The terms artist and painter are not synonymous. The word artist implies innovation, exploration and a conscious effort to extend the boundary of art. Paul Cezanne was the last painter who was also an artist who used nature as a direct source of inspiration. From the Fauvists: Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck, who directly followed late Cezanne during the first decade of the twentieth century to the present, all painting as art ie painting in the lead in defining what art is in its time, has looked only at other painting or into the psyche for inspiration not out into the landscape. Very little painting of the past seventy five years can even be considered art i.e. extending the range of the avante garde. Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Richard Prince perhaps - no one else. Now that painting has reached a dead end (see celebrations of the paintings of Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, John Currin, Robert Mangold, Frank Stella and countless others, all others) perhaps it is time to direct observation and interpretation of nature for a painting that aspires to the status of art. It is time to return to the source. The oeuvre has been exhausted.