Monday, June 20, 2011

Flying Fish

Herbert James Draper (1863-1920) was another one of those lesser-known Victorian painters who combined good drawing with a romantic sensibility in his painting of mythological subjects.


He based the painting “Flying Fish” on a charcoal study from a live model. The figure’s pose, with the foreshortened near arm, is delightful. He keeps his tonal masses simple. The light mass is kept light throughout, allowing much of the upper figure to read very delicately as light-against-light.

Images from the “Inspirational Works of Art” archive (which contains some artistic nudity). Thanks, Keita!

If you like Draper, you’ll like Waterhouse, Leighton, Tadema, Solomon, and Dicksee.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bernard_Dicksee

And there's a 2003 book on Herbert Draper.

7 comments:

Jan said...

L-o-v-e-l-y. I like the charcoal drawing just as much ... I love seeing the background/original sketches, they are so magical.

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

Lesser known? I should hope not, I love Herbert Draper. I was actually planning on doing a tribute post in a couple weeks.

Thanks for the additional links, but could you double check the link for Frank Dicksee?, it doesn't seem to be working.

James Gurney said...

Thanks, Erik. Dicksee Ficksee'd

Christopher Thornock said...

Inspirational indeed. I just discovered that blog a few weeks ago. Rich with wonderful paintings and drawings. Thanks for getting the word out.

Anonymous said...

This gets a tweet.

This work is proof that you need to combine reference (live models and photos) with your imagination to get a truly stunning piece.

Anonymous said...

These guys are all faves of mine, and the blog-link a new source of enjoyment. Thank you much.

Carolyn said...

Beautiful! I love being able to see the original sketch. Thanks!