Some Names: Helene Schjerfbeck, Frank Auerbach, ‘True art takes note not merely of form but also of what lies behind.’ Mahatma Gandhi
IWB Task (the next 8/6) pages and beyond) In the next stage of your project you will observe and record yourself in a range of 2-dimensional media. As always you will link your Studio Work with your Investigation Workbook studies. By October 20th (Day 4) you must have completed: 4 A3 sides (3 SL) of portrait observations of yourself in materials including, but not limited to: PENCIL, PAINT, COLLAGE, PHOTOGRAPHY, CHARCOAL, OIL PASTEL, and BIRO (PEN). Some of these studies should feature disguises or face changing props (glasses, masks, hats etc) Some pages may be a compilation of rapid studies, others might be longer, more precise single images. Use several mirrors, try drawing yourself from unusual angles, in the back of a spoon etc! Do some ultra detailed close up studies of eyes, mouths, noses etc. Do several continuous line drawings on the same page from different angles. Include shoulders, arms, hands etc in some compositions. Push your ideas. Avoid the obvious!!! At least 4 (3SL) A3 sides (3 SL) of research into portrait painters and painters of the human figure.
Frans Hals, Picasso, Rembrandt, Jenny Saville, Frida Kahlo, Tom Wood, Berthe Morisot, Artimesia Gentileschi, Lucian Freud, Gwen John, Matisse, De Kooning, Georg Grosz, Hans Holbein, Gilbert & George, Giotto, Klimt, Hundertwasser, Amanda Faulkner, Sam Taylor-Wood, Tracey Emin, Munch, Roualt, Francis Bacon, Durer, Gauguin, Modigliani, Giacometti, Chardin, Dubuffet, Caravaggio, Botero, Egon Schiele, Goya, Van Gogh, Velazquez, Otto Dix, Alice Neel, etc.
Some Useful Web sites: http://www.artquotes.net/ Quotes about Art (yes writing!) http://www.npg.org.uk/ The national Portrait Gallery http://saintgeorgesart.blogspot.com/ Art at Saint George’s http://www.artchive.com/artchive/F/freud.html Lucian Freud http://www.artcyclopedia.com/index.html http://pinterest.com/gregelvis/interesting-paintings/ http://pinterest.com/gregelvis/drawing-is-important/
This should include studies from their work in appropriate media (thick, impasto brush marks if you are working from Van Gogh for example). You should compare the work of 4 or 5 different artists. You should choose painters who have approached the portrait in diverse ways. For example the dynamic, heavy, slow expressionism of Frank Auerbach compared to the delicate precision of Albrecht Durer. At least half of the paintings that you study need to be SELF PORTRAITS by that artist. Your writing should explain when, why and how the portraits were made. How does the time and place in which they were painted affect the final painting? Is it an image of a King painted by a well-paid official court portraitist or a group of 19th Century Dutch peasants painted by an artist with an interest in describing social problems and poverty? Your notes are as important as your images – your IWB is not just a sketchbook. Write about brushwork, style, technique, colour, mood, composition, realism versus caricature. How do the pose and the costume of the person being painted tell us a story of their life, status and character? Are they naked on a bed or gazing down at us in full battle armour on the back of a horse? Are they placed higher or lower than the other people in the painting? Does the painter aim to flatter them or to show them as they really are - ‘warts and all’? Why?
http://www.geocities.com/craigsjursen/index.html Site about Jenny Saville (work shown above)
Consider if there is still a place in the world for the painted portrait in the age of photographic and digital imagery. Can a painter tell us something about the subject that a photographer can’t? How? Do you agree with the quote by Gandhi? How can a painted portrait show us what is underneath or inside of the character of the person being painted – or is painting only meant to act like a camera: recording the image created by light reflected from the object/person in front of it? Discuss the quote from Frida Kahlo: What does the artist tell us (or hide from us in their self portrait? Rembrandt and Cindy Sherman often dressed up as different characters in their self portraits – why and how did they transform themselves through costumes, props and make up? How do the painters that you look at want the viewer to see them? Are they searching for immortality? Write as if this was an Language A1 HL assignment!!!! (read through the workbook grade descriptors – writing is 40% of your grade!)
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rembrandt/ (Mr Morgan’s favourite – Rembrandt!)
‘I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.’ Frida Kahlo
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