Ode to Tamara de Lempicka – 31-03-22

One of the Great Masters

This oil is an ode to Tamara de Lempicka and why not? Since I haven’t enjoyed a formal training I had to learn directly from all great masters. Surely I consider her to be one because she developed a distinct style to call her own. Everyone who did deserves my full attention in the first place. Her specific style is characterized by a great rhythym in hefty tonal differences in the first place. Second comes the smooth tonal gradient in one particular subform.

Her Influence

Even though the latter was not my aim in this painting I still consider this to be an ode to Tamara. That is because I was bound to do her honor one time or sooner. The isolated pockets of dark tonal regions was the reason to call it an ode. In retrospective the initial drawing ‘Nude 19-07-15 – 2’ reminded me to her work throughout the years. Strange to discover one’s influence on your own work. Especially when you are not aware of it. This having said, the straightness and the total lack of round shapes in this work is not what corresponds to her work. Nevertheless, a tribute in a world where the love for the craft from an artistic point of view seems lost.

Struggles with the Color Sceme

This is the second one in my latest of oil paintings after Risque – 17-02-22 in which I used only straight forms. No conscious choise though because I happen to put all great drawings from the past into oil. It was just this one’s turn. Setting up the forms was not very difficult because that is just a matter of copying the forms I already got. They were great, even after 7 years and I didn’t want to change them much. However, putting a color scheme together proved to be difficult. I struggled with it for the last days until this morning when I looked back at my previous oil ‘Kali – 23-03-22’. I realized I had to do the highlights in lilac close to the yellow parts. That did the trick once more. Strange to see a translation of a graphite pencil drawing into colour after all these years.

Oil on linen (60 x 80 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers