When I first saw this face as a poster in a long-ago co-worker's office, I thought it was a cartoon joke. But no. It's a Rembrandt self-portrait, in popular form. Not only did Rembrandt make over 80 surviving self-portraits through his lifetime, but he had an unsuspected sense of humour, too.
This one is in the tradition of Golden Age Dutch tronies. The term applies not only to faces that are exaggerations or caricatures, but also to "types" -- Vermeer's well-known "Girl With A Pearl Earring" is considered a tronie, as the type of an innocent young woman. And how about this real-life example – the "type" of a Canadian political figure?
Confidential to ardent investigators: If you want to pursue the weird aspect of tronies, just skim down this page for the heads created by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, an 18th-century German-Austrian sculptor.
Where is all this leading? Returning from summer camp, with fewer than 11 hours of daylight now, I'm eager to return to my own favourite themes – people's figures and faces. I remember how much fun it was to frolic and detour!
I decided it was time to start working on a series I've had in mind that would kick off with an image of the sun.
Just at this time, it happened that via my friend L and the circles she moves in, I went with her on a tour of artists' studios in Gibsons and Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast. What an amazing trip! Probably my favourite of the artists we met was this architect-turned-painter -- click here on "Meet the Artist" and you'll see him in action – creating the random slicks of paper that in themselves are gorgeous.
So – on a much smaller scale and with different materials, I headed for the sun as I emulated his intuitive approach. Here, on my basement floor, acrylic paints are drying on paper placed on a dollar-store aluminum tray.
Already, this is not at all in the spirit of the wall-length paintings we saw in Tyrel's studio. The circle from the aluminum tray has already suggested the head – and his method makes no assumptions, gives no directions, just lets things flow as they will. Then he cuts and pastes, also without any goal in mind. AND he said nothing about the possibility of his dried paper sticking to its base….as mine did.
After cutting my random strips of paper, I glued them together in a Sun God motif.
Hmmm. This is nothing like the creations I sought to emulate. What would my admired artist have done with my strips of paper, assuming they were the large size he works with? Something like these?
What do you think?
Me, too. In fact, as I look at a sketchbook cover I collaged about 40 years ago in my Edward Betts phase, I think my work was more in touch with his then.
So where to go from here? I'm not going to re-do the Sun face; I'm not going to try another Sunshine Coast emulation. Where will I head next?
Only the tronie knows…
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