I’ve just decided water based oils.

——————————————————————————————–

At the end of Part 3 it says start thinking about which medium you’d like to write your essay on.

At the moment I’m stuck.

I like acrylic because it’s cheap; and dries quickly so you can layer and overpaint and sell paintings much more quickly. But at the moment I’m not selling any paintings so that’s not an issue… and this should be a long term artistic decision.

I don’t like acrylic because the colours are garish and difficult to mix and because it dries darker so makes matching tones to dry paint nearly impossible. Also it dries as you’re painting so you have to keep adjusting the viscosity (as it dries the tone changes too).

I like oil because the colours and texture are wonderful, it’s lovely to mix and dries the same tone. The paints stay workable for ages and mix easily on the palette or canvas.

I don’t like oils because they are expensive and take a long time to dry. This means you’ve got to wait a couple of weeks between layers (even if they are thin) and a whole year to dry before you can sell them.

And they smell and are messy.

As I chose painting because I love tones and colours I’m going to have to pick oil paints. I’ll just have to have several on the go at the same time or find wrinkles round it by going messy impasto.

I tried water based oils and they don’t smell and are easy to clean.

 

 

1) Demonstration of Visual Skills

The materials and techniques of monotypes were all new to me, as were the new oil paints I’d bought. Equally new was painting with ink.

I was really surprised and excited about my ink sketches (1 and 2 minutes) as they were far superior to anything I’ve done on faces in the last 3 and a half years. Out of twenty, five were usable.

The features were in the right position, they felt loose (well they would as I did most of them in under a minute) and they had captured an essence of me, I know this as several people spontaneously commented on it, and they were painted from life by looking in a mirror.

Equally the monotype adding came out well once I’d picked up the basics of dilution and pressure, and though there was a random element it was not as great as I thought it would be. Again, all the monotypes captured an element of my personality and looked more real than my conventional efforts.

The monotypes by subtraction were much harder and not as successful, but even here I got some useful results. I think the subtraction might be more useful as an add on technique to the monotype by addition rather than being used as a technique on its own.

Finally, painting back in was a ball… the looseness of the print gave me a form but allowed me the freedom to experiment in capturing the face in different ways.

If ‘Visual Skills’ is the use of the mediums and technique (maybe Diana could clarify as I’m still struggling with the categories) then I think – and I’m genuinely surprised by this – that I did quite well.

I think the lesson is to work looser and quicker and trust myself more.

2) Quality of Outcome

Can the viewer grasp what I’m trying to communicate.

In a word, yes, I think they can.

In all of these exercises (be that ink sketch/monotype… German Expressionism/Ceramic Art and ‘linocut’ I was trying to capture the essence of a person… me. Something people looking at it would recognise and would be uniquely human.

What I managed to do was avoid my painting looking like poor copy of reality, none of these looked like ‘bad’ paintings.

All of the exercises captured another human being – a lot of people said the ink sketches were uncannily like me (even if I’d shaved off a few years). I wanted to capture somebody the viewer can connect with and ‘read’ as another human being.

As such, I think the quality of outcome was good.

3) Demonstration of Creativity

I feel I didn’t experiment sufficiently in my sketchbooks before I launched in, though in my defence I am using the sketchbooks much more. However, the idea isn’t necessarily to explore my creativity in the exercises but in the sketchbook. To do three of four trial runs before I try the exercise.

I’m beginning to use my sketchbooks as not just somewhere to sketch ‘real’ things (which was the problem as a just making an accurate visual copy was beginning to bore me) but to play and experiment. To try and capture moments… to play. As Diana said it’s the visual equivalent of my online blog.

It’s shifting but there’s still more work to do and I need to use my sketchbooks more.

In terms of the actual exercises though, I thought I did show creativity in the way I played and tried new things, especially in the final exercise where I used the prints to produce radically different interpretations of my self portrait.

