Art, REALLY!

[tundratrekers@mtaonline.n]

Art,?

When does the use of such implements(such as pantographs,transfers of art not drawn by the artists hand) change the engravers work from "ART" to that of a mere copyist,or general craftsman.
I remember reading an account of Winston Churchill,drawing and redrawing many,many times ,the head of a mountain lion,the size of a pencil eraser,directly on the gun.
Thats art!!!! From the artists hand.
I read many times that masters of today think engravers today are producing finer specimens of engraving than in times past.
I wonder how many of todays "elite" could produce work equal to our predecessors,without the use of all the aids that the industry is using today.
And also,I have seen a gun by Robert Swartly,where he even engraved,"after art by so and so",right under the scene,in plain sight.
When does/did it become okay to not give reference to the origin of the art.mike:thinking:mike

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Mike

Transfer or draw by hand.............Are modern techniques not valid? Do we take a fixed date in history and any technique done after that is not legitimate?

Were all engravings done in the past seen as art? Were they supposed to be art? Were they all good work even?

Who says that all modern engravings are supposed to be art?

Is the process more important than the finish to qualify it as being art?

And the most hairy question of all............what is art??

Personally, I don't know the answers to any of that and simply don't care. Others always judge the work and the person doing it................while we are thinking about the next job and paying the bills

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Haraga.com]

The word "art" is so general and over used. The word needs to go away.

 

[Harpuahound]

Sometimes I wonder where the line is drawn (pun intended) between what is legitamatly "my art" and somebody elses. I dont "copy others work unless commisioned to do so exactly. When drawing for a job I do look at bunches of images for ideas and poses and details that I like. Sometimes a feature that I like from anothers work stands out big in my own work. Then there is always this nagging question "am I the artist?" or "should I be giving credit?" for example the Line drawing below was the inspiration the pencil drawing was my work. There are definate differences and definate likenesses. Who is the artist and does the original deserve some credit?

I dont remember who said it but a quote I once heard is "The most original artist is the one that hides his inspiration the best."

 

[AndrosCreations]

Great post!

I started engraving by learning how to carve hobo nickels, which has been a great learning experience. Most of the commissions I received were people wanting me to carve a particular picture or painting they had and I got used to doing it that way, because I had to if I wanted the work.

Now I'm finding that I do that too often and need to work on my drawing skills more... So I'm guilty of this mindset and it's certainly something I need to work on.

I hope to one day be an artist.

Thank you for the post, Mike.

 

[JJ Roberts]

Where did I hear this,Art comes from the mind,heart and the hands.For me it all started with Jon Gnagy around 1949,Jon was the first artist on TV who gave lessons.J.J.

 

[Dave London]

I agree with Andrew.
Also the artists / craftsmen of old would use any tool they could get thier hands on. Along with a legion of assistants . I was just in ,Italy, Turkey,and Greece and the ancient art is fantastic, but they used the tools and tech that was avaiable to them.Also I had the privilege to see Mike Dubber hand draw perfect lettering .
I do not want to offend any one but, it is getting old having folks denigrate new methods, of engraving, creating or modifying art work etc :no: If you want too use H&C push great go for it. While you are at it make your own paper and use charcoal for pencils ,etc.But don't knock others, while Being a faux Luddite using a computer

 

[Christopher Malouf]

The Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull commissioned in 1817.







John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence engraved by Waterman L. Ormsby in 1876

-------------------------------


Is it still art .... or was something lost in translation ..... or am I missing something????????????

Engraving IS a technical process regardless of who does the art and the art remains art regardless of who does the engraving. Historically, the purpose of engraving was to transfer illustrations and paintings to a medium for print whether it be copperplate, wood plate or steel. Very few artists actually engraved their own plates ... a few well known artist-engravers are the satirist William Hogarth and the illustrator Gustave Dore' and almost all of their work was done on paper FIRST before going to copper and wood respectively. So how did those guys do "transfers" without computers? ... a very time intensive process that would fill a short book and yes, W.L.Ormsby used a pantograph as well as a ruling machine.

