Wednesday 15 May 2013


WILLIAM “BILL” ALEXANDER

 


 
 
 I was impressed by William Alexander’s artwork. Through his artwork, the author is trying to express good emotions, happiness, calm, peace, etc. The mood that
his artwork inspires me is calming, in a way it makes the viewer leave out any negative feelings and picture him/ her in the actual painting. His artwork is mostly about nature, but his technique extends to buildings, floral, people, still life as well as wild life and many more.


  William “Bill” Alexander, paints in oil and he usually uses big brushes, giving the fact that his paintings are done on big canvases. The technique that he uses is “wet-on-wet”, which is mainly in oil paints, where the layers of wet paint are applied onto the previous layer of wet paint. The consistency of the paint is oily, giving the painting that “gloomy” look. I saw depth in the paintings that he did. The detail isn’t at an extended level, but looking at the painting, it doesn’t really need anything else. The colours that he uses resemble to the actual colours of the nature, which I find interesting. Depending on the mood, the colours are chosen carefully. Usually the colours are “lively”, expressing a good mood.

  The tonal range of the artwork doesn’t suddenly change. Most of the times is light, for the landscape paintings, and dark, for the flowers paintings. The texture of his paintings is smooth. The paintings are made to be viewed at regular eye level.

  William Bill Alexander (02.04.1915 – 24.01.1997) was a German painter, art instructor and a television host, born in Prussia, German Empire. His family escaped Prussia during World War 1 to Berlin, where he apprenticed as a carriage maker; Alexander was drafted into the Wehrmacht, during the World War 2. He was later captured by Allied troops, but he made himself notable by painting the portraits of Allied officers’ wife and soon he made his way into the United States. Some of Bob Ross’ techniques were learned from William Alexander.

  I first started researching about this artist’s work, because I found his technique easy to do and the results quite interesting. I would like to learn from this artist the “Wet-on-wet” technique. The reason for which I chose to research about this artist is because “landscapes” are a common subject.

  “After studying with Bill Alexander, Bob Ross discovered that he was soon able to earn more from selling his artwork that from his Air Force position. Ross then left the Air Force and became famous worldwide, hosting television program, “The Joy of painting””.

  “I took one class and I went crazy, I knew this was what I wanted to do” – Bob Ross about William Bill Alexander’s classes.

  Some of Bill Alexander’s famous paintings: “Fall River”, “North to Alaska”, “Autumn colours”, “Canadian Canyon”, and many others.

Roy Lang

 

 


  Through his work, Roy Lang, is trying to express the beauty of the sea, exactly as it is, unique, dangerous but beautiful at the same time. The atmosphere is hard to decide, is somewhere in between calm (the feeling that is expressed when one is walking down the beach and is listening to the sound that the waves make when they hit the shores, and the breeze that blows slowly) and scary (the way one feels when he/she is looking at a boat in the middle of the ocean, during a storm). The feelings that his art convoy are restleness, but at the same time calm, both passion and melancholy. Roy’s artwork explores nature, sea, to be more exact, in all of it’s beauty – moods, movement, and different lights of the ocean.

  The artwork is painted in oil, on canvas. He uses mainly small brushes, as his artwork is paying attention to close detail. The consistency of the paint is thin and oily. The artwork has a clear depth in it. There is clearly an illusion created that some objects there further than others. The colours used in his painting resemble with the actual colours of the waves or the sea, most of the times. In other cases, from my point of view, the colours are slowly exaggerated. Givind the fact that Roy Lang in painting the moods of the ocean/sea, his choice of colours resides in cold ones. Usually the lower part of the painting is darker, and then it becomes lighter, as it goes to the top of the painting. The texture is smooth, as there are no brush marks on the painting, everything is carefully blended.

   Roy Lang opted out of art school at the edge of thirteen, and started painting again in his late thirties while out of work. His understanding of the sea, mainly gleaned from angling in his youth, made up for his lack of any formal training in art.

  “It was the love of the sea that inspire Roy to start painting, capturing the water’s movement, light and moods, which is certainly reflected in his work”

  “I do not consider myself to be an artist; rather than someone who has learnt to portray the sea’s moods, colours and movements with paint on canvas”.

  He was voted artist of the year in 200 and 2002 by the Society of all Artists, and has had his work exhibited in the Mall Galleries, the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust Slimbridge, the Flavel Darthmouth and various other Galleries in UK.

