ART222
Studio
Lighting
ART 222: Studio Lighting
Project 3: Vanitas Assignment
Preface: History of Vanitas Style
“... one generation dies,
Another in its place shall rise;
That, sinking soon into the grave,
Others succeed, like wave on wave.”
- Excerpt from 'Vanitas Vanitatum,
Omnia Vanitas' by Anne Bronte - (1845)
Vanitas, ( Latin , "vanity" ) in art, a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. A vanitas painting contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of
death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. The vanitas evolved from simple pictures of skulls and other symbols of death and transience frequently painted on the reverse sides of portraits during the lateRenaissance.
It had acquired an independent status by c. 1550 and by 1620 had become a popular genre. Its development until its decline about 1650 was centred in Leiden, in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, an important seat of Calvinism, which emphasized humanity’s total depravity and advanced a rigid moral code.
Although a few vanitas pictures include figures, the vast majority are pure still lifes, containing certain standard elements: symbols of arts and sciences (books, maps, and musical instruments), wealth and power (purses, jewelry, gold objects), and earthly pleasures (goblets, pipes, and playing cards); symbols of death or transience (skulls, clocks, burning candles, soap bubbles, and flowers); and, sometimes, symbols of resurrection and eternal life (usually ears of corn or sprigs of ivy or laurel).
The earliest vanitas pictures were sombre, somewhat monochromatic compositions of great power, containing only a few objects (usually books and a skull) executed elegance and precision. As the century progressed, other elements were included, the mood lightened, and the palette became diversified. Objects
were often tumbled together in disarray, suggesting the eventual overthrow of the achievements they represent.
Somewhat ironically, the later vanitas paintings became largely a pretext for meticulous virtuosity in the rendering of varied textures and surfaces,but the artistic quality of the genre in no sense declined. Several of the greatest Dutch still-life painters, including David Bailly, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Willem Claesz Heda, Pieter Potter, and Harmen and Pieter van Steenwyck, were masters of the vanitas still life, and the influence of the genre can be seen in the iconography and technique of other contemporary painters, including Rembrandt.
In contrast, today some would say all photographs are a kind of Vanitas. For at their base each image is about impermanence and impending change. All imagery tracks a fragment of time that when captured then fades and passes from the moment of its birth. Very much like the symbolic imagry that a "Vanitas" image is trying to provoke.
Then take into account the added factor that a photograph, unlike a etching or painting, makes a record upon its 2 dimensional surface more accurate then any human hand could render. Not to menchion the power in the abilty to make as many copies as possible. You then have a very powerful medium to the sharing visual ideas
and this was just at photography's inception in the 1830's.
Now add 175 plus years of time that has passed that additional industrial proceses and technical advancement photography has made since light was first sucessfully captured. Plus the digital revolution of the past 20+ years. Thus the photographic image's existance has not only been one of constant presence in our lives but now is sought out by us via electronic signal, instantly by on demand.
Photography, Vanitas, and Still Life
Through it all, what is facinating is that the ideas created durring the Renaissance of Vanitas, points to human connection that has roots that go far deeper back in time to our current perdicament that it's imagry provokes. We all contemplate our existance (consciously or unconsciously). What hasn't changed through all of these technological advancements is this same delema that faces all of us. It has only been amplified.
Below are 3 artists: Adam Fuss, Ori Gersht and Robert Maplethorpe who's work touches the same thematic sybolic meaning as the historical Vanitas.
Project 3: Vanitas Assignment (2 strobe) Instructions
Use Vanitas to style your group’s own still life on studio table.
Consider the short discussion presented in class plus the ideas/readings above to come up with objects and materials that would best express this photographically in the studio.
Then Using skills introduced in class produce imagery that shows:
1 Point Light (exposure with 1 strobe head)
2 Point Light (exposure with 2 strobe heads) Showing 1:1 ratio even lighting
2 Point Light (exposure with 2 strobe heads) Showing 1:2 ratio uneven lighting
Producing 3 images (.raw files) total. Then post the 3 images as a converted .jpeg onto your new wix.com website. Also on the site include a brief written statement that expresses your groups ideas about the created Vanitas still life.
Bring the .raw files shot into class to be handed in.
- Check out 2 White Lightning Mono Head (800watt only), radio slaves with stands and sand bags. Set up background, plywood table, saw horses, camera, tripod and set up subject-matter, props, materials.
- Bring props and other materials to studio for creative exploration of an idea or “theme” around the Vanitas assignment.
- Capture images that show successful use of ratio lighting showing directional Key light / Secondary light
- Paying attention to composition, aspects of light and exposure.
- Jobs should be rotated so each member of the group is able to shoot, light and set up.
- Download and edit images produced keeping them in their Raw format. To be handed in
digital form next class.
RE-READ: Chapter 1+2 of Light Science & Magic