Ideals Part 4

Here are some non-controversial, un-idealized faces of women from my own files.

Out of the myriad details and shadings presented to an artist by his model, only a tiny fraction of them appear in the drawing, like a hundred-odd senators representing a society of millions.  What has been included and what has been left out, as well as the character or style of the presentment, reflects the artist's values as much as the likeness reflects the sitter's personality.

My drawings probably exemplify a middle-of-the-road approach, neither glorifying nor demeaning the subjects.  I include them as a sort of bland chaser to follow the strong flavor of the pictures in my previous post.

Ideals Part 3

To illustrate the extreme poles of the ideal and the anti-ideal, I have chosen three artists, all of whom are venerated, represented in major museums, discussed and written about in great detail.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres could paint a portrait that was a ringer, a personage whom no one would mistake for somebody else.





But he also painted figures and faces perfected, polished and purged of individuality.  Not a brand-name product but a generic Ideal.  His ideal.

Far from the ideal is this woman painted by George Rouault.  Obviously not interested in representing conventional beauty, he sought instead for a powerful effect, and achieved it.  This woman looks to have been roughly handled, not only by the artist but by her experience of life.

Willem De Kooning has gone all the way, facing us with this savagely painted figure which has nothing of the ideal about it, not even the humanity of Rouault's tragically misused woman.



Ideals Part 2

To further illustrate idealization and the lack of it, I have chosen two contrasting examples separated by time, culture, medium, approach and gender.

This bronze statue of a Grecian athlete, whose complexion was damaged from lying in pieces on the bottom of the sea for over a thousand years, is not overly idealized, but he was probably a splendid looking young man when the sculpture was made.  The face is not that of a vapid, formulaic pretty-boy, but an individual whose likeness would be recognized by his family and friends.  A living soul seems to be there behind his eyes.  Nothing, however, was done to mar his natural good looks.

The celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was a striking beauty, as indicated by this photograph:

Yet when she painted this self portrait, at the same period as the photograph was made, she not only didn't idealize her features, she deliberately downplayed her allure.  She represented her intelligence, exoticism, fire and seriousness of purpose, but flattened her exquisite cheekbone, exaggerated her facial hair and even gave herself an unflattering hairline.  Those are my observations; I am not qualified to suggest why she chose to play down her feminine attractiveness, but it wasn't the result of a lack of ability.

Ideals Part 1

One way for artists to express their values is through idealization or the lack of it.  The examples I have chosen are both masterpieces of art, though they illustrate opposing approaches.  In the first, Leonardo Da Vinci has undertaken to paint an angel as part of an altarpiece.  An angel should be beautiful, manifestly pure and blameless, with no trace of the commonplace.  He evidently began by enlisting a model who was as close to these angelic ideals as he could find, and then made an exquisite drawing of her:

Even so, there is a hint of the flirtatious in her glance; a little more idealization is called for.  By the time the painting was finished, the artist had largely banished the earthy from his angel:

Francisco Goya, given the task of painting the king of Spain, did not make the slightest attempt to glorify his subject.  Though he portrayed his king adorned with the rich fabrics and aristocratic accessories of a great monarch, he gave him the face of a petty, dangerous and mean-spirited tyrant:

The Well Knit Picture Part 2

Another device used to "knit" or integrate a picture is the interpenetration of color.  This non-objective composition by Stuart Davis does not employ "passages" anywhere, yet it is held together partly by juxtaposing every color with every other color across the surface.  The blue touches both shades of red, the white, the black, and the green.  The same goes for each of the other colors.

A more common device is to severely limit the color scheme to variations on one hue.  This illustration by N. C. Wyeth featuring the cramped interior of a ship rolling in a choppy sea is confined to one color, excepting a couple of strokes indicating the bird's feathers.

Pierre Renoir undertook this picture of people, boats, houses, the river, sky with clouds and wove them all together by applying small touches of color across the surface.  There are touches of blue nearly everywhere, as well as bits of red.  There is yellow in the water, on the ground, on the people, house, sky.  The interpenetration of color keeps everything tied in to everything else and no one area separates itself from the rest of the painting.

In this painting, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec achieved wholeness and integrity by means of a different technique.  He began with a panel of cardboard sealed with orange shellac.  He drew and painted on this ocherish surface, but left areas of the warm ground uncovered.  Like a key, which unites the parts of a musical composition, the color underneath unites the sheets, bed cover, wall and skin into a harmonious whole.