Joseph Mallord William Turner

 

  In my opinion, the artist is trying to communicate through his work the power of nature. In some of the paintings, the atmosphere is dark; in those kind of paintings, the power of man is equal to zero and the power of nature is shown in it’s full beauty. He placed human beings in many of his paintings to show his affection towards humanity (scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but his vulnerability was the “Savage grandeur” of nature of the world. Through his work he tried to show a world unmastered by man and the evidence of God.
 

  Turner mainly used oil, but he used prints as well. Giving the fact that the paintings are immense, I think that he used big brushes, as well as small brushes for details. In his early paintings the paint looks carefully blended, but as we come to his late paintings the brush marks look like they were scratched. The paint also looks thin. As he aged more, his paintings become more and more simplified. In his early work, there is a clear depth, but in his late work, there isn’t a clear depth, although there is one. The colours he used resemble to the natural ones, although, in some of his painting the colours are slightly exaggerated. There is a wide range of colours used in his paintings, depending, of course, on the subject. For example in the famous “House Portraits” there are dark (cold) colours as, brown, black, but there are also light colours like yellow. The main colour used in this painting in green. In the painting “Dutch Boats in a Gale”, the main colour used is black, which makes this painting, from my point of view, a masterpiece. Usually the dark colours are at the bottom of the painting, at the top at lighter colours and in the middle are the really “fiery” ones. The texture seems rough. The subject is being viewed at eye level.

  I researched about this artist for my exam subject which referred to “Catastrophic events”. I was looking for some ideas about the sea or volcanos.

  Joseph Mallord William Turner (late April – early May 1775 – 19.12.1851) was an English painter, a British Romantic landscape painter, water – colourist and printmaker. He is considered the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Although he was well known for his artistic touch with the oil paints, he becomes one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is regarded as “the painter of light” and his work is known as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

  As a result from a “fit of illness” in his family, he was sent to stay with his uncle. That’s when the first signs of the artistic touch occurred, being a series of simple colourings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell’s picturesque view of the Antiquities of England and Wales.

  Many sketches of Turner were architectural studies and/or exercises in perspective and it is known that as a young man he worked with several architects, including Thomas Hardwick Junior, James Wyatt and Joseph Bonomi the Elder. He also studied with Thomas Malton, whom Turner would later call “My real master”. In 1789 he entered the Royal Academy of Art, at the age of 14, and was accepted one year later, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the president of Royal Academy. His first watercolour painting – “A view of the Archbishop’s Palace, Lambeth” was accepted for the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1790, when turner was 15.

  Turner exhibited his first oil painting in 1796 – Fisherman at Sea (which is a painting of the moonlit scene off “The Needles, Isle of Wight”). Wilton said that the image”Is a summary of all that had been said about the sea by artists of the eighteen century”. The painting shows strong influence from artist such as Horace Vernet, Philip James de Loutherbourg, Peter Monamy and also Francis Swaine.

  As Turner grew old he became more sceptics: he had a few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for 30 years and worked as a studio assistant. His father’s death in 1892 had a profound effect on him, and therefore he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married but had a relationship with an older widow – Sarah Danby. He is believed to have been the father of her two daughters born in 1801 and 1811.

  Turner died in the house of his mistress. He is said to have uttered the last words “The Sun is God”. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, at his requests, where he lies next to Sir Joshua Reynolds. His last exhibition was at the Royal Academy in 1850.

John Martin


  Through his artwork, John Martin is trying to communicate the power of God. Most of his paintings are Biblical scenes or scenes that are about a higher power. His art convoys fear, horror and thrill as well. I think that the ideas explored in his work are both society and biblical, I think that his paintings reflect the work of humanity and the biblical consequences.

  The artwork was painted on large scales, with oil paints. Giving the fact that the canvases are immense, the brush marks are not easily seen. For a canvas that big, I think that the brushes that he used are both small – for detail and big – for background. The marks were carefully applied, through blending. The consistency of the paint looks this. There is clearly a depth in his artwork. There are elements of the painting that give the viewer the feeling of looking into an actual picture, not a painting. Depending on the theme of the work, John Martin used mostly hot colours, for example, in the “The day of His great wrath” painting; he used hot colours to paint, what I think it is, the way to inferno. The tonal range is curious: it’s dark in the middle but as it goes to the edges it becomes more and lighter. The texture looks rough, the mountains are cracking, and everything is falling apart. The subject is being viewed from eye level.

