Artists & Illustrators - UK (2020-03)

NorfolkPaintingSchool’sMARTINKINNEAR concludeshisseries ofOldMasters-inspired

workshopsbyshowinghowtobeselectivewithdetailstocreate apainterlyfinish

4. Detail and

suggestion

MASTER TECHNIQUES

C

ontemporary painting is

defined by the idea that,

since the invention of the

camera, painters cannot merely

reproduce their subject, but must

create a different, more creative

reality. While this is true, it does

not follow that all of the Old Masters

were, by contrast, slavishly wedded

to the faithful replication of detail –

quite the opposite. The very fact that

there were no cameras to easily and

faithfully record a subject made the

techniques of evoking detail central

to traditional painting. In this article,

let’s take a look at a couple of those

traditional detailing methods.

In painting, detail has two linked

but divergent aims. The first aim is

to replicate what was actually there,

the second is to record how it looked.

It’s easy to think those two aims are

one and the same but stop and think

about those stiff paintings of birds

in flight one sees from time to time.

Artists who painstakingly record

the plumage of a flying bird might well

be recording what was actually there,

yet in doing so they are never going

to truly capture the sudden sense of

movement, the beat of the wings or a

flash of plumage. What was there and

how it looked at that moment are not

the same thing at all.

To create a sense of a form,

a person, a place or a time, one

needs detail – but not too much of it.

The camera, for all its efficiency,

can’t always record the world as

we experience it. So, if you’re overly

reliant upon cameras, it can be

particularly useful to look at how the

Old Masters created paintings that

felt real, not just accurate.

ACCURACY VS REALITY

We look with our eyes, but we see

with our brain. With that in mind, the

Old Masters knew that the trick was

to replicate the process of seeing by

giving the viewer something that

ABOVE Martin

Kinnear, Utopia,

oil on board,

76x51cm

When using thicker

brushstrokes,

a little detail goes

a long way