Defining Art from Form
“Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.” – Joseph Conrad
When you finally decide on a course of action, all the usual psychological blocks are bound to occur. Where shall I begin? Have I a right to make a choice, based on any sensible guides? Is a piece of ceramics a work of art? Is a piece of Tiffany glass? Is a rug designed by Matisse? Should I buy a painting… a print… a drawing?
There is no crystal-clear answer. As I have tried to indicate in foregoing chapters, you are dealing with your own personal reactions, as well as with certain rules and laws which are vague, at best.
One of the first muddles that need clarifying is the sharp line often drawn to set off arts from crafts. I cannot see why these two should be so summarily opposed to each other. How can anybody decide at first blush that a man who has a sense of form, an eye for color, and a definite quest for the beautiful is producing only a vessel – if he spins a lovely pot on his wheel, applies glowing glazes, and fires his work to produce a handsome jar glowing with a jewel-like finish? Yet there are critics and collectors who would dismiss the man’s work with a snobbish shrug that it is a fine example of the potter’s craft… but as a work of art there is no room for it.
Why, I ask, this strange, if fine, distinction? Is it because the jar is intended for functional use and the higherbrows believe such a pragmatic approach precludes it from joining the upper world of “fine arts”?
Let us go back almost 3,000 years to a Greek potter in his workshop as he formed a vessel for oil or wine. The term “vase” is now applied to most of the early Greek ceramic pieces; but their original purpose was functional… for everyday use. On such vases we see indications of an entirely new way of looking at things by the artist. He was no longer hidebound by the old style he had inherited from earlier Egyptian forms. Yet there was still the same regard for a sharp outline and exact symmetry. So vases from this period are not only valuable for their beauty of color, dimension, and proportion; they are esteemed for their obvious role in shaping a new course for the artist to follow as he broke the shackles of a hardened past. Yet it is clear that the objects as originally created had a humble purpose indeed. Such intent has not lessened their artistic validity or value.
Let us go even farther back into history. Museums which own objects from the Sumerian period display them proudly. In the University of Pennsylvania Museum there is a gold cup used by Queen Shu-Bad of Mesopotamia. It has a graceful form, a delicate gold color, and intricate decorative fluting. Obviously it was designed to provide the queen with a drinking vessel. Is it therefore less beautiful than it would have been had it lacked practical purpose?
The same will naturally apply to the pottery tomb figures of the Ming dynasty in China… to T’ang glazed pottery… to the heroic bronze cats and baboons of the Egyptians. Recently I saw a cover design for the bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, showing a drawing of an Incan Empire Poncho, made about 1500. It was an almost pure design… with cubes of black and white. At the top was a reverse triangle of deep brown. I have seen many paintings of the abstract school which could have hung side by side with this poncho reproduction.
So I say: judge by the results and forget the notion that one can always erect a false fence to separate the beautiful from the functional. If the object is beautiful to you, then it is worthy of your collector’s eye and instincts. This attitude can open up many new fields to you – for example, the folk arts.
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The Greatest Renaissance Painter and Engraver of All Time
When Albrecht Durer died in 1528 he left some 80 paintings, over 100 etchings, about 200 wood carvings and 800 drawings behind as his cultural legacy. His artwork has deep stories and hidden inner meanings of which many have only been theorized on. Below are some of his works and the theories on the meaning behind them.
Knight, Death and the Devil (also known as The Rider):
An engraving carved in 1513 by Durer, Knight, Death and the Devil, also known as The Rider, represents an allegory on Christian salvation. Unflustered either by Death who is standing in front of him with his hour-glass, or by the Devil behind him, an armored knight is riding along a narrow defile, accompanied by his loyal hound. This represents the steady route of the faithful, through all of life’s injustice, to God who is symbolized by the castle in the background. The dog symbolizes faith, and the lizard religious zeal. The horse and rider, like other preliminary studies made by Durer, are derived from the canon of proportions drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci.
