Thoughts on Ingres as a Source of Art

The other day, I attended an artist’s talk for an exhibition opening at the Ingres Museum in Montauban, a delightful small town in South France.

It was thought-provoking, albeit not perhaps quite as the artist intended.

Flyer for the Ingres Museum show on Vincent Carpet

Vincent Carpet is a French artist, born in Paris in 1958, who came to art because there seemed nothing else viable for him to do.

His career really took off, apparently, when he exhibited with two other artists in a very controversial show, Masculin-Féminin, le sexe de l’art, at the Centre GeorgesPompidou Paris. Since then, he has increasingly specialized in using an artist’s work to develop his own version of that work, often with what seems to be a very ironic eye.

It was in this context that he is now exhibiting his work in the Ingres Museum Montauban is Ingres’ home town and the museum owns a huge number of Ingres’ drawings and many important paintings. So Vincent Corpet was invited to select a number of Ingres’ works, paintings and drawings, and develop his own reactive work, to be hung alongside the original work. The show is called Vincent Corpet vit au long d'Ingres.

His talk at the Museum, given to a very small number of people, was ironic, rich in facile remarks and occasional honest moments, such as when he admitted getting totally bored with trying to find what else to do and say when faced with all the multitude of Ingres’ portraits.

Another such moment was when he said he couldn’t paint hands or feet, so he simply stuck his hand or foot in paint and walked on the canvas to leave the imprint. His method of work, apparently, is to make a black and white, quick and dirty copy of the original painting, with the canvas on the floor, as one personage.

He then changes to being another person, in his mind, and selects out things to emphasise and reinterpret, mostly with fantasy animals, upside down, sideways or whatever. He then changes again to another person and covers the rest of the canvas in some simple colour, painted on rather as one would paint a wall, it appeared. Only when the three stages are completed is the canvas placed upright.

Vincent Corpet at work

His drawings were simpler and more painterly, but very repetitive, with sexual forms predominating, with a lot of smudging, erasing the black with spirits to get tonal changes.

He had also made the selection of Ingres’ drawings to go with his drawings, but alas, many of them were so faint that they were almost invisible. He had apparently made a very quick selection on the web of these drawings, not seeing them in the original, which was perhaps sometimes unfortunate.

The overall impression on was left with after this talk was that this was an artist who had perfected the game of parleying his skills into a career in the official art world. Derivative and shallow art is apparently quite acceptable, as long as there is shock value. To me, his talk was short on depth of thought, and thus on impact.

Tackling a take-off of Ingres, himself very much a product of the 19th century traditional art world and not so hot on accurate drawing of the human body, for instance, is not an easy task. Nonetheless, the “translation” done by Vincent Corpet into 21st century idiom simply reminded me of the existence of a potentially shallow, transitory and basically ugly sector of today’s art world. 

In essence, the talk became a reminder to me personally as an artist that one needs to try to dig as deeply and thoughtfully as possible inside one’s own world, not to copy and not to be facile.

Not easy!

Van Gogh's Draughtsman's Fist

I am not sure that I made the best choice of reading material as I sat in hospital rooms with my husband for the past weeks, but nonetheless, I was glad to read the book.  Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have written a masterful biography, Van Gogh, The Life. Detailed, thoughtful and exhaustive, it brings to life every twist and eddy of Van Gogh's complex and tortured life.

I had never before thought deeply about how much mental illness and dysfunction there was in the entire Van Gogh family.  It was sobering to learn of it all and to measure just how amazing his creativity was, in spite of or despite all the incredible hurdles he faced in his short life.

For a start, given his astonishingly individualistic fashion of drawing towards the end of his life, masterpieces that are so readily recognisable, it is instructive to remember how much difficulty he had with draughtsmanship.  He worked and worked at drawing and tracing, redrawing and reworking, using his cumbersome perspective frame to deal with perspectives that otherwise daunted him completely.

Some of his early, painfully drawn works are worlds away from later work.

Diggers in Torn-up Street, The Hague, pencil, April 1882 (Image courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, The Netherlands)

Sorrow, April 1882, chalk on paper

This famous image of his mistress, Sien Hoornik, is one of a large number of versions of the drawing that he traced and retraced, working at its awkwardness, distilling its essence.

