In the beginning of the 1400s, Florence, Italy began the revolution of modern painting. Then later in the 1500 it spread throughout the rest of Europe. The High Renaissance (1500-1520) consisted of artists that created sculptures and paintings with mastered techniques. One of them was Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519) who was also known as the Renaissance man. As seen in his ‘Grotesque Head’ sketch Da Vinci uses Line to create tone, texture as well as movements. Focusing around the area of the hair, we can see that Da Vinci uses the circular Line to emphasis the rhythm of the hair, and yet he also has diagonal Line going across the circular Line to show depth. Here the Line is used to create tone and shades, to bring out the three-dimensional of the picture. If we bring our next focus to the back of the neck and downwards, we see Da Vinci leaves his sketches incomplete as they are just studies of human faces. Although Da Vinci leaves his sketches without any closure there is still a sense of elegance in his sketches do to his highly detailed skills.
When the renaissance started to influence other European countries in the 1500, a German artist Albrecht Durer (1471 – 1528) came with his technique of graphic art. Durer believes that “Art stands firmly fixed in nature, and he who can’t find it there, he has it.” Looking at his ‘Study of Praying Hands’ what was most impressive are the details of the prayer hands where it is similar to Da Vinci’s. Like Da Vinci, Durer also uses Line to create depth and make it appear realistic. We can see how much effort Durer puts into the study of praying hands. The endless linear details on the hands emphasis how important the hands represented to Durer. A sense of sadness is expressed in this sketch because we see the details of how skinny and old the pair of hands are. The line help illustrate the idea of human mortality and how short our lives are.
The Arts and Craft movement came around during 1880 until 1910. A movement that sprung from the United Kingdom and was inspire by William Morris (1834 – 1896). Although Art Nouveau and Arts & Craft movement started around the same time, it can be argue that they are highly similar due to its decorative linear pattern designs.
Morris inspired by the nature of the world and organic imagery. The linear aspects of his work are the complexity of Line that overlap and the use of curve Line. Curve line helps convey energy as well as elegances. The only time an artist would use curve Line would be to show the curves of a human body. Curve line illustrates the sense of gentleness, shallow and softening effect on the composition. The curves on a human body would often have a pleasing, and sensual effect. Therefore, Morris may be reflecting on the idea of complexity and elegance. Despite the intertwining of certain flowers in the sketch, it does convey a feeling of chaos yet tamed.
Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), his works mainly consisted of illustrations done in inks. Art Nouveau (1890 -1910) is merely decorative arts, where the styles were asymmetrical, highly ornamental, intertwining plants, liberal and yet delicate. The themes were generally symbolism and erotic nature and their designs created to be dreamlike and exotic forms. It was mainly practise on furniture, jewellery and book designs. Beardsley linear work reflected a lot about his lifestyle. He mastered the ‘Japoniste’ techniques where Beardsley was able to balance out the flat, black areas of the compositions with the white spaces. With the peacock skirt, it is highly curved to illustrate the dynamic yet sensual effects that easily sweep the blank page that it easily fills up the page. The technique was very effective that it was use to help differentiate between what he drew and what was left out. This technique was known as the ‘Negative Shape’. The complex detail on the peacock skirt helps to balance out the illustration as the large white surface areas are left blank. Beardsley’s use of Line creates a sense of value and texture therefore despite using only black Indian ink; he is still able to present a depth in his illustrations. Beardsley continued to draw controversial illustrations of eroticism, corruption and depravity. Beardsley’s illustrations were highly detailed from the landscape of trees to the strains of the hair of a person. He did challenge the traditional ways of painting by using Indian ink, keeping it black and white and using the idea of decorations into art.