The Knight and the Landsknecht (Soldier Servant):
This woodcut was created in about 1497. It has been suggested by Friedlander (universally recognized as the greatest expert on Dutch and German paintings) that the subject is Saul on the way to Damascus to pursue the Christians who had fled Jerusalem.
Three Peasants in Conversation (Marketplace Peasants):
This scene has been connected by a number of commentators to the peasant uprisings of the period. It should be remembered, however, that Durer’s wife Agnes sold her husband’s woodcuts and engravings in a stall in the market square of Nurenberg , as well as at the fairs in other cities. Peasants were ever-present at these events, as vendors as well as buyers. The sword which the pheasant uses for a cane is similarly used as a satirical accessory in Martin Schongauer’s engraving, Pheasant Family Going to to Market.
This engraving is related to the Sol Justitiae and to the Rustic Couple in technique, especially in the horizontal shading devoid of crosshatching.
The original plate was sold to Prince Dolgorouky, a Russian collector, in 1852. Its present wherabouts is not known. An impression of this engraving is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Peasant Couple Dancing (also known as Dancing Peasants):
There are different views and theories on what Durer intended by this image.
Koehler describes this print succinctly as follows: For individuality and for the happy expression of a transient mood in face as well as pose, these Dancing Pheasants are quite as much without rivals in Durer’s oeuvre as knight, Death, and Devil.
Wolfflin comments that in spite of the elephantine stamping of their feet, the impression and the form are magnificent. The pheasants are not shown sneeringly as earlier, but as a character study.
Tietze finds that the group fills the picture area in a magnificent manner and, in spite of the massiveness, a feeling of their being swept off their feet is conveyed.
But Panofsky, in contrast, commented that it is a spectacle of statuesque heaviness and immobility; unambitious in content.
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Sports Posters As Wall Decorations
If you are in the market for redoing your home decorations and you have a limited budget, sports posters can bring about that needed change and facelift to your home while making it easy for your pocket most especially if you are a sports fan or aficionado. The ideas are limitless, you can let your imagination run wild and the choices of sports posters in the market are endless. You are sure to find the sports posters that will suit your taste and preference if you just know where to look.
Your local print shops or stores are sources for such posters. Usually you will find several racks of them but quite often because of their limited space they don’t carry that much inventory. If you have plans of having your sports posters framed these shops can usually give you a special discount if you have bought that particular poster from them.
The best source of sports poster would be the World Wide Web. You will find many online stores that sell thousands of sports poster designs in a wide variety of sports and at very affordable and reasonable prices. From limited edition sports posters to memorable sports history event you can conveniently search for them by category or through the site’s search section. The great thing also is that these posters are quickly delivered to you and in good condition at that. The internet shops can definitely provide you with a myriad of choices when it comes to your sports posters needs.
Sports posters make great wall paper especially with the current sports posters made with a special type of adhesive that does not in any way cause damage to your wall. If you have the desire to have them removed and changed, you can almost immediately remove these sports posters without damaging or chipping of the paint off your wall. If you have posters that have been specially autographed by sports athletes and would want these preserved on frames, it may cost you some money but they are not that expensive depending upon the material used.
When you will be decorating your home with sports posters keep in mind that you might want to have a particular sports theme to work with. You can assign different sports themes to the various rooms of your house or you can opt to have one universal theme for flow and continuity.
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Using Watercolor Instead Of Oil
Although watercolor painting is many centuries old, its application as we know it today is fairly recent. Used in the past by the Egyptians on papyrus and by the Chinese on silk, it gradually evolved to become an important medium on paper. Its original use on paper was to elaborate upon line drawings with monochromatic washes. Color followed, with the line still used for drawing and modeling of form.