4) Context

In the past I’ve done lots of un-contextualised research, which I still think is valid as I’m putting in an artistic foundation. But Diana is very right when she says I have to start relating everything to my work and I think I’ve made great strides in these exercises with that.

Much of the initial research for Part 3 though interesting wasn’t applicable as I didn’t think the style was effective, suited to me, wouldn’t work for what I was trying to communicate, or in some cases wasn’t truthful. However I loved (and used) Annie Kevans work and to a lesser extent David Bomberg.

Marlene Dumas was an invaluable source of inspiration for my ink sketches; I watched videos of her work and looked at dozens of her early ink sketches. And I modelled both my outcome and technique on her working methods. Our aims were different, she took photographs and ‘re-lived’ them whereas I was doing a self portrait. But the overlap was the speed of working and the effort to capture humanity in a few strokes of the brush.

Annie Kevans was my inspiration for my monotype prints. Though she’s not a printer her fluidity, humanity and compassion are wonderful. I wanted to make my self portraits as ‘real’ and naturally friendly as hers. She also captured the inside of a person and like Marlene Dumas she often worked from photographs, but what they both have in common and what appealed to me was their ability to capture soul in a loose minimalist way.

David Bomberg also hung around in the back of my head, I don’t think I used him as such… but he was there.

For the final exercise I had a very definite context (having made the decision I didn’t want to paint a conventional portrait the artists in my research like Diego Velázquez and Edouard Manet weren’t much use but luckily I chanced on the German Expressionists at the New Walk Museum in Leicester. They have an extensive exhibition, and though I didn’t use the line and tone, I found the colours wonderful. So tried to combine the colour use of German Expressionism with the sensitivity of Elizabeth Paynton, especially the way she captures eyes… and captivates the viewer.

Next I tried to recreate the visual language, and the way he used the shapes of the pots, of Picasso’s ceramics and finally I tried to create a self portrait using Picasso’s visual language in his linocuts.

So, all my work in these exercises had a very definite artistic context which I linked to what I was trying to communicate.

 

1. A4, oil on paper

My two big influences were Elizabeth Peyton and German Expressionism.

I can’t decide if this works or not… I sort of think in painting terms it’s a bit like a teenager… it’s beginning to get muscular and assert its independence but it’s not there yet. But if, at the end of Level 1, I can begin to start flexing my artistic muscles I’m very happy.

I’ve painted over rather than painted into the monoprint but that’s where this exercise took me, and Diana said I didn’t have to slavishly follow the rules if my artistic voice took me outside the box.

Before I go any further… oils are wonderful to work with… and I’ve discovered none of my brushes really work, they’re hog bristles of very little quality that do dreadful things to the paint (and shed hairs) or watercolour brushes. So, I’ve just invested in a set of Daler Rowney Graduate brushes: Long Flat, short flat and round in a variety of sizes – and am going to bin all my other brushes, or at least put them away.

Oils are fantastic to blend with on the canvas.

Luckily I’d bought some decent filberts, which I’d never used before and even though they were too big they did the trick.

A new technique I learned from looking at Elizabeth Paynton paintings is painting into wet paint with red and blue instead of just using the pre-made skin colour and changing the tone, this radically improved my painting.

I tried to make the eyes connect with the viewer which is something Elizabeth Paynton does brilliantly. She takes iconic bland publicity photographs of famous people and makes them into your friends, she humanises them.

I tried to keep the simplicity of line from my original monoprint as you can see on the neck.

The German Expressionism is mainly in the bold almost fauvist colours I saw at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester on Saturday. I didn’t like a lot of the paintings but I loved their use of colour.

I used a wash for the background, both to pick up the red in the skin tones and to suggest fire; though I didn’t do obvious flames and kept it abstract. As it’s a wash there are no brush-marks, I liked the way the yellow layered onto the red. The grey top in the foreground is solid and has brush-marks which I thought would foreground it. So, even though I reversed the normal colour warmth by having red in the background and blue grey in the foreground I tried go suggest a separation by the difference in textural quality.

