M. Quance DeRuntz

The Sphinx of San Michele

2011-09-29T00:44:00.001-04:00

...This Alma-Tadema painting awoke a memory of San Michele, Axel Munthe's villa atop Anacapri. It is possible Alma-Tadema visited Munthe there, that sphinx is unmistakable.

Drawings after the Skeleton

2011-09-14T09:25:00.001-04:00

In the lull between Summer Program and Fall Quarter, we set up the skeleton for study.

Florentine Frames

2011-05-14T10:09:00.007-04:00

Scenes from our May 2011 Exhibition at the Academy of Classical Design, showing student work from the course on compositional design, and some snapshots of our adventure water-gilding the Florentine frames.

Translations

2011-02-18T01:12:00.002-05:00

Compositional Design Course

This year brings a new focus on quick ink-wash copies from the masters - copies of wash drawings and ink drawings after paintings and frescos. I very much like what Boris Pasternak wrote about the work of "translations" (writing) or copies (art).

Excerpted from the introduction of "Pasternak; Selected Poems," translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France.

"Boris Pasternak's views on literary translation were based on his own immense experience as a translator. Circumstances were such that for long periods of his life translation was his only source of income. [He] compared it with the work of an artist copying classical models in an art gallery, and preferred it to all other ways of earning a living.

"The translation must be the work of an author who has felt the influence of the original long before he begins his work. It must be the fruit of the original, its historical consequence.

"More than this; we have said that translation is inconceivable because the principal charm of a work of art lies in its unrepeatability. How then can a translation repeat it? But translation is conceivable, because ideally it too will be a work of art; sharing a common text, it will stand alongside the original, unrepeatable in its own right. And translation is conceivable because for centuries before our time whole literatures have translated one another. Translation is not a method of getting to know isolated works, it is the channel whereby cultures and peoples communicate down the centuries."

2010-06-20T16:38:00.012-04:00

Sargent Hall, Boston Public Library.

Here's a wonderful book research site if you have an e-reader or don't mind reading on a computer screen. While it's great for general literature ("Varney the Vampire," E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Cremona Violin," Goethe's "Italian Journey," and numerous others that must be read before turning out the light,) the site's breadth for art research is impressive:

The Training of Memory in Art, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran

Remember to change the search criteria from "American Libraries" to "Texts."

Libro d’Arabeschi

2010-06-03T09:44:00.007-04:00

A wonderful discovery, exhibit and catalog for those interested in the history of master drawings: Libro d'Arabeschi The drawing above is a detail from the restored book, and the snapshot, taken in Rome's Palazzo Massimo last fall, offers testimony to just how heavily the invenzione of the Renaissance borrows from Antiquity.

Piazza di Spagna 26, 00187 Rome

2010-03-13T07:55:00.009-05:00

The Keats-Shelley House, Piazza di Spagna 26, Rome.

Was most interested to discover Axel Munthe's (physician, author of the wonderful "The Story of San Michele," among others) journey landed him briefly as tenant in an apartment at 26 Piazza di Spagna, the apartment where poet John Keats died of consumption in 1821.

Byron's degenerate friend John Polidori, author of "The Vampyre," also spent time here.

At the top of the steps, Chiesa Santissima Trinita dei Monti holds some lovely frescos by Michelangelo's friend and colleague, Daniela da Volterra:

Current Project

2009-06-23T22:30:00.005-04:00

Current project - drawing a friend/fellow artist up at the Weymouth studio. It began as a very informal experiment - we're sitting for each other's portraits - and has developed into a magical session. He has ethos , and his features are heroic.

"For the gods approve
the depth and not the tumult of the soul." - Wordsworth, "Laodamia"

Each session has lead to more discoveries, more ways to apply the training, to observe nature, to abbreviate, to explore the balance between the realism of what I see with the structural knowledge from intensified anatomy lessons and lectures.

Well, still much work to do.

Spring Starts

2009-04-04T20:24:00.004-04:00

Spring Starts. Two weeks into this pose - I was able to share a model with Brandon Soloff during his recent visiting-artist tour of Mims Studios. It was a remarkable session, however, just a start, and the model leaves town in a month.

L'Amour de L'Or

2009-02-10T23:56:00.002-05:00

Well, maybe I've just noticed this, but the Art Beadles (sorry, am still reading Dickens) over at ARC are now pimping, besides any atelier who pays the $400 listing fee to become "an ARC-Approved Atelier," and any photocopier willing to pay equally big bucks to become listed as a "Modern Master" - I've probably forgotten several copyright symbols in this sentence alone! - GET THIS, you can now order (along with Asian condiments) real sweatshop-painted copies of the images on the site.

How can any reputable artists associated with this circus not rise up in mutiny?

The Gilded Age; Monumental America

2009-01-28T23:40:00.003-05:00

Abbott Handerson Thayer, "The Angel"

A gem from digging through research on artists of the Gilded Age for an upcoming school trip to DC:

Thayer wrote, after working on the head in the painting above, “Yesterday I found the head so on the right track at last that I had an inspired moment partly aided by that strange summoning of clear sight, and when I looked at it I saw at a glance my best thing. I am blissful.”

And a prayer that some of the amazing electricity of growth and connection and understanding that is bouncing around the studio these past few days touches each of us with that precious and rare moment Thayer describes above.

Monumental Sculpture

2009-01-22T00:39:00.007-05:00

Augustus Saint Gaudens in his Studio

Rilke, excerpt from a letter to Benvenuta, meditation on the Great Sphinx at Giza, seen at night:

“You must have experienced this too: that a view of a landscape, of the sea, of a grand, star-studded night inspires us with the conviction of connections and agreements that we are not able to overlook; it was exactly this that I experienced in the highest degree. Here stood a creation that had taken its measure from the sky; upon which the millennia had left no greater mark than a contemptible bit of decay, and the most shocking part of it was that this thing had human feature (so profoundly recognizable to us, these features of a human face) and that they were sufficient to it in its exalted position. Ah, dear friend, I told myself, this, this face we alternately hold out to fate and cover with our hands, it must be capable of meaning something great if its form can survive in such an environment. That countenance had acquired the customs of cosmic space; parts of its gaze and smile were destroyed, but indestructible emotions had been mirrored into it by the rising and falling skies. From time to time I closed my eyes, and although my heart was beating, I reproached myself for not feeling this strongly enough; did I not have to arrive at places in my amazement where I had never been before? I told myself: Imagine you had been carried here with bandaged eyes and laid down aslant in this deep, almost impalpably wafting coolness – you wouldn’t know where you were and if you opened your eyes now… And when I actually opened them, dear God,--it took them a long while before they could withstand it, before they could take hold of this being, achieve the mouth, the cheek, the brow, on which moon light and moon shadow shifted from expression to expression. How many times my eye had already attempted the ampleness of this cheek; it rounded itself so slowly toward the top, as if in that space there were room for more places than here among us.”

2008-12-04T22:45:00.004-05:00

There isn't much to write, but I wanted to pull together some images of my current mural project - a copy of Andrea Del Sarto's Baptism of the People. After working up the ornamental candelabra and capital on the left, I'll bring the figures to a more finished rendering in charcoal and chalk.

I adore the ornament. I adore working with complex groupings.

There is big news at the studio, but we must wait for the official unveiling.

Ex Libris

2008-12-02T23:07:00.005-05:00

Had a moment to play around in Photoshop with a bookplate design, fitting snugly into a major reading jag - a thorough tour of Charles Dickens. It launched with Tale of Two Cities, then David Copperfield. Just beginning Oliver Twist. Next, The Old Curiosity Shop and then on to a pretty little copy of Great Expectations. Before Dickens, I spent time in the magical world of Susanna Clarke, "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel" and "The Ladies of Grace Adieu," a charming book of short English faerie stories. There is a common thread: I'm adoring the English novel, especially those with illustrations.

We've started on a standing pose - I've got a very specific set of goals for this project, which I cannot jinx by writing about it, other than to say I'm working 4 drafts from one pose:

charcoal and chalk on toned paper (19th c)
graphite on white paper (NY realism)
skeletal and muscular overlays
an old master copy of a similar pose

2008-11-03T09:33:00.005-05:00

Well into the yellow stage of this portrait painting grisaille, however, not really thinking about the reds yet until I pay better attention to clarity of shapes and edges. Maybe in another week, if the work flows.

Time stretches longer and longer between posts - my schedule could not have been more tightly packed this semester, adding the pressure of editing projects for S, far too many catering jobs, and all those chores of a domestique. Last week I had to sacrifice a life session in order to wrap up a grant obligation. Things at the studio were equally frantic with the maestro shipping off work to his show at Ann Long Fine Art.

So many examples of how unnatural it is to force a conclusion based on someone else's timeframe. The work is done, folks, when it's done.

2008-10-20T21:45:00.000-04:00

... The madness is illusory, and control never falters. It is, if you
like, a rich wine of fancy chilled by the intellect to just the right
temperature. There is no really close relative to it in all our prose
literature. It is uniquely brilliant, and we are right to call it a modern
classic.
-- Anthony Burgess, in his 1988 introduction to Titus Groan

Am sunk happily in the second of the Gormenghast novels, Titus Groan. PBS filmed a series, but I cannot imagine this thick, inky world on film.

