Museum Stroll: Sorolla at the Hispanic Society

When visiting New York City, if art is on the agenda, there are places one will hit. The Met, for instance. But, on an extended trip, or perhaps on a second or later visit, the city is home to other destinations worth seeing. One of them is fairly unknown--The Hispanic Society of America. It's under the radar for two reasons. There's nothing to indicate that a place so named has a decent amount of very good art. Second, the location: up Broadway at about 155th St., the park is just over 2mi. past Central Park, past Harlem. There aren't many tourist attractions that far north.

The HSA first got on my radar while living in Spain, where I reconnected with the art of Joaquin Sorolla, including visiting his once-home/studio in Madrid. I learned about this series, painted near the end of Sorolla's life, and occupying much of the last 8 years of it. "Visions of Spain" was a 12-14' x 227' series of murals, painted mostly from life, wherein Sorolla traveled throughout various regions of Spain, painting local traditions and customs, with folks in local dress. The whole suite was commissioned specifically for this HSA, in NYC. So, though I'd never been to NYC, I knew that a visit would be high on my list whenever I visited the Big Apple. I rave more about Sorolla in general elsewhere.

This photo includes about 1/4 of the entire suite, which lines the room in one continuous arc.

So, when we eventually moved to NYC two years ago (!), and up in northern Manhattan to boot, one of the first things we wanted to see was this room. Just our luck, that wing of the museum was under construction, and the entire series was on tour in Spain, while construction was underway. It was the first time the paintings were on view in Spain, and the show was breaking records wherever it went...including Malaga, less than an hour from where we lived, although not while we were in Spain.

Just this month, the paintings returned and were reinstalled, so within a couple of weeks, we hit it up. The canvases, as mentioned and shown above, are pretty huge. The painter himself was nearing the end of his life, but the work is a real labor of love, a riot of color, light and brushwork--all Sorolla's hallmarks.

As you walk up on it, there are certain sections that fall apart, the brushwork of the sort that snaps together a few feet away, in a manner that makes it seem like he painted with a 6-8 foot long brush. Yet, other parts--particularly those portions that are the focal points, definitely stand up to closer viewing.

I'd love to see the amount of paint expended here. Many portions were evidently painted with 1-2" wide brushes, thick slashes of paint laid down exactly, and left. For those who paint, who want to see a good example of the principle of thinly painted darks and thickly painted light areas, these are an education on their own.

Culturally, it's also very interesting to see many traditional scenes before so much of it began being lost. This was before Franco, before WWII. Of interest was seeing the portrayal of the northern region of Galicia. For those who don't know, my surname Gallegos is simply the plural of Gallego, and Gallego is simply the adjective that means Galician. So though my lineage snakes through Mexico on its way to me, there is a clear geographical anchor for at least one section of my family tree. I've yet to visit the region, so it was nice to see.

Some scenes, like Holy Week in Seville (L), can still be seen in today's Spain--I witnessed what felt like this exact moment 8 years ago in Madrid, quite by accident. It was haunting, so standing in front of this life-sized portrayal definitely brought it all back. It was also a great example of keeping color in what would easily be dark and drab scenes. There are flecks of color throughout even the dark penitent's robes, in the most unexpected places.

Apart from this room, the museum houses  works by a basic who's-who of Spanish artists. This is a museum that won't demand your whole day--it's a good size for those who can't spend hours in museums. It also features a nice collection of Spanish crafts, sculpture and the like; the outside courtyard also has some impressive sculptures.

So, now you know! If you're headed to the Bronx Zoo, Columbia University, or Harlem itself, the Hispanic Society should be a 1-2 hour stopping point on the way. Or, if you're like me, it's the end destination!

Sketch Dump, Pt.4

It's been awhile, and now I have sketches available on my site, so I'll break down the current crop in this post. Links go to the full piece, but I've included some detail shots for ya here to break up the usuall Wall of Text.

Planar Standoff: When composing a complicated scene I'll sometimes draw the individual parts separately and put them back together in Photoshop. In this case, most of the figures were drawn using Layout Paper--more opaque than pure Tracing Paper, but still translucent enough to see through. In this way, I basically worked in real media as I might digitally anyway, with each piece on its own layer.

Final Encounter (R, detail): I didn't need to draw the dragon bigger than this to get the detail I needed. However, to include the figures into a drawing this size, as they would be significantly smaller, would've meant they'd be drawn too small to detail them as needed. So, to include them all on one drawing, I would've had to scale the entire thing so the *smallest* figure was large as I needed. That would've made the whole thing much larger, unnecessarily so, probably close to 16x20" for an 18x24" painting. Because it happens that the smallest figure was a Halfling. I still don't have the painting back at the moment, but it'll be up at some point.

(L, detail) Droid Commander: There's no reason that I drew this on toned paper other than whim.

Battle Droid: The final illustration here featured a "line-up" of various droids. Since I wanted a little flexibility to swap positions or flip them (particularly if the Art Director asked), I drew each of these separately, and then put them together digitally. So each droid is its own drawing, but two of them were expanded universe droids most of you don't know, and the other was drawn on darker paper and didn't read that well as a drawing (once put together digitally, it didn't matter).

