The Brutality of Fact - Modern Figurative Painting

As an idealist , I prefer the great painters of the Renaissance to those you mention. I think its worth looking at as many figurative painters
to understand your own taste and to position your own work and approach.

I think the best way to draw yourself a human is to look at one. Do lots of sketches, figure out the anatomy. If you can't get access to naked other people (like at a figure sketching club) you can draw yourself in a mirror. You learn a lot more by drawing people nude because you can see their anatomy.

No matter how you intend to execute/ slant the style of your piece, having knowledge of the human anatomy and how to represent it will help you.

I agree, Portal Star. I always draw humans from memory/imagination. But having taken life drawing classes helps me to make even fairly distorted human images more (or less) credible. This can take the form of stragetically located anatomical exaggerations. Such EXAGGERATIONS can serve the double function of representational credibility and aesthetic effect. Among the greatest artists in this respect are Soutine, Schlemmer, Gauguin, Munch, Kitaj, (early)Tamayo, Picasso and, of course, Matisse.

I hope the great figurative tradition continues......nope, photography
doesn't suffice....we need painters, drawers and sculptors!

Oh how I agree.

I wonder if there is anything more difficult
to paint than the human figure.....To modify all
the information available into a dynamic composition, to capture an authentic expression, to understand all the anatomical detail, to use your palette wisely in order to get an accurate depiction of skin tones and
finally to make art of it.......extreme art!

That doesn't seem to be difficult for you, Shepaints.

Thank you JL......()

There was a fascinating programme on Lucian Freud this week. All from the point of view of his family and friends/models.

It was really interesting to compare the people with their portraits - Freud's paintings are brutally analytical but intensely powerful both about himself and others.



he paints a lot of nudes and i don't know if A2K allows them so I've picked a recent portrait by him of Camilla's ex husband looking dishevelled in his dress uniform, apparently a fairly conventional portrait - but not.

One interesting and very true observation was how much more gentle and affectionate were his animal portraits

What a worker too - starting at 7 or 8 am and working until 4 with the first model and then starting again at about 7 until the early hours of the morning with another, paintings taking months and even years to complete.

Good powerful portraits are brilliant and say so much more than photographs, even good photographs.

I also really like the portraits done by Maggi Hambling with their wonderful insight into character.

Maggi Hambling



There was also a very good programme on Hopper - on the current exhibiton of his work in London - fascinating.

I love the Hambling portrait, its composition, character and even the "painterly" effect.

It's of Max Wall, a friend of hers and an old music hall/stage star, old fashioned vaudeville type stuff, who turned into a talented actor in his old age.

The pathos and meditative mood and relationship with the cat is lovely isn't it? and the unusual composition and as you say, the wonderful painterliness of the drawing.

She did a wonderful series on George Melly, the jazz musician - a larger than life character and Stephen Fry and they are superb. It is well worth googling and looking at her other work.

Reminds me of the magnificently tragic clown in the movie, Chicago. It was so touching, unlike the scmaltzy clown portraits painted in such an amateurish way.

,
Ha! the word, MOVIE, in my last post was underlined by someone else (a monitor?). Was that to tell me that the comment was more appropriate to the "FILM" forum? Nah, can't be.

wow! quick responses - no it is this new advertising/support thingy that Craven is trying out - clicking on the underlined word links you to an ad

yes good analogy with film.

The programme on Hopper obviously went into that a great deal - the influence ON Hopper by film and then the influence he HAD on people like Hitchcock.

I see his influence in the work of Sally Strand (love her work).