LEUNG Pui Yin (Rita) talks on Pettibon's "No Title(Some Of The)" 1999

1.     Introduction of the drawing

This picture is an illustration or a visual journal that drawn by Raymond Pettibon in 1999. The medium of the picture is ink and pen on paper.

Raymond Pettibon is a famous modern illustrator as well as artist in America. He is well known of ink wash drawings and their signature combination of figurative images and short, enigmatic texts. “His drawings always include texts, sometimes weirdly connected to the imagery but often providing baffling non sequiturs.”⁽¹⁾

Before I read a book called Reymond Pettibon which is wrote by Robert Storr, Dennis Cooper and Ulrich Loock, I think that the purpose of this drawing is pointing out some personal understanding and feeling from Raymond, or Raymond drawn some pictures to present the quotation, since Raymond had wrote down the following sentence under the image “Some of the Ancients through the World would have an end; which is a kind of dying upon its Nativity.” This sentence leads me think that it should be related to the image and the purpose of drawing this picture. However, there is an interview of Raymond in the book that I mentioned before, Raymond said that, the text in his works is related to the image, but the text is not the quotation from others books, the text he wrote down on the picture is his personal response from the reading as well as news, television, and music, everything around his live.⁽²⁾
In this drawing, the text is quoted from Browne, Thomas “A Letter to a Friend”⁽³⁾, so, I guess that this drawing is used to response the text quoted.

But there is another thing that interested me, “Raymond pointed out that his work is not really an illustration because he through that illustrations whose art is reliant on draughtsmanship or drawing what the writing describes while his work is only his personal interest and self-representation.”⁽⁴⁾

2.     Detail description of the drawing

Most of the people think that, line is one if the important elements in drawing. This picture does not present clearly how lines were taking place in traditional way. In people mind, the traditional process of drawing a picture is marking the outline of the picture first, and then put on some color insides the “limits” created by lines. In another words, shape is created by lines, as well as the picture is created by lines since lines control everything in picture. However, the drawing I chosen try to present a little bit innovation on the traditional thinking. At the beginning, Raymond had marked the draft composition on the paper by lines, although we cannot see any lines on the picture now. The most interesting thing in this picture is “lines are created by shape”. We can see an interesting and beautiful curve line is modeling by the dark color shape. On the other hand, the white "line" around the earth is an invisible line, too. Since the white line is used to separate the earth and the dark ink. A small conclusion in the lines used in this picture, I think there are some strength, confidential, and free lines. It is because the lines are created by the ink shapes while the ink is splashed in a casual and powerful way.
There is a very clear contrast tone applied in the whole picture since the paper is white and the image is in a deep color tone. In fact, I we focus on the image only, I should say that the tone applied in the image is quite harmonious. The black ink is an extremely dark tone and the earth is in a soft light tone while the ink wash in the earth have some dark color placed at the bottom. According to the tone changing, we can guess that the light is coming from the top right angle. The big contrast tone applied in whole picture is used to attract the audience focus on the image, and the dark and harmonious tone applied in the image is expressing the hopeless and sadness feeling.The color surfaces were used to create the shape of the whole picture. The ink splatter is in the irregular form to create the sense of power and action, which is a handmade natural shape since Raymond cannot control the shape of the ink splatter perfectly. The earth is made by the ink wash, the color changing in the earth is presenting the movement and the changeful, instable illusion.

The special drawing technique used in this drawing is the well known technique of the artist—Ink Wash. I think the texture is one of the interesting parts of this drawing but it is not the important feature. The texture of the ink wash lead the earth more reality since the ink has different degree of deepness, which is similar with the texture of earth in the space photo.

It is the central composition which can lead audiences focus on the main idea on the drawing. There is a very high degree of visual strength to arrest attention. It creates an illusion that the ink burst out like an explosion sine the image is placed on the central. Traditionally, central composition creates a stable, unify, gathering visual impact, which is a very boring composition. However, this picture creates a totally different impact because of the image. The irregular form of ink splatter breaks the boring feeling of stable.

