It's Earth Day

 Here is a tribute to some species lost; The Secretary's Desk.  Although I think some have reported that the Chinese River Dolphin has been found but no serious evidence so far.

 

Drawings Based upon Past Art

I enjoy reviewing past art as much as anyone else, and a few times the work has inspired me to try another composition based upon the earlier presentation.  Here, I took a couple figures from Botticelli's Primavera and placed them in a picture about spring cleaning, Asymmetry of the Spring, wherein there is an encounter with a spider.  

Remember that you can click the image to enlarge it for easier viewing.

 

A few people have remarked that my style tends to a surrealist outlook or even a humorous one.   While that may be the case, my point is to show how one may vary an original composition to gain another effect.  Granted, large schematic drawings of spiders are not everyone's favorite subject, but the Botticelli figures themselves appeared well-suited for their function in this drawing.

Similarly, I went ahead with the same outlook for the drawing Yield of the Fall, using figures from a Durer print.

 An environmental and agricultural lesson did not seem out-of-place here, and I like to think that an artist as Durer, who enjoyed painting flora and fauna, would have agreed.  As with the Spring drawing, this varies the composition a bit though not as much.  It's fairly faithful to the Durer original except for the absence of some plants and critters.  Again, the tone is decidedly different from the original; whether for the good or for the ill depends upon artistic taste.

 

Can You Teach Students to be an Artist?

Big question, especially for those who earn a living to teach visual art.  Of course, one can ask that question about any of the Arts whether architecture, literature, music, performing art, but here I’ll stay with the visual arts.

First, I think that there are at least a couple approaches that one can teach, and those are a way to train or work on a skill and the other is critical judgement about visual art.  Now, since the rise of movements as Dada the former lacks a bit of standing in contrast to, say, 150 years ago.  No longer does skill alone qualify to “make art” but something more and that would be another article so maybe I’ll tackle that in the future.  I have expressed a bit about it already in “How to Make Art” https://danielraymondchadwick.blogspot.com/2021/04/how-to-make-art-or-is-that-right.html.

Nonetheless, I think a physical skill would go a long way toward making imagination a concrete reality.  For instance, does it help to know about the technology for digital art and how to use it best?  Sure.  And that is a skill one can learn, although as with any other skill, how good they are at it will vary by individual ability and training. That goes for other methods like painting, drawing, fiber-art; it’s convenient to know the strengths and limitations of the tools and the ability to employ them.

Critical judgement about visual art would also be another approach that one can learn. True, figuring out why artwork is “good” or “not so good” may be a bit of a balancing act on the high wire of aesthetics, but as long as one refuses to get caught up in trends then that will cultivate the evaluating mind.  Understanding an artwork sub specie aeternitatis, or “in the big picture” both aesthetically and historically, is important in this regard.

So, now that a student has a level of skill and comprehension about evaluating visual art, then are they ready to make Art?  I suppose one may contend that they’re more prepared now than they were and I would agree.  But I emphasize that the artist must have something to present whether in terms of formal visual aspects or in a message of some sort.  Along with that, it would help to do so with imagination. 

One still may ask: is that enough?