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Thursday, August 28, 2008

What I learned today.




As an 'illustrator' one must become, how can we say, "good" at illustrating.  Obvi.  Therefore, one needs to take classes such as the one I am currently enrolled in as a freshman Biomedical Illustration student.  My class, Anatomical Illustration, helps simplify the more correct and scientific forms of recording visual information, as to capture the most realistic, yet aesthetically pleasing image.  This requires art supplies.  This then entails the not-so-fun trip to the always-a-zoo store we all know and love, Pearl Art Supplies.  I swear, you would think their employees have lived within a Pearl-esque environment their whole lives.   

Moving on, in this class I learned the most FASCINATING thing I have learned in a while, sadly.  Now follow me here.  Throughout art history, there has always been a majority style of painting that never really hit the mark in terms of a truly realistic portrayals of humans, fabrics and everything else these artists thought to paint.  Monkeys, fruit, you name it.  However, a contemporary artist that you probably have heard of, David Hockney, started noticing from his viewing that things changed rather quickly, during the 1400's, when artist's rendition of their subjects become eerily photographic in their highly realistic form.  We're talking, photographic quality.  This change occurred in some regions within a 20-30 year time frame.  So obviously, there was something else that had to contribute to this fantastical turn for the better (or rather worse, depending on how you look at it.) 
Throughout his massive research, Hockney eventually found out that artists were secretly employing a mirror, and eventually a lens, to reflect an image of their subject onto a canvas behind them in a darkened room, which shown on the canvas upside down and backwards.  The image was as crisp and accurate as a photo, so all the artist had to do what trace the image, highlights and perfect details and all, onto their canvas, and voila!  Instant art!  Hockney realized this and confirmed his hypothesis based on the odd 'backwardness' of many of the paintings he saw.  He noticed that in many paintings, most subjects, or at least a large majority, were left-handed, had large ill proportioned body parts in the background, and the background itself seemed to pop in and out of focus in random areas.  ALL explained and corrected if one was to flip the painting vertically, which would portray the actual set up before the artist used the camera/lens, and began to paint.
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Why were there no riots, people screaming from their rooftops about the falsity of all we have thought about realistic renderings of the past?  The great masters....were they great masters, or just highly skilled draftsmen, painting their masterpieces under the false pretense of freehand observation? 
The fact is, this is still a highly controversial topic....some people agree, some disagree strongly, as expected.  Who wants to destroy all memories and revere we as a culture has developed for such influential teachers and master painters?  After learning this, after my innocent childhood was screwed and falsified with the thoughts that artists such as Caravaggio and other renaissance artists as incredible magicians at being able to render such shockingly amazing details, I have to turn a new critical eye to those paintings and view them with a new perspective of judgement. 

For a more in-depth article on the highly controversial topic, click the following article below.




An extra serving of me please?!

Chello. If you are an individual who:
a. Likes science.
b. Likes art, but never really was interested in the more modern type of art, but was still pretty good at many artistic endeavors.
c. Enjoys medical oddities.
d. Reads dark comedies.
e. Thinks the human body is incredible.
f. Doesn't mind sick and disgusting things, i.e blood, guts, death and everything in between.
g. Loves Bigfoot.
h. Doesn't love Bigfoot, either way.
Well, me too. This blog is an attempt at demonstrating, really, what goes on in one's quest of becoming a medical illustrator, and talks about the trials and tribulations that comes along with every aspect of graduate school for one going into a not so average field.
Our Motto: Where the Living Learn from the Dead.