Book48

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SketchBooks

Cover of sketchbook 48: an old ledger bound in red leather and swirled brown marbled paper, scuffed white at the edges Back cover of sketchbook 48: green and brown marbled paper over worn boards with dark leather corners and a red cloth spine
Paris
25 Sept 2013 - 21 Dec 2013
17cm x 13cm
Gent, Coimbra, Los Angeles, Nottingham, Paris
(dedicated to RaphaelHasan - requiescat in pace)

Sketchbook 48 spread in pencil: a draped baroque saint clasping a bundle against dark shading, an orange domed chapel on the horizon, and a soft study of figures on rocks Sketchbook 48 spread: ballpoint portrait of a bald speaker and a colored-pencil portrait in mint-green shirt, with notes on the aesthetics of play coming from action, not objects — 'don't let a day go by' Sketchbook 48 spread in graphite: self-portrait with full hair and hand at chest, legs in patterned tights on heeled sandals, a coffee mug, and tiny thumbnails noting 'The Moon' and a black dog Sketchbook 48 spread in graphite: a walnut hanging from its twig with one leaf, and a softly modeled human skull turned three-quarter into darkness, with small sigil-like doodles above Sketchbook 48 atelier spread 'Studio Escalier + Florentine Renaissance': two curving figure studies wrapped in notes on disegno, CHARIS (gift, elegance, love), Degas and 'the fury of the figure' Sketchbook 48 atelier spread 'searching for a flashlight in the dark': boxy construction figures and a sanguine nude with hand on hip, with notes on Poussin vs. Rubens and Couture's 'line properly understood is color' Sketchbook 48 spread, first day drawing in the Louvre: boxy graphite block-in of a seated nude, ink brush sketches, and the assignment 'Draw all the River Gods!' Sketchbook 48 spread: figures reduced to stacked boxes ('a lot of talk about magic'), facing a blocked-in standing nude with red construction lines and notes on EROS, thrust and 'the boxes are a placeholder for the space the body takes' Sketchbook 48 spread: sanguine and red nude leaning on one knee beside notes on contour as 3D horizon and mise en page, facing a graphite figure bending into shadow Sketchbook 48 Paris spread: Louvre notes on the Marie de Médicis cycle and Musée Rodin — 'La Lumière de l'Antique', the Belvedere Torso's influence, sketches of headless draped figures Sketchbook 48 Musée Rodin spread in ballpoint: Gates of Hell figures, a crouching nude, and notes on Camille Claudel's 'L'Âge Mûr' — 'marble so often looks like soft skin, like butter' Sketchbook 48 spread in ballpoint: three studies after Rodin marbles — a kneeling nude from behind, a bending clothed figure, and the fallen caryatid carrying her stone — 'they live, they breathe' Sketchbook 48 spread dated Dec 12 at the Petit Palais: graphite nude after Jordaens's wife from behind, notes on 'Jordaens et le réalisme flamand', Carpeaux's Three Graces and Daumier Sketchbook 48 Paris spread: Sainte-Chapelle Christmas concert — a sculpted angel spreading wings, a soprano mid-note, sprawled legs of listeners, and the music list: Mozart, Purcell, Pergolesi Sketchbook 48 atelier spread: notes on light value and planar orientation with a shaded sphere diagram, facing a seated female nude annotated with trochanter, shadow side, and 'GRANDEUR — carve into the largeness of things' Sketchbook 48 spread: art-history lecture notes from the Académie Royale on the Three Graces, Mantegna and Titian, facing a tender graphite study of a seated faun with a Santayana quote on Americans and junk Sketchbook 48 spread: notes on the paragone and the Carracci academy beside a large soft-pencil study after Guido Reni — a bearded face in profile with a pointing hand — 'looking at a photo I only see the camera' Sketchbook 48 spread in pencil: a bowl of fruit rendered in soft graphite, a week's copying schedule (Centaur, Diana, Rivers, Tiber), and a dark bowed head — 'let go of the photographic eye, see the form' Sketchbook 48 spread: atelier maxims on block-in and contour — 'no straight lines in anything ever', 'limbs start turning before the joint' — facing a faint gesture sketch of a striding horse Sketchbook 48 spread: delicate graphite study of a downcast female nude leaning forward, ringed by spiraling notes on block-in, shadow pattern and 'draw contour last' Sketchbook 48 spread: reclining foreshortened nude in graphite, and an ink-and-wash seated woman with one green-stockinged leg — questions in red on using energy lines for invention and composition Sketchbook 48 spread: notes on Bernini and Poussin at a dinner party, Michelle's advice on chalk drawing, Subleyras and the 1740s turn to Neoclassicism — 'David, the father of us all' Sketchbook 48 spread: two graphite studies — a close-up of a hand gripping drapery at a nude's hip, and a rising écorché-like figure with arms flung upward, 'in the presence of others on the last day of class' Sketchbook 48 spread: 'The lesson of Raphael — you stand on the dragon, your sword is lighter than air', with a pencil study of a standing putto reaching upward — 'transform the hours of your life into art' Sketchbook 48 spread: pink-pencil dancer with raised arm over notes on the Musée Carnavalet — 'Paris explained by Parisians, collected by a madman' — and the Musée Cognacq-Jay's Boucher pastels Sketchbook 48 spread in pink and sanguine pencil: two soft studies of portrait busts in the Louvre's shadows, notes on Marie Antoinette-era hand fans — 'it's easier to draw what you can touch'

Louvre sketchbook study in pencil and white chalk on grey paper: two views of a headless draped Aphrodite torso, the cloth knotted at her hips Graphite study of the Borghese Gladiator's lunging leg and arm, annotated 'energy curve is inscribed on the body' Two graphite studies of the Louvre's Old Centaur teased by Cupid, seen from behind and from the front, the winged child perched on the centaur's back Chalk drawing on red-brown paper: two arms reaching upward and a tilted, smiling face — study of a straining Eros from the Louvre Three chalk studies on green-grey paper of a marble figure's crossed legs under gathered drapery, from full shading to bare outline Graphite study of a marble torso's thighs, a carved hand gathering the robe aside at the waist, with a smaller drapery sketch alongside Blue pencil sketch of a Louvre marine centaur group: a bearded triton reclining on a coiling fish tail, a slender youth seated against his back

Academic pencil life drawing on cream paper: a nude woman with pinned-up hair seated with legs crossed, gazing off to the left, highlights in white chalk

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