Exploring the aesthetic qualities of textures in painting from selected tree barks

Thesis Overview

<p> </p><p>1.1 INTRODUCTION<br>Texture is the quality of or appearance of a surface. This could be physical or<br>perceived, structural or compositional, of the constituent parts or formative elements of<br>something as soil, rock or organic tissue. Skunder (2001) states, “what else is texture, but<br>peaks and craters in space – time as three dimensional motion and repetition”.<br>Texture is divided into two types: –<br>i. Tactile Texture: This is directly related to the sense of touch. It is the way we<br>feel things when we run our hands over them.<br>ii. Visual Texture: (This is the area of concern in this study). It can be perceived but<br>not felt but we respond to it as we do to the real things due to long familiarity with<br>touch sensations, which so conditioned us. According to Chaet (1976), “painters<br>depend on this when they apply texture through colour differences to evoke<br>sensory responses that tactile texture would”.<br>When we think of texture, we invariably use touch sensation adjectives to<br>describe it. Texture is an outcome of other means rather than a basic means of form in<br>itself. Its visual effects such as smooth, rough, broken, spotted and the rest are arrived at<br>by the use of pigment, tone line and pattern in variation. According to Sausmareze<br>(1970), “form, line and space are created, but other two elements colour and texture try to<br>assert themselves on a surface”. This implies that textures are there whether we intend<br>them or not.<br>1.2 Background to the Study<br>The researcher is faced with the issue of how painting compositions can be<br>developed from selected tree barks. Over the years, artists have evolved various methods<br>of expression. Consequently, earlier ideas not only about method but the whole nature of<br>arts were over-turned during the Renaissance, since then artists have adapted boundless<br>means and ways of expression. The search for expression perhaps has been partly<br>responsible for the development of ideological and philosophical lines. The<br>impressionists became conscious of their environment, and perhaps in an attempt to<br>understand its elements, worked out of doors directly from their subjects. According to<br>Wadley (1975), “the impressionists believed that the only key to originality is to confront<br>nature until solution comes”. Unlike the impressionists, the expressionists believed that<br>conscientious and exact imitation of nature would not create a work of art. Nolde (1909)<br>express his dissatisfaction thus;<br>“…I was no longer satisfied with the way I drew and painted during the<br>Last few years, imitating nature and creating form all done preferably<br>with the few stroke, the first brushful of paint. I rubbed and scratched<br>the paper until I tore holes in it, trying to reach something else, something<br>more profound, to grasp that very essence of things. The techniques of<br>impressionism suggested to me only a means, but no satisfactory end”.<br>They (expressionists) were of the view that a work became a work of art when one reevaluated<br>the values of nature and added ones own spirit to it. It is evident therefore that<br>self satisfaction is the bane of every practicing artist, hence explorations and<br>experimentations by adapting wide range of available materials take the centre stage in a<br>bid to satisfy self. It is perhaps for same reason that contemporary painters are often<br>concerned with testing and extending the bounds of visual expression to incorporate<br>materials that may be considered as unrelated (mixed media) in their compositions.<br>Trees as nature do not only form part of man’s physical environment, but also<br>perhaps perform economic religious and medicinal functions. Its value varies from one<br>society to the other. Trees are also studied and used as motifs of design by artists; its<br>position in the composition depends on what function the artist would want such tree to<br>perform. Barbizon painters who hardly competed their landscape paintings without trees<br>had to wailed as the trees were cut down in 1850s to pave ways to the urbanization and<br>industries. In another development, Olaku (1993) who has been accused of `slavishly’<br>copying nature and giving it an undue position in his composition, said, “in my sincerely<br>considered opinion, any one not influenced by nature must be living in limbo”. In oral<br>conversation with Dr. Sani Mu’azu (2001) of the Department of Biological Sciences;<br>Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, said that trees as living things are distinct and have<br>different barks, according to the factors controlling their heredity (genetic), which he said<br>include types of soil, weather and age. Admittedly that soil, weather and age are factors<br>that make them distinct from one to the other, the same can be said of trees of the same<br>species, and perhaps the major factor in the surface appearance is age.<br>Through careful studies (page ……..) by the researcher it was discovered that the<br>barks of matured locust bean trees developed opened contour-like scales that easily fall<br>off on slight touch. It was also discovered that the barks are curative. Herbalists<br>therefore take advantage of this to peel off the barks. As new tissues develop to replace<br>the old ones, new forms and scenes of interest are created. This made the barks of locust<br>bean tree within the main campus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria appear to have<br>hidden images and designs opened for this research above other trees earlier studied.<br>Statement of the Problem<br>This researcher believes that painting is not based on a number of static concepts<br>but changes which extends its boundaries in response to shifts of emphasis in the<br>intellectual and emotional situation of each period in history. It is perhaps in this light,<br>that the structures of most visual art courses have the potentials of encouraging students<br>to focus on new ways of expression.<br>Our imaginations perhaps end up with us as long as they remain unexpressed.<br>Jonson (1975:7) states; …“if we tell in words what we imagine, we have made a story. If<br>we take a pencil and draw it, we have made a picture…” Great artists constantly astonish<br>us in the remarkable new images they produce from mundane objects (Picasso’s bull<br>head from handle and seat of an old bicycle). There should be urge always to look at the<br>immediate environment and beyond to find something new and original.<br>Ordinarily, the importance of trees cannot be over emphasized. A close up study<br>of the textures of the barks may lead us perhaps to lines and form that would enable us to<br>see, create and interprete new exciting and original works. The issue therefore is how<br>painting compositions can be developed from a range of selected tree.<br>OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY<br>– To paint realistic appearance of matured natural tree barks<br>– To use various media and paint close up studies of selected portions of the<br>barks and to project the elements that constitute it.<br>– To develop painting compositions from the images thus revealed by adapting<br>various techniques.<br>– To explore the possibility of evolving paintings inspired by the appearance of<br>the barks as it relates to ones imagination<br>1.5 Significance of the Study<br>It is common sight to see artists and art students flipping through exhibition<br>catalogues, magazines or newspapers to copy works or photographs of ready-made works<br>at the expense of originality. This study is expected, therefore, to reawaken interest in<br>studying of tree barks, which poses not only visual challenges to artists, such as relating<br>on a surface what is perceived and developing a more imaginative approach to image<br>making but lead ways to new discoveries when elements of design are re-organised.<br>This study should therefore offer diverse aesthetic engagement like different ideas<br>come from the same study through which various educative painting compositions can be<br>evolved.<br>No achievement of any kind can be attained in the absence of creative minds,<br>artists should have that opportunity to study tree barks through which contemplative<br>imagination can ignite visual studies leading us to see, discover and to create a new world<br>around us.<br>1.6 Scope of the Study<br>A number of tree barks within the main campus of Ahmadu Bello University,<br>Zaria were explored. A selection of the locust bean tree was made based on their high<br>textures and inherent aesthetic qualities. Concentration was specifically on matured trees<br>because of their well-defined contours that make the forms stand out clearly.<br>1.7 Justification<br>Having searched through relevant available visual and literary sources, it was<br>observed that no record was currently on the study of barks of locust beans tree in<br>painting. Apart from the fact that the tree breaks up whirlwind, its black seed is spicy<br>and its bark is medicinal, an artist studies its barks where new grounds of ideas would<br>emanate. With these at the back of our minds, it is necessary therefore that one should<br>document a new frontier of study like this for others to learn and develop upon.</p><p>&nbsp;</p> <br><p></p>