Head of a Peasant Woman Bareheaded, Nuenen, Dec-Jan 1884-85 (Image courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, The Netherlands)

Landscape with Willows and Sun shining through the Clouds,  Nuenen, mid March 1884, ink (Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Van Gogh always seemed to gravitate to the ugly and exaggerated in human types when he was working in the North, partly because he had great trouble in obtaining live models who would consent to pose for him.  He was far more comfortable with nature, which he knew intimately and loved all his life.

Writing to his brother Theo, he once said, "I really have a draughtsman's fist, and I ask you, have I ever doubted or hesitated or wavered since the day I began to draw? I think you know quite well that I pushed on, and of course I gradually grew stronger in the battle." The later drawings bore out his statement - his mature drawings are amazing in their mark-making, organisation and frenetic energy.

Street in Saintes-Maries, June 1888, reed pen and ink on paper

The Zouave, June 1888, pen and ink

The rock of Montmajour with pine trees, 1888. (Image courtesy of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

Starry Night, June 1889, pen and ink (Image courtesy of the Museum of Architecture, Moscow)

Tree and bushes in the garden of the asylum, May-June,1889. (Image courtesy of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) 

Olive Trees in a Mountain Landscape, June 1889, pen and ink

For any artist aspiring to draw in whatever fashion, Vincent Van Gogh is an example of sheer dogged persistence and courage. He teaches us all that we can evolve, refine our artistic voice, strengthen our skills and achieve a powerful, individualistic "draughtsman's fist" that allows others to relate to what we are trying to say.

Sharing One's Passion

Between spending my days in hospitals and hotels, there has been little time in the last six weeks to remember about my real passion in life, art.  Nonetheless, luck lent me a day of being able to talk about art-making, the joys and fascinations - and challenges - that come with it.

Aloe Exuberance, Palma., watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

I felt a little like this watercolour painting that I had done in early January, which I entitled Aloe Exuberance.  The talk I was giving about art was at the end of my exhibition, Brush or Stylus: Jeannine Cook's Choices, at the spacious Albany Arts Council gallery in Albany, Georgia.  A roomful of ladies and one gentleman gathered at lunchtime: I soon learnt that most of them were watercolour artists, some art teachers, and most were also curious about metalpoint drawing.

It was really restorative to be talking about my passion for art and about how I approached art-making.  Each of us is very individualistic about this process of creation, but nonetheless, as I reminded my audience, there is a unifying element to it all.  Beyond the life experience that each of us brings to art, there are the basics of technique, in whatever medium being used. 

Being able to draw, from real life, is for me of prime importance.  It doesn't mean that the finished result will even resemble what is in front of one; that is not really the point.  Drawing this way enables one to understand how the object works in space, how it is weighted, how it is articulated, how it smells and feels...  Even if later, the resultant art is abstract, there is a veracity, a knowledge implied that help to convey what the artist is trying to say. This understanding aids in composition, in colour planning in a painting, in catching the light, in organising what one is trying to depict.  Obviously, in a finished drawing, the initial understanding and exploration aid hugely, particularly if the drawing is in silverpoint/metalpoint, where no erasure nor alteration are possible.

Being comfortable in the medium chosen, whether it be watercolour or other painting media, is crucial.  That ease only comes with practice and understanding, but a realistic choice of pigments helps too.  A limited palette is often much more harmonious and does not restrict the range of colours and tones at all.  Being beguiled by all the brightest, newest and most luscious of pigments can be problematic in art! A little restraint often pays off and makes for a less complicated painting process.

Perhaps the most important aspect to me of creating art is learning to listen to that small, interior voice in one's head.  Trust it, because it allows the creation of truly individual pieces of art, expressions of you and you alone. You are a unique person and artist. Your own ideas and visions, your own way of expressing them, in an adequately professional technical fashion, are the path to your own artistic voice, one that will make you different from every other artist.  

Warbler Weaving, Palma - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist.

As I reminded my audience in Albany, we are all products of complex, rich lives.  Thus our art-making can be equally individualistic and special.  In a way, this silverpoint drawing, Warbler Weaving, that I drew earlier this year, is a symbol of our creative lives as artists.  We weave together so many strands of different things - large, small, fragile, strong- to create art that expresses who we are.  The results go out into the world, sending messages and inviting shared experiences, as the creative circle is completed between artist and viewer. In the same way, this exquisite little nest I found goes from being a home in which to rear nestlings to sharing the warbler's magical creation with a wider human audience.

