Mrs. Vanderbilt's boudoir

No strangers to ostentation, the Vanderbilt's spared no expense at The Breakers, their 1895 gilded 'cottage' in Newport, Rhode Island. There are a number of exquisitely painted decorations, including a couple of the prettiest ceilings I've ever seen. Unfortunately; no photography allowed. If that's going to be the case, then please at least give us a decent bookstore!

The Artist as Editor v. the Autistic Savant

"Art is nothing if not an editing process. "

I put that in quotations to make it seem like some sort of rule, but I just said it myself. Actually it's more of a truism than a rule, like "An evil genius always has an English accent."

But all-knowing Wikipedia tends to agree. When discussing composition, it says of 'Simplification' that:

"Images with clutter can distract from the main elements within the picture and make it difficult to identify the subject. By decreasing the extraneous content, the viewer is more likely to focus on the primary objects."

I've touched on the broad subject of composition elsewhere on this blog, but it's always interesting to note the exceptions to any 'rule'. Generally speaking, we use our cognitive and creative abilities to whittle down to (our version of) the essence of an object. Like applying filters, we remove information or supplant it with our personal impression of what is essential.

If we accept that as more or less true, then what do we make of someone like Franco Magnani, the so-called 'memory artist'? Through a neurological disorder he is concerned with the opposite, creating paintings of his home town, a place he hasn't seen in over 20 years, that are a manifestation of the almost holographic visions that occur to him with hallucinatory force. He seems to paint in a very real attempt to put down every single detail.

Or, what of the case of artist Stephen Wiltshire? Diagnosed with autism, his primary mode of communication as a child was through pencil and paper, sketching buildings in incredible detail. His 13' x 7' drawing of London (after being raised up to a vantage point in a helicopter) is beyond impressive: it's a testament to the innate power of the human brain. A brain that, by the way, has not changed at all, genetically speaking, since our days of knuckle-dragging across the Serengeti. Of course, development of one part of the brain to this degree usually carries with it the terrible price of a kind of atrophy of others, specifically with regard to socialization skills. It's as if, in these instances, raw brain power blisters up through the protective layers of socialized norms. 

There are a number of videos on Youtube dedicated to his amazing abilities. Here's one:



The Wisconsin Medical Society said that:

"Perhaps the most striking and astonishing display of Stephen's remarkable visual memory and drawing ability occurs in a segment on a 2001 BBC documentary entitled Fragments of Genius. In this segment Stephen is taken on a helicopter ride over the city of London. After a brief ride, he returns to the ground where, in three hours, he completes a stunningly detailed and remarkably accurate drawing of London from the air which spans four square miles with 12 major landmarks and 200 other buildings drawn to perfect perspective and scale. Words cannot describe the prodigious ability and visual memory that drawing documents; it needs to be seen to be appreciated."

There were hundreds of calls and letters to the BBC following that broadcast seeking to purchase originals of Stephen's artwork. That initial interest and then a sustained demand for the drawings led to the publication of an entire volume of his works entitled Drawings (J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, London, 1987).

Stephen has produced three additional books including Cities ( J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1989) and Floating Cities (Summit Books, New York, 1991). The latter became a "#1 best seller" in England with remarkable drawings of Venice, Amsterdam, Leningrad and Moscow. His most recent book, Stephen Wiltshire's American Dream (Michael Joseph, London, 1993) was devoted to U.S. architecture and the desert landscape of Arizona.

As a side note, there's an interesting set of slides called Art and Autism on the studio 360 site showing the different ways of viewing a piece of artwork between an autistic person and a so-called "normal" person. The process of skimming that we do on a daily basis in order to reduce the sensory load on our brains, wherein we make instantaneous decisions about what is important about a subject, is somehow skewed or missing in some autistic people.

So what to make of the process of creating art in the light of anomalies such as these? I believe that the majority of us must be content to follow the rules, treading a line between expression and restraint. Gunter Grass says "we must brave the strength of our emotions every day". Waxing poetical as usual, Kalil Gibran [Prophet and Art Critic! - he's getting two pay checks this week] says:

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction."

Well, all hyperbole aside, there's probably a nugget of truth there. Any thoughts?

Outdoor Advertising Murals; a dying Art?

UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.

I've always loved looking up in New York and seeing the faded remains of these beautiful murals. Vinyl has really changed the landscape and made it much harder for artists to survive in this field.

This short film is a meditative homage to the Art, and is well worth looking at. I couldn't help but agree when one of the guys in the film said "there's a few of us keeping it going...which is good, because I don't know how to do anything else."

