Which Artists Have Influenced You?
Most of my heroes died before I was born, which allows them to expand to fill my imagination.
Andrew of Fine Art Today wanted to know:
Which artists, historical or contemporary, have influenced you the most and why? Is it purely conceptual or aesthetic? Both?
When I was a student, I read everything I could find about Salon and Royal Academy artists like Lawrence Alma Tadema, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904. Below, his 1872 painting Pollice Verso.)
I also adore painterly realists like Ilya Repin, Peder Krøyer, Joaquín Sorolla, and Anders Zorn. From a young age I was aware that all these artists were part of a tradition that continued unbroken through the Golden Age illustrators, particularly in the work of Norman Rockwell, Dean Cornwell, and Tom Lovell.
I studied editions of the Famous Artist’s Course from the 1950s, where great story illustrators shared the secrets of their craft. I also read avidly about the life in the ateliers, particularly the Prix de Rome images and the history paintings. I was very curious how they painted such lifelike scenes from their imaginations.
I’ve also been extremely inspired by the the drawings and the gouaches of Adolph Menzel, and I edited a book of his work for Dover Publications. (Below, his painting of choir stalls.)
The appeal of all those artists is more basic than conceptual or aesthetic. Their paintings exhibit a very deep response to the human experience on many levels, from sensual to symbolic.
Talk to me about your surfaces. How important is the surface to your art? Why or why not?
I work on everything from watercolor paper to illustration board to canvas. I prime it in a variety of ways. But surface is not a huge preoccupation for me. I’m always trying to pass through the surface. It’s easy to make a painting look like paint. The challenge is to dissolve the surface and see into the depths. If people praise my brushstrokes or my canvas texture, something is wrong with the painting.
Hey 👋 James! Thank you for another thought provoking topic. I’ll try to keep my reply brief 😂 pushing 69 and a nonstop student interested in all kinds of art, materials, and processes, I was most attracted to glazed smooth oil paintings where the image looked so real I felt I could reach in and touch the skin of a portrait. I studied with Paul Lipp and Ken Davies who taught trompe-l’oeil. And then I moved from CT to CA and became an animation background artist. I was blown away by a couple Disney guys Michael Humphries and Ron Dias who would paint a complete scene in 2 hours. Amazing! That became my go to objective after working with them. It broadened my career. So it’s fitting now, to subscribe to you on YouTube. To watch daily Art School Live with Eric Rhoads. To see you interviewed by Jeff Hein, as you drew his portrait! But I think my all time favorites remain Norman Rockwell and Frans Halls, both for the lively spirit they achieved in their art that told a story and had a feel for humanity. So let me ask here if my process today as a plein air painter to forget the brushwork, the surface, about the process, and to lose myself in a 2 to 3 hour ‘out of body’ experience is unusual? It’s a wonderful feeling lifted up and absorbed by color, value, shapes and form. And not worry about a thing.
Thank you everyone for sharing your artistic influences! I’ve enjoyed looking some up for some fresh inspiration.
The first painter I ever loved was JW Waterhouse—for everything: the subject, the color, the painting. Then the dramatic lighting of Caravaggio, and the dreamy idealism and technical mastery of Bouguereau. The strength and elegance of NC Wyeth’s abstract designs (and the subject matter tends to resonate). Many others of the great masters draw me in because of the qualities I fell in love with through these men’s works.
However, in truth the majority of what inspires me to draw and paint has been the works I see illustrating books or newspaper comics. I love stories! Usually some form of pen & ink or pencil. I can’t get enough of Hal Foster, Gary Gianni, PJ Lynch, Winsor McKay, Joseph Clement Coll, John R Neil, Herbert Railton, Franklin Booth, Gustave Dore… I have also cherished the little icon-like decorations in early printed books that is so reminiscent of medieval illumination, such as those by Walter Crane for The Faerie Queen. I can pore over these for hours!