I was so grateful to the Albany Arts Council and its gracious Executive Director, Carol Hetzler, for allowing me to share my passion for art.  It enabled me to remember that I need to return to creating art, very soon.

Drawing - a High-wire Act

Lorne Coutts is a frequently quoted advocate of drawing.  One of his statements that resonates the most - understandably - is: "Drawing is risk.  If risk is eliminated at any stage of the act, it is no longer drawing." (Trying to find out more about Lorne Coutts leads one to mysteries - borne in 1933, he has apparently published one book, in 1995.  Entitled The Naked Drawings, it is out-of-print, with "image unavailable" on almost every listing - what a surprise!

In any case, everyone who has ever launched into drawing, especially without the psychological support of an eraser, knows that the results are a gamble.  Even the most skilled of draughtsmen will have a surprise sometimes, a huge success but also, potentially, a total disaster.  Just as the thoughts we think and the words we utter sometimes surprise, delight or dismay us, so too the lines that we place on a drawing surface can be a high-wire affair.

Even the very first lines made on the rock faces of caves such as Lascaux, France, showed that those artists, working some 40,000 years ago, were not only daring in concept and mastery of line, but they combined these aspects with the understanding of how to use the protuberances of the rocks to add extra impact to their drawings.

Lascaux

Think of the amazing kaleidoscope of drawings, often very gestural, that show how the artist is combining eye-brain-body/hand coordination and skill to produce a series of marks on a surface.  Western art is rich in such drawings, as is Eastern art.  Think of Leonardo da Vinci's work in chalks, for instance, or go to the other side of the world, to Japan, for drawing with brush and ink.

Leonardo da Vinci, Studies for the Heads of Two Soldiers in the Battle of Anghiari (1504-05). Image courtesy of  Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Sekkan (active 1555-1558) Monk Riding Backward on an Ox. Hanging scroll; ink on paper  Image: 13 7/8 x 16 7/8 in. The Phil Berg Collection. Image courtesy of  Museum Associates/LACMA

A little earlier, about 1510-15, back in Venice, Titian's searching chalks were recording this sensuous, thoughtful Young Woman, the lines probing and balancing - a deeply intense study.

Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian (Italian, ca. 1485/90-1576). Study of a Young Woman (detail), ca. 1510. Black and white chalk on faded blue paper. 41.9 x 26.5 cm (whole drawing).

© Prints and Drawings Department, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

There were so many extraordinary master draughtsmen during that period, from the Renaissance onwards, who could create fireworks and pirouettes of drawings - Michelangelo,  Raphael, the Caracci brothers, Mantegna, Dürer, Caravaggio, Rubens, Tintoretto, and many, many others. One of the 17th century giants was of course Rembrandt. Just look at Rembrandt van Rijn's quick drawing of the two adults with the serious little child, or his flying strokes as he depicted this amazing lion.

Two women teaching a child to walk, Rembrandt, 1635-37. Red chalk.  Image courtesy of the British Museum.

Extinct Cape Lion, Panthera leo melanochaitus, Rembrandt, 1650-52. Ink. Image courtesy of the Musee du Louvre

Jumping to the late 19th/ 20th century, the high-wire act still goes on for some artists who draw, draw and draw.  Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele are two Viennese artists famed for their drawings.

Egon Schiele, Crouching Woman, 1918

Another amazing draughtswoman working in Germany about the same time was Käthe Kollwitz. Constantly risking, constantly probing, she recorded human suffering and disasters in a way that rivets and remains in one's memory long afterwards.

K. Kollwitz, Self Portrait

Even during the later 20th century when drawing skills were less appreciated, there were artist who persisted in working on the drawing trapezes.  One of the high-flyers was Lucien Freud, who produced powerful, direct drawings, mostly of people, and sometimes his dogs.

Arnold Abraham Goodman, Baron Goodman by Lucian Freud, charcoal, 1985, 13 in. x 10 1/2 in. (330 mm x 267 mm), Given by Connectus Komonia Trust, 1986, Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

So many artists who dare to draw.  They inspire the rest of us to aim for the high wires, even if the drawing only succeeds once in a while.  But the more one draws, the more it becomes part of one's psyche.    After all, as Keith Haring observed, "drawing is basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times.  It brings together man and the world.  It lives through magic."

