July 17, 2004
i like the black line drawings a lot - not sure about the other stuff here, the backgrounds or paper scraps. the drawings are great though. - i love the spare and subtle ways in which you suggest that these beasts are complete even without their heads. unlike a decapitated body, these can operate on their own - their stumps have grown over, or maybe they never even had heads. the ascription of absence is more mine than than the drawings'. very interesting contribution to our discussions.
they would also make nice t-shirts.
Posted by: Kevin Hamilton at July 18, 2004 11:18 PM"the 18th cent. search for the ideal was closely bound to a preoccupation with outline or contour. recognizing its absence in nature (there are no black outlines around clouds, trees, or the human body [or headless animals], Winckelmann saw contour as the royal road to the ideal and the supreme means of artistic expression. Countour enabled the artist to purify reality by purging it from all physical particularities and reduce it to its formal essence--the highest beauty human beings could achieve. the dutch philospher frans hemsterhuis even went os far as to attach an almost religious significance to contour...he spoke of the sacred essence of line and the divine mission of drawing."
so GO HENCEFORTH AND DRAW!
author goes on about Joseph Wright of Derby's "The Corinthian Maid", where a woman draws the outline of her lover as he sleeps, in anticipation of his departure. an attempt at 'keeping him there' i suppose. see:
how to outline your lover
