Chapter 4 Line

Varieties of line

Title: The Basket of Apples

Artist: Paul Cézanne

Date: c. 1895

Source/Museum: The Art Institute of Chicago. Helen Birch

Bartlett Memorial Collection. All rights reserved.

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 21 3/8 x 31 in. (65 x 80 cm)

Bringing a ―still life‖ back to life

1. Still life– Still life in French

Nature morte— ―dead nature‖

2. Cezanne’s Purpose

1. Animate the picture

plane: dynamic rather

than static.

2. Line, Space, Texture

Title: Hazel leaves (each stitched to next with grass stalks/gently pulled by

the river/out of a rock pool/floating downstream/low water)

Artist: Andy Goldsworthy

Date: 1991

Source/Museum: Scaur Water, Dumfriesshire. From Andy

Goldsworthy, Time, Abrams, 2000.

Medium: n/a

Size: n/a

―Time Line‖1. Metaphor for human life and

history

1. Journey

2. Life and Death

Title: A Line Made by Walking in England

Artist: Richard Long

Date: 1967

Source/Museum: Photographic documentation. © 2000 Richard

Long.

Medium: n/a

Size: n/a

1. Line and movement:

2. Landscape sculptures

3. Time recorded ―mark time‖

4. Presence of the artist in this

field

Title: A Line Made in the Himalayas

Artist: Richard Long

Date: 1975

Source/Museum: Photographic documentation. © 2000 Richard

Long.

Medium: n/a

Size: n/a

Title: Yellow Flowers on Rock

Artist: Andy Goldsworthy

Date: 1994

Dynamic Energetic Line

1. Imminent spring 1. Spine and Cycle of the tree

Title: Reconstructed Icicles Around a Tree

Artist: Andy Goldsworthy

Date: 1995

Title: House

Artist: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

Date: 1995

Source/Museum: Courtesy of the artist and Bernice Steinbaum

Gallery, Miami

Medium: Acrylic and mixed media on canvas

Size: 6 ft. 8 in. x 5 ft.

1. Outline: indicates the shape of an

object

2. Image of the house

1. Juxtaposed Representation of the

house

3. Cross Cultural Dialoged between

inheritance and experience

1. ―Remember How Much Easier a

Home Came together When You

Didn’t Have to Choose Carpet‖

2. ―All sunrooms are not created

equal‖

3. ―Tis a Gift to Be Simple‖

Outline

Title: Standing Female from the Back

Artist: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Date: c. 1912

Source/Museum: Princeton University Art Museum. Bequest of Dan Fellows

Platt, Class of 1895. Acc#1948-137. Photo: Bruce M. White

Medium: Pen and blue ink on paper

Size: 14 5/8 x 10 in.

1. Contour Line: indicate a three

dimensional form

2. Leg elbow muscle structure and

volume

Contour Line

Mastering Contour Line

Implied Line: Activating Space

1. Human Condition:

1. Alone and isolated

2. Implied Line:

1. Figure Activating the Space around it

Title: Assumption and Consecration of the Virgin

Artist: Titian

Date: c. 1516-1518

Source/Museum: Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice.

Scala/Art Resource, New York.

Medium: Oil on wood

Size: 22 ½ x 11 4/5 ft.

Implied Line:

Line of sight: 1. the way figures are

looking

1. 3 Registers:

1. Top

2. Middle

3. Bottom

2. Two Forces of Line of Sight

3. Symmetry

Implied Line: Action

Title: Calvary

Artist: Cheri Samba

Date: 1992

1. Implied Line as

Action

2. ―The Calvary of the

painter in a country

where the rights of

man are practically

non-existing‖

3. ―the house of

painting‖

Title: Untitled

Artist: Keith Haring

Date: March 24, 1982

Source/Museum: © The Estate of Keith Haring

Medium: Vinyl ink on vinyl tarp

Size: 12 x 12 ft.

