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Old Masters
Mar. 6th, 2011 11:21 amI am not as much a fan of Fine Art as I probably ought to be, but I find Holbein's portraits (and others from that same school) to be endlessly fascinating, not only for the exactitude with which the images are draughted, but the way the personality seems to be captured as well. So many portraits are excessively formal or dressed up to conform to the tastes of the day – everyone in the 18th century seems to have had the same cherubic smile, for example.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a stash of Holbein Sketches on The Retronaut.* Artistic styles come and go in paintings, just as they do in fashion, and often have tremendous bearing on the relationship between the artist and the viewer. Drawings, on the other hand, always seem to be refreshingly direct: they are less swayed by the winds of style, as there are only so many ways to describe something with line, and reveal a lot about how the artist thinks about creating their image. It's interesting to see the continuity in drawing over time and across space, too – it's amazing how much some rough anime drawings look like rough Disney drawings, which makes me think that in many cases the style rides more on the filter of cleanup than the actual drawing itself. Anyway, I digress. Holbein's painting style is very firmly Of Its Time, but the drawings look like they could have been done by someone I work with, of modern people in costume.
Cue much pondering on the passage of time and the nature of history ...
*This site was critically slowing down my browser the other day so I warn you now, it may do the same to you. I am running Firefox 4 Beta now and the problem is gone, but I don't know whether it's because of the browser or a change on the site.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a stash of Holbein Sketches on The Retronaut.* Artistic styles come and go in paintings, just as they do in fashion, and often have tremendous bearing on the relationship between the artist and the viewer. Drawings, on the other hand, always seem to be refreshingly direct: they are less swayed by the winds of style, as there are only so many ways to describe something with line, and reveal a lot about how the artist thinks about creating their image. It's interesting to see the continuity in drawing over time and across space, too – it's amazing how much some rough anime drawings look like rough Disney drawings, which makes me think that in many cases the style rides more on the filter of cleanup than the actual drawing itself. Anyway, I digress. Holbein's painting style is very firmly Of Its Time, but the drawings look like they could have been done by someone I work with, of modern people in costume.
Cue much pondering on the passage of time and the nature of history ...
*This site was critically slowing down my browser the other day so I warn you now, it may do the same to you. I am running Firefox 4 Beta now and the problem is gone, but I don't know whether it's because of the browser or a change on the site.
