Life Drawing - Week 2

A collection of three minute charcoal sketches

A thirty minute drawing

A twenty to thirty minute drawing where I focused mostly on tone

A twenty minute drawing of the model reclining

Life Drawing - Week 1

A collection of charcoal sketches each taking three minutes.

Two larger sketches, each taking ten minutes, using the very end of the stick of charcoal (left) and a small piece of charcoal on its side (right).

A large drawing that took around twenty minutes.

The final twenty minute drawing, which I feel was the most successful.

Definition of Romanticism

 The Romantic movement began in the 1760's and continued until midway through the 1800's, but the movement has also been revitalised in various forms such as Neo-Romanticism, which took place primarily between the 1860's and the Second World War. Romanticism often draws upon the Classical and Neo-Classical movements, and it was often the case that artists were considered Romantics by others though being self-proclaimed Classicists. Delacroix was one such artist, and Goethe also had a similar distaste for being called a Romantic. Degas, however, differentiated between the two by saying “a Classicist is a Romantic who has arrived.” The statement itself implies that one movement crosses over with the other and they share some defining qualities; for this reason, Romanticism as a movement in of itself is difficult to differentiate. Romanticism cannot be defined by any thematic or stylistic criteria, but rather by its focus on the internal and the individual. Baudelaire states that “Romanticism lies not at all in the choice of subject or in exact truth, but rather in a way of feeling.” And individual emotion is something that can be seen as integral to the movement. Some of the most innovative paintings of this age were those that incorporated the sublime, whereby the intent was to overwhelm the observer with what they were looking at and the emotions that followed. Romantic art of the time was, as a result of this, highly emotional, and Jean Clay describes the effect as follows; “emotion … breaks down all defences and propels the artist outside himself, causing him to break the rules and exceed the limits of artistic practice.” So Clay states that the sublime also has an effect on the artist. This importance of the emotions of the individual are present in some of the most celebrated Romantic pieces, such as Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa' and Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People.' We cannot say for certain that all Romantic artists executed their pieces in a particular way, but some of the most popular features include naturalistic detail, purified contours, restrained depth and illusionism.

Romanticism is at the root of what we now call Modernism, and some state that Modernism did not begin at the beginning of the 20^th Century as often thought, but in the 1800's. The Church's patronage and the power of the crown were diminishing around this time, and thus art was set against a radically different social backdrop than before. Art did not have to revolve around religion, and this in cohesion with the work of Kant and other philosophers bolstered a society that allowed artists to produce work that matched their own interests. Influences became subtler and each artist began to build a repertoire of personal processes and themes that previously could not have occurred. The movement was largely international, often with emphasis on France, England and Germany, and this is another reason why Romanticism cannot be defined simply – due to the very nature of the movement, there was an incredible variation of pieces being produced. However, the theme of the power of the individual was consistent. Even after the 1800's, Romanticism was present, and Neo-Romanticism saw a resurgence in the particular styles of painting employed during the original movement. It may have perhaps been so difficult to define Romanticism because the artists at the time were constantly surrounded by the environment that was continually creating Romanticism, and in hindsight we may find it easier to differentiate the movement from others. Neo-Romanticism also proves helpful to gain insight into what the movement really signified, and we can see that there are some recurring motifs.

Romanticism resembles Classicism and Neo-Classicism, and the similar use of illusionism can be what makes it difficult to set the movements apart, but Romanticism is unique in that it uses a similar style to represent the internal and emotional life of an individual, as supposed to representing mythology or Bible parables. It often makes use of the macabre and psychological, such as with Goyer, or even the political, as with Delacroix and Gericault. Romanticism taps into the connection between human beings and nature, and most importantly our connection to ourselves.

Bibliography:

- 'Romanticism' by Jean Clay

- 'The Last Romantics' by essay writers MaryAnne Stevens, JGP Delaney, Lindsay Errington, Benedict Read, Alan Powers and David Fraser Jenkins.

- 'The Romantic Spirit In German Art 1790 – 1990' by Thames and Hudson

Sculpture Project - 'Juxtapositions'

Shot of early drawing and brainstorm notes - my original concept was to create a wire ribcage.