It confirms my itch to slam the door on the world.

2008-10-20T21:20:00.003-04:00

Former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, from the transcript of "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, when he announced his endorsement of Barak Obama for President: (If you enjoy listening to an articulate diplomat, follow the links here to the netcast.)
"I have especially watched over the last six of seven weeks as both of them
have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are
in and coming out of the conventions. And I must say that I've gotten a
good measure of both. In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a
little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and
almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that
concerned me, sensing that he didn't have a complete grasp of the economic
problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of
Governor Palin. She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired;
but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven
weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which
is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my
mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this
seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual
curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this
and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one.
And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing
intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing
business that would serve us well. I also believe that on the Republican
side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr.
McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has
given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our
people. He's crossing lines--ethnic lines, racial lines, generational
lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have
values, not just small towns have values.

And I've also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches
that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are
not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about.
This Bill Ayers situation that's been going on for weeks became something of a
central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he's a washed-out
terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do
we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that,
because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with
Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect
him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's
inappropriate.

Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can
go after one another, and that's good. But I think this goes too
far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little
narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for. And I
look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And
the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated
a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more
conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking
at in a McCain administration. I'm also troubled by, not what Senator
McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said
such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct
answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a
Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there
something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not
America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American
kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior
members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be
associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in
America."

kidlets

2008-07-28T18:03:00.004-04:00

(L-R) Matt, Tony, Mari, Jon

Jon Paul Quance
9/30/1969 – 7/20/2008

What will you do, God, when I die?
When I, your pitcher, broken, lie?
When I, your drink, go stale or dry?
I am your garb, the trade you ply,
you lose your meaning, losing me.

Homeless without me, you will be
robbed of your welcome, warm and sweet.
I am your sandals: your tired feet
will wander bare for want of me.

Your mighty cloak will fall away.
Your glance that on my cheek was laid
and pillowed warm, will seek, dismayed,
the comfort that I offered once—
to lie, as sunset colors fade
in the cold lap of alien stones.

What will you do, God? I am afraid.

Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Hours

a 060508

2008-06-05T20:29:00.009-04:00

a 060508, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Portrait drawing of A - here's the second piece I'm working on at the Weymouth Studio. Have begun to draw this on a piece of linen, and will start to paint as soon as the focus returns.

I can't believe how blessed we've been with models these past several months. Both might have life changes that drag them away from us prematurely, but best not to dwell on that.

Today we took a group trip up to the Ackland, where they've finally rehung their Bouguereau, Venus with Doves. Nothing compares to standing in front of the real painting; a reproduction always lacks that electricity, that magical interaction. You never get that mad taste of infatuation from a book, a reproduction.

Stopped by the Soane Art Library and had my arms full of books, but abandoned them at the last minute. The waters are pooling at my feet and it's time to dip back into devoted work: nature studies, a few small color sketches to explore compositional ideas for that figure at Weymouth, the Del Sarto copy, anatomy.

"That night I was enraptured by the stars. How quiet it was! How much nature accomplishes in this majestic silence! What a racket we make, who are doomed to cease and leave no trace behind!" (from The Journal of Delacroix)

loot

2008-04-22T21:50:00.004-04:00

loot, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

If you're going to be laid up in bad health, consider yourself lucky if you can escape to Chapel Hill to reload on art books at the tremendous Sloane Art Library.

The loot:
A charmingly-bound copy of the Journal of Eugene Dealcroix, printed on Bible-like tissue paper in a just-past-pocket sized yellow board binding ornamented down the spine. It even smells of a dusty bookshop. I tracked down a copy of this edition online; a book this pretty must join my library.

"Gericault allowed me to see his "Raft of the Medusa" while he was still working on it," he said afterwards. "It made so tremendous an impression on me that when I came out of the studio I started running like a madman and did not stop till I reached my own room."

I'm a bit embarrassed to have the Maroger book, but I was drawn to some of the notes on the masters more than the chemistry of the secret mediums, etc etc.
Here he speaks of Michelangelo -

"Michelangelo not only refused to imitate nature with servility, but by the knowledge and understanding that he had acquired he was able actually to create the figures in his compositions. They came out of his brain and were at the same time true to nature. But he adapted nature to the requirements of his art. To take an example, in his reclining figures, often, instead of showing the flesh with the depressions that would have been caused by contact with the ground on which the figure rested, he gave the same fullness to both sides of hte body, and, in so doing, preserved a better equilibrium in the figure. Here we touch upon the supreme aim of art. It is not the aim of an artist to be content with portraying exactly what he sees, but rather to create harmonious forms as they are seen in their different movements."

Renaissance into Baroque, Italian Master Drawings by the Zuccari, is stuffed with drawings by the Zuccari brothers, lively ink lines tamed by ink-washed massed shadows.

Poussin, Works on Paper. Pure theater. When possible, the drawings are paired with the final painting.

Corot, Catalog from an Exhibition at the Met

The Language of the Body, Drawings by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, a Catalog that shows numerous studies, drawings and oil sketches, grouped with the final mural.

ornamental study

2008-04-13T13:40:00.005-04:00

ornamental study, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

By no means are all compositional movements studied here, but it's a glimpse of the first mapping, with an overlay of the original capital from the next project I keep alluding to, the Del Sarto copy.

The ground is interesting, inspired by the maestro's recent landscape studies, where the toned ground of the panel does so much of the work. This study of ornament is on a linen primed with a clear ground, so it will allow the natural color of the linen to do most of the work.

Well, I'm just happy to have started, after stomping my feet again on Saturday, when it rained, ruining another attempt to transport an oversized stretched linen to the cast studio.

rosemary

2008-04-08T23:15:00.002-04:00

rosemary, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Not a nature study, but a snapshot of one of the wonders happening now after a few weeks worth of cloudy skies and rain, after nine months of dought and misery.

I've been bulldozed by pollen, every spring brings a new spin, and this time, my voice is gone. I sort of don't mind; what a blessed excuse to keep my mouth shut and only have to have dialog in my own head. So, with the second week of school break lost to bad health, I read compulsively, and discovered enough paths to keep me happy under a stack of a couple of dozen more to follow, from new favorites. One very unexpected charmer: Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Very imaginative storytelling, and now I'm completely smitten by "Once Upon a Time"s.

Tomorrow, new semester, back to Weymouth for continued big projects with models. And if it ever stops raining, I have a large stretched linen ready for the Del Sarto copy.

hans von aachen - mercury and ceres

2008-03-23T14:06:00.001-04:00

hans von aachen - mercury and ceres, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Ficus ad Mercurium.

The first fig of the season goes to mercury, so it's no surprise that the new figure study at Weymouth has always looked to me like Mercury. It will be my first figure study in grisaille from the model.

However, while realism without invention, without lyricism or play, realism that does not know anything outside itself is, well, dead to me, I need to reset my compass to it and allow it to capture my focus more directly. The poet must command realism, not muddle apart from it.

corot - fontainebleau

2008-02-13T23:56:00.003-05:00

corot - fontainebleau, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

It’s been a semester of unexpected eddys of focus and calm in a river that is always churning along too fast, too unpredictable, and all of my missteps guessing which rocks will hold, which will shift underneath, which will spit you off.

When I’m under, I do the simple tasks. Draw every evening. Ink and nib to explore a line. Tonal compositions after the masters. Still lifes. Tree studies. Landscape copies. Heaps of books, classics and pictures. The balance is even: practice and study.

From “Corot in Italy,” another guise for an old lesson:

(Quoting Bidauld) “The landscapist must put great order and care into his
studies, and not accustom himself, from the outset of his pictorial career, to
make nothing but slight sketches or simple outlines of the objects of which he
ought to conserve the most faithful memory…

If such studies made in haste and on the run, so to speak, soon fill up an artist’s portfolio, they will later cause extreme inconvenience, leaving the artist only feeble
recollections.”

Contrary to what history writes, Corot was not an untutored naturalist. Here’s a list from one of his studio books:

Draw every evening
Little modern figures
Tracings of animals after Berghem and Paul Potter
Old Italian buildings
Trees of different kinds
A few compositions after my studies
Subjects with historical figures
Make tracings in the annales
Have a set of costumes of different centuries
Draw horses and dogs after Van der Meulen
Copy well-drawn etchings of oaks, plants
Get figures of Le Prince to copy

Our list reads with different names, but the spirit is the same.

paulus potter

2008-02-13T23:55:00.003-05:00

paulus potter, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

paulus potter - wolfhound

2008-02-13T23:55:00.001-05:00

paulus potter - wolfhound, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

carracci - tete de vieillard

2008-02-13T23:54:00.002-05:00

carracci - tete de vieillard, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Tried something new with A up at Weymouth, a portrait that reminds me of a Carracci head.

carracci - tete de jeune homme

2008-02-13T23:53:00.001-05:00

carracci - tete de jeune homme, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

STUDIO INTERIOR 011608

2008-01-18T21:44:00.001-05:00

STUDIO INTERIOR 011608, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

A Room With A View.