 

[Harpuahound]

Thanks Chris, thats an eye opener for me, and a great example. Two images identical in many ways but I would consider both men accomplished artists after seeing the product of their efforts. It doesnt matter what tools they used, they were obviously masters of them.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hey Chris

Is that one of those "spot the diffenece" pictures

 

[Christopher Malouf]

LOL ... it's a where's Waldo Andrew.

Actually ... it takes some incredible mastery to be able to translate a color painting to a reversed engraving in steel and get the shades of gray perfect. No "convert to grayscale" in Photoshop back then either. From what I understand, it took Ormsby several years to complete the engraving. The original steel plate engraving recently sold for $30,000. Back in the day, that original steel plate was reduced, using a pantograph, for the printing plate to print the back of the $2 bill. If Omsby is nothing more than a lowly "mere copyist", well then .... I would have been proud to just shake his hand.

... by the way, Ormsby was in his 40s when he did it which really makes me feel like finding a new career LOL!!

 

[Sam]

Chris: Michelangeo was in his early twenties when he sculpted the Pieta.

 

[Harpuahound]

Chris: Michelangeo was in his early twenties when he sculpted the Pieta. [/QUOTE]

Mind boggling! If I remember correctly. People didnt believe that he had carved it so he went back and carved his name in Mary's sash.

 

[tundratrekers@mtaonline.n]

https://www.kimbellart.org/uploads/SaintAnthony.jpg,

You really want to feel bad chris! You need to check this! mike

 

[tundratrekers@mtaonline.n]

Heres the text ,couldn't figure how to get in the previous post.
Its worth the read,you wont believe how old he was! Almost made my head explode!

Art Museum
Receive Kimbell News



EARLIEST KNOWN PAINTING BY MICHELANGELO ACQUIRED BY THE KIMBELL ART MUSEUM

Michelangelo’s painting of The Torment of Saint Anthony, described by his earliest biographers, has been acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. Its purchase was announced Wednesday, May 13, 2009, by the Kimbell’s newly appointed director, Dr. Eric McCauley Lee. Executed in oil and tempera on a wooden panel, this work is the first painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) to enter an American collection, and one of only four known easel paintings generally believed to come from his hand. The others are the Doni Tondo in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery and two unfinished paintings in London’s National Gallery, The Manchester Madonna and The Entombment.


Michelangelo Buonarotti, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487–88. Tempera and oil on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Dr. Lee commented, “The acquisition of this rediscovered work from the very beginnings of Michelangelo’s artistic career offers an extraordinary opportunity to advance the understanding of European art.” Kay Fortson, president of the Kimbell Art Foundation’s board of directors, said, “This is an outstanding acquisition for the Kimbell. Michelangelo’s rare painting will be a beacon in the Museum’s already distinguished collection.”

According to Michelangelo’s biographer and former student, Ascanio Condivi, whose information came directly from the artist, the young Michelangelo was granted access to some of the prints and drawings in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. Of these, we are told, one particularly attracted his attention: an engraving by the 15th-century German master Martin Schongauer of The Temptation of Saint Anthony. Michelangelo reportedly took this engraving and, in an effort to try his hand at painting, produced a mesmerizing rendition of it on a wooden panel. Condivi also provides the curious detail that while Michelangelo was working on the painting, he visited the local fishmarket in order to learn how to paint fish scales—a feature missing from the engraving. When the painting was finally unveiled, it apparently elicited a good deal of admiration, and even Ghirlandaio is said to have been taken aback. Future writers were equally admiring of the Saint Anthony. It figures prominently in Giorgio Vasari’s laudatory accounts of Michelangelo’s life (the first from 1550; the second from 1568), and Benedetto Varchi also mentions the story of the painting in his funeral oration for Michelangelo in 1564.