Pencil drawing of later concept - I decided I wanted to juxtapose papier mache with wire and create a hollow torso for my vessel.

Early Inspiration Drawing:

A pencil, biro and acrylic paint sketch I created that later inspired my sculpture concept.

I wanted to feature the female form and explore the theme of something that is hidden, which led to my decision of creating a torso and housing the vessel within the hollow chest.

The photographs below show the actual sculpture near to its completed stage, and it's apparent that my materials and my concept have altered during the process of creating the sculpture. I began by lubricating a female mannequin with vaseline and then using papier mache to create a shell over the top of this, the vaseline acting as a barrier so the cast would not stick to the mannequin. I originally intended to layer up papier mache repeatedly until the sculpture was solid enough to support itself, but then a classmate offered me a large amount of air-drying clay, so I decided to create an armature instead, wanting to experiment with materials. I applied the clay but overnight the front half of the cast had cracked considerably, with big fissures making the structure very weak. After some research, I discovered that this happened because when air-drying clay becomes hard, it contracts and if the clay dries too fast or too unevenly, it makes plateaus that essentially just pull away from one another, making cracks. So I made some slip and took more clay to fill these in, then completed the clay structure and wrapped it in cling film overnight. During this time, I began to think more about what my piece represented and how the cracks would come into this concept - I was thinking of dealing with human fragility, and so it made me think of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of filling cracks in pottery with gold. It is a celebration of fragility, and the more something has been broken, the more valuable and beautiful it is considered. The photos below show the sculpture once I had taken it off in two halves from the mannequin and glued the them together with a glue gun.

I used thin strips of foil to create a kintsugi effect over the real cracks in the clay, all stemming from the hole where I fill place the glass vessel.

On the back of the piece, I described what I was aiming to hint towards with the cracks, so that anyone observing the sculpture will be able to research what I had intended. I wanted some kind of explicit hint to kintsugi to prevent the piece from seeming too obscure.

The above two photographs depict the finished piece, with its interior completed and the paper moths added. I used pages of my own writing to represent the inner monologue, the private narrative, that composes a person's life - I had always wanted to use words for the interior of the torso, as I feel that words and emotion compose the inner life of a person. I knew I would not be creating a piece that just put two juxtaposing materials together. Narrative is central to the work I love, and also to what I create. The glass vessel represents the human heart, and I've used string to suspend it in the air within the torso. Both the outer shell and inner vessel are fragile and liable to break, and this is true of the human body and heart. Likewise, the moths floating above the open throat were inspired by some free-writing I did for a poem, and moths were a recurring image in what I wrote. As a personal symbol, they represent desires and goals. Moths always have a destination, a will to find light, and so I wanted to have them suspended above the light-bulbs to represent the desire that keeps human beings alive even though they are fragile. I've juxtaposed the interior and exterior, the hidden and the revealed, the transparent and the opaque, but my main focus is the juxtaposition between aspirations and reality.

Artist Inspiration - Hans Bellmer's Dolls

 Hans Bellmer is a German sculptor, photographer, etcher, lithographer and writer born in Katowice, in Silesia in 1902. His most popular work is a series of dolls, 'Die Puppe', constructed in 1933 and published a year later, under the rule of the Nazis. Bellmer gave up all activity useful to the State after the Nazi rise in power, and it is said that his highly sexualised dolls of adolescent girls are a critique of the Nazi emphasis on adhering to a certain kind of physical beauty. However, it is also hypothesised that Bellmer's disturbing dolls were catalysed by a troubled relationship with his father, who persuaded him to study engineering at the Berlin Polytechnic earlier in his career. Bellmer, however, became friendly with the painters Grosz and Dix, and though some of his work still resonates of engineering and mechanics, he otherwise abandoned the practice. 

