Continuing with the idea that art doesn't have to be realistic, we have looked at how Cubism leaves traditional perspective, abstraction influences some artist to produce semi abstract landscapes, now I want to look at NAIVE ART.
Naïve sounds like an insult but in art it covers a wide range of art in which either deliberately or innocently artists draw and paint without worrying about the academic standards of proportion, perspective realistic shading etc. The produce art in a similar way as children, they just draw what seems right.

A famous artist was  Alfred Wallis a retired Cornish fisherman
quote from Wikipedia: 

His paintings are an excellent example of naïve art; perspective is ignored and an object's scale is often based on its relative importance in the scene, giving many of his paintings a map-like quality. Wallis painted seascapes from memory, in large part because the world of sail he knew was being replaced by steamships. As he put it, his subjects were "what use To Bee out of my memory what we may never see again..."^[2] Having little money, Wallis improvised with materials, mostly painting on cardboard ripped from packing boxes and using a limited palette of paint bought from ships' chandlers. 

Two Boats Moving Past a Big House.

He was championed by some of the artists of his day and became well known. 

 The interesting thing is when someone in class says of a drawing or painting 'it's all wrong' often it looks a bit like this kind of art. So is it all wrong? 

It can look either clumsy and amateurish or it can look charming and unsophisticated in a pleasing way. 

An artist who chose to draw and paint in a sort of naïve manner despite having been well trained in 'proper drawing' was Lowry, now you can tell that he had a good knowledge of 'proper drawing and of proportion and perspective, so maybe Naïve isn't entirely appropriate. The Level Crossing. 

The style is used a lot, you often see it in galleries, makes good cards so will often see it featured on greeting cards because it is a kind of 'happy style' Local artist Joanne Wishart has a sort of sophisticated naïve style, which sounds contradictory, or one of those oxymorons! but you will find the style goes from very simple 'my 4 yr old could do better' to a more developed style which still has the feeling of freedom from academic realism. Joanne has a shop in Cullercoats, do visit when lockdown is over, but you can see her work online, really jolly and very accomplished. 

LOOK UP NAIVE ART AND YOU WILL FIND MILLIONS OF IMAGES, IT IS WORLD WIDE POPULAR. Linked to other movements such as Folk Art and Outsider Art

here is an example. 

 https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/spiralforeststudio?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=263722455

Well that's enough for now. do have a look, it looks easy but you will find the grown up in you resists your attempts to draw like a child! 

As ever doing a number of sketches, preferably form memory or else keeping the photo if you are suing it, at some distance trying to get the feeling of the scene rather than painstakingly copying. 

                NON REALISTIC REPRESENTATION

REMEMBER WE OUGHTN’T COPY OTHER PEOPLE’S ART BUT WE CAN BE INSPIRED BY THEIR STYLE. My photos of course, are for you to use.

SEMI ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE



I know, it all seems a mouthful! Artists and their wordiness!

Anyway looking at ways of drawing and painting which are of recognisable things and places but are not trying to be photographically realistic.

Last week we looked at Impressionism which is very influential and presents a simpler, colourful, and freer way of painting.



Here is a painting by Arthur K Maderson a modern Impressionist, shapes almost dissolve into shimmering colour.

But today I am thinking about the influence of Abstract Art on landscape. I think it has had a huge influence.

ABSTRACT, people can be a bit loose with their definitions, and use abstract to describe any art which doesn’t look realistic, I am a bit fussy about limiting the word to art which is non representational, againa mouthful but art which doesn’t have a recognisable subject it isn’t a tree or a person or a scene. Essentially it is shapes on canvas or paper.

Possibly the most famous abstract artist id Piet Mondrian who eventually painted nothing but coloured rectangles. And only used red yellow and blue, black and white. He thought art had reached its purest form in this kind of painting. A bit austere! A bit limiting? Another artist who became very famous and whose paintings are reckoned to be the very apogee of art (that’s a good word. Look it up) was Mark Rothko, some people practically faint over his amazing paintings which if you were unsympathetic might be mistaken for designs for a fireside rug. A very expensive one.  Yellow and Orange Mark Rothko.

Another famous one is Jackson Pollock people really like to make fun of his work but it was and is very influential, lots of artists these days like to include drips and runs in their work, maybe representing themselves as free spirits or maybe simply the enjoyment of the fluidity of paint itself. I quite like a nice splash or run of paint myself. ‘Humouring the Goddess’ Jackson Pollock.

Anyway onto our idea, that is that a lot of artists like a bit of abstraction, maybe the colourfulness, the simplification or the energetic use of paint, but they want a subject, they feel they still want it to be of something and landscape seems to especially attract semi abstraction.

Here is a painter I like, Paul Klee, (pronounced, I think: ‘Clay’) you can see the abstraction but you can also make out buildings and trees

And here is a contemporary artist using a similar combination of abstraction and landscape,  bit annoyed at myself for not noting full name, just got Elizabeth NL

I LIKE THE PAINTINGS OF Richard Diebenkorn, you can see it is landscape but his interest is very much in the shapes tones and colours, as well as a sense of the place he is painting.

 When I saw this scene at a local beach, I almost saw it through the eyes of Diebenkorn

I feel I am rambling! It is a big subject, just search abstract landscape and you will find countless modern artists doing it.

