Work methods in biographies

[Timothy C. Tyler]

A search may help. There may some digging required. But the info is available s certainly. Check your references. Lore has crept in already.

[Tony Pro]

Originally Posted by Timothy C. Tyler

Two books came out shortly after Sargent's death. Both mention his methods to some degree. Most biographers don't understand enough about the actual working methods to accurately write what was going on. Be careful when you find those that do. The artists or their students do the best job of this. The vast majority of readers don't care to know this and thus it is left out... there are at present about 20 books on Sargent in print. Reading most of these will give you a solid understanding. I've not ever found much on the other two artists and I'm not a fan of either so in truth, I've not dug very deeply.

The is no real perfect book that addresses what you desire. There are a couple books out on Bouguereau (see ARC) but most experts agree that even these too leave out essential technical information at least the real meat of the stuff that you most want.

Someone should write such a book that was rich with quotes, facts and examples. It might require 3 or 4 authors but at least one ought to be a painter skilled in the traditional methods.

Furthermore, it is precisely the discussion of such methods that are great for these forums.

Tim

Are you refering to the Parkurst book (Bouguereau's student)?

Tony

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Yes, Tony that's one. When I read it, I learned nothing. There were none of those "oh so that's how he did it" moments. Don't you agree?

[Tony Pro]

Originally Posted by Timothy C. Tyler

Yes, Tony that's one. When I read it, I learned nothing. There were none of those "oh so that's how he did it" moments. Don't you agree?

I didn't really read it to find out how to paint like Bouguereau... I read it because it was recommended. The chapter on "Attitude" was fantastic.

But I don't think he says anything about how Bouguereau painted.

[Mari DeRuntz]

Wow, great question, and the answer is more readily apparent than we think. Virtually all the books I've purchased that were published as companions to museum shows have very in-debth notes as to methods and materials.

Very substantive information can be found in the introductions and footnotes of such books as well.

For instance, "The Drawings of Filippino Lippi and His Circle" published for a show at the Met, is loaded with information on the materials of specific drawings.

It might just be phrased in a language that we've lost: "Pen and brown ink and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over traces of leadpoint or black chalk, with traces of pen-and-brown-ink framing outlines, on paper rubbed with reddish chalk around main figure." Rich research for experimentation, certainly.

[Mari DeRuntz]

As a followup, more along the lines of the poetry behind an artist, I cannot speak highly enough of Charles Richard Cammell's, "The Memoirs of Annigoni," which through the internet can still be found for under $10, even though it's out of print.

I had a hard time selecting an excerpt, because the book is rich with both eloquent biography and entire sections of philosophy straight from Annigoni's own hand. This, from his hand:

"Again: In my opinion the concept fo drawing generally entertained is mistaken from the start. According to criticisms from contemporary painters, drawing would seem to be an isolated element with exclusively incidental and transitory characteristics, or a purely subsidiary one which one may take of leave at pleasure. But I hold that painting cannot exist without drawing, and that in every case it is the drawing that gives the exact measure of the painter. Drawing never fails, but often the artist does."

More along the lines of materials:

The most essential part of the completion of a picture by the Old Masters was comprised in light touches, and above all in the use of innumerable glazes, either in the details or in the general effect--glazes often mixed even in the final layers of varnish. Now, I do not say that one should not clean off crusts of dirt, and sometimes even recent coats fo varnish, coarsely applied and dangerous, but I maintain that to proceed further than that, and the pretend to remount the past years, separating one layer from another, till one arrives at what is mistakenly supposed to be the original state of the work, is to commit a crime, not of insensibility alone, but of enormous presumption.

What is interesting in these masterpieces, now in moral danger, is the surface as the master left it--aged, alas! as all things age, but with the magic of the glazes preserved, and wtih those final accents which confer unity, balance, atmosphere, expression --in fact all the most important and moving qualities in a work of art.