MA Drawing for Concept Art Learning Outcomes: Emotional response to 'On Seeing the Elgin Marbles', by John Keats.

My spirit is too weak—mortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,

And each imagined pinnacle and steep

Of godlike hardship tells me I must die

Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.

Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep

Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye.

Such dim-conceived glories of the brain

Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;

So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,

That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude

Wasting of old time—with a billowy main—

A sun—a shadow of a magnitude.

John Keats

This poem was created, as the title reveals, as a response to seeing the Elgin Marbles, and seeks to recreate the conflicting emotions that arise when in the presence of great art. In itself the poem is a work of art, so Keats is effectively passing that emotion on to the reader through its description and through the act of reading it. Keats writes that the feeling is 'indescribable', as our appreciation for the beauty and skill of the art mixes with a feeling of insignificance and futility - though our 'dim' minds can produce these things, even they, through their slow decay, become symbols of the relentless march of time. Whereas the observer himself is doomed to see an even shorter passage of time before death. But the artist is more powerful than others, as his creations will live on the longest, even if he is barely able to comprehend the marvel of his own creation - like a 'sick eagle looking at the sky'.

Our relationship to the 'sublime' is the complicated feeling that Keats describes. For me, that feeling arises not only in the presence of great art but also (and maybe more readily) in the presence of nature. The two features which never fail to give me that feeling are trees and the sky.

first concepts

relevant life drawing:

life drawing for tree nymph character

tree study

Textures used to create final concepts/final pieces, made previously:

white powder paint texture

mixed media texture 1

mixed media texture 2

mixed media texture 3

merged textures as base for initial colour concepts

colour concepts created on Photoshop.

Brian Froud and Alan Lee's use of natural imagery, and particularly roots and trees, was very inspiring for this project. Textures can also be used effectively to recreate the random shapes found in nature.

this picture by Brian Froud captures the imagination with its intertwining stems and veiny leaves

Alan Lee's use of dark and light in this interpretation of the character of Merlin makes every twig stand out from its background

inspiring creature concepts by Brian Froud

Before Keats standing in awe before the Elgin Marbles, there were Northern European cultures (and others further afield - for a full picture visit http://www.greenmanenigma.com/theories.html) taking trees as a symbol of the sublime. This makes the figure of the Green Man the obvious personification of the natural sublime, and thus my choice for a character to feature in one of the pieces.