Famous artists paint Samson and Delilah

In 1949, ten members of the faculty of the Famous Artists School correspondence course were commissioned to paint their interpretation of Samson and Delilah, based on the 1949 Cecil B. DeMille production at Paramount.

The artists pictured include: (back row, from left to right) Harold von Schmidt, Norman Rockwell, Ben Stahl, Peter Helck, and Austin Briggs. (Front row): John Atherton, Al Parker, Al Dorne (on the ground, who apparently didn't contribute a painting), Steven Dohanos, Jon Whitcomb, and Robert Fawcett. 

Rockwell did a big painting of Samson pushing down the columns of the temple.

He shot reference of actor Victor Mature, and did the color study at right.

Austin Briggs showed Samson slaying a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

Al Parker portrayed Delilah cutting the lock of Samson's hair, thus robbing him of power.

Austin Briggs (Edit: Jon Whitcomb) also showed a romantic scene, with Delilah looking the part of a regal but dangerous female.

Harold von Schmidt, known for his dramatic action illustrations, showed Samson wrestling with a lion.

Peter Helck illustrated Samson doing the ignoble work of grinding at the mill. To my knowledge this is the only one of the ten finished paintings that has surfaced. I wonder if anyone knows what became of the others.

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Read more

Famous Artists Course available on Amazon

Watch a YouTube clip of Victor Mature (and his stunt double) wrestling the lion.

Famous Artists School on Wikipedia

Samson on Wikipedia

1949 Samson and Delilah film

Previously on GurneyJourney:

Samson and Delilah by the old masters, with a blog reader poll for the favorite (hint: the winner was Solomon Solomon)

Images courtesy the Famous Artists' and Norman Rockwell Museum Digital Collection. All Rights Reserved.

ImagineFX's Top 100 Artists Poll

ImagineFX magazine will publish its 100th issue this August. In seven years it has become the #1 magazine for the art of science fiction and fantasy.

To celebrate the occasion, the magazine is conducting a poll to pick a favorite from a list that it compiled of 100 top fantasy artists.

Anyone can vote by following this link.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of great artists that IFX inadvertently overlooked when they made up their list, such as Rebecca Guay, Robh Ruppel, Omar Rayyan, John Berkey, Alan Lee, Nathan Fowkes, Jeff Jones, James Bama, Paul Tobin, Petar Meseldzija, John Jude Palencar,  Peter de Seve, Jaime Jones, P. J. Lynch, Paul Lasaine, Scott Robertson, Michael Kaluta, William Stout, Al Williamson, Richard Corben, Leo and Diane Dillon, Travis Louie, Kirk Reinert, Francois Schuiten, Kinuko Kraft, Steve Hickman, Jordu Schell, Rick Berry, and Greg Broadmore to name just a few that come immediately to mind. No matter how large you make these lists, and how many people you have doing it, important names accidentally get left off.

New book on memory drawing

Much of the training in contemporary academic ateliers focuses on understanding and interpreting what you see in front of you. At the moment, there's a growing interest in supplementing those skills with the training of memory and imagination.

To fill that gap, academic painting instructor and painter Darren Rousar has written a much-needed new book called Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall.

On his website MemoryDrawing.com, Rousar says: "All drawing and painting from life is at some point done from memory, even if that memory is only seconds old. An artist’s ability to recall something previously seen is all the more important when their subject is no longer in view. Da Vinci, Corot, Degas, Whistler, and Inness wrote about it. In fact, Inness claimed that many of his best landscape paintings were done from memory."

Mr. Rousar's book approaches the subject from a variety of angles, starting with the history of how it has been taught in the past, including the notable contributions of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran. The focus then turns to the science of memory and perception. Then the book analyzes the process involved in seeing and remembering.

The slim and inexpensive 140-page softcover book includes many black and white illustrations with specific exercises involving line, shape, and value. The book ends with valuable appendices by Père Lecoq and Harold Speed, and a glossary. The book is thoughtfully and clearly written, and will benefit both teachers and students interested in improving their powers of memory.
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Resources
Book: Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall by Darren Rousar
Free digital book of the French classic "The Training of Memory in Art and the Education of the Artist" by Père Lecoq
Website: Memory Drawing
Previously on GurneyJourney:
Memory Game with Maps
Drawing from Memory
Remembering a Face

Formation of reptilian head scales

Designers of dragons and other mythological creatures might wonder how to draw the scale patterns on the head and body. How would the scales form on such an animal?

Above: Briton Riviere (1840-1920), "Saint George and the Dragon."

Dr. Michel Milinkovitch from the University of Geneva studied Nile crocodiles to understand the origin of their head scales. His study was published this year in Science magazine.

It turns out that reptilian scale patterns form in two different ways: genetic patterning and stress fractures. In the first system, the scales are developmental units that begin to form in embryonic stages and are usually symmetrical from one side of the head to another. 

This is typical of snakes. The symmetrical pattern can be seen by overlaying the pattern from the right and left sides (the yellow and red line patterns at lower right).

By contrast, crocodile head scales form by randomized stress fracturing, like cracks in auto safety glass. The scales are non-overlapping polygonal shapes that are smaller in areas where there is more flexing. There's no symmetrical alignment from one side to another of a single individual, nor is there a consistent pattern from one individual to another. 

(Video link) Here's a video that explains the idea.

Scales on the rest of the body of the croc, unlike the head scales, follow the snake-like genetic patterning model. 

Science Magazine Crocodile Head Scales Are Not Developmental Units But Emerge from Physical Cracking

Previously: Briton Riviere's Studio

Anecdotal Portrait

Many of Anders Zorn's early portraits are painted in watercolor. He was just 25 years old when he painted this one of Clarence Barker in 1885.

In a letter, Zorn explains the idea behind the portrait: Barker "reclines comfortably on the soft divan, having just spent time gazing at his sweetheart's portrait, and now he casts a tender glance at his dog who stands over him and looks him wonderingly in the eye. The painting could be called Rivals. I like to turn my portraits into paintings."

Zorn later abandoned the anecdotal angle in his portraits.
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Book: Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America
A large Zorn exhibition will come to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in November, followed by the National Academy in New York.
Anders Zorn complete works online
Anders Zorn (1860-1920) on Wikipedia

Samuel Gurney Cresswell

Samuel Gurney Cresswell (1827-1867) was the official ship's artist and Second Lieutenant aboard the HMS Investigator, during an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. 

The Investigator was on a mission to find two other lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror from the ill-fated 1845-48 British Arctic Expedition commanded by Sir John Franklin. 

In 1853, the Investigator also became locked in ice. The sixty-nine man crew had no choice but to abandon ship. Samuel Gurney Creswell documented the expedition in watercolor, showing life on deck, the ship trapped in ice, and the eventual rescue.

 His watercolors from the Investigator expedition were interpreted in a lithographic portfolio called "A Series of Eight Sketches in Colour," published in London in 1854.

The HMS Investigator has recently been discovered in the shallows of Mercy Bay by underwater archaeologists.

Samuel Gurney Creswell's story, including his encounter with pirates while serving in the seas off China, is told in the book: War, Ice and Piracy: The Remarkable Career of a Victorian Sailor

Samuel Gurney Cresswell on Wikipedia

Slideshow in Archaeology magazine online

The full story of the rescue of the crew of the Investigator
Thanks, David Gauldin