In comparison to Beardsley’s ‘refine’ drawings, Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890) may be one of the best example artists who use linear qualities to express ones feelings. Van Gogh obsessed with religion and social service was a misfit during his childhood days. In 1886 he discovered the Post-Impressionist in Paris and found his style in painting. He switched from dark to bright colours, and social realist to outdoor scenes. In Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, the brushstrokes are clearly seen to be the linear quality of the painting. It is seen that the brushstrokes have been ‘agitatedly’ painted on and full of passion and rhythm. Unlike Beardsley who creates controversy illustrations, Van Gogh’s sufferings and pain is clearly seen in his swirling brushstrokes. It is somewhat ironic that Van Gogh produces a painting that at first appears to be peaceful and restless. Yet as we study more into the painting, we discover that the swirling Line shows Van Gogh’s frustrated thoughts in life and his desperation. What makes this painting very unique is the direction of the strokes of the paintings. If we focus around the area of the swirling clouds, it can be seen that Van Gogh exaggerates the thickness of the brush strokes Line to indicate the movement of the clouds. The eye would be following the same direction of the Line that is stirring the starry night. The red and blue arrows demonstrate where the Line is being focused around. This allows viewers’ eyes to be left wondered throughout the painting. Following the curves and singling out the stars as they are being joined dot-to-dot. This also creates the illusion of ongoing movement whilst the stars are fixed which viewers would also see.
To express one’s emotions, even Line is able to illustrate such a picture. A German female artist, Käthe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945) is known for her famous etching and printed artworks. Her works is also another best example of conveying an artist’s feelings. Kollwitz being a victim of both World Wars shows her heartache of losing loved ones and her compassion towards poverty and social conditions of Germany in the late 19th century. Looking at ‘The People’, the details on the faces is clearly seen as linear, the picture can nearly be seen like a quick sketch on paper. The content of the print also has the same element of Beardsley’s ‘Japoniste’; however instead Kollwitz uses black to convey the spaces and using the white to enhance the expression and details of the people. It can be seen that ‘The People’ conveys a despair mood, as the linear details outline the sadness and oppressive emotions. Kollwitz’s ‘The People’ style can be argued to be similar to Van Gogh’s expressive ‘Starry Night’ style, where the use of Line helps convey the artist emotions. Each stroke is able to convey Kollwitz’s turmoil in response to the living conditions of those who lived poorly. It can be seen in most of Kollwitz’s self portraits the intensive feeling from her linear scribbles.
A different use of line found in the work of a great Norwegian painter was highly inspired by the impressionist and post-impressionist artist during his stay at Paris. Edvard Munch (1863 – 1944) is one of the greatest expressionist artists, and his prime era was during 1892-1908 in Berlin. Munch was one of the greatest inspirations for the German Expressionist Movement, as Munch’s style was very bold and strong and reflected the situation of Germany both spiritually and socially when World War I arose.
Munch’s ‘The Scream’ reflected his melancholic personality, because of the traumatic experience event he witness as a child. Munch’s style of art is the portrayal of extreme emotions such as jealousy, confusion, sexuality, desire and loneliness. He portrayed emotions through distorting form and colour. In his ‘Scream’ it represents an idea of a person losing his mind, and with sharply curved Line, he created the effect of turmoil, chaos and violence. In each stroke that was agitatedly painted on at the background, convey the message of insanity and the fear of losing one’s mind with a sense of turbulent rhythm. Today Munch’s ‘The Scream’ painting is highly recognised as a representation of anxiety, and when he first exhibits his paintings it caused so much uproar that the exhibit had to be closed.
Franz Marc’s ‘Animal Destinies’ is a representation of the spirituality and lyricism of an animal’s soul. Marc (1880-1916) a son of a Munich painter, wanted to capture the purity of an animal’s soul and by doing so he stylized in forms which then led him to abstraction. He was inspired by a new movement called the “Futurism” (1910 - 1930), and studied their paintings. He would envision that both animal and human would co-exist in perfect harmony; therefore he creates this sense of movement in his paintings. In his ‘Animal Destinies’ many diagonal Line are used which displays instability and movement. However it also displays a sense of perspective as the Line can visually pull in the audience and engulf them.
The effect of the Line overlapping each other creates a sense of chaos and violence which contradicts his idealistic views of animals and humans co-existing in harmony.
The fact that Futurism happened during the Expression movement, it did not stop the Italians from developing on the technique. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of the Futurist movement was very much influenced by speed, technology, youth and violence that he did not want to be “part of it, the past. [they were] young and strong Futurist!” Umberto Boccioni (1882 – 1916) centralized all this paintings around movement – especially dynamism, speed and technology. In his ‘Elasticity’ painting, the viewers are able to extract the vigorous energy and dynamic movements from the painting. Boccioni uses Line to create the illusion of speed and adrenaline rush. The painting contains a overwhelming sense of movement such as the complexity of the juxtapositions of image areas. Yet it creates fluidity in the painting because the juxtapositions images all seem to fit in together. Boccioni uses the Line to define the horse in the painting, illustrating a flowing yet dynamic sense of movement.
