Art Deco Nude – 16-09-22

After Two Interludes

Graphite pencil drawing ‘Art Deco Nude – 16-09-22’ follows after two impressionist interludes. Park Hoog Oostduin – 14-09-22. I made because I was quite content with the leafy appeance in Het Sterrenbos – 12-09-22. Turns out the Ingres paper supports blurry strokes nicely. I most certainly will do more in the near future now Autumn is approaching. For the time being I also wanted to pick a another vintage picture from the 1920s. Unfortunately I don’t have anyone to give credit to. I google images searched it but didn’t find any author. Hail to him or her!

Extrapolated Lines

As to this motif I suffered from the same insecurity as in Art Deco – 11-08-22. That one also shows a female form that has her arms and knee stretched out. That makes a figure quite ‘open’ so-to-speak. As an artist you have to make a choise what to depict. If you want to show the whole figure that means there’s an awful lot of negative – abundant – space around her. Hence the extrapolated lines, stemming from the bodily features. I like to think it’s my own invention but I don’t know for sure. Instead of keeping the very end of the paper untouched I hatched the paper almost completely black in this one. I liked the dramatic effect it had in my last cubist nude.

Batsheba?

Extrapolated lines automatically enclose planes when they intersect. I’d like to think that says something about the theme. I don’t know. I tried to hatch as many of such planes close to the body to a complete black. Planes farther away from the body I rendered slightly lighter. Lo and behold, I even got myself a foreshortened Star of David to the left of her buttocks. What could that mean? That she is jewish or that Jahwe support female nudity? Another Batsheba by accident?

Pitt Graphite Matt pencil (Faber-Castell) drawing on Hahnenmühle paper (24 x 31 x 0.1 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers