better to do what he calls a chromatic grisalle. hold off with lights and darks?
gradually build to the full expression of the color.
keep as much light in the picture as long as possible before you start emphasizing the darks. so the color songs with it’s pure voice.
for flemish primitives the white ground was most important. so the darks are thicker than the whites.
Venetian (Titan) he puts back the light where he wants it to be and glaze over it. and in modern painting its the same so the whites are thicker than the darks.
Allegory of Painting: you don’t sail straight up the river you “tack” first its warm then cool
best to start in a cool way.
what makes a chalky painting: when you have coolness in the light and a similar coolness in the shadow.
what makes a muddy painting: warmth in the light and warmth in the shadow!
the shifts between the temperature in light and shadow are what makes it look correct.
he will be bridging the gap between drawing and color.
very important —you have to stagger the temperatures within the light masses!
digression: perspective, vanishing point = mans connection with the infinite. Plotinus: “the ineffible One”, Keats conflation of truth and beauty.
Caravaggio reasserts this connection to the One not with a vanishing point but by reflecting a point back out to you! And this is the beginning of the Baroque. Like the moon always appears to follow only you. A neo-platonic corridor between whats on eath and the infinite above.
stable determinite predictable measurable
this model priviledges drawing and measurable craft. it’s artifice.
“warring factions in the shadow mass” the light mass is always the same, but the shadow temperature is always dependent on the temperature of the reflection.
Delacroix: “a picture should be started as if on a gray day.” –in halflight
shadow shapes change color depending on whats next to it. start out by making them neutral.
INCIDENCE of REFLECTION look for it in highest light and largest mass of the light.
draw with painting in mind. volumetric drawing?
take charcoal drawing and pour shellac on it –spread with knife or card, do not brush.
rubens used “streaked grounds” a transparent ground to help him construct form in space.
Rubens influence on Velazquez –he began swirling on the ground as if already building the form.
digression: evolution of an artists style: Velazquez –abruptly changed course “I would rather be first in crudeness than second in finesse” not trying to compete in terms of Raphael and Titian but would make his own way.
he says the paint quality is crude up close. You see him changing his mind. really heavy… but free with the paint.
Lucretius On The Nature of Things
Al Hazan(?10th century n. africa) rays of light don’t come out of the eye, and flake off of objects, but rather light comes into the eye to make images in the brain.
painting moves its always in motion.
three stages of artists development
we look at art and are moved by it and have to figure out why. the reasons stop the amazement to find out how it captivates. you reify and harden the effect that has been kept in motion by the painting. analysis hardens it.
emulate it in our own work. we turn it into an allegory of the art that we loved in the past.
we find it again in ourselves. you pick up things over the years. when you come back full circle to the beginning it is enriched by everything you picked up along the way.
a ground creates transparency on which you can build the form. at any point you can return to transparency with a glaze. a color remenicent of the original ground
ground and re-ground (when you’ve lost the luminosity of the piece.)(eg. raw umber + english red when you’ve lost the light in the shadow, gone dead or too dark.)
“a painting is a lie through which the truth is revealed.”
“a picture should be constructed like the perfectcrime.”
“paint with all of the cunning that you have in you then add the accents of nature.”
all painting is predicated on opposites. everything makes sense by it’s opposites.
people have a tendency to work for life, work from photographs -pah- look at how the problem was solved in a painting! look at the way a painter solved the problem. work from a painting! non-emperical. engage yourself with the thought of painting which is not the thought of observation.
these are inventions. inventions of the mind based on amterial picked up visually. they are constructions. artifice from the get-go. artifice that looks plausible, a window, more transparent or less transparent.
mix with white to see the temperature. tint it to see the temperature differences.
direct paint first! glaze after you’ve taken it as far as possible. one leads to the other.
move toward the color… hold off, anticipate the steps toward the color.
“load your lights and thin your darks.” if you have thick paint make it in the lights. the paint should activate the light in terms of its texture.
paint with fingers…. titian.
get edges in as early as possible. what is the nature of the break between the light and the dark.
your canvas should be in natural light, not necessarily your model.
aim to emulate the ground color in the shadow. look to the grays you created in the shadow areas to give clues to how it should be done. pay attention to the edge
mind the speed of your turns
set up a system of differences from cool and warm.
as you move to the edge of the light mass it gets dimmer and warmer before they hit the turn to the dark side. as you move away from the center of the light.
fiddle with the paint and let it do wonderful things.
“i don’t know why a person needs to rush a picture”
cadmium red. gray green. terra verte.
Velazquez medium (Rublev colormen)
every mark emphasises the perimeter of the light mass.
a silhouette and passage (when two colors are so close in value that when you squint the edge dissapears.)
never starts with a perfectly rendered accurate painting. –“if i start with a drawing that is too perfect i know i’m gonna have to destroy it in the course of painting.”
[1]
[2]