Bellmer's work is simultaneously beautiful and gaunt, and that is why it inspires me – it makes the observer feel intensely uncomfortable, as if they are viewing the private erotic fantasies of the artist instead of work produced with an audience in mind. There's an intimacy to the sculptures and the drawings, and the distortions of the body and all its multiple points of articulation heavily inspires me. Bellmer takes the female form and manipulates it to a point where it is difficult to recognise as a body, as supposed to a machine or a kind of organic growth. It makes you consider your own body, and his sculptures of the female form have inspired me to focus my sculpture project around the body, also. I want to use black wire or a plaster cast of a female chest as a shell in which to house the object I am given – I want to experiment with concepts of fragility, humanity and protection. I'm drawn to creating either a black wire ribcage to suspend the object within, or a hollow cast of a female chest, and I may also combine these two materials to juxtapose my ideas. The glass object I am given will most likely be presented in such a way that it represents the heart, or even the soul, belonging to the body sculpted around it – glass is such a fragile material, and I feel that using a glass instrument as a metaphor for the human heart relates to how we learn to put up walls in our interactions with others, hiding our emotions and constantly poised to defend ourselves because we are so delicate. 

Hans Bellmer, 'Rose Ou Verte La Nuit'

Some of the names of these pieces are in German, whilst others are in French - this is most likely due to my having sourced the images from French sites, but I did not translate the titles back to German in the event that this may not be the case. The drawing above shows a woman opening her own chest, and this is the kind of symbolic imagery I want to evoke in my sculpture - she looks like she is made up of bricks, or large cell structures, that she is peeling away in order to look at her own insides. I love Bellmer's illustrations because of their delicacy and the often insubstantial lines, as this contrasts with the gross distortions of bodily proportion in his sculpture and the strong lighting in his photography. I find it interesting how using different materials has an immediate effect on Bellmer's style.

Hans Bellmer, 'Souterrain'

 The above piece is an etching by Bellmer that features his signature bodily distortions, and also some surrealist imagery. The sinuous shapes he draws all echo the female form, and I love the use of monochrome in this etching, as well as the variation in tone.

Hans Bellmer, 'La Poupee'

 This is a photograph of one of Bellmer's dolls. I chose this image in particular to draw inspiration from because the doll is dismembered in this photograph, and all the limbs are juxtaposed by being placed next to one another in a way that would never be seen on a normal human body - her hair is touching her hips, thighs, and so on, and there is even what looks to be an eyeball at the very bottom of the image. It's the feeling of disorganization that is special, as you can almost believe that Bellmer did not pose this shot, but that it happened spontaneously whilst putting one of his dolls together. I love how Bellmer documents his art, and his artistic process, in his photography.

Hans Bellmer, a print of a photograph from his 'Die Puppe' series

 Finally, I chose this image to use as a touchstone for my sculpture. The use of tonal contrast is beautiful, and the patterns in the backdrop cohere with the mottled light and dark on the stomach of the doll. What really strikes me about this, however, is the placement of the rose next to the bald head of the doll - a rose is such a symbol of femininity, of beauty, whereas the doll lacking any hair or eyelashes completely goes against the stereotypical conventions of femininity. It almost looks as if Bellmer was trying to create a beautiful image but the aesthetics of the doll preventing him from achieving it. The space between beauty and ugliness that Bellmer's sculpture occupies is something I want to evoke in my own work.

'Towering' Installation - Photo Documentation

A photograph capturing our finished sculpture

Another shot, of the very top of the sculpture, where we fixed it to the ceiling

 

 

 

Our group drawing once almost complete

Detail shot of drawing inspired by scopophobia

Detail shot of face and tree drawing, including my cell patterns I also drew

Another detail shot of a drawing inspired by sexual intimidation

These photographs are taken of our drawing and finished sculpture to showcase the various textures, patterns and ideas we had as a group. Using charcoal, I've drawn several faces and figures, in addition to patterns representing the cells that make up a tree. We were initially thinking of the way large organic forms, such as trees, make human beings feel small, but I soon also began to think about other ways in which people can be intimidated, such as the masculine or aggressive, or by eye contact. We have combined ideas of feeling physically small, such as when standing by a large tree, and feeling psychologically small, as when intimidated by a person into one drawing. We also used frottage and mark-making in this group drawing to create various interesting textures.

Exhibition Reviews - Louvre & Fitzwilliam Museum

During the summer, I visited some exhibitions at art museums and have written short reviews of my two favourites.

