Have you been wondering when we’ll talk about an artist that’s still alive? Then April is your month! We’ll be taking a look at the life and art of Bridget Riley. She was a prominent artist in the Op Art movement of the 1960s, first exploring geometric patterns in black and white and then moving to color combinations to influence the eye.
Riley’s work spans seven decades, so there’s plenty to explore. For the project this month, I’ll be playing with patterns and colors to see what kind of fun effects emerge. Let’s get ready to take our eyes on a wild ride through Op Art!
This month we explored the hows and the whys of Michelangelo’s masculine women. We know that he used male models as many Renaissance artists did. It’s likely that his masculine representations of women was intentional. But when you alter the represented gender of your model, how much does it unintentionally affect your art?
When we represent male or female, it’s not just about anatomy. The female form may be depicted in softer, more submissive poses. In contrast, the male form may be depicted in angular, rigid poses. Strength is traditionally male and emotion is traditionally female. One of the best illustrations of this point is Jacques-Louis David’s painting, Oath of the Horatii.
Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David, 1784
To the left we see the men about to go to war. They are standing at attention, arms outstretched as they reach for their swords before battle. Their limbs are straights, creating sharp angles; they mimic the sharpness and rigidity of their swords.
To the right we see their wives, faint from the emotions of saying good-bye and perhaps never seeing their husbands again. Their postures are slumped, given to the difficult moment. The drapery accentuates the curves and softness of their forms.
To further explore this concept, I drew six figure studies. The first set was from a male model – a male, a female, and an androgynous sketch. The second set was the same from a female model.
The Male Model
The first sketch was as expected. It was a male model and a male sketch.
In the second sketch, I found that the shoulders and waist were broader than I meant them to be and that the legs seems too thick. I kept making adjustments – making the legs longer, bringing the waist in, adding curves. Part of me wanted to fight it – why does she have to look traditionally female. Why was I softening muscles, making her look weaker? Did she have to be that thin to still look feminine? Perhaps the most telling part of this – I only had questions like this when drawing this sketch. In the end I wanted to give her more muscles and make her look stronger than the male sketch, but still feminine. As I write this I’m asking myself – Why didn’t I do that??
The third sketch was the easiest, but also probably the laziest. I simply drew something in between the first two. Looking back, that wasn’t the best approach. If I wanted to turn this sketch into something more, it would lack substance. There’s no strength, no emotion – it’s just there. Rather than blend the masculine and the feminine into something beautiful, I gave the figure nothing. It’s not suppose to be about the absence of masculine and feminine. Rather the lines that define gender should be blurred and their characteristics used to bring more to the figure.
The Female Model
Maybe in my subconscious my feelings about the previous sketches came out in this one. I think the feminine sketch of the female model looks less feminine than the feminine sketch of the male model. I also like this one better.
The male version is definitely softer here than the male from the previous pose. At first I thought it was the pose, but it isn’t. This figure has less defined muscles.
The first question that came up with this sketch was should they be wearing a shirt. The only reason the chest is covered at all is because I was streaming when I drew these. If I had done these on my own, I would have left the top bare and I think the sketch would have worked better. Actually I would have done all the sketches completely nude if I didn’t have to worry about Twitch having a cow about a butt crack and some nipples. Regardless, I don’t think this sketch fares much better than the other androgynous one for all the same reasons.
Overall I think each of these drawings would have benefitted from existing in an environment and having a purpose within a composition. Then every feature added or excluded, whether feminine or masculine, would have had more intent behind it. Still, it was an interesting exercise and it’s something I would like to continue to explore.
Instead of doing a biography, we’re talking androgyny today. Documentation on Michelangelo Buonarroti’s life and work is plentiful (seriously good reading), so we’re going to look at one of my favorite topics: Why do his women look so masculine?
Three Examples of Michelangelo’s Women
Night
Michelangelo was commissioned to create sculptures for the Medici Chapel, which included Night. Night is often referenced as being very manly. The body is muscular with odd-shaped breasts, but a soft, feminine face. It does seem to be a strange representation, but were the design choices intentional? Some historians have pointed to this particular sculpture as evidence that Michelangelo didn’t know how to portray a the female body. The sculpture has even been called outright bad!
Night
Dawn
Dawn is another sculpture in the Medici Chapel with a muscular body and feminine features, although she is a bit softer than Night.
