EXTRA CREDIT

Please see the William Kentridge show at the MoMA. It is up until May 17th. Upon seeing the show post a comment below reflecting on a particular piece from the show. In this reflection consider the three main topics we discussed in Perception- Space, Time and Light. Discuss how the artist used one or all of these. Also, to get credit you must bring the ticket stub from the MoMA showing the date of your visit.

List of Drawings for FINAL CRITIQUE

-Still Life Drawing focusing on two different light levels- objects included the coiled tubing, gas tank, mirror...

-Homework drawing of a lit object at eye level.

-Model drawing of two light levels

-Blog Commentary of Baroque light versus Classical light

-Large Scale Self Portrait- light as psychology

Two models drawn at different distances and scale into a projected background.

-Cubist drawing of the model- 360 degree view around the model.

-Blog commentary on animation of Picasso's Guernica made 3-D.

-360 degree drawing of a space on six adjoining pieces of paper.

-Blog commentary on Utube video of artist Jake Berthot speaking about painting.

-"Compiled Motion" a stroboscopic drawing of the model's movement (color)

-"One Person Play"- one model in three poses, make a narrative and composition linking the poses.

-"Cinematic History Redux"- Large scale drawing -change a movie still making us sympathize with the 'bad' guy and and not like the 'good' guy.

-Sketchbook pages including the assignments of :three times of day, blue, red, foreground middle ground, background, abyss, claustrophobia, fractured, overlay, time...
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Homework due Monday 4/19

Cinematic History REDUX

As previously mentioned, you were to have thought about a critical scene from a movie to use as reference for our final project. For this Monday please bring in the printed scene from the movie. We will, as a class, look at and discuss your intentions. These intentions should be to recreate the scene giving us the perspective of the loser/ antagonist/ anyone other than the perspective presented. The director cast each participant in a role that enhances the perspective of the protagonist. We see it using eyes sympathetic to the plight of the protagonist. Your challenge is to present the perspective of someone else in the movie. How would you recast these characters, lighting, space, time. All need to be considered to support your intended perspective. Make sure to chose a scene that can convey this best, whether it is the showdown, coming of age, make or break moment. It is important to chose wisely. Once selected I ask you to mentally inhabit this chosen characters mind, see the world through their eyes, their fears and dreams, consider the road (experiences) they took to make them see it this way. What molded them? Remember, you are now sympathetic to this person, so think about portraying their vision of the same exact events. Everyone sees the same event from different points of view and has a different feeling about it. If your character "loses" in that moment, it must showcase him/ her as a noble victim to unfortunate circumstance etc.

Re-watch your movie and bring in the chosen scene printed at a good size with clarity.

Materials for Monday include Large paper (18 by 24 minimum- larger is better) for three pose drawing.

Charcoal, compressed, or color media (choice is yours) erasers, tape to tape it down.

The same model will take three different poses through class. You will draw each having considered composition. For homework that week you will create a narrative that combines those poses, links them. You will supply the background/ props etc.

TIME

With the inception of mark making came the ability to record events people and places. It became a tradition or "written record" of the past for future viewers. With that impulse, drawing continued for centuries. At various points in history it was important to capture a specific moment of a story or action and emphasis came to freezing the participants at the desired moment. Later, artists began to question or expand upon this convention, they became sensitive to time itself and the speed in a moment. Could it be stretched to seem active for an eternity? They became aware of the sense of time IN the artwork and not only its depiction. This could be a quality of time in the artwork separate, faster, slower, longer, endless than that of the viewer's world. Over the course of history it led to inventions of sequenced panels, stroboscopic movement, control of color and apparent space and a surface record (of accumulated movements of the artist) to address qualities of time. Below we see examples of artists addressing time in very individual ways.

Stroboscopic Photograph

Here we see the multiple moments of a motion. Within one picture we see more than a single moment captured, a sequence of positions indicating a beginning and end point.

Duchamp- Nude Descending a Staircase

Not unlike the previous example, we are able to see multiple positions of a movement sequenced and compressed into one picture. In a sense Duchamp captured a small passage of time, every instance existing simultaneously. It is comparable to a long duration photo.

Morandi

In this example we see an artist using composition, color, and space to hint at a feeling of time/ timelessness. By lowering the contrast, bring the colors to a neutral key, predominantly verticals and horizontal lines, we sense a slowing down of time, a stillness. The opposite would be a 'fast' experience- bright colors, lots of diagonals, heavy contrast.