The Well-Knit Picture

A well-knit picture is hard to define, but is instantly recognizable when you see it.  Here is one, a painting by Palma Il Vecchio:

One of the devices by which this picture is made to look whole and integrated is the use of "passages," places where the figures in the foreground are knitted with their surroundings and the background.  A couple of places where this occurs are: Where the dark hair of the woman holding the child is set against an architectural form behind her.  A sort of gate is opened up between them; one flows into the other with only a faint definition, tying two parts of the picture together.  The left shoulder of the child is separated from his mother's shawl by only a light line - the same for his wrist against his mother's hand.  Those are "passages," and they can be found all over the surface of the painting.

Artists of widely differing schools use this device in varying degrees.  Maurice De Vlaminck:

Claude Monet:

My contribution:

Post postscript:  A special hello and thank you to my readers in the Philippines.

Enough But Not Too Much - An Extension

Here are 7 more drawings from my files which attempt to set down the maximum amount of information using a minimum number of pen strokes.  I considered giving each a caption, but I reconsidered.  Displayed without text they should explain themselves.



Enough But Not Too Much

A spare, clean drawing, composed of a few lines put down with conviction, can sometimes suggest a world.  I have chosen the work of 4 artists for the first 4 illustrations and taken the last 4 from my own files.

Andy Warhol sketches Truman Capote and gives us a glimpse into the play of their rapport.

Diego Rivera made this drawing of flower vendors and their customers, and the composition is made complete and wonderful by the inclusion of horsemen gliding along behind them, one of whom turns his face to look at the activity.

Milton Avery has taken up a brush and set down, almost offhandedly, a mother in the midst of her day of care giving.

Henri Matisse hired a pretty model to pose.  The textures of foliage, hair and fabric combine with her person to form a consummate decorative pattern.

Who can fail to understand something of how this man feels?

Here one is made to feel the terrific misplaced energy which sprung the frame, wrinkled the sheet steel, flattened the tires and punched out the glass of this former automobile.

Admit that these animals, made of a few hasty strokes of a pen, nevertheless look very heavy.

Am I the only one who sees the poignancy of this tableau drawn at a state fair?

Effective Distortion - Emotions

To illustrate effective distortion, done for the purpose of conveying emotions, I have selected 4 works of art.  None of them is pretty, but they are effective - even haunting.

This self portrait drawn in pencil by Wyndham Lewis aims at a sort of sullen, steely scorn expressed in a clean, economical style which resembles cut and folded paper..

Georges Rouault takes the prize for agony.  His head of Jesus features large eyes looking upward, begging for surcease, while the jaw is clenched in pain and black smears and lines shred the face into sections.

The emotion expressed by this nude from Auguste Rodin is harder to pinpoint, but it clearly has nothing to do with any kind of happiness.  The powerful, fit, athletic man is apparently unharmed on the outside, but he is so extremely and painfully distorted that he must be undergoing an inner agony.

Picasso's head of a grief-stricken woman almost shrieks and sobs aloud.  Broken and made ugly by her emotion, she, too, is disturbing to look at.



Effective Distortion - Streamlining

Though they contain complex systems with irregular shapes, vehicles from rockets to autos are designed with simplified outlines to improve efficiency and performance.  Similarly, the artist Michelangelo furnished Jehovah and an elaborate cluster of youthful figures with a simple enclosing outline which conveys the quality of fleetness and freedom from gravity.

Albert Ryder combined a rocky eminence, a wooden rowboat and the shadows they cast into one simple shape which seems eerie and mysterious, yet is rational.

Diego Rivera encloses an involved pose of a woman and child in a simple outline which produces a compact, snug effect of protection and devotion.

The Belgian artist Constant Permeke has streamlined the outline of this tough character.  The distortion causes him to appear self-contained, unapproachable and stubborn.



Effective Distortion - Elongation

This sensitively wrought portrait of the Egyptian king Akhenaten benefits from elongation.  The trimming away of the mass of his face subtly forces more attention on his features.  He is known for bucking the religious establishment of his time and focusing devotion to one god: the sun.  Nefertiti was his wife.

This portrayal of a Roman General is fashioned to resemble the very epithet which was perhaps  commonly, maybe even universally pronounced among the Legions he commanded.  Use your imagination.  I think he looks like a cruel martinet and an all-around jerk.

The habitual practice, by Amadeo Modigliani, of distortion by elongation is at its best in this painting of his young girl friend.

Finally, the most familiar and systematic stretching of the figure, apart from the elegant work of Sandro Botticelli, is fashion illustration.