Paul Cadden and George Bellows
Paul Cadden
These are not photographs! Paul Cadden specializes in hyper-realistic art. His drawings take up to 6-8 weeks. He produces about 7 works a year. Each of his drawings is worth around 20,000$. In an interview he mentions people are always asking him, how does he draw water? His response is that drawing water is just like drawing any other part of the drawing. It is just shading and value. In this same interview he does explain a bit of his artistic process. So although these images are not photographs, they are exact copies of photographs he himself took. He explains that he puts his photos into a computer program and he can adjust and manipulate the image how he wants, making the contrast more or less, making the water appear more glossy. Then he puts a grid over the image which then transforms the one photo into 5000 tiny images. He then transfers the grid and the 5000 tiny images to paper. Cadden has been interested in tiny detail ever since he was a kid. His interest in hyper-realism in college lead him to the field of graphics. He is very proud of his skill but he wants his viewers to know its not all about that. His works have depth. For example his drawing of a Scottish Landscape. It is a twist on how people imagine Scotland to be. It is not all rolling green hills and pubs. There are issues of waste there as well.
His work stood out to me because of his high skill level and as I learned more about him and his art I became more intrigued with the content of his works as well.
Scottish Landscape
Self
The Far Road
George Bellows
George Bellows was born and raised in
Columbus, Ohio. He grew up playing sports but always fancied art. He studied
art in New York and gained his fame when he and some other students organized
an exhibition of mostly urban studies. He is best known for his paintings of
boxing matches. His ability to achieve realism lead him to be
commissioned by the wealthy to paint portraits. His work is also highly
controversial. The work I will be focusing on are his lithographs. He produced
several works depicting the atrocities committed during World War 1. Allies
said Germans were responsible for these acts during the invasion of Belgium.
Bellows was criticized by art critics and others of his representations of the
war since he did not physically experience or witness these events. He
responded that he had not been aware that Leonardo da Vinci “had a ticket to
paint the Last Supper”.
What
makes his prints stand out to me is what he was able to achieve in his drawings
before starting the chemical process and inking process. Lithography is a
printmaking technique invented in 1796 by a German author and actor. It was
used as a cheap method of publishing theatrical works. The matrix is limestone
or a flat aluminum surface. The chemical process uses a water-repelling
substance and a water-retaining substance. The positive part of the image is
the drawing, which the ink sticks to, the negative part of the images is
treated with a water repellent which will not hold ink. The images are drawn
using a grease pencil, fat, or wax. Lithography is an extremely difficult
technique because any grease that gets on your plate or stone surface will pick
up the ink when inking your image. So, if you get a fingerprint or hand print on
your surface before you seal it, it will show up in your final image. Also,
every mark you lay down is permanent. No erasing. (There is a way to get rid of
un-wanted marks, but it is a long and confusing process that takes place in the
chemical process for preparing and sealing your surface.) Because of the unforgiving
nature of lithography when mark making, I believe that makes drawings done this
way even more remarkable. In George Bellows case he was still able to achieve realism
and high amounts of detail, but his images became more gestural. Bellows collaborated
with master printer Bolton Brown on hundreds of images between 1921 and 1924. His
works are exhibited in many American art museums and range in prices from
hundreds to thousands of dollars.
My first and quite possibly only question regarding Paul Cadden's work is how the hell did he do that? I've found a strange paradox with hyper realistic drawings such as these. The skill needed to pull off something like that is astronomical, yet the art becomes replaceable by photograph, therefore making the piece redundant in regards to artist interpretation through drawing. Most artists take an image or raw material, filter it through their unique lens, and have something different at the end. In this case, he takes a picture, just to get to the exact same spot, all while giving the art of photography a graphite laden middle finger in the process. I can just imagine him saying, "Ooh you pressed a button and took that? I DREW this." Though I see these as less "art" pieces in terms of the artist giving us their own interpretation of the world and more a testament of human capability . Either way, pretty damn impressive.
ReplyDeleteThe work of Paul Cadden and that of many artists, including myself, is a struggle that speaks to the heart. In the description of the artist’s work, you say “He is very proud of his skill, but he wants his viewers to know it’s not at all about that. His works have depth.” Expanding on the previous comment, with the introduction of the camera, capturing a moment in time became easy with the snap of a finger, this caused an interesting and ongoing debate in the arts. In drawing the response was hyper-realism; artists could demonstrate that human skill was in fact equal or surpassing and had something extraordinary to capture, instead of rejecting the camera they incorporated it into the artistic process of art creation. Whether or not this made any difference is debatable. The deviation of many from realism might explain the popular consensus. One thing that I am certain of though is that skill and depth are dependent variables that demonstrate and measure the devotion of artistic expression, and that is what matters, to me, at least.
ReplyDelete