Edgar Degas' Blue Dancers, Meets Scribbles.

 

Painting by C.T. Rasmuss is currently on display at:

The 10th Annual Watercolor Art Show at Evergreen,

presented by The Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society.

 

Opening: Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012; Noon-4pm.

230 West Galbraith Rd.

Cincinnati, OH 45215

 

Public viewing hours

9/23-10/28 I Noon-4pm

 

                                                                    Scribble of Degas' Blue Dancers,
                                                                                                    C.T. Rasmuss; 2011.

A scribble is a drawing composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device off of the paper. Scribbling is most often associated with young children and toddlers, because their lack of hand–eye coordination and lower mental development often make it very difficult for any young child to keep their coloring attempts within the line art of the subject.
Adults also scribble, although generally it is done jovially, out of boredom (as in doodling), as a form of abstract art, or to see if a pen works. (wiki)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribble

Well of course this is a Wiki reference, but it's written by the people for the people, so it's also popular opinion, giving it all the credit it;s needed for the purpose of this blog.  The artwork above, as you see is a painting I guess you can say, since technically I used paint pens to make the colorful scribbles that this composition is comprised of.  This Scribble was my attempt at rendering one of the great French Impressionist, Edgar Degas; it's a technique that I set out as an experiment to capture the Impressionist's great works of art in a new and modern medium without cheapening the theme or taking away from the originality of the Masterpiece by the master.

This Scribble is of Degas' Blue Dancers as seen below is I believe in my best opinion, my reproduction is not only a justifiable attempt in a modern medium, but also to put to rest any opinion that scribbles aren't just abstract lines associated with young children and toddlers or done out of boredom as doodling; but that these children and toddlers as we all once were, actually have something to say in these so-called 'just scribbles' and the people doing it out of so-called 'boredom' are possibly in the act of some kind of solace, producing something of importance.

                                                                            Blue Dancers; Edgar Degas; 1893 oil.

Divisionism: A Seurat Legacy

                                                          'Primary Portrait',C.T. Rasmussen; 2010

Seurat’s theories intrigued many of his contemporaries, as other artists seeking a reaction against Impressionism joined the Neo-Impressionist movement. Paul Signac, in particular, became one of the main proponents of divisionist theory, especially after Seurat’s death in 1891. In fact, Signac’s book, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, published in 1899, coined the term divisionism and became widely recognized as the manifesto of Neo-Impressionism.^[3]
In addition to Signac, other French artists, largely through associations in the Société des Artistes Indépendants, adopted some divisionist techniques, including Camille and Lucien Pissarro, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce, Henri-Edmond Cross and Hippolyte Petitjean.^[5] Additionally, through Paul Signac’s advocacy of divisionism, an influence can be seen in some of the works of Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay and Pablo Picasso^[5] .<sup>[6]
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisionism


For me Seurat has had much more influence than I could ever account for, in this case alnoe I will refer specifically to  its influence on the above Gouache I finished in 2010.  First, I stuck with primary colors as in original Divisionism's definition, but rather than allowing myself to use green, it was simply replaced with the use of a black marker to create a spontaneous drawing w/o a 'net' (in true neo-impressionist spirit).  Later to be filled in with color controlled by a strict policy of not being able to vary color tone nor intensity.</sup>