Composition - examples of note

[Mike McCarty]

Allan,

In searching the web I can't find any other images that contradict the above. However, I do see some of the same images which are shown (cropped?) in the same way. I'm like you, I do suspect.

You can see a lot of similarity between Godward and Alma-Tadema (how does a man become a hyphenated person?). Unfortunately Godward committed suicide after being savaged by critics and reportedly left a note indicating something to the effect that the world was not big enough for him and a Picasso.

Here are a few more, again showing an awful lot of similarity in the compositions with only slight variations in pose and clothing. One actually looks to be reversed. It's said that little has been written about Godward, maybe these images have been manipulated by art dealers, postermakers and other web scoundrels because the poor man had no one to tend his work. I dunno.

[Ant Carlos]

Unfortunately the modernists were cruel enough to cause that kind of tragedy. Even today they still seem to have bad feelings about painters who know how to paint realistically. Not rarely I find myself arguing with the so-called contemporary artists who label my Art as "classical" in a pejorative meaning. But now, for me at least, they are the old-fashioned ones. If you try to define contemporary art, perhaps you'll be in trouble, giving so many matches in that field. I don't like, nor dislike what the modernists do. It just happens that because their style can accept anything, a lot of non-talented ones keep on going. A realist painter is easier to judge, even by the artist himself.

But back in 1920, poor Godward, lived in a tough time.

Ant

[Mike McCarty]

I was struck by the story of W. A. Walker, American, living in that time when all the so called "real" art was being created in Europe. This story of an American making do with the gifts that he had seems to be in contrast to the well studied artists of Paris. Sometimes it's just about the story. The fact that he was a Southern Irishman "posing" might have something to do with my affection for his tale.

Shown below are:

Goin' Home I 12x6
Goin' Home II 19x13

William Aiken Walker
1838-1921


William Aiken Walker was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1839 to an Irish Protestant father and a mother of South Carolina background. Walker would grow up southerner through and through. He completed his first painting at age twelve and continued painting until his death in 1921 at age eighty-three.

When his father died in 1842, Walker's mother took her family to Baltimore, where they remained until returning to Charleston in 1848. During this period, he began painting rural farm and plantation scenes of poor southern blacks and it was these works that he built his reputation. Something of a prodigy as an artist, Walker exhibited his first painting in 1850, and received his first one-man show at the South Carolina Institute Fair in 1850 and Courtenay

[Mike McCarty]

Here's a nice composition, I think. It offers a good bit of peripheral interest which is emphasized, or not, with just the right amount of light; a hierarchy or interest, if you will.

Alcide Theophile Roubadi 1850-1928, "Zizi et su Poupee," 35x26.

[Ant Carlos]

It's a very good work, although it gives me the imprerssion of being from a photo-reference, a B&W, of course, making it difficult for the artist to deal with some color temperatures.

Ant

[Mike McCarty]

Ant,

You have a much keener eye than I. I would say that the color, apart from the composition, is well within the window of believability.

There is a window, is there not? After all, reality changed for him every second, just as it does for us. Can anyone hope to achieve a perfect moment when that moment will not stand still? Even when It stands still in a photo, as artists we must be given some latitude of believability.

[Steven Sweeney]

Through the grace of a serendipitous recommendation while I was on another mission, I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Russian Art today, in Minneapolis, during an exhibition of realistic works. In turn, I very highly recommend a visit by anyone within three hours' drive of the Cities, or by anyone who will be in the vicinity in the next two months.

The image attached is a sad reproduction of a postcard, but I still think it's worth seeing here. I found the composition exquisite. This is "In the Palace of Culture Ballet Class," by Nadezhda K. Kornienko. 1956, 61-1/4 by 71-3/8 in.

In another composition, I might have thought that the young ballerina's gaze was focused into too small a part of the frame. But it is very easy to imagine an unseen "audience" here, much in the way that a perfect short story suggests events that occurred prior to its opening line and extending beyond its conclusion.

By exquisite I mean that I understand that everything in the painting is important, but I only care for and react to the subject ballerina. For the artist to shepherd that focus is, in my estimation, masterful.

[Ant Carlos]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

Ant,

You have a much keener eye than I. I would say that the color, apart from the composition, is well within the window of believability.

There is a window, is there not? After all, reality changed for him every second, just as it does for us. Can anyone hope to achieve a perfect moment when that moment will not stand still? Even when It stands still in a photo, as artists we must be given some latitude of believability.

Mike,
in my opinion the work is still a nice painting, but some parts resemble to a work from photo and since it was B&W at that time it seems to me he had to make up some colors. Maybe he had the real objects close, but the photo-reference dependence is clearly showing in the light-blue fabric of the little girl's dress. I also find the shadow of the face a bit too warm. Perhaps this digital reproduction is not making justice (?).

Ant