Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Interesting styles of painting

More research for th portrait project.

Frank Auerbach


Auerbach is a German-born artist living and working in Britain. His style of painting is fascinating: really thick impasto oils applied and then scraped back. He doesn't use underlayers or sketches, he goes straight into the painting itself. I think that helps add the immediacy his work has. You can't really see in reproductions, but the paint is applied so thickly it almost gives the impression of a relief, with a very tactile quality.

My own photo from Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. I've got to admit, it took me a few moments and a few steps back to realise that this was a portrait (and I felt a bit of a fool) but once I realised, I was amazed by the depth of emotion and character Aurebach could show with just a few strokes.

Mikhail Larionov


Larionov was a Russian avante-garde painter who was closely involved in the Russian Neo-Primitive movement which combined cubism with traditional folk art. He was an important figure in the Russian art world, and a founder member of some important groups. There's a definite influence of Van Gogh and Picasso in the bold outlines and bright colours he used, but there's a warmth to his work that I've not seen in Cubism. Perhaps its the colours, but there's something oddly friendly about his work.
(source: as above)

Dan Bayles

Bayles is an American landscape painter. There's something strangely architectural about his paintings. To me they feel like fantasy landscapes, they seem to show impossible places that hang in the air. I really like his use of vertical and horizontal lines, they give his work a graphic feel.
(source as above)

Gerald Davis
 (source)

Davis is an American artist who largely paints cartoonish monochrome pieces based on his own memories of childhood and puberty. There's a precision to his paintings that give them the appearance of drawings, but the muted colours lend a sense of memory and longing.

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