Placing People on Red Backgrounds

Many (most?) of the how-to-paint books I've read at some point deal with color relationships. They show the differing effects on a color of interest when it is juxtaposed to other colors.

An interesting case is the skin color of Caucasians (whites). Although there are variations, so-called white skin is actually a subtle mix of hues that can seem to vary depending upon lighting conditions, presence of fat, bone or blood under the skin, and, of course, neighboring colors. Those books often focus on mixing colors so that the appearance of skin is convincing.

When it comes to neighboring colors, the orange-red-yellow part of the spectrum that happens to match white skin most closely is normally the least aesthetically pleasing range where Caucasian skin is concerned. However, rules are supposedly made to be broken, so some artists will take the risk of using such background hues. This might be done to create a particular mood for a painting or illustration, or it might simply be a means for the artist to test his skill and maybe even show off a bit.

Below are examples of images where red is the background color.

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Detroit Auto Show
This is a photograph I found on the Internet of a model posing in front of a Ferrari at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show. It illustrates what painters face. Note how gray the girl's face and body seem with all that Italian Racing Red behind her, not to mention the outfit she's wearing.

Lady in Black (The Red Room) by Irving Ramsey Wiles
Wiles avoids the grey effect by exaggerating the yellow aspect of "white" skin. The use of blacks in the composition helps to isolate the subject from the background red.  (But keep in mind that this image might not reflect the colors of the actual painting, so my analysis might be flawed.)

The Count of Monte Cristo - by Mead Schaeffer
I posted about this illustration here. Schaeffer also uses blacks to isolate the skin color from the background to some degree. Still, in the image above, the Count's skin seems grayed like that of the model in Detroit. But the link contains a photograph I took of the actual illustration, and it can be seen that Schaeffer introduced a greenish tint to the face. Green being the normal color wheel opposite to red, this helps keep the face from being absorbed or neutralized by the red background.

Millard Sheets: General-Purpose Artist

Millard Sheets (1907-1989), was a Californian involved in a variety of art-related activities ranging from watercolor and oil painting to mosaic design, architecture, and art school administration. This diversity of pursuits (perhaps along with the fact that he wasn't totally in the modernist/abstraction tank) might have diluted his image to the point where he isn't well known today.

Since I don't want this post to be too lengthy, I suggest that readers interested in details regarding Sheets' life and career link to here and here for plenty of information. His son maintains this site, the page I linked to containing examples of works that are confirmed as not being Sheets' paintings and others of dubious provenance.

Below are examples of what Sheets did.

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Angel's Flight - 1931
This early painting is perhaps his best-known. It deals with what might be the station platform for a funicular that transported people to the now vanished Bunker Hill neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles.

Tenement Flats - c.1934
This also looks like the old Bunker Hill area.

California - 1935

Padua Olive Hills Drive - 1940

World of Life - mural, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame - 1964
Details regarding this project can be found here.

Home Savings Bank building - Sunset & Vine, Hollywood - 1968
Sheets was not a licensed architect. But his Millard Sheets Designs Company did have architects working under his direction. Sheets was responsible for many (most?) of the distinctive Home Savings buildings with sculpted motifs that graced California from the 1960s into the 1990s. Home Savings is no more, having been passed to Washington Mutual and then Chase. Many of the former Home Savings buildings have lost their former distinctiveness.

In the Beginning: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) is one of my favorite 18th century artists. That's because, unlike many others who painted classical and religious scenes, his women's faces looked like those of real people rather than the idealized versions inspired by Greek and Roman sculpture. His Wikipedia entry is here, and I wrote about those women here.

Although he burst on the artistic scene when fairly young, a certain amount of ramping up was inevitable. In this post, we take a look at some paintings he made by the time he reached his mid-20s. Click on the images to enlarge.

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Virgin Mary Appearing to the Dominican Saints - 1747-48
This is a painting from Tiepolo's mature period indicating where he evolved.