Dawn
Sistine Ceiling Sybils
Sibyls are female oracles from ancient mythology. There are five of them on the Sistine Ceiling, said to have foretold the birth of Christ. They all have imposing physiques, despite being mostly covered in robes. But in the case of the Libyan Sibyl, her twisted pose puts her broad back and muscular form on full display.
Libyan_Sibyl
Were the Manly Women Intentional?
Once upon a time in art history class, I remember learning about how Michelangelo only sketched from male models and that’s why his women looked like men. Case closed, next topic. Still, I found it interesting and tried it myself, gender swapping references here and there and enjoying the androgyny it often created. It seems that the end results will be more feminine if I draw from a female model and more masculine if I draw from a male model, but switching them always lands me somewhere in between. It’s a fun mix of intent with unintentional results.
So how much of Michelangelo’s androgyny was intentional? There are three general arguments you’ll find on the subject.
Michelangelo Didn’t Like Women
Some art historians have argued that Michelangelo’s sexual preferences played a role in how he portrayed women. He’s been described both as having an aversion to the female form and an “inclination” toward the male form due his homosexuality.
Others argue that he wasn’t gay because he had a lover. He wrote poetry for his lover Vittoria Colonna. While it’s unclear whether they had a physical relationship, there was likely a romance there. It’s also said that Michelangelo was close to his mother, so why would he hate women? (That’s a rabbit hole for another time…)
Regardless of Michelangelo’s sexual orientation, it’s unlikely that he had any aversion toward women. It’s also incredibly short-sighted to assume that this is the reason his women are rendered the way they are. I find the whole “his women look manly because he liked men” argument to be the weakest and I’m happy to toss this one aside first!
There Were Only Male Models
Did Michelangelo even know how to draw women?
I’ve already mentioned the point that female models weren’t readily available (it was considered inappropriate for women) and so artists would draw from the male form and use that for their female figures. There are surviving sketches that prove Michelangelo drew the Libyan Sibyl from a male model, but this isn’t the whole story.
There are two issues with this. First, to say that women didn’t pose because of cultural norms is only half the story. Those norms, largely an application of the upper class, would just as easily have been disregarded by a woman willing to pose nude in return for payment or favors. Even today you can make a few quick bucks posing for art classes.
Second, if turning drawings of men into finished artworks of women were an issue for Renaissance artists, we wouldn’t only be talking about Michelangelo right now. There would be many other artists to reference, but his contemporaries painted their women soft and feminine just the same.
Third, Michelangelo knew the human anatomy very well. His sketches number in the hundreds. He even went as far as participating in human dissections to study the musculature of the body. Given his ability to represent the human anatomy with such accuracy and beauty, it seems ridiculous to suggest that he was incapable of doing the same for the female body.
In fact, it’s been suggested that Michelangelo’s ability to render anatomy was so good that he represented Night with breast cancer. Her left breast has features of cancer that are recognizable by modern doctors and it was a disease that would have been known at the time the statue was carved. These abnormalities are not present in the right breast or in Dawn. If he intentionally included a recognizable illness, it adds not only symbolism to sculptures representing life and death, but lends further credibility to the idea that his androgynous depictions of women were deliberate.
While there may not have been sketches of women from Michelangelo, there are plenty from other artists. There’s no reason to believe that he didn’t know what a woman’s body looks like or that he wasn’t able to render one.
Renaissance Beauty Standards
During the Renaissance, it was believed that the female form was an inferior version of the male form. A woman’s body was seen as an “inverted” man’s body, and therefore men were superior. Further support of this belief came from the Bible, where man was created by God, but woman was created from a man’s rib, and therefore the male form was closer to God.
However, that didn’t mean that men were seen as more beautiful. Androgyny was seen as beautiful during the Renaissance. You will often see depictions of effeminate males and masculine females in art from this period as these were the most “attractive states for both men and women.”
Not only was androgyny the beauty standard, it was considered godly. According to some interpretations of the book of Matthew, there is no gender or sexuality in Heaven. Also, the concept of God being androgynous was popular in the intellectual circles of the Renaissance that Michelangelo was a part of.
Now we know that women arewere seen as inferior, but a mix of male and female traits was considered beautiful and godly. Since women of the Renaissance were not supposed to perform strenuous activities, a muscular woman like the Libyan Sibyl should not make sense as a representation of a woman.
