Mythology, Sun Kings, and Musical Reflections

While strolling through the halls of Versailles today, I was struck by the vast number of artworks dedicated to themes from classical antiquity. Several rooms in the palace were dedicated specifically to certain deities. These included Venus, goddess of love; Diana, goddess of the hunt; Mars, god of war; and Jupiter, god of pretty much everything. I appreciated that Louis XIV and his ancestors drew so heavily on the mythology of the Roman gods to propagate the image that there were akin to the gods. Louis XIV is famously known as the Sun King and walking through Versailles, you certainly get the sense that he is some form of higher being in the way he is portrayed in the art of the palace. What was most amusing to me was that the paintings and the sculptures we viewed today suggest that Louis and his ancestors were like deities, almighty beings that rule the universe and seek to better the world of men. But Louis's reign brought great suffering to the French people, brought on in large part by Louis's vast military campaigns of conquest throughout Europe. Even the structure of Versailles itself was a detriment to the French populace; money that should have been spent on food for the masses was instead used to commission the lavish architecture and art that both adorn and identify Versailles, including the very pieces that suggest that Louis XIV is God's gift to humanity. This dichotomy was intriguing to me; the French people were starving and miserable while Louis was posing for paintings which suggested that he was France's salvation and were also part of the reason why the people did not have food in the first place.

An observation about my art making process was made while watching the musical fountains (this was after the apocalyptic rainstorm). Lauren was watching me slowly and meticulously attempting to draw some of the scenery and suggested to me that I would have a difficult time capturing the majority of detail that I was seeing without taking many hours. She had me makes several quick gesture drawings, first with my left hand and then with my right. I admit that the process was very frustrating; I had very little control over the lines I was making, especially when using my right hand. Then she suggested that I determine the five areas with the darkest value and shade them, defining my space through value rather than line. We had been working on this yesterday and I found it almost impossible to abandon line and rely on shapes. However, as I began to work on my sketches, I noticed that I was indeed starting to define objects based on value and shapes rather than outlines. Lauren showed me how I could use shading in the background to define a object in the foreground. This technique is certainly going to take me awhile to master; it is hard to let go of the concept of line being the groundwork of a drawing. But I began to see that line is not the only way to represent figure and that in some cases, lines actually limited my ability to work because I was too intent on capturing every tiny detail with them. Lauren made an interesting observation, that a drawing is actually a verb, an ever-changing entity that is never fully completed. On further reflection of this, I can begin to see what she means. A drawing is trying to capture a world that is always in a state of flux and we have to adapt our drawings to cope with this constant change. Attempting to capture every detail is impossible; there are simply too many to be able to accurately represent. Besides, every second some detail changes; the wind shift the trees, the person sitting to the right gets up and moves. My art-making process should not revolve around the details. It should focus on capturing the essence of place or an object, representing it in a way that is understandable but not perfect, because perfection is impossible to achieve. It was refreshing to start to open my mind to these concepts. I am hoping that now I am beginning to understand what makes an effective piece of art, I can begin to apply those concepts to my own work.