 | I'm posting this 5-year-old sketch of the rather jowly Isaac Ware (from a bust in the National Portrait Gallery). It was an exercise in line and tone, mixing pencil with graphite, trying to represent the effects of looking at the strange outlines and shadows created under multiple lights. There's something disturbing about drawing statues. Especially in a context like the national portrait gallery where there are shelves and shelves of famous heads. Which one will catch my attention - and why? It's like looking at a person through someone else's window. I find myself wondering not only who they were - outside this pose and their reputation - but also how others might have judged them - dead and alive. I'm conscious of 'using' them for my own purposes - and then, in their returning stare, I feel them reanimated by my looking, and beginning to judge me. I hope to post something fresher tomorrow, but a recent death is making me step backwards. |
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