BUT, the Sibyl is not just a representation of a woman, she is a divine being. Because of this, she was depicted with more masculine traits to reflect her godly powers. Therefore, thanks to his deep studies of anatomy and his participation in scholarly circles, the Michelangelo’s masculine depictions of women are most certainly intentional and meant to add to the symbolism of his works.
Originally I was going to write about Francisco Goya for the March Artist of the Month, but there was one problem (at least to me). We’ve spent the last two months in the late 19th and early 20th century and Goya’s work is only slightly earlier than that. We need to break at least a few centuries away!
Francisco de Goya, Saturno devorando a su hijo (1819-1823)
The idea for who to write about instead jumped out at me so fast I pretty much HAVE to do it! It’s Michelangelo! I know, I said I was going to choose artists that weren’t “too well-known” and I’m going back on that. There are more resources than most people will ever need on Michelangelo. But rather than focus on the artist himself, I want to focus on his process and why his (and other artists’) work looks the way it does.
And then there is the March project. This time it was an easy choice. We’re going to choose a reference photo of a man and sketch it three times – once as a man, once as a woman, and once as nonbinary. Then I’m going to do the same with a reference photo of a woman. The idea is to explore the way gender is translated based on the original reference versus the intended result.
Oh my, that sounded kind of dry, didn’t it? Here’s a better description – I’m going to sketch a bunch of nekkid people because it’s educational on a whole bunch of levels and it’s still something talk about even if you just show up for the nekkid drawings.
That particular stream will most likely be on YouTube since there’s no point in trying to do this type of stream on Twitch. See you there!
P.S. We will definitely be revisiting Goya in the future. 🙂
My Expressionism project for this month was a cute little (digital) painting of two birds. I did the birds, sky, and mountains on separate layers so I could export all of the combinations of primary colors and see how it changed the feeling of the painting. Let’s take a look!
The piece was initially done with yellow birds, blue sky, and red mountains. According to one of the biggest Expressionism artists Franz Marc, yellow represents feminine happy qualities, blue is masculine and spiritual, and red is physical and sometimes violent.
With these things in mind, the yellow birds may be seen as hopeful and free in their flight together. In this moment they don’t need to worry about the dangers of the world that exist far below them.
Next I switched the colors of the sky and the mountains. It immediately takes on a more ominous tone (red kind of does that anyway thought, doesn’t it?). Now the birds are more in conflict with their surroundings, if not in outright danger. Personally, I’ve always found red and yellow next to each other (and/or as the main colors) to be very uncomfortable. There is definitely more tension in this combination of colors.
Swapping the color of the birds and mountains give the ominous red a different spin. There seems to be more tension between the birds. Perhaps they are no longer on the same side?
Something about making the sky yellow didn’t add joy or femininity for me. I think it’s because it’s a darker yellow. That’s pretty much what happens when you change the color of a layer (especially to a lighter color) instead of repainting it. Even if the yellow were brighter, I don’t think my feelings on it would change much since I am more than a little biased against yellow hues (don’t get me started). All that aside, something about the background makes me feel like these birds are fighting for scarce resources, however perhaps not against each other.
I feel like making the birds red instantly puts them in conflict with each other against that yellow sky. The blue mountains remove the element of scarcity and danger below them, but again, I don’t feel like that’s a happy yellow space around them. At this point they are in a fight over something more personal.
Finally we have the red birds on a blue sky with yellow mountains. There is still tension between the birds, but not necessarily conflict. The blue sky creates a space of familiarity and peace. Following Franz’s theory of yellow as joyous and hopeful, the mountains would represent good tidings to come. But we know by now that it’s not working that way for me… it looks more like desert to me, perhaps adding urgency to the flight of the birds.
This little Expressionism experiment was a fun way to play with color and be able to experience how changing it can alter the outcome of the piece. While I can objectively apply another artist’s (Marc’s) color theory to my own work, in the end it doesn’t change the way I feel about each iteration. There are mainstream interpretations of each color and my own feelings conflict with some of them.
I think we all have our own personal color theories with our divergences from what most people see. That’s part of what makes viewing and discussing art so interesting. I’m sure you see things differently (maybe very differently) from how I interpreted all the birds. So tell me – what’s your personal color theory? How do the colors change the birds for you?
