Affandi and his art

upon reading some readings of affandi, i saw how his works were strongly unique and emotional, which was very similar to the characteristics of Van gogh's work. he was borned in Indonesia, where he spent most of his younger half of his life self studying art. he had used pastels and crayons to create naturalistic compositions in the beginning before he started using watercolour impressionistic compositions and oil for his naturalistic compositions.

i find his oil works most appealing as they are very expressive, abstract and filled with emotions. the style is unique and the technique he used, smearing the paint directly on the canvas and using his finger tips and hands instead of brushes, impressed me alot. it fully shows us how materials do not make an artist, it is instead the technique and idea that really matters.

http://kifo.blogs.com/artmgs/images/picture1.jpg

as we can see in the above image, affandi had applied his paints daringly and boldly, concentrating on his work and letting his creativity and emotions take hold of him while he painted. the painting above, self-portrait, is one of his more famous works, it depicts and old man with unkempt hair and messy features. the red and yellow tones of the face make it contrasting with the green of the background. the brush stokes are made up of his characteristic swirls of paint.

on reading another article extracted from the article "Affandi and me" we saw how determined he was when he did his paintings. he dipped his hands in turpentine and smeared them on the canvas, followed by using the tubes of paint to make a few strokes on the canvas. he gradually drew the outlines and smeared the paint with his hands, all the while not using any brushes.

"his tempo was moderato, not fast or slow, but very sure." was how the author had described how he worked while he painted,"he entered a trance (as he got more involved with the painting)". he also begins to sweat as his concentration built up which confirmed to the author that his mannerism (trance like appearance) was genuine, and not just an act. after painting the painting , affandi is often exhausted.