The rhythm of the picture is very wild and rock, since the ink was splashed on the paper, a very powerful action. However, the image of earth creates a smooth and slow moving and changing rhythm. The difference rhythms create an interesting but confusing in my imaging. I think that rhythm is quite important in this picture but the picture didn’t present a very clear rhythm. Sometimes, the ink splatter let me feel a rock and wild rhythm; but sometimes, it let me feel of still and since it is in a very dark ink color. Those different feeling create a totally different meaning and impact of this picture.
The picture is balance because of the central composition. Raymond had left the space around the image blank. Although the artist had wrote down the sentence on the bottom of the paper, it may not break the balance of the picture.

In the sense of perspective, artist had using the tone of the ink to create the three-dimensional space on the earth. It's very clear that the bottom of the bottom is darker; compare with the top of the earth, some part of the top right angle of the earth was left white, which creates a shinning feel on it. We can see a sphere’s perspective clearly through the tone changed on the surface of the earth.

Since the image is very clear and bright in term of tone, it must not be harmonious because it had a very bright contrast. However, the image contains the earth and the ink splatter, which are in harmonious way by the similar tone of color. Besides the tone, there is a strong contrast in the shape of the image, which trend to break the harmonious feeling because the form of its is very sharp and clear, it does not involved the feather technique to make it softly and harmoniously especially the dark ink splatter. Overall speaking, this picture is not really harmonious.

In this picture, image is the majority, but the text is also an important part that we cannot overlook. Text could be a hint to let the audience to understand the drawing but it also could be the hinder for audiences to imagine their own understanding. As I mention before, according to the original article, it is talking about the natural moving in circle -- death and born.

3.     Interpretation and Evaluation

The mood of the drawing is excited, tearing, accusing and hopelessness, which is quite confusing. The contrast is very bright to present the passion and importance, but the dark tone color is presenting the sadness. The dark ink splatter provides an excited action feeling. The central composition expresses a serious level of the drawing. The rhythm caused is playing an important role in the mood presenting. Personal, I feel the earth is running slowly and surrounded by so many busy, dirty stuffs.According to the sentence, the artist want to point out the endings of the world is a fact that human cannot avoid or stop it because ending is a nature in everything. The earth is surrounded by the dark ink, which is presenting the ending is surrounding the earth forever. On the other hand, Raymond may want to catch the attention from people to think about the reason of ending, for Instance, global warming, over wasting, etc. Why there is a dark surround our earth? Similar with the under controlling ink splatter, the ending is out of control by human? Or, the ending is created by human? This drawing create so many questions for audiences to think the answers, which is an interesting thing of Raymond works that always remain a thinking space for audiences to find their own meaning of the drawing. The text is very helpful in this part because it lead people to think deeply.

I should say that this work is very imaginative. Since there is a sentence on the bottom of the drawing, which leads the audience think along with the sentence and match it with the image. However, people may have different understanding before read the sentence. In conclude the sentence is leading the people to think more but also hinder the imagination. Color and shape are the important features in this drawing. If there are some clear lines, it may deduce the imagination while line always expresses a limit and leader to lead the audiences how to read the drawing. Audience may lose to read this drawing when there is no clear line to lead them. However, I think it is very interesting if everyone has different starting point on reading this drawing.

Quotation

1.      Storr, Robert, and Cooper, Dennis, and Loock, Ulrich, Raymond Pettibon, Reprinted Version, (London: Phaidon Press, 2003), Cover

2.      Storr, Robert, and Cooper, Dennis, and Loock, Ulrich, Raymond Pettibon, Reprinted Version, (London: Phaidon Press, 2003), P.8

3.      Wikipedia, “A Letter to a Friend”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Friend  (accessed 25 /11/2010),
the 8^th paragraph.

4.      Storr, Robert, and Cooper, Dennis, and Loock, Ulrich, Raymond Pettibon, Reprinted Version, (London: Phaidon Press, 2003), P.9

Reference:

- Ross, Robert. Illustration Today. Pennsylvania: International Textbook Company, 1963

- Pettibon, Raymond. Raymond Pettibon: the pages which contain truth are blank. Innsbruck : Skarabaeus, c2003

- Storr, Robert, and Cooper, Dennis, and Loock, Ulrich, Raymond Pettibon, Reprinted Version, London: Phaidon Press, 2003

- Wikipedia, “A Letter to a Friend”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Friend  (accessed 25 /11/2010),

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