A very popular kind is the be almost entirely abstract but the establish a horizon, which gives you a sense of sky and land or sky and sea. Allowing you to be fairly free with applying paint, but retaining some sense of a land or sea scape.

Putting a bit of making tape to retain that line either at the start of after an initial bit of painting will help you feel you can paint freely but keep that horizon.

Here is an example, by Peter Wileman. You do a lot of this kind of painting. 

ANYWAY THAT IS ENOUGH FOR NOW I WILL TRY AND HAVE A GO MYSELF TODAY, AND POUT ON SOME PHOTOS WHICH MAY BE SUITABLE FOR SEMI ABSTRACTION. KEEP IT FUN, ENJOY, SHARE THE RESULTS.

Here are a few photos which may be useful to try semi abstraction, remember this means not trying to reproduce the exact likeness, but to simplify and select coloured shapes which can make up a painting or drawing.  It can be quite difficult to let go of that sense that we must get it ‘right’ A few small sketches first will help.

Non Realistic Representation Impressionism.

LANDSCAPE  CONTINUING LOOKING AT NON REALISTIC REPRESENTATION, still something of a mouthful, Lots of artists do landscape in a way which is not photographically realistic.

 I will look at two art styles which influence landscape painting, Impressionism and Abstraction.( I will do Abstraction as a separate post)

Impressionism is still super popular and influential, it is a simpler colourful way of painting. In a way it is realistic in that we really don’t stand for many hours studying a scene we look, get an impression appreciate it, and move on.

There is a famous painting by a Pre- Raphaelite painter in which he is reckoned to have spend many hours carefully depicting a real river bank in such detail every plant could be identified, an Impressionist would depict it much more simply as a mass of coloured shapes which give the impression of that view. 

So simplification, much less worry about perspective and other technical elements, make it a very painter friendly style.

A second interest was in the idea that what we see isn’t so much the objects but the light as it reflects off objects, and since light is coloured Impressionists tend to avoid blacks and greys and give everything colour, and not only colour, but colours, so a blue sky will often be several blues, a green field will have numerous different greens, plus other colours added yellows blues purples and even little bits of reds, creating a kind of shimmer. 

Pick a simple subject and instead of blending your paint build the painting up with lots of brushstrokes with subtly different colours to make each area. Acrylic is ideal but you can do it with watercolour , pastel is also ideal. The original Impressionists usually used oils.

Here is a simple effort of mine and the photo I used. Along wiht  money painting Red Boats at Argenteuil, and some photos whihc may be suitable for the style. 

1. Non Realistic Representation!

bit of a mouthful but all I mean is that there are ways of drawing and painting where you can recognise the subject, objects people landscape etc, but it is not done in a photographically realistic way. Mimetic is the fancy art word for when artists try and mimic what they see.

For the last 100 years and more artists have found different ways .to depict their subject.

One of the big experiments in a new way of representing things was CUBISM

I am severely simplify,so please do your own reading if you want, but for us I will simplify it to two main ideas

1. the picture is flat, old artists tried and were actually very good at making their art look 3D

Modern artists began to question this, shouldn't we stop pretending a painting or drawing is flat, and make our art fit that flatness?

Secondly Cubism acknowledges that when we look at something or someone we usually look at it from different viewpoints to get a better look, Cubism often tried to fit 2 or more viewpoints in the same picture. The results could look a bit odd or very broken up in to lots of fragments.

I AM NOT SURE WHERE THE PICTURES WILL END UP, PERHAPS I WILL POST SOME SEPARATELY SO AS NOT TO CONFUSE, HERE ARE THREE EXAMPLES ONE A TRADITIONAL STILL LIFE, REALISM, THE OTHER SIMILAR SUBJECT BY GEORGES BRAQUE CUBIST, THEN ANOTHER MORE COMPLEX STILL LIFE WHERE THE PICTURE IS FRAGMENTED ALMOST LIKE A BROKEN MIRROR.

Cubists sometimes added collage in fact I think they were credited with its invention.

I think the Cubists Picasso and Braque invented it, were playing; playing seriously, but still playing with new ideas.

 

2.

Still life seems a good subject to start with if you want to try Cubism.

There are a few ways of doing it, but first look at a fair bit of proper Cubism to get the feel if the look so to speak.

Set up a still life and sketch it but every now and then change position and try and incorporate 2 or 3 views in one. Not easy!

You could make it slightly easier by photographing it from 2 or 3 viewpoints printing them off and using them.

You may actually find it easier after a few sketches just to invent a picture from the memory of the subject .

IF YOU WANT TO TRY THE MORE COMPLEX FORM OF CUBISM YOU COULD PRINT SEVERAL PICTURES CUT THEM UP AND ASSEMBLE THEM IN A FRAGMENTED WAY, AND DRAW/PAINT FROM THAT. SEE MY EXAMPLE.

I will also ad some modern artists whose work is at least a bit Cubist. so
4 of mine including the cut up photos, one by Mark Leach, a pastel, the second by Sue Fitzgerald.

keep it light, obviously we are doing art leisurely, so this is just a chance for a taste of other kinds or styles of art.

Have fun!