Thomas Hart Benton

I have been reading a book "Thomas Hart Benton and the Indiana Murals." Fascinating. He is one of my favorite artists. One of the discussions about his approach talks about the influence of film on his work and that of other  artists of the time. One pioneering film maker mentioned is the work of D.W. Griffith. 

I feel inspired by his work and feel that a further study of Benton as an artist may help me would be a benefit to  my approach to my art and be helpful to others here with their films and imagery with Studio Artist.

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  • It's kind of funny that he declared himself an "enemy of modernism", and then his most famous student was Jackson Pollock.

     

    If you want to post a few examples of his work that have particular relevance for you along with some explanation about what characteristics of the work are influencing you or your approach, I'm sure other readers of the forum would appreciate that commentary.

     

    For being a 'realist' some of his paintings seem remarkably stylized to me.  Like this example.

    2472632464?profile=originalA digital photo is never going to look anything like this, so the kind of abstraction going on in the design of the painting is very interesting.

     

    Putting on my technical hat, i'd love to figure out an algorithmic way to generate some approximation to these kinds of effects. Maybe some new advanced form of vectorizer that deals with form and shading.

     

    • to the form and shading I think you will need a 3d engine to get there. As to the composition.. still need human input for that.. thankfully.

       

      Lots of beautiful S curves in this one, all arranged in a spiral.

      • I wanted to turn your comments around and come at them in a reversed sort of way. You point out the beauty of the underlying compositional forms of this painting. And after you pointed that out i took another look at it and you're right. You could probably remove the actual people and have totally abstract tonally shaded forms in this painting and still have something very compelling.

         

        So my question, is, can we define something about the structure of the universal or interesting forms used in this style of painting. Ultimately i'd like to move the discussion in a mathematical direction for those who are so inclined. I'm almost wondering if a better approach to building something that creates this kind of image would make more sense starting from the concept of building up a definition of form and then filling in the abstracted ideal form(s).

         

         

        • Then the concept starts becoming sculptural, which was Michaelangelo's approach to painting. That is the approach of the Russian school I attend. The  approach is to start with the mass and instead of add to it one removes the parts to "find the essence(the sculpture) within the stone." But this approach does not fill in, it removes the unnecessary. 

           

          Benton first sketched totally abstract geometric compositions and then replaced those forms with people. In other words, masses first and then definition later. I was trying to find an example on line for you and could find one. 

           

          This would also encourage people to think more about composition and message, which is definitely a weakness in much art these days. 

          • Great Paul, you totally picked up on what i'm asking about. So my question is, are there certain universal abstraction associated with the form of the geometric composition that can be built into Studio Artist.

            Or another way to approach it, would be to think through what's an ideal work flow for first defining an abstract geometrical composition and then providing tools to work with that to fill in form and definition based on the underlying abstract geometric composition.

            • there could be some really fun SA type answers to this question. What IF for example we could lay in abstract forms in 3d or 2.5d and then have those forms guide a warp distortion of a source image.The trick would be to make this both as automated and as flexible as possible.

              I mean I think I can see a way to do something like this already with bezier warps and keyframe animation. But it would be nifty if it were more of a select parameters and click operation.

              But really there are at least two parallel discussions in this thread. One has to do with the representation and manipulation of light and shade, the second has to do with composition. 

              • I was initially thinking of something like the stretch2 brush type filling in the forms following the abstracted compositional structure. Since you could take figures and flow them onto designed curved paths that fill in a canvas.
            • John,

              This is in response to your comment on composition:

              Absolutely. That is a great approach and facilitates seeing. In other words, the Platonic theory of Forms. One is dealing with essence first, the inner. Not detail. Another way o expressing it is always start with the general first, the inner and then go for the details. I actually am learning to draw without trying to represent the physical form (that happens as part of the process) but by expressing its essence through mass,  gesture (geometric forms would not be enough... too static. Energy (gesture) would have to be part of the equation) ... and of course,  proportion.

               

    • From my reading, Benton was a classicist in many ways. He painted mainly with Egg tempera, used Tintoretto and Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists as inspiration and methodology for the way he worked and was fundamentally a teller of tales. He made many drawings as studies for his work and even composed clay 3D models to see the pieces volumetrically in lighting  as Tintoretto had.  He wanted to speak to directly to the common man in a way that would be easily recognizable and understood. The speed at which he had to create the Indiana murals for the Worlds Fair...232 feet in approximately five and a half months, demanded a simple and powerful style. Once he actually started  painting (approximately 2 months before the deadline)  he had to paint approximately 30 square feet a day to meet the deadline.

       

      He would have been a realist in the sense that his art fit into that category, regardless of the stylization. I assume he would have disliked abstraction in the sense that it was removed from the real,  sensual, tactile practical  world as he had experienced.  His desire to express an American art came from choosing subject matter that he understood and experienced as his cultural birthright. Much in thew same way, Copland created his music. His composition for Martha Graham's classic dance piece "Appalachian Spring" is an excellent example of American music and dance.

      I am deeply moved not only by his beautiful composition that create a texture of life that is interwoven and moves. His art is not static but flows as a river or the ocean would flow. The depth is amazing and removes one for the surface of the digital experience. That has always been one of my goals in my work. Get beneath the surface, find the spirit. One not only identifies the subject but feels the undercurrent much in a way one would see  a wave from a distance, but feels the deep pull of its depth when one is in the ocean. He does this with dramatic lighting that is formed on rounded volume much in the way I am presently learning to learning to paint and draw without have to see a cast artificial light. Study Botticelli or Hans Holbein and one will find similar lighting.

       

      Without having really being aware of it , perhaps my use of super saturated colors on my Coney Island work has been subconsciously influenced by my love of this magnificent lighting and deep emotional expression. Michael is right, though, the dimensional quality of his work can only be rendered painstakingly as one might with a hand painted piece. Even the great animated work of Pixar  has not come has not come close to the feeling of depth in his paintings. I have no doubt it could, though. I saw the latest Narnia movie last night what was done with the Dragon was incredible. I vaguely remember the beautiful color of "James and the Giant Peach" years ago that went beyond the typical digital animation.

      I could write much more and perhaps will later. However I have to get to my drawing class now.

       

      Attached are samples that may illustrate what I sense and have alluded to. If there is more interest, I will write more.

       

      Paul

      Persephone.jpg

      Benton fig2lg.jpg

      BentonThomasHart Drawing.1965124.jpg

    • I have found more images further exemplify his ability to saturate the color and "bend" the light (and shade) in his paintings to distort reality yet keep  touch with reality at the same time. Many of my Coney Island images appear "real" and friends and others continue to call them "photographs" even though they are obviously different. They can not make the leap of faith that I did in creating my artistic visions. I care not for the "correct" photograph. Composition remains important to me as it obviously did for Benton.  I am willing to stylize reality to express what I feel and see with my heart's eye. Color changes dramatically but not so much that it is not believable. I accomplish this, as said before, by layering and the color adjust tools. I have used up to 40 layers. I use masks to concentrate on  certain areas. My objects remain"real" but they change under the influence of color and light. Even the addition of my dot patterns is my attempt to say, this is not just a button pushing exercise and look here, there's another photo. To me representing the world of light remains paramount.

      Technically, if there were a way to bend the light using Studio Artist as one can using meshes in Illustrator, that would be an amazing thing.Benton was an incredible draftsman who used distortion as an exclamation point. His background as a caricature artist  removed perfection of the human form as the goal and he was able to endow his people with personality through believable exaggeration. 

      Thomas Hart Benton, Poker Night from A Streetcar Named Desire, 1948...

      wreck.jpg

      Benton WWII 729550.jpg

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