What are
the critical principles underpinning great art?
Like all broad generalisations
there will always be exceptions, but if I were to reduce all the factors that come together in the most memorable artworks then three principles are essential:
- projection (to arrest a viewer’s attention and
to invite the viewer to look at the featured subject);
- visual dialogue (to express meaning by comparison of the centre of interest with another pictorial element); and,
- alluding to subject material outside of the field
of view (to conceptually expand the range of projected meanings beyond the
featured subject material).
In the following discussion I will
address each of these principles and explain how Hendrick Goltzius and Giovanni
Battista Piranesi have applied them.
My choice to use Hendrick Goltzius’ Apostle Simon (shown below) as an
example of the first principle—projection—is simple; I love the print.
Moreover, I find myself drawn to keep looking at it. For me, the attraction has
nothing to do with the physical beauty of the subject as I am sure that there are few viewers
who would see Saint Simon as eye candy. I am, nevertheless, attracted by the
finely engraved lines rendering the image (see details further
below) but this is only a small part of the reason I love the print. The primary
attraction lies with Saint Simon’s hands. This is especially true with regard
to the saint’s left hand and more specifically with his third finger so
emphatically pressing on the ground as if the saint is making a ideological
point. This arrangement of the forward projected finger is the element that
both arrests my eye and draws me into the image. After this pictorial
“introduction” into the image my eye then follows a gently spiralling course.
First stop is the saint’s left hand. Next, my eye moves to traverse across the
book (bible?) the saint is holding to arrive at his right hand. After pondering
the odd way that Saint Simon holds the book—mindful that the saint’s hands
is undoubtedly modelled on Goltziius’ own deformed right hand (see drawing in
Teylers Museum Haarlem)—my eye is then lead along his right arm to finally
“rest” on his face (see diagram of the rhythm below) before making visual
forays to examine other pictorial features like the saw of his martyrdom.
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Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617)
Apostle Simon,
1589
From the suite Christ, The Twelve Apostles and
15 x 10.3 cm (plate) with margins
on fine laid paper with watermark “Crowned Arms”
Marvellous lifetime impression of
lll (of Vl). From collection R.S. (not at Lugt)
Bartsch 53; Hollstein, Hirschmann
44 lll (of VI)
Condition: perfect
I am
selling this print for $560 AUD including postage and handling to anywhere in
the world. Please contact me using the email link at the top of the page if you
have any queries or click the “Buy Now” button below.
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(Detail) Apostle Simon, 1589
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(Detail) Apostle Simon, 1589
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(Detail) Apostle Simon, 1589
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Diagram of inward rhythm, Apostle Simon, 1589
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Although the middle-finger of Saint
Simon’s left hand is the point of introduction into the image, there
are other elements in the print contributing to an invitation to look. For
example the spine of the open book also draws attention inward as do the
converging lines of the saint’s arms. To make the point of this discussion
clearer in terms of how the eye is invited to engage with the act of looking
and thinking, compare the difference in how the eye is not so welcomed by the
arrangement of hands and arms in Golzius’ Apostle
Bartholomew. This is true even though there are many other pictorial devices inviting the
viewer’s eye to gaze into the print’s pictorial depth, such as the flaying
knife of the saint’s martyrdom and the saint’s backward tilt of his head.
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Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617)
Apostle Bartholomew, 1589
From the suite Christ, The Twelve Apostles and
14.4 x 10.4 cm (plate) right and
left with small margins, cut on the platemark at the top, cut slightly inside the platemark at the bottom, on fine laid paper with watermark “Double Eagle”
Marvellous lifetime impression of
lll (of Vl)
Bartsch 49; Hirschmann 40 lll (of
VI)
Condition: traces of use, otherwise
in good condition
I am
selling this print for $360 AUD including postage and handling to anywhere in
the world. Please contact me using the email link at the top of the page if you
have any queries or click the “Buy Now” button below.
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(Detail) Apostle Bartholomew, 1589
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(Detail) Apostle Bartholomew, 1589
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To begin at a very fundamental
level, even the most cursory look at the image will show a connection between
the saint and his book. This relationship between the centre-of-interest—the
saint’s head—and the book he is examining is a fine example of visual dialogue.
On a more reflective examination of
the image, however, there is more to this visual dialogue than just the saint
reading his book. He is also responding to what he is reading and this is
signified by the gesture of the middle-finger of his left hand. This hand gesture
that I proposed earlier as Saint Simon making an “ideological point” (i.e. a
body-language gesture of clear emphatic certainty) does more than depict Saint
Simon fully engaged in his reading. This gesture is the punctum point
(discussed in an earlier post focused on Dujardin and Dietricy) of the whole
image. In short, this single finger is the pivotal feature in the composition that
shows the intensity of the saint’s reading of the book.
Even more
subtle than the triangulation between the saint’s head, book and finger is the
visual dialogue between the saint’s central lock of hair and the tuff or grass
in the centre foreground (see diagram below). To my eyes, this visual connection
created by the similarity of form between the hair and grass is important to
the expression of a decisive moment in the saint’s reading. From my viewpoint,
I see the link as establishing a line of separation between the related dual
gestures of the saint’s hands.
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Diagram of visual dialogue, Apostle Simon, 1589
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For the final principle—alluding to
a subject outside of the field of view— Piranesi’s etching, The Tomb of the Plautii near Ponte Lucano (shown
below) is an excellent example. Here the shadow cast by an unseen structure
lying beyond what can be viewed in the image creates a theatrical dimension of
an unknown presence. This shadow not only hints at the form of the structure
casting it but the shadow’s shape—especially the “extension” of the shadow’s
shape into the cloud pattern—creates a window-like effect by framing the far
distance. This principle is a very useful
device for giving an artwork pictorial breadth). To illustrate what the print
would be like without the shadow, compare the original etching with a view of
the same tomb without a shadow (see the digitally manipulated image below).
Beyond the use of shadows, another
way to connote subject material beyond what is visible is the simple device of
cropping the portrayed subject at the framing edge of the artwork. Again,
Piranesi’s print is a good example of this approach as the portrayed tomb is
not a panoramic view where the whole building can be seen but is cropped by the
left and top edges of the format. This cropping ensures that a viewer understands
that the image is only a section of a much broader view and
this projects the notion and feeling of breadth.
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78)
Tomb of the Plautii near Ponte Lucano, 1761
From the Vedute di Roma [Views of Rome] series
Etching, 46.6
x 63.2 cm
Hind 83 IV
(of IV) with the number 801 at upper right; Focillon 783; Wilton-Ely 216. Cartouche
with the Italian inscription “Veduta degl’ avanzi
Condition:
excellent impression on wove paper without watermark, with margin around the
platemark, minimal traces of use, browned and foxed with the blind stamp of the
Calcografia di Roma
I am
selling this print for $960 AUD including postage and handling to anywhere in
the world. Please contact me using the email link at the top of the page if you
have any queries or click the “Buy Now” button below.
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Altered
image of Tomb of the Plautii near Ponte Lucano,
1761 |