Read more on the official website at uptherefilm.com

Masterpieces of Marquetry

Pierre Ramond wrote a three set volume of books called Masterpieces of Marquetry, published by Getty. It's impossible to overstate the awesomeness of the set. If you can, you should really get your hands on a copy, if only just to pore over the incredible photographs and corresponding pen and ink illustrations. I received these as a gift from a good friend, and have treasured them since.

Here's the product description from the Amazon site:

"Marquetry, also called intarsia or inlay, is the art of creating intricate pictures and designs on furniture by skillfully cutting and fitting together thin pieces of colored wood, horn, metal, shell, and other precious materials. While this highly specialized art has roots in ancient times, it was popularized in the eighteenth century in France and today remains centered in Paris. This three-volume set—originally published in French and now available for the first time in English—is the most comprehensive examination to date of the techniques used by expert marqueters in creating their exquisite masterpieces."

"The first two volumes are detailed studies of the history of the medium from antiquity to the end of the twentieth century, illustrated with examples from the collections of European furniture and decorative arts in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Wallace Collection in London, and the Getty Museum. A final volume presents the masterpieces of some of the greatest cabinetmakers and marqueters in history, including Pierre Golle, André-Charles Boulle, Bernard van Riesenburgh, Jean-Francois Oeben, Jean-Henri Riesener, and Abraham and David Roentgen. Methodically organized and lavishly illustrated, this set is an invaluable resource for art historians, antique collectors, and dealers, as well as contemporary fine furniture makers."

Ramond was born in 1935 in the southern French town of Soreze, near Toulouse. After studying his craft, Ramond moved and set up a studio at his new home in Paris. During this time he began teaching marquetry at l'École Boulle, the prestigious craft school in Paris, and was named Full Professor in 1978. He is now President of the Jury of Marqueters for the contest of the "Meilleurs Ouvriers de France," lecturing and traveling widely to establish schools of marquetry in Montreal and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.

It's fascinating how symbiotic the historic relationship is between the development of Art and Technology. The one has always informed the other. As far as marquetry is concerned, the taste for more intricate detail and organic shapes required a smaller cutting blade and stronger steel. The call from the ateliers to the toolmakers was clear: "We need better tools."

The same is true today. Even giants like DuPont are working with artists and pushing the boundaries of products such as Corian. I'm getting on to a different topic here, but it's definitely one that I will come back to. We are pioneers!

These gorgeous drawings are a great add-on and study aid to an earlier tutorial I posted detailing how to draw the acanthus.

Panneau décoratif

This incredible panel is from the collection at the Musée Des Arts Decoratif, in Paris. Wow!

Maybe some day I'll get a chance to paint something like this. The scale and proportion of each element is perfect; so hard to find these days. Here's an unfinished panel (below) that I started to paint. Unfortunately, unless there's someone waving a check at the finish line, I find it hard to spend the time to complete. 

Chinoiserie Panel

Maison Jansen

The apartment of Pierre Delbée, the President of Jansen, was home to five incredible inlaid doors. Made of ebony and ivory, each was a surrealistic take on an architectural theme and displayed the incredible artistry of the Jansen atelier. They took three artisans over twenty months to complete.

The original doors were sold at Christie's Monaco in 1999, so I was asked to replicate them. Unfortunately this project never got beyond the design stage. These images are from the book Jansen, published by Acanthus Press. I posted images of all five doors on my Flickr page.

Here is the drawing I did of a section of the door above, and a sample showing the ebony and ivory inlay, with silver areas (yet to be leafed) left light blue.

Nicolas Lancret

Lancret will always play second fiddle to his peer, Watteau. In fact, he only really became popular after Watteau died, being the last man standing for this kind of work.

Anyway, I like him better than Watteau because he was kicked out of the Academie Royale in 1708 for bad behaviour. Imagining all those powdered prigs behaving badly is hilarious, until you realize they'd run you through with a sword for using the wrong fork.

Though he painted more than seven hundred works, these gorgeous paintings of Chinoiserie-inflected frames (with typical fête galante scenes) are difficult to find. I love them mostly for the frames, and have referred to these several times in my own work. I hope you find them useful too.

A House Painter's Guide, from 1840

All Illustrations this article from the book by Henry William Arrowsmith (published 1840), called The house decorator and painter's guide; containing a series of designs for decorating apartments, suited to the various styles of architecture. 

I posted a complete set of illustrations from this volume on my Flickr page, here.

These wonderful illustrations make me smile. I can't imagine the economic system that existed where it was conceivable even to publish a book such as this. I mean, who's house is this that they're supposed to be painting? Not mine! It reminds me of this funny article from The Onion:

Report: Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization

"According to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, the recent influx of exceedingly affluent powder-wigged aristocrats into the nation's gentrified urban areas is pushing out young white professionals, some of whom have lived in these neighborhoods for as many as seven years.

