The brief asks to look at the work of Ingres, David and Degas to
examine their linear elements. I am very familiar with Ingres and David
as I studied French Neoclassical painters in high school. Even though it
was such a long time ago I remember being so impressed with the way
they painted the human form. This was probably when I first discovered
my love of figurative art. A few years later, I was very lucky to go to
the Louvre to see these paintings and was in awe at the size of them and
the amount of work that had gone into these highly rendered paintings.
Jaques-Louis David (1748 - 1825)
He
was thought to be one of the most important painters of the French
Neoclassical era. He was influenced with the Italian masters,
particularly Raphael and he wanted to participate in the Classical
revival that was occurring at the time. His work shows how he believed
that simplicity of line was central to the classical ideal in drawing.
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| David - The Oath of the Horatii (1784-85) 329 x 424cm |
Later he became involved with political
events and was a supporter of the attack against Louis XVI and the
French Revolution. His paintings became propaganda for this cause.
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| David -Sketch for Oath of the Tennis Court (1789) 101x66cm |
The sketch above was a depiction of an oath taken by
the National Assembly which was performed in a makeshift conference room
inside a tennis court. It signified the first time that French citizens
formally stood in opposition to Louis XVI.
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| David - Death of Marat (1793) 165 x 128cm |
Marat, a friend of David and member of the National
Assembly was murdered in his bath and this, one of his most famous
paintings has been called the Pietà of the revolution and created a
political martyr in Marat.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 - 1867
Ingres
was also a French Neoclassical painter and a staunch advocate of the
classical style. He was very resistant to the emerging popularity of the
romantic movement. He studied with David in Paris.
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| Inges - Le Grande Odalisque 1814 |
Degas (1834–1917)
Degas met Ingres,
whom he revered, and whose advice he never forgot: "Draw lines, young
man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will
become a good artist."
He is most well known for his
fascination with picturing movement and paintings of ballet dancers. He
is also one of the first artist to use photography as a tool in his art.
He is often called an impressionist painter but this is a label he
rejected as he felt he did not work spontaneously and would criticise
those artists working
en plein air.
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| The Dance Class (La Classe de Danse),1873–1876, oil on canvas, |
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| La Toilette (Woman Combing Her Hair), c. 1884–1886, pastel on paper |
Looking at all of these artists
and their drawings it is possible to see the importance of line for
these artists through the very simplicity of the contours.
David Drawings
Ingres Drawings
Degas drawings
Degas is much looser than the others but his absolute importance of obtaining the accurate contours of the human figure is cle
ar.
In
order to show the difference I looked out a couple of drawings from
other artists for which line was less important that form. Seurat was
fascinated with tonal differences and his drawings contained few lines.
Van Gogh was interested in texture and technique and Matisse's painting
below shows his interest in tone and colour.
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| Van Gogh - Portrait of Joseph Roulin |
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| Seurat - Artist's Mother |
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| Andre Derain by Matisse 1905 oil 55x47cm |
