Mr. Gammell's Departure

Today I received a very special photo. It is a picture of an artist's studio the day he died. It belonged to Mr. R.H. Ives Gammell, a champion of classical art. He focused much his life on passing on the techniques and values that were used in creating the masterpieces of the past. Mr. Gammell determined that he was going to be a bridge spanning those years when modern art spat on classical training and paintings.

Mr. R.H. Ives Gammell's Studio

The gentleman and fine artist that passed this photo on to me was one of his students, Mr. Tom Dunlay, a longtime student of Mr. Gammell, and was the last person to be with him before he died. He wrote of the photo:

"This was the morning after he passed away. Except for the landscape on the chair this was exactly the way he left the studio the day before. The previous evening there was an exhibition of DeCamp's work at the St. Botolph Club on Commonwealth Avenue. At the end of the opening he asked me if I would walk him home just down the street. As it turned out, I was the last person to see him alive. He passed away in his sleep." 

This reminds me a lot of the way my father died. He was on his way back from wintering in Florida and was coming to visit our family in Cincinnati the next day. I spoke with him on the phone the night before making plans to pick up our youngest son from school together. The next morning before 6 a.m. I received a phone call saying that he had died in his sleep. It was devastating.

This studio was left by a man who had expectations of returning to it the next day. How neat it looks: the brushes lined up on palette and table, the book opened up on a stool, paintings set out for observation, studies on the easel - and the gentle north light washing over the artist's workplace.

I think that perhaps this was just the way Mr. Gammell would have wanted it. A day at work in the studio followed by an evening at the St. Botolph Club, a beloved haunt of artists and intellectuals, seeing Joseph DeCamp's work, and walking home with a favorite student. Very Providential...a gracious way to leave...

The American Pupils of Jean-Léon Gérôme

It seems as if every serious American art student in the last half of the 1800's went abroad to study. Among those more than one hundred fifty of them enrolled in the atelier of Jean-Léon Gérôme, the leading teacher at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1853 to 1904. Not a few returned to the States as masterful painters and teachers themselves. A book I finished recently, The American Pupils of Jean-Léon Gérôme, (1984) by H. Barbara Weinberg, takes a look at some of Gérôme's most famous American students, their experiences with him as a teacher, and his influence on their lives and their art.

The Ecole des Beaux-Arts
"The principal and most distinguished French institution for artistic study was the government school, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which accepted students (men only until 1897) tuition-free, without regard to nationality. Until 1863 the only practical instruction offered was in cast and life drawing supervised by a rotating faculty of twelve critics. The student learned all other techniques in the independent atelier of a master who might or might not have been a member of the Ecole's faculty.

 The Glass Court of the Palais des Etudes
École des Beaux-Arts, 1884

In 1863 that changed. In addition to an expanded curriculum, three ateliers for painting under the direct administrative domain of the Ecole were set up:

• the atelier of Jean-Léon Gérôme
  
• the atelier of Alexandre Cabanel
• the atelier of Isidore Pils
  

"A student gained admission to one of the Ecole's three ateliers by personal application to the chef d'atelier. The chef would often require the student to undergo a period of supervised work as an aspirant, drawing from casts in the gallery of antiques, before he would certify him for admission to the studio itself. If the student wished he could compete in the rigorous concours des places for matriculation into the Ecole itself. The competition included tests in anatomy, perspective, cast or life drawing, and after 1883 in the principles of sculpture and architecture. Admission was limited to only seventy students until 1883, and eighty thereafter."

The Anatomy Class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
by Francois Sallé, 1888

"The typical student in one of the Ecole's ateliers could expect to work from October to July, six mornings per week, first at drawing and then at painting from life, with one week each month devoted to study from the antique. His afternoons might be spent in sketching paintings or sculpture in the Louvre or Luxembourg galleries. Evenings were devoted to the Ecole's drawing course. The ambitious student would squeeze in attendance at lectures and library research. This routine was punctuated by numerous studio competitions, and others in compositional sketching, historical landscape or 'expressive heads', which were open to all students in the Ecole. Additionally, the student had to undergo the semi-annual concours des places if he wished to matriculate."

Then there were the semi-weekly studio visits of the chef d'atelier.
More of that next time in A Visit from the Maitre, Jean-Léon Gérôme.



* All quotes are from The American Pupils of Jean-Léon Gérôme by H. Barbara Weinberg

Drawing a Plaster Cast: The Set Up

French Plaster Cast, ca. 1900

This cast will be drawn using the Sight-Size Method which simply means that your picture will be the same size as you see the cast. The first step will be setting up the cast and your drawing.

