mydayatthemet - Tumblr blog

[mydayatthemet]

the dead rat and the epiphany

while on my walk back to my apartment and away from the met i saw this dead rat under a bridge. something about the way its skin has aged to a blue color fascinated me. the way its bones and organs are seen as its skin folds around them caused an epiphany that i will have to explore more during this exploration - skin condition is temporary and ever-changing. while one ages their skin will lose elasticity, it might gain more folds and wrinkles, they might even gain some spots and blemishes from the sun and other factors. why do we choose to decorate our skin ? is it to try to immortalize an image or word that means a lot to us ? is it so others will perceive us a certain way ? is it to cover scars or stretch marks or other markings we gain throughout our lifetime ? when people have found mummified persons, such as otzi the iceman, there have been identifications and personalized markings found to be preserved, such as tattoos. these markings have transcended time and we can see that decoration on skin has been a practice since the beginning of time. however, most humans after death do not have preserved skin, most of us that choose to decorate our skin will find that sometime after death our skin will disappear altogether. is this something that inspires us to decorate our bodies while we're alive ?

[mydayatthemet]

before i left the met i wanted to check out ancient egyptian manuscripts and typography. i knew this would be a great source of inspiration, and another way of looking at lettering through different mediums - type as ink and type as three dimensional shapes. i wanted to look at two types of three dimensional type as well - one subtractive process, whereby the artist removed material to create dimensional letters - and one additive process, whereby the artist etched into the material to create letters through the absence of material. this subtractive/additive processes reminded me of the difference between branding/piercings and tattooing. branding creates scars and the image or text burned into the skin creates a dimensional scar that comes out of one's skin - and piercings serve as decorative jewelry that is placed into skin and then is seen protruding out.

[mydayatthemet]

the way these different artist portrayed skin interested me greatly. along two different mediums - sculpture and painting - these artists had their own ways of representing human skin and anatomy. what i admired the most was the way which these artists emulated the folds, flexibility and concavity of skin, especially in the form of sculpture. taking such a strong material like marble and making it look soft and full of organs and bones.

[mydayatthemet]

sketching this less intricately than the previous piece, i focused more on composition and shapes than accuracy and completion. i more or less followed along with the shapes and curves of the piece and then moved to light/shadow contrast. this contrast reminded me of black/white tattooing, the way that skin is used as a contrast to heavy black ink. i enjoyed sketching this piece and focusing my attention to saturation and the organic manner of the shapes found in the work.

[mydayatthemet]

christmas eve and new year

this work by theodorus van hoytema reminded me of tattoo art, especially with its use of dark/light contrast. i mainly focused on the christmas eve work on the left, its composition interested me, and the way all the subjects in the work melt into each other was visually appealing. van hoytema, a dutch designer, is a prominent figure in the history of 19th century art. i imagined the process that he underwent to create these works, and the clear influence of japanese art appealed to me in the sense that his art was universal and transcended the styles that were popular in the netherlands during this time. i am currently taking a class on dutch art, so i wanted to incorporate this newfound curiosity into my discovery of the connection between skin and art. despite the borders that he includes in both pieces, this work reminded me a lot of the popular shapes of tattoos you often see. i also feel that borders in tattoo design have become a popular design lately, whether it's because someone has chosen to put a piece of art (that typically has a rectangular border as composition), or because it creates an antithesis to the curve and lack of two-dimensionality of human skin. furthermore, like the art of van hoytema which was inspired by a foreign nation's art style, tattoos as collections often transcend styles and artists. many people do not get tattooed by the same person more than once, and because of this different styles can be found on the body of a tattoo collector.

[mydayatthemet]

each letter began to take on a personality as i focused my gaze upon them. i especially loved the way eekman wrote the letter "e" and the "u" in "illusie". the more time i spent sketching, the more i tried to sketch the way eekman's hand must have moved while etching these letters into the woodblocks. i also really loved the typography of the numbers, i thought they were beautiful and a good way of using up the vertical composition of the page.

[mydayatthemet]

dance of death in seven tempos

this work by nicolas eekman was the next work to catch my eye. once again the artist's signature was wonderful to analyze and observe, but this work seemed to represent typography in the way that interested me. this was a print made through woodcuts, the artist etched the material into the woodblock and then transferred this onto paper using black ink. this work is a series of images, but the last of the images was my favorite. the unique typography left me in awe and i knew i wanted to familiarize myself with each letter component by sketching them carefully, attempting to capture the essence of each individual letter. typography in tattoos was a much later phenomenon in the history of tattoos. thanks to the letterpress machine, literacy rates went up significantly in the 16th century. tattoos began with imagery, but in the modern world we see people permanently commemorate words and phrases using their skin.

i myself have some typography on my skin to memorialize some of my favorite literature. the fonts one chooses is another intentional decision, whether for aesthetic or representational reasons, people who decide to get a typographic tattoo can place just as much emphasis on the typeface as they do the phrase or word. the blocky nature of these letters attracted me to this work and as i sketched the work of eekman i found myself appreciating more and more layers of the typeface.

[mydayatthemet]

one of the first works to catch my eye was this lithographic print by vincent van gogh. i had no idea he had produced prints during his career so i was excited to see this recent acquisition. i admired his signature placed on the lower left hand of the work the longest, i enjoy looking at typography through a personal lens. this was handwritten by van gogh - his way of claiming a work his. i especially admired the way he curved the "v" in his name. looking at the signatures artists place on their works never fails to fascinate me, the way we can see as a viewer the way which they wrote their own name is personal and as a lover of typography, inspiring. the image itself was striking too, the heavy etchings and linework reminded me of the way tattoos are shaded and delineated.

[mydayatthemet]

i made my way to the prints section of the met - my theory is that the printing on paper that we have been accustomed to for many centuries is in a way a precursor to the phenomenon we see today. the idea of etching emulates the act of placing ink in one’s skin. the idea of creating a stencil of sorts is similar to the practice done before initiating a tattoo. i hoped to find works that reminded me of the art many place on their bodies permanently. my focus was to be split into three directions - typography, design, and skin - either something that connected skin to type/design or at least a representation of skin created through any medium.

[mydayatthemet]

[mydayatthemet]

tuesday september 13th 2022:

today i visited the metropolitan museum of art in nyc. i went searching for works that reminded me of the relationship between skin and art - whether design or typography. where did art on skin come from ? and what techniques predating our modern society - that has popularized tattoos and body modifications - set up the course for this new reality ?