PS: The red and yellow is also a nod to a stunning Frank Bowling ‘abstract’ that I saw in the Guardian review of the Frank Bowling exhibition at the Tate Modern.

2. A4, blue tack and oil on paper

My influence for this was Picasso ceramics at Madoura.

I went to an exhibition of his ceramics at the New Walk Museum in Leicester. The way he’d used the shape of the pots as his canvas was wonderful, blurring the edge between sculpture and painting. He also used incisions and empreinte as part of his ‘painting’ technique. The colour and style was a mixture of naive/primitive art, ancient Greek and blocky print… and occasionally cubist.

I wanted to expand the definition of this exercise (Diana said to take risks, experiment and have fun… this is all three) and work back into the print using 3D and paint.

Also, I can see no reason why I have to try create a realistic image. What I’m trying to do is ‘speak’ visually, I feel a bit like a child trying out his voice and seeing what it sounds like. But alongside speaking I want to say something (this is totally different from where I started the course which was to paint something that looked real), so my aim is communicating something, the image – on one level – is just the vehicle.

As I don’t have access to clay – which is fantastically expressive and squidgy – I bought blue tack and put it over my print noting carefully where the eyes etc were. I then made impressions on my blue tack using the print underneath as a guide. I added incisions and empreinte as Picasso had done, and also tried to work boldly and quickly. It’s impossible in the blue tack but you can make the initial mark quickly, and then work slowly over that line.

Picasso used a limited range of colours and included decoration around his art, so I did the same. As much as I could I tried to keep the feel of speed and impish energy.

My colour scheme is a mixture of his black and red pots and some of his later more colourful ones.

I also used my new Georgian brushes which moved the paint well, left lovely brush-marks – which I tried to use – but also (disappointingly) shed hairs.

What I find interesting about the image is that, in a strange way, it works. However stylised and simplified it has a strange power. The contours under the paint help but it is the combination that is working. I could see doing a whole series and improving it, but it has the beginnings of art.

And here’s what it looked like as a naked sculpture before I turned it into a painting.

3. A4, oil on paper

Again, off piste a little, but as my artistic horizons expand I don’t feel as pressured to always go for realistic depictions. There is a whole world of visual languages that I’ve hardly touched and am itching to explore.

One of these is Cubism (but like Jazz piano needs an extremely competent musical understanding before you launch into it I don’t think I’m ready for Cubism yet).

However, I love the language of print – flat blocks of colour – flat surfaces like Julian Trevelyn (which he took into his paintings) and line as in linocut. I was just blown away by Picasso’s linocuts in The New Walk Museum, Leicester.  And there were three in the exhibition catalogue. Picassos’s linocuts had space, balance, Cubism, African art and a weird visual similitude… on one level they couldn’t be more unrealistic but on another they held the essence of a person so that you could almost ‘see’ them.

So, I decided to paint into this monotype to make it look like a Picasso linocut. I followed my print for the shape and positioning of the features but tried to remember what Picasso’s linocuts were like – I looked at them for ages – and capture the same feel, but with my interpretation.

I like all of it apart from inside the cheeks, chin and forehead (which I added later as the face was too dark). But the part I planned before I started is working quite well.

The ‘border’ outside the face and the neck/jumper was great fun… and feels balanced and dynamic to me… it reminded me of acting as I just had to be in the zone. I switched off my thinking (word based) brain and focussed on balancing shape, line, and the weighting of light and dark. It was like sculpting with light and I worked at  it till it sat in space properly. Which is an odd way to think of it as it’s a flat patterned space – but it ‘felt’ much more like a 3D sculpture.

I think I need to know the structure of the face better to ‘abstract’ it, and I know nothing of the language of African art… so inside the face is much weaker. However, the nose and eyebrows are beginning to register… but the rest of the face is too prosaic and realistic.