  John Martin (19.07.1789 – 17.02.1854) was an English romantic painter, engraver and illustrator, born in Haydon Bridge. He first started to paint with sepia watercolours. His first oil painting was sent to the Royal Academy in 1810. He produced a succession of large paintings, some landscapes but most of the grand biblical themes inspired from the Old Testament. His promising career was interrupted by the deaths of his father, mother, grandmother and young son in one year. Another distraction was William, who frequently asked him to draw up plans for his inventions and whom he always indulged with help and money. He was heavily influenced by the works of John Milton. From about 1827-28 turned away from painting and became involved with many plans and inventions. Another expensive burden was his brother’s, Jonathan, trail for setting fire to York Minster. He exhibited many works, but culminating was his last trilogy of paintings – “Last Judgement” (Hung in Tate Britain, London) which were completed just before the stroke paralysed his right side. He was never to recover and died on 17 February 1854 on the Isle of Man. He is buried in Kirk Braddan cemetery. Major exhibition of his works are still mounted.

  I choose to research about this artist, as his work helped me during my Art exam, and he gave me a new perspective about landscape paintings.

Friday 23 November 2012

Tai-Shan Schierenberg - Untutled Landscape




Tai-Shan Schierenberg
Untitled Landscape
 





Subject matter


Born in England in 1962, Tai-Shan Schierenberg lives and works in London. He graduated from the Slade School of Art in 1987 and has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. He's best known as a painter of portraits.

In my opinion, this landscape it is a metaphore to enlighten the psychological and philosophical questions that concern both the artist and the viewer. The artwork combines feelings like joy, melancholy, passion, the force of life generated by the bright colours with fear, tragedy and unsecurity that cover the light of the sun above the earth.

The idea that this landscape reveals is Schierenberg's concern for society reflected in nature.


 

          Technique


For years, Tai-Shan Schierenberg painted landscapes for what they are; light on many different surfaces near and far, enjoying the recreation of an airy cloud or heavy clod of plowed earth, in paint and mind

He treats the paint almost as if it were flesh, and it is this technique that establishes the major paradoxes characteristic of his work. It is both abstract and realist; edgy and sensitive; grand and inconclusive; violent and melancholic; physically intense and aesthetically detached.

Comparisons to Lucian Freud are inevitable, and he has been criticized for doing what Freud does, but simply scaled up. It’s pretty hard to deny the similarity, though there is a distinct atmosphere to Schierenberg’s work. They seem a bit more joyful, a bit less harsh in their representation. Personally, I think comparison to Freud can only be a good thing, and Schierenberg’s work does not suffer for lack of originality, as its sincerity seems perfectly clear.

 

          Artist's career


 
Schierenberg was born in 1962 in Skegness, England to a Chinese mother and German father, also a painter.

Being taken on frequent visits to the London Museums or art galleries made him familiar with painting of all realms and ages, while drawing soon became the child's favourite activity.

After extensive travels to the places of Antiquity in Greece and Asia Minor, the family settled in the Black Forest and, in pursuit of a more ecologically centered life, did some subsistence farming, while the boy, by now eleven years old, started his secondary education under the auspices of a Jesuit run grammar school nearby. In his mid-teens the first cautious steps towards oil painting were undertaken.

At the age of seventeen and with his secondary education completed, he left home, reconnoitred Frankfurt and Amsterdam, drifted over to Paris, where he predominantly spent his time drawing from life at the venerable Académie de Grande Chaumière.

Schierenberg eventually returned to London, where he has remained ever since. He applied to and was accepted by St. Martin's and in due course, Slade School of Art for postgraduate studies, which he finished in 1987.

He studied at St Martin's and the Slade Schools of Art and came to prominence in 1989 when he won the John Player Portrait Award with a painting of his wife, artist Lynn Dennison.

As part of the John Player prize he was commissioned to paint the portrait of writer and barrister John Mortimer for the National Portrait Gallery in London. The NPG also holds his portraits of Lord Carrington (1994) and most recently Lord Sainsbury (2002).

Important Sitters include, Her Majesty the Queen, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, John Mortimer, Seamus Heaney, Lord Sainsbury, Lord Carrington, Duke of Devonshire, Duchess of Westminster and Professor Stephen Hawkin.

