Alan Lee is probably best known for his illustrationsof J.R.R. Tolkien’s, the Lord of the Rings. In looking through his work in order to choose one to analyze today, I found this scene in which I believe Gandolf is the one on horseback and he is speaking to or leading a band of Hobbits or dwarves. Something about this image felt familiar and I realized that it reminded me of a painting called “The serpent and the Rose” by one of my IMC instructors, Donato Giancola. In that piece, Donato used the shape of the tree limbs to frame the action in a circular fashion, that subject being figures on horseback. It seemed to me that Alan Lee was using a similar composition, in his case, having the tree limbs encircle the figures at the center of the image. In addition, the atmospheric effect of the figures in the distance add a value contrast to the darker foreground, reinforcing the mechanism that leads your eye to the subject. I have learned that this circular geometric form in a composition is very powerful and can very effectively draw the viewer’s eye to wherever it is located. I have actually employeed this element in my last two paintings. And on a side note, look at the foliage detail in the foreground of Alan Lee’s painting here. The texture is wonderful pronounced, let with all that detail, the eye is still focused on the center of that circle.
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Caspar David Friedrich
Graveyard Under Snow. 1826. Caspar Friedrich is a very interesting painter to me in that I always describe him to people as “Tim Burtonesque”. In reality, Tim Burton would have been more “Friedrichesque”, but I think the comparison is illustrative. I am familiar with some work by CDF, but this piece is one that I came across today for the first time. Something grabbed my attention, so I spend some time looking at it to try to figure out why. I have touched on this topic before and I image that I will see characteristics repeated in many paintings, but I believe that the idea of narrative is what is attractive to me in this piece. We see what appears to be a graveyard marked by the stone wall in the background and the freshly dug grave. Two shovels are in the grave and the psyche begins to want details to fill in the blanks. Questions are asked, where is this graveyard. Who is being buried here. Where are the two people that were using the shovels. Is this a fresh grave or once frozen over from a time when the ground was able to be broken. It seems to me that the power of this piece is not what is pictured here, but what is actually absent. Like a monster movie where the creature is scarier when it is unseen and unknown, mystery can also be generated by the unseen. I may have to ask myself when next at my easel, “What shouldn’t I paint today.”
Henry Fuseli
This is The Nightmare. Fuseli painted in the late 1700s and was a teacher of Edwin Landseer for one and was a big influence on William Blake. He was a German born painter, schooled in Italy and eventually became an instructor at the Royal Academy. This piece is very indicative of his work and has a very dark quality to it. We have a woman in the throws of a dream being visited by a “mare” and a goblin. I am not really sure how to analyze this painting as it is attractive to me on many levels. I think what what best bet on this on is to try to identify the things I like. I like the limited palette. Yellow ochre, white, alizarin crimson seem to be the major hues and are not very saturated which adds to the night-ish feel. The high contrast between the gown of the female and the black background darkness adds alot of drama to the piece. The manical grin on the mare and the odd way the goblin seems to stare out of the painting at the viewer adds a level of discomfort to the viewer while intiguing them to look more closely. The handling of the drapery is exquisitely done from the sheerness of the gown to the folds and shadows of the drapery. This is an artist that merits deeper study.
Greg Horn
After returning from the cluster that was ComicCon, I am focused on what had been one of my favorite comic illustrators, Greg Horn. I stopped at Greg’s booth and briefly spoke to him about his art and subsequently, purchased a book of his work. There is a piece in it that jumped out at my due to the drama which I would like to discuss. It is Spiderman/Daredevil (I don’t know if there is another name.) There are dramatic darks in this piece and a color palette in the subdued red-yellow-orange range of the color wheel. It is noteworthy to mention that this is a digitally painted image over a fully rendered pencil drawing which is the typical way Greg Horn works. The glowing sun in the background against the dark Spiderman figure is a great draw for the eye. The diffused light from the sun is masterly rendered around the figures filling in parts of the shadow areas to add depth to the piece. The one thing that I am actually going to criticize, and this is purely a subjective viewpoint is that I dislike Greg’s usage for red-purple hues for the shadow areas on Daredevil and on the building in the mid-ground. They seem out of place and conflict with the color palette in my opinion. Otherwise, this is a beautiful image that conveys a great depth of emotion.
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole, one of the Hudson River Valley painters, did a series of 5 paintings named “Course of the Empire”. The one displayed here is called Destruction. The HRV painters in my experience tended to be landscape painters primarily, however, Cole stands out to me due to the narratives evident in his work as opposed to some of his peers. I have been much more interested in the use of narrative in paintings over the last year and have begun to understand the use of narrative as a tool to develop an image for the sake of storytelling rather than for simply conveying imagery. The complex story depicted here shows a civilization destroying itself. Soldiers burning ships, murdering civilians, destroying building and killing each other give insight into this age in history as well as the artist viewpoint on the history. There is a role to be played by each figure, statue, archway, building, cloud of smoke and mountain in this piece. No subject is randomly or haphazardly placed in this, but rather used to help convey the narrative and thereby express the emotion of the destruction man brings upon himself. I have begun to apply this narrative thought process to my work, thinking about purpose to any composition elements I add, not just for aesthetics, but to advance a story.