(above: pull #1,2,3 by psmith) "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." -Albert Einstein. I'm not a fan of the "static" image. For me, it's the flaw of a majority of portraiture and still life painting. There's no action. I want to know what the next frame looks like! I want to see a direction, feel the surge of movement. Animation is incredible because it's the only drawn art medium that does not use the static image, but despite this, movement has a way of creeping into great works of art. 
(above: nude descending a staircase, by marcel duchamp) It's interesting when people point out how difficult it must be to draw the thousands of drawings that go into making animation.. but it's NOT like drawing thousands of individual drawings, it's really just drawing a single MOTION.. you carve out the action incrementally frame by frame.. i NEVER think about it at individual drawings. 
(above: turkey pond, by Andrew Wyeth) I spot action in paintings and it really pulls me into the work, most great artists have this quality, Homer, Sargent, Wyeth, Duchamp, most futurists. Next time you see a work and it really captures your interest, perhaps it's because it has the quality of movement!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Paintings that express MOVEMENT..
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5 comments:
Good point. Stillness works well with photos, but movement looks better in paint. I've noticed Duchamp and Picasso get looked down on from digital-only artists, as if they were taking some kind of easy road. Like they somehow tricked generations into liking their complex designs. They see a triangle and say, "Hell, I can draw a triangle- why is he so famous?"
I got the Jim Phillips book, and it is truly awesome. Also, I'm a big fan of Downtown and I'll be checking out Liquid Tales soon on Netflix. Thanks for the art and inspiration.
To be honest, Pat, I don't feel motion in your triptych.
They feel like three freeze frames from a film.
The Wyeth painting has implied motion.
Regardless, a still image is a still image. Even "Nude Descending A Staircase" can't alter the essential form of the medium.
I can't find the reference anywhere, but I'm sure I read a quote from Winsor McCay:
"In the future people will go to museums, look at the art on the walls and say -'but why isn't it moving."
Your point about drawing one motion is astute. Probably why I personally find animation easier than drawing.
"In the future people will go to museums, look at the art on the walls and say -'but why isn't it moving."
that just may be the coolest quote i've ever heard.
If McCay didn't say it, I made it up.
I disagree that medium or a two dimensional plane can define or discredit movement in a piece. I think Duchamp's "Nude Descending Staircase" illustrates the very definition of movement. It is a collection of the progress of a figures movement, beginning at the top of the staircase and ending at the bottom. Much like a cell of animation, a drawing of partial movement alone would not in fact show movement but together it creates an action. I think that implied movement or directional force is sometimes mistaken for movement. It is an assumption made by an artist or the clues they have left behind, that lead a viewer to decipher what the next step may be, which is complex itself. I agree with Asterisk about Patirck's triptych, I think his paintings are not of pure movement but of implied movement and directional force.
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