For my final, I based my two drawings off a sculpture I saw at the Metropolitan museum, which is the Standing Woman by Lachaise.
I based my first drawing on this photograph I took from the museum because I didn’t have much time to do the drawing from observation.
Lachaise was originally from France but initially moved to Boston after meeting Isabel Dutaud Natale when he was studying at the Academie Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of 20. She was ten years his senior but despite the age difference, he fell madly in love with her and vowed to follow her back to Boston, Massachusetts. Isabel was a French, Canadian descent and was looking at education oversees for her son at the time the two met.
In order for Lachaise to raise enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Boston, he left the Academy and started working as René Lalique’s assistant. In 1905, he left for Boston and dedicated his life to her: by writing her love letters and continuously. She became his muse for his artwork and he often used her body as inspiration for his sculptures.
This sculpture was created between the years 1912 and 1915 when he had already moved to Boston. This was around the time when the city was booming and the population there was even larger than it is now. Even though the environment the artist lives in often influences one’s work, I think Lachaise based most of his work on his wife.
This is the second drawing I did for the assignment:
For the second drawing, we were supposed to create a surreal drawing based off from the historical/inspirations information we researched about the piece we chose at the Met, but because Lachaise’s inspiration for the Standing Woman came purely from his wife, I based this drawing off from her. Here, I emphasised her body by making her legs and arms look like it can be either one. Her breasts can also either be viewed as it is upside down or just in a more abstractive form. Instead of placing her head on her neck, I chose put it where her arm is supposed to be to make it look more like a dream and less realistic.
Montage:
I used three different work that I have done in the past and incorporated into the montage. As my perspective drawing was based off from a view in Boston, I decided to include that in the piece as his work was also done in Boston. I added part of the painting of the still life painting in a box in front to make the piece look like it has more depth as well as add other texture onto the montage as most of the drawings are done in pencil. The figure is also placed there because I think it simultaneously make the montage look realistic and surreal. The colors in the background are based off from where the sun is shining from. Here, I made the sun look like it is shining from behind the front building and so reflects off the building on the left, making the top of the right building dark as it would be where the shadow is.
