William Bouguereau’s Tight Brushwork Meets Lucian Freud’s Tormented Reality in the Form of a Self Portrait.
William Adolf Bouguereau and Lucian Freud were and are both artists of the human figure. Although they focused on the same subject, their works are dramatically different. Bouguereau’s fine brush work and technical mastery of the human anatomy combined to create an idealized view of rural life. Bouguereau’s works focus on beauty, innocence and youth. Freud, on the other hand, focuses his portrait work on inner turmoil, sexuality and personal pain. He often works on multiple planes which gives his works a skewed appearance though it is obvious that he too has a strong grasp of the human figure. Though very different, these two artists are undoubtedly both masters of the human figure.
Bouguereau’s Self Portrait, which he completed in 1879, demonstrates his fine brush control in a close-up portrait style. Unlike most of his work, which includes full-body representation, his Self Portrait is one of the few pieces with a primary focus on portraiture. Also uncommon to Bouguereau's normal formula, it depicts a single adult figure. This presents a strong contrast to Lucian Freud’s self portrait. The piece is oil on canvas and measures 46 x 38cm; it was completed when Bouguereau was 54 year old.
Lucian Freud’s Man’s Head (self-portrait) presents a unique angle untypical to portraiture, and is a great example of the candid expressions so common in Lucian's work. While it is not as repulsive as some of his other works, it still holds a quality that is definitively Freud. Freud’s ability to paint emotion and to contort his subject without flattening the picture plane is worthy of further study. The piece is also oil on canvas and measures 53.3 x 50.8cm; it was completed when Freud was 41 years old.
These two works are dramatic in their differences for all that they are both self portraits. Bouguereau was a purest, an advocate of the Old Masters and it shows in his composition (Ross 2). His portrait is a straight view, formal and picturesque. Freud’s, alternately, takes the viewpoint from an untraditional angle and is a close-up of the head only. Freud focuses on creating an image that is real as opposed to realistic. The difference is that Bouguereau creates images that look like people while Freud creates images that look like how a person feels (Johnson 17).
Bouguereau was a French Academy painter who worked in at a time that the art world was undergoing some big changes. The artists that preceded him had focused on the religious and mythological scenes that had dominated the art world for so long and were a particular focus of the Academy itself. The artists that followed Bouguereau were the Impressionists and Modernists who vehemently opposed this academic type of work. Bouguereau’s art shows the transitional aspects of the changing art world (Ross 3). Half of his work is in the old style, depicting nymphs and angels, while the other half focuses on children in candid scenes of rural life. (Ross 1).
Lucian Freud was born in 1922 and entered art school at age seventeen where he quickly gained a reputation as a prodigy (Penny 7). Sigmund Freud, his grandfather, had a profound impact on his adult work. Sigmund Freud believed that in order to treat a patient you must first "strip him emotionally naked". Lucian's works depict his models stripped of their "power of censorship," meaning they are un-self conscious or, more specifically, wallowing in self-suffering. While his sketch work shows this fly-on-the-wall view of his models, his painting is where the true genius comes through. Ironically it wasn’t until much later in his career that he began painting and although his primary emphasis was in drawing he never draws in preparation for a painting (Penny 9).
While Lucian Freud's work stands out as being unique and emotional, Bouguereau shows such mind blowing skill that it would be difficult to say who had more talent. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Bouguereau's mastery cannot be challenged but many find his work uninspired. Freud has both talent and inspiration but many may find his imagery upsetting or repulsive. It is like comparing apples and oranges, they may both be fruit but the similarities end there.
Bibliography
Hughes, Robert. Lucian Freud Paintings. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
Penny, Nicholas., and Johnson, Robert Flynn., comps. Lucian Freud Works on Paper. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988.
William Bouguereau 1825-1905. Fred Ross. 2002. Art Renewal Center. 1 Oct 2006. http://www.artrenewal.org/museum/b/Bouguereau_William/bio1.asp.
Bouguereau and the Real 19th Century. Fred Ross. 4 Jan 2002. Art Renewal Center. 1 Oct 2006. http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2002/NYSOPA_speech/bouguereau1.asp.
The Great Bouguereau Debate. Yoder, Shapiro, Junge, and Elliot. 6 Jun 2006. Art Renewal Center. 1 Oct 2006. http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2006/Bouguereau_Debate/bouguereaudebate1.asp.
Showing posts with label modernist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modernist. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Art History: Contemporary: Duchamp vs. Boccioni
Modernist Approach to the Comparison of Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel and Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space.
In both, Bicycle Wheel and Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, the primary focus is movement, either actual or implied. What separates them from each other is the intent that drove the artist. While both artists fall under the Futurist Movement, there was a distinct difference in their motivation.
Duchamp and Boccioni are both considered futurists and true to that movement, they are interested in the idea of motion in art. The futurists were enthralled with the idea of the mechanical as both beautiful and progressive. They saw the art world as stagnant and in need of revolution. Their “out with the old-in with the new” approach embraced the development of found object and collage art. Whether they succeeded in abandoning the work and views of the old masters is open to interpretation. What isn’t in question is that their destructive, violent viewpoint eventually led to Fascism and WWI, which they wholeheartedly embraced.
