Frank Auerbach and Alberto Giacometti

Frank Auerbach

The Magdalen Laying Down her Jewels 1955

Auerbach is both a painter and a drawer who works in an abstract and expressionist way. Auerbach was originally from Germany, but escaped to England when the Nazi's took over where he attended boarding school and then St Martin's college in London to study art. When he first started showing he got allot of criticism about his application of paint, but it was soon recognised as a new type form of up and coming artists.

I wanted to look at Auerbach specifically for his drawings, some of them self portraits others are of figurative scene. I like the sketchy look of them and the pace that they looks as if they have been drawn at, they look really quick to do. I is really interesting how they are done, Auerbach uses the process of building up layers of the charcoal and pencil to give you the final finish on the work. It's really interesting because you have to look really close to the drawings to realise this, however it is the same method that he uses to create his paintings. The layers create depth to the work because of the different tones.

All the works are very abstract and the lines are very expressionist there seems to be a lot of movement captured in the drawings because of this it's almost as if the figures are vibrating, it is quite chaotic. The layers in the work suggest that he's never quite happy with the image and a way of masking this is to add another layer until it does become to Chaotic to notice. There subjects in the work don't always know that they are being drawn they are often memories of something Auerbach sees in the day and wants to keep to draw later, which could maybe fuel this frustration with not being able to get it right because he can't quite remember what it looks like.

I think that this is something that I should try, working from memory it might bring out more movement and expression in my work.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/frank-auerbach-676

Alberto Giacometti

man lost - 1947

Giacometti is a sculpture, printmaker and painter from Switzerland who studied sculpture in Paris he had a fascination for the figure and human form. I have a particular interesting his drawings, but since looking at a wider arrangement of his work I really like his figurative sculptures. His sculptures tended to be in bronze and the surface had a rough texture as if it had been eroded away as if he was trying to turn back to their natural form. Something that he did do with some sculptures, he reworked them turning them into something completely different.

His drawings are really interesting, most of then sketches of ideas for sculptures and future projects others self portraits, but the self portraits where in different styles they seemed to me realist and representational of a real human form. Whereas the other drawings are obviously representational of the human form they aren't as you would usually see it the shape different it's a bit like and alien to us, but Giacometti believes that this is what he looks like he was trying to educate the work on this expressing his ideas on the human form and why it is this way.

There are a lot of lines in the drawings and they are very concentrated in specific areas creating a focal point making you concentrate on that part of the work the most, making you completely appreciate the form of the face. I really like the work and I think that I would like to reflect the use of line in my work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Giacometti