Jacques Louis Davids painting technique

[Henrikg]

I recently watched an interesting documentary about Jacques Louis David.
Anyway in this documentary they showed an unfinished painting by David.That is-the whole drawing was finished-it had multiple figures,but he had only painted the figures hands + heads (his favorite parts apparantly)-these parts were finished.To my astonishment he had absolutely no underpainting. I did not know that you could reach that kind of realism with an alla prima technique-I have never seen any of his originals,but it would be interesting indeed.-Though I should share this. Underneath is a similar unfinished painting by David ( taken from artrenewal.org )-But this actually looks even more unfinished (even the painted part).

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h286/Henrikg/DAVID_Jacques_Louis_Portrait_of_Gen.jpg

[P.J.Irwin]

Do you remember the name of the documentary? Sounds like something I would like to hunt down. I would imagine that to achieve that kind of realism, without without first esablishing a unified value structure, JLD would have to have had a great deal of photo-recall ability. I suspect his earlier work would have used some type of painting-aid (is an underpainting an aid? It sure helps me alot.), until his confidence and knowledge were such that it became expedient to just paint directly what he saw. This is very interesting info you have shared with us. THANKS.

My humble repository of suppository art-http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=91362

[DecktillDawn]

Looks like he used an ebauche (local color lay-in, usually thinned with turp) that was scrubbed on for his initial layer. This could be called a type of "underpainting" and you can see it in the shirt in your example. No modeling of form, just large flat masses of color and value. Then he painted into this directly. This was a typical method employed by the French. Look at the unfinished studies of heads by Bouguereau, the "first painting" is visible in the neck and shoulders of most of those as well.

David's execution here is beautifully done and to do so with such ease is obviously the result of years and years of study, though I doubt this was done without detailed drawings of the heads and hands. Or without a model present.

Hope any of this helps.

[Elwell]

Looks like he used an ebauche (local color lay-in, usually thinned with turp) that was scrubbed on for his initial layer. This could be called a type of "underpainting" and you can see it in the shirt in your example. No modeling of form, just large flat masses of color and value. Then he painted into this directly. This was a typical method employed by the French. Look at the unfinished studies of heads by Bouguereau, the "first painting" is visible in the neck and shoulders of most of those as well.

Spot on.

[the_allejo05]

Henrikg, to be able to paint like that, The mastery of perspective and geometry , anatomy and the figurative language of the french academy (based on idealized figures) had to be absorved to the fullest. That meant tons and tons of copying..drawing while painting (that is real painting).. Also having mastered REalism..meaning you did not have any problems interpreting what was in front of you, especially drawing/painting the nude. Remember their visual memory was astonishing ,since they use no cameras, nor any photos. They did have engravings as a guide for subjects not known, (great example is Rubens). Being also surrounded by monumental art all day all night, the sculptures, the architecture was a great help to the artist. Nowadays only metal ,brick and glass with no imagery is pretty Boring. Jacques slowly but surely developed his own style of figures..they are very similar, He usually did finished detailed drawings and then took it to a high finish, very similar to Ingres where Imagination of the artist is most important than copying exactly what you see, like many of todays fine artists do , again Boring.

[dose]

Actually the reason that he had only painted the heads & hands probably had less to do with being his favorite or not, and more with the fact that those would likely be the only parts of the painting he would paint and then hand the rest off to assistants.

[k4pka]

You are surprised at the level of realism that is attainable via alla prima work? May I ask why?

Sargent worked Alla Prima. It is in no way a better or worse way of painting than a layered approach. Im am troubled by your confusion?!?

[Henrikg]

Thanks for the replies!

P.J.Irwin: the documentary was part of a series-it`s called "Simon Schama`s-power of art"(it`s possible to get ahold of it on amazon). All in all it`s probably more interesting for art historians, because it is not particularly about the technique of the painter covered in each episode.

Decktildawn:-thanks alot for your informative answer!It helped alot.But I have some more questions also:-I think it is interesting to see drawn studies done by the masters, and later seeing how they have used these pencil studies as guides for figures in their paintings ( since they obviously did not have cameras, and often not models for the more difficult poses-like e.g:a rearing horse)-Anyway as related to the figures.Is it possible that they used "generic models" under a given light as a replacement for the real subject-which they had drawn beforehand-to get the skin tones right I mean?-Or did they " remember\imagine\create the tones from memory while painting a figure based on a B&W drawing?

TheAllejo: thanks to you too. I agree with the fact the more stylized works of the old masters are indeed more interesting then if they had copyed exactly what they saw.

Dose: I would`nt know but you`re probably right.

k4pka: Dude-no reason to get get all pedantic about it!-The reason why I wrote that it would have been interesting to see one of his originals is that I feel that an alla prima "flat surface" gives indeed a flatter look than a layered piece,but I could be wrong,because JLD pics do not look flat at all -but they`re only reproductions.Another note is that I have never earlier noticed anyone getting these kind of results with an alla prima technique-the difficulty level is astonishing.On the other hand I might be linking alla prima to the impressionists to a too big degree.