My Fine Art: Third Year

While I was developing my dissertation proposal back at last year, I decide to focus and study on two art genres that they have always interested me, and doing this make my dissertation a bit easily for me to write up about. On my dissertation, I have explored and discuss the influences of religion and elements of fantasy behind the imaginative artworks by three different artists, and I have chosen their landscape scaled paintings; inspired by my previous works at university. The religion theme came after I have discovered it in their works that the artists I have chosen (John Martin, Salvador Dali and Glenn Brown) have used/focused in their paintings.

• Frank Frazetta’s Savage World (1981)

Fantasy Art

This art genre has always appeal me for a long time, and I began taking my fantasy art interests seriously, when I was studying at College. I began looking into this through my dad, as he has grown up reading the Conan the Barbarian magazines and he had art books on the sub genre of sword and sorcery, as he was into that art as well. What appeals me about Fantasy Art, is the imagination and the creativity that has, and gives you the freedom, to come up and make up anything you wish to create; it’s the enjoyment that you get out of doing that! There have been many artists in the fantasy art movement that I have studied and admired, but the one artist that has inspired me the most, and remain my all-time favourite artist; the American fantasy artist, Frank Frazetta.

The Study of Frank Frazetta

Frazetta (1928 – 2010) was an extraordinary artist, his range of fantastic paintings and sketches have full of powerful imagination, and he has influenced many artists within the genres of fantasy and science fiction. He has influenced me as an artist, to continuing with my interest in Fantasy Art and he has inspired me to use my imagination and creativity in my art, and seeing his work is truly magnificent. While studying Frazetta and his work, I have brought two books that are about him and his paintings and drawings.

• (An example to show my inspiration, by recreating one of Frazetta’s work (Atlantis, 1972) as he inspired me with my use of imaginative and not to give up with my art.)

One was “ICON”, which shown and studies mainly on his fantasy paintings (as he was a comic artist, before finding fame in the sword and sorcery genre of fantasy art), and going through this book takes my breath away, in term of how extraordinary he catches his imagination and transferred them into paintings. The other is “Rough Work”, which is a collection of his drawings and sketches, and it’s like going through one of his sketchbooks, and seeing them is also inspiring and influential.

• Vincent van Gogh’s Daubigny’s Garden (1890)

Landscape Art

I begin to study and became interesting in landscape art, after studying it for my fine art course at university in my first year. I have chosen to study it, because of my photography interest, as I have enjoyed capturing parks, seascapes and holiday trips; to capture beautiful scenes and for memories. I have continue to study landscape art for my final year, because I wanted to create art, from something I have enjoyed doing and to show my strongest interest to be displayed in my upcoming degree show.  For my inspirations, I was heavily inspired by the art movement of Post-Impressionism and the artists I admired the most are Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne.

• (An example to show my studies and influences, by recreating Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (1887), and it’s the style and the colours that I’m most influenced by about this movement).

Van Gogh, Cezanne and French Impressionism

What is Post-Impressionism? It’s mainly a French art movement that has been around in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it focuses on artists that studies and expressed emotions rather than simply optical impressions, concentrating on themes of deeper symbolism. This has inspired me even more, after my trip to Paris (August, 2013), and went to visit the Musee d’Orsay, as its home to many collection of French impressionism paintings. I have bought a book from there called “A Fuller Understanding of the Paintings at the Orsay Museum”, to bring back home, and it has helped me  to discover and admire many other artists and paintings. For Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) and Paul Cezanne (1839 – 1906), my two biggest influences in the Impressionism era, they have created emotional, but brilliant landscape paintings, and their work has influence my work, because of their use of simplified colours and definitive forms, as they have strongly used in their beautiful paintings, and their subject matters has also been inspiring towards my primary sources.

Illustrations:

Frank Frazetta – Savage World (1981)

http://frankfrazetta.net/Savage_World.html

Frank Frazetta – Atlantis (1972)

http://frankfrazetta.net/Atlantis.html

Vincent van Gogh – Daubigny’s Garden (1890)

http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Painting/96/Daubigny%27s%20Garden.html

Paul Cezanne – Mont Sainte-Victoire (1887)

http://tribulations.fr/couleur/#.WNqs84WcFMs

Bibliography:

Bayle, F. (2010) ‘A Fuller Understanding of the Paintings at the Orsay Museum’. Paris: Musee d’Orsay

Fenner, A. (ed.) and Fenner, C. (ed.) (1998) ‘ICON: A Retrospective by the Grand Master of Fantastic Art, Frank Frazetta’. Nevada City: Underwood Books Inc.

