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"Major accomplishment. Major milestone.
Beautiful work on many levels."
Stephen Hicks
The Making of Venus
Venus,
2008, oil on linen, 48 x 48"
Venus
At conception there was a violent
clash between heaven and earth, debris
crashed into the dark blue sea, where in the ocean deep it
foamed, rose, and transformed into a beautiful woman. She was first seen on
the rust-colored rocky coast of Cyprus, naked, fully-formed without
past or shame. Each dawn her birth is
symbolically renewed, as she emerges from the turquoise sea then rises against the
purple sky as the
brightest star in the heavens, announcing the glowing warmth of day
to come.
I completed and
signed
Venus in New York
on March 15th, 2008. I started her sometime in 2001 while living
on the island of Rhodes,
Greece.
The Inspiration
This was the first painting that
I began with the explicit idea of
making a beautiful woman.
My good friend,
Anna Moody, was the inspiration for Venus. She was my neighbor on Rhodes.
She is quite beautiful, and has incredible curving proportions from
her head and toes, down to her fingertips. Once Anna told me about visiting her high school teacher's art
studio. While the teacher painted, Anna was free to explore
every aspect of the studio. Anna told me that she felt the same
freedom and love of art in my studio in Rhodes. This inspired the feeling/image/theme for Venus: a beautiful woman free to
be, from the inside outwards.
Embarking on a
painting with a legendary history was extremely problematic. To sustain my excitement for the painting it had to be 100% my
own, yet I carried in my psyche many images of Venus by great artists.
Influences
Venus de
Milo, Alexandros
of Antioch-on-the-Meander |
Since I was 11
years old, I have devoured books on past artists. I have been
familiar with the Venus image almost as far back as I can remember.
At 12, in sixth grade, from memory I molded a small clay copy of the Venus de
Milo. My grandmother kept it displayed in her home until she
died at 89 years old.
My love of past
art is a bit like friendships or romantic love; it doesn't stop me
from seeing how they are different from me. From this perspective, over
several years, I have sorted though my likes and dislikes of many elements of
the Venus
images.
In the four
paintings below, there is a beautiful feminine grace to the gentle
flow and curves of Venus' forms. These artists imbue
their figures with a realism in the detailing of facial
features (Botticelli), the wonderful texture of her skin
(Bouguereau), or the elegant proportions and graceful hands (Ingres
and Boucher.)
I have
never liked winged cupids or finned mermaids and mermen. I
find those elements romantic escapism, which says to me that art doesn't have
anything to do with real life, it is only make believe.
Botticelli |
Bouguereau |
Ingres |
Boucher |
Less fanciful
are depictions of Venus in interiors and exteriors contemporary of
the artists' time. Aside from the
cupids, these following paintings are in realistic settings.
Velazquez was quite clever by reflecting a blurry image of Venus' face in a
mirror, making her more mysterious. It's
interesting to note that for all the importance of hands, Rubens and
Velazquez left them out entirely. It is also interesting to
note that the Venus of Velázquez was painted about 35 years after
the Rubens. Velazquez moonlighted as an art buyer for the royal
Hapsburgs of Spain; undoubtedly he had seen or knew of this Rubens
Venus.
Another pairing are the Giorgione and Titian versions. Titian for a
time worked under Giorgione and it is known that he finished some
of Giorgione's canvases. An interesting
point about the Giorgione Venus is that she is a solitary figure.
I have an infinity to lone figures--not because they don't interact
with people, rather, because a lone figure helps communicate the idea
that the individuals feel
the way they do, even when they are alone. This is like the American
spiritual, All Alone in My Room I am Going To Shine. I find
inner glow that others cannot dim, to be beautiful and erotic.
This solitary inner glow would be one of my aims in Venus.
Sculptures'
Influences
I
identify more closely with the Venus/Aphrodite sculptures that are simply focused on the body, rather than the complex
settings of the paintings. While I lived in
Rhodes I made several visits to see the lovely, intact, Aphrodite of Rhodes,
below. She was housed within a one-minute
walk from my Turkish-styled home and studio.
Aphrodite of Rhodes
I
liked the idea of a crouching Venus, as it gives a sense of the
moment before arising.