With my oil paint, which doesn’t dry (or rather oxidise) for months – it isn’t even touch dry for a couple of weeks – it’s very hard to paint over. And my brushes were too big for what I now thing of as a tiny piece of paper.

Diana is right, I need tom work bigger.

I think with oil paint you got to get it right first time, be bold, scrape off if it’s a real hash and leave little gaps between edges… use the canvas as part of your painting like Modigliani did.

….

I’ve really enjoyed this exercise and feel I’ve moved a step away from always going for a likeness. I started with a monotype and explored three very different ways of capturing a face, all equally valid, based on two famous artists (Elizabeth Paynton and Picasso) and two artistic styles German Expressionism and ‘Ceramic art’.

 

 

 

This was much harder than monoprinting by addition.

Self portrait 1, A4 Monoprint – Water based oils on acrylic plate.

This is my favourite, I love the way the image is fading and slightly abstracted. The texture of the paper becomes part of the image, not just a surface, which I really like too. It’s suggestive and I find it quite powerful.

Shame about the blob on the hair

Self portrait 2, A4 Monoprint – Water based oils on acrylic plate.

This is a striking image and I like the way the subtraction has allowed me to get the texture of the hair. The eyes are quite effective too, especially the images left eye (viewer’s right) and the nose has a 3D quality which for a few strokes of flat colour is really cool.

Self portrait 3, A4 Monoprint – Water based oils on acrylic plate.

The eyes don’t work as well (I may paint back into this one and refer to the eyes on Elizabeth Paynton).

Self portrait 4, A4 Monoprint – Water based oils on acrylic plate.

This has captured something of my personality. The hair is very effective and the eyes are working too. The nose has mass… I like the way the mouth and the shadow underneath mirror each other (it was deliberate).

It’s a bit of a mix between simplification and I worked on the nose, but I think it holds together.

Self portrait 5, A4 Monoprint – Water based oils on acrylic plate.

I like the nose, mouth and chin which have the same visual language and work together, if you hold your hand across the print and block of the top it’s quite strong.

However, I don’t think the top half works… the eyes lack clarity and don’t hold the viewer (another one I might paint into)… though the hair is just about passable.

And here are my ten original prints.

 

I found that my palette for oil paints wasn’t big enough so I’m now using an A2 piece of glass with white paper underneath. It’s a revelation that I can leave my palette overnight and the paints don’t dry. Another benefit is they don’t stiffen – acrylics change viscosity almost as you look at them. However if you thin the oil paint the thinner does slowly evaporate over a few hours and the paint reverts back to its normal viscosity.

Another huge benefit is that the paints don’t change colour as they dry so colour matching (with acrylics it’s almost impossible to match the tones even if you his the right colour) is much easier.

However, I find I need to mix with a palette knife rather than the brush and have to be much more careful about paint hygiene as if the colours even look at each other they mix together… I can see why artists such as Mondrian left blank canvas between edges. And why a ‘resting stick’ is necessary to avoid smudging your work.

Oils mix differently too… for some reason when I make black (burnt umber and ultramarine blue) and mix it with yellow it doesn’t turn greeny… so am having to learn some new mixing techniques… having zinc white is a godsend as it means I can lighten colours without changing their colour.

I bought a roller with a stand and found I can press down with the heel of my spare hand and get a lot of pressure. This caused me some problems as it spread the paint more. Pressure is one of the variables when you are monoprinting.

Effects… by removing paint I can control the depth of colour and spread so am learning the different effects I can get using different viscosities in different thicknesses. For instance I varied the amount of paint to get a richer colour/more or less spread… or a faded effect.

Another very useful technique was using a sponge on the hair, it removed and spread the paint leaving hair like threads, which when printed were very effective.

I hadn’t got any cotton buds (and they’re going to ban them soon anyway) so wrapped tissue round a pencil point. Unfortunately this was a very blunt tool and difficult to control. And although I could use a dry brush to remove paint very sensitively, to make sure I had a clean area was quite difficult to do with any accuracy.