Doge Marco Cornaro - c.1716
He was about 20 when this was painted. Most artists agree that hands are harder to depict than faces, but here Tiepolo does a decent job on the hands whereas the treatment of the Doge's face is questionable. But the Doge was a patron and helped Tiepolo to become established, so perhaps that's how the man really looked.

Apostolo Tommaso - 1715-16

Apostolo Giovanni - 1715-16
These are a pair of works fitted into the architecture of the Santa Maria dei Derelitti (Ospedaletto) in Venice.  I find these interesting because of the way Tiepolo includes many facets or planes while constructing the figures.

Scipio Africanus Fleeing Massiva - 1719-21

The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew - 1722
By this point Tiepolo is settling into his oil-on-canvas style (his mural work was a different matter).

The Astonishing Pegaso

Not many Pegaso automobiles were ever built during the period 1951-57 when the brand was active.  Cars were a minor activity of what was essentially a Barcelona based truck manufacturer described here.

There is also some Internet-based information regarding the Pegaso automobile line here and here. However, there is very little other than photographs having to do with the Pegaso that interests me the most.  In fact, there seems to be no agreement even as to its name other than it was one of the Z-102 series.  Besides Z-102, its name might have included "BS 2.5 Cúpola" or "Berlineta Cúpola" or just "Cúpola."

It is also unclear who styled it.  Some sources credit Italian coachbuilders, others suggest that Pegaso built it in-house.  I have been saying "it" having for years assumed that it was a one-off, but several sources indicate that two cars of the design were actually built.

What matters is that the Pegaso under discussion has a design that was astonishing when it first appeared more than 60 years ago and that continues to astonish (me, anyway) even now.  This is not to say the design is a great one, but it's a good one with the ability to fascinate as well as astonish.

Let's take a look.

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The original car was painted yellow, as shown here.  The most serious design defect was that the backlight (rear window) shape failed to blend with the roofline curve, as is evident in this side view.

After being introduced in Europe in 1952 it was displayed at the 1953 New York Auto Show, where this photo was taken.

Here is another early picture.  For a while a red (I think) stripe decorated the top of the car.

This is a fairly recent picture, probably taken at a concours d'élégance.  The paint is now silver, but it might be that second car whose original paint color is unknown to me.

Another view, this featuring the front end.  The wheel housings are mostly covered by the fenders, probably for aerodynamic reasons.  This implies a wide side overhang beyond the wheels which would give the Pegaso an awkward appearance (to our eyes in 2013) if seen from the rear.

This shows the Pegaso "opened up."  Well, not completely opened; the access panel covering the rear wheel remains closed.  Also note that the door windows do not roll down due to the extreme concave shape of the inner side of the door; instead, they swing out to open.

This article is also posted on Car Style Critic

In the Beginning: Man Ray

According to what I've read about him over the years, Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky (1890-1976), identified himself primarily as a painter even though most others considered photography his forte. I think he was indulging in wishful thinking. His Wikipedia entry is here and another take is here.

The Wikipedia entry states that his earliest paintings were traditional, but a quick Web search didn't turn up any of those. What I did find were images of paintings he made following the famous 1913 New York Armory Show that introduced French avant-garde art to America. The exhibits influenced him to become a modernist painter, as did his association with Marcel Duchamp who was living in New York for about eight years starting in 1915. Man Ray also was strongly influenced by the Dada movement that began in Switzerland in 1916. At different times he considered himself a Dadaist and a Surrealist in photography as well as painting, though he supported himself mostly through commercial photography.

Below are examples of Man Ray's work starting with his early modernist paintings.

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Still Life with Red Tea Kettle - 1913

Departure of Summer - 1914

Five Figures - 1914

Hills - 1914These are among the earliest modernist Man Ray paintings I could locate.

Pisces - 1938

Self-Portrait - 1941These were done years later.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't find them much better than what he was doing around 1914.  But that might just be because it's modernism, which tends to place skill (as opposed to "creativity") low on its list of desiderata.

