Assignment: Find a vanGogh pen and ink drawing, preferably of an outdoor, natural scene. Look at the variety of mark-making used and the expressive way in which these marks are made.
This drawing is titled "Garden of Flowers" (© The Bridgeman Art Library - London, New York, Paris).
This is a stunning example of different types of mark making. Each object has it's own marks. Pale dots cover the sky whereas the gravel has more sharply detailed dots. The fences have either vertical (right, back) or horizontal (center, back), softly colored, parallel lines. The taller plants to the left have darker lines in front and softer, rounder lines in the back to look like the fronds are blowing in the breeze. The garden in the foreground is a jumble of light and dark circular shapes and straight, short lines. There is some order, but not complete order to the marks, as if the garden was carefully laid out when it was planted, but has since grown beyond it's bounds. There is strong movement at the lower left of the drawing which keeps pulling the eye back into the picture. I love the use of shape to suggest tiles on the roof. The drawing is so dynamic and busy, yet organized -- it keeps moving the eye of the viewer around the entire piece. Lovely.
I found a nice landscape drawing by New Zealander Frances Hodgkins, Landscape in the South of France done in black chalk. It has wonderful markings and looks to me like a landscape similar to Cezanne. Hodgkins' marks are varied in both tone, shape and size. The clear edges of each area of the landscape makes it look almost like puzzle pieces. The darker patches draw the eye into the landscape. It is interesting that there is just as much detail in the distance as there is close to the viewer - just as in the van Gogh drawing. I know traditionally, detail is in the foreground and more abstract in the background, but, both of these drawings work so well. The perspective is clear, even though there is detail in the mark-making in both foreground and background.
Each of these works inspires me to try making different types of marks in my drawings, in order to experiment with line, shape, texture and tone.
Vincent van Gogh was brilliant in his use of perspective. Here was a self-taught (for the most part) who studied the structure of the landscape - atmospheric, depth, the strength of the strokes to convey movement not only of the natural surroundings, but the emotive movement which characterized his life struggle to communicate. He "saw" the world in microscopic detail and his use of color surpassed nearly every artist before and since his life. If you were to take tracing paper and overlay his drawings and just break the drawing down to the horizontal and vertical lines you will begin to see the genius of this artist. Do this in stages - first the rough perspective on the 'bones' of the sketch. Then if you were to isolate the darkest areast, then the next layer the lightest areas, etc - you will realize that this one drawing will change not only the way that you 'look' at art, but it will change the way that you will construct art. His works were powerful, not just because of the color or the use of line to portray movement - - he used color in an almost three-dimensional quality. Literally building up layer upon layer. When seen in person it is hard to believe the impact in relation to the actual size as most of his paintings were quite small. I saw "Peachtree in Spring" at the Eli Lily Museum in Indianapolis, Ind. On the next wall was a painting by Salvador Dali. Van Gogh's painting was probably 10x14/14x16" maybe, while Dali's painting took up an entire wall - probably 12x20 feet. It was massive. His (Dali's) painting was flat, as in hardly a brushstroke visable where van Goghs was probably 1/4" deep in expressive brush strokes and paint layered over and over other layers.
ReplyDeleteI hope that you enjoy art and the makings of 'marks' which are the fingerprints of every artist. I enjoyed reading your blog.
Kate