Like most futurists, Duchamp sought to change the face and definition of art. The avenue that he took was to disrupt the relationship between the idea and the actuality of what we conceive art to be. This abandonment and destruction of established signs was tantamount to the movement of the day. Bicycle Wheel was the first of Duchamp’s Readymade pieces, in which he took found objects and with very little alteration, simply called them art. It is helpful to know, when considering this particular piece, that Duchamp did not have an artistic intent when he created it. This knowledge makes the piece more valid to me then his other Readymade pieces. I can appreciate the idea that Bicycle Wheel was created very much in the spirit of what the futurists believed in, the love of the mechanical, the appreciation of motion, the recycling of everyday materials and, that Duchamp created it out of a love for the components, to please only himself and no one else.
Boccioni took a different approach to the incorporation of motion to a work of art. Instead of tackling the problem literally like Duchamp did, Boccioni uses a fluid, wind blown look which depicts the rapid motion of the stationary figure very well. It is interesting that although Boccioni believed in the futuristic idea of the destruction of all art before it and a separation from the masters, he chose to cast the figure in bronze which I feel is much more of a “masters technique” than the more mundane methods that the futurists were typically using. The choice of bronze was perhaps to aid in the appearance of a mechanical-man, shiny and beautiful as the futurists must have dreamed such a being would be. I believe this piece is highly successful if utterly different from Bicycle Wheel, however, one wonders which piece more closely achieved the artist intent.
From a modernist standpoint I would be inclined to choose Bicycle Wheel because it more closely represents the views outlined in the Futurist Manifesto. However, as a viewer without knowledge of the intent, a post-modernist viewpoint, I would say that Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is more successful because it combines the concept of motion into an otherwise stationary piece. In that way Duchamp kind of cheated by making his piece literally mobile.
In either case, the art of the futurists was a direct response and rebellion against all art before it. I find it inconceivable that any artist would not only want to abandon what others had learned but to actually destroy the art of others in order to make theirs more important. Iconoclasm was certainly something that had occurred before but this may have been the first time that such an action was supported by the media, art world, and government. It is interesting to look at the fact that the art world was indeed somewhat stagnant at the time and the futurist, German expressionists, and cubists were the ones that changed everything. Without these innovators opening the door there may never have been dada, surrealism or, in fact, any of what we consider contemporary art and everyone might still be painting Venus on the half shell and dancing fates.
In both, Bicycle Wheel and Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, the primary focus is movement, either actual or implied. What separates them from each other is the intent that drove the artist. While both artists fall under the Futurist Movement, there was a distinct difference in their motivation.
Duchamp and Boccioni are both considered futurists and true to that movement, they are interested in the idea of motion in art. The futurists were enthralled with the idea of the mechanical as both beautiful and progressive. They saw the art world as stagnant and in need of revolution. Their “out with the old-in with the new” approach embraced the development of found object and collage art. Whether they succeeded in abandoning the work and views of the old masters is open to interpretation. What isn’t in question is that their destructive, violent viewpoint eventually led to Fascism and WWI, which they wholeheartedly embraced.
Like most futurists, Duchamp sought to change the face and definition of art. The avenue that he took was to disrupt the relationship between the idea and the actuality of what we conceive art to be. This abandonment and destruction of established signs was tantamount to the movement of the day. Bicycle Wheel was the first of Duchamp’s Readymade pieces, in which he took found objects and with very little alteration, simply called them art. It is helpful to know, when considering this particular piece, that Duchamp did not have an artistic intent when he created it. This knowledge makes the piece more valid to me then his other Readymade pieces. I can appreciate the idea that Bicycle Wheel was created very much in the spirit of what the futurists believed in, the love of the mechanical, the appreciation of motion, the recycling of everyday materials and, that Duchamp created it out of a love for the components, to please only himself and no one else.
Boccioni took a different approach to the incorporation of motion to a work of art. Instead of tackling the problem literally like Duchamp did, Boccioni uses a fluid, wind blown look which depicts the rapid motion of the stationary figure very well. It is interesting that although Boccioni believed in the futuristic idea of the destruction of all art before it and a separation from the masters, he chose to cast the figure in bronze which I feel is much more of a “masters technique” than the more mundane methods that the futurists were typically using. The choice of bronze was perhaps to aid in the appearance of a mechanical-man, shiny and beautiful as the futurists must have dreamed such a being would be. I believe this piece is highly successful if utterly different from Bicycle Wheel, however, one wonders which piece more closely achieved the artist intent.
From a modernist standpoint I would be inclined to choose Bicycle Wheel because it more closely represents the views outlined in the Futurist Manifesto. However, as a viewer without knowledge of the intent, a post-modernist viewpoint, I would say that Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is more successful because it combines the concept of motion into an otherwise stationary piece. In that way Duchamp kind of cheated by making his piece literally mobile.
In either case, the art of the futurists was a direct response and rebellion against all art before it. I find it inconceivable that any artist would not only want to abandon what others had learned but to actually destroy the art of others in order to make theirs more important. Iconoclasm was certainly something that had occurred before but this may have been the first time that such an action was supported by the media, art world, and government. It is interesting to look at the fact that the art world was indeed somewhat stagnant at the time and the futurist, German expressionists, and cubists were the ones that changed everything. Without these innovators opening the door there may never have been dada, surrealism or, in fact, any of what we consider contemporary art and everyone might still be painting Venus on the half shell and dancing fates.
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