Anders Zorn depicts such beautiful fleshy figures in both his etchings and oil paintings. His etchings, in comparison to his paintings, add a great sense of dramatic lighting with the use of darks and a wonderful understanding of line in establishing forms. Particularly, the etching of the nude figure entering the water displays his vast understanding of line and light. The figure appears soft, under the lighting of the sun without harsh shadows in comparison to the dark water with light dancing off of it in the ripples she creates. In his paintings, Zorn is able to establish such wonderfully believable figures. The muscle and fat beneath their skins takes such a presence. Through his limited palette (Titanium white, ivory black, vermillion (cadmium red), and yellow ochre), the colours appear very balanced playing between warm and cool. In some paintings there is the introduction of blues and greens much more vibrant than those that can be produced in his limited palette. In this case he often introduced cerulean blue and viridian. His understanding of form and light is impeccable as well as his interplay between soft and hard edges. He is truly a master of his craft and an artist often sought after in learning technique and application of paint. I have recently ventured into attempting his limited palette and was quite pleased with the outcome. I'd suggest making a colour chart if anyone else would like to dabble into Zorn's genius. I found that the limited colours pushed towards a more unified palette and a greater understanding of the cool vs. warm colours within the painting. The ivory black is a quite cool colour and the cadmium red is very warm. The earthy yellow ochre is a wonderful addition to draw the warmth out of the red or add to the black in order to produce dark shades of green. (The link I used to create my colour chart as well as get the palette information for the blog post is this... http://michaellynnadams.com/zorn-palette/)
Happy painting if you choose to explore!
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