1. Hang a piece of medium or darker value paper or cloth behind the cast's position. This should be at least as big as your drawing is going to be.
2. Either hang your cast on a wall or set it up on a table. There should also be room on one side or the other for your drawing as well as enough room to stand and maneuver your arm. The cast should be about eye level. Remember that you will be standing to draw. This may mean raising the cast up to eye level on something stable since you will want to avoid reaching up too high or too low to draw.
3. Choose or create a lighting situation for your cast so that there is obvious light and shadow. Daylight from a single source or a carefully artificially lit situation work well. I also like to choose lighting that brings out the best features of the cast. It's a good idea to try and hang your lights and darks pretty much together. Take time experimenting with this till you've achieved these qualifiers. Your drawing paper should also have the same quality of light on it as the cast does. If it does not, you will struggle with your values.
4. Position your drawing paper.
   We're going to make the drawing the exact same size as the cast this time around so:
   
   • If the cast is hanging on the wall- Either tape your drawing paper on the wall right next to the cast or place your easel with paper taped to a drawing board as close to the cast as you can.
   
   • If it's a free-standing cast- Position the drawing board to cut halfway through the cast. Adjust the easel shelf so the cast will be in the center of the drawing. If using an easel, mark the leg positions on the floor with tape. Also mark the adjustable shelf position in case you want to use the easel for other work as well.
5. Mark your standing position. Stand back about ten feet from the middle of both drawing board and cast, and position yourself in between them so that you can see both without having to move your head. You should be able to flick your eyes between the cast and your drawing without moving your head. Mark the positions of both feet with tape. This is the spot to which you'll return a multitude of times during the course of your drawing. (If you look at the photo, you can see where I have marked my standing position for viewing the cast in the middle of the room, back from where I'm standing wearing the orange blouse.)

All this tape will make your art room look a little like a crime scene, but you must keep everything the same during the course of your drawing.

Next blog: Cast drawing supplies

How to Draw a Plaster Cast: Getting a Cast

Plaster Cast Drawing Class

Recently, I and five other students started a plaster cast drawing class with Carl Samson. He took this shot and posted it on his Facebook wall. One of the comments under it was from a mutual friend and read:

"For all the wonderful things Australia has to offer it is also very limited in many areas...no workshops or gatherings of creative minds...and the only life drawing class/session I could find in my area was listed under 'Hens Night Out' where the bride-to-be and her drunk and giggling friends can sketch a nude male figure :( very disappointed......"

That was so sad, I've decided to try and do a series of posts on plaster cast drawing just for April - and anyone else who is interested. I'm just sharing as a fellow student, but will do the best I can.

Step 1: Getting a Cast

The first step is to get a cast. I have been most fortunate to have kind, generous artist friends who actually own casts and will let me borrow them. But that may not be your case. As I see it, you have several options:

1. Purchase a cast. There are sites online from which you may acquire casts. Just Google something like "plaster cast" and maybe "artist" and see what you come up with. Here are a few sites to get you started:
   
   http://www.giustgallery.com/index.php
   http://www.fineartstore.com
   
   Also, there is no reason why you couldn't go to a garden or furniture store, and buy a better looking garden statue and spray paint it (with a matte finish) white or cream.
   
   Auctions, estate and garage sales, Goodwill or cruising good neighborhoods on garbage nights might just yield what you're looking for as well.
   
   Another one of my clever artist friends bought a whole big box of slightly damaged plaster casts and then fixed them up with - plaster. They look as good as new!
   
   
2. I have considered old graveyard statues briefly...
   
   
3. Art museums will often have plaster casts or white statues on display if you don't mind going often and drawing in public.
   
   
4. One other option that I have thought about occasionally is to make your own cast. If you have a willing victim - I mean - subject - like your child or husband or even your own foot, you could try making a life cast. After all, this was done Back in the Day with famous or notorious individuals. There is actually an Association of Lifecasters and lessons in lifecasting on YouTube!
   

Disclaimer: I have never, ever actually made a lifecast, and so refuse to be responsible for anyone who tries this and gets stuck in the goop.

Next: The Set Up

Her True Identity

The Unknown . Cast Drawing

Today I made a big discovery. It was someone's true identity...

It all started when I had borrowed a lovely cast which I ended up drawing four times. It was the face of a delicate, graceful woman...not too young, nor too old. As I traced over her features in my mind - and sometimes with my fingers - and worked on transcribing them to paper, I began to wonder who this person had been. Upon asking I found out that she had been dubbed "The Countess." Her features certainly spoke of a certain elan and dignity. It was not hard to believe that she was titled.

Even so, it was not enough. Soon armed with the name of the company in Chicago that had sold her to her owner, I found out that her official name in their old catalogue was "The Unknown." Ah..."Unknown." Perhaps poor and penniless, her body had been washed up on the banks of a river or an illness had taken her life, but she had been pretty enough to have her death mask made for distribution to aspiring artists.

But then, I didn't like the idea of a death mask. Rather I made her a poor but willing person who had to make a few dollars, and patiently sat while her mask was being made for sale to art schools.

Without the facts, these were my conjectures until a few days ago. That was when the owner of the cast said excitedly, "I think we have a lead!" A classical musician friend of his, a man acquainted with culture and the arts, had seen the plaster cast and announced that he thought it was Anna Pavlova!