Patterns of Nature

I am finding that patterns are becoming more and more fascinating to me as I function as an artist.  I suppose I have always had a love of nature's order and patterning - in seed pods, striationson tree bark, flower petals and leaves, in the way shadows fall on surfaces, how rocks are distinctively formed, how sands get ridged and shaped by water or wind. 

Patterns in the Sand

Now, however, I am more and more aware of the amazing power of patterns - in life in general and in art in particular.  Take a look at a fascinating website on the Fibonacci Numbers and see how marvellous all these patterns are.

 Romanesque cross between broccoli and cauliflower

I think my newfound passion for drawing in metalpoint on a black ground has fuelled my interest in patterns, for somehow this medium seems to lend itself readily to the seeming abstraction of patterns.  Living as I do in beautiful natural surroundings also helps me suddenly see new patterns which excite and inspire. Artists of all stripes seem to respond to the diversity of nature's patterns, from draughtsmen to photographers.

M.C. Escher’s 1938 woodcut entitled “Sky and Water 1”

My small drawings of nature's patterns are often of tree bark and wood grains.

Jacaranda bark - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Rings of Time: Wood grains - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Eucalyptus bark - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

The rewards of looking closely and attentively at nature to see these myriad complex and magical patterns are endless.  History is full of artists who have found patterns to be a wonderful source of creativity - just think of Van Gogh, for a start!

Detail of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, 1889, Image courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Dynamics of a Blank Piece of Paper

We artists have all faced the blank sheet of white paper or canvas, time and time again. It can be a daunting moment. Yet it can also be the start of a fascinating balancing act, whose dynamics hark back to the earliest cave drawings, the origins of calligraphy and the vast heritage of both Eastern and Western art-making.

"Tabula rasa"

Some while ago, I found a marvellous statement by the wonderful British artist, Rebecca Salter,about the state of a piece of paper. She talked of an old Chinese saying that "a piece of paper is not empty until you have made the first mark", a saying which underlines the dynamics between a mark that you make on that paper and the blank space around it.  She continued by saying that "the word 'blank' is, however, misleading as the space, instead of becoming a space of nothingness, is 'activated by the presence of the drawn or painted mark".

This concepts seems to go to the very heart of composition, of a sense of balance and fitness of the symbiotic relationship of the marks placed on that surface.  It also ensures that your particular style, your hallmark as an artist, will be evident from the dynamics of your choices of marks made on that blank sheet of paper.

Calligraphy, from all traditions, has been based on this concept of dynamic balance on the page.

Japanese calligraphy

Ottoman tugra of Suleiman the Magnificent,1520, with flowers and saz leaves

Present-day Western calligraphy

These examples from different types of calligraphy are wonderful examples of the dynamics that can be created on a black piece of paper. However, we can all be mindful of those potential relationships that we can work with when we face that sheet of paper.

"Nothing Ugly in Art"

Auguste Rodin asserted that "There is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character, that is to say, that which offers no outer or inner truth." (Remember that the very first sculpture he submitted to the Paris Salon was The Man with the Broken Nose, a sculpture that was the essence of what people normally considered ugliness, not only in the subject it portrayed, but also in the way the sculpture was executed, with an emphasis on the emotion of the piece and its rough, unfinished nature.)

Rodin, Man with a Broken Nose

Yet Rodin was, in effect, setting out on a course of teaching his viewers about a new vocabulary of art, a one that was more relevant to the time in which he lived, one that was truthful and more meaningful to his age. Perhaps every artist does the same thing, consciously or unconsciously. The miracle is that viewers, down the ages, seem to learn from artists how to enter into a dialogue, refocus their eyes and learn to adjust to what seemed ugly, jarring or strange before. That readjustment on the part of viewers represents the ever-renewing pact between artist and viewer.

I have just had my wonderful website wizard, Tracie of Traceable Creations, refresh the images on my website, http://www.jeanninecook.com, and I was reminded of what Rodin said about nothing in art being ugly as I looked at the Drawings page. 