I dabbed and smudge with my finger but this wasn’t very effective as it just moved the paint around, when I also wanted some of the paint removed… but it might have its uses.

I must buy some good oil brushes as my big brushes are course and of no use on A4, my acrylic brushes have splayed and my watercolour brushes aren’t firm enough to use with un-thinned oil paint.

 

Max of 1 minute on each painting – mid sized soft brush – 3 cups: undiluted ink/diluted ink and water.

Just to give me inspiration and this one took a lot more than a minute…  she kept on doing it till she got it ‘right’ (and captured some of his sparkle) is Marlene Dumas’ Hockney:

This looks like she’s painted into a very faint loose image when it was dry as there’s no bleeding effects.

Here goes…

And individually…

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This was the most fun and tiring activity I’ve done in the four years I’ve been doing this course – but I love the results. I had a practice in my sketchbook and decided that starting with the dilute ink first worked best.

I had three strengths of ink: full strength, watered down but still with a punch and light grey watery.

Annoyingly, the proportions are far more accurate on here than any sketch I spent hours (or days) on.

A minute’s not long and the more I did the more I saw in my face so the temptation was to start adding detail. And because the thin ink was still wet I got lots of bleeding, this causes some wonderful effects and you could control it a little by how you applied the thinner paint, but I would have liked the option of letting these dry and putting washes over.

On my last painting I introduced the technique of drying the wash/bleeding/drips/ with a kitchen cloth.

The combination of speed, fluidity, random (well – mostly…, it doesn’t bleed onto dry paper and bleeds more where it’s wetter) bleeding effects, drying, rubbing and painting in would give you a wonderful range of subtle effects. And that’s just in monochrome… if you added hints of colour you could multiply the effects.

In terms of results I was really pleased as I had no idea what was going to happen.

From about painting number 10 on they all started to have areas that work and there are a couple I really like.

What I did notice was that they all had different personalities/expressions (and that I’d shaved a good 30 years off my age with some of these… one even looks like I’m a child). However I can see me in all of them, which given the way they were created is nothing short of a miracle.

And, there’s a freshness and spontaneity about the images which `i really love, this is definitely a style, or at least a feel, I would like tom take through to my paintings.

 

 

 

 

 

Research artists who have used monotype/monoprint or with loose paint, in particular to produce portraits.

Mono equals one off.

Print means print.

One off print

Think about painterly way of doing this while researching – and note to self… experiment in my sketchbook!!!!!!!

Things to look out for in my research:

1. How to capture brushstrokes (a particular way of understanding oil paint).
2. How to manipulate the consistency of paint.
3. How to remove paint.
4. How to paint on top of your print.

Monotype:

Yuko Nasu: b. 1974

Thin layers of oil paint which she wipes away with a turps covered rag. (3) This causes blurring and is unsettling. Similar portraits to Henry Tonks???

These were from am exhibition in 2010… These are comical and grotesque, they capture my attention because they show how much you can distort the human face and it remains a face. For me these are masks and very different from Henry Tonks.

He painted deformities and first World War wounds… they were normal people with a grotesque deformity caused by genetics, disease or war. They were real people carrying a burden and as such evoke in me an equal amount of horror, pity (wanting to look away but wanting to honour them as people).

Yuko paints unknown people who might be somebody, equally they might not exist. They do not evoke an emotional response, this is a game or a technique.

These especially, which are created by brushstrokes are much more comical than grotesque, she paints some where she lets the loose paint do its own thing and form ‘hideous’ half human beasts… these are much more disturbing and in the line of genetic experimentation art.

Eleanor Moreton b. 1956

Has produced a series of oils paintings of her female heroes. She smears paint to create movement (is this the same as removing it… or just moving it around without removal?).