 


 

         Links with own work



Portrait of Stephen Hawking, Portrait of Peter Alexander Rupert Carrington, 6th Baron Carrington, Portrait of Natalia Phillips Duchess of Westminster, Road to Damascus, The girl, Portrait of John Davan Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Preston Candover, Portrait of John Mortimer, Portrait of Seamus Heaney, Her Majesty the Queen with Prince Philip, The Emigre

 


 

           Quotations

 

Tai- Shan Schierenberg in an interview:


 "I really love the yumminess of paint, I love manipulating and seeing what it can do and the accidents that occur. It often helps a painting to have a medium like that that can suggest things that I would have never imagined or I could never have thought of or done as a logical progression in my technique. As a painter sometimes accidents happen and the paint oozes out of the back of the brush in a slightly different colour which suggest a different light, a different facet of the face. And the possibilities are endless. It’s a great ally to have paint, when one’s painting, it sounds obvious but it’s so malleable."

Giovanni Battista Piranesi - Carceri Plate IV - The Smoking fire


 
 
 
 
Giovanni Battista Piranesi

 

                Subject matter




                CARCERI PLATE IV - The smoking fire

 

        The Prisons (Carceri d'invenzione or 'Imaginary Prisons') is a series of 16 prints produced in first and second states that show enormous subteranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines. The artwork, in my opinion, gives the impresion of solitude, of spirit trapped, chaos, but at the same time perfection. It is confusing, chaotic yet perfectly ordered.

          "The smoking fire" generates contradictory feelings like fear and fascination. I think that each of Piranesi Prison can make the viewer feel lost or trapped, trying to figure the way out.

          Unlike a typical capriccio, these weren't created to appeal to the Grand Tourist and fully expressed the imagination of the artist rather than being based on well known monuments.

 

 

                    Technique

 

        The fourteen plates of the Carceri, described on their title page as "capricious inventions," are probably Piranesi's best-known series. These structures, their immensity emphasized by the low viewpoint and the small size of the figures, derive from stage prisons rather than real ones—Piranesi had created an earlier prison fantasy (in his Prima Parte - First Part) that is closely based on stage designs by Ferdinando Bibiena and Filippo Juvarra. Spatial anomalies and ambiguities abound in all the images of the series; they were not meant to be logical but to express the vastness and strength that Piranesi experienced in contemplating Roman architecture, to which he remained in thrall throughout his life. While elaborate theories have been developed to account for this series, it has also been plausibly suggested that Piranesi chose an architectural subject devoid of ornament and requiring little detail or textural differentiation, so that he could isolate the issues of perspective and spatial structure. In this series of variations on a theme, Piranesi attacked his copperplates with a boldness and spontaneity unmatched in any other work of his time. One of his goals seems to have been a thorough exploration of the tools and techniques of the etching medium.

          In "The smoking fire", he used both burin and etching needle to scrape and scratch lines of every depth and width, while the burnisher was used to soften lines and create lighter patches. He created areas of gray throughout the plate by means of shallow surface scratches that held a light film of ink. In other places he applied acid directly to the plate in order to roughen it, resulting in scattered black spots. The brightest highlight of the print has been achieved by adding a resistant ground to an isolated spot before inking the plate—the ground covers any etched lines in that area, as well as accidental scratches, so that the area prints a pure white in the midst of a wide range of blacks and grays.

 

                  

            Artist's career

 

          Piranesi was born in Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso, then part of the Republic of Venice. His brother, Andrea introduced him to Latin and the ancient civilization, and later he studied as an architect under his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi, who was Magistrato delle Acque, a Venetian engineer who specialized in excavation.

          From 1740 he was in Rome with Marco Foscarini, the Venetian envoy to the Vatican. He resided in the Palazzo Venezia and studied under Giuseppe Vasi, who introduced him to the art of etching and engraving. After his studies with Vasi, he collaborated with pupils of the French Academy in Rome to produce a series of vedute (views) of the city; his first work was Prima parte di Architettura e Prospettive (1743), followed in 1745 by Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna.

          From 1743 to 1747 he sojourned mainly in Venice where, according to some sources, he frequented Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. He then returned to Rome, where he opened a workshop in Via del Corso. In 1748–1774 he created a long series of vedute of the city which established his fame. In the meantime Piranesi devoted himself to the measurement of many of the ancient edifices: this led to the publication of Antichità Romane de' tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori ("Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors"). In 1761 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca and opened a printing facility of his own. In 1762 the Campo Marzio dell'antica Roma collection of engravings was printed.

