You may think you know Pikes Peak in all its moods, from serene to stormy and everything in between. But you don’t know America’s Mountain like Jack Denton knows it.
The artist has spent the past four years capturing it in 100 oil paintings. And this is the second time he’s undertaken such a huge project.
The current collection, plus some pieces from the first exhibit, is on display at the Briarhurst Manor Estate. Walk into the historic building’s conservatory and prepare to be amazed.
Everywhere you look, you’ll see vibrant depictions of the peak from various vantage points and from the mountain itself. Denton’s pigments range from cool blues to fierce oranges in brushstrokes that vary from delicate to what can best be described as “chunky” as he paints ribbons of color and muscular slabs of granite.
The best landscape painters know how to depict light in all its glory, illuminating rocks and trees, grasses and water and sky. Count Denton among them.
“I want it to breathe, I want luminosity,” he said.
Denton grew up in the South — his voice still pours smooth as syrup — and was an only child in the first house on the street. His mother gave him art supplies, he got to paint a mural on a classroom wall and was hooked.
“It’s really about the heart and the mind and the motivation,” he said.
He enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and was told he could take one elective class.
“Somebody was guiding me. And I said, ‘You know, I think I’ll take an art course to see how I compare to real college art students,’” Denton said.
That was 1967. Denton tried playing football, but wasn’t very good, he said. A career in science or on the railroad, like his father, didn’t appeal to him, so he decided in 1968 to devote himself to art.
“I’ve been running with scissors ever since then,” he said. “I’ve averaged at least one painting every two weeks since the 1960s.”
He also spent 40 years teaching art at schools around the country, including an inner-city school, a prep school and his old high school. Along the way, his subject matter has evolved from ballet dancers, cattle, marinas and urban architecture, and then he fell in love with landscapes while painting the mountains of Morocco.
But he always found time to share his work with others; this is his 32nd solo exhibit.
It was raining while he was moving into his first Colorado Springs home in 2012, Denton recalled.
“The rain turned to snow on the peak. That’s first time I saw it in its dress white.”
And he was smitten.
He’ll wander local trails and take photos and draw sketches, and maybe rearrange a little for artistic purposes.
“I’m definitely not too literal. My paintings are emotional and fluid,” he said.
Denton has learned the hard way that painting en plein air — outdoors — can lead to damaged paintings. Anything larger than 4 feet in any dimension stays in his Westside home studio.
From there, he can look at the great peak for inspiration.
“A good landscape is something … people can feel sanctuary in that landscape on some subliminal level,” he said.
What does he hope that people will feel while looking at his art?
“It’s a shared human experience, I think, to do something low-tech like this. It’s a noble, classic thing that adds a little bit to the tapestry of culture,” he said.
“It may sound campy, but if somebody finds something that really moves them and it ends up going to a home and is cherished for whatever length of time, that’s really the big thing.”
For him, art is not about the money, it’s about getting his work into homes so he can “continue my obsession.”
And what is he feeling as he paints?
“You know, it varies. I’m not the same person every day. It’s kind of like riding a wave. I don’t put any pressure on myself. Use a big old honkin’ brush as long as I can.
“I’m not a ‘little brush detail’ person. I’m more holistic.”
He plans to create one more series of 100 paintings of Pikes Peak and books chronicling them.
“That’s gonna be my gift to America through my painting of America’s mountain. It’ll be 300 paintings total.
“That’ll take at least five more years. And I’ll be 80 then.”
Denton grew up thousands of miles away and has traveled the world, but this is home. Anywhere he can see Pikes Peak, that’s home.