Greetings from Madrid

Sharon Knettell · 10-15-2004, 06:50 PM

Welcome Carlos,

I really enjoyed looking at your site, although not every picture seemed to come up this time. I especially liked your drawing of the little girl and your lovely and beautifully designed Annuciation.

I think you will find a really strong appreciation for Velaquez on this site. I have a particular fondness for him as well as Goya, Murillo and Zurbaran. One day I would love to visit the Prado and see Zurbaran's St. Casilda, one of my favorite paintings. He had been able to orchestrate yellow, violet, blue and red into a stunning color composition, something very difficult to do.

Jump right in, we all did at one time!

Carlos Ygoa · 10-16-2004, 09:49 AM

Thank you all for your comments...didn't expect any reply or reaction for a while. Mil gracias!

Cynthia: I will try your suggestion on the technical problem although I am quite illiterate in the techno field.

Allan: Will try to send close-ups next time. You being from Denmark should have the least trouble coming over to see the Prado show. Hope you can some time soon.

Sharon: What can i say about the Old Masters? I always say that the book on painting has been written and closed a long time ago, and we are merely the fortunate inheritors of a timeless legacy... I have been getting the same comment on the website photos from others. will try to solve that soon.

Thanks again to all!

Carlos

Sharon Knettell · 10-16-2004, 10:18 AM

Carlos,

I don't think the book on painting has been closed, it has only not been taken out of the library much in the last 80 years. There were a lot of painters at the turn of the century working with new idea of color and picture content, especially in France. Unfortunately painters like Monet, Manet, Freiseke and Renoir, to name a very small sample were superceded by the excesses of modernism and post-modernism. It was easier for painters to "express themselves" without effort, knowledge and training. This would be akin to an untrained dancer leaping on to a stage in a performance of Swan Lake to "express herself".

I do not believe in ancestor worship in painting, deepest appreciation, yes.
To think that every great has been done and explored leaves us merely to continually to reuse old ideas and risk being static and irrevelant instead of courageously exploring new ways to express the divine and beautiful.

Allan Rahbek · 10-16-2004, 07:50 PM

I too believe that we are into a new beginning, a new "Ism" .

What it is to be called, I don

Patricia Joyce · 10-18-2004, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

"I don't think the book on painting has been closed, it has only not been taken out of the library much in the last 80 years."

The book has not been taken out here in Cleveland that I can see. I am currently taking an oil painting class. We are in the fifth week of a sixteen week semester and just last Wednesday the professor (who has been teaching for 14 years, graduated with a degree/masters in art about 20 years ago) lectured and showed slides of abstract art. Would love to quote her exact words, but what she did say was that the class is now done with realism, we needed to start with realism but will spend the rest of the semester (11 more weeks) on learning to express ourselves with oils and color. To quote the remark she makes over and over, "you don't need to know how to draw to be a successful artist. It might help you once in a while, but it is not necessary".

This is the very reason I have no interest in getting a degree. I take classes to further my skills...I'm getting more discouraged by the week with this art instructor. It is a slumping, disappointing experience to run into this time and time again when what I want is to learn realism. She brought in two of her paintings she will be exhibiting. Very disappointing, and not suprised to see that this working artists does not know how to draw and it is pathetically represented in her landscape paintings.

Students like myself depend heavily on this forum for our education. I am very grateful for this community and don't know where I'd be without it.

Allan Rahbek · 10-18-2004, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patricia Joyce

[ "you don't need to know how to draw to be a successful artist. It might help you once in a while, but it is not necessary".

.

Patricia,

This is a very revealing quote and the hope for many "artists", including David Hockney.

If you know how to look like an artist, you will get the success.

This could be a topic in the "Cafe Guerbois"

Allan

Carlos Ygoa · 10-18-2004, 04:59 PM

Oh my, what did I start?...

Patricia, thanks for reacting. I have seen your posts and attachments (like the Vermeer study, the Rubens study, etc) and can see you are sincere in your efforts. The Rubens study I really liked, and the Vermeer copy seemed to me to be quite good (that was, if I am not mistaken, your first attempt in colour?)

I taught drawing and painting from my private studio for about fifteen years, and I think it is safe to say that if my pupils still remember me, they would remember me for my obsession with basic drawing. Can't run if you don't know how to walk. I think everyone in the forum would agree with this. There is nothing more fundamental than drawing and nothing more wrong than starting the building with the roof. I would also emphasize the importance of tonal values and make my students spend some time, once in oils, with grisaille or monochrome exercises. I'm not saying anything really new here, but yet, it would never cease to amaze me when I used to have students come to me who were in their third year in Fine Atrs who had great difficulty with some very basic drawing...my point being that I think this "express thyself" trend is something like a universal plague. Non-representational art has its place, doubtless, but the foundation still has to be there, otherwise the work invariably looks hollow and with little substance.

But maybe Allan is right and we should take this to the Cafe.

The sala right next to where I am doing my copy in the Prado has portraits by Antonio Moro (16th century) and he is a new discovery for me. Amazing work.

Allan Rahbek · 10-18-2004, 05:44 PM

Carlos,

I don

Allan Rahbek · 10-19-2004, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos Ygoa

The sala right next to where I am doing my copy in the Prado has portraits by Antonio Moro (16th century) and he is a new discovery for me. Amazing work.

Hi Carlos,

If you were going to copy a work of Moro, would you use the same technique as him? He reminds me of Holbein, with the same sharp eye for individualism. Did he use tempera for his under painting?

Allan