Art Alphabet: C - Esther

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again: the Art Alphabet might become a huge regret when I reach particular letters, but in the meantime, I’m happy to be able to find a stack of C-related art facts, media & ideas. As tempting as it is to devote the entire blog post to my favourite artist, I’ll restrict myself to one section. Discipline is required when imposing rules on oneself. Anyone else trying to impose rules need not bother to try…

C

1. An Artist (Clarke): Illustration for “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Harry Clarke (Ireland, 1889-1931)

Quite frankly, I’m making the most of any excuse to extol the virtues of Harry Clarke’s artwork. Here we have an example of one of the things he does best: creepy black & white illustration. One of the many illustrations he made for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination, the 1933 image of Lady Madeline is at once beautiful, well composed, detailed, restrained (by his standards) & macabre. 

2. A Material (charcoal): Armor by Odilon Redon (France, 1840-1916)

A brilliant artist in charcoal, Redon also does creepy cool more effectively than most. Great charcoal artists know how to use fixatives to their advantage. You can easily colour a surface & alter the tone using a layering & smudging of the charcoal & intermittent applications of the fixative. We can also see how Redon has erased the charcoal to create highlights on the face & smudging to produce softer & darker areas. He has then applied darker areas & detail with the sharp end of the stick. Charcoal is a more versatile medium than it might seem & many different effects can be created.

3. A Surface (canvas): Spatial Concept: “Waiting” by Lucio Fontana (Italy, 1899-1968) 

It’s a classic. Most of the greats used canvas for painting. It’s durable, it holds various types of paint & can be made using manmade or natural threads. I prefer to use a flat, smooth surface myself but there are many different grains to a canvas. Fontana was best known as the originator of Spatialism & I like this particular piece since it highlights the fragility of the canvas surface should anyone wish to do it harm. Perhaps it invites us to consider the destroyers of great masterpieces (such as Dalí’s Christ of St John of the Cross) to be contributors in the creation of a new piece… 

4. An Art Movement (Classicism): Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David (England, 1748-1825)

Technically, this is a Neoclassical piece as it was made in the domineering Age of Enlightenment. Pure Classicism has a purposely decorous standard based on ideas about the cultural aesthetic & intellectual balance of ancient Greece & Rome. This makes it sound deadly dull & often it is, but David’s such an expert, is so analytical & has such an eye for a dramatic scene that he’s irresistible.

5. A Random Pick (Cadell): Afternoon 1913, Francis Cadell (Scotland, 1883-1937)

Doubles up for C as a Scottish Colourist. Yes, once again, I bang the drum for this stunning group. But look at this masterpiece! The textures, the surfaces & figures are painted with feather-light strokes to striking effect. & “colourist” or no, Cadell’s minimal palette with tiny dabs of orange across the composition unite all the features of this spectacular piece.

6. An Artwork (creation): The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo (Italy, 1475-1564)

We all know it so well. But I’d urge you to take just a few moments to look at a high-resolution version of this one piece of the Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco. Perhaps there's a figure or face in it you haven’t noticed before. Look at the brushstrokes! The very light & sketchy rendering of the green cloth. We’ve spent so much time focusing on arguably the two most famous hands in art that we might have missed something…

7. A Place (Cookham): Cookham Rise by Stanley Spencer (England, 1891-1959)

Cookham is synonymous with Stanley Spencer & it featured in many of his works. It’s as if he found the world in microcosm there but he also considered it “a village in Heaven.” Actually, he brought Heaven to Cookham, depicting scenes from the Bible in a Cookham setting. He spent the bulk of his life there & in return, Cookham has built the Stanley Spencer Gallery there. Yes, it’s on my to-do list.

8. Street Art (Cochran): Usain Bolt by James Cochran a.k.a. Jimmy C (Australia, 1973)

There’s something of Seurat in Jimmy C’s street artworks. Rather than using the aerosol can like a paintbrush, with strokes & the occasional dab or dash, he makes it all about the drip & dot, building up pieces in layers of drops or blobs. The result is a kind of textured pointillism that has progressed our understanding of what graffiti art can do as a medium.

9. A Genre Painting (curiosity): Curiosity by Gerard ter Borch the Younger (Netherlands, 1617-1681)

Genre painting is a vastly underrated area of art history. Or perhaps it just chimes less with modern tastes & interests. After all, it’s all about the ordinary, everyday lives of real people, but long ago. I’d argue genre painting still exists by that definition, but that’s for another time. It’s fun to apply modern situations to these older works – some internet sites are quite frankly specialists in the field. Of course the thing to take away from this painting is “Hooray! There are women depicted writing in the 17th Century!” (Dutch) but I can’t help look at this & think the older woman is writing some particularly scathing insult to a politician or letter of complaint about something on TV. The dog clearly approves & if it had been the age of the internet, he’d be on there front & centre. 

10. A Collaboration (Claes, Coosje): Bicyclette Ensevelie (Buried Bicycle) by Claes Oldenburg (1929-) & Cooseje van Bruggen (1942-2009)

Personally, I find collaboration difficult. I can’t deal with the slower working pace other people often prefer & I don’t do well waiting around. It seems this collaborative duo had no such issues, or at least could overcome them successfully because married couple Claes Oldenburg & Cooseje van Bruggen collaborated on over forty amazing large-scale projects across different continents. Bicyclette Ensevelie is installed at the Parc de la Villette in Paris & was initially inspired by Beckett’s Molloy who falls off his bike.