Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Daring to be traditional (what ever that is)


I love to draw. Look at the works of artists past, and you find a whole world of things that somebody decided to draw. Some of the subjects fit into categories, by which I mean, that one observes a kind of hierarchy about what things artists were expected to draw (by others), or needed to draw (in order to meet the requirements of their paintings, regardless whether the requirements came from within or without), and things that they drew because other artists had drawn them earlier on and made them iconic.
Among that list of categories, one doesn't have to look long before discovering "drapery." Well, of course you draw drapery so that you can cloth the world. The people in your pictures will be wearing something, and in earlier times the chances were quite good that the something would be rather flowing and formally interesting and complex.
Mme Moitessier, in Ingres's famous portrait, wears the most amazing dress, both in regard to its exquisite floral design as well as for its wonderful folds and forms. The Nike of Samothrace, in turn, showed how in antiquity the figure could be mostly revealed, practically nude, and still require the assistance on innumerable, lyrical and dreamy rippling folds. In mediebal art, even a woman's head dress could provide the occasion for mountainous folds. And for the 19th century still life painter, Paul Cezanne the folds become an end in themselves and will later rematerialize in a new guise as Mont Ste Victoire.
So I draw drapery sometimes. Just because. [drapery study by moderationsmuse]

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