The tail end of 2024 is jumping the fence.
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| Harold von Schmidt, detail from "Major Dawes Takes a Shortcut," 1934 |
There are thousands of paintings of riders in the night, and 99% of them portray the rider racing toward the viewer, or at least in profile. That's the established formula.
But von Schmidt takes the opposite approach. Here there's no onrushing horse, no dramatic face of the rider or his horse or even of his pursuers. Instead, the star of this painting is just the muscular butts on those escaping horses. Von Schmidt embellishes their power by showing horse tails and flapping coats.
Also, notice that von Schmidt doesn't employ melodramatic special effects, such as a spotlight from a convenient moon; when an artist controls value as well as von Schmidt, he doesn't need such devices.
A beautiful piece of work!
Here's wishing you a happy and healthy new year!
12 comments:
Would Love to see Mr Cuneos approach. He’s an amazing draftsman and along w Von Schmidt. Excellent choice David.
Great painting by von Schmidt! Happy new year to you!
A favorite Von Schmidt. An enormously complicated artistic problem made to seem effortless. Also one of the more painterly and moody of his pictures.
The section of Von Schmidt's Famous Artists Advanced Course on Comparative Anatomy shows that his knowledge of horses - and animals in general - was very deep. Not just anatomy, but also sculptural form. He could make Horses, Cats, Dogs, Cows, and People take any pose he wanted strictly from his imagination, naturalistic and lit correctly within the context of the picture. On that front, I don't think there's another illustrator that compares.
Neal Adams would famously tout Von Schmidt to any artist that would listen, saying, "Now that guy will kick your ass!"
Anonymous-- there's a long waiting line for the honor of "end of the year." Many an artist seems inspired by posteriors.
MORAN-- Happy new year to you as well!
kev ferrara-- Glad to hear you like this von Schmidt as well. Walt Reed had it and sadly I missed it by a couple of hours. Von Schmidt was the real deal, respected by his peers even if he is underrated by the public today. I liked the quote from Neal Adams. In the 1960s the Westport Chamber of Commerce asked the premier illustrators of the day to choose and paint a landmark of Westport, and Bernie Fuchs painted a portrait of von Schmidt.
Wonderful painting and thanks for sticking with the blog all these years, David.
Happy New Year everyone!
Many thanks, Aleš, and happy new year to you. It has been fun.
What piqued you most about how 2024's art trends were essentialised here on the blog ? I'm damnably curious.
Anonymous-- Hah! I was about to delete that spam (the only comments I ever delete are spam) but then you came along like a wise guy and had to quote it, with a topic that is like waving a red flag in front of a bull for this group.
Obviously, the answer is that 2024 took place within the larger entropy of art, which continues to expand like the universe (as clocked by the Hubble space telescope) toward a meaningless void incapable of sustaining life. As Julian Bell noted, over the last few centuries art has freed color from form, then freed painting from imagery, then freed art from its frame. That trend toward the de-definition of art (accelerated by the increasing images and marvels of science which are so much more potent and meaningful than the images of art that few people bother to look over their shoulder to become alarmed at the dissipation of art) is something of which we've been aware for a long time. But the new question raised by 2024 art trends is whether the timing of that entropy has been altered by the momentum of AI.
In short, as "essentialised here on this blog," the question is whether 2024 has brought us to the equivalent of the "plunging region" of a black hole-- the place where matter stops circling a black hole and falls straight in. That orbiting ring (called the black hole's "accretion disk") suddenly transforms into straight plunge, accelerating to the speed of light as it falls. It's comparable to a river changing into a waterfall. Will AI take us into the plunging region? 2024 gives us new perspective on this question, but there remains one unpredictable element which foils all prognostication: the anti-entropy force of the shape of the butt, which preserves the aesthetics of beauty, harmony and balance.
That is of course why I end every year with a paean to the backside. How shrewd of you to have figured that out.
"That is of course why I end every year with a paean to the backside"
I thought this one was an oblique reference to panto season, whuch is current 'round now - the rearward of the two-man role in playing the horse.
Happy New Year !
Test comment
Hello David, I am sure that you must get this question a lot. As someone who has browsed the old archives of your site (circa 2012), I am wondering if Auad Publishing, right alongside you I assume, will ever again publish “Albert Dorne: Master Illustrator”. It goes for rather fetching prices via Amazon. I love the man’s work. But I as I learned about him around 2018, the book was already sold out. Forgive the test comment, I could not comment from my laptop, so I tried here by way of another electronic device.
Anonymous-- Yes, those prices on Amazon and ebay are absurd. I don't believe anyone actually pays them. I know Auad is not planning to reprint them, but why don't you write me at david.apatoff@gmail.com and let's see if I can help.
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