Constable was a master of observation of the natural world. Look at the character and variety in the trees he has captured in this drawing.
This was not explicitly stated as a research task, but since I felt so stuck with my own attempts at drawing trees that I found it might be a good idea to look at how artists have approached the task. So I thought to begin with Constable’s tree drawings and then see what else I discover.
John Constable: Fir Trees
Looking at this drawing, I recognize the elements that I saw when I tried drawing trees. I wasn’t able to depict them accurately, but Constable was:
– the dark silhouettes of foliage against the light sky with little marks to break up simplistic outlines
– some branches in black or alternating between black and shades of grey
– trunks are light before the darker background of other trees and dark against the sky
– lighter foliage against darker backgrund
John Constable: Fir Trees at Hampstead (1820)
I came across this drawing while searching for a web image of the Fir Tree drawing. It is lighter than the other one. It must have been a very sunny day, while the other drawing would rather be drawn on a cloudy day or later in the afternoon. I conclude the different light conditions here from the lighter tones of foliage masses and light shining through trunks and foliage of the background trees. By contrast, the other drawing does not have much light in the lower areas of the background trees.
This drawing also has more details on the trunks of the three dominant forground trees. The tonal shadings in the foliage silhouette against the sky is more differentiated: it has lighter and darker tones, where the other drawing has only dark tones against the lighter background. One might summarize this as “more light, more details” which corresponds well to the actual visual experience under different light condition: One can see more details when there’s enough light.
John Constable: Study of the trunk of an elm tree (c. 1821, oil on paper)
I’m not particularly fond of photorealism in drawings and paintings, but this painting nevertheless impresses me. I like how Constable has used the different green tones from very dark to very yellow-greenish, and also how he depicted texture and different colours of the trunk and its bark.
Edward Hopper: South Truro Post Office I (1930, watercolour on paper)
In this painting, the trees are elements of the composition. They are painted with the same degree of simplification as the other elements. I can relate to the idea of omitting fine detail and focus on colours and tonal shades of simple forms. In some of my drawings I follow a tendency to get away from line in favour of trying to draw tonal areas, which I perceive as a more painterly approach. Maybe some of my struggles have to do with not knowing how to employ these two techniques, linear vs tonal.
Edward Hopper: Tree studies
I took pictures of tree studies at the Hopper Drawing Exposition. In these two studies I recognize two different compositional approaches: The upper drawing appears to have been based on a compositional outline of the main elements, then working out the distribution of darker and lighter areas and details of the trees like trunk and foliage masses. The lower drawing is more like built up from the inside, without preliminary planning how much of the tree would fit on the paper. The focus seems to be on a study of light and shade on a complex trunk structure.
I think I have practiced both approaches. For example, my single tree study was made without earlier compositional planning. But contrasting to Hopper’s, mine was made with a focus on line, not tonal shades. The compositional approach was followed in the group of trees drawings. But my tree drawings were much less successful in capturing the pattern of lighter and darker foliage masses, and consequently the viewer cannot distinguish individual trees.
Conclusions
I found looking at web reproductions of drawings and paintings not very satisfying, because the pictures don’t have that fine detail that conveys information of the artist’s technique. Also, the immediacy of the real work’s size is lost, when one looks at the mini-reproductions.
But the web is a good starting point to search for artists that might be interesting to look at, and to find out where their works can be seen. I proceeded with a search through the online collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. But I stopped at letter M, feeling a bit exhausted. The online collection doesn’t seem to include naturalistic paintings or drawings. I will have to search elsewhere, as time permits.
Sources
John Constable: Fir trees at Hampstead, from http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93487/fir-trees-at-hampstead-drawing-constable-john-ra/ retrieved September 18, 2013
John Constable: Study of the trunk of an elm tree, from http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O16555/study-of-the-trunk-of-oil-painting-constable-john-ra/ retrieved September 18, 2013
Edward Hopper: South Truro Post Office I, from http://fineartamerica.com/featured/south-truro-post-office-i-edward-hopper.html retrieved September 18, 2013
Edward Hopper: Tree studies, personal photographs taken at the Edward Hopper Drawing Exposition, Whitney Museum of American Art, September 2013