Drapery Arch

It’s never JUST drapery. Drapery is uncanny stuff.  It has a way of looking like something else.  Its round, merging shapes are reminiscent of the human body, so that if you practice drawing drapery you’ll find it easier to draw from the figure. When this drawing was almost done, the artist/student Meg, said, “it looks like muscles.”  So it does, like an arm and a shoulder.  We talked about the option of drawing more of the drapery in the still life and filling up more of the page, but the shape of what she already had looked complete in itself.

The shape is an arch.  Is the arch archetypal or symbolic?  We’ve had it in our architecture for about five-thousand years.  The Egyptians used it, the Etruscans developed it further and the Romans celebrated its grandeur and exploited its unassailable transfer of stresses.  In western architecture, to the end of the 19th century, it remained the sturdiest and loveliest form for a portal, an entrance, a gate.  With the glass skyscraper, we abolished the distinction between outside and inside and, so, who cares about portals, it’s all the same, whatever.  I do love glass and steel, but give me a Roman Arch…and to get back to the question about archetypal and symbolic, I don’t know, but I can see and feel that it’s round.Life forms are round, all of them.  Round is where we live.

When this sliver of an arch appeared on Meg’s paper, it had enough life in it to stand alone.

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

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Reflected Light

When Fredéric Bazille (1841-1870) paints his sleeve, he  wants to create the illusion of roundness and therefore he has to show a sliver of reflected light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the engraving of The Death of Mary, Martin Schongauer (1450-1491) stops his burin (engraving tool) before he gets to the edge of the kneeling leg because in order to show  that the calf muscles are round, he has to leave that strip of reflected light.

 

 

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In the Middle Ages, the appreciation of the roundness of flesh is discouraged by the ecclesiastical powers that commission art works.  Therefore, reflected light is out the window, so to speak.  Here in this church fresco from 1164, we get harsh lines outlining some sorrowful faces that enact a didactic story for our instruction.  But, it’s safe to say, not for our enjoyment.

 

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When we skip the dour Dark Ages and let in the fresh air of the pagans, we discover the healthy-body-in-a-healthy-mind culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans.  Though we know of their flesh and drapery loving art primarily through sculptures, some of their frescoes did survive centuries of destruction by warfare and weather.  When we look closely, we can see that they knew about painting reflected light.

We have no name for the artist who painted this languid torso. Whoever he was, he was a student of light and how it plays on round forms.  It’s only through careful observation of direct and reflected light that the illusion of a round form can be created on a flat surface.

This pursuit of light effects on round flesh and clinging and billowing cloth became one of the obsessions of Renaissance painters (the other being perspective).  Creating the illusion of roundness on a flat surface (painting, drawing)  demands much concentration, skill and perseverance; a future post here will take a look at the technical demands. Soon.

In the middle of the 19^th century, with the beginnings of Modernism and the influence of Asian art on Western painters, the illusion of roundness lost its allure. That, also, is a topic for a future post.

In the meantime, here’s an idea of how to look at paintings to get the importance of reflected light:  just make an exercise of ignoring all other aspects of the work and zoom in on that sliver of light.  Illuminating!

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

http://facefame.wordpress.com

http://katherinehilden.wordpress.com

www.khilden.com

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THOSE GNARLY ROMANS

Stripped of their make-up, the Romans come at us with in-your-face character.  Colorless, and therefore, all the more colorful!  And best of all, no eye-lashes!

In the best of worlds, I would be able to whisk my class off to New York at a whim so that we could draw the Met’s marvelous collection of Roman portrait heads.  While the Greeks inclined toward youthful and athletic idealization, the Romans were interested in depth of character, individuality and the wisdom of age. That’s one reason they make great subjects for drawing.  Another is that the heads are all white, uniform in color, and therefore we see pure shapes without being distracted by topical color.  These ancient sculptures, as well as ancient Greek and Roman buildings, were originally painted in bright colors (a subject for a future post) but after  a couple of millennia of weather and neglect, the color has worn off, leaving us with pure form.  Perfect for drawing!

Because we can’t seem to come up with the funds (millions) to purchase original Roman busts, we make do with photos.  It’s not ideal, but the photo has a number of advantages:  the light never changes and the instructor and the student look at exactly the same form.  The forms that make up the face are always round and rendering a three-dimensional round form in a two-dimensional medium calls for careful observation and a subtle drawing technique.  This is not an easy assignment. These heads are essentially a variation on the old pottery-and-drapery still life, but here we have the added dimension of emotional mystery.  Emotional content acts as fuel in a drawing assignment. It keeps you going as you navigate over the ridges and spheres of the face.  Students find these faces inspiring, it seems, because the work they produce is impressive.

The Met:  http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/12.23

Drawings by Laura F., Spike S.,  Vera C., and  Sarah R. (working from Michelangelo’s Medici portrait).

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