what art would Hercule Poirot have been looking at?

[blossoml8]

This is tremendously interesting, Ona. I wasn't around until the end of your last orange series, so I missed a lot of it. I will have to go back and refresh myself on the history of this.

Don't forget that there was an Inspector "Jap"anese Orange, and the Pearo's sometime sidekick, Ariandne Oliver, was addicted to apples.

[ona]

Thanks Azure. When I try with one eye and then the other though I still can't see it or work out how to do it. maybe I'll try drawing a set up with a patch on one eye and then doing the drawing again with the patch on the other eye and then combining the two. That would be worth a u tube video

Kay, yes Cezanne is an obvious choice for a still life. I got Hercule Pearo out of the fridge though and he asked if I could arrange for a not very well known apprentice of Paul Cezanne to paint his portrait in the still life picture. You may not have heard of him.... he is called Pierre Cefrais. I managed to track him down in the flesh at the local market and luckily he has agreed to be the artist. Regarding ideas of other artists. Don't worry there are 4 or 5 other paintings that will tell the rest of the story to come. Penty of opportunity for other artist styles

Thanks Janice for the ideas especially Adienne Oliver She just might put in an appearance in a later painting as the plot thickens

I'll keep you up to date with my Cezanne experimentations.

[painterbear]

Thanks Azure. When I try with one eye and then the other though I still can't see it or work out how to do it. maybe I'll try drawing a set up with a patch on one eye and then doing the drawing again with the patch on the other eye and then combining the two. That would be worth a u tube video

Ona,
That's kind of how I am seeing at the moment with my two eyes working at different levels of clarity. Unfortunately, even after reading about Cezanne's use of plans for perspective, I still don't understand what he was talking about.

Sylvia

[ona]

Originally Posted by painterbear

Ona,
That's kind of how I am seeing at the moment with my two eyes working at different levels of clarity. Unfortunately, even after reading about Cezanne's use of plans for perspective, I still don't understand what he was talking about.

Sylvia

I'm glad I'm not the only one If I look with one eye and then the other the image only changes minutely nothing like the perspective changes in Cezanne's paintings. I have to move about two paces left or right to make any real difference. Maybe Cezanne had a wide face or maybe he just exaggerated the perspective difference I'm starting to get the idea but am lost as to how I am supposed to join the two or more images into one painting? Is there logic to it in some way or is it just random? Here are two quick photo's I've taken of a table similar in style to those seen in Cezanne's paintings. First lets imagine this is what you would see out of the left eye



and second what you would see out of the right




So what would you use from each to create a Cezanne style table? Anyone want a go? Just a pencil sketch will do.....
Ona

[kaypainter]

Originally Posted by ona

'It wasn't until the nineteenth century that this situation changed. Paul Cézanne, a French painter, introduced a completely different way to show space in a painting. He came to the conclusion that when we look at a view of nature we move our eyes from one fragment to another. Every time our eyes direct in a given way the configuration of perspective changes. Many different perspective sights form, which are impossible to be shown in a painting. According to the rules used Cézanne didn't make use of linear perspective, but started to build space in his paintings in a new way. According to his method he placed plans that ran deeper into the painting parallel to eachother in a similar way as wings in a theatre do. He recognized the plans by their colours and therefore he used painting perspective, which is based on three-dimensional effects of colours'


can anyone help me out as to how he went about creating his own perspective?

Ona

Would that be "planes" rather than "plans"? In other words he would create objects on one plane and then create the same or other objects on a parallel plane. It's the beginning of Cubism that he's creating where you are looking at all the planes of an object at the same time only he didn't go that far. He is still creating the objects to look three dimensional but in parallel planes. Kind of like in Star Trek where you have parallel universes where events are happening at the same time in separate but equally visible universes. Is that clear as mud?

Kay

[painterbear]

Kay,
That's what I thought the word should be also "planes" vs "plans", but when you read the article, it definitely uses "plans" several times. More

Sylvia

[kaypainter]

Originally Posted by painterbear

Kay,
That's what I thought the word should be also "planes" vs "plans", but when you read the article, it definitely uses "plans" several times. More

Sylvia

I know, but the only way I could make any sense of it was to substitute the word "planes". Have you noticed how so many printed things these days use spell check instead of actually proofreading the copy? That way if the word is spelled correctly it keeps popping up spelled correctly, but used incorrectly all through an article. Drives me nuts.

Kay

[ona]

Yep... I'm confused



so in this painting of his am I right in thinking he was playing with vertical planes because the bowl with the cherries on is more upright and thus focuses the eye onto it because it is a different plane to the rest of the painting. Is this what he was trying to do? If so why is the top of the jug/pitcher on another plane again. Rebecca says maybe its because he wasn't very good at perspective

Kay can you demonstrate what you mean by planes? The mud is a bit thick around here

Ona

[kaypainter]

Originally Posted by ona

Yep... I'm confused



so in this painting of his am I right in thinking he was playing with vertical planes because the bowl with the cherries on is more upright and thus focuses the eye onto it because it is a different plane to the rest of the painting. Is this what he was trying to do? If so why is the top of the jug/pitcher on another plane again. Rebecca says maybe its because he wasn't very good at perspective

Kay can you demonstrate what you mean by planes? The mud is a bit thick around here

Ona

Uh, I think that would be a nooooooooooo. My ability to demonstrate perspective would be nonexistent. I'm still trying to work out whether I think that's the vertical or horizontal perspective he's played with. You may just have to go play in the mud.

