Creating Sans Titre – 01-05-18 (Scarlett Johansson)

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/sans-titre-01-05-18/
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Scarlett Johansson Meets Vermeer

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Sans Titre – 01-05-18’ depicts American actress and celebrity Scarlett Johansson. She is starring in a movie about Vermeer’s life called ‘The Girl with the Pearl Earring’. Hence I turned to Vermeer himself and tried my skills on this old master. However, a reference to old masters is great but this is the 21st century. Therefor a more modern approach was needed instead of sheer copying or mimicking old masters.

Tonal Challenges

Well, my feeling for tonality could match Johannes’ skills and therefor my Roundism style is a nice addition. So I though but actually that prooved to be a tall order. My very aim was to offer viewers a sort of a 17th century experience. At the same time I didn’t want my geometric abstractions become the dominant theme like in other drawings. There was a problem to tackle though. Do these classic executions exclude possibilities for my style of cubism per definition? 17th century chiaroscuro artworks usually show a light main theme against a dark background. Could it be that these darkened up areas don’t allow geometric shapes to stand out to their advantage? To me it seemed it’s either classic clairobscur or only geometrics or is it?

The Solution

Maybe so but I felt like having the cake and eat it at the same time. The goal was to have geometrics support the main theme, not overpowering it. Looking back I’m not sure how I solved the puzzle but I think I did. The circular patterns around the nose, mouth and eyes aren’t very commanding yet they are key in defining them. The very thing I was looking for! Some darker blocks in the negative space with only a slight variety between tonal distances. All-in-all, the drawing stays even more abstracted than it lets on at first glance. Did I managed to marry both? Well, it’s different from my previous graphite pencil drawing ‘Sans Titre – 21-04-18’ depicting Catherine Deneuve. This one tends more to realism but secretly is full of cubism. A nice experiment although I felt like walking on the brink this time.

Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Canson Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) - A4 format)
Artist: Corné Akkers