Development writing

Beyond the Moulin Rouge


At the start of my project, I was eager to explore the relationship between art and madness. I developed this interest further by going to see the ‘Beyond the Moulin Rouge’ exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, which displayed several of Toulouse Lautrec’s most well known paintings. I was particularly drawn to Lautrec’s depictions of dancers and the energy of the brush strokes used to capture their movements. I used the quick sketches I had made of some of my favourite paintings – notably ‘Jane Avril’ (1892), ‘Jane Avril Dancing’ (1892) and ‘Jane Avril Dancing’ (1893) - to help me produce my first double page in response to the exhibition. However after studying the body of his work, I became increasingly interested in his muse, Jane Avril. As a dancer at the Moulin Rouge, she was a frequent subject of his paintings, however what set her apart from the rest of the dancers and most attracted Lautrec’s attention was her medical history; as an adolescent, Avril had spent several years at the Salpetriere hospital and had been treated for the movement disorder, colloquially called the ‘St Vitus dance’. It was this medical condition which was the cause of Avril’s jerky movements and sudden contortions and which earned her the nickname La Mélinite. After coming across several photos of medical examinations from the Salpetriere hospital, depicting contorted and twisted limbs, I responded by taking a series of photos of my own hands and feet, in which I tensed and flexed my limbs in order to make them appear distorted and unnatural. I then painted over these photos in order to emphasise the movement and exaggerate the tension in the limbs just as Lautrec heightened the movement of his paintings using thick brush strokes. I believe these photos successfully responded to aspects of the exhibition that had most fascinated me as they were consistent in subject and composition to the medical examinations featured in the exhibition. In response to the exhibition and my research on Avril, I also enhanced a photocopy of an image of ‘La Bal des Folles’, or the ball of the madwomen, an event held at the Salpetriere hospital every year; this photo initially engaged me due to the ghost like appearance of the women’s faces and the haunting quality of their stares so I used tracing paper, black ink, white gouache and pen to enhance this aspect of the image. 

Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt at the Leopold Museum


After going to the exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, I became increasingly interested in distortion, body movement and appearances vs. reality. Therefore as I was in Vienna this summer, I decided to look at the works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. While Klimt’s paintings with their rounded, fluid and sensuous quality share many similarities with Lauatrec’s works, Schiele’s sketches, which depict painfully distorted and exposed naked figures, directly relate to Avril and her history of movement disorder. In response to some of my favourite works of Klimt’s, such as ‘The Virgin’ and ‘Judith’, I worked into the image and extended the shapes and forms to emphasise an aspect of the painting. For example, with ‘The Virgin’, I used tracing paper to exaggerate the soft, sensuous shapes of the image and extended these lines outwards to combine with another image, a response to Schiele’s ‘Mother and Daughter’, in order to create an entirely new and original image. I was also drawn to both artists’ distinctive use of line and their ability to evoke a human body with minimal markings. In response to Klimt’s sketches, I experimented with the sewing machine and created loose, amorphous shapes in the style of Klimt’s sketches. Having studied Schiele’s use of more energetic, sharp line, I took a photo of a friend and used this image as a template for creating a more figurative representation of the human form. As this was my first time using the sewing machine, I was pleased with the outcome of my experiments and their visual similarities with Klimt and Schiele’s work. I was also fascinated by Schiele’s self portraits and took several close-up photos of myself from different angles to evoke the intense quality of Schiele’s stare. Using these photos and other images of my sister and mum, I created a collage of many different faces and used tracing paper and then acrylic paint to work on top of these images. The overall composition of the work was also visually similar to Klimt’s paintings and was thus successfully combined the two artists’ work. To emphasise the direction of my journey and my interest with self portraiture and Schiele’s use of line, I collaged together a larger self-portrait photo of myself with elements of Klimt’s painting ‘Judith’ and then used trace the outline of Schiele’s ‘Self portrait with Chinese Lantern’ (1912) to create a multi-media image. This experiment combined Klimt’s use of ornate pattern and with Schiele’s exploration of identity and self-image. The research I collected at the Leopold Museum was critical in informing my project; I was particularly fascinated by Schiele’s sketches and the way in which he challenged assumptions about beauty through his depiction of skeletal, disturbing yet intriguing human forms. Similarly to Lautrec and Klimt, Schiele’s work is frank and depicts taboo subject; this uniting theme formed the basis for my critical studies essay, in which I debated the extent to which Schiele was the most provocative artist in fin de siècle Europe. I was also inspired by my essay and research on Schiele to go on to explore bones and bone structure alongside revealing and shocking self-portraiture.

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

This exhibition at the National Gallery was an important opportunity to inform my research as previous to this, I had only looked at a limited range of artists working in a similar media (Lautrec, Klimt and Schiele all painted at the end of the 19^th century). However I attended the exhibition due to the relevance of portraiture to my project and my research on Schiele. Like Schiele’s work, portraits such as ‘Of Lili’ by Jil Wooster also depict subjects in conflict with their mental and biological identity and were thus unsettling and to a certain extent shocking. Attending the exhibition also fuelled my interest in identity and in order to respond to these ideas, I took a set of photographs of subjects in strong light to visually and metaphorically ‘expose’ their identity and took a self portrait to show my continued interest in self-exploration. From one of the photos of my mum, I also developed a colour study, first with watercolour paint and white gouache, and then with acrylic paint to strengthen the line. Before responding to these photos, I also made sure to create a small colour sample of the tones which reoccurred throughout my series of photos and the portraits in the Taylor Wessing exhibition. Overall this extra research and development further influenced the direction of my project and strengthened my interest in portraiture and self-portraiture.