Without realising it, I seem to be depicting more and more trees, tree bark, strange tree formations. All things which even I, years ago, might have hesitated to describe as beautiful. Now, however, I find them compelling, complex and highly eloquent – eloquent about the life those trees have led, the storms they have weathered, the droughts they have endured. They have become, for me, metaphors for a lot of what is happening to people all around, whose lives that have become even more complex and taxing than ever.

The inner truths about all these trees I find so fascinating are there to read if we want. They adapt, they endure, they grow in grace.  The scars of their lives add to their interest and individuality, their growth is logical yet idiosyncratic. Even in death, they are amazing.

Just like Rodin's Man with the Broken Nose, the trees all around us can be totally memorable. It makes me feel even more acutely that we need to be good stewards of all aspects of nature. Our daily lives can be so much more magical if we remember that there is nothing really ugly in nature, nor in art. It just depends on the focus of our mental and physical eyes.

Art and Photography

Recently, I seem to have been seeing more and more allusions to artists who make or have made considered efforts to make art that in some way fights back against the all-pervasive influence of photography.

Turner was one of the first artists to do this, at a time when photography was newly invented.  (The Frenchman, Niepce, made the first permanent photograph in 1826.) 

Joseph Nicephore Niepce

By 1819, Turner had already begun to move away from paintings that were faithful reproductions of the world around him after a visit to Venice. 

 Ivy Bridge, Devonshire, c.1813-1814, J.M.W. Turner (Image courtesy of the Tate.org.uk)

He continued, however, to make careful studies of clouds, of storms and waves, for instance, which were the underpinnings of many of his paintings. His interest was far more directed towards capturing his vision of things, rather than reproducing the exact likeness of the world around him.  It was thus a way of rebutting the influence of photography's slavish capturing of appearances.

Sunrise, with a Boat between Headlands, 1835, J.M.W. Turner (Image courtesy of the Tate.org.uk)

Ever since the invention of photography, there has been this tug of war between "fine art" and photographs, a contest that de facto seems to be have won in large part by photography. One ironic measure of this in our parlous economic times is the number of photography exhibitions in museums which has greatly increased in recent years.  One suspects that costs of mounting and insuring such exhibitions might be a consideration. The prices of photographs is also climbing steadily for many historic works as well as contemporary prints.

Photographs have also become the drawing book of preference for many artists, as opposed to actually drawing scenes or objects that will be later incorporated into a work of art. Many artists go as far as simply reproducing the contents of a photograph, ideally one that they have taken themselves as opposed to using someone else's and thus infringing on copyright.  There is always a danger in using a photo for art - if the artist is not already very familiar with the object or scene, having drawn or painted it before many a time, a photograph can be a fickle friend.  The camera lens cannot "see" all that the human an eye can see, so a great deal of information is missing that might help in creating a work of art.  Added to that, a work of art based too heavily on a photograph tends to have a frozen look, airless and static.  Somehow, the image has not been processed through the artist's eyes-brain-hand in the same way as it would have been if drawn or painted from life.

Every artist today has to decide just what role photos should play in the production of his or her art. Whether the art is realistic, abstract or in between, photography can be a useful tool or a demanding taskmaster.  Each of us has a interesting choice to make.

Experiments in Art

When luck is kind and an opportunity presents itself to work in peace and beauteous quiet, experiments in art-making are a serious option.

As part of the WCAGA Drawing Marathon, a day of plein air work had been organised for yesterday, Saturday.  Luck was indeed on our side - it had poured with rain the previous days, and today, the day after, while Saturday dawned crystal clear, sunny and delicious.  With such good auguries, it was time to try different media, different subjects in art.  It seems to me that it is so important always to try to grow as an artist by experimenting, refining one's voice and one's style of art, whilst still remaining true to that little "inner voice".  As artist/art coach Bob Ragland once remarked, "Being an artist is like planting a garden - plant the seeds and see what sprouts".

The Last Days for the Red Cedar, Prismacolor, Jeannine Cook artist

Seeing what sprouted was fun as I worked yesterday.  I used sepia Prismacolor to tell the story of a wonderfully contorted dead red cedar which was slowly decaying, lichens and other forces working on its reduction.

Growing right at the edge of the marshes, the tree showed what happens when salt water levels rise and affect both the tree's root system and the solidity of the oyster shell bank into which its roots burrowed.  Using Prismacolor to depict the tree is a very different medium, as compared to graphite or silverpoint, with its wide range of tone and its waxy quality that can lead to build-up on the paper.  Like silverpoint, Prismacolor does not allow erasure.  So the experiment was about flying blind, to a certain extent.

