THEORY
The figure/ground and form/atmospheric perspective/paint as skin/a la prima/the work of art in the age of mechanical reproducibility and the naked and the nude and more creative copying
Reading: Painting Today:  ch’s on The Global Scene,  Western Traditions, and The Figure; PDF: The Creative Copy (for Wednesday)
Podcast/Video: John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972,  episode 1 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and episode 2 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  (30 min each); ALS Hanneline Rogeberg (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (1.5 hrs)

With the readings and the videos, something I thought was interesting was the theme of obsoleteness.  Especially in the intro to The Figure and episode one of Ways of Seeing.  How painting doesn’t have the same meaning, significance, exclusivity, etc. that it had before. The game is completely different in the modern age, so I have questions about what painting is now and what needs to be painted.  I remember a quote from a critic in The Figure chapter, I don’t have it exact because I left my book in the studio, the quote had something to do with putting down figure artists for not getting with the times, I think.  It seems clear that the figure will always be relevant in art.

Episode 2 of Ways of Seeing.  Nudes of fine art have some gross history.

PRACTICE
Studio: Drawing and painting the figure from observation, copying from reproductions.  
Creative copy: due Wednesday for critique, 2 copies of a still life using indirect painting/glazing. Choose from Elizabeth Blackadder, Fruit on a Dark Table, p 412 in Painting Today or Luc Tuyman Still Life (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. 2002, (take note of scale,11×16 feet), or a copy of a still life from the Renaissance (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site

Figure painting seems like it may be easier than I thought it would be.  I’m understanding more about how to produce form with paint.  I’d like to try painting a live model but I can only attend an hour’s worth of live figure drawing on Wednesdays due to a schedule conflict.

I don’t have a good handle on glazing.  Something I realized while painting the copies of Fruit on Dark table was that I probably didn’t do the underpainting correctly.  Sometimes the underpainting would work against what I was trying to do because it was the wrong shade.  The floating red orb, I think, should’ve been all black in the underpainting and then the little bit of brightness would come from the red paint alone.

In my paintings, I focused mostly on the smeariness.  In my creative copy, I smeared all the paint I used to make everything glow like a ghost soup.

Writing: due Thursday, an exegetical essay on a passage from Painting Today from any of the chapters read for weeks 3 or 4

For this week’s exegetical essay my strategy was to rewrite the paragraph in my own words over and over again while expanding further with each paragraph.  I think that strategy should stay in the brainstorming phase, but I didn’t know how to go further than that so I wanted to wait until I got to class and saw other examples of how to do it.

I read two other students’ essays and I speculate that everyone’s essay probably works like a pattern.  Of all the essays I’ve seen, it was interesting to note that everyone worked through their content at different rates.

TERMS:

Gesso – A paint primer that is similar to white acrylic paint.  Used to make surfaces hard and ready to take paint without the paint getting absorbed by the surface.

Figure – A possible definition of the figure, based on my understanding of Godfrey’s definition of figure, is the concept of a body.  A gross/gory painting of a body is as much of a figure as the sexy nude model painting is.  The only body to you is your own because that is the only body you can experience, so everything and everyone else are figures.

Dreamer – Writing that goes off the rails from the source material.

Technician – Writing that is a repetition of the source material.

Exegesis – A critical explanation/interpretation of a text.

SKILLS:

Canvas Stretching

Negative Space Shaping

Figure Structure Blocking
Gesso Priming
Exegetical Writing

RESEARCH:  Paintings I’m reproducing for week 5.

Fang Lijun, 19931 No. 1

Fang Lijun) was born in Handan in Hebei Province in China, 1963.   He graduated from the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1989.  He was born from a rich high-class family, but Wikipedia says that as an artist he still struggled to paint freely and gather resources to make art and that a lot of Chinese artists have this struggle.

He is known internationally for his contributions to “Cynical Realism” style art.  His work is critical and reflective of China’s chaotic and fast-changing society.  He uses themes of anxiety, greed, consumerism, transformation, savagery, morality, powerlessness, and individualism.

Lisa Yuskavage, Brood

The Brood is a 25-year span of the artist’s work, 1991-2016.  Much of her work features warped and exaggerated female figures.  The name Brood is taken from a 70’s cult movie about a mother that is experimented on and unleashes mutant babies.