Zach Snyder
Digital Drawing
Gerard
Richter
While
I scoured through the mass forest of art
that is available to us on the internet, one particular artist caught my eye
more than any other, and to my surprise, I never knew of him before. That
artist is Gerard Richter, and you can find a lot of his works at the Museum of
Modern Art, or MOMA for short. I focused my attention on his oil paintings,
which is what he has displayed in the MOMA, but he apparently also was a photographer
and a glass blower. A jack of all trades, or at least many. His style of
painting uses only the gray-scale. Mainly staying with his whites, grays,
blacks, and everywhere in between, he paints some of the most realistic
paintings this young artist has witnessed. Another technique he uses is that he
blurs his lines and smudges his paint on purpose, giving it that much more of a
realistic feel to it. While some might look down on this style of painting, for
it is not the most creative thing you can paint, Richter uses his own style and
fines to make it seem like something more than just a photo-realistic painting.
When
Richter uses his gray-scale and blurring techniques in unison, it gives a very ethereal
feel to the painting. It almost seems like these paintings are of ghosts and
spirits that have already passed us by which, in this case, is somewhat true,
since he was painting these around the late 1980's. His conceptual and compositional
techniques, also lend themselves to this style of painting, with some subject
lying on the floor, or eerily looking out of a window in the corner. This
paintings really capture the essence of human form and expressions, which so
little artists can do with as much professionalism as Richter. Richter once
said that he hoped that his paintings can serve as a reminder of his time, to
see it as it really was. I can without a doubt say that his paintings represent
that era of history, to the tee, and
that none could have executed is as emotionally striking as he does.
Though the majority of his work remains untitled, Willheim Sasnal is an artist that clearly knows what he is doing. This Poland born artist uses heavy lighting, and very illustrative figures, to really make his painting pop. He begins by using pencil to lightly lay out the ground work, and then he goes in with India ink and brushes it on almost 75% of the piece, this is depending on the subject, making very strong cast shadows. Since his work usually involves figures, he has allowed himself to play with these shadows in interesting ways as they cast off the different bones and extremities. All of his pieces have a very nice contrast between them, and they all are made in the same style, and never in color. He is an artist that truly know his craft, and instead of really innovating the field of art, he has perfected what he has done with a ton of practice. I feel that there are only two types of artist's in this world, and those are the two. The ones that innovate, and the ones that perfect their field, where Sasnal definitely falls into the later.
His works involve a really strong feeling of different emotions. Whether mysterious, sexy, worried, humorous, or sad, it is all no stranger to Sasnal. Because of his super strong contrast, every little line and nuance stands out boldly, allowing the viewer to know exactly what emotion he is trying to convey, never hiding it from his audience, something that I believe most artist do too much of these days. The fact that he rarely gives any of his pieces names, also invokes a lot of mystery around his work. Once again he is not trying to confuse the viewer with a title that might compromise with the feelings of his pieces, but instead leave it entirely up to the audience. I find his work very pleasing, and inspirational to many you illustrators, like myself.