It was not until Winslow Homer appeared that watercolor became a medium to be handled directly on the spot in a broad manner. While these early watercolors were used as a means of study from nature for subsequent oils, they came to have all the power contained in the heavier oil medium. Watercolor continues to be a medium that lends itself readily to painting on the spot, and working directly from nature is the most vital part of learning to handle it, aside from the original intention of studying the various aspects of nature. It is only alter a long period of outdoor study that a reasonably convincing watercolor can be made in the studio.
If you have worked in oils, you will find the knowledge you have acquired in painting with this heavier medium very helpful in doing watercolors. Experience in drawing and composition, and the training of your eye to see color, will all stand you in good stead. Now all you have to do is master the technique of handling watercolor!
To acquire this technique requires much practice. When working in oils you could finally arrive at the desired effect by much mixing of color, scraping the canvas for a fresh start, and making changes by the application of an opaque color over a previously painted area. Now you must work more directly. The beauty of watercolor lies in its fresh, transparent effect, and the approach must often be one in which the value, color, and drawing are accomplished in a single operation. However, while this is the ultimate effect you may want to achieve, a subject can be painted by separating these important ingredients into progressive stages.
The paper upon which you work is also a vital factor in imparting luminosity to a watercolor painting, because the whiteness of the paper showing through the transparent color aids in establishing a brilliant effect.
The novice has a tendency to work with too small a brush on an equally small surface. I advise you to work with as large a brush as possible and to do your early work on a half sheet rather than a quarter sheet. This will help to prevent a niggling or timid approach; the larger brushes and working size will force you to work more broadly. Later, when you have acquired more technical facility, you can work on any size.
Though preliminary drawing is always stressed, as you progress you will undoubtedly want to try other methods, possibly painting a subject directly with color or combining watercolor with other media. You will find that watercolor is an excellent medium for experimentation.
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Diving Into Drawing
Drawing has been around for centuries. In fact, wonderfully vital drawings and paintings by primitive peoples have been discovered, which proves that many thousands of years ago the art of drawing was there, innate, in mankind. Everyone can draw, for it is an inherent human trait far more natural than writing.
Unfortunately most people lose this power as they grow older, or rather it is overlaid by more complicated mental processes. It needs only the desire to reawaken it and the courage to proceed and rapidly the power to express what one sees, in drawing and in paint, comes back again.
So take courage and go ahead.
The first thing to get is a sketchbook: not too big a one but a handy pocket size that you can carry about at all times. You can of course buy a children’s drawing book for a few cents, but this has a flimsy cover and has to be folded or rolled to carry, and that spoils the page, so a sketchbook with thinnish cartridge paper and a good stout cover is the best investment in the end. See that the paper is not too thick or too rough in surface. Nothing harder than a 3B pencil is much use. Get a black Conte crayon or black chalk pencil with the wood round it, for this is the kind of pencil that will give you most satisfaction in sketching. Of course you will need a razor blade or sharp penknife because the breaking of points is a very frequent occurrence. Do not sharpen the pencil to a fine point – just a blunted point.
Now you have your sketchbook and your pencil, what are you going to look for? What are you going to start on? Don’t start straightaway on a landscape. Just focus your attention on a few simple things that are before you in the room you are in. Something the shape of which attracts your interest, say a decanter, or a wine glass, or a vase of flowers. Draw a definite shape on the blank page of the sketchbook with a firm, thick line – say a rough oblong. Count this as your picture space: into this defined shape you are going to put your drawing.
Then begin with the part of the selected object that interests you most. Perhaps it is the bulge of the decanter – boldly draw the curve of the right-hand side and then look across and draw the corresponding curve of the other side; then go upward to the lip and the stopper, drawing first one side and then the other; then look at the base, the dark curve where the decanter rests upon the sideboard. You now have the shape of the object – then relate this to the glass that is near it; notice the size of the glass in relation to the decanter and repeat the process, taking into account where the two objects are placed in your oblong space.
Continuing to practice these techniques will help you get a grasp for the way drawing should feel and ultimately look.
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