Another venture I tried was to look around me with fresh eyes, to try and see possible subject matter that was totally new and different for me. It is always tempting to return to the same types of subject matter in art -in essence to stay in a zone of comfort and depict things/places/people with which you are familiar.  I am not sure, however, that one grows a great deal if you are always doing the same things - whether it is making the same pastries over and over again, using similar phrases only when learning a new language or doing the same things again and again in art-making. 

Charles Hawthorne, the American painter who founded the Cape Cod School of Art, declared that "in his attempt to develop the beauty he sees, the artist develops himself".  In other words, try putting on new spectacles in life.

Marsh Wrack, metalpoint, JeannineCook artist

I spent some time prowling along the wonderful interface between salt marsh and high ground, with sunlight filtering through the many live oaks, cedars and palmettos.  But what I finally "saw" was the wonderful patterning of the marshwrack, the amazing amalgam of dead stalks of the Spartina alterniflora or Cord grass, the essence of the salt marshes of the South Eastern coast.  The high tide gathers up these dead stalks and deposits them in wonderful rafts  at the high water mark along the banks and higher ground.  There, they eventually break down, aided by the activities of a myriad small crabs and insects, and contribute to the enrichment of the marshes and salt water, nourishing all life in the marshland nurseries.  This marsh wrack was the subject of my next drawing experiment, using metalpoint to follow its rhythms and weavings.  Gold, copper and silver followed the Spartina's patterns,a meditation about life, decay and new developments, both for the marshes and, I hope, for my art.

Delacroix and Nature

It is always encouraging when you read of a great painter in the past expressing what you feel about different subjects.  In this case, Delacroix opining about nature.

I bought a lovely book on Delacroix recently entitled Delacroix, Chevaux et Félins/ Delacroix, Horses and Felines.  Published in 2011 by the Bibliothèque de l'Image in Paris, it is a wonderful selection of Delacroix' watercolours, drawings and paintings of horses and lions, tigers and even domestic cats.  Masterful, vivid, probing and clearly, often, very much working drawings done from life as the animals moved around.  Many of these studies later found their way into major paintings he executed, especially his studies of horses.

What especially resonated with me was the page quoted as an extract from his personal journal, dated Tuesday, 19th January 1847. Delacroix opens by stating that the "Cabinet" of natural history is open to the public on Tuesdays and Fridays - in other words, he goes to visit the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.  He joyfully lists all the amazing selection of animals to be seen there, both alive and stuffed, from elephants and rhinos to lamas or bison, and even the famous giraffe given to Charles X of France by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1827 which was, by 1847, still there in stuffed glory.

Delacroix then goes on to muse, in his journal entry for that day's visit, about the emotions he experienced.  "What could cause the emotion that I experienced at the sight of all this?  Perhaps that I was taken out of the pedestrian ideas that form my world, away from the street that bounds my universe. How necessary it is to shake oneself from time to time, to stick one's head outside, to try to read from the natural world, which has nothing at all in common with our cities and with the work of men. Definitely, this view I experienced made me feel better and more tranquil."

Delacroix loved watching all the animals he drew and painted - he got to know their movements, their attitudes, their characteristics.  He even drew their skeletons and skinned bodies to learn better how to portray them. His depictions of their movements and essence are full of vigour and passion, excitement and wonder. His studies are as fresh today as if they were executed yesterday. To my eye, as so often happens, that vigour and immediacy is however often lost when he uses those studies in his large oil paintings. 

Watercolour study of a cat's head, c. 1824-29, E. Delacroix, (image courtesy of the Louvre)

An amazing series of lead pencil studies of lionesses, E. Delacroix

Brown ink study of a lioness, E. Delacroix, (image courtesy of the Frick Collection)

Young tiger playing with its Mother, from a lead pencil drawing that is very similar., oil on canvas, E. Delacroix, (Image courtesy of the Louvre)

Study of a horse, Eugene Delacroix

A study of a horse that shows Delacroix' probing eye.

The delight that Delacroix experienced from aspects of Nature is an emotion that I can relate to very easily. The endless fascination and wonder that is there for one to observe and learn about does indeed appear as soon as one steps out into the natural world.