13 Mar 2014

Flat Noses on a Frontal Face

A year ago I used this early portrait drawing by Ingres (left) to demonstrate that Picasso's combination of faces from differing viewpoints, a hallmark of Cubism, was a technique practiced by earlier artists for a similar reason. Ingres, for ins

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17 Nov 2012

Mental images from Holbein, Ingres and Picasso

It is well-known that Picasso admired Ingres' portrait drawings like the one above on the left. Separately I have shown how Ingres, like other great masters, changed the facial features of his sitters to fuse them with his own. Not all portraits

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11 Jul 2012

Bless you! It’s Art

Keep your eye open for a handkerchief or white cloth. They can be highly significant. My own experience suggests that those who are not painters themselves are relatively unaware that a cloth is almost as important to the craft of painting as a

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17 Oct 2011

Delacroix on Color and Line

Writers on art once believed that Raphael and the School of Rome privileged line and contour whereas Titian and the Venetian School worshipped color, thereby making the overall palette and tonality of Venetian pictures in the Renaissance more si

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