Breezy

snoball

Certifiable
Supporting Member
Messages
8,391
I suppose this one is more of an illustration. Just something from my imagination.

Breezy2.jpg
 
è meraviglioso.

anche queste sezioni sono belle. Penso che sia un lavoro perfetto per Figure.
come primo post per figure, è un lavoro bellissimo e penso che siano lavori belli e inefficaci con la figura e un paesaggio o altro.
Comunque mi piace molto questo lavoro e sembra raccontarci una storia.
 
Thank you Joe, I don't know if I was trying to tell a story or just portray a contemplative moment but I do call it more of an illustration than a figurative painting.
 
It's beautiful. Yes, I wonder why you call it an illustration and not a painting. Is it the media you used? Interesting. You're a mystery, lady. ;)
 
Wow...this can be a whole thread on it's own. I do not agree with this guy at all. I understand what he's talking about as far as modern illustration (what it's come to mean now as a "status"--as some have come to use it) and commissions that the old masters have done, but he's mixing a lot of things up in order to stay true to his little quote:

The distinction lies in the fact that art is the idea (brought to life) while an illustration is a depiction (or explanation) of an idea.

Fine Art is simply art for art's sake. Even if you are doing a commission for a client, it would still be fine art. But illustration is illustrating a story or idea.

In modern illustration the intent is most often the selling of a product. When something noble is put to ignoble ends, there is a deterioration of value.


Some of that pertains to one era, and some of it pertains to another, plus he's saying there's a difference between art and illustration, when it's all art. One is fine art and one is illustration, and it's "illustration" that had different meanings at different times (and still do). It's not so black and white.

Nowadays, illustration has come to be more synonymous with commercial art (which fine art can be too), but what both are trying to differentiate from "fine art" is "work for hire." It can also mean you are making art for a story (a children's book, or story book, etc.), but it's usually because you're being hired by someone else to do that job. It's usually not your story you're illustrating. It's work for hire in most cases.

Michelangelo was commissioned to do his work, but that's not the same thing, is it? Different time. But you could say, they were collaborative efforts that were funded by the Church or whatever. He was free to make his own interpretations and he couldn't have done it without that money. Of course it's now the most extreme case of fine art we know today. Maybe they were more like investments. Rothko was more funded to do the chapel job than commissioned and he was "commissioned" to do that because of who he was, just like Michelangelo was funded to make his work because of the fine artist he was.

I've also been told that once you put an ink pen down on top of a watercolor painting, it's become an "illustration" and is no longer a "painting." So what's that all about? Ha ha ha! :ROFLMAO:
 
I also wanted to say that fine art and illustration is not a better or lesser than thing. I don't agree on any kind of status situation. Just because you can paint whatever you want in fine art, doesn't mean it's a better kind of art. You can get hired to make an illustration for a book and it can be just as amazing as anything anyone has ever done. I think of Maxfield Parish, one of my favorite artists of all time! He mostly did work for hire, magazine covers, etc. and his paintings were some of the most amazing I have ever seen.
 
See? it is controversial. There have been debates over it and that is why I said I've probably listened to too many opinions on TOS. Maybe StLukesguild will weigh in on it and tell us the difference. :giggle: I agree with your summation that illustration had come to be more synonymous with commercial art nowdays.
 
Then since I did this just for fun and to have something to do instead of making money on it, it must be fine art! :) P.S. I love Maxfield Parish too. Always was one of my favorites.
 
Illustration is a genre of visual art. Murals, decorative art, portraits, still-life, propaganda, landscape... even pornography are all genres within the all-encompassing realm of Art... or Visual Art. The sub-categories or genre merely describe a primary function: a portrait is made to portray the appearance of a person while an illustration is made to portray or depict a narrative. Contrary to dated ideas, none of these terms speak of quality. I would also point out that the idea that an illustration is inferior to a work of "fine art" owes more to our time than the past. The notion of "Fine Art" as inherently superior to "Popular Art", illustration, applied art, commercial art, etc... is nonsense. If we think about it, a good many works of art straddle the line between two or more genre. Is this a work of illustration?

3ceil_ho.sm.800.jpg


It illustrates Biblical narratives, so why not? It's also a mural/fresco and a work of decorative art. So why is it "Fine Art"? One argument would be that it is not a work of "applied art" with a practical purpose. But is that true? Did it not have the purpose of conveying important Biblical narratives to a largely illiterate populace? In that sense, it has the practical purpose of propaganda.

