Figures

I've begun a Figure Painting classes. Here are two studies.

Cubism

I was looking through a book comparing the lives and works of Picasso and Matisse.

It showed a painting that Matisse had done in a Cubist style of a still life by Jan Davidsz de Heen as inspiration.De Heen's painting is entitled A Table of Desserts.

I looked at the original and I looked at Matisse's "copy" (both shown here).

Then,I read about Cubism...

' In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form — instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.

Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.'

I'm not sure I quite understand that..especially when I am looking at a "cubist" painting.
How, from the explanation above, does one come to this painting by Braque of a Woman with Guitar ??






I found another painting by de Heen and tried to do what Matisse had done in a Cubist way. And I looked back at Matisse's interpretation of the old painting he chose and could not for the life of me, see in the Matisse copy, an expression of Cubist principles as I understood them from the definition.
Here are a few versions





I removed the berries on the left.Repainted the bowl removing some fruit adding a diagonal darker shape through the table and bowl.


Repainted curtain orange.Replaced table on left with planter.Added a darker, triangular area to top right corner.


Replaced curtain with shutters.Removed clouds.Darkened the planter and the orange wedge to the left of the bowl, and darkened the window frame.

I repainted the egg and spoon using a shiny silver spoon that gave me a more pronounced reflection.

A quotation from Dan McCaw's excellent book A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art

" When we begin painting, most of us set a goal to depict things realistically, as close to what the objects look like as we can. Rendering ( painting realistically)*....seems like pure magic. But learning to render is simply an acquired skill.
Attempting to draw what we see will sharpen our ability to observe....Rendering enables us to analyze and understand form and lighting. It is a valuable tool on our shelf of artistic choices. But can the act of rendering jeoparize creative vision? It can, if we become prisoner to the form and fear the validity of our own artistic voice. "
* my words

I have been struggling recently with trying to break out of the prison of rendering realistically and trusting in my 'own artistic voice'. More accurately, trusting that I HAVE an artistic voice at all.

This Bowl and Book is painted faithful to the form...quite real looking.
The Iris and the Egg and Spoon are still recognizable objects, but less literally painted.

After some valid comments that the egg looked too red, I've re-worked the egg and spoon painting.

Egg and Spoon

After a composition by Julian Merrow-Smith, an artist whose work stirs my desire to work in a looser style.

My goal is to paint in a looser,more expressive "painterly" style from life...using no photos.
I plucked the last remaining iris in the garden, set it up and gave it a shot.