A friend and I visited Paris in August and spent the most part of a day in the Louvre, exploring the halls and observing the pieces. It was not an exhibition in particular that captured my interest, but an arrangement of pieces in a particular room. In the Denon wing of the gallery, beside the twin staircase to the cafe, there's a hall that houses Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People' (1830) and Gericault's 'Raft of The Medusa' (1818-1819) among others. I had previously written about these pieces for an essay and so I had it in mind to see them, expecting to prefer Delacroix's painting, but the magnitude of Gericault's painting coupled with the chiaroscuro made it difficult to look at anything else. The pyramid structure of the piece has amazing presence in person, and this seems all the more fitting to Gericault's aims – it was a politically-charged piece, highly controversial at its time of creation, and its size contributes to the importance of its message. Controversiality is something I'm attracted to in artwork and I enjoy creating things with a political undercurrent, so Gericault's representation of stranded men and corpses engages me. Gericault's treatment of figures in various poses and with strong lighting also appeals, as this is something I'm trying to improve in my own work - I want to expand my variation of poses when drawing figures. Whilst Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People' also has a powerful presence on the wall, when you are close to the piece it becomes very easy to see where the paint has been applied economically, and the illusionist texture is less convincing. You can tell that Delacroix has not spent as long painting his piece as Gericault has, as Delacroix's piece was a spontaneous, passionate reaction to his social climate. Gericault's painting has cracks in the oil-paint that are beautiful to look at up close, and there is a sickly greenish hue to the skin of the figures that is truly haunting. When you compare 'Raft of the Medusa' to Gericault's other paintings in the Denon wing, there is something about this painting in particular that feels inspired. To give an indication of the power the paintings held in that hall, the Louvre ran Nintendo DS audio tours of each wing and popular paintings, and the story partnering Gericault's work made me incredibly emotional despite already knowing the facts. The genre of documentary/political art in general is a huge source of inspiration for me as it concerns the struggles of real people, and work like Gericault's touches me easily. I enjoyed the entire Denon wing, whereas more historical artwork such as ancient Egyptian artefacts, medieval crypts and Greek sculpture eventually became exhausting to look at because of the sheer size of the wings and the general similarity of all the pieces. 

'Raft of The Medusa', Gericault, Oil on Canvas, 1818-19

'Liberty Leading The People', Delacroix, Oil on Canvas, 1830

Later that month I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in order to gain some more inspiration, and came across a Turner exhibition. I appreciated the high quality of the small paintings, and the non-illusionist texture on some of the landscapes worked beautifully with the naturalistic colours, but the subject of landscapes did not interest me as much as some of the other pieces did. My own work is often small, and people are quick to criticise small paintings, equating size with talent, so it was reassuring to my own tastes to see Turner's small and detailed paintings you could lose yourself in. However, I do wish to experiment with the size of my work, pushing the boundaries of what I can achieve by making larger, and maybe even smaller, pieces. The Victorian era pieces in the Fitzwilliam Museum were what interested me the most, particularly the museum's architecture and several pieces of furniture. Two cabinets from this time period were my favourite articles, with the colour of the dark wood and ageing metal accents looking beautiful in a grayscale camera filter. The Victorian era in itself interests me, and Victorian photography and artwork is something I wish to explore further in my artwork. The museum as a whole had a different feel to it than others I've been in, such as big London galleries or the Louvre, whereby the rooms were smaller and the pieces more cobbled together in their organisation. There was a juxtaposition of time periods, styles and materials that made the building unique to explore. A small room containing black and white sketches, some half-finished, by artists such as William Blake, was also a favourite of mine. The room held etchings and drawings, and I loved seeing how bracelet shading and cross-hatching can be used. There was a haunting feel to these small drawings and etchings that I feel cohered with the nostalgic Victorian building. 

One of my favourite cabinets at the museum

Greyscale shot of the architecture of the windows

'Exploring The Unseen' - Artist Research

 In our three-dimensional projects, we have been investigating how aspects of the unseen are represented in art. This idea is a difficult one to approach because what is considered 'unseen' is relative to the person whose viewpoint we are observing from; for example, the interior of my room is unseen to others when the door is locked but not to me, and vice versa. Furthermore, when it comes to exploring how the unseen is presented in art, each person will approach the topic from their own distinct viewpoint.

