There’s so much to glean from dead artists who came before us. I’ve enjoyed this past year deep diving my research on artists that are just touched on in art history classes.
The main ones these past 3 years I’ve spent time with are Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Monet.
I’ve always loved the Renaissance period and what they brought into the art world in terms of anatomical studies. I appreciate the dedication of Michelangelo and Da Vinci and how they would cut up the dead (often in secret in the middle of the night with a candle fastened to their heads) just to understand what the muscle make up really is under all the draping of the religious paintings they did. And the depth perspective Da Vinci brought us… many of his paintings have small pin holes where you would attach string for all his vanishing points to be sourced from the same angle.
What I’ve really been curious about is the history that went on around them during these discoveries. Like the wars they lived through, their own pandemics and plagues where people would drop dead in 3 days time of becoming ill. Times when artists would have to come up with solutions in war to help save their cities to protect their art. Like Michelangelo helping to plan the fabrication of mattresses on the outside of stone walls in Florence to slow the blow of cannons, which actually worked in helping preserve some of the walls when under siege. Hiding sculptures in laundry shoots in the Medici home when it was being stormed. The Louvre wrapping up 14 of Monet’s paintings and sending them off with guards to transport them during the war. This only a few months after one of the largest natural disasters hit Paris and swallowed cars in the roads, and flooded tunnels under the roads.
During times when it seemed art could not be created in such devastation. And yet, it was created. Privately, secretly, quietly. So that it could emerge when the chaos allowed it to breath and when people might need it most.
That’s how we got Monet’s lily ponds. He worked on them for years. Postponed gallery openings, and then slashed through an entire collection before showing them. Destroying everything in a fit of rage. He lost his son and wife and almost his entire eyesight. He painted only eggs for a little while to regroup and then returned to his lily pond while a war surrounded him and paintings were being trampled all over France. He kept on.
Younger generations of artists who were enlisted to the front lines came up with their own contributions for war. In a red uniform the French were easily targeted and after a heavy attack, a cubist artist by the name of Victor Guirand de Scévola, came up with ideas of camouflage by experimenting with shape and colors to paint their uniforms to be less visible. His ideas were ratified by the Ministry of War and in 1915 30 artists transformed 3,000 uniforms. In the prewar years some of these Cubists were considered unpatriotic and anti-French, and yet they were an asset in saving their soldiers and found a new purpose for their ideologies.
I’ve been quieter over here with art releases. Because I want to make sure what I’m making is what I believe in and isn’t from outside voices and pressures of social media to show up or I’ll get lost in the algorithm. I don’t always want to show up. I want to dive into my books and sit and stare at the paint until I see new color combinations that work that aren’t tired. And I want to create bigger pieces which takes more time to plan out.
With that said, I have been wanting to share more blog posts as a book club of sorts to share some of what I’m reading in case you are interesting in reading along with me or are looking for some new material to dive into. I’ll be sharing more of the books here with brief take aways and why I like recommend them.
And as I dive into making larger paintings this year, I’ll be sharing them in my newsletters as they progress, so please consider subscribing to my newsletter for more studio shares.
