Over this past weekend, I've been doing some serious thinking about how materials affect outcomes in terms of aesthetics. I got a fountain pen for my birthday, which I've been using extensively to write and draw with. But I also just finished a new portrait and got to see an amazing Bouguereau painting. I've been having a lot of paradigm shifts and want to share my thoughts with you all.
The conclusion that I've come to also relates to my experience with my friend Charlie who is an academic painter and photographer. I sat for a tintype portrait a few years ago and the experience changed my perceptions. I used to think that people looked different back-in-the-day, but that isn't true. The truth is that tintypes change your appearance because red pigment is translated to a darkness, so the result is a swarthy, darker look. I have reddish cheeks, which made me look very tan in the photograph. The tintype also has one level of focus, which gives the image a startling life-like quality. I'll say also that materials aren't the biggest factor in all of this; practice, technique and patience weigh much more heavily. I've learned that writing with a fountain pen requires more patience than writing with a ballpoint pen. You need to write slowly and deliberately. Another cool aspect is that the fountain pen's nib wears down according to your way of writing so it becomes personalized. This also makes me realize that our age is fixated on individuality and finding your own voice. I think this is a risky mindset to have because it leads to people thinking they must break away completely from tradition. Why must we break away from traditions when those traditions perform well? It's like we're focused on always finding bigger and better things. I'm an old school kind of person, but it feels like these materials are completely revolutionary to me. I encourage everyone to give the past a respectful look and to think more about traditional materials.
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All finished with my mother's day gift. I tried really hard to capture all of Maea's idiosyncrasies, such as her one eye with white eyelashes and she usually has her tongue sticking out a little bit. Happy mother's day Mom, I love you.
For my birthday, we got to go to Lyndhurst Castle in Tarrytown NY, right next to Sleepy Hallow NY. The castle was cool, but my center of focus was their Bouguereau collection. They have another Bouguereau on display, an earlier work from 1866 titled "First Caress", but I want to focus on this Madonna scene.
The main thing that stood out to me in this was how he left some impasto brushwork on the child's feet (which you can see in the photo) and also how the ebauche is left in the foliage. Some people suspect that Bouguereau scraped his paintings smooth, but I disagree with this. There's actually quite a bit of brushwork left visible. It looks very smooth in the photograph, but it looks very different in person. The painting was clearly built up with a series of scumbles, leading to some fairly thick paint in certain areas. It's hard to describe how Bouguereau achieves this unfinished/finished effect, but it reminds me of Vermeer's broken touches of paint. Certain areas are left more unfinished which you can't really appreciate in this photo. It's hard to find photos of this painting online so hopefully this is useful to some fellow Bouguereau fans. I'm going to try a figural work sometime soon inspired by my experience seeing these paintings. More progress and I've had some revelations in regards to my ongoing battle with oil painting. I just got a fountain pen for my birthday and I've realized that the material DOES affect the outcome. You have to write slower with a fountain pen and thus it produces a different result.
Therefore, pigments on the palette affect the effect of the oil painting. I'm going back to a 19th century palette. Heavy pigments such as titanium white and cadmiums will create a different surface than a lighter color such as lead white. |
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