Art Design Web: The Growth of a Work of Art

The Growth of a Work of Art

By Lorenz Eitner, Stanford University, 1961.

There are a number of basic stages through which most works of art must pass. In the beginning, the work is an "idea" - an image in the artist's mind. This does not mean that every artist clearly "sees" his work with his mind's eye before beginning to draw, paint or sculpt.

Sometimes, indeed, an artist does have a mental image so clear, so precise and complete, that in executing the work he appears to be merely copying his idea. More often, the first idea is fairly vague and fragmentary. It may only consist of a "mood" which clamors for some form of expression. It may be a certain effect of shape or of color which naggingly presents itself over and over again to his imagination. In any case, this first, purely mental stage in the creation of a work of art is accompanied by a sense of stress, an impatient, irresistible appetite for productive exertion. The artist is pregnant with his work; it may seem to him a separate, active being, clamoring for life.

It is this experience which has caused some artists to feel that they were carrying out the dictates of some superior force beyond their control, that "divine inspiration" was acting through them to create the work of art.

There is no fixed procedure for making a work of art. Some artists work slowly and methodically, others improvise. But every work of art is the result of some sort of planning, some sort of foresight and method. In the past, artists followed the main steps outlined below; in the present, some artists have abbreviated the process and done away with some of the preliminaries.

While developing the composition, the artist will usually explore individual details which he intends to incorporate in it. In the case of paintings, this might take the form of series of studies after posing models, separate studies of heads, hands, draperies and bits of landscape setting. Some artists accumulate large bodies of detail sketches by way of

Figure Study: Two Women, crayon N. Maes, Figure Study: Lady With Umbrella. Crayon. Seurat - French
Dutch, mid-17th century circa 1885

documentation and to refresh their visual imagination. Often, only a small fraction of these will be used in the final work.

FINAL EXECUTION

Having fully prepared himself in the course of these preliminaries, the artist begins the final execution of his work. The architect will supervise the construction of his building, based on exact plans and models. The sculptor will translate his drawings and clay sketches into stone or metal and give them the dimensions for which they were planned. The painter will transfer his composition to canvas or wall. The work destined to be seen by the public now begins to take shape.

But this work owes its character to many earlier experiments and studies which the public will probably never see. As you look at a finished painting, you see only the final surface which conceals all these earler efforts, the sketches, studies and compositional designs which led up to it. The work as finally executed may reflect these earlier stages, or it may make a selection from them, discarding many tentative notions, simplifying the entire conception of the work, or suddenly changing it altogether. Even in the final execution of the fully planned composition, sweeping changes may still be introduced by way of afterthought.

By Lorenz Eitner, Stanford University, 1961.

The Growth of a Work of Art

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