Contemporary Still Lifes on Artsy

Here's another post I made for Artsy about contemporary still lifes. It's brief and superficial, but, hey, it's something!

Still life painting is perhaps the most calculated of all genres. The artist first chooses the scene, and in most cases, arranges the image to their liking. Sixteenth and seventeenth century still lifes focused on portraying important themes of the day such as vanitas, which is, very loosely translated, a meditation on death, such as a skull, religious devoutness, such as a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, and regal status, for example, a sumptuously displayed table. At this time, artists were concerned with representing real life in a precise and natural manner through subjects that would convey specific themes to their viewers. Toward the middle of the 19th century, modernists (i.e. impressionist and post-impressionist artists) began to break away from the realism and naturalism of the past. No longer concerned with classicism and traditionalism, these artists broke from the Academie and introuduced bold color, sweeping gestures, unique perspective, and tangible emotion to their works (think of Van Gogh’s seminal sunflowers). Rejecting the conventions of the traditional still life which focused on the subject and symbolism, expression and process became increasingly the focus of the contemporary still life.  With the advent of Pop art, contemporary artists like Wayne Thiebaud, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, combined traditional still life representation with the bold colors and spatial concerns of the modern era. David Hockney similarly utilizes a combination of classic rendering with expressive color and unique perspective.

Posts on Artsy

Artsy recently set me up as a featured contributor on their site. I know, I know, it sounds cool, but nothing's really happened with it yet. I'd love to get some followers and write a lot of important posts, but so far I've only written two short articles and I'm not sure what the point of it is. I do enjoy it. Maybe that's the point. 

Here's a link to my recent micro-article about Picasso erotica. I'll go out on a limb and say it's NSFW, but it's Picasso, so it's art, so it's okay? (I'd like to discuss this idea [that erotica in art is acceptable and other forms of erotic are not] at some point in the future as I think it's salient and crucial to the larger art historical conversation).

Bon chance,

Diana

If you can't manage to get onto Artsy, here's the text from the post:

These prints are among the last etchings that Picasso executed before his death in 1973.  Over seven months in 1968, Picasso worked on the 347 Series, a narrative collection of 347 etchings (to provide context, Rembrandt created 300 prints over his entire lifetime).  Loosely drawn, perspectives thrown, bodies contorted and grossly exaggerated, Picasso combined his cubist angles with soft naturalistic forms reminiscent of his Rose period to illustrate the narratives of musketeers, bullfighters, bordellos, and erotic and voyeuristic scenes. Picasso believed that "art can only be erotic;" sexual overtones dominate much of his oeuvre, especially in these later works. Whether he depicts a sexual encounter as a solitary act or as a pair of lovers passionately entwined or even prostitutes partaking in a full blown orgy, Picasso adeptly strips away the veil of propriety and provides us with a raw and honest portrayal of our most basic human instinct-to please and be pleased through sexual means. 

These specific images are examples of proofs pulled before steel facing of the etching plate, printed long before their respective editions were pulled, with more contrast and bolder lines than the regular editions. These proofs were kept by Picasso for his personal collection in the course of creating the 60, 156 and 347 Series. Steel facing is a modern technique whereby the soft copper plate into which the image is etched receives a thin coat of steel via electroplating in order to harden its surface. In this way an edition can be printed from beginning to end without degradation of image quality, unlike Rembrandt etchings, for example, whose bare copper plates wore down from the pressure of the press over the course of printing an edition. This resulted in a visible softening of lines, as well as a diminishing of subtle contrasts and tonal depth in examples from late in a print run. Although steel facing allows for consistent quality throughout an edition and is in this respect an improvement over a bare copper plate, the process necessarily reduces textural delicacy and tonal depth to some degree. Therefore, proofs before steel facing are the ultimate vehicles for displaying the authentic origination of the full expressive capacity of the etching process