Thank you all for your lovely comments.
Linda, when I look at a Rembrandt, I'm, first of all, dumbstruck at the sheer beauty of the thing, at how alive the subject is - in some of his paintings, the subject seems bathed in a heavenly light. Then upon closer inspection, I see how abstract it all is - how it's just blobs of paint next to other blobs, dabs, or sometimes thin washes where you can see the canvas showing through. But every blob, every dab, every wash, makes perfect,
exquisite sense. This is what I'm interested in. The tension between the
illusion (that every representational artist is asking the viewer to buy into) and the simple, physical properties of the medium used - the
reality. It's as if the painting is saying "I may be a glorious scene, but remember, I'm just a bunch of paint smeared across a piece of linen." By forcing the viewer to confront the
reality part of it (and with Rembrandt there is
no way around it) somehow, it can heighten the
illusion part of it in fantastic, unexpected ways. Between the two, lies the magic. As far as I can tell, Sargent was a master at this; Van Gogh, in many of his later paintings and in a more extreme fashion, achieved this. I'm sure there are others...Bougereaux, Kramskoy? - I love their work, but I haven't seen any in person....
I realize that my previous drawings, though they might have been decent renderings, they're not very expressive - they rely on a very narrow range of what's possible; I've only just begun to explore the expressive possibilities of charcoal - and now pastel - (later, paint!) - as a medium. I'm not knocking having rendering skills - it's essential. It's just that...well, let's put it this way: if someone tells me "wow, that looks just like a
photograph!" - I don't take it as a compliment. I mean I know it's not an
insult, but it makes me feel like I failed....
Does any of this make sense?
Linear Mode
