Assignment 3-Drawing/Painting

assignment 3- Artists who excelled in painting and drawing

One of my favorite painters is the artist Salvador Dali.  He is a surrealist painter whose images have deeper hidden meaning within them.  One of the most famous paintings by him is the Persistence of Memory.  This painting shows that the concept of time is a human construct.  The clocks melting and the carcasses show the degradation of time as we know it.  I like the surrealist work because it is like entering a dream, everything is so realistic but it is also so distorted.

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, oil, 1931










This painting is realistic and impossible at the same time.  When I look at this painting, I feel like I am seeing the world through the eyes of Dali, like I have entered his dreams. 
Another “real but unreal” painting by him is called the temptation of Saint Anthony.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Salvador Dali,
oil, 1946

This piece is really interesting because of the length of the legs.  You can really see the message that Dali is trying to convey.  He is showing his faith through his art.  Dali went through a very religious phase in his painting career, and this painting was a part of it.  He is saying that the power of the cross is stronger than the power of evil.

The Portrait of Paul Eluard is another interesting piece:

Portrait of Paul Eluard, Salvador Dali, oil, 1929

It is interesting to see the different elements that go into a surrealist painting.  Each of the objects individually are a work of art in themselves.  They are all very life like and alone would look like a normal painting.  However, when you put them together, I think that it is quite fascinating to see what the artist can tell you through this combination of objects.

Leonardo Da Vinci is most well-known for painting the Mona Lisa, but he was also very good at drawing.  One of his best drawings is an anatomically correct skull, called View of a Skull:

View of a Skull, Leonardo Da Vinci, ink, 1489

The way that the bony processes and grooves of the skull are drawn are so descriptive.  The skull looks so real in this drawing.  The features of our skeleton are uniquely different on every person, and he manages to put all of the features on this skull that would have made this person unique.  He also did another View of a Skull where he showed a cross section:

View of a skull, Leonardo Da Vinci, ink, 1510-1511

This one is amazing because it shows a realistic interpretation of what the inside of the skull looks like.

He was incredibly skilled at showing all of the details that define a human as an individual in this work.  He also drew a picture called Study of a Woman:

Study of a Woman, Leonardo Da Vinci, ink, 1490

The View of the Skull was drawn before Study of a Woman.  I bet that drawing a skull first helped him correctly get the dimensions and depth of the face of this woman.