Well, here's a peek at my studio, and what's on the easel, a one-session start on a hand study from a day where it was too cold at the Weymouth Studio to work from the full figure. A brioche, which I made to paint, not to eat, sits on a wood box behind the easel. The start of the figure drawing is hidden by the hand sketch. This is the room that keeps me from loading my coatpockets with rocks and wading into my own River Ouse. And yet, if I get an hour of natural light in this room it is stolen from the real work at the Weymouth Studio and the Cast Studio. Primarily it is stolen because of the hours I have to spend at the day job.

I'm always a bit befuddled when I am given a moment to sit quietly on the oriental rug that sits on the floor of the maestro's studio. For truly prized moments, I've been left alone with his current work. Even then, the distractions are mighty: besides the collection of art books, there are wonderous works-in-progress: figures, landscapes, a color-study for the current figurative work; there are relics from his past: a drawing he did of a beautiful Italian girl, a Kamille Corry drawing after an antique sculpture at the British Museum, a couple of museum copies after Correggio and Chaperon, and many other works by his contemporarys; and a good start to a museum collection: a framed anon. 19th c French Academie, an Edwin Blashfield color sketch of a girl, and a Pietro Annigoni portrait painting in tempera grassa, in a beautiful but severely-distressed period frame.

And at one end, the wall is covered by built-in grey bookshelves, and a cabinet, under the skylight, where his model works. It is theater.

There's a very alluring spirit kept in an artists studio. If you're lucky enough for an invitation, you should understand that each time you open that door, you might let that precious spirit (who is, you know, wild) out.

Portrait of A

2008-01-18T21:25:00.001-05:00

Portrait of A, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Well, this will quickly be replaced by an image where I've resolved things like that hard shadow line at the jaw and bottom of the chin, and where the background has been darkened and evened-out and the top of that ear has been swallowed up a bit by the shadow of the hair.

This year I was happy to receive some grant money, so this will be turned into a painting in grisaille, and I've got two weeks into a figure drawing which I hope also to follow up in grisaille.

The intensified life sessions have restructured my life, literally. At least for the moment, my day job is flexible enough, but it means that I have to accept that I can't get down to Charleston next Friday to meet Kamille Corry at her Figure Show, opening at Ann Long Fine Art. I'd miss two life sessions, a teaching day, and work, (this is what is usually crammed into 48 hours), but what makes it impossible is that I can't drive to Charleston and back on Friday on eyes that are completely and utterly saggy little squinty slits by the end of the week.

I am really, really sorry about this.

copy after Jacques Louis David

2008-01-18T21:17:00.001-05:00

copy after Jacques Louis David, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Very nearly ready for the maestro to lead this one into those impressionistic colors found in the flesh.

Andrea del Sarto

2008-01-18T21:15:00.001-05:00

Andrea del Sarto, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Have decided on this as an Old Master copy project to complete this year at the cast studio. There are technical holdups now with printing reference materials, but I'm inspired to work with this sort of tonal delicacy in grisaille.

First, will work up a fairly finished drawing in charcoal and chalk on the toned linen ground. Besides the grand Del Sarto figures, each of which could hold his own composition, it will be a fine introduction to composing with multiple figures, a thought constantly reinforced by Jeffrey Mims, and one so foreign to most contemporary realists who work from life, where the dominant idea in paint rarely transcends the most adolescent artistic thought: naked girl spread on the white altar of a bed.

pontormo - reclining nude

2008-01-07T22:06:00.001-05:00

pontormo - reclining nude, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Here's a charming letter, where Pontormo replies to a query of which art reigns supreme, sculpture or painting.

Pontormo’s Letter to Varchi

To the Very Distinguished and Honored Gentleman Benedetto Varchi, from his Most Humble Servant.

The delight which I know you, Sir Benedetto, take in any fine painting or sculpture and, in addition, the love which I know you bear for the men of these professions, leads me to believe that your very keen intellect is moved to inquire into the noble aspects and governing principles of each of these two arts, certainly a splendid and most difficult dispute, and an embellishment to your very unique genius. Now that I have been invited so warmly, by your letter of a few days ago, to consider the principles mentioned above, perhaps I will not know how or will not be able to express thoroughly in words or ink the efforts of someone who works in these arts. However, by reasoning and providing some examples, I will tell you simply (but inconclusively) what occurs to me.

This subject in itself is so difficult that it is impossible to discuss it fully, and even less possible to resolve it, because there is only one aspect which is noble, which is the basis of painting and sculpture: and that element is disegno. All other principles are unimportant in comparison. (Note that anyone with a command of disegno works well in both of the arts.) And, if all other arguments are unimportant and shallow in comparison, how is it possible to argue further—since nothing is comparable—except by leaving this aside and endlessly or inconclusively raising other arguments which are weaker. What can be said about a sculpted figure made in the round and curved on all sides, its entire surface finished with small precision chisels and the other physically demanding tools, whose traces can be rediscovered in such places that it is impossible to imagine how the tools reached and finished them, since the material is stone or some other hard substance? This work would be difficult in soft earth. And in addition there are the problems of a raised arm holding something in the air, a difficult and subtle thing to accomplish without breaking it. Furthermore, it cannot be changed if it is raised a little too much; this is very true. Then it is also possible to resolve one of the sides very harmoniously and be unable to resolve the others for lack of stone on some side, because it is very difficult to proportion all the parts harmoniously in the round since it is impossible to ever visualize how the sculpture will be until it is finished and, unless the mistakes are very small ones, there is no remedy.

But no one who has a grounding in disegno can make mistakes or be prey to very obvious mishaps, while very small mistakes can hardly be avoided in either of the arts.

In addition, there are many ways to work, in marble, in bronze, so many different kinds of stone, stucco, wood, clay, and many others, and for all of them a great deal of experience is necessary in addition to the physical demands placed upon the artist, which are not inconsequential. But this keeps a man healthier and stronger, while for the painter, it is the opposite; the demands of his art do not suit the body, they disturb his mind rather than enrich his life. The painter is too daring and too eager to imitate all things nature has made, with such colors that they will appear to be of nature herself (and even more perfect) to make his work something rich and full of varied things, making where they may belong for example splendors, nights with fires and other such lights, air, clouds, distant and nearby landscapes, buildings offering different perspectives, all kinds of animals; and all with many varied colors, and many other things, to the extent that it is possible for the artist to introduce into a scene something nature never made. Besides enhancing them in the way I have described and, by means of art, giving them an elegance, arranging and placing them where they seem best, there are also various ways of working, in fresco, in oil, in tempera, in different colors so as to recognize their effects when mixed in many different ways, in chiaroscuro, shadows and lights, reflections, and many other infinite qualities. But what I called too daring is that importance placed on outdoing nature in wanting to give life to a figure, to make it seem alive and yet to place it on a flat surface, because if the painter had considered at all that when God created man he sculpted him in the round, which makes it easier to give life to a figure, then he would not have taken up a discipline so full of artifice, so miraculous and divine.

Let me add, from possible examples, that Michelangelo was not able to render perspective and show the magnitude of his immortal genius in the splendid figures he sculpted, but in the miraculous works of many different figures, beautiful gestures, and in the foreshortenings of his painting, yes; he always loved this art more because it was more difficult and better suited to his supernatural genius. In spite of this he is aware that his present and eternal greatness depends on sculpture, that worthy and everlasting art. But the caves of Carrara marble have a greater part in this eternity than the genius of the artist because he is working in the better mode, and this mode is sculpture which, among great masters, wins the very high prizes and great fame and other honors as reward for such excellence. I think thus that, similar to clothing, sculpture is a fine material because it lasts longer and is more expensive, while painting is an ordinary cloth because it lasts only a short time and is less expensive; once it has lost its first freshness no one values it. But everything must end, nothing is eternal in the same way, and there would be a great deal to say about this. But forgive me for I do not have the heart to make my pen write on anything other than the important points of this letter, which are to let you know that I am your most humble servant and most desirous of pleasing you. I see that my pen has regained strength and thus the pages of this whole notebook would not suffice, let alone this one sheet, because my pen is now in its own element. But so that this letter will not seem tedious and overly ceremonious to you, and in order not to bore you further, I will not dip my pen into the ink again, as long as there is enough to note the day of the month which is the eighteenth of February [1548].

Your Jacopo at home.

Evite: The Nude, Ann Long Fine Art

2008-01-03T11:52:00.001-05:00

evite_nude, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

None of these new works are up yet on the website (www.annlongfineart.com) but if you're lucky enough to pass through Charleston between Jan 26 and Feb 16, you must visit this exhibit.

Ingres portrait drawing of Liszt

2008-01-02T20:32:00.001-05:00

Ingres portrait drawing of Liszt, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

(text from www.metmuseum.org) "Liszt was only twenty-seven, half the age of Ingres, when this portrait was drawn. The pianist wrote a friend, "I see a good deal of M. Ingres, who is very friendly to me. We naturally play music together. Did you know he is quite good on the violin? We are planning to review all of Mozart and all of Beethoven."

The post today brought a few bundles of books:

The Half-Finished Heaven, a collection of poems by Tomas Transtromer, translated by Robert Bly

Lyra's Oxford, by Philip Pullman (Author of the truly
magical world of His Dark Materials)

Homer's Odyssey, translated by
Robert Fagles, because the lousy edition I last read was a prose
edition

Two reference books, one on Old Testament figures in art, the
other a compliation of Gods and Heroes in art

Vasari's Lives of the Artists vol. ii (although this sort of art gossip is only digestible one chapter at a time)

The hope always arrives: an Ingres, a Homer, a philosopher, a poet, a theologian, a physicist, a student of nature who is more intrigued by her puzzles than his own pathos - any one of these souls will arrive and thrive, and love the work and the world will change.

So, do you give or do you take?

When Liszt plays tonight he holds down the sea-pedal so that the ocean's green force
rises through the floor and penetrates every stone of the building Good evening to you, beautiful deep!
-Tomas Transtromer

Colori cangianti

2007-12-20T20:21:00.001-05:00

Colori cangianti, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

My two lire:

Colori Cangianti allows for a more intuitive and symbol-based understanding than Cangiantismo, which seems to my ear a very Anglican and academic codification of a phrase very resistant to translation.

Cangianti is borrowed from Italian music. Colori cangianti shakes off the “ismo,” and means as much of iridescence as it does of change. My own understanding is this: as chiaroscuro describes exaggerated modeling of form via light and shadow, colori cangianti seems to allude to modeling form through color contrasts. I’d like to know more about how it seems to be borrowed from music.

So, while dismissing the research as it unfolded, thinking this was a deliberate goose-chase originating with The Prankster … I fell on a phrase that deserves to be housed in the architecture of a book: Colori Cangianti.

All words aside, look at the iridesence of that serpent.

puvis de chavannes

2007-10-21T10:06:00.001-04:00

puvis de chavannes, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

(A letter worthy of being carried by an owl.)

The Poverty of P. Puvis de Chavannes

Comments of an Artist on the Advantage to be Derived from Being Poor.

To the Editor of the New-York Times:

When I read the paragraph, in your London cable letter, about the poverty of Puvis de Chavannes, the thought came to me, “For artists, is wealth more advantageous than poverty, or poverty better than wealth>?” I think, dear Mr. Editor, that the question is easily solved. We had to be poor when I was a young man. In that abolished epoch, to have genius and no money constituted a manner of being and a social standing. We must be rich today, since custom ordains it. We must be in the fashion. Nobody is really beautiful if not beautiful in the manner of one’s time and country.

Let us be rich, since we have not the right to choose. Let us be resigned, and possess, like dry-goods men, grocers, bankers, and princes, titles, bonds, gold coins, and fields of wheat undulating under the wind, and prairies striated by clear brooks, wherein are cows, white, or brown spotted with white.

Nevertheless, if you expect from me a virtual and absolute opinion, outside of all acceptation of epoch or usage, I will say that, decidedly, I prefer poverty. My dear Mr. Editor, I will open my heart to you. In the poet, in the artist that this good goddess Poverty has not rocked at least for a day in her thin arms and kissed with her livid cold lips, there shall be always something amateurish. Whatever talent he may have acquired at his leisure, whatever learning he may possess, he shall never be a perfect workman, for necessity alone teaches us how to do impossible things.

To be hungry and certain that there shall be nothing to eat until the problem is solved is a fine invitation to solve the problem. A poet worthy of the name is something infinitely complicated—I mean an Aristophanes or a Heine. He must be a seer whose thoughts soar like eagles in the sky, an archer whose arrow never misses its goal, and he must have the agility and subtleness of a clown. These qualities are not easily united in an artist not condemned to accomplish miracles. If you ask a rich man to make a crystal ball stand on the point of a needle, he will refuse to do it, because it’s absurd; but the poor man will realize this miracle because he mu8st.

You have not lived, dear Mr. Editor, in the time when poets had the right to be poor; but you have lived among men who have known that epoch. You have perhaps caught a sign of the trail of the gown of the goddess Poverty. Perhaps you have personally known her for five minutes, at least. This is long enough to become the faultless workman that you are. With me it is different. For many years she was my only refuge, my patient inspirer, my only hostess. It is to her that I owe the fact that I never could say, “I cannot.” So, I have retained for her a profound and tender adoration. To write a drinking song which will be well written one has to write one by the bedside of one’s dying friend. And, since I am reverting to thoughts of love, who can flatter himself that he was ever loved if not the one who was loved when he had not a penny?

I admit that the adorable poem of love and poverty has been spoiled by sentimentalists. Lisette dressed too well. Beranger says in his song that he learned later who paid for her gowns. Don’t you think that he might have known at once that somebody paid for them? The poverty of my youth was pure, worthy, quite unlike the pretentious Bohemians which have since come to light. It concealed sufferings nobly borne, but what infinite and profound pleasures it knew!

Who was poorer ever, who was more obstinately poor, than Balzac? He was constantly besieged by Sherriffs, he had an infinity of debts which fell on him like drops of water and finally submerged him. Could he be otherwise than poor? Did he not have to be poor in order to interview a grand, purely ideal world which later because the true world, for reality is a slave which must obey, and it is its duty to mold itself on the conception of a man of genius. To see millions, he had to be out of them. If he had been in them he would not have seen them at all. And the quantity of women whom he created—what other muse than poverty could have been capable of inspiring them? To see so many women adorable and various, so many candles at noon—should not one be too poor to have ever seen any?

Puvis de Chavannes is poor, but who was ever poorer than Eugene Delacroix? He was often very glad to give for $8 to a model a great lot of panels and canvases. Once Dumas the younger admired a Pieta which the painter had just finished and for which the dramatist at present regularly refuses every day $8,000.
“Is this canvas for sale?” asked Dumas.
“Oh!” said Delacroix, “you might say it is to be not sold, since nobody will buy it.”
“But what is the price?” asked Dumas.
“One hundred dollars,” replied Delacroix.
Dumas put the money on the table, and Delacroix exclaimed: “Sacrebleu! You are brave.” Certainly Dumas was brave. You have to be brave always not to be a fool.

Rachel, whose life was complete, was poor before she was wealthy. She walked on velvet carpets and wore jewels of a Queen. But it was a good thing for her that she had played the guitar at the doors of winerooms and that she had walked in mud, for she could reign without the conventional ideas of Princedom and be like a Princess made on purpose.

Yet there are epochs when one must choose. Do you imagine Sarah Bernhardt not rich, not wearing gold and diamonds, not traveling in special cars, not living in a fairy palace where there are tall, rare plants in golden vases?

In my youth how becoming where modelty and poverty to Marie Dorval! One night as she was coming out of the playhouse she saw a long line of men on the sidewalk and asked why it was there and what the people were waiting for. “They are waiting to see you pass,” said Frederick Lemaitre. “You are the public’s idol. You are celebrated.” She was celebrated, but she did not know that she was celebrated, and her managers paid her as if they did not know either. When she died there were four copper cents on her mantelpiece, and no more. Dumas pawned his cross of the Legion of Honor and all his other decorations to pay for her funeral.

But who is better, Meissonier or Delacroix, Detaille or Puvis de Chavannes? Of course, you know that Meissonier and detaille are calligraphers, not artists.

Lucas Van Uden,
New York, Jan. 30, 1895.
Published in the NYT February 13, 1895.

Blashfield Mural, Walker Memorial, MIT

2007-10-20T09:39:00.001-04:00

BLASHFIELD TRIO - DETAIL, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

We've been back from Boston for a week, and it's a bit of the same scramble to grab extra hours at work to fund these art trips, so there have been too many fragmented commitments to really sink into my brain to explore all of the discoveries.

The Blashfield Murals were not on the itenerary, I lucked on them online doing research prior to the trip, and it was a prize detour coming back from Harvard's Fogg Art Museum one morning.

In other news, a new semester has begun, I'm nearly ready for the final lessons on the David copy, and will be thinking about a new big project, as soon as I'm able to quiet my brain long enough to hear what it's saying to me.

Detail from central mural on North wall.

A fragment of research on the murals:

MIT Student Paper, The Tech
Friday, April 18, 1952

Walker Memorial will soon be able to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the painting of its famous murals by Edwin Howland Blashfield, '69. The story connected with the painting had been kept secret for some eleven years after the beginning of the project in 1923 at the request of Everett Morss, '85, late Treasurer of the Institute, who financed it. Everett Morss, '85, a lover of beauty, often expressed his belief that: Books and laboratory and the job are not all. Beyond that is the hope of achievement, the giving of self for others, and faith in things unseen." This devotion to art led him to commission Edwin Howland Blashfield,
'69, to paint a mural decoration for his home. So much pleasure did he and Mrs. Morss derive from Mr. Blashfield's work that they conceived the idea of bringing similar pleasure to thousands of Technology students. Accordingly he wrote to Mr. Blashfield to find out under what terms he would design and paint a mrural for the north wall of the Main Hall of
Walker. Mr. Blashfield replied that he always wanted to do something for the Institute and that he would, therefore, gladly comply. Mr. Morss immediately agreed to assume the
cost which ultimately totaled thousands of dollars. The one provision that he made was that his participationbe kept secret. (It was not disclosed until after his death in 1933.)