Agnes Martin

Another example that hints at a sense of time or slowness this time without using representational imagery. The formal qualities mentioned in Morandi are clearly seen here again.

De Chirico

In this example, we see a space devoid of time. There is a sense of time of day (maybe evening-ish) but also a sense that it is always that same time. Some of this is accomplished by the light created and also the space. The space is vast and vacant. In the mind, time and space are linked, are larger space indicates a longer time to transverse it, or a slowing down.

Hopper

Hopper's example shows us the psychology of time. His people are usually alone and in a different time than others- the endless solitude of loneliness, or lost amongst others. There is always a quality in his work that this moment repeats (day in day out, meet at the same spot with the regulars always there etc.) and implies that this is a regular occurrence. An example of a moment presented to last indefinitely.

Bacon

Bacon found inspiration in stroboscopic photography. We can see a possible reference in his attempt to capture a portrait of a person. Is a person's likeness that frozen pose, or an organism moving about experiencing time? How would you convey this?

Bacon

One of Bacon's most famous work. A riff on Velasquez's Pope Innocencio X. Below you will see the original. But first think about how the figure is presented, the intensity of colors, the intense directional stroke, that emotion in the strokes. Again it appears to be a duration of time captured (along with psychological content) rather than the actual likeness of the person.

Velasquez and Bacon

Obviously two different takes on the same portrait of the pope (both with different agendas). One appears to capture the frozen moment and likeness, the other the accumulated moments frantic tortured psychology of a person. There is also the indirect time element of Bacon referencing a painting from long ago.

Damien Loeb

With this example I am referencing our next project- Cinematic History Redux. This artist takes images from movies and puts them together for his own purposes. There is an intense attention to detail and virtuosity of skill. But there continues the sense of movie time, part of a larger narrative playing out.

Damien Loeb

Another example of movie time. But what is interesting is the moment the artist chose. Is it a scene right before the films climax or a random choice. This brings to question what moment is important to freeze, which has the qualities you are seeking- build- up, climax, aftermath, random, etc.

Jake Berthot

Click here to check out a clip of Jake Berthot as he talks about his paintings, making work, and the gaze. Please post a response

below reflecting on the 'method vs system' he mentions and what you think he means by/about 'the gaze'.

Below are some quick examples of his work.

Space- 'on location'

Some examples below highlight the relationship of space to content. Some elements to consider are:

SCALE- Size as it relates to scale is very important. The space within a small paper can be infinitely grand and vice versa. Relationships of elements and marks create this relationship.

Large marks make the space feel small, tiny marks make it feel large. Massive architecture can dwarf the people that inhabit it. By orchestrating these relationships unique space can be created.

MOVEMENT- Space can function as a constant for the passage of time. In a drawing the space can be frozen and the movement of people (etc) can be contrasted against it. Space can be depicted as static, unmoving, fixed as other elements play out within it.

GAZE- Space can be created, not to provide a backdrop for a narrative, but to hold the viewers gaze; a place for it to enter. This allows the viewer to be the active participant and not solely an audience.

Piranesi

David Levine

Gustav Diore, from Dante's Divine Comedy

Arthur Melville

Rackstraw Downes

Space - Cubism

Cubism

A breakthrough in the presentation of space pioneered by Picasso and Braque. The foundation for this pictorial advancement can be found in Cezanne, whom both artists were familiar. Cezanne's multifaceted approach to creating form recalls binocular vision and a plural viewpoint, an important break from the fix singular viewpoint of perspective. In addition the influence of 'primitive' African and Iberian work was especially important. This work stressed a raw simplicity. Coupled with Cezanne's distillation of forms to Cylinder, Sphere, and Cone, we begin to see the approach to cubism. It is a depiction of space liberated from the singular fixed vantage point and complies multiple vantage points simultaneously. This speaks to another form of vision; one freed by the constraints of time. All sides of an object exist at all moments even if we only perceive one vantage point. Because we do not see all sides at the same time, it does not mean they do not exist. This begs the question, which presentation is in fact more accurate. For us to comprehend all sides of a 3 dimensional object simultaneously requires an understanding of the malleability of space/ time on the work surface. Space is able to be bent, fractured, reassembled etc, as is time. In synthetic cubism we saw the development of collage. The process of adding and layering on top.This is an important break from the tradition of pushing space back into the surface, it begins to become cumulative and pushes forward. Here we begin to see the malleability of space.

Cezanne

Cezanne

Picasso

Picasso

Braque

Braque

Braque

Picasso