The painting, measuring 18½ by 13¼ inches (47 by 35 centimeters), was sold at auction in London in July 2008 and has since undergone conservation and technical research at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it will be the subject of a summer focus exhibition. The painting had been known to scholars for many decades, but until its recent cleaning, discolored varnishes and disfiguring overpaints had prevented a full appreciation of its masterful execution, which is rich in colors and lively brushwork. In his analysis of the painting, Dr. Keith Christiansen, the Jayne Wrightsman Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum, concludes: “The case for this panel being the one described by Condivi is exceptionally strong . . . and given what we know, the burden of proof that it is NOT the picture described by Condivi is with those who would deny it.” Dr. Everett Fahy, the Sir John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum, is also in complete agreement. He has known this work since 1960 and always promoted its attribution to Michelangelo. His views—along with those of Dr. Christiansen—will be published in forthcoming articles on the painting.
While being cleaned, the painting also underwent a technical study, which fully supported the attribution. It became evident that Michelangelo had elaborated on the composition, and it is now possible through the aid of infrared reflectography to observe how the artist modified his German source. See the attached technical report by Michael Gallagher, conservator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum. “The important technical information that has come to light includes revelations of numerous pentimenti, or artist’s changes, that show Michelangelo working through his ideas in paint,” reports Claire Barry, the Kimbell’s chief conservator.

According to Dr. Edmund P. Pillsbury, former director of the Kimbell (1980–98), who endorsed the acquisition, “Michelangelo’s brush transforms the bizarre shapes and unsettling appearance of the Teutonic monsters and demons into a far more naturalistic and convincing account of the monk’s torments. Moreover, Michelangelo’s invention of the highly poetic but symbolic landscape of fertile and arid passages joined by a distant riverscape with rolling hills roots the event in a topography resembling the Arno valley of Florence rather than the site of the actual event recorded in faraway Egypt. Michelangelo brought the torment a lot closer to home.”

The remarkably fresh and well-preserved gem, believed to have been painted in 1487–88, when Michelangelo was 12 or 13 years old, was acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum from Adam Williams Fine Art of New York for an undisclosed sum. Following its inaugural presentation at the Metropolitan Museum, which will showcase the recent technical examination, the panel will go on public view this fall for the first time in its new home––Louis Kahn’s award-winning Kimbell Art Museum.

Background of the Artist

Born in 1475 near Florence, Michelangelo is universally acknowledged as one of the towering geniuses of the Renaissance. Already by his teenage years, he had proven himself a superlative sculptor and painter. His contributions to the field of architecture are also renowned. Best known for his mature works such as the ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, he evolved a forceful, muscular style that gripped the imaginations of artists for decades to come. First and foremost, Michelangelo thought himself a sculptor, and many of his works in marble are icons of Western art: his Vatican Pietà, his vigorous David in Florence, and his tragic and unfinished Rondanini Pietà. As a painter, Michelangelo was equally influential. As The Torment of Saint Anthony proves, he was drawn to painting at an early age, and by the time of his final masterpiece, the Last Judgment, also in the Sistine Chapel, he had presided over a vast revolution in Italian painting.

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[Christopher Malouf]

Hey Sam, are you trying to get me to quit or are you changing the subject by posting a statue in an art discussion? ROFL!!!

--------------

Mike, There's a reason that I used bank-note engraving to make my point. Did you know that Bob Swartley is one of a handful of people in the U.S. who can masterfully execute the same type of line engraving using historically accurate methods? It is significantly more time consuming, historically more American than Italian style Bulino and in my opinion, it is also much more valuable.

Would you still imply that Mr. Swartley is a "mere copyist"? If there is a dying or lost "art" in the world that needs to be found, it is the steel plate engraving of the 19th (and early 20th) Century.

 

[Dave London]

Check out on google Francisco Sotomayer, a modern day master , I would x post a link but the IPad does not work for flash

 

[tundratrekers@mtaonline.n]

No Chris, Your post all revealed something similar,Ormsby acknowledged the artist,or atlas history does.
Swartley ,also gave credit.
And as far as the Ormsby plate you show,its far from an exact copy.But again credit is given the source.
Same with the Michelangelo,above.
I believe they all drew their works themselves,maybe even the Ormsby.
Yes, i agree with your views on the bank note.mike:clapping:

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Yip, and they all would have used Photoshop if they had it, just as Davey Crockett would have used a GPMG at the Alamo if he had one.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[diandwill]

As I said in a much earlier thread, The great Nimshke, in his book of engraving/smoke pulls, references a book of animal illustrations that he used AS TRANSFERS, on his engravings. Since I mostly use transfers, I hope that someday I am known as a shlock engraver, just like Nimshke.
I would love to be able to draw, and if I ever don't have to work to earn a living, will certainly consider investing the years it takes to do so well. In the meantime, I will transfer and cut. Only the purist could object too much.