Mural Entitled "Alma Mater"
The title of the mural on the north wall is "Alma Mater." The central seated figure is Alma Mater holding Victory in her right hand, while her left hand rests on the Seal of the Institute. On her lap lies a great seal of the State of Massachusetts. The world at her
feet is shown by a terrestrial globe supported by a cherub. On her right is a personified representation of learning through the printed page, and on her left a similar figure
representing knowledge through experiment. The figures turned towards Alma Mater on either side of the center represent the various branches of knowledge, such as chemistry, history, metallurgy, electricity, physics, geology, mathematics, agriculture, biology and design. The lower part of the picture represents the Charles River Basin with a misty
suggestion of the Technology Buildings in the distance, while at the right and left, .the sacred fires burn eternally. The panels flanking this central mural show trees growing
straight from the floor and breaking well into the central panel.

South Wall Panels Added
As Mr. Blashfield proceeded on the first mural his enthusiasm for the possibilities of the hall increased, and so, in 1930, again with the help of Mr. Morss, he and Mr. Aderente painted two additional panels for the south wall and redecorated the entire wall. The left south-wall panel conveys the thought that chemistry has given Mankind almost unlimited power and raised the question: "Shall that power be used to ,build up or demolish Civilization?" The symbolic figure of the Scientist stands between two great jars containing beneficient and malevolent gases or constructive and destructive possibilities.
The group below represents diplomals and officers at the Council Table of the world. In the upper section a figure of 1Hygeia is depicted placing a crown on the head of the scientist. Animal figures symbolic of the Dogs of War lurk beside the jar of Evil Gases, while in the background maybe seen the figure of Famine. At the foot of the panel two children support an inscription from Genesis: "Ye Shall Be as Gods Knowing Good and Evil."

In the right panel of the south wall, Humanity, represented by mother and her children, is being led forward, by Knowledge and Imagination from Chaos to Light. In the foreground children are shown carrying the Scales of Justice, without which no real progress is possible. Above, the Dove of Peace hovers and in the background the stars and planets whirl in celestial space.

Blashfield Mural, Walker Memorial, MIT

2007-10-20T09:38:00.001-04:00

BLASHFIELD R DETAIL, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Detail.

Blashfield Mural, Walker Memorial, MIT

2007-10-20T09:37:00.001-04:00

BLASHFIELD L DETAIL, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Detail.

Blashfield Mural, Walker Memorial, MIT

2007-10-20T09:36:00.003-04:00

BLASHFIELD R SMALL, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

South Wall, right mural.

Blashfield Mural, Walker Memorial, MIT

2007-10-20T09:36:00.001-04:00

BLASHFIELD L SMALL, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

South Wall, left mural.

PRUDHON - UNFINISHED

2007-10-20T09:17:00.001-04:00

PRUDHON - UNFINISHED, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

An unfinished Prud'hon from Boston's Museum of Fine Art.

2007-08-15T21:34:00.000-04:00

Straddling each a dolphin's back
And steadied by a fin
Those Innocents re-live their death,
Their wounds open again.
The ecstatic waters laugh because
Their cries are sweet adn strange,
Through their ancestral patterns dance,
And the brute dolphins plunge
Until in some cliff-sheltered bay
Where wades the choir of love
Proffering its sacred laurel crowns,
They pitch their burdens off.

- W.B. Yeats, from News for the Delphic Oracle

Schedules are shifting, semesters starting, and I find the thought of Wednesdays, with a portrait model session at Weymouth followed by a life session at the cast studio exhausting, a huge block of time demanding focus mid-way through a week where everything I have to do to survive has already completely eroded my week’s store of energies and abilities to connect.

Well, its 9:30 Wednesday, and I haven’t eaten since noon, but I'm thrilled. The models were wondrous and I slipped away to Neverland and worked.

So while I’m always disgusted and want to throw myself into oncoming traffic, sometimes I'm allowed a moment of the work, and just enough a peek at the hope.

Anatomy Studies Intensify

2007-08-06T22:07:00.001-04:00

Not done - will work up the deltoid tomorrow and then spend a few sessions with S doing comparisons to a real arm posed like this.

This process of working out the arm makes me love every human who has ever been so unknowingly cast into such a miraculous sculpture of bone and muscle and blood and accident and perpetual state of decay.

Click here for completely inspiring study: Bravo, Chris!

The details, friends, are boring.

The idealism is what we've lost.

Well, off to plan the fall: Boston, Charleston, Oklahoma?

2007-08-02T21:29:00.000-04:00

I'm tremendously irritated with Blogger and its limits. One day, this blog will die an ugly death. The code simply does not do what it is supposed to do.

There's enough information down now so I can begin to see and revise proportional issues as I form and apply each sausage. The teres major could use some attention to proportion.

Some lessons:

Copper piping was a bad selection for the armature: the oil or the sulphur in the plastalina is corroding it, and it's too soft to be ideal.
Next time I'll take more care placing the large bones in proper proportion to each other - too much space in some of the joints, which makes the strappy ligaments have to travel over unnatural distances.
I was concerned on day one of applying the deepest muscles that I sculpted a left arm and all 5 of my anatomy books give diagrams of the right arm - major initial headache but today it was not an issue at all, so it seems to be a fairly quick adaptation to mirror an angle, an insertion. To get my bearing I first hold the muscle up on the skeleton and study what the bones reveal about the insertion, and seeing each muscle on the bare skeleton is a good way to burn it into your mind.

Health and the Arts Murals - Stanford University

2007-08-01T22:03:00.001-04:00

So many greats we've never seen.... This is part of a mural series by Arthur Mathews, discovered in a book that was given to the school by Kamille Corry. The works were an incredible balance of the craftsmanship of color and the craftsmanship of the frame, connecting works from the studio of Arthur and his wife, Lucia, with the frame-making and furniture-design of "The Furniture Shop" of San Francisco and even a small press, Philopolis. Many, many ideas for incorporating naturalism in ornament, and insightful possibilities of carved, gilded, or colored frames complementing the paintings they surround.

Well, it was especially heartening after a stupifying week of failed potential and far too much time spent in meetings.

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with
ourselves, poetry.
--W. B. Yeats

The best brain-cleanser: Beethoven's Piano Sonata 23 in F Minor, Op. 57, "Apassionata," played by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

2007-07-30T22:33:00.001-04:00

Beginning the deep muscle work - have decided to work everything out in grey plastilina instead of switching to red for the muscles. Today brought much slower, deliberate study of each sausage of muscle, after a reminder to focus on the large simple plane changes. The temptation is to chase the ropey quality of the musle tissue. Our structure is amazing: each muscle insertion has a corresponding "landmark" on the skeleton, whether it's a ridge, a dimple, a roughed-up area. Will also develop drawings to supplement the study - flat schematic drawings and drawings from the life model.

The best part: this is a totally secluded room, and time here transforms to work, effortlessly.

On other fronts - have two projects started that are worth extending, a still life in my studio and a landscape study at Weymouth. And my portrait model returns this week after his summer vacation.

I could mention Boston in October, hosted by Frank Strazzulla, but I'm exhausted and just want to go sit quietly in my room and read for a bit before the next cyclone drops from the sky

Pilgrimage

2007-07-24T00:35:00.000-04:00

Churches of the Frescoes. No there will be no closeups posted here, I've violated boundaries by posting these. Oh, and Jeffrey was 29 when he painted "The Departure of Christ."

2007-07-24T00:20:00.000-04:00

Have been flying about like a worried hummingbird these past few days tending to work and obligations, not landing on any one task, but I am calm under the surface electricities, possibly from the trip to the mountains, possibily from the Tour de France, now 15 stages old and into the Pyranees. Such an odd sport, this race in particular with its unlikely blend of suffering heroic independence and wholly sacrificial and submissive teamwork - a stage for all the Homeric graces and failures.

And at altitude! How I suffered climbing around Grandfather Mountain to get to this perch for sketching...

2007-07-23T23:56:00.000-04:00

Yeats was, after all, the lyrical sense that I had going into this trip to the mountains. This is the meadow in front of the cabin we stayed at - a fine and magical place to sit and color sketch panoramic vistas of the mountains surrounding Banner Elk and Valle Crucis.

Road Trip - two weeks out

2007-07-06T22:16:00.000-04:00

After a dry spell of four years of working all the time and travelling none of the time, this summer is full of core art travel: Paris in April, Charleston a few weeks ago to deliver a few of the maestro's pieces to Ann Long Fine Art, and coming up, S booked a birthday cabin in the mountains of NC, close enough to visit Jeffrey's frescos in Glendale and West Jefferson, NC.

William Butler Yeats
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

I'll have company (S and the dog), paints for landscape color sketching, charcoal and paper, and books. Lots of books.

Life Drawing In Progress - July

2007-07-06T21:39:00.000-04:00

Life drawing, in progress, July 2007. Will follow with a detailed skeleton study (time permitting), and muscle studies.

