Tag: portrait

Nude modeling (young woman), charcoal drawing by William Eaton

Letter to a young model

What makes a good artists’ model a good model? An aspect or mood of the model speaking to an aspect or mood of the artist? And what’s in the model’s head or heart matters more than any physical forms, however unclothed? Not to ignore the advantages of bad models and bad moods! Short text accompanied by images from William Eaton’s drawings, and with a closing text adapted from Rilke (on the marriage of model and artist?).

Charcoal portrait with body in light gray, by William Eaton

The Black Model, Portraits, Naming and Renaming

Comments and translation regarding the renaming of Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s “Portrait d’une négresse”, a.k.a. “Portrait de Madeleine.” This as regards the show “Le modèle noir de Géricault à Matisse” (Musée d’Orsay), earlier known as “Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today.” The comments also touch on Degas’s “Petite Danseuse” and work by Thomas Eakins, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and the piece includes charcoal drawings by William Eaton.