When considering the unseen, I was personally inspired by the artwork of politically motivated gay artist, writer and filmmaker David Wojnarowicz, whose most popular works were created in the 1980's and early 90's. Wojnarowicz has a distinctive way of combining text with photographic images, and also producing photo-collages and surreal paintings. His work covers such a breadth of artistic mediums of expression that it immediately interested me, in particular his Sex series, photographs, and also his paintings, which are engaging due to the slightly clumsy and simplistic representations of people and objects. His series of photographs entitled 'Arthur Rimbaud in New York' offer a portrait of the life of young gay men in New York at the time, and Wojnarowicz is keen to portray the lesser known and unglamorous sub-cultures of the city. Wojnarowicz uses a mask of the young 19^th Century poet Arthur Rimbaud to conceal the identity of the model in his photographs, and this is where the unseen comes into his work in the most literal sense. Arthur Rimbaud's poetry often commented on how he must make himself “a seer” in order to be a good poet, and there was a huge emphasis on observation of others, of the world around you, and that coheres with Wojnarowicz's project. Through the camera lens, we are seeing an archetypal symbol, almost a character, displaying how life was in New York in the 1970's for people like Wojnarowicz, in the same way that Rimbaud aspired to see the world as it truly was through his poetry.

Wojnarowicz seems to use what Arthur Rimbaud stood for, his ideas of romanticism and pain, as a point of juxtaposition and comparison, using this contrast to present how he views modern New York. 

Above: Two photographs from 'Arthur Rimbaud in New York' (1978-79)

 

However, the first piece of his that really got my attention is an untitled photograph of bandaged hands, overlaid with red text. Wojnarowicz created the piece when he had discovered he was infected with AIDS and did not have long left to live, and the text itself is partially a quote from his own book 'Memories That Smell Like Gasoline', that reads; “I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing tired, I am waving to you from here. I am crawling and looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am signalling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough.”

The words were the initial draw to his work for me, as the repetition of certain phrases and words seems to emulate his body slowing down, his life coming to a close, and at the same time there was such energy and desperation in the words. He is looking around at the world and feeling as if he does not quite fit in there, as if no one else is realising his level of pain. The shot of hands in bandages mimics exactly what the prose it attempting to do; to come to terms with his own mortality. But there is also a tension between the words and the photograph in that some of the text is very difficult to read – it is literally unseen in certain places. I initially thought this was a mistake, but I now believe that this is a deliberate move by Wojnarowicz to create a difficult, tense relationship between the image and the words - the observer is put into an uncomfortable position whilst they read about Wojnarowicz's own discomfort. It is a way of increasing empathy in the observer. 

Above: 'Untitled' (1992)

The reason I believe this relates to the unseen is because some ways of writing do not explicitly describe scenarios or places, and instead hint towards them, allowing the reader to imagine individual images and piece them together. There are spaces in the imagery where the writer is withholding information, where things are unseen. Similarly, in photography you do not obtain a continuity of images where everything is displayed in a linear way,  and you are instead being faced with snapshots that intimate certain thoughts or feelings. It is the gaps in the narrative and the things that are hidden or withheld in Wojnarowicz's art that I feel relate to the topic of the unseen.

'Towering' - Installation Project Drawings

Pencil, biro pen and acrylics

Inspiration sketches for a three-dimensional installation based on the word 'towering.' I was considering emotions such as intimidation and fear, how it felt to be towered over, for instance, and creating drawings based off of these emotions. The head discs have patterns inspired by tree bark and the cells making up trees, as they're towering organic figures that can block out light and house crows and ravens and other gothic creatures. Trees became our group focus for the installation.

I also featured a quote from 'The Dislocated Room', a poem by Richard Siken, because I found this part of the poem to be particularly frightening and gives the reader the feeling of being small and helpless.

'Privacy'

Rotring ink pen and acrylics

Pen sketch from direct observation. Brief was to select a word and create a study based on its meaning.

"Private: self-contained, secretive, isolated, the personal not the public."