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Roman copy of the
1st-2nd century CE after a Hellenistic original of the 3rd
century BC, loosely derived from the Cnidian Aphrodite by
Praxiteles |
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Here is an interesting aside: Botticelli had the opportunity to
study the
Praxiteles: Medici Venus,
a Roman copy in the Medici collection. Undoubtedly
Botticelli used the Medici Venus as his prototype.
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Preempting the Legend
For Venus I wanted to
start fresh and do something quite different than the other painted versions. What I
did was think of preempting the Venus legend, to go back in time
before the legends were created and ponder what the original poet might
have seen, in real life, to inspire his or her conception of Venus.
While living in Rhodes I sometimes woke up before dawn in the height of summer, when the air is
still and hot, to go
swimming in the clear fresh Aegean. I am sure that it wasn't any
different 2800 years ago. It is easy to imagine a poet from those
ancient times, making his way down a goat path to the sea, and seeing a
startling beautiful woman catching the first rays of the
sun after her bath. That is just the right kind of experience that
would excite a poet's imagination and inspire the legend of the birth
of Venus.
Back to the Future
One of my goals
was to show a timeless image of a woman after the sea bath; no cupids, no sea shell births,
no clothes, and no buildings to
date the period. This expresses the quality of both going back in time before the legend
began and simultaneously transmitting the image into the future.
The Guiding
Emotional Theme: Emergence
The guiding theme
for Venus was my gut feeling about emergence. The feeling is a
composite of things like a transformation from one state into
another, an arrival, an awakening, the dawning of a beautiful day,
embarking on a new future, or a birth of a new mindset. In my twenties
I lived on Staten Island, and I would often take the SI Ferry over
to Manhattan, while embarking onto the ferry, descending down the
ramp, I felt powerful, handsome, and as if the universe was opening
up for me. I wanted Venus to express the female version of this: for
her to feel the movement of emergence from her core, and feel it
move outwards into the expanse.
It has pleased me
very much that several people who have seen the painting have
expressed how she looks as if she is emerging from the background of
the canvas.
Rejecting
Prototypes and Using Real Life
There is one great
way to find your own voice even when using a classic theme: reject all your
projected images that remind you too closely of other famous images,
until you come up an image that feels totally fresh. An additional way
to your voice is to work from life, bringing out the beauty of a
real person and setting.
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I had made a
simple pencil sketch Venus; then I transferred that sketch with charcoal to the primed linen.
Then the model come back and I refined her contours with black
paint. (This is what you see above.) The rocks around her were sketched directly on the
linen from my memory and imagination.
Still thinking of
preempting the legend, yet giving clues to its possible inception,
I shaped the rocks to hint at the foam and sea shell. I still wanted
to make sure the setting felt real, and, indeed, on Rhodes, there
are many places carved by sea with wildly shaped rocks. Oddly, in
real life, among these rocks, are smooth areas
incredibly comfortable to lie up on. Some of these smooth areas,
as explained to me by Greek archaeologist, were quarried out in Hellenic
times. |
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The land across
the sea behind Venus is the literally the coast of Turkey. Again I wanted
to keep it real, yet give a hint or sense of a cape, or a wing-like quality.
I was extremely selective in the placing of the horizon just below the
line of her shoulders. |
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Abstract Form
To create a
feeling of emergence, I wanted the model unselfconsciously to push
her chest out towards us. Think of the torso as a reversed "S"
curve.
This created what
I think is a stunning torso.
I had thought
about her standing, but then I would have had to sacrifice the
shape of her torso, because it didn't look natural. On her knees,
though, the torso looks
natural this way.
Putting It All
Together?
Okay, now armed
with the right model, the right setting, and lots of studies (except
for the model, I would be working live from the model directly on
the canvas), I was ready to put everything together.
But it didn't turn
out like that.
Two issues with
light I wanted to accomplish were to shine a hot color of the rising
sun on her and set the background with an airy, colorful blue.
Something like what I had done with Icarus Landing.
But what looked
fine for Icarus didn't work for Venus.
Lighting
It was important
for me to give Venus an inner glow.
