Art Adventures - by Patricia Banks©
Published December 2019 in Nanaimo Magazine and Voyager Magazine
Published December 2019 in Nanaimo Magazine and Voyager Magazine
Curiosity is a great learning tool which often leads the way to richer experiences. Ordinary things become extraordinary when you look for meaning. Asking questions like: who, what, when, where, why, and how, make for interesting and exciting Art Adventures.
In the Louvre Art Museum in Paris, hangs a beautiful oil painting of a young man and a young woman sitting together at a table, locked in a lover's gaze. He is dressed in muted tones of white and beige, and holds a pencil to paper in his right hand. She, with paint on palette, and brush in her left hand, is richly dressed in red, gold and blue. This painting is called ‘The Union of Drawing and Colour.’ It is by the Italian, Baroque artist Guido Reni, 1620-1625. ‘Drawing’ has his arm around ‘Colour’ with his left hand gently resting on her shoulder. Colour holds her right hand to her heart. Reni chose to visually describe what he perceived as an inseparable, close relationship between drawing and colour through this dreamy painting of two young lovers. In the title, he used the word ‘union,’ to describe the importance and interdependence of these two basic elements of a painting. Reni reinforces the meaning of the painting in the title.
He executes superb drawing skills and displays excellent use of colour, emphasizing the equal importance of both. I have always stressed this concept to my art students, so it was amazing to learn that another artist had laboured to make this point over 400 years ago! May your curiosity enrich your life too! Cheer’s, Patricia
In the Louvre Art Museum in Paris, hangs a beautiful oil painting of a young man and a young woman sitting together at a table, locked in a lover's gaze. He is dressed in muted tones of white and beige, and holds a pencil to paper in his right hand. She, with paint on palette, and brush in her left hand, is richly dressed in red, gold and blue. This painting is called ‘The Union of Drawing and Colour.’ It is by the Italian, Baroque artist Guido Reni, 1620-1625. ‘Drawing’ has his arm around ‘Colour’ with his left hand gently resting on her shoulder. Colour holds her right hand to her heart. Reni chose to visually describe what he perceived as an inseparable, close relationship between drawing and colour through this dreamy painting of two young lovers. In the title, he used the word ‘union,’ to describe the importance and interdependence of these two basic elements of a painting. Reni reinforces the meaning of the painting in the title.
He executes superb drawing skills and displays excellent use of colour, emphasizing the equal importance of both. I have always stressed this concept to my art students, so it was amazing to learn that another artist had laboured to make this point over 400 years ago! May your curiosity enrich your life too! Cheer’s, Patricia