(1) Wiping with a thick brush with diluted paint captures brushstrokes.

This has a narrative appeal and I like the colours, though it does remind me of Gaugin on a particularly washed out day – like his mojo has been sucked out and he’s on impulse engines.

It’s thin paint applied in a naive style… I can’t see much smearing (This is quite recent… 2017/18… maybe she smeared in her early work?).

I haven’t done and monoprint yet but this looks like thin paint on paper… because it’s thin it’s captured the brushstrokes.

I don’t like the lack of movement and vibrancy – she’s chosen a zinging palette and then muted all the colours, which drops the energy level.

Kim Edwards b. (early 1960’s?)

Works from drawings and photographs of Suffolk coast. (His or found… nicked?!)

Thick, opaque oil paint (2) and uses a lot of over painting (4) and trial and error.

This looks like an oil sketch… there’s something wrong with the composition, but that’s not what this research is about.

It’s thick paint so no obvious brushstrokes – the consistency of paint is very important in capturing brushstrokes… Apart from the muddy colour palette which captures none of the rich colours, even in a muddy day, this also appears remarkably flat.

I can’t find anything to like in this… neither figurativly or expressively.

Loose paint:

Annie Kevans b.1972 

Very thin paint onto oil primed paper/unsized paper. Unsized paper blurs image and creates a natural fluid look.

Annie has a mission statement and to quote Wikipedia: she paints series of ‘portraits’ that explore sometimes controversial concepts and alternative histories. They are “portraits only in a loose sense… her works being a composite of existing images, research and imagination”.

I love her work.

She captures soul and personality in an economy of light brushstrokes using loose thin paint.

Her eyes are stunning… a few deft strokes skewer the sitters soul.

And there are no flat areas as the subtlest suggestions of colour give us enough colours to read in the contours.

But as in ‘Andy Warhol in Drag’ above her subjects are also anatomically correct, recognisable, beautifully composed, show depth and have a real sense of colour… at least this one does with the red of the lips being picked up in the shadows of the hair and echoed in the further, orangey hair.

Kim Baker b. (No indication online – best guess 1960’s)

Very diluted oil paint on canvas, board and paper. Dark background and works on top with light paint. **** I could try this in my sketchbook.

Her blurb on her website says she uses gestural painting and often overpaints.

Dark Forest 6 110cm x 80cm oil on canvas 2019

Very diluted, drippy and light on dark so it does what it says on the tin.

And this is abstract from 17th Century flower paintings… a few gestural marks informed by years of practice.

That said, it’s not my favourite work of art… I can see the organic flower colours and the floretic sculptural movements. And it has depth… but, something isn’t working for me. This feels dashed off, it’s very subtle, but I can’t feel the connection with the canvas and the vision of the painter.

It feels like she might have done 20 in 10 minutes and picked the best two, titled them and sent them out into the market.

Alli Sharma b. 1967

Ingrid 2 (A Kind of Loving), 2012, oil on canvas, 50x40cm

and

Green Hell, 2017, oil on paper, 15x10cm

The earlier painting according to Alli explores notions of womanhood… but looks like a copy of a photograph from the film. Loose paint and it’s quite competent but it appears dead and flat.

Green hell is also gestural but much looser and more expressive. I like the economy of mark making and the feeling of energy. (even if I don’t like this particular painting).

Geraldine Swayne b. 1965

Works mainly in miniature in enamel on metal.

Geraldine Swayne, Camilla Horn, Blue Dress, 2012, enamel on steel, 6 ½ x 5 inches

This doesn’t appear that loose, with some heavy opaque splodges of paint on the face.

The background and dress appear looser.

Geraldine seems to paint slightly racy images a little out of time, in that they titillate the viewer and could be seen as mildly pornographic… or portraits of famous people. She also has the USP of painting on small metal plates with enamel which makes them unique and very collectable.

