Portraits

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Frank Petty Holton (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Walter Barker

Abstract: The subject of this thesis is the portrait. The portraits are painted objectively, derived directly from nature. I chose several young persons and several older ones so that I could paint some different types. The people are sitting. The pose is about waist length or less, the head turned to the right or left - one a profile. And the expressions are relaxed ones. To isolate the person a few inches of space are left between the shoulders and the canvass edge. They wear simple garments, colored white or beige. The simplicity and absence of accessories enables me to concentrate on the head and the space that it occupies. The people posed in my studio, which gave me a constant source of light and background color. Except for the painting of my father which was done at night under artificial light, all posed in natural light. I use light to illuminate the form rather than to build it. Objectivity led me to study not only the surface appearance of the head but its anatomical structure as well. I purchased a life sized skull model and with the aid of an anatomy text laid on the muscles in clay over the plastic. I had read that Eakins did this in a class at the Philadelphia academy. A pre-med friend told me that in one of his classes at Wake Forest an anatomist laid clay muscles over a human skeleton.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1974

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