Influences part 21: Rene Gruau

I first mentioned the work of Rene Gruau as an influence when I published Painting 1 of my 12fp(s) film-inspired painting series.


Gruau is a graphic illustrator with a minimal yet very bold visual style that I find really appealing.
I think that to a great extent the quality of his work speaks for itself, so rather than write a whole load of text, here's a few samples of his work to do the same job much quicker:



I'm posting the work of Rene Gruau as an influence just now because I'm finding the simplicity of his work really inspiring while I work on a female portrait painting based on a beautiful photograph with soft texture and colour. I originally wanted to paint the portrait in a style closely influenced by the 100 year old illustrations of Arthur Rackham, and although this is still my intention, I think Rackham's style will be too rough and may spoil the simplicity of the portrait, hence why I am also looking at the work of Gruau...

Related links:
- www.renegruau.com
- Rene Gruau: Capturing the look of Parisian chic. Veronica Horwell, The Guardian newspaper, 15 April 2004.
- Rene Gruau images at CyanaTrendLand.com

12fp(s) - painting 11

A very everyday/conventional looking scene from an American film director commonly associated with Expressionism, black comedy, and very odd characters...

I chose this particular shot over any of the more typical and Expressionistic shots from the film because I felt that this image had a faint sense of Edward Hopper about it (like several of my other paintings in this series), and I also thought that if my painting depicted a more recognisable scene from the film then its story would distract from my painted image.

12fp(s) - painting 10 [SOLD]

This is a painting of one of my favourite films (released in 1964), directed by one of my favourite directors.
This iconic dance scene (where the three protagonists dance The Madison in a Paris cafe for almost 4 undisturbed minutes of film), is just one of many stunning set-pieces in this classic Nouvelle Vague film - and it later inspired the Jack Rabbit Slim's dance scene in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994).

While watching this film scene, I rarely ever notice the background or cafe setting because the dance is so fun and beguiling - so my attention is always on the three characters. To reflect this I wanted my painting to subtly describe the background while the three characters grab our focus.
Some people may consider this painting unfinished as a result of the unpainted background, but I think this simplified style is very graphic and illustrative, which makes the painting effective for achieving my aims. And anyway, painting shouldn't always be about strongly recreating reality - especially when film and photography to do it much quicker and better.

12fp(s) - painting 9 [SOLD]

Going right back to basics [ie: 12fp(s) - Painting 1] with this painting: French film, 1960s, 2 characters, very similar colour scheme...
And it has, to a considerable extent, worked.

There are a few little things I could complain about, but for once I'm just going to accept the painting as it is and be happy with it!