Anne Bonny (alternate): When illustrating "Heart of a Pirate," my initial sketches had Anne much more boyish, as described in the story. After all, early on Anne needed to fit in with the men. I tried to keep her a bit feminized yet, even with her breasts bound and baggy clothes. The author had some different ideas for her portrayal, so we hashed it out and I re-drew her according to the specifications.

Balance 2: I've said plenty about this painting, but only showed this one with greyscale over it. This was the initial drawing.

In Memory of Frank Frazetta

Monday saw the news of the death of Frank Frazetta at the age of 82. Many others have written on it, which is perhaps more than anything a testament to the strength of his influence. For those in my generation and a few before, Frazetta has been a giant in the field. Modern fantasy art as we know it owes more to him than perhaps any other artist. In an era when the genre was even more ghettoized than it is now, his was illustration that resonated so powerfully that practically every genre illustrator since has had to deal with it. One way or another, a fantasy illustrator (at least, any American one) has had to arrive at Frazetta like a fork in road and decide--would you follow his path or not? Would you follow his path for a bit then jump the rails elsewhere? The Frazetta aesthetic had to be dealt with. But regardless of which way you went, you had to stop to admire it.

My own run-ins with Frank's work began with the Bantam Books collections of his art, back in elementary school in the 80s. I would flip through them at the local bookstore at the mall, partly titillated by the sexy women he painted, partly thrilled by the sheer power of his characters. Little did I know back then how much of the weight of this power was through his actual handling of the paint--itself a force to be reckoned with--all I knew was that these warriors were nearly crazed with might. I was too young to consider owning the books (plus, they might get me in trouble), neither did I have the allowance money for them. My brother bought some Frazetta-illustrated editions of Conan the Barbarian, still the definitive representation of this character in my mind. In fact, I happen to have a copy of the Frazetta-illustrated "Conan of Cimmeria" on my bedside table. I've long wanted to paint a scene out of it, which I first read maybe 6 years ago. I haven't done so, and the Frazetta cover on the front (and his body of work for that series) has kept me in utter fear of moving forward with it.

Here is where, if I but had access to them, I'd go and pull out a couple of copies I did of Frank's work as a student. In high school, I did at least one full pencil drawing of his (including the cover at left), in a sketchbook which tells of all my influences when I was young, featuring copies from all the luminaries of the late 80s. My first year of college, I took a portion of one of his Death Dealer covers and painted it 8x10" in oils, in my first usage of Liquin medium (the cropped image of Frank's original above). Such has been the effect of his work on me. In both cases it was a challenge to work against my own grain; the painted study particularly was fun to do.

Which is not to say that I've worshiped at the altar of Frazetta in my own work. I haven't, and I think that's probably obvious. I've enjoyed and respected his art, but I am not the "Man's Man" that Frank seemed to have been in his youth, and neither is my aesthetic driven in that direction. In this industry, the opinion of other illustrators regarding each others' work can often be broken down according to the Frank signpost: for those who have walked much distance down the path of Frazetta, the art of those who didn't is often seen as lacking.  For those who walked the other way, the work of those who've hiked the path of Frazetta is often seen as imitation. It's very hard to stand on the shoulders of that giant and not simply follow. Which is not to say there is animosity between the two camps (usually), but it is to say that this industry has for a long time drawn lines based on his work. Such has been the effect of Frank on the industry.

I never had the chance to meet the man, nor to see a finished original in person (only sketches). I'm sad about both of those, the former because obviously I would've loved to have met him, the latter because I'm told his work in person is worlds better than it has reproduced, in large part because most of his work (until recently) was reproduced poorly in a bygone era of poorer printing standards. But also because the physicality of his paint-pushing has to be seen to be appreciated, by all accounts. I can certainly imagine so, and would love to reevaluate his work on the strength of the real deal.

Frazetta achieved the status of superstar in this genre, a status only a very small handful have reached since. As the progenitor of the modern genre, his work is also the first to break the million-dollar barrier for sale of an original. That is soon to be equaled and bested, no doubt. He spent his life married to the same woman and painted as long as he was able. When he lost use of his drawing hand, he started drawing with the other (with amazing results). If you haven't seen the documentary "Frazetta - Painting with Fire," it's high time you did.

On a sad note, his legacy in the short term is tarnished by an already-brewing estate battle among his children, which will hopefully not worsen now. His gallery, which I hoped to visit in the next year or two, is basically no more. I sincerely hope Frank's family will value his estate and the posterity of its images. It'd be wonderful to see Frank's work end up in our major institutional museums, and it no doubt will if his work gains a champion for the cause. Fantasy's representation in such venues has been sorely lacking since the Golden Age illustrators died. Frank's work is the next best hope for a reconsideration of the genre.

His work has affected me, has affected the industry, and can without a doubt affect the art establishment. I hope it does.