David

From what I learned about David is that he was a romantic era painter which had a lot to do with ancient roman revival the roles of men and women.  One of my favorite paintings of his is one of his most well known, Oath of the Horaitii.  What I like about this painting is how beautifully the legs are rendered on the men.  Their knees show the weight and strength they put on them according to the stance they are in.  I also really love how perfectly the women's bodies are portrayed.  Even under heavy cloth I am able to sense the weight in their legs and body.  Their skin looks plushy and warm.  All aspects of the human body in each of the figures is so impressively done.

El Greco

A few weeks ago, I learned about the art work from El Greco.  His style is called mannerism because of the elongated forms and irregular usage of color. The figures are also usually tightly enclosed in a space.  Although all of his subjects are Christian themed, I actually really enjoyed this style of depiction.  It is so different from his era and I think it takes a lot of courage to step outside the lines especially with the topics he chose to depict.  Another element of mannerism that I find interesting is the contradiction of positions for the amount of weight placed on limbs.  In his Resurrection, figures are being thrown every which way and in unnatural poses.  This is very different from the realistic depictions we have learned in class and it gives the painting an uneasiness.

Lucian Freud

I had learned about a painting by Lucian Freud in one of my art history classes.  We wee on the topic or famous portraits and our professor brought up the image he did of the Queen.  I found it most interesting because she commissioned his work, but he did not embellish the portrayal.  If anything, he made her look worse than she actual is.  I applaud her and him for this new age portrait and am glad someone had the...balls... to be innovative.  He also does not glamorize himself in ANY way while doing self portraits.  I know that in my own depictions, even of classmates, I show them in the best light possible.

Jenny Saville

Saville's paintings are shocking to first look at, but truly remarkable.  I love the subject of gore and horror she explores.  I have done a few macabre paintings of my own and so I can appreciate her works.  She also does bodies pressed up against glass which is SO cool mostly nude women.  I really love this effect and I think I may try it on my own sometime.  It really takes talent to morph a body correctly in that way.  She is an amazing artist and I may try and emulate her style because I feel it is somewhat of what I explore myself.

Jacob Collins

Collins' figure drawing are simplistic yet very real.  He often uses subjects in the nude and usually at most a bed sheet is also incorporated or a blank wall.  His works seem more like studies rather than anything too compelling but his style is very beautiful, and it gives the audience a sense of the complete knowledge he has on the human body.  His lighting on the body is diffused giving each of his subjects a light aura around them.. They all have a calmness to them that I enjoyed looking at.  One of my favorite skills that Collins possesses is the ability to make the flesh look tangible and soft.  He is an incredibly impressive figure artist.

Philip Pearlstein

Pearlstein's work is mostly of nudes, but he does an incredible job rendering them.  I find it interesting because they aren't really sexual in nature but more relaxed depictions of the human body.  Almost all of them are Caucasian and in a few paintings the heads are cut off by borders.  This leads me to believe he is very focused on illustration the bends and curves of the body rather than put effort into the face.  Overall his work is definitely interesting, and I'd like to see them in person sometime to get a better view of them.

Mark Tansey

Mark Tansey has a very cool style.  His pain tings are done in a monochromatic palette.  He uses shades of blue, red, black, purple, and green.  The paintings are realist but there is always something a little bit off in them.  They are almost comical.  The figures are perfectly rendered though looking like a photo.  I really like the subjects of the paintings with my favorite being one of a rooster looking in the mirror.  They are not paintings that you can take once glance at and move on.  The monochromatic aspect of them is really interesting.  It reminds me a lot of taking an image in photoshop and adjusting the hue to one color set.

Jerome Witkin

Jerome Witkin is an American figure artist and his paintings usually deal with culture and politics.  His works seem to have a narrative which I like because he deals with serious issues such as AIDS, the holocaust, nuclear weapons, and more. His style is somewhat "sketchy" and this gives it a free handed look.  I like how much motion he conveys with his strokes.  I believe one of his paintings is in the Palmer Museum as well.

Margherita Manzelli

This artist is definitely interesting.  She is a contemporary artist with a distinct style.  When I first googled her artwork, I was a little creeped out.  Most of the images I saw were of one subject staring straight at the viewer.  The faces are so eery and I cannot pinpoint why.  She portrays this woman (who looks much like her but she claims them not to be self portraits) as emaciated in empty spaces.  They are portrayed in a vulnerable and awkward fashion but yet stare straight at you with confidence.  Its very disturbing.  The drained colors add to this effect.

Thomas Eakins

I chose to evaluate Eakins' figure paintings because after first googling him, I saw all the emotion in his work.  It really drew me in right away, and I really appreciate when an artist has that power.  Thomas Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, and sculptor of the modern era.  He like me, was from Philadelphia area.  Eakins uses a lot of darker earthy tones in his paintings.  His lighting is dramatic usually cast from one angle.  I believe this definitely adds to the emotion that it conveys.  His figures are so realistic and proportional.  They seem as if they are just frozen in time.  One of my favorites of his is a painting of a child playing with blocks.  The baby's face is so round that it makes me want to squeeze his/her cheeks!  After reading about him, this baby was probably his own or a friends because his subjects were usually people he knew.

Steve Hanks

I chose the artist Steve Hanks to create a response post about because I had not heard the name before and was curious.  The images I found were very interesting and consistent.  He uses watercolor which was shocking with the amount of detail and preciseness that his works entail.  Hanks paintings usually consist of female figures either in the bedroom or by a reflection of some sort like a pond or the ocean.  Hanks grew up by the ocean and seems to take that into account for much of his artwork.
I read that Hanks calls his work emotional realism which I love.  It describes his paintings perfectly because it makes you feel as if there is a story to be told by each scene he creates.  Hanks stated hat he would not be at the skill level he is today if he had not spent so much time drawing.  I take a lot of inspiration from this because I have mostly gone straight to painting without an extensive drawing past.
I love the colors Hanks uses.  These colors are earthy with hints of pastel.  The images are so warm and inviting.  They are so realistic and incredibly impressive as I stated earlier because of the medium.  One of my favorite aspects of Steve Hanks' paintings is how he usually leaves the faces of the subjects a semi mystery.  It leaves me guessing to what they look like head on or maybe what their expression would reveal.  Hanks uses his wife and children as models for some of his paintings.  I can tell he really cares about them by the way they are depicted and it shows he wants to remember those moments forever.