All power to her elbow, and I’m sure they sell, but I’m not as convinced she would be as successful if her paintings were on canvas and selling on their painterly merits alone. That said, if I had the skill to paint anything as effective as this image (and I love her use of colour) I’d be very pleased.

David Bomberg b. 1890 d. 1957

Self-Portrait, 1932, Oil on canvas, 606 x 511 mm

I couldn’t find any of his paintings that used loose paint.

However, he produced many portraits (he turned to figurative painting from the 1920’s onwards) which are very loose in terms of detail and resolution. His self portraits especially, his portraits of other people seem to have more clarity and detail, almost dissolving into a muddy wash of abstract colour but staying very firmly in the figurative camp: describing his face and personality with a surprising psychological clarity totally at odds with their visual dissolution.

I like this very much because it touches me with the humanity of the sitter.

Dioego Valasquez b. 1599 d. 1660.

From Wikipedia: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age (a flourishing of art and literature from 1556 to 1659). He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period.

Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), Innocent X (1650) [109], oil on canvas, 140 x 120 cm, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, Italy

I don’t know that he used loose paint in the modern sense of the word, but he manages a fantastic psychological realism with loose brushwork. The red top sparkles and yet is quick and bold carrying more weight than the most realist representation or photograph.

The face is equally wonderful, if more ‘finished’… it’s unlike the exuberant descriptive brushstrokes of Lucien Freud or the alabaster finish of Titian yet holds a world of personality.

(Unfinished portrait of country girl)

Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), A Country Lass (La Gallega) (1645-50) [106], oil on canvas, 65 x 51 cm, Private collection

I read that the face was finished but the clothes sketched. However, to a modern eye the clothes could easily be considered complete.

The face is wonderfully loose. You feel you are with this girl… her soul crosses the centuries and we feel she has time travelled (and that basically people don’t change however much the technology and fashion shifts around them) to sit before us.

Unknown…

I chose this because not just because it’s loose and wonderfully expressive, but I love the composition. The sitter looks like a famous dwarf actor peter Dinklage and it’s pure genius to accentuate his height by further diminishing it and having him sitting down while maintaining his ‘stature’.

Not loose with paint… but loose with painterly conventions.

Edouard Manet b. 1832 d. 1883

Wikipedia: Édouard Manet was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

………

Can’t put my finger on it but the looseness of impressionism is very specific… it’s a looseness tied to visual perception rather than psychological/spiritual or emotional perception. And I think the looseness, in the context of this research of monoprinting and ‘loose paint’ has less to do with visual perception more to do with psychological perception etc.

But Valasquèz managed both, and Manet bridged the realist impressionistic gap so he may well do the same. My memory is that they show character and are loose but I haven’t looked specifically with this question in mind.

Portrait Of Horsewoman

Portrait of horsewoman, by Edouard Manet (1832-1883), oil on canvas, 73×52 cm, 1882

I chose this because it is one of the few portraits where he doesn’t use the traditional dark brown sludgy background, and it is so full of joy and life.

This is loose in definition, not in the consistency of paint. The lack of detail and blurred edges let the viewer create the woman who is present on the canvas. Gestural loose brushstrokes fill the canvas from the almost abstract Turneresque bottom left where the hand seems to be moving, through the more figurative (but still very loose) gloved hand to the ambiguous face. What is this woman thinking… is that a girl behind the mask or does she have an edge.

Portrait of Henri Rochefort, 1881, oil on canvas, Height: 81.5 cm (32 ″); Width: 66.5 cm (26.1 ″)

Painted only a year before ‘Portrait of a Horsewoman’ this has a completely different style. Traditional background and more full realised dress suit. I suspect due to the gravitas of the named sitter decorum and tradition were in order, if not demanded for the fee.

However, the face is almost Lucien Freud, not swept along brushstrokes but an almost palpable sense of flesh, but unlike Lucien Freud who seems more concerned with the corporeality of the flesh here we have the mind and the moment of the sitter captured on the canvas.