"When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of solid gold guineas—hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year simply cannot compete," Kennedy said. "If this trend continues, these exclusive, vibrant communities with their sidewalk cafés and faux dive bars will soon be a thing of the past."

"Around here, you used to be able to get a Fair-Trade latte and a chocolate-chip croissant for only eight bucks," said Getz, who is planning to move back in with his parents after being forced out of the lease on his organic grocery store by a harpsichord purveyor. "Now it's all tearooms and private salon gatherings catered with champagne and suckling pig. Who can afford that?"

"It's just a terrible shame," Getz continued. "There was this great little shop right across the street from my duplex apartment where I bought my baby daughter a Ramones onesie a couple of years ago, just after she was born. That whole block is an opera house now."

"These accusations are pure, slanderous rubbish," said Lord Nathan Dunkirk III, the owner of a prodigious manor house that, along with its steeplechase course and topiary garden, sits on what was once the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. "If anything, the layabouts and wastrels have been afforded a veritable glut of new and felicitous opportunities as bootblacks and scullery maids."

Other aristocrats have echoed Dunkirk and have additionally deflected blame onto regification, a process by which they say they were priced out of their vast rural holdings by kings who wished to consolidate property and develop monumental palatial estates."

Treillage

Well, I was going to start this post by asking who hasn't painted a trellis? But then I realized that I hadn't painted a trellis.

I know they've been done a bazillion ways, but somehow I'd never done one before this project (pictured above) came along. There are examples of painted trellis dating as far back as Pompeii. I love how loosely the trees were painted here.

I also looked at Renzo Mongiardino for reference material, among others. His work is amazing. Here's his watercolor design for a trellis room. I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of his book, though it's gotten quite pricey.

Figuring out those measurements in the semi-circular niche looks like a headache!

 Of course, there's the excellent trellis-work in the murals at Schloss Schonbrunn too:

These next few hardly qualify as 'trellis', but I loved them so much I wanted to show you.

Then I looked through my books at hundreds of Historic ironwork references to find a nice central motif for the curved coves. Here are a couple of great reference images I looked at. I also posted a huge set of reference material here. You may find them useful!

Finally, I settled on this one...

I thought that the frame might look nice without all the central elements. I knew the designer would think it too fussy with the additional detail (and I didn't feel like painting it), so I removed the detail.

Next, I then created this image in Photoshop to suggest an idea for the curved cove of the ceiling.

The designer went for it.

At this point it occurred to me that I should do the whole job in Photoshop, print it on canvas and just paste it up on the ceiling. In retrospect, if I'd made a good paper template I probably could have. I made an important judgment call; I felt that my trips to the chiropractor were worth it for the extra exposure I gained by working on-site as opposed to hidden away in my artist's garret. And so I decided to paint this ceiling on site. Doing so much painting over my head, I realized the importance of being comfortable while you work: it's just a simple fact that you can't do your best work if you're in pain.

Here's how I laid out my design on the ceiling. First, paint the ceiling with the color of your trellis. In most cases, beige or green. Then glaze roughly over the surface (as your Step Two), with a lighter shade. Don't finesse or worry too much about this layer, as you won't see too much of it in the end. Make it quick (think 'money').

Now lay down your trellis pattern in blue tape.

Once you've gotten your trellis design laid in in tape, paint the entire surface with your base sky color.

If you want to do a simple or clouded sky, now's your time. In my case, I wanted a blank sky with trees peeking through the trellis. I didn't care about clouds in this case; it was more about the trellis than the sky. Before peeling off my blue tape lattice, I scumbled in some background foliage, then added some rough edges to give a sense of dimension to the leaves. 

Here's the sequence spelled out a little more clearly: First, paint the entire wall surface with your trellis base color.

Now add a scumbled glaze layer on top.

 Now add your trellis design in blue tape.

Then paint the entire surface with your sky color, right on top of the blue tape. At this point you could just add a scumbled light layer on top of your base sky tone, like this...

If you wanted to end it here, you could just peel off your blue tape, which would give you a look like this;

Instead, I wanted a trellis that showed foliage behind, so I started painting leaves and plants before I pulled my blue tape;

Once you're satisfied with the background, pull your tape. You're now ready to start painting your shadows and highlights on the trellis itself.

I like to paint a drop shadow, though I know it's not strictly accurate in this case because there wouldn't really be a shadow thrown onto the foliage like that. Still, I feel that it gives my trellis extra dimension.

As a finishing touch, you could paint some leaves or blades of grass coming through the lattice work. This will bring your background forward, and make it feel a little more integrated. A unifying over-glaze on the entire surface at this point will also help to soften the overall look of your mural.

And there you have it!