The Acclaimed Ballerina, Anna Pavlova

Anna Pavlova! She was the famous ballerina who performed for audiences in the early 1900s. Her most famous piece was The Dying Swan from Swan Lake. It had been choreographed specifically for her in 1905 to Le Cygne from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.

The Dying Swan from Swan Lake

"In 1931, she contracted pneumonia while touring in The Hague, Netherlands. Holding her costume from the Dying Swan, she said her last words; "Play the last measure very softly." She died, on 22 January 1931, in the Hotel Des Indes, in The Hague. On the day she was to have next performed, the lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and while the orchestra played Saint-Saëns, a spotlight moved around the empty stage searching in the places where Anna Pavlova would have danced."*

Anna's House Included an Aviary
Complete with Swans and Flamingoes

In Anna's day not only death masks, but also life masks were made of famous individuals. The plaster cast I used was made from a mask made by Austrian sculptor, Victor Frisch which is in the collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (input Anna Pavlova in the Search box). It is dated 1920.

Victor Frisch . Head of Anna Pavlova

Bronze on marble base, ca. 1920

Another life cast of Anna in tinted wax was made by artist Malvina Cornell Hoffman. She is the fantastic sculptor who created the ethnic sculptures at Chicago's Museum of Natural History.

Malvina Cornell Hoffman
Anna Pavlova Life Mask, 1924

Anna's death mask is displayed at the White Lodge Museum and Ballet Resource Centre, the home of The Royal Ballet Lower School (shown along with Margot Fonteyn’s ballet shoe).

It feels very different now when I see my cast drawings. I know who this person is...or rather, was. The knowledge of her name has changed everything...

* http://ann-lauren.blogspot.com/2009/02/19-20th-cent-ballerina-anna-pavlova.html
Also see this photo: http://gallery.ejwassoc.com/main.php?g2_itemId=339

Sir Joshua Reynolds Seventh Discourse

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Self-Portrait . 1780

Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of the founders and the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, gave a series of lectures to his student body in the mid-1700s. While some very thought-provoking things were said to these young men, the English from that era was difficult at times to understand.

So I began to paraphrase his Discourse VII for the Modern Man in modern American English. Even though I read much further than this - and his points were very interesting - the slog to make a good paraphrase was so hard that this was all the further I got:

Developing Good Taste
"Gentlemen, it has been my aim - ever since I began this series of lectures - to persuade you that success in your art depends not just on developing your technical skills, but even more so on developing your minds. When you are not painting, spend your leisure time

• Reading fine literature - especially poetry
  
• Studying human nature
  
• Speaking with and listening to educated, thinking individuals
  
• Thinking on how to apply what you learn to your life and art

Why should you do this? It is to develop Good Taste - taste which will carry over into your work and raise it to the highest standards.

However - sad to say - there are those who assert that the effort to acquire good taste is a hopeless pursuit. Instead, they feel artists ought to "court the muse in shady bowers," "await the call and inspiration of genius, find out where he inhabits, and where he is to be invoked with the greatest success," and "attend to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the equinox." [Take note, since the summer solstice is upon us!]

Absolutes in Art
These same folks are sure that striving to create art according to artistic rules and principles cramp the freedom and liberty of the imagination. They suppose that some just happen to be born with genius, and just happen to know the right things to do without direction from artistic principles, thought processes or hard work.

But I would assert that there is indeed absolute truth in art. Absolute or real truth is objective. It acts as a plumbline. These are things that can most certainly be ascertained. For example, you can tell if

• a picture is like or unlike the subject matter
  
• its coloring is true or not to the subject
  
• the drawing and composition are good or not
  
• the values and edges in a piece are correct or not
  

---

At this point in Reynold's discourse, I was surprised. Apparently there were battles between different views of art long before Picasso's Desmoiselles d'Avignon! If indeed Modern Art means "The point at which artists (1) felt free to trust their inner visions, (2) express those visions in their work, (3) use Real Life (social issues and images from modern life) as a source of subject matter and (4) experiment and innovate as often as possible," then what I had read from the mid-1700s was an objection to that very thing.

This battle continues. I myself have been astonished these past few years at several unexpected, emotional responses to my study of art warning me against becoming enslaved to principles while at the same time, praising the creative individual who follows their inner voice. Regardless, this is my preferred path. I also believe in creativity...but want to see it subjected to Good Taste and tried and true artistic principles.

Passing on the Heritage

How did the students of RH Ives Gammell fare once on their own? I wanted to make a gallery - one painting for each student...if any work could be found online. Some of the names include links to more information on them or their own websites. Enjoy!

Robert Moore

Paul Ingbretson

Allan R. Banks

David Zeigler

David Lowrey

Gary D. Hoffman

James Childs

Charles Cecil

Paul DeLorenzo

Robert Scott Jackson

Richard W. Whitney

Richard Byron

Sam Rose

Robert Douglas Hunter, The Little Leaguer, 1956

Richard Lack

Stapleton Kearns

Tom Dunlay

Carl Samson