          The following year he was commissioned by Pope Clement XIII to restore the choir of San Giovanni in Laterano, but the work did not materialize. In 1764 Piranesi started his sole architectural works of importance, the restoration of the church of Santa Maria del Priorato in the Villa of the Knights of Malta in Rome, where he was buried after his death, in a tomb designed by Giuseppi Angelini.

In 1767 he was created a knight of the Golden Spur, which enabled him henceforth to sign himself "Cav[aliere] Piranesi". In 1769 his publication of a series of ingenious and sometimes bizarre designs for chimneypieces, as well as an original range of furniture pieces, established his place as a versatile and resourceful designer.[1] In 1776 he created his famous Piranesi Vase, his best known work as a 'restorer' of ancient sculpture. In 1777–78 Piranesi published Avanzi degli Edifici di Pesto, (Remains of the Edifices of Paestum) a collection of views of Paestum.

He died in Rome in 1778 after a long illness and buried in the Church of Santa Maria del Priorato, on the Aventine hill in Rome.

          Considering this work was created in the mid-eighteenth century, this is a far cry from the lighthearted and decorative Rococo style which was now in favor.

This series of etchings went on to influence many other artists such as the Romanticism movement, the Surrealists and M.C. Escher to name a few.  Piranesi's other works of art are among my favorites, but it is this series that sets him apart from other artists of his time.

                   

 

                   Links with own work


                Quotations

 

        Thomas De Quincey in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1820) wrote the following:

 

        "Many years ago, when I was looking over Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome, Mr. Coleridge, who was standing by, described to me a set of plates by that artist ... which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever: some of them (I describe only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's account) representing vast Gothic halls, on the floor of which stood all sorts of engines and machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, catapults, etc., etc., expressive of enormous power put forth, and resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceived a staircase; and upon it, groping his way upwards, was Piranesi himself: follow the stairs a little further, and you perceive it come to a sudden abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him."

 

        An in-depth analysis of Piranesi's Carceri was written by Marguerite Yourcenar in her Dark Brain of Piranesi: and Other Essays (1984).

        Further discussion of Piranesi and the Carceri can be found in The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi by John Wilton-Ely (1978).

        The style of Piranesi was imitated by 20th-century forger Eric Hebborn.

Friday 5 October 2012

Vincent Van Gogh - Straw Hut and Windmill

 
Vincent Van Gogh - Straw Hut and Windmill
 

SUBJECT MATTER

In my opinion, in this picture is shown the routine. The atmosphere looks monotone. The picture convoys melancholy, routine. The idea that it explores is that of nature/ autumn.

 

TECHNIQUE

The artwork was drawn in charcoal. The marks on the right side of the artwork, look like a path, or the edge of the field that had just been plough. The lines are getting closer and closer as they further to the horizon. The lines from the bottom right corner are also quickly drawn, on the other side, the straw huts and the windmill look drawn in detail. The consistency of the paint is thin. The extent has been slightly stylised, it has been simplified. The artwork creates an illusion that some straw huts are further away than other. Colour has not been used, as it was sketched in charcoal. The painting looks middle toned. It also looks rough ( for example bottom right corner) but it also looks smooth (for example the middle of a straw hut). The artwork is sketched from the eye level.

 

ARTIST’S CAREER

  • Vincent Willem van Gogh  - Lived between 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890. He was a Dutch post-impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. During his lifetime there were a few historical events taking place, like:

Battle of Inkerman (Crimean War ) 1854
American Civil War 1861-65
Zulu Wars 1879
Boer War 1899--1902
Whitechapel Murders 1888
Foundation of Red Cross 1859-60
Sepoy Mutiny( Indian Mutiny ) 1857
Death of Prince Albert (Queen Victoria`s husband) 1861
Abraham Lincoln Assassinated 1865

 

Vincent van Gogh lived more than 115 years ago, and yet his artwork is still altering the way mankind views beauty, persona, individuality, and style in art. His thousands of paintings and drawings have various characteristics that have been copied by thousands and duplicated by none. Van Gogh's unique life has inspired millions to become active in art. In fact, what many people today consider to be the archetypical "artist persona" is largely a result of his influence.

Vincent van Gogh was an impressionists and post impressionists. Van Gogh's use of this new impressionist and post impressionist style altered not only his work, but also all of art history.

Quotations

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
I wish they would only take me as I am.
Starry starry night, paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity How you tried to set them free
They would not listen they did not know how, perhaps they'll listen now.