Portrait Drawing at Weymouth

2007-07-06T21:38:00.000-04:00

I'd prefer if this didn't go so tonal, but it's a study for a grisaille that I'm just now moving onto, so it made sense to treat it this way. My intention is to rework it on another sheet as a more lyrical piece, now that the pieces are beginning to work.

Patroclus Copy Update

2007-07-06T21:36:00.000-04:00

Volterra Copy

2007-07-06T21:35:00.000-04:00

Ecorche Start

2007-07-06T21:33:00.000-04:00

Start of an ecorche study of an arm. With the ecorche studies, I am always up against the fact that I'd rather look at the skeleton forever: the symmetries, the one idea repeated, one functioning arc connecting into another.

2007-06-08T20:31:00.001-04:00

From the Tate:
"Unusually for Holbein, its outlines are pricked for transfer, following closely details such as the iris and tear ducts, but these outlines appear to have been adjusted slightly in the creation of the portrait. It is not clear if Holbein also used this drawing in creating the group portrait. "

If you show up and can quiet the neurotic who lives inside, amazing things continue to grow in the studio, and it has been a week of multiple amazements.

Most recently: the maestro demoed a method used in fresco painting to transfer a drawing to the panel. You see the ghost trail of pricked holes on master drawings and it reminds you that these works, which we still miraculously value in our throw-away modern minds, were studies produced for large, often public, often monumental, designs.

The master drawings are relics in the fullest sense of the word, and I've renewed my efforts to continue master copies as part of my weekly training. Too often we see the exercises as hurdles to conqueur and we discard them as quickly as we can call them finished. But they are the tools that will instruct us continuously through our epic and doomed journeys to conceive something worthy, beautiful.

Instead, we're like noisy, demanding, infant birds: we crave the mortal words of the maestro as if they contain the rewards of Paradise. I have one mantra that usually strings its way through my brain when I'm lucky enough to be standing in his studio: stop talking stop talking stop talking - the language I want to swim through is the work on the easel. Instead, I usually end up babbling and chattering and contributing to the noise....

Two new students are well into their first cast drawing - amazing and inspiring work. They have no clue how inspiring they are, how they feed the energy of what everyone is striving for. They both have a clear profound love for the work. Somehow this lead to happy research on a Sufi Mystic:

The Tale of Torch and Water

One day, she was seen running through the streets of Basra carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When asked what she was doing, she said:
I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God.

Much of the poetry that is attributed to her is of unknown origin. After a life of hardship she became spontaneously realized. When asked by Sheikh Hasan al-Basri how she discovered the secret, she responded by stating:
You know of the how, but I know of the how-less.

2007-06-07T00:12:00.000-04:00

The skeleton takes the same pose as the life model for extended and independent study. As a bonus, we'll never again fret over the odd day where a model can't make it. Have started an ecorche arm/scapula study from another skeleton in the anatomy room. Combined with the anatomy lectures, I am right where I ought to be: speechless, enraptured, and very connected to the study.

I think I stubled on a plan for the upper torso of Patroclus tonight, thinking long and hard after a flubbed pass at it today. In the lights, I need to move the pinks and greens much closer together. And there are still places where the reds are too intense as they roll toward form shadows, where they should be desaturating into cooler greens and blues. He's too ugly to photograph right now; I've been spending most painting time lately fussing with drawing issues.

Anatomy Studies

2007-05-29T20:06:00.001-04:00

Life, like flesh, complicates the divine perfection of the skeleton. Anatomy lectures started again, and the words inspire individual reflection and study utilizing both "what you see" (naturalism) and "what you know" (intellectual study, founded in large part on the profound vision of the Greeks.) The largest struggle will always be to abbreviate the accident of what we see to the larger truth of our most perfect ideal.

The wildest card remains: the stamina or soul of the art student. Not only do they have to want this with all their heart and mind, they have to have that odd Quaker work ethic to be willing to put in the independent study and that strength of personality to take full responsibility for their quest. You have to show up. You have to put the pencil to the paper without mind to the immediate results. You have to see that your results, as they should, fall miserably short of what is truly relevant in the world of art.

Lose the ego. In the end, you must believe that your skeleton, if you have been noble enough, will be able to stand up in its own perfect design in an invented landscape and be wrapped in a shroud by putti, readied for the next journey.

2007-05-18T22:07:00.001-04:00

Details of the Corinthian columns decorating the exterior of the Louvre: acanthus leaf visible on the closeup of the ornament on the second image.

2007-05-18T21:55:00.002-04:00

Acanthus growing on the Paletine Hill, which is where the she-wolf found and nurtured twins Romulus and Remus, and Rome was born.

Very surprised to see these at the local outdoor garden shop: acanthus plants in 3-gallon pots with flowering spires.

anatomy lesson

2007-04-26T20:20:00.001-04:00

anatomy lesson, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

Hmm... seems like the place to start - anatomy - the perfect, functional design, the architecture housing the miracle of the tragically flawed human.

I cannot begin to think of where to start a blog entry after Paris. Well, the discoveries are still internal, held close, and all of my focus is on the work, the drawings, the studies, the learning to study the schemas for flesh...

After exhaustive lessons in the grand gallery of the Louvre, the bright Apollonic intellect of the French Academicians, Titian, like Zeus, showered my soul.

double guilloche

2007-04-26T20:19:00.005-04:00

double guilloche, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

pantheon mural detail

2007-04-26T20:19:00.003-04:00

pantheon mural detail, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

hand studies - decorative arts dept of the Louvre

2007-04-26T20:19:00.001-04:00

hand studies - decorative arts dept of the Louvre, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

pantheon

2007-04-26T20:18:00.003-04:00

pantheon, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

DSC02103

2007-04-26T20:18:00.001-04:00

DSC02103, originally uploaded by quanceblog2.

A 032207

2007-03-24T08:42:00.001-04:00

A 032207, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

No time for a post - Paris tomorrow!

A 031607

2007-03-16T17:04:00.001-04:00

A 031607, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

A start, second session in paint, portrait from life in grisaille, so everything will, mercifully, shift.

Constant rain up at the Weymouth Studio for today's session.

No words, my clock has been hopelessly misaligned since the time change, and I have to run off to work, eternally late and frantic.

Paris in nine days.....

patroclus 012407

2007-01-24T23:07:00.001-05:00

patroclus 012407, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Must learn more about photographing/Photoshopping images of paintings. The shadows are not as inky black. The color is not true. The painting is nowhere finished. You can see clearly how I move from right to left - at 48" x 78", it's a life-size figure.

The legs show the grisaille underpainting, which I preserve in hopes of actually being better able to control the method by the time I approach them.

Still have oceans to cross; it's a good thing I like a good epic whale hunt.

Adam

2007-01-24T22:26:00.001-05:00

adam, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Something has shifted, and every time my eyes get a chance to rest on a model, portrait or figure, I feel a new agility: I can think of this complex thing in front of me as a Baroque composition of movement and shifting weight; I can think of it as a thing with a passive and an active side; I can think of it in terms of effect of light and edges; I can think of connections and rhythms in the lights and the calligraphy created from the shadow shapes and movements; I can think of simplest forms and geometries, and the architecture of the Greek figure; and I can think about that skeleton next to me and why the accident of the flesh is behaving as it is. I can think about the white marks, the grey marks and the black marks.

More important, I can finally see the purpose of a beautiful finish – the care and attention of blending, the surface qualities that so many of us chase first at the expense of all the rest of the knowledge.

This feels like it’s going to be a huge year of work and study, and I couldn’t feel more dissatisfied with what my hand can do or more ecstatic about what I want to train it to do.

Appropriately, the name of my portrait model is Adam, and so Genesis is my current read.

PORTRAIT OF A

2007-01-19T20:53:00.001-05:00

PORTRAIT OF A, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Would have liked to have had more time with this one.

"Why must a man keep standing like a shepherd,
exposed, in such an overflow of power,
so much a part of this event-filled landscape,
that if he were to lean back against a tree trunk
he would complete his destiny, forever.
Yet does not have, in his too open gaze,
the silent comfort of the flock: has nothing
but world; has world each time he lifts his
head; each time he looks down -- world. What gladly yields
to others, pierces him like music, blindly
enters his blood, changes, disappears."
-Rilke, from "The Spanish Trilogy"

So sometimes there's nothing to do but succumb to the plague that is the world, toss around hacking at night instead of sleeping, scrape and oil the palette and wait for the next project.

2006-12-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

“Tous les matins du monde sont sans retour” (All the mornings of the world leave without returning) –

With the passport renewed, tickets and hotel room booked, how can I not start to think of it?

Here, with the beginning of winter in North Carolina, the landscape is mind-stopping in its changing beauty. When I drive I hardly keep my focus where it should be – if you’re not looking everywhere you’re missing so many fleeting effects of light and the startling color of sleeping forests.

However, in the old cities of Europe, things from the hands of man are mind-stopping in their beauty: drawings, paintings, frescos, gardens, arched cloisters, cobbled roads, ornamented buildings, bound books, leather shoes, paper, fabric, bread, cheese. Even the wine is made with profound understanding of the flavors of the earth, terroir.

