Expressionist figure painting

On Friday we will look at how our painting impacts the audience by the use of colour and design. By the 20th century many painters were no longer interested in the classical representation of the human body for its own sake and wanted to update the genre to fit into new ideas around colour expression and design. This seems unlikely subject matter for Bonnard but his hallmark use of strong colour contrast is in evidence.

We have concentrated a lot on volume and blocking during the course but it would be good to broaden our visual vocabulary by combining it with the use of line. In this example by Edvard Munch he seems to be using it to separate the figure who's legs would otherwise disappear into the background.

In fact it's hard to tell if the figure or the background are telling more of the story here or whether they are excuses for the painter to play with different combinations of colour, line and texture. Ludwig Kirchner below.

We won't be adding another layer of complexity into painting the human figure but rather giving more space for an intuitive approach to colours and forms, even at the expense of an accurate rendering of the human figure.

It would be a good idea to think about a palette of colours that you might like to use on Friday so that there is some more room to express mood through colour choice.