And wow I can't believe I'm posting this. I mean not like I haven't posted similar, just not so much on the up-and-up. This is a portrait of my daimon. You may recognize the model this time (or maybe not). It did come out looking very much like the model, even though I was actively trying to not get a likeness; oh well, it did what it wanted, as artwork does. It is for once a particularly exact portrait, which is a strange thing to say. Though he also looks (unintentionally) rather like Sarah Vowell, which I think is kind of funny. Oh, and a guy I used to work with named Dan, but then again the original model kind of looks like Dan too. (Or Dan looks kind of like the original model, since Mr. Original Model is older and therefore came first, right? Hmmm.)
Oh man, I crack myself up sometimes. Y'all have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Anyway.
Those are green leaves instead of feathers on the angel's (or Eros's) wings. He's also a little bleached-out, colorwise (his face actually has some skin tone in it in the original) but I was too lazy to rescan it. It's close enough.
12 comments:
Beautiful! And yes, there's a definite androgyny to the portrait. I read once that, technically, angels are androgynous but as time went on in the Christian church, gender got assigned to them, as in the very butch St. Michael. Perhaps it's only rank-and-file angels who are supposed to be androgynous?
Oh goody! Now I can stop squinting at the tiny picture above your bookshelf, trying to discern the details :D Loving the deep, deep green of his robe and overall verdancy. He seems to be looking forward and upwards at the same time; it's a very interesting effect.
Beautiful! Though I did think he was a she at first too.
I hope your daimon appreciates how he inspires you!
Those eyes were driving me absolutely buggy. I worked and reworked them so many times trying to get the focus right. In the end I just had to say 'good enough,' even though I'm still not as happy with them as I'd like to be. It's probably something to do with my own eyes. When I look at it with my left eye, his face looks perfectly, absolutely, gorgeously symmetrical. When I look at his face with my right eye, though, the one that does not have the slight astigmatism, it's all skewed. Grrrr.
I am not honestly sure how I feel about him looking 'androgynous.' Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it wasn't what I was going for, and he does not look to my eyes anything other than male. It's my taste, I know, and that has all kinds of issues itself that I know about, and which I don't really want to go in to here since it's so bizarrely complicated and strange. But I get a little defensive about it, I guess.
Thank you for sharing! I know it's a very intensely personal thing. I've really enjoyed your recent posts about daimons/Muses in general and I also admire how you have been so courageous to speak of your own personal daimon.
I know that, in art and spirituality, an androgynous appearance often results from trying to show visually that a man embodies love and compassion rather than macho force and male values only -- e.g., see the traditional portraits of Jesus. But Jesus's beard helps to disguise that androgyny. And how about Kwan Yin? She started off as a male, but depictions of Him over time became so feminized as artists tried to depict Yin, that finally they just threw up their hands and made Him a Her. That's why Kwan Yin is still traditionally portrayed as completely flat-chested. But I digress.
Hmmm. I am not sure what to say to that, Debra. Though I thought Kwan Yin was the other way around--She started as the Chinese mother Goddess, but was adapted into Buddhism; and the male versions of Her (like the Japanese Kwannon) are the later ones.
"I know that, in art and spirituality, an androgynous appearance often results from trying to show visually that a man embodies love and compassion rather than macho force and male values only"
I am not sure I buy this anymore. Perhaps it is all that time hanging out with the radical feminists. Love and compassion do not make a man feminine; if a man feels or shows these things then these things are by definition masculine too. I get, certainly, that that is not what society would have, and that we are all primed to dualism and all that, but...
Because I just, pretty much, drew what I saw with that model. Which was, a skinny young man with long hair. The long hair, youth, and skinniness do not make him any less masculine, because he is male, and so by definition is masculine.
Now, again, there is nothing wrong with androgyny, and, it's true, in the 70s, which is when the picture(s) of that model date from, there was a lot more fluidity regarding gender. Though really it should I think be framed that nowadays things have become really stupidly rigid, and masculine and feminine have been shoved deep into opposite corners. It's kind of fucked-up, if you ask me.
Also I know that my artistic style tends towards the pretty. It's not something I can help, nor do I really want to. Part of it I'm sure is that you draw what you see in the mirror. I had an artist friend, a man, who had a hard time drawing women; and I worked with a black woman whose characters, even when white, always looked a little black, as far as say facial structure went. So there's that part of it.
And again, I know I have 'issues' around this; most of the time drawing men I nearly cry in frustration because they don't look conventionally 'masculine' and so there must be something wrong with me, right? So I recognize (and I can feel) that this conversation is pushing buttons for me. But I am trying to answer this evenly. Forgive me if this still sounds defensive.
The thing is, this is my daimon. This is very personal. I understand the critique, and I even understand (and in fact usually am fascinated by, even in my own work) the idea that there is more going on in a piece than the artist consciously intends. I get that. I celebrate that. I want it to happen in my own work.
But it still is possible to read too much into a piece.
I love your pretty men (and your pretty women); I think it's part of what makes your deity figures both classical (oh, Anubis!) and transcendent. And why _shouldn't_ they be pretty?? Their features are never weak, even the women.
I've always been amazed at how my features will come through in some small way, even when drawing from reference material. I am particularly fond of pulling this with Johnn Depp (pretty, pretty, pretty) ;)
I totally agree with you, Thalia -- human characteristics should never be assigned a gender. Historically they were so assigned, though, and it has caused no end of trouble. Jung was not immune to that either and it weakens his work. But we are all creatures of our times, aren't we?
My word verification is "rants" so I guess that's my clue to shut up now, LOL!
This is gorgeous. And I'm stunned at how much it looks like me...yikes...
Just lovely.
Let me clarify that. Your work is gorgeous. I don't necessarily think that I am gorgeous. Far from it, actually.
Thalia, I too am an artist working with images of the Goddess (as well as many other themes...)
I appreciate and can well relate to your experience in drawing/painting males. Who knows why we depict them the way we do? I used to question it....and struggle with it -now I am beginning to accept that my males (the few I draw/paint) look a bit androgynous.
I love what you do!
Claudia
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