When I look at how my hand wields a brush, I know acutely how much I want to demand of it, and how far it is from performing…

attr to pellegrino tibaldi or parmigianino - rearing horse

2006-12-13T23:08:00.001-05:00

attr to pellegrino tibaldi or parmigianino - rearing horse, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Sometimes, in spite of my nature, I like people. Here’s Hannah’s take on hot chocolate:

1st place – Italy

2nd place – America

3rd place – Australia, although I get the sense that while Australia outranks the rest of the world in every regard except for Mims Studios, Southern Pines, North Carolina. Aussies just don’t make good hot chocolate.

We shared a mindless and balmy night having a café before life drawing at an outdoor table on Broad Street, and it’s really depressing the bureaucratic nonsense she has to go through to get a visa to spend several years here studying. Also on the agenda: disposing of the maestro and stealing his muse.

Started with a new model up at Weymouth who is also delightful, for a human. Explored his head in numerous positions, sketched out 10 favorites to see what they do in the impartial land of disegno, sessions meant for getting to know his skeleton, always mindful of his comfort.

The devil on my shoulder says, as I flip through pages and pages of grand compositions painted from cultures who understood that paintings ARE fine art: how can you hope to explore the wide Sargasso sea of the human spirit and flesh if your mind starts at the rigid, surface thought “Is this creature comfortable?"

A muse must have the mind to throw themselves on the pyre. Our job is to resuscitate them... if they perish.

2006-12-02T22:35:00.001-05:00

There is so much in art that disappoints, after you’ve spent your youth spoiled beyond possibility, skipping school to walk around Rome, to duck into piazzas that balance fragments of the antique and the Renaissance, to step into quiet churches that still know what ritual is and see, always, grand compositions of wildly colored men and women and saints and sinners, from the hands of minds who believed they could … walk ontop of the great boiling stew that always simmers between the gods and the minds that conceive them.

Came across a particularly charming line while reading Anne Rice's "The Vampire Lestat."

“And those awful inevitable moments when the Master would rise screaming, hurling the pots of paint in all directions, clutching at his eyes as if he would pull them out of his head. “Why can I not see? Why can I not see better than mortals see?”

SISTINE MURAL 112506

2006-11-28T22:38:00.001-05:00

SISTINE MURAL 112506, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

The murals have begun. A Raphael, this Michelangelo, and an Ingres. It's time for a retreat to the mountains to visit Jeffrey's fresco work.

patroclus 112006

2006-11-28T22:36:00.001-05:00

patroclus 112006, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Usually once a semester I get to run away to Chapel Hill for the afternoon for a visit to the museum, and although small, the Ackland really does seem to have a piece hung for whatever stage you need to see clearly recorded by the history of art.

From the geometry and narration of Greek vase painting, to the grace and balance of a Roman Torso of Apollo in marble, to an early Italian altarpiece on painted on panel in a tabernacle frame showing flesh painted in verdaccio with forms in the light built up in pinks, to a Rubens double-cameo where you can see flesh build in grisaille – warm shadows, grey halftones and yellow lights, in fact, you can even study how in this particular painting pink lights are reserved for the flesh of the female, and yellow lights build all of the form in the male. There’s also an academic “color sketch” and a completed grisaille underpainting where the background atmosphere is laid in a warmer umber and the flesh and foreground draperies are all developed in gray. There are also two charming and very small pieces: a Prudhon and a Gerome, a small Houdon sculpture and a terra cotta bust of Gerome.

Not accessible this time: Sargent’s copy of Velazquez’s Aesop, part of a dark room that few visitors find even when it is open to the public, a paneled room that used to be hung with the more traditional portrait heads (I recall an Eakens, a Gilbert Stuart and the Sargent master copy.) They also have a Bouguereau, which I have never seen hung, and an excellent collection of drawings, which museums keep shut away in special rooms.

rubens - a roman couple

2006-11-28T22:34:00.005-05:00

rubens - a roman couple, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

roman torso of apollo

2006-11-28T22:34:00.003-05:00

roman torso of apollo, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

bouguereau - venus with doves

2006-11-28T22:34:00.001-05:00

bouguereau - venus with doves, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

ivy

2006-11-08T23:04:00.001-05:00

ivy, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

I haven't had any thoughts worth working through since we had to put Ivy down (Oct 23, S's birthday and the day after our 10th anniversary.) All of those are very big things and composing or ordering big events is far beyond me.

Ivy--As a rule I don't pray, but that Sunday I did pray that she would die in her sleep, that we would wake up and she would be quietly and beautifully herself, but expired.

However, we sat in the room with her while the vet euthanized her, rubbed her back while the weight of her head relaxed in the hands of the vet's assistant--there was not a dry eye in the place--Ivy was GRAND and everyone who met her knew her intelligence and grace.

Afterwards, you just continue on in the mechanics of the day: S had to take a calculus test right after we left the vet. The days continue. Snyder gets to have one particular toy that turns him into an asshole. I don't have to watch them or be aware of other dynamics in the room. Days are filled with work and art; focused sessions with a model, and more extra catering jobs than I really wanted. To fill the time before bed, I had a very good Vampire book, "The Historian," by Elizabeth Kostova.

This Sunday I heard a thud crash into the front window, saw the round halo of grey bird down stuck to the pane, looked for and located the wee little bird sitting dazed next to the window, and watched it in the peripheral of my work and wondered if I should get S to euthanize it. We went out for a jog through sandy trails cut through pine forests. When we came back, the bird had recovered and flown away.

S wanted to know the other night why I'd looked up the word "atonement," and I didn't know how to explain these weird paths my mind follows, but it was very important to know exactly the nuances meant by that word. When do you hope and when do you give up to your cynical nature? When is an event an omen, or mythical, or even notable? When is a dog a queen, a Greek chorus? When is an event an accident of nature?

Yesterday, after trying to wait out the cold rain and the rush-hour lines of voting, I drove to my old precinct (a fire station which last time I voted had a US Military troop carrier parked prominently next to it--how's that for propaganda, by the way?) ran through the puddles in the cold rain with holes in the bottom of each of my shoes, put up with the wise-cracks from the bored volunteer about my name, and voted.

Tonight: Rumsfeld got sacrificed. This, friends, is a big event.

If we don't try to learn the language of metaphor, allegory, truth, justice, beauty, our lives will never mean more than the most surface recording of the chronology of our history.

All you can hope for is the courage to listen, to look at and record the experiences… the rest comes from the sanctuary of your mind, your work, your studio.

patroclus 102006 small

2006-10-22T19:18:00.001-04:00

patroclus 102006 small, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Wrapping up the yellow phase of the David copy. The reds will reintroduce some atmosphere in the flesh, life in the corpse, one hopes.

This semester started out with a remarkable convergence of emerging artists/new studio mates.

• One middle eastern student studying most of the time at UNC Chapel Hill
• One from LA -- a former administrator of the LA Academy of Art, who was instrumental in bringing Adrian Gottlieb to a brief stint as instructor there
• One who was drifting from great studio to great studio -- including Florence Academy of Art, Kamille Corry’s Studio in Salt Lake City, and Studio 126 in NYC (the studio founded by Brandon Soloff, Michael Grimaldi, Dan Thompson, etc.
• One from Australia via the Charles Cecil Studio also in Florence.
• One returning after her summer stay here, who has trained in the Cape School colorist tradition as well as most recently her home studio of the Schulyer School.

All personalities are wide open and very passionate about their art, so the positive energy and the honing of focus is worth noting. And so needless to say, there is a consistent new flow of work that fuels your mind. They're all strong; they're all focused -- the potential is enormous.

Robert Liberace was in Raleigh for a workshop and gave us a studio visit, slideshow, and most appreciated, brought in two drawings for us to spend some time looking at. What a charmer! Beautiful drawings, and he has such awe of and respect for tradition, especially the Italians, and humility, that he was a contagiously enthusiastic ambassador for Arte.

And I almost forgot, but we had another visitor, who has recently traveled to all sorts of contemporary ateliers across the country, and she was extremely complimentary about what she saw here at Mims Studios. I believe the quote is that "Nowhere are they pushing the work like what I see here." (She'd been to John Pence Gallery, the Water Street Atelier, Studio Incamminati, a couple of schools in California and New York.) I know its shallow, but a non-partisan affirmation always makes you feel warm.

It’s October, I took a ride in the front train car as it cut through the Carolina forest at nighttime, and listened to the engineer tell a ghost story, and have just begun an engrossing vampire book, The Historian.

Fall is the happiest season.

MAROGER

2006-10-22T19:10:00.001-04:00

MAROGER, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

A gift from the student who has studied at the Schuyler School - Maroger medium. I first saw this stuff being used by Paul DeLorenzo; only he would mix it on his palette, using a syringe, a ratio which I've forgotten of black oil and mastic varnish.

chardin - Le gobelet d'argent

2006-10-08T23:59:00.001-04:00

chardin - Le gobelet d'argent, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

The beginning of a new quarter, so it seems most appropriate to list words and images that charm me:

"I must forget everything I have seen, and even forget the way such objects have been treated by others."
-Chardin

"The eye must be taught to look at nature."
Chardin

On Inness:

Inness, Jr., recorded another occasion in which the owner of an Inness painting tried to prevent the artist from reworking it by simply declaring his preference for the work in its existing condition. Inness apparently retorted,

"It makes no difference what you like; I say the thing is false.... And I want you to understand, sir, that I claim the right to go into any house and change a work of mine when I am not satisfied with it, and see where I can improve it." Inness then posed the key--and astringently rhetorical--question: "Do you think," he inquired, "because you have paid money for a picture of mine, that it belongs to you?"