Below left you
might see that the lightness of the sky and parts of the water
compete for the lightness on Venus. She didn't take on luminosity
until I drew a thumbnail charcoal sketch 2x2", below center, in
which I darkened the background considerably. The big problem with
the act of darkening a life-size painting is that you can't just
shellac it with a dark oil paint, like you would varnish a table
top. I had to go back over all the details of the mountains
behind her, and the rocks in front of her, always mixing each mark
of color differently. This maintains visual interest which gets lost
if you repeat identical tones.
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Before |
Thumbnail sketch |
After |
The model was lit from
almost straight on, to give the sense of the sun low on the
horizon. The way in which she was lit helped accent the "S" curve of
her torso.
By the tilt of her
head, the light created a kind of mini "S," curving inwards to her
throat from her clavicle, then back out again along the side of her
neck and cheek. This created a rhythm or kind of echo.
Color of the Light
To go along with
the lighting idea of the inner glow, I wanted her to feel as if she
was the one generating heat.
Because of the
rising sun lighting her, it had to be a brilliant orange light. In
the film industry they call this early dawn or late sunset hour; the
magic hour, due to this warm orange glow. So, in a way, I combined
both the idea that she was lit and that she was the source of the
light.
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In this color thumbnail sketch, you can see the hot scarlet
light on her chest, and how it moves upwards from her rib
cage to her clavicle. |
A third thing
about the color of light is that I wanted to feel as if it was
moving along her body. Almost imperceptible is a cord of intensely
brilliant blush tone, in some cases almost pure scarlet, that winds
up from her left leg, just above her knee, along her hip, up through
her torso, and winds along her neck and side of her face. The blush
color is never repeated identically. I wanted to give a hint of
flame going up her body.
Hands
Without a doubt,
hands are one of the most expressive elements of a human--sometimes
they rival and exceed the dramatic possibilities of facial
expression. With both Icarus and Venus, I wanted to
have their arms open, extended to indicate the expanse of earth that they include. Also, I intended the right and left hands, and
even the fingers, to convey the same mood as if they were in harmony
like a chorus.
This was indeed
tricky. When looking for the right position of the hands, the model
once placed her palms forward and her fingers back--that emotion
conveyed an intense sorrowful questioning of the universe; "Why me,
oh Lord?" they seemed to say. When the palms were faced down, the
expression was something like that of a Las Vegas showgirl. It took
many hours with the model to find the right kind of mood,
femininity, and beauty for Venus. Once the hand positions were found, I then only had to
paint them to flow with the rest of the her body.
Here is a pastel
color study of her hands.
Finishing Details
I finished her face
and neck last in the painting. One of the difficult things with
Venus is that I started painting her direct from life without
studies of her body and face. I would do work on the background from
studies, then call in a model. When I moved to the United States,
that really made finishing her problematic because of the different
models. The low directional lighting on her face, and intensity of
the scarlet colors, made subtleties very difficult.
Near the finish of
the painting I did a few charcoal studies of the entire face with
two different models. They both had facial features close to the
original model's. The uplifted face, the foreshortening of the nose
and chin, the forehead out of the light created tremendous problems
for me to make beautiful.
I even drew a kind
of ideal composite of these two faces.
But what
ultimately helped me finish her to my satisfaction was to get out my
pencil and paper, and to do detail composite drawings of each part that
I was not satisfied with. These studies made the finishing touches a
breeze.
Signing
Often you have
heard of artists who are never satisfied with their works. I don't
really understand that. I think the issue is whether or not the
artist holds a big idea, feeling, or picture in his head--if the
artist has that sense, then it is a question of painting until the
image conveys the artist's big idea.
With Venus,
I worked all over the canvas, tweaking endlessly, keeping in my mind
and heart the emergence of a beautiful woman. There was a point,
about three weeks before I finished her, when all the attributes of the
painting began to synergize: all the colors began to work; her
facial and body expression came alive; and the fore- and backgrounds
accented and complemented her. No longer were problems isolated
issues, rather, with every corrective mark of paint, the total image
became right. It felt as if I was part of a mountain range's creeks, rivulets, and streams converging into a river, which then
sweeps unstoppably on course until it surges into the wide-reaching
sea.
The signing was
acknowledgment that she was now free to be.
More
Quotes about Venus
Michael Newberry
New York, April 29, 2008 |
