009. Josef Capek: Hlava (Head)

My copy of Josef Capek Head

Josef Capek Head, 1915.
Oil on Canvas 42cm by 30 cm
On display at West-Bohemian Gallery, Pilsen. The Czech Republic.

Head by Josef Capek

When I was stuck for something to paint, I was looking a lot into Cubism. Whilst I find it pleasing and intriguing to look at, as a style I would not know where to begin. I had never heard of Josef Capek before, but in my search, this painting immediately jumped out to me. The reason being is it reminded me of a short story I wrote a few years back called The Conundrum(below this post).

Also, and you will thank me for this when it comes up in your local pub quiz. Josef Capek and his brother are the coiners of the word “Robot”.

Slightly fatter head at the start

First up - and this is something I am currently (as at number 14#) still struggling with, is what to do when your canvas is a different size to the original. I try and buy canvases as close as I can to the original ratio (hence why I am including the original dimensions in my post for anyone doing the same) and you always have a bit of a play to allow for framing. But, I find the nearer I get to finishing a painting the more problem not being 1:1 becomes. Especially when you are looking at detail and relationships around the edges. Answers on a postcard, please.

Secondly, painting this was a good reminder that black is never black which brings us onto blending. I experimented with both a dry brush technique and a wet on wet technique. In hindsight, I believe the original was done with a heavily loaded brush wet on wet

On colour, I started this painting with my basic palette and was mixing to achieve the blue and yellow. It became clear very early on that I would need dedicated pigments. I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out Golden Acrylics Heavy Body Acrylics as everyone seems to rave about them. I chose;

Phthalo Blue and Titanate yellow.

Head Colours Josef Capek

Are golden acrylics worth the fuss? To be honest, it is a bit of an unfair test. I would say in general, most of the paints I buy are an artist-grade and there is very little difference between them.

The canvas panel I chose to paint this on was quite rough, and I did find myself struggling a bit to get a clean and uniformed coverage.  Especially as I had put down a contrasting background.  I solved this by rotating the canvas and painting over at 90’, 180’ and 270’.


WARNING! A BIT OF ART BOLLOCKS

A couple of weeks after painting and varnishing, it now hangs on the wall of my office. Given my amateur attempts and ignoring the fact I painted it; I do have to say it does look very good on a wall.  Especially as the light source in the room is coincidentally going in the right way for the painting.

This got me thinking that art has to have a function and I think this is something a lot of people forget.

Function is easier to define with fine art, but even in something where you have someone in a dark basement, pouring their soul in a mad frenzy, fighting their inner demons and mutilating a canvas is still art. The end piece might not be art in a classical sense, but it still has a function as it serves as a record of that mania. Hence it has a function, hence it is art.

On the flip side of that, if you are spending an afternoon pouring acrylic paints because it looks cool, you are just having fun and making a mess. There is nothing wrong with that - it's just not art.

Art bollocks over here is the story 

The Conundrum

“I say, Charles, it certainly does look the part.”

“Thank you - I will admit it has been quite demanding to get it to balance, but thankfully a bit of lead plating here and there and some ballast seems to have done the trick.”

“You mentioned that last time you had some problems with  the batteries?”

“Yes, bit of a hoohah-hah and not the ideal solution, but rather than attempt to run everything from the battery, I have decided to run the mechanics with steam and the instruments with clockwork. It reduces the operating time down to three hours but I believe that is sufficient .”

“I concur, three hours should be more than enough time. I am curious though of how such a configuration could work, would you care to explain?”

“Gladly. Underneath the Busby, you’ll find the instruments for factors such as wind speed,  temperature, atmospheric pressure and so on.  All of these are not very demanding in terms of consumption, so are powered by a wind-up mechanism that resides snuggly in the cranial cavity, which can be wound via the left nostril. If you look underneath the tunic here, you can see the boilerplate for the steam engine. You might have noticed our friend appears to have poor posture - a necessary cursor to allow room for the two pistons that provide power to the legs. Talking of which, both the left and right trunks of the legs contain the batteries for the calculating engine which now resides in the buttocks - not the optimal position, but alas the only space I had left.”

 “How did you get all those cogs in there, there doesn't seem to be enough room?”

“I didn’t. I think you’ll find this most impressive. Here, help me remove his breeches.”

“Oh my good golly, what is that?”

“It is called a phonograph cylinder - an American invention and a marvellous one too. See that needle? It runs over the surface of the cylinder which is wax. In that wax, there is a series of troughs and peaks which the needle can interpret. Rather than all the cogs and gear wheels before, I have been able to reduce the entire works of Clausewitz, Euclid and the current British Army artillery tables onto that one cylinder.”

“Amazing, absolutely amazing.”

“If you think that is impressive, you should take a look at the right buttock.”

“Looks the same as the left?”

“Notice the cylinder - what's different about it?”

“.... It’s smooth?”

“Exactly. From my study of the Art of War, one thing had been bothering me and that is the chance factor. While our cohort is well versed, previously there was no way for it to take into account for conditions on the day or be able to adapt for events that happened that weren't in the manual, so to speak. This cylinder here allows the calculating engine to write its own formulas in response and act on them.”

“Charles, are you saying it’s… self-aware?”

“Cogito ergo sum!”

“This could really turn the tide in the Sudan. How soon can we get it to the production?”

“Well, the Ministry has provided us with a factory in Manchester. None of the parts are too out of ordinary, so theoretically we could be turning them out at the rate of twelve a week.”

“An entire platoon in a month!”

“But alas, it will not be.”

“What? Does it not work?”

“Oh, it works - better than one could imagine. It is the ultimate soldier. It never gets tired, never disobeys an order and it won’t stop until the enemy is all but dead. Here lyeth my conundrum. The first time on the battlefield, it will no doubt be a glorious victory, but as I said - none of the parts are too out of the ordinary, and  I envisage that by the next call to battle the enemy would no doubt be fielding a platoon of calculating engines of their own. Now it becomes a matter of maths. Both sides have the formula for exterminating the other and would be aware of the matter. I have done the calculations myself by hand many a time and I would conclude that an army of calculating engines of equal size would come to the conclusion that the best outcome would be to do nothing: x = 0, y = 0.

“Now you could argue that to overcome this, all one has to do is to have a larger army than the enemy and no doubt that would be the rationale of those dimwits in Parliament, and soon British factories would be turning them out in their thousands - and so would the enemy.

“But as anyone who has studied the Art of War knows, war is not just about numbers. I can see by the look of your face that you are wondering why not build a better calculating engine - twice as good - and I have thought about that too, but here I believe there is a law in play. Currently, my machine is capable of carrying out 64 calculations in an hour and I am sure that the enemy would easily be able to reproduce it. With the pressure on both sides to build a better machine, I am sure that in a short while we would see an engine capable of doing 128 calculations as efficiencies are found in the manufacturing process - that's the nature of progression.

“By the end of our lifetime, we may well see a machine capable of doing 256 calculations, but to think we could ever build a machine capable of 512 calculations in an hour - ludicrous? Far-fetched? Impossible?  I believe so. After all, to reach the point I have today has taken two thousands years of human knowledge. Maybe one day machines will be capable of such tasks, but not in this generation, the next or the next ten after that. There is more chance of man flying.”