Talking to myself before I go for an injection.
When I was young but working, I worked in a draughtsman's office, I was a tracer doing very boring drawings of machinery. Today I asked what is a draughtsman, does it encompass the word artist for example. After all the ability to reconstruct something on paper that looks exactly like the image in front of you would surely be seen as artistic, and often we use the word draftsman (two spellings) in that sense.
I let a lot of artworks slip through my search machine, after all, now we have super duper phone cameras why do we need to sit down and paint. Yes there are a thousand answers to that! What we like or do not like is a matter of subjective choice. When the question came up about female botanical artists, who is your favourite, I can't name a name except perhaps Elizabeth Blackadder, and I am not entirely happy with her art work.
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| Elizabeth Blackadder |
Botanical art has to be exact to give you the structure of the whole plant, so there must be the flower, seed head, leaf and stem for accurate recognition. My plant book by Marjorie Blamey does that, with tiny little drawings of the various parts of the flower down the side of the margin. But her drawings never strike me as artistic. But by the same token I love Robinson's nineteenth's century 'English Flower Garden' for its steel engraved plates of their subject matter. I suppose such work denotes craftmanship? I also like Dutch paintings of flowers, more often than not set against a dark background, the vases often reveal a tumble of garden and wild flowers.
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| Rachel Rustch - 17th Century |
So I suppose it comes down to what you want to hang on the wall to give most pleasure and for me to delve into the history of botanical female artists as well. There is of course the American artist Georgia O'Keefe, but rather flamboyant.
Art is what appeals to the eye and the heart and that can change with circumstances and mood.
ReplyDeleteTrue Janice.
DeleteI find Georgia O'Keefe's pictures quite disturbing and much prefer the sort of precise illustration that can be found in field guides.
ReplyDeleteShe mostly painted a singular flower didn't she Tracy, it was supposed to be rather sexual in its capture.
DeleteMy oldest son is a graphic artist - mostly making automobile ads at his job. He always wanted to be a comic book artist and still does that for fun on his own. He has drawn his whole life and I have several of his drawings on my walls.
ReplyDeleteIt is very relaxing to draw Ellen, except of course when it is your work. I used to do archaeological drawing on site capturing what was the essence of what you were see in a section. Perhaps your son will be able to draw to his heart's content when he retires.
DeleteOh, he still draws a lot - several times a week he meets with friends who draw or write.
DeleteI think that 'art' is what brings you pleasure. It means something different to everyone, I think. One of my favorite things is actually a photographs. Two eagles sitting in a tree looking in different directions. It was taken and given to me by someone I really though highly of. He refused to accept that I held different political views. He tried to argue me to his side. Of course that did not work. We did not speak for a couple years. Then one day he pulled along side me in his car, and handed me the photo. I was very touched. I call it 'Different Views' and I will treasure it.
ReplyDelete'Different Views' That of course is the romantic in you Debby, unfortunately meeting the argumentative in your nature. We argue, because? someone says something is white, we argue it is black, but knowing full well that it could be white.
ReplyDeleteThe nature of the argument is more interesting.