Fenner, A. (ed.) and Fenner, C. (ed.) (2007) ‘Frank Frazetta: Rough Work (Spectrum Presents)’. Nevada City: Underwood Books Inc.

• 4th January, 2016 –  19th February, 2016
• My Visited: 17th February, 2016 (4:00 pm – 5:00 pm)

Waterfront Gallery, University Campus Suffolk, Ipswich

On the 17th February, I visit along with my friends from my course to the Collateral Drawing exhibition, to see and find inspirations for our second year of our studio practice, and my goals was to personally enjoy myself exploring the gallery, finding and picking up different prospects and new information. We saw many different paintings and drawings from many different contemporary artists, but the one art piece that has grabbed my attention, was an ink drawing called “Drawing ‘17” by Glenn Brown. It was the surreal feel and the technique behind the drawing that made me wanted to know more about it.

• The display of Glenn Brown’s “Drawing ’17”

Now in my third year, and for my dissertation, I was using Brown as one of the three artists to study about their strong imagination and their religion themes in their works, and since my “Copies for Inspirations” project is about recreating one of the three chosen artists’ work, based on my primary sources of seeing them in first person; using his drawing in this exhibition would be the perfect opportunity to recreate it, and by doing that would be a challenge, but enjoyable at the same time.

• Gathering around and listening to contemporary artist John Stark and his experiences in art.

Photos Credited to:

http://www.collateraldrawing.org/Waterfront-Gallery-UCS-Ipswich-East-Anglia

Glenn Brown – Drawing ’17 :

http://glenn-brown.co.uk/artworks/423/#selected_mediums=13

• Dates of my trip: 29th November – 2nd December, 2013

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

On the 29th November, I visit along with my art colleagues to the Boijmans van Beuningen at Rotterdam, as part of our College Amsterdam trip for 3 days. We have visit to museums and galleries, like the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art and many more, but it’s this museum that I have chosen, because of the strong selection of Salvador Dali’s (1904 -1989) artworks. Seeing those in first person was incredible, viewing the details and the surreal styles definitely grab people’s attentions, and love the colours and the strange dream-inspired subject matters.

• Salvador Dali’s Paintings: Left – Impressions of Africa (1938). Right – The Face of War (1940)

The reason I have chosen this museum to study, is because for my dissertation, I’m studying Dali, looking through his works on imaginative and his dream inspired subject matters, and I have use his “Impressions of Africa” painting to recreate it in my own version, to help me prepared and understand more on my dissertation.

TATE Britain, London

On the 3rd June, 2016; I went to visit London, along with friends (artists in their own different ways), to spend the day visiting art galleries and other activities that interest us. We went to visit Tate Britain (in there was exhibitions of the Turner Collection and Mark Rothko’s Room 3: The Seagram Murals), Tate Modern and a few others, seeing different exhibitions from different art perceptions and art movements. For me personally, it was going in Tate Britain that was my main focus to our one day trip, as I wanted to find and discover John Martin’s (1789 – 1854) “The Last Judgement” Series, to help with my dissertation and seeing them in first person, to help me understand more of Martin’s extraordinary paintings.

• A selection of paintings in TATE Britain, including John Martin’s The Plains of Heaven (1851-3)

• A close up of The Plains of Heaven

During my visit at Tate Britain in our morning, I could only found one of them displayed, which was “The Plains of Heaven”, and finally getting to see his work in front of my very own eyes, especially comparing to other paintings that are displayed around it, really stands out as the main attraction of that section. Upon seeing this painting, I have both used it as part of my dissertation, and to recreate it in my own version, as the painting’s peaceful subject matter and the nature that catches the imagination to the artist and everyone else who sees one of Martin’s masterpieces.

How far art, if not inspired, has yet been ennobled by religion? I shall not touch upon today; for it both requires technical criticism, and would divert you too long from the main question of all, “How far religion has been helped by art?” (Ruskin, 1980, P. 59-60)

The John Ruskin quote was used to begin my challenging dissertation, to demonstrate the subject matter that I was tackling for and against.

For my dissertation, I was exploring and discussing the influences of religion and elements of fantasy behind the paintings I have chosen, and I have focused and studied three different artists from different generations, to find different answers and different meanings through their paintings and the artists themselves. The argument for this dissertation is to examine the influence that religion has in the world of fantasy; the imagination behind those artists’ art, and to find out the importance between religion and fantasy.

Bibliography

Ruskin, J. (1890) ‘Lectures on Art’. London: George Allen.