Expressionism began around 1905 in Germany and Austria. Recognizable by its bright, artificial color palettes and simplified forms, it introduced distortions of reality designed to elicit an emotional reaction from the viewer while simultaneously taking inspiration from and rejecting art movements of the past.
German Expressionism was a response to two things. First, there was the prevalence of Impressionism. While the style was modern, it was still representational in both the color palette used and the subjects rendered. Expressionism thus became a sort of Anti-Impressionism in that it placed substance over style.
Second, the rapid urbanization occurring around the world coupled with a series of international events that lead to Word War I added an undertone of anxiety and looming danger. It became more apparent as the outbreak of war approached and the world anticipated the impact of global conflict.
Over time many Expressionist artists incorporated other styles into their work. They experimented with Cubism, Dadaism, and more as Expressionism was more about evoking a raw emotion than anything else.
Franz Marc’s Early Life
Franz Marc was born in Munich on February 8, 1880. His father was an amateur landscape painter. Although he received instruction from him, Marc didn’t pursue art as a career until after completing military service. He enrolled in the Munich Academy of Art in 1900, but the focus placed on natural realism there didn’t suit him.
Portrait of the Artists’ Mother, Franz Marc, 1902
In 1903, he studied in Paris for six months, returning in 1907 to see the art of one of his favorite contemporaries, Vincent Van Gogh. He made several trips to Paris during those years where he took inspiration from some of the biggest artists of the time. He also gained an appreciation for Matisse while he lived in Munich.
Marc loved nature. He suffered greatly from depression and nature had a calming effect for him. When he lived in Berlin he studied animal anatomy extensively and made money by offering anatomy lessons to other artists. It is said that he “spent countless hours studying and sketching animals from every conceivable angle.”
In 1910 Marc had his first solo show in Munich. That same year he met August Macke and Wassily Kandinsky and they formed the group known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider).
Large Blue Horses, Franz Marc, 1911
Der Blaue Reiter
When Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, and August Macke formed Der Blaue Reiter, they were “united by an interest in exploring spirituality and a belief that art is more than meets the eye.” Individual colors had meaning and forms were simplified. Most importantly, the group shared a common philosophy that artists should be free to express their ideas as they saw fit.
Indeed they had a lot to contend with as global events escalated. It contributed to their apocalyptic view of “the toxic state of the world.” Marc himself believed that war would bring about a cleansing of the natural world.
Style and Subject Matter
Influence of Other Styles
Early on Franz Marc experimented with Naturalism and Realism due to his academic background. But in order to break free of the confines of realism, he also played with styles such as Impressionism, Pointillism, Fauvism, and Cubism. It was Fauvism that perhaps had the greatest influence in those early years as he combined the “intense, symbolic color palette of the Fauves” with his interest in anatomy.
The Red Horses, Franz Marc, 1911
Color Theory
As Marc’s palette became more intense, he developed his own color theory that added meaning to his work. Blue was a masculine color, “astringent and spiritual.” Yellow was a feminine color, “gentle, happy, and sensual.” Red represented the physical world, which was at times violent and dangerous. Marc said himself, “Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the color to be opposed and overcome by the other two.”
Animals
Complementing Marc’s color theory was the way he perceived and represented animals. He considered them the ideal subject – “pure, truthful, and beautiful” – unlike people that rarely featured in his work. To him, animals represented what the modern world was missing and “animals in a landscape were… a bridge between man and nature.” They were spiritual, innocent creatures that brought him a sense of peace.
Tiger, Franz Marc, 1912
Late Work
In 1912 Franz Marc met Cubist artist Robert Delaunay, whose work greatly influenced his. It was around this time that Marc’s work took on a more Cubist flavor, evident in paintings such as Tiger. Marc’s work also became darker and more apocalyptic and his view on animals changed. These once pure creatures in his eyes were now “as impure as human beings.” By the time World War I broke out in 1914, his work became completely abstract, thus completing his transition away from realistic representation.
The Tower of Blue Horses, Franz Marc, 1913
Fate of the Animals, Franz Marc, 1913
World War I
Marc immediately enlisted in the German army when WWI broke out in 1914. The German government attempted to remove notable artists from combat, but for Marc they were too late. He died in the Battle of Verdun from shell splinter to the head in 1916.
During World War II, Hitler classified Marc’s work as “degenerate” and attempted to censor it. Most of his work survived the war and can be enjoyed in museums around the world.
