Monday, April 29, 2019

40 Maîtres contemporains du PORTRAIT - Pratique des Arts, le livre 2019

Jef Cablog is one of the 40 chosen artists from all over the world (in fact, the only one from the Philippines) included in the book, 40 Contemporary Great Masters of PORTRAIT PAINTING -The definitive 2019 book, published by Diverti Editions, the publisher of Pratique des Arts Magazine based in France. He is also one of the three artists whose works are on the book cover.





This book offers you an insight into portrait painting through the art of 40 great artists who truly are masters of the genre. Whether in oil, pastel, watercolour or acrylic, on monumental or more intimate formats, delve into their masterpieces.

- 180 pages of masterpieces by some of today’s best painters.
- Bilingual version: French and English.

CONTENTS:
Historical Portfolio: Portraiture is one of the painting genres that has always fascinated artists the most. Let’s take a look back at five centuries of masterpieces…

DRAWING : Zimou Tan, Kate Zambrano, Amaya Gurpide, William Wu, Zin Lim

SELF PORTRAIT: Warren Chang, Lee Price, David Leffel, Michael DeVore, Gregory Mortenson

REALISM: Luca Indraccolo, James Lloyd, Stephanie Deshpande, Serge Marshennikov

TOWARDS ABSTRACTION: Jef Cablog, Benjamin Björklund

OIL PAINTING: Jie Gao, Ian Cumberland, Kyle Stuckey, Nicole Michelle Tully, Jennifer McChristian

PASTEL PAINTING: Sophie Burbaloff, Cuong Nguyen, Timothy Stotz, Denis Jacques, Alexandre Granger, George Dawnay

WATERCOLOUR PAINTING: Mary Whyte, Liu Yi, Stephen Zhang, Stan Miller

OTHER MEDIUMS: Roberta Coni, Anna Dittmann, Robin-Lee Hall

Oscar Wilde once wrote that every portrait that is painted with feeling is in fact a self-portrait, because it reveals part of the artist’s identity. In fact, when painting or sculpting a model, artists are actually choosing to portray a part of themselves. In this book we have tried, above and beyond questions of style and different means of expression, to provide a snapshot of current artistic creation. By lifting the veil on an entire area of painting, our wish was to give you an overview of the practice of portraiture in every size, shape and colour. Although their styles and objectives may differ, the artists we have selected all share a certain attachment to and a deep respect for tradition, some opting to go against it and others to play with it. It is true that portraiture is a well-established genre. If we look back to the famous Fayum portraits painted in Roman Egypt during the first century of our era, nearly 2,000 years of faces look back at us over the centuries. We also wanted to honour these masters of the past, but with works that are just as striking today. That’s why you’ll find, for your pleasure, a portfolio with the paintings and drawings of Da Vinci, Rubens, Van Gogh (or on a much more recent note Anders Zorn) to name but a few. An entire chapter is devoted to the major mediums with masters of the genre who put oil, pastel and watercolour in the spotlight. Of course, we haven’t neglected drawing, other techniques such as egg tempera and acrylic, nor contemporary digital practices. We also wanted to pay tribute to all those artists who have embarked on the ambitious task of self-portraiture - either as a challenge or for practical reasons - by dedicating an entire chapter to the genre. Above all, we hope that this book will make you aware of the great vitality of contemporary art in general and portraiture in particular. If there is one message that all the artists assembled here offer us, it is that portrait painting has a bright future ahead of it. Here’s hoping you will enjoy reading this as much as we did writing it!

--Laurent Benoist

TO GET A COPY OF THE BOOK: