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Whaddaya-call-it-when...? (Art term help)
Pipe Dreamer
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Registered User regular
I'm translating an exhibition pamphlet from Chinese into English, and the pamphlet uses the Chinese term 寫生, which refers to paintings or drawings where the subject is actually in front of the artist, as opposed to imaginary or historical subjects.
Is there a term in English that actually captures this shade of meaning? It doesn't matter particularly what the subject IS (it could be a landscape or still life), just that the artist has to be physically looking at it when painting it. I've looked up a series of wikipedia pages on visual art and don't see this distinction made at all. If there's no English art term for this I'm going to have to work around it somehow.
Is there a term in English that actually captures this shade of meaning? It doesn't matter particularly what the subject IS (it could be a landscape or still life), just that the artist has to be physically looking at it when painting it. I've looked up a series of wikipedia pages on visual art and don't see this distinction made at all. If there's no English art term for this I'm going to have to work around it somehow.
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"Painting from life" or "life-drawing" is probably the closest you'll get.
Bother me on steam: kabbypan
=P
Yeah, for portraits its known as A Sitting.
As Iruka said,
En Plein Air refers to art from real subjects in the outdoors as opposed to from imagination. It was used mostly to describe landscape painting, but it can be loosely applied to mean any subject.
To me that implies that the subject was actually not in front of the artist like in a life drawing scenario.
Yeah, you're right :P
Here's what I have so far:
Where the blank is where the mystery phrase should go (I was contemplating using "paintings en plein air"). Here's the source text, if anybody who reads Chinese happens across this:
I dunno what audience you're writing for, if it's readers who know a thing or two about art [history] or related subjects they'll understand what en plein air refers to and they will understand that "a landscape" means "a drawing of a landscape"*. If it's like a more random audience you might want to go with "her landscape paintings from life", because I think everyone will understand what you mean that way.
*the etymology of "landscape" is fascinating, really.
If you were expecting potentially a lot of pre-highschool educated kids then you might include a literal translation or definition of the phrase in parenthesis or as a footnote. But I guess you would ask the curator/publisher/organiser for guidance on that.
I disagree, to an extent.
Does not tell you what "en plein air" means. But yes, a museum going audience will be please to learn a new word/phrase. Therefor...
The best options doesn't read as awkward as what I threw together, but this at least explains whats going on.
unless we're specifying paintings made outside. Simple, conveys the relevant information, doesn't distract too heavily from the actual content of the work. No one in any kind of arts school would refer to anything except paintings made outside, almost always of a landscape, as 'en plein air'. The phrase also connotes certain traditional and impressionist attitudes towards painting, that may not jive with a contemporary painter's method and work. Coming from a gallery director for undergraduate's perspective, it's impossible to say without seeing what sort of work is being described.