By Megan Ma
 Fuchs’ “Rapunzel” portrays a romantic scene in Venice. |
It’s the quirky juxtapositions that make Joseph Fuchs’ paintings worth a second look. In a quiet, cobble stoned courtyard in Venice, two lovers huddle together, in a seemingly intense discussion. The man, is oddly dressed in a coarse white uniform with towering hat and dark mask. Fuchs’ painting “Paolo and Francesca” alludes to the doomed lovers from Dante’s “Inferno.”
The white-clad man is Pulcinella, a clown from the commedia dell’ arte, an improvisational theater that began in 16th-century Italy and is still performed today.
“I call him the everyman,” Fuchs said about his muse, who figures in nearly all his Venetian landscapes. Sometimes portrayed as romantic, jocular or tragic, the clown is a venue for narrative, he said.
Narrative also finds its way into the native Los Altos painter’s home through literature. While he paints, Fuchs, 63, enjoys listening to the dramatic readings of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Finding a bridge between the literary and the visual probably stems from his long career as an English teacher.
For 33 years, Fuchs taught composition at Menlo-Atherton High School, where he was praised for his multidisciplinary approach to classic texts. Now retired with his evenings free from grading papers, Fuchs plans to spend more time painting.
“I’m sort of reinventing in retirement. I have not really had the chance to focus on painting. It’s like having a nice horse and not being able to ride it,” he said.
Growing up in Los Altos during the 1950s, Fuchs’ fascination with the playful aspects of his imaginary world of Venice drew more from his eclectic family than from his childhood environment, he said. He recalled the two-lane dusty roads that meandered across his family home and the fields of orchards. It was his family and their heritage - Spanish and German - that most influenced his imagination.
“They were mavericks, not middle-class social types. Everybody was so different, they were off-centers and jokers,” recalled Fuchs.
Fuchs’ paintings were featured in 2005 at the prestigious Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte, an annual art show in Florence, Italy, that showcases the work of established contemporary painters. Call it realism with an extensive, colorful palette, Fuchs said. With tiny brushes, Fuchs mixes between 200-300 oil paints in each painting. Colors change after he applies a glaze to set and preserve the oil paint. “The last process is hardest. I stop when I find a balance. (It comes from) a gut feeling, when you don’t have anything left to change or make better,” he said.
Despite his recognition in the art world these days, Fuchs remains humble and focused. He recalled a time when an art gallery consultant unleashed a 45-minute diatribe on his apparent lack of talent.
“It was vicious, but I think of it as a positive experience. If you’re not willing to take a chance in the arts, you might as well pack up your tent and go home,” said Fuchs.
Voshan Gallery will present Fuchs’ artwork 6-9 p.m. May 5. Fuchs will be present. Voshan is located at 374 University Ave., Palo Alto. For more information, call 321-8180 or visit www.voshan.com.
