Cycladic figure in a Quebec Landscape

 

This is one of those drawings that happens and then you look at it and say, "whoa!" Now, I'll definitely explore this further.

I've been crazy about Cycladic art since my undergraduate days. Some of these sculptures are only heads, some are seated and a few are doing something, like playing a lyre, but most are like this one - standing female figures. Though a few are as large as 1.5m, most are small, maybe 12-24 inches in height. Dating from 3200-2300 BC, they were made thousands of years before the great period we think of as the height of Greek art, in the 5th century BC. In their minimalist style, carved from bone-white stone, they seem very modern, but there's some evidence that they were originally brightly painted; scholars disagree about whether the figures had a votive significance or not, though the earliest ones, closer to the Neolithic, definitely had the exaggerated hips and breasts of fertility idols.(The Late Neolithic ("New Stone Age") period ended around 3600 BC, when the Bronze Age began.)

I don't own a reproduction figurine, though I'd like one, but yesterday I was looking at a photo of one that I had taken years ago in the British Museum. Because I've also been working on various techniques for creating white lines on a colored field, and decided to sketch the figurine -- but it drew itself as lifesize in a Quebec landscape.

This is just fast-applied acrylic, drawn upon with a white gel pen. I made a mistake in drawing the shoulders and knees of the figure - both should be a bit more balanced and relaxed. However, that's not the point of what was happened in this drawing.

Comments

[Hannah Stephenson]

I love this one.

[Jean]

I love this too! I fell in love with these figures at the Cycladic Art Museum in Athens - http://www.cycladic.gr/ - and brought home a reproduction. Don't know why they are so endlessly evocative, but they are. I love the red and the slight playing down of the stylisation - that unsettling bit closer to a realistic figure - in your drawing.

[Marja-Leena]

Fascinating, I don't know enough about these figures. I love your drawing and did not notice any mistakes!! Will now go check out Jean's link...

[Beth]

Thanks, all of you! Jean, that's a fantastic link, I wish I could be there right now! I love the small vessels and animal figures, too.