Kay

[aszurblue]

If he had stigmatizem(sp)and dyslexia as bad as I do, no problem seeing different planes Azure

[ona]

Azure, maybe he did and his theory of perspective was just a cover up.

Well James has, I think solved one mystery, Its planes not plans. See this link he found

Oh Kay but I want a play mate to throw mud at, its not so much fun on your own. Ok, you can just laugh at my attempts then


I also found this

In a formal (pictorial values) sense, Cezanne's great contribution was that he invented a new kind of space in painting. In the 400 years prior to the late 19th century, space in painting was Renaissance space - which was illusional space, linear perspective, trying to depict the illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface. The canvas was like a window looking out onto the real world, with parallel lines meeting at a point on the horizon line. After 1850, certain artists (Manet, for instance) began to gradually see the canvas not as a window on the world, but its own world, with its own laws. They did not want to depict space in terms of perspective, but more as a flat surface. And, rather than smoothing over the brushstrokes in order to model three dimensions in objects, they chose to paint in separate touches, or facets, of objects, not blending them together. Also, instead of the chiaroscuro (light and dark shading) from the Renaissance, they used color as much or more than value to depict volumes and space. Cezanne carried this further by constructing the objects or landscape into a pictorial structure, or architecture, and leaving it exposed in the work. What he did was to combine both the Renaissance notion of deep space, with the modern notion of the flat surface. This combining caused his paintings to have both flatness and three-dimensional space; the forms have both volume AND flatness. This combination causes a certain tension in his work - which is so perfectly resolved that the tension provides movement, and his resolution of the tension provides an eternal harmony. This combining of two types of space also accounts for his distortions of objects and perspective; depicting the "correct" perspective would destroy the visual integrity of the flat pictorial surface/space.

Taken from Here I think I'm getting the idea. I can emphasize things by changes in perspective or flatness versus 3D. Nothing has to be on the same line of perspective ending at a single point in the distance because our eyes when we look do not see it that way. Am I tuning into his way of thinking? or am I way out?

Ona

[CharM]

I'm late getting to your thread, Ona... and it has been incredibly interesting!!! I love that we're all learning something new together because of one of your projects!

Hercule is one of my very favourite characters... So, I'm really looking forward to see how Pearo shapes up... (hehehe... pun intended)...

As to the perspective mysteries... I think that you're on the right track... It appears that the COI often has its own plane to differentiate it from the rest of the composition, thus drawing our eyes to it... just a thought...

[ona]

Originally Posted by CharM

As to the perspective mysteries... I think that you're on the right track... It appears that the COI often has its own plane to differentiate it from the rest of the composition, thus drawing our eyes to it... just a thought...

I'm so glad.

I get the altered perspective for the COI and that should be fun to play with. I also get the idea of creating tension in the painting by altering the perspective. What I don't understand is why does he change perspective on things like the side of a table, or make the floor slope. To me this detracts from the COI. Am I missing something or was this his aim? In this one for example the table side is drawing my attention because it would be bigger at the back than the front. The screen at the back looks odd too. I can't pinpoint why though, both are drawing my attention away from the plate of fruit.

Ona

[kaypainter]

Originally Posted by ona

I'm so glad.

I get the altered perspective for the COI and that should be fun to play with. I also get the idea of creating tension in the painting by altering the perspective. What I don't understand is why does he change perspective on things like the side of a table, or make the floor slope. To me this detracts from the COI. Am I missing something or was this his aim? In this one for example the table side is drawing my attention because it would be bigger at the back than the front. The screen at the back looks odd too. I can't pinpoint why though, both are drawing my attention away from the plate of fruit.

Ona

From the link you included -- I read that as the tension between a flat, two dimensional rendering of objects such as the table and the screen and a three dimensional approach to the fruit and plate. That painting is too large on my screen to really get a sense of it, but on this painting below look at the table top. The perspective isn't off, it's flat (2D). Then the two different plates of fruit and the cloth are three dimensional but not to the same vanishing point. The jar is almost flat. And the background is flat. It isn't so much a center of interest problem. To use the quote:

'It wasn't until the nineteenth century that this situation changed. Paul Cézanne, a French painter, introduced a completely different way to show space in a painting. He came to the conclusion that when we look at a view of nature we move our eyes from one fragment to another. Every time our eyes direct in a given way the configuration of perspective changes. Many different perspective sights form, which are impossible to be shown in a painting."

The painting mimics your eyes jumping from one thing to the other, fragmenting the view and changing perspective. So a traditional approach to the COI isn't in his style. Too academic. You have to let go of your perceived notion of composition in a painting because this is what he's trying to do. Think of Picasso's cubist paintings where you are looking at a person's face where their nose and eyes and mouth are all on one side. It's weird because he's trying to have you see all the planes of the face at once. Cezanne was the father of all that.

Kay

[ReggieS]

Ona,
I think he did this to show what each part of the painting looks like on it's own as if we are foucsing on each part one at a time. That draws you from one part of the painting as the COI to another COI.

Reggie