What of this?

Leonardo-da-Vinci-the-Anatomical-Artist2.700.jpg


Practically, these are anatomical studies... medical illustration... but I have little doubt that they are ART. Again... the term "Fine Art" strikes me as meaningless and merely intended as a means of promoting certain biases. In a way, this is not unlike the term "classical music". There was an era, around the time of Haydn and Mozart that was termed the "classical era", but the term "classical music" was not really popularized until the late 1900s with the rise of certain populist music forms: operetta, the waltz, chanson, and later jazz, musical theater, rock & roll, etc... The term "classical music" is meaningless because it embraces music from medieval chant to music like this:

Ligeti: Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes

But the same term, "classical music" does not apply to Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, or the Beatles Yesterday. That's as ridiculous as the notion that suggests that these are not "Fine Art"... or "Art":

PR-Dulac 22.med.jpg


mxp_Mary_Mary_Quite_Contrary.700.jpg


arthur-rackham-ring-horse-420.jpg


GB1.jpg


AlfonseMucha1894Gismonda.med.jpg


Kelmscott_Chaucer.850.jpg


003-yorker-fiction-victo-ngai.700.jpg


2801154-batwoman1.1500.jpg
 
So now it is all clear as mud. :ROFLMAO: I'll just say it is a painting, and leave it at that. 🥴
 
Its all Art... or Visual Art. No sub-genre is inherently superior or inferior. Yes, some Art is good, some is bad, and some is great... but this is decided on an individual basis and not based upon the category or purpose of the Art.
 
As a person who has a (useless) degree in illustration...I say...the way Arty described it, is pretty much how I see it, too.

You choose your medium, like maybe, pen and ink. Then you build a portfolio with samples of your best pen and ink work. Note that you’re going to be competing with all the other best pen and ink artists around. Then you walk your portfolio around to all the places that hire illustrators. You leave behind a little “card,” maybe with a sample of your awesome pen and ink work on it. When you leave, they’ll either toss it in the trash or stick it in with all the other pen and ink illustrators for some possible future hiring. Slim chances of ever getting hired though because, they want proven experienced illustrators that they know can deliver for their pool of clients. Why should they take a chance on a newbie? Then they place the collection of pen and ink illustrators (soon mostly forgotten including you), right next to their collection of watercolor illustrators, who are next to their collection of typographers, who are next to their collection of whatevers and whoevers.

It IS commercial work. And if/when you’re hired, you MIGHT get to interpret the assignment totally your own way, and hope that the client doesn’t end up changing YOUR vision into THEIR vision. Sometimes, you don’t get ANY say in the assignment except how your own hand naturally renders what somebody else is directing you to do. If you and your image makes it through to the end, you’ll be paid very little depending on the size of the work, the client’s budget, and your own level of experience. Just like in “fine art world,” you don’t get to command your price until you become a sought-after name. Generally.

So, it’s not a question of quality or good and bad. An illustrator could have a painterly “style,” and a painter could have an illustrative “style.” But an illustrator is generally depicting something “sale able,” and so their image has to “read” as the thing it is to a wide circle of potential customers. A Pleasing Realism tends to hold a marketable vision better than A Personal Abstraction.
 
Yup, it all has multiple meanings, and I have to go back to what the artist intends the work to be, which in that case, that would fall into the realm of the fine arts since the artist is making the "buck stops here"/ultimate decisions, and not someone else dictating what changes your should or shouldn't make. And also, illustration is a style of work.

I understand the meaninglessness of it being a "better" or "lesser-than" status in art. It's NOT.

It's also like the meaninglessness of the word "Outsider art." I have had a problem with this word since I learned what it was and then meant. It's been considered a style of work, but it ultimately (or "properly") describes the artist, not the art. What the hell good is that? Since I've known this, I don't know what to call the art I do, other than "weird." I have been stuck in limbo ever since! It has kept me from properly promoting myself really.
 
"Breezy" is a worthless, meaningless, illustrative, fine art piece that is better than many of my paintings but lesser than some of the other less
meaningful fine art, illustrative, commercial works that I have done for lesser monies. :ROFLMAO: 🥴
 
I Love this...
wow
So delicate, with exceptional depth delivered and so precise yet ... also blown by the wind.
 
Back
Top