Photo self-portrait

Electricite la Maison - 1931
Here are two examples of his avant-garde photography, a field in which he was a genuine innovator.

Fashion photo - c.1930
Finally, an example of his commercial photography.  Contrarian me, I much prefer it to his various modernist darkroom and paintbrush efforts.

Up Close: Mead Schaeffer (4)

This is part of an occasional series dealing with detail images of paintings featuring the brushwork of the artist. Previous posts can be found via the "Up close" topic label link on the sidebar.

The present post deals with Mead Schaeffer (1898-1980) when he was following the style that gained him success as an illustrator. Additional information on Schaeffer is here. Previous posts about Schaeffer in this series are here, here and here.

Featured here is an illustration for "Lucy of Limehouse: Greater Love Hath No Man -- or Woman" by Samuel Bertram Haworth Hurst in the August 1933 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

The source of the detail images is explained below:

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The Kelly Collection has what is probably the outstanding holding of American illustration art by private individuals (not organizations). I was able to view part of it at The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California towards the end of a January 12 - March 31, 2013 exhibition run. The collection concentrates on illustration art created roughly 1890-1935 and one of its purposes is to further knowledge and appreciation of illustration from that era.

Non-flash photography was allowed, so I took a large number of high-resolution photos of segments of those original works. This was to reference the artists' techniques in a manner not always easy to obtain from printed reproductions. (However, the exhibition catalog does feature a few large-scale detail reproductions.)

I thought that readers of this blog might also be interested in seeing the brushwork of master illustrators up close to increase their understanding of how the artists worked and perhaps to serve as inspiration for their own painting if they too are artists.

Below is an image of the entire illustration coupled with my work. Click on the latter to enlarge.

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"I want to see Nick."

The reference image from someplace on the Internet was the one I was familiar with, so it surprised me to find the Kelly original with subdued colors. I prefer the altered version. The detail image shows the bold, but more controlled brushwork Schaeffer was using by the early 1930s in contrast to some of his 1920s swashbuckler illustrations for books. By the 1940s, his style evolved to sedate, "just the facts, ma'am" artwork that was of course competently done, though not as interesting (to me, anyway) as his earlier work.

Primative View of Mykonos

What you see here is a slightly cropped photo of an oil painting my wife bought while we were touring the Greek island of Mykonos in 2004. She loves to scoop up paintings from artists who sell their wares on the streets of places we visit. She brings them home, has them framed, and hangs them on walls all over the house. The painting shown here is in the main bathroom because its colors relate to the room's decor.

I know nothing about the artist who presumably was the man who sold the unstretched canvas to her.  And it's entirely possible the seller was simply an agent; he had perhaps a dozen or more similar canvasses draped over his arm.

Another thing I don't know is how skilled the artist actually was. Or maybe I should say "artists were" because I can't rule out the possibility that different people did different parts of the painting on something like an assembly line basis.

Let's analyze.

First, note that the sky and water are painted very smoothly. Also smooth are the gradations from lighter to darker. This is not easy to do, so I suspect some kind of professional mechanism was in place for that phase of the painting.

Other aspects are clearly primitive looking. See how huge the Mykonos style windmill is compared to the houses beneath it. In reality, Mykonos windmills are not very tall: about three storys high, according to the photo in the link.

To me the most primitive aspect of the painting other than that gross scale distortion is the treatment of light and shade.  The shadows from the picket gate and its adjoining wall suggest that the sun's direction is before us and to the right.  But there is sunlight on the wall to the right of the gate and along the nearby top, indicating that the sun is to the left and might even be a little behind us.  Clearly the real sun can't be both places at once.

Now here is the interesting part.  If sunlight and shadow were consistent, let's say it's the dominant case where it is to our right, then the gate area and the curved parts of the wall top would be shaded.  And this would hurt the composition, where the alternative lighting effects help to frame the scene.  For this reason, the painting might be more sophisticated than it seems.