The Fine Art Blog of Darren Daz Cox

I think it was Giorgio Vasari that attributed Leonardo Da Vinci as saying "If you can draw a horse then you can draw anything", regardless of the authenticity of that statement I love the idea of having a maxim or a gnome (a saying that instructs concisely) that challenges and inspires. I use the horse motif as a way of showing myself the current ‘level’ of my drawing.

The goal isn’t to reach a level of realism that mimics nature in it’s glory, It’s to take realism and show your personality with it like Michelangelo’s The Fall of Phaethon, which in my opinion is the finest horse art drawing ever. The test is to create a universal motif that is presented uniquely.

I don’t believe in moralistic rules for creating art, art is art no matter how you approach it. If you, for example, take a photograph and copy it it’s still valid art, but I think, as with Michelangelo’s sketches he made for Tommaso dei Cavalieri (like The Fall of Phaeton), you can do better than just striving for realism.

I’ve found that the times I’ve used a photographic reference in my work that the end result doesn’t have as much magic as when I draw something out of my head, but I take art from the romantic angle. Paul Cézanne said to his friend the poet and journalist Joachim Gasquet (about Napoleon portraitist Jacques-Louis David), "David killed painting. The conventional stereotype was introduced. They wanted to paint the ideal foot, the ideal hand, the perfect face and belly -the supreme being. They banished character. What makes a great painter is the character he gives to everything he touches – salience, movement, passion; for passionate serenity does exist." Cézanne was generalizing of course as there is no doubt that David’s brilliant equestrian painting Napoleon at St. Bernard is bursting with passion and arguably as romantic as anything even the mighty Eugine Delacroix painted but still, he had a point, and of course proved it for all time by making impressionism (and it’s children) the dominant force in painting.

Passionate serenity would be an appropriate definition of Van Gogh’s paintings for sure!

I know that not everyone wants to be an artist, even if you are brave enough to attempt it, there is an indoctrinated Darwinian hierarchy of perceived standards you have to fight against, but I hope you find something you do well and keep trying, year after year, to add your unique touch to it.

You don’t have to be ‘as good as’ in anything you do, just do what you do as good as you can and you’ll find that passionate serenity.

This horse, below, was drawn in 2006, I struggled mightily with it, and while the horse is perhaps the least interesting part of the illustration it is important to me to see where I was and where the ride can take me…

You should search for the pink horse painting by Ken Kiff (the link I had posted is now dead), I think it’s the second most beautiful horse painting of all time (the first being Paul Gauguin’s The White Horse). Actually, the two compliment each other and if I ruled the art world, I’d have the two paintings hanging side by side!

Oh, and for the record, I am much more of a Michelangelo fan than a Leonardo Da Vinci fan but I think Leonardo drew some of the best horses ever in his cartoon (old use of the word meaning pre-painting sketch) for The Battle of Anghiari  (that Rubens so famously copied).

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Originally posted 2008-05-03 09:19:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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