The Last Painting - Natural Resources

Natural Resources, 34" x 49", oil on canvas, 2013.

Yes, this is a reference to Family of Saltimbanques by Picasso, 1905. The German author Rainer Maria Rilke described Picasso's painting as "the ultimate loneliness and isolation of Man in this incomprehensible world, practicing their profession from childhood to death as playthings of an unknown will..." The subjects in Picasso's painting, however, were circus performers representing the isolation of people. Natural Resources is a depiction of ordinary people from different parts of the world (not circus performers) representing an isolation derived from a different contemporary struggle. I almost titled it after Gaugin's Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Here is a detail:

Here is another detail:

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Review of an Inspirational Painting - Picasso's Woman of Majorca

Every so often I come across an inspirational painting. This time I was struck by Pablo Picasso's Woman of Majorca, pictured above. He painted it in 1905, when he was 24 years old. Exactly 100 years later, I was 24 years old, and part of the intrigue for me anytime I view a painting by Picasso is to look at the date of creation and dare to compare what he accomplished at my age.

I'm not trying to be Picasso, nor do I have the arrogance to think I have his level of artistic talent, but sometimes I do come across a piece of his work, realize I have 5 or 10 or 20 years to create something just as good, and get a boost of confidence that yes, it can be done - Picasso was not a god; he was just a man. But in the case of Woman of Majorca, Picasso's mastery is clear, and attempting to describe such mastery in words is probably futile, even if your name is William Faulkner.

Certainly there are art historians, professors, and critics who can write an academic informative review of Woman of Majorca, theorize about why Picasso chose this subject matter, while comparing his transition from the "blue period" to the "rose period" at this time of his life. I don't plan to do that, and I'm sure Mr. Picasso didn't sit down one day and say to himself, "Today I'm beginning my rose period, so now my palette needs to look like this..." He just painted what felt right. So I will attempt to articulate why it feels right to me.

Woman of Majorca resonates an ambiguous, mysterious quality. It doesn't matter that the subject matter is simply a portrait of a woman; perhaps the simplicity of the portrait adds to its mysteriousness, similar to the eroding ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Pre-Columbian, and Asian sculptures. Her eyes reveal nothing, as they are just black ovals devoid of any white, yet the eyelids are relaxed and seem to alleviate any evilness that might otherwise be conveyed by black eyes. The ambiguity in her face is further demonstrated by its relative flatness in neutral color, with minimal modeling, wrinkles, and lines. And although this ambiguity risks being dismissed as a boring lack of detail, Picasso frames the face with a hat on top, veil on the sides, and V-neck and hand from below, to remind the viewer that the face is the focal point - to encourage the viewer to keep studying it because there is more to be discovered.

The sketchy quality, angular shapes, and lack of refinement reveals Paul Cezanne's influence on Picasso. And it seems to me that Picasso had probably seen a woman in town, a stranger or an acquaintance, and as he was inspired by a momentary glimpse of strange melancholy, he later returned to his studio to recreate her from memory - details clouded and ambiguity conceived, as he sought to quickly convey his feelings to the canvas. 
 
Picasso applied the paint in a deliberate confident way, unconcerned about photorealistic qualities. And the ambiguity creates timelessness because it is a nonspecific woman with an obscure gaze; we don't know what she is thinking. We cannot understand her. Yet the painting is somehow inexplicably human. Like the Mona Lisa.

Apparently, Woman of Majorca was simply meant to be a study for a figure to be included in a much larger painting: Les Bateleurs, also created in 1905, depicted below. As you can see, the woman in the bottom right is in a very similar pose. While both paintings still present a level of melancholy, I feel that the masterful impact of Woman of Majorca is lost in her representation in Les Bateleurs, albeit she is not the primary subject. I must also add that my judgment of Les Bateleurs is limited to my perception of its reproduction as an image on a computer screen, certainly an adulterated experience when the size of the actual artwork is an enormous 83" x 89".

Thank you for reading about the paintings, sculptures, drawings, works in progress, reviews, Doodle of the Day, and other art by Los Angeles artist Lucas Aardvark Novak. To see older blog posts and other doodles, click HERE :)

Oil Pastel Still Life

Edgar Degas said, "The secret is to follow the advice the masters give you in their works while doing something different from them." Before a true artist may successfully do something different from the masters, he must first understand their advice.

I don't think that every artist must first learn to paint like all of the old masters, nor is it my intent to do so. But it is the naive and pretentious man who disregards the importance of drawing, line, and composition, mastered by those of the past, in the man's quest for artistic greatness. The practice of art is a lifelong study, and even Degas himself, on his deathbed, lamented, "Damn, and just when I was starting to get it!"

In continuing my lifelong study, even though most of my current larger works may be categorized as abstract, I hone skills by investigating the paths of the masters, like Degas, by examining people and objects and translating what I see to paper using oil pastels. Avoiding the laborious photo-realistic style, I am more interested in creating a representational picture in an efficient, economical, and natural way, as mastered by Degas and Spanish artist, Diego Velazquez. This approach allows for the inclusion of my own stroke and subjective feelings, and it places the emphasis on color, texture, line and composition, rather than subject matter.

Thank you for following the paintings, the Doodle of the Day and the sculpture, drawings, works in progress, and other art by Los Angeles artist Lucas Aardvark :)
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Oil Pastel Study, And Other Art Updates

Thanks to those of you who made it out to the 59th Annual State Bar Art Competition at the Long Beach Convention Center, where I won First Prize in painting :) Again, your support is most appreciated!

In other updates, the City of Santa Clarita has commissioned me to create a work of art dedicated to its Santa Clara River Rally, and the efforts of the community in cleaning it up. I will keep you posted on how the work develops!

I have also been commissioned to create the cover art for a new book coming out by author John Janda. John is an incredible writer, and I have worked with him in the past, in his novel American Spirit. Stay tuned for updates on this development :)

Currently, I continue to work on several other new pieces, and the above image shows my recent study in oil pastels, a medium mastered by the great Edgar Degas. It is further practice in color and layering. Although this piece is a "still life", it is not the subject matter that most concerns me - it is the process of viewing an object and translating that visual into an illusion of color on a flat plane composition. This process is the same whether the subject matter is a still life, landscape, portrait, abstract, etc.

What interests me is how the work is created, while the subject matter is secondary. This is, for example, why Degas is one of the greatest artists in art history - it is not his choice of subject matter of horses, dancers, or performers that gives his art a place in every art history book. And this is why a still-life, like those famously created by Paul Cezanne, can be just as interesting as an action painting or any other type of art.