Colorist

[Steve Craighead]

By the way, members of the Boston School were very much influenced by the French Impressionist. Paxton, though slightly younger than DeCamp and Tarbell, was a part of that whole mileu as well. I don't think any of them eschewed cadmiums.
The "Blue Kimono" by Decamp at the High Museum is one of my favorite paintings too. Seen in person, its a beautiful tour de force. Here's the whole painting.

[Sharon Knettell]

Steve,

I personally reach for whatever color works. I like a warm Vermilion as it is a very useful color in warm skin-tones. When I have to ramp up the volume, I use a ripping cadmium. I think trying to dictate what pigments work and what are out of bounds is like telling a trained pianist what part of the scales is useful and what is wrong.

Thank-you for your information about the Cape School. I wish I had known about it, instead of going to The Boston Museum School.

I found some more about the Cape School. Interestingly Henche was a in a direct line of teacher from William Merritt-Chase the founder of the Parsons School.

He was influenced by the Japanese prints and arts and often incorporated it into the arts. It was this cross pollination of Asian art to the French that produced one of the most exquisite periods of art in history. Of course the French influenced the American Impressionist movement as they all went over there to study.

Here is brief description of Chase and the Cape school.

http://www.mcbridegallery.com/amerimpressionism.html

Below is a beautiful Chase incorporating Asian design into a beautiful painting.

Also is a spectacular Monet of his wife in a kimono. This is a really poor copy of that magnificent painting at the Boston Museum.

[John Reidy]

Am I being too simple minded? I've been following this post and the topic seems to have gotten caught up in a this vs. that string.

As portrait artists, are't our major concerns mainly two-fold, color and form? Aren't we all (portrait painters) really colorists?

We need proper form to be able to represent a resemblance to the subject. All else falls under color, especially values. You cannot represent a color accurately (or to more correct, to represent what you wish the viewer to see) without hitting its value and chroma. After all, if you miss on the chroma you miss the overall effect of 3 dimensions.

I know that I am not in the same caliber as others here and maybe my failures are due to my simple mindedness but this is how I understand the art of portraiture.

KISS is my mantra.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Steve, I said Paxton didn't use any Cadmiums on his palette (although they were readily available to him at the time). This information regarding the content of his palette comes from James Childs who was a student of Paxton's student, Ives Gammel.

Having examined the DeCamp painting of the Blue Mandarin Jacket up close and personal, on numerous occasions, I see no evidence of Cadmiums there either. From that you can infer anything you wish, however, I never said Paxton or DeCamp eschewed them, I said I thought Sharon eschewed them (based on her listing of which colors were on her palette). Obviously I misjudged Sharon by taking her literally. My bad! You obviously misread what I said.

I happen to agree philosophically with much of what Henche says but I'm just not a big fan of amped-up over-saturated color, which to my eye stays right on the surface. On http://www.thehenschefoundation.org/OpenEyes.html/, Henche states, in his essay, that the "truths of Impressionism" have been "rendered obsolete and not worth striving for." This was obviously not the case with the Boston School artists who married the Impressionistic concept of a true color note to the Academic quest for accurate values and exquisite draughmanship, as evidenced in the images I posted above. This was practiced by artists such as Paxton long before Henche starting teaching.

In fact, many schools of painting championed the idea of what Henche called the "light key." For example, it was taught by Howard Pyle and can be seen in the work of Golden age illustrators such as J.C. Leyendecker, who happened to be a student of Bouguereau. They chose to utilize these effects in a more naturalistic and subtle way than Henche and Hawthorne.

My point is that there are multiple points of view on who or what defines a colorist. I was merely throwing in my two cents worth.

Regarding the drawing thing, obviously Henche could draw, if he wished to, based on the examples you've published, but then he flatly dismisses drawing as the foundation of painting and says, "This type of thinking has done more to cripple the development and usage of color in modern painting than any other fact." Ouch!

I believe the act of drawing, which I define as getting the right shape in the right place, can only help one to refine the color relationships.

That's all folks!

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by John Reidy

As portrait artists, are't our major concerns mainly two-fold, color and form? Aren't we all (portrait painters) really colorists?

We need proper form to be able to represent a resemblance to the subject. All else falls under color, especially values. You cannot represent a color accurately (or to more correct, to represent what you wish the viewer to see) without hitting its value and chroma. After all, if you miss on the chroma you miss the overall effect of 3 dimensions.

John,

Some portrait artists add color as in over a grisaille and others work directly using color to create light and form. Others leave form behind entirely. It depends on what your personal definition of portrature is, another thread entirely.

Here are some examples of what I mean.

The Raphael is probably a grisalle, highly modeled, color added. It is dependendent more on form than color.
The Renoir is directly painted with color, quite flat. It, though it is subdued, more dependent on color for it's effect.
The Klimt leaves form behind almost entirely and dependes entirely on color.
This clever Japanese portrait by Natori Shunsen, from the 1920's is almost posterized.

[Linda Ciallelo]

This is an excellent thread. The posted images speak so well in ways that words can't. This thread has greatly increased my understanding of what I am trying to do.
I was looking up Whistler and came acrossed this painting of his. I found it very interesting in it's use of flat color, especially when you think of Whistler as being a basically black and white artist.

[John Reidy]

Sharon,

I agree with your examples and your points on each. To me, though, each piece is a creation of the artist using color and form to one degree or the other. Thus, for me, we as portrait artists are colorists. I guess I should add "to one degree or another".

I, too, find this thread very educational. As you can probably tell that I speak from my personal point of view and it is enlightening to read other's views and the examples they post.

Perhaps I may learn something.

[Linda Brandon]

Originally Posted by John Reidy

You cannot represent a color accurately (or to more correct, to represent what you wish the viewer to see) without hitting its value and chroma. After all, if you miss on the chroma you miss the overall effect of 3 dimensions.

John, I'm confused as to whether you are confused ( how about that for a sentence?) but I just wanted to point out that there are three elements of color that (in my opinion) are frequently mistakenly condensed into two elements:
1. Hue
2. Value
3. Chroma (also called 'Intensity' or 'Saturation')
Personally, it helps me to think of color as a three-note music chord; you need to think of all three aspects to the color you are putting down.
Gamblin has an interesting discussion on this subject at this link . There's a dvd that you can order through the site that shows a 3-D model of the "color space" idea. I think it was free at one of the Portrait Society of America conventions and that's how I have it.
This is a wonderful thread and thank you all who have contributed to it, I'm enjoying it very much.

[John Reidy]

Linda,

You are correct. I'm bad.

I hope I paint better than I talk.

This is kind of funny when you consider the quote after my name at the bottom of each post . . . "It is more important what comes out of your mouth than what goes in."

[Linda Brandon]

You're not bad at all, John! It's just that whenever artists start talking about color and color theory, things get confusing pretty quickly. I think that a lot of artists say they object to too much color when what they are really trying to say is that they object to excessively high chroma in a painting.

By the way, Gamblin's 'color space' discusses historic and 'modern' pigments and is styled (somewhat) after the Munsell system. A good introduction to Munsell is on Wikipedia here. I don't know much about the Munsell system beyond what's there.