Inspiring Artists

Here are three old artists from our class's list that I think could be relative to my work this semester.

Rene Magritte

Personal Values, 1952

The Lovers II, 1928

The Collective Invention, 1934

Magritte is a huge inspiration to a lot of illustrators because of how clearly he captures a mood and concept. His surreal imagery instantly catches the eye with its clean shapes framed in large negative spaces. I think I could use the way he personifies objects in Personal Values to make a more interesting still life of a product.

Toulouse Lautrec

Cuirassier, 1896

At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance, 1890

Cuirassier, 1881

Lautrec paints interesting characters, and paints them with interesting character. I'd like to bring the textural energy of his brush strokes to my own work. A lot of advertisements are styled flatly and choose to bypass this liveliness in favor of clarity, and I'd like to try going in an opposite direction for some of my work.

George Tooker

Landscape with Figures, 1965

The Subway, 1950

Bathers, 1950

Tooker examines a lot of the mundane aspects of modern human lifestyles. In works like Landscape with Figures, for example, he empathizes with the compartmentalized, alienating effects of bureaucracies and office jobs. This interest in depicting negative human experiences is characteristic of advertisements that want to offer solutions. I believe I will be returning to Tooker's work for inspiration on how to portray problems to be solved.

The rest of these artists are ones that I simply like; I may want to investigate their styles later.