Shaped by War: Photographs by Don McCullin at the Imperial War Museum

To develop my research and extend my exploration of portraiture, I went to the ‘Shaped by War: Photographs by Don McCullin’ exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. McCullin’s high contrast black and white photographs are similar to the Taylor Wessing portraits as they probe identity. Images such as ‘Shell Shocked’ also evoke Schiele’s disturbing, unsettling portraits as they challenge the viewer’s assumptions of beauty and expose ugliness and chaos. I also extended this research by photocopying the photo portraits from the previous page to heighten their contrast and to turn them into black and white images. I then worked into these images using a rubber and black pen. Using black paper, ink and white gouache, I also create a high contrast black and white response to one of the photos in order to experiment with different media and discover if I could replicate McCullin’s style through a medium other than photography. After the exhibition I continued to explore the theme of identity however more importantly I realised that portraiture could be used to express other ideas and themes as well, for example, the effects of war.

Direction after essay

After presenting and annotating my essay research on a double page, I then drafted and re-drafted my essay titled ‘To what extent was Egon Schiele the most provocative artist in fin de siècle Europe. Alongside my final essay, I also presented several brief observational sketches of Schiele’s work to emphasise the centrality of Schiele to my project and ensure that my book expressed a clear visual journey, especially as these sketches led on to the next double page on which I explore the structure and form of bones. In Schiele’s ‘Self portrait’ (1912) I was drawn to the body’s skeletal appearance and took several photos of bones in response; I experimented with these by photocopying and enlarging one image of the bones and working into it with white acrylic paint, biro and black ink. I also used tracing paper to combine a Schiele sketch with the image of a bone in order to make clear the visual connection between the two images and make explicit the development of my ideas. As I was initially drawn to Schiele and Klimt’s use of energetic, bold line to depict the human form, I also began experimenting with line drawing. Still using the image of the bone, I created a two minute line drawing in biro and then used a photocopy of the image to create a continuous line drawing on the sewing machine. I also created a continuous line drawing of the bone using malleable wire and discovered the advantages of working in this media – using the wire I was able to simplify the shape and strip the image down to its essential form. I then went onto create several quick continuous line drawings of objects around my house (a sock, a shoe, a bag and a set of keys) to loosen my drawing style and strengthen my confidence in working in this new medium.

Picasso Light Drawing


Continuing on from my exploration of line, I immediately saw the relevance of Picasso’s light drawings to my project; captured by Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili in 1949 the photos show Picasso’s use of a small torch to create loose, amorphous shapes. I replicated this technique in my own light drawings by setting my camera to a long exposure and then capturing the light trail of a small LED light; the results were a collection of fascinating, frenzied white on black light drawings. As I was still interested in portraiture, I created a light drawing using my face as the focal point of the photo; this created a set of photos in which my face appears obscured and distorted and was therefore extremely successful. On top of these photos I used a compass to cut into and peel away the surface of the photo paper to distort the image further and used a white paint pen to emphasise the trail of light. I also worked into two of the photos with white thread (this colour was consistent with the colour of the light from the LEDS) in order to pick out different shapes within the photos. 

Grid lines and Paper Folding


After experimenting with different media (thread, wire, light drawing), I returned to a more focused and constrained drawing technique for my observational drawing of a bone. However after being introduced to the work of New York born artist Ben Mahmoud, I was eager to use his technique of grid lines for improving the proportion of my drawing. Although he used grid lines to distort and disfigure, my experiment, which used black strips of paper to elongate the bone, was largely inspired by Mahmoud. Although this experiment reflected many aspects of Mahmoud's sketch work, I extended my exploration of the theme of distortion by using a photocopy of the pencil drawing to create a small paper model which also distorted and foreshortened the image of the bone. After taking photos of this model, I then cut into the paper model to continue the distortion theme and then painted on top of this image using neutral tones (cream, brown, light green, grey) which occurred in the original photo of the bone. Working with paper models, I was attracted to the geometric patterns of the folded paper, thus for my next page of research I elaborated on this idea. Seeing George Condo's exhibition the Hayward Gallery allowed me to develop my exploration of geometric shapes as the subjects of Condo's paintings are characterised by their angular, distorted faces. Thus in response to these portraits, I used strong, angular shapes to divide my face into segments and then painted these in with flesh tones to evoke Condo's portraits. While this portrait successfully distorted and disfigured my face, I decided to create a paper model using another self portrait photo as I thought this would create a more abstract and disproportionate image. Using the same pattern as I had on the previous page, I created the paper model, taking photos of it in different stages of compression, and then cut back into the image in order to distort the image further.


Next steps


Carrying on from my exploration of distortion, I will bring all my ideas together to create several possible thumbnails for a final piece. In order to do this I will look at the work of Sarah Van Beek, who create having mobiles with a number of different images and thus plays with proportion and depth. Responding to her work will give me an opportunity to amalgamate all the pieces I have created together and help me to a thumbnail that successfully related all the ideas I have looked at in my project so far.