1. Implied lines

2. Graffiti artist

3. Pop Shop

4. John Lennon Death

1. Heart and soul

Implied Lines: Movement

Title: Sequential view of Dots and Dashes in motion

Artist: Alexander Calder

Date: 1959

Source/Museum: Reproduced from Alexander Calder and His Magical Mobiles by Jean

Lipman, Hudson Hills Press in Association with the Whitney Musuem of American Art. © 2003 Estate of Alexander Calder/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Medium: Painted sheet metal wire

Size: n/a

1. Kinetic work with implied line

1. Works that move in 2d or 3d

2. Mobiles: Wind chimes

3. Reminiscent of a Dancer in space

Kinetic Line

Qualities of Line

• Intellectual

• Emotional

• Expressive

Title: Drawing Lesson, Part I, Line #1

Artist: Pat Steir

Date: 1978

Source/Museum: From a portfolio of 7 etchings, edition of 25.

Courtesy of Crown Point Press, San Francisco.

Medium: Drypoint with aquatint

Size: Each 16 x 16 in.

1. Density and Scarcity

1. Give light and Shadows

2. As it gets darker in

Rembrandts picture the

line becomes more

emotional charged

Dictionary of Lines

Title: The Three Crosses

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn

Date: 1653

Source/Museum: © The British Museum, London.

Medium: Etching

Size: 15 ¼ x 17 ¾ in.

Title: Drawing Lesson, Part I, Line #5

Artist: Pat Steir

Date: 1978

Source/Museum: From a portfolio of 7 etchings, edition of 25.

Courtesy of Crown Point Press, San Francisco.

Medium: Sugar lift aquatint with soft ground etching

Size: Each 16 x 16 in.

1. Van Gogh's line is autographic:

1. easy recognizable as his

2. Emotional:

1. expressive line: expresses

feelings for nature:

Title: The Starry Night

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Date: 1889

Source/Museum: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through

the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Photo © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, New York.

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 29 x 36 ¼ in.

1. Van Gogh’s line is

autographic: easy

recognizable as his

2. ―cry of anguish‖

1. Imprecise

2. Emotionally charged

3. Chaotic

3. Cypress tree: grave

marker

4. Died age 37: Shot himself

Title: Letter to John Peter Russell

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Date: 1888

Source/Museum: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Thannhauser

Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978. 78.2514.18. Photo by Robert E. Mates. © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

Medium: Ink on laid paper

Size: 8 x 10 ¼ in.

Title: The Sower

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Date: 1888

Source/Museum: Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The

Netherlands

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 25 ¼ x 31 ¾ in.

Title: The Sower

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Date: 1888

Source/Museum: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van

Gogh Foundation)

Medium: Drawing, pencil, reed pen, and brown and black ink on wove paper

Size: 9 5/8 x 12 ½ in.

Title: Wall Drawing No. 681 C, A wall divided vertically into four equal squares

separated and bordered by black bands. Within each square, bands in one of

four directions, each with color ink washes superimposed

Artist: Sol LeWitt

Date: 1993

Source/Museum: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The Dorothy and

Herbert Vogel Collection, Gift of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, Trustees 1993.41.1.

Medium: Colored ink washes

Size: Image: 120 x 444 in.

1. Precise , controlled, mathematically, rigorous, logical and rational.

2. Removed from expression most often not even done by him

3. Museum own instructions not actual work

4. Grid pattern. Instructions are made with some outside influence

Analytical and classical line:

Title: Installation of Wall Drawing No. 681 C

Artist: n/a

Date: August 25, 1993

Source/Museum: National Gallery of Art. Courtesy The National

Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Medium: n/a

Size: n/a

Title: Numbers in Color

Artist: Jasper Johns

Date: 1958-1959

Source/Museum: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Gift of

Seymour H. Knox. © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York.

Medium: Encaustic and collage on canvas

Size: 67 x 49 ½ in.

Grid

Title: No Sign of the World

Artist: Matthew Ritchie

Date: 2004

Source/Museum: Photo: Oren Stor. © Matthew Ritchie,

courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York.

Medium: Oil and marker on canvas

Size: 99 x 154 in.

The Dawn of Life; Creation: Loose and Controlled Line act as a contrasting force

Title: Relic 12

Artist: Hung Liu

Date: 2005

Source/Museum: Courtesy Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York

Medium: Oil on canvas and lacquered wood

Size: 66 x 66 in.

The Dawn of Life; Creation: Loose and Controlled Line

1. Directly Addresses: women’s role in pre

and post revolutionary China

2. Pi: circle stands for the universe

3. Butterfly

1. Change

2. Joy

3. Love

4. Red Square: Female

1. Nu-Wa: Creation Goddess

1. Inventor of marriage

2. Made humans by slinging

a rope

1. Hand made: noble

2. Made with rope:

poor

3. Grants children

5. Image of uniformity and creation

Title: Virgin/Vessel

Artist: Hung Liu

Date: 1990

Source/Museum: Collection Bernice and Harold Steinbaum. © Hung

Liu. Courtesy Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami.

Medium: Oil on canvas, broom

Size: 72 x 48 in.

1. Confrontation between social conformity and

western and ancient Chinese tradition

2. Isolation and vulnerability

1. Cultural Revolution stripped all citizens of

the possessions. 1966

2. Sexual object

1. Chairman Mao official

portrait over Tiananmen

Square

Title: Three Fujins

Artist: Hung Liu

Date: 1995

Source/Museum: Private collection, Washington, D.C. Photo: Ben

Blackwell. Courtesy of Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami.

Medium: Oil on canvas, bird cages

Size: 96 x 126 x 12 in.

Controlled Line Vs. Liberated Line

Classical line and the Grid

Title: Study for the Death of Socrates

Artist: Jacques-Louis David

Date: 1787

Source/Museum: Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, France. Art

Resource, New York.

Medium: Charcoal heightened in white on gray-brown paper

Size: 20 ½ x 17 in.

1. Classical line:

2. 5th Century BCE

Title: The Death of Socrates

Artist: Jacques-Louis David

Date: 1787

Source/Museum: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Catherine Lorillard

Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931 (31.45). Photo © 1980 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 51 x 77 ¼ in.

1. Calm like Socrates about to drink hemlock

2. Precise , controlled, mathematically, rigorous, logical and rational. Etc

3. Removed from expression

Title: Study for the Death of Sardanapalus

Artist: Eugène Delacroix

Date: 1827-1828

Source/Museum: Cabinet des Dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Cliche des Musées Nationaux, Paris. Photo © R.M.N.-SPADEM.

Medium: Pen, watercolor, and pencil

Size: 10 ¼ x 12 ½ in.

Romantic line: 19th

Century art

1. Love, feeling, and passion

2. Assyrian King of Second

Dynasty (today north Iraq)

Title: Death of Sardanapalus

Artist: Eugène Delacroix

Date: 1828

Source/Museum: Cabinet des Dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Cliche

des Musées Nationaux, Paris. Photo © R.M.N.-SPADEM.

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 153 ½ x 195 in.

1. Emotional

2. Time is moving unlike David's where the scene is stopped and immovable

3. Curves, knots, and conglomerate of violent movement

Title: Zeus, or Poseidon

Artist: n/a

Date: c. 460 BCE

Source/Museum: National Archeological Museum, Athens

Medium: Bronze

Size: Height 82 in.

Line and Cultural

Convention: of the Male

Body1. Classical line: logical, rational and

closely indentified with the male form

2. Form is rigid and muscular

Title: Roman copy after Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Knidos

Artist: n/a

Date: 4th century BCE original

Source/Museum: Vatican Museums, Rome. © Alinari/Art

Resource, New York.

Medium: Marble

Size: Height 80 in.

Line and Cultural

Convention: of the

Female Body1. Expressive line: less logical, more

emotional, intuitive, and female form

2. Forms are fluid and soft

3. Weak and emotional

Title: Lisa Lyon

Artist: Robert Mapplethorpe

Date: 1980

Source/Museum: © 1982 Estate of Robert Mapplethorpe

Medium: n/a

Size: n/a

Title: The Turkish Bath

Artist: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Date: 1862

Source/Museum: Musée du Louvre, Paris. Giraudon/Art

Resource, New York.

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: Diameter 42 ½ in.