Line does not usually have to be a physical line in paintings. Looking at Salvador Dalí’s (1904 – 1989) ‘The Disintegration of Persistence of Memory’, is a representation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity where Dali incorporated the wrapping of time in gravity. However if we look from a linear point of view, what we realise is the perspective seen within this painting. It can be said that the linear perspective gives an effect of solidity and relative position. With the help of line, artists are able to create different scales, from a big scaled image vanishing into a mere dot. Within Dali’s painting we can perceive the line coming from one end of the painting to the vanishing point, in the centre of the painting. The use of the perspective line is when the audience looks at the painting, they cannot help but get pulled in and their focus attention is led o the centre of the painting. Dali has challenge of line but interpreting it into bringing structure within the painting.
Where as in comparison to Georges Braque’s (1882 – 1963) ‘Le Portuagis’, it does not have a main focus point that the audience would look at immediately. Having to work personally close to Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973), was developing the same style of cubism as well, which is why they both have similar style in art. However ‘Le Portuagis’ has a fusion of both futurist and cubism style of using broken lines and creating a juxtaposition composition, the only difference is that ‘Le Portugais’ is a juxtaposition piece of a still life. Braque’s style also reflects the exploration of using geometric shapes to convey certain elements. What is interesting to see is how Braque conveys the tonal work with merely using horizontal lines. Braque took the exploration of line further by using it to create a sense of depth into his paintings. Even line itself is able to create depth into a painting. The broken line here creates the image of a dream-like mood where all Braque’s memories of the place are fused together.
Similarly to the futurist artists, Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968) was an artist who was widely famous for his controversial ‘Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2’ painting. This painting is a fusion of both futurism and cubism therefore has both the elements of using geometric patterns and sense of movement. Like the futurist artist, Duchamp uses lines to illustrate the motion of a person walking down a stairs. Although certain aspects of the body were shaped into geometric patterns, it only makes the composition seem more constructed. The aspect of line here is used to convey the dynamism something so simple such as walking down the stairs, can be painted into something that appears so complex. Note how Duchamp use of lines that he makes them repetitive which again helps emphasise the idea of motion and constructive style. The repetitions of line creates such complexity and layering that it displays such a structuralise concept. The diagonal line helps create the painting to appear more energetic and explosive and thus helps highlights the motion in progress.
From 1874’s Impressionism to the current 21st century’s contemporary art, the use of Line has changed and artist challenges the purpose of line. Looking at centuries of art, line has always been used in every single way possible. It is without a doubt one of the fundamental elements in art. It is seen that through centuries of art, line has been used and convey through various aspects. Some of which are obvious to spot, and others are not so obvious. Line helps convey any emotions by merely drawing a straight line, scribbles, or broken line. It can be perceived as a statement regarding a movement, or a guideline to help the viewers look within a painting. With repetitions of line, the composition is seen to be in motion thus created the futurist movement. With Dali’s perspective of lines, it only creates the idea of time and how we, the viewers are only attracted to it. With delicate flowing details of flowers or merely a portrait, the art nouveau were able to create such highly detailed decorations. Simple lines can also be seen as something so complex and chaotic. Through many centuries, line is established as the essence of art. It is the language of freedom, the ability to express oneself freely.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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2008, Thomas Wadsworth, Belmont, CA
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2007, John Boswell Management, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri
‘Art’ by Robert Cumming
2005, Dorling Kindersley Limited, London
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20th Century Art, John William Gabriel, Museum Ludwig Cologne, 1996, Publisher Tachen
Abstracted Expressionism, David Anfram, London, 1990, Thams and Hudson Ltd
Dali – Genius, Obsession and Lust, Ralf Schiebler, NY, 1999, Prestel Verlag
Illa Ainaa Afifuddin Candidate No.: 2000 - - Alice Smith School Centre No.:
