeled with an important idea, written in Latin: VIRTUS (Virtue), SCIRE (To Know), among others.

It is perhaps with the painting NOVUM INCREMENTUM (New Growth) that we can best understand David Ligare’s contemporary dedication to ancient ideas. The artist states: “The cut-off stump of an olive tree—a symbol of Athena, the wisest of the ancient gods—shows how a tradition considered long dead can sprout new growth.”

David Ligare (born 1945, Oak Park, IL) studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He has shown his paintings in many solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, London, Rome, San Francisco, Seattle and elsewhere. His work can be found in numerous permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; the Frye Art Museum, Seattle; and the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. The artist’s recent solo exhibitions include David Ligare: Spheres of Influence at the Monterey Museum of Art, and David Ligare: Forms of Influence at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. In 2015–16 Ligare was the subject of a major museum retrospective, David Ligare: California Classicist, which traveled from the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, to the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna, CA; Georgia Art Museum, Athens, GA; and Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA. This exhibition was accompanied by a monograph on the artist. Ligare lives and works in Carmel Valley, CA.