This is the world I'd like to live in.

cox - landscape

2006-10-03T00:11:00.001-04:00

cox - landscape, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

In the middle of a small break -- so there has been consistent pursuit of a vision I've not practiced -- color sketching in oil from landscapes, two hours before the light is too gone. The change in the last hour of daylight is too violent and fleeting for me to study.

The mechanics of landscaping will continue to shift underneath my feet. It is so much more than selecting location, composing, bug control, my mood, the light.

A half-dozen color sketches later, they're starting to beg for a more focused direction. Studio color-studies from master landscapes are helping, but since the day job is NOT on siesta, and Ivy is sick... even a color study from a still-too-fertile and summer-like Carolina September is offensive and vulgar if it is just about color.

I can begin to see through all of that green skin. However, I'll feel much better once the trees start to show their bones, and the fields lose that "golf course" psychedelia.

george inness - the church spire

2006-09-28T20:18:00.001-04:00

george inness - the church spire, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

"Poetry is the vision of reality ... [not some] gaseous representation.... What
is often called poetry is a mere jingle of rhyme-intellectual dish-water. The
poetic quality is not obtained by eschewing any truths of fact or of Nature
which can be included in a harmony or real representation." - George Inness

Such a full day, and after just returning from landscape color-sketching, and then being blessed by a loud Carolina thunderstorm, I returned to some Inness research in online museum collections.

These works always called to me from museum walls, even though figurative work always spoke first and loudest.

It's also a rare surprise when the art of the words is as resonate as the language of the art. A very small group can compose in each medium: Leighton, Annigoni, Blashfield, Cox, Inness. Four out of those are muralists. If I'm very lucky, I'll discover more of them over my years.

bastien-lepage - the ripened wheat

2006-09-27T22:20:00.003-04:00

bastien-lepage - the ripened wheat, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

I've got to come up with some new language for those great life drawing days where you're working one-on-one, where you have an idea of how you want to pose the model, where you can adjust the light and the position without a roomful of voices, and so you can hear your own. The clarity allows a focused start, and you end the session in a glow where you're oblivious to the quickly shrinking daylight hours. And the best part, at the end of the session, you hear intuition guide you towards the next session's work, when I'll be looking at the position of the legs.

Since I feel pretty good I'll say that Paris is officially on the calendar 3/26 – 4/4, 2007. Besides the obvious draw of the Louvre’s collections, there are some temporary exhibits that will be interesting, especially one I learned of tonight, the Bastien-Lepage exhibit at the D’Orsay.

At the Louvre,
besides all that does not need to be mentioned:

Prints and Drawings from the collection of Philippe de Chennevières - Collector of French 19th century drawings

During the course of his life, Philippe de Chennevières, a Louvre curator and a learned leading art lover, assembled a collection of nearly 4,000 French
drawings covering the period from 1500 to 1860.

AT the Musee D’Orsay:
The Forest of Fontainebleau.A Life-Sized Studio.

From the late 18th century, artists had been going to the Forest of Fontainebleau to make their first studies "from life". As
open-air painting developed, the Barbizon school of artists, followed by the
Impressionists, invaded the forest to "work directly from Nature" and turned it into the most popular site in the art world throughout the 19th century. This
success gave rise to hundreds of works of art which, whilst portraying the
forest, also demonstrate the changes in landscape art.

Jules Bastien-Lepage Exhibit(1848-1884)

This pupil of Cabanel, who was at the height of his powers when he died at the age of 36, made a significant mark in the world of naturalist painting. In October 1868 he came first in the competition for admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and went on to become a major figure of the Salon despite failing twice to win the Prix de Rome. His portraits and figure paintings were always eagerly awaited by the critics, and regularly reviewed. They brought him a variety of awards and several paintings were bought by the State. Bastien-Lepage owed his success to the originality of his works which reflect a remarkable synthesis of the influence of his training and the
most innovatory movements of the time. Zola saw him as "the grandson of Courbet and Millet". From the 1870s, Bastien-Lepage above all brought together the realism of peasant life and grand tradition, whilst also using lighter colours and dynamic compositions in the style of the new Impressionism.

bastien-lepage - joan of arc

2006-09-27T22:20:00.001-04:00

bastien-lepage - joan of arc, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

braise 092406

2006-09-24T21:31:00.001-04:00

braise 092406, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

This is exactly the sort of dinner you should eat at the end of a day given to mural preparation.

The flavors should be bright with rosemary, red wine, stock, and above all, the terroir of the mushroom.

With any luck, I'll dream again tonight about being stranded in Rome.

george inness - hudson valley

2006-09-20T22:05:00.001-04:00

george inness - hudson valley, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

"Eden was; it will not be again. We must work our way to Paradise."
-George Inness

george inness - spring 1860

2006-09-20T22:04:00.001-04:00

george inness - spring 1860, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

kenyon cox - color study after boltraffio - sacre conversazione

2006-09-18T20:59:00.000-04:00

kenyon cox - color study after boltraffio - sacre conversazione, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

kenyon cox - color study after titian - madonna of the rabbit

2006-09-18T20:52:00.001-04:00

kenyon cox - color study after titian - madonna of the rabbit, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Kenyon Cox color sketches after the masters.

I cannot walk into a studio and not grin like a fool when I see a corner of the room set aside as a workshop/library, where the reading table is draped with a dropcloth and an assortment of newly-prepped panels are lined up on top, instead of the usual studio clutter of handbags and other daily paraphanelia.

The preparation side of the art can be time-consuming, perplexing, toxic… but to set up your own mise-en-place also puts your mind into the arena of ritual, of preparation, of meditation, of openness, of possibility, or at least the arena where you can respond immediately to whatever the materials are telling you MUST BE DONE RIGHT NOW. The physical motions, the time spent, the questions and the stress all prepare you for the surprise when everything comes together, and for the poetry of what might happen next…

September seems to be a time of temporary balance between thinking about all of the projects and working on all of the projects. There is always time to reflect, and finally, I can shove every other thought away for several hours each day at home... and color sketch from the masters.

INGRES FLESH DETAIL

2006-09-17T00:51:00.001-04:00

INGRES FLESH DETAIL, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

INGRES

2006-09-17T00:49:00.001-04:00

INGRES, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Two academic studies by Ingres to illustrate what I'm thinking about lately when I'm thinking about building flesh in the yellow stages. As it falls into halftone, the turn can be deeper transparent yellow or it can be blue/green.

paintings in the louvre

2006-09-12T22:34:00.001-04:00

paintings in the louvre, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

Nothing to say, just lots of color sketching.

GRISAILLE 091206

2006-09-12T22:08:00.001-04:00

GRISAILLE 091206, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

David copy, in progress, first stage of yellow is almost on. The first skin is definitely overmodeled, but many more layers to come will soften and solidify form, and take care of the harsh transitions that continue to snag my eye but which I seem to need for visual landmarks.

Working some of the ambiguous passages in yellow has shown me how to better deal with them in the grays. It's a fantastic dialog. So this will probably disappear from these enthusiastic show and tell sessions so I can work on the subtleties that take real time and focus to work out.

Oglethorpe University Museum of Art

2006-09-10T10:24:00.000-04:00

Oglethorpe University Museum of Art
Slow Painting; a Deliberate Renaissance.
September 17 - December 17, 2006
Atlanta, GA

All work has been packed and transported - a fascinating process to witness from genesis to essay to art-world politics to transport and shipping.

Jeffrey Mims co-curated this show.

It may do nothing more than illustrate my naivete, but I was scandalized that his essay was the only one written specifically for this show; all of the "manifestos" that comprise the catalog are random selections appropriated from various other contemporary realism sources, and they read as random noise caught by a tape recorder planted under a table in a school cafeteria: academic, a bit out of touch, narcissistic. Then again, I sometimes post to a blog, so... .

Some of the images are worth looking at: interested parties, you may link to the press release here.

A 090606

2006-09-07T10:17:00.000-04:00

A 090606, originally uploaded by quanceblog.

In progress, however, the model has returned to highschool, so I have to wrap this up soon. I'd really like to move it into a grisaille head study, so we'll have to see if the size of the Weymouth studio will allow three of us to work from her once a week (not enough) with a sun that is dropping too quickly on the horizon to give us much information at all between 3:30 and 6pm.

It has been a month of big projects and impossible deadlines met.

Overall, if you don't take into account the fact that I can no longer sleep, I feel pretty connected right now to all of the work, and so am usually very sleepy but also very content.

To top it all off: the frame is done; my mural prep is done for the time being; tomorrow brings the first of the Classical Design Foundation's fall lecture series; Achilles, doomed, has returned to the front; and I found a lead white paint that makes me believe in things deeper than love.