Behind the Scenes

The photo above is of a corner of the small, former bedroom that I use as both a library and painting studio (most of my art-related books are on the wall opposite the one shown).

As I've mentioned from time to time, I majored in commercial art as an undergraduate and took a number of drawing and painting classes wherein the instructors were careful not to teach us much for fear of destroying our "creativity." After college, I dropped art to do other things that probably paid better. A few years ago I took up painting again. This was mostly because I was curious as to whether or not I might have been any good at it had I received any real instruction.

My main source of instruction is books, supplemented by visits to art museums and an occasional free demonstration at a local artists paint manufacturer. But it's all really a back-burner activity; I seldom paint, devoting my energy to studying art and writing about it.

If you look carefully, you'll notice that the paints I'm using are acrylics. That's because they are more convenient to use than the messier, slow-drying oils that would probably work better for me were I a serious painter.

I'm still experimenting with styles as the three paintings in the photo indicate. My subjects tend to be pretty girls because (1) I like attractive females and (2) people are the most difficult subjects to paint because viewers can immediately detect errors, so this is a challenge. (When seeing a painting of an unfamiliar landscape, viewers have little means for telling whether or not the artist got things right. But people have seen various kinds of other people throughout their lives and therefore have a pretty good idea what's right and wrong about an image.)

The lowest painting is adapted from a black-and-white photo of 1930s actress Jean Harlow; I made no effort to duplicate it, though it is similar to the original. The middle one is from my imagination. The one on the easel was begun using a black-and-white photo of 1960s actress Ursula Andress; I liked the pose and needed a nice light and shade reference. But as you can see, I painted an imaginary face bearing little detailed relationship to Andress.

Enough about my hack work; now back to our usual programming....

Precisely Delineated High Society

When I used "precisely delineated" in the title of this post, I didn't mean that high society was being pictured in its true state. Rather, I meant that the style of the artist had a precise look to it. At times it was almost geometric.

The artist is Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949), descendant of an acting family whose father, Louis-Maurice, was a well-known illustrator. The link to Bernard is in French, so I'll note a few key points (with a few details incorporated from other sources). He was trained by his father, painter Luc-Olivier Merson and sculptor Jean Dampt and began exhibiting in 1903. He served as an aerial observer in the Great War and then lived in Fez, Morocco 1918-25. Starting in 1926 he traveled frequently to the United States. He died in the same airplane crash that killed violinist Ginette Neveu and noted French boxer (and dear friend of singer Edith Piaf) Marcel Cerdan.

Boutet de Monvel painted orientalist Moroccan scenes, but is best known for his society portraits, fashion illustrations and advertising illustrations. The image above is the left-hand panel of a 1929 two-page spread illustration used in advertisements for Hupmobile cars (the right-hand side simply shows the rest of the car against an essentially blank background, so the illustration could be used in either single or double-page formats). Hupmobiles sold in the top part of the middle price range, competing with Buick and Chrysler. Hupp advertising around 1930 was therefore intended to appeal to a sophisticated audience and a number of striking ads were published; I think the one shown above is especially nice.

Below are other examples of Boutet de Monvel's work.

Gallery

Self-portrait

Jean-Louis Boussingault and Andre de Segonzac

Comte Pierre de Quinsonas - 1913 (image slightly cropped)

Maharaja of Indore - 1934

Hupmobile advertising illustration - 1929 (cropped)

Illustration: New York City

Drawing

Many of the images include various straight lines and curves used to build up the subject-matter, these lines often extending beyond boundaries and intersection points (click images to enlarge and see this more clearly). This is a bit mannered, but I must confess that I like the overall effect Boutet de Monvel achieves in many of these works; lesser hands might easily botch it.

He has been considered an Art Deco style artist, if for no other reason than his use of clearly visible geometrically related lines. Other artists and illustrators in the 1920s and early 30s tried the same thing, but so far as I'm concerned, Boutet de Monvel was perhaps the very best at the style.

Varieties of Railroad Travel Posters

This book about North American railroad company travel posters mentioned that early posters tended to feature locomotives, but by some time around 1915 the emphasis shifted to destinations offered by lines. Between these extremes must be a middle ground where voilà ! trains and destinations appear on the same poster. And voilà ! once more, there can be posters showing trains on their way to destinations passing by intermediate points of interest that the lucky tourist will be able to see if he rides the line in question.

This high-level theorizing leaves me breathless and my head woozy, so let's move on to viewing some examples.

Galllery

By Leslie Ragan for New York Central - 1938
Ragan created many fine poster illustrations for the New York Central. I selected this one because it features a locomotive to the exclusion of its setting.

By Walter Greene for New York Central - 1928
The New York Central railroad correctly boasted that it was the line that had the lowest level between New York and Chicago; competing lines had to deal with mountainous terrain in places en route. A 20th Century Limited would depart from New York's Grand Central Terminal and head north along the east bank of the Hudson River, crossing to the west side shortly before reaching Albany. From Albany it would proceed along the Mohawk River and then surmount a small crest near Utica to enter the Great Lakes drainage basin. From Syracuse through Buffalo and Cleveland to Chicago was a matter of traveling over fairly flat land.

The scene in the poster shows a train heading south along the Hudson at a point just north of West Point, where Storm King mountain looms on the river's west bank, a sight for passengers to enjoy if they were sitting on the right side of the coach. Storm King is certainly a large hunk of rock, but I suspect that Greene slightly dramatized it.

By Leslie Ragan for New York Central - c.1940
Here we find locomotives at a destination, Chicago in this case, with the Board of Trade building as the backdrop. Ragan depicts four locomotives, three steam powered and one new diesel engine (second from the left). At the far left is an ordinary non-streamlined locomotive. The engines at the right are steam powered streamliners; I wrote about them here.

By Edward Eggleston for Pennsylvania Railroad - early 1930s
Not a train in sight, but who would care about that if there was a lovely swinsuit-clad lass beckoning you to join her on the beach near Atlantic City's fabulous boardwalk? The Pennsy's main routes ran from New York to Philadelphia and then on to Chicago or St. Louis; to reach Atlantic City, one had to catch a spur line from Philadelphia.

How Duveneck Inspired Greg Manchess

The image above is of a study done by Frank Duveneck (1848-1919), an influential painter active in the late 19th Century.

Illustrator and Painter Greg Manchess recently posted this article on the Muddy Colors blog in which he explains how the Duveneck study profoundly inflenced his own painting style.

His post is well worth your attention if you are interested in painting technique.

In the Beginning: Haddon Sundblom

This post continues an illustrators' parallel to the series on early works by modernist painters.

The subject is Haddon Sundblom, who spent his career in Chicago and was highly influential in his day; many successful illustrators cut their teeth in the field while working at his studio. If you're fortunate enough to have a copy of the first issue of Illustration Magazine or its later reprint, the lead article deals with Sundblom.

In December 2010 Leif Peng had a series of posts on his blog dealing with Sundblom. The lead article, which dealt with his early career, can be found here. Go to the blog's archives for that month to access the related posts.

The source for Sundblom's early work shown in the present post was the Annual of Advertising Art, a yearly awards publication of the Art Directors Club of New York; the organization's present guise is here, and those awards are still being given.

Dates for the illustrations shown below are "circa" the year before the source Annual was printed because that was when the the work was probably published.

Gallery

Coca-Cola Santa Claus
For better or worse, these days Sundblom is best known for his Santa illustrations for Coca-Cola.

For Lincoln - 1924
This image was found on the Web; a black-and-white version was in the Annual of Advertising Art for 1925.

For Lincoln - c.1924
In the mid-1920s Lincoln had many advertisements using the general visual and content themes shown above. One factor that was not consistent was the artist doing the illustrations. Although Sundblom did some of this work, perhaps most were by Fred Cole. It is hard to tell which artist did any given illustration, because the artistic style is similar for the entire ad campaign, something surely imposed by the art director. What's not clear is whether the art director had this appearance in mind from the start or else liked what he saw in the work created by the initial artist and ordered it continued. In any case, that series was very attractive -- more so than Lincoln's cars of the time.

For Ford - c.1924

For Ford- c.1924

Illustration for unidentified automotive client - c.1924

For White Naphtha Soap - c.1927

For Camay Soap - c.1928
Yes, this was really done by Sundblom (unless the caption was botched in the Annual). The deviation from his usual style might be explained by the art director wanting an appearance in line with the simplified, poster-like modernist look common in fashion illustration in the late 1920s.

For White Naphtha Soap - c.1929
The original artwork was in color, but printed in black-and-white in the Annual.

For Packard - c.1930
In the late 1920s into 1930 Packard advertisements would have a scene of luxury painted by a well-known illustrator at the top of the page and an image of a car towards the bottom. This Sundblom illustration has been cropped on the right side because the page in the opened Annual curved towards the gutter and distorted the image I photographed; note some reflected light washing out the right section of the remaining image.

The Regressive Curtiss-Wright Condor II

Technology advances, but most products aren't cutting-edge due in part to the timing of development cycles. Then there are new products that have obviously retrograde features, a prime example being the Curtiss Condor airliner that first flew early in 1933.

In order to explain the Condor, I cooked up the following photo essay:

Photo Essay

An Early American Airlines Condor

Marine Corps Condor

Swissair Condor

Boarding a Condor
The photos above are of the Condor II, of which there were several variations among the 43 that were built (note the difference in the engine cowlings between the plane in the top image and the others). Its first flight was 30 January 1933.

Note that the fuselage is rounded and has a somewhat streamlined appearance in line with early 1930s aircraft, though it isn't of all-metal construction which was becoming universal for larger airplanes. What is strongly retrograde is the fact that it is a biplane with wing struts that add to the wind resistance. The Condor II was a slow aircraft compared to other new transports such as those mentioned below. Its commercial advantage was that its large fuselage could be configured to include sleeping berths, a selling-point for coast-to-coast flights; previously, transcontinental passengers would fly a few daylight legs and switch to passenger trains for overnight legs of the trip. Apparently American Airlines felt that eliminating this transportation mode-switching compensated for the slow speed of the Condor.

Boeing 247
This can be considered the first modern airliner. Its first flight was 8 February 1933, a few days after that of the Condor II. Compare it to the Condor.

Curtiss B-2 Condor Bomber
There were earlier Condors, one being the Army Air Corps B-2 which entered service in 1929. It was a primitive design based on an early-1920s bomber.

Condor I
The Condor I was known as the Condor CO or Condor 18, the Condor I appellation is retrospective to distinguish it from the later Condor airliner. This transport was based on the B-2, and the six that were built served with Eastern Air Transport 1931-34. It could carry up to 18 passengers, a large number at the time, but this advantage was negated by its other, out-of-date, features.

Douglas DC-2
The DC-1, essentially a prototype of the DC-2 first flew 1 July 1933 and the first flight of the DC-2 was 11 May 1934. The DC-2 soon became the dominant mid-1930s airliner.

Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST)
The first flight of the DST was 17 December 1935 and it entered service with American Airlines the following summer. Knowing that its Condor IIs were obsolete, American Airlines pressed Douglas to create a sleeper version of the DC-2 to replace the its Condor II sleepers. A non-sleeper version of the DST was the famed DC-3, a few of which are still serving 75 years after its commercial introduction. The visual distinction between the DST and DC-3 is in those small, slit-like windows above the main windows; they were to allow upper-bunk passengers to peek at the outside world.

Square-Brush Painters

Impasto is one of those fancy art terms, and it means slapping on the paint really thick. There are several ways this can be done; using a palette knife will do the job, but I think the results are usually pretty ugly -- messy-looking. Almost any kind of large brush will do the job too, but one with a squared-off end easily signals impasto!, impasto!!. And thanks to this brush effect, you don't have to lay on paint so thickly to get an impasto appearance.

Some artists have built reputations around their use of square brushes (though they seldom make an entire painting using such a tool). Over-use of square brushes can yield results just as off-putting as palette knife painting, so moderation is usually a smart strategy.

Let's look at some works by artists who made use of square brushes. Click on images to enlarge.

Michael Flohr - Martinis and Jazz
Flohr is currently active, and giclées of his paintings can be found in many art galleries around the USA. He uses square brushes much of the time, yielding a signature look that probably assisted his career. I find some of his work interesting, but his technique mostly seems to get in the way of what he's trying to depict. Perhaps he's already evolving from so much reliance on square brushes; I hope so, anyway. As for the painting above, I think that there are too many brush strokes of similar width and length; more variety in strokes (not to mention use of brushes with other-shaped tips) would have improved it.

Wilhelm Trübner - Salome, 1898
If it weren't for John the Baptist's head on that plate, this would be simply an interesting nude-in-the-woods painting. I like the use of warm and cool colors applied in large patches by square brushes; a little extreme, maybe, but it gives the work its unique character.

Leo Putz - Am Ufer (detail), 1909
During the early years of the 20th century Putz made a number of paintings featuring areas painted using square brushes. The result is a faceted look which, while mannered, intrigues me as an artist (of sorts).

Mead Schaeffer - Rialto Bridge scene - 1932 magazine illustration
Up to the early 1940s Mead Schaeffer created illustrations using a strong, "painterly" style where brush strokes were often obvious even when seen on printed pages. The illustration above is one of his best, and used square brushwork in certain places such as the lady's gown, but not all over.

Saul Tepper magazine illustration, circa 1930
Tepper worked in a painterly style around the same time Schaeffer did and also created many fine illustrations. Square brushwork in this example can be seen on parts of the building's wall as well as on some of the rubble.

Greg Manchess - apparently a detail of a larger work
Manchess is currently active as an illustrator of science fiction and fantasy book covers and he also paints murals and does other commercial illustration. He has a strong, painterly style and isn't afraid to use a square brush in places, as the example above indicates.