Contextual essay- first draft

Contextual essay- Cerys Hughes

I have chosen to look at John Russel’s work because of the detailed moon drawing/paintings. John Russel was famously known as the finest British pastel artist of his time, He mainly concentrated on portraiture however once he found the moon he changed portraits of human faces to the face of the moon which was a big step from the normal portrait you would see in the 1700s. Here is a piece john Russell’s work the name of the piece is ‘the Face of the Moon’ it was created in 1793 it took him 20 years to create because of the scale and accuracy he had to fulfill. The medium used to create this was pastels, to create these drawings as realistic as he could he made his own collection of crayons which matched the colours of what he saw through telescope. This piece of art is very large the height is 607mm and the width is 454mm. This was purchased 1957. Personally, I really love this piece because of the detail in it, nobody has gone so far to create the moon on such a large scale because of how challenging it is to create. I really like how the backgrounds jet black and the moon just pops out compared to his sketches, it really shows out the detail more.

The colours in this piece really go well together the grey and white compliment themselves, they are not to flashy just enough whiteness. During this time people where finding planets, his friend found Uranus and he must have been influenced to look at the moon in a way nobody else has and change how we see the moon. John Russel helped the scientist of his age with these studies to understand the moon more because they didn’t have the technology to go to the moon therefore these where the only evidence of how the moon looked and it was revolutionary.

In the piece of work there are no definitive shapes and lines just natural marks on the moon. Personally, I think that the piece is equally balanced there isn’t too much black and he has proportioned it perfectly to what needs to be the centre of attention. I think it’s amazing how much detail he put in his drawing when he could only see it through his telescope, he would have been multi-tasking on looking at the moon in detail before putting any mark down.

To start this process of creating this final piece john did a series of sketched of the moon to understand it more even though these are just starting point sketched they are highly detailed but I’m sure he needed these sketched to be highly detailed so he could refer to these when needed to create his large piece.

Personally, I haven’t used the same techniques as the large scale final piece although I have sketched ideas and made observational drawings just like John Russell has done just to get to know the subject/object you are drawing and understand what you are looking at and get use to the shapes and curves in it. In his piece, it has been very thought out on the placement of the moon and the darkness coming over. The piece gives it and eerie look and I really like how easy it was for me to think it was quite freaky because we always associate full moons with Halloween or when the wolves are out. However, his quick sketches are equally amazing because even if there quick they are still detailed however spreaded out much more just for John to understand the shapes and get use to the moons quirks. John Russel chose to black out some of the moon because personally to him it showed it off the best. The face of the moon has no human ‘face’ and has no hint of man and this made people think in this time how the moon had a face? Why did john russel call it the face of the moon? John russel portrayed the moon because to him the moon was ‘this beautiful object’The words I would associate with this piece are aesthetic, dark and eerie, mellow and relaxing. I feel like this piece will leave a lasting impression on anyone who will see because of the scale and the detail in this piece it will take you to another world and feel like you are there. If i was trying to create the mood john was trying to convey I would create a full version of all the planets but make them black and white instead of colourful just to let people’s minds imagine situations that might happen in my painting. I could re-create some sketched but of my own studies. To me John Russel has found his main aim he dedicated himself to his moon studies.