The Serpent

What does this painting say about Frazetta's art?

I ask this leading question because I absolutely adore this picture. Among all of his work, it exemplifies the power and simplicity of his compositional abilities.
Of course, it's a triangular composition. But this work literally has only 6 elements in it:
1) Figure
2) Snake (and not even any detail to the snake other than some painterly bumps near the tail end)
3) knife
4) water
5) swampy bubbles
6) lili pads
All else is blackness.
To me, a big part of the reason I go to see bands is to half-assed imagine that I could be on the stage. When I look at a Frazetta like this one, the simplicity, beyond saying that he probably painted it in an evening, says that even I could... just maybe... have painted it in an evening.
Part two of why this is so amazing (fan boy talk) is the believability of the figure. You can almost feel his strain against the snake. Frazetta really lived in his figures. The chest is straining, giving a counterpoint to the calf. The left arm really is at the best angle to try to pry the snake away. The neck is stretched to gasp for air, or just being yanked back by the tail.
Then there's the paint handling... again. Check out the perfect hint of reflection off of the knife, the reds and oranges of the water slime. Look at how the shadows fade out in a haze of red. Consider the psychology of the colors: Green for calm, red for energy.

Because the painting doesn't have a babe who has mysteriously fallen at the feet of the warrior, AND the primary figure isn't just posing (like in Silver Warrior) but, rather, is actually engaged in a struggle, this painting works as an allegory of internal struggle against complacency (or any other internal demon).

The Mamoth

I have precious little to criticize about this Frazetta. This is the first Frazetta image I ever saw, and the first Burroughs book I ever read. You'll read about how Frazetta paintings sold books just on the basis of their covers. I bought every Burroughs paperback I could find after I saw this.

When I first tried to paint, and I thought about this image, I wondered how Frazetta could pack so much detail in around the main figures. It looked like an impossible task. I was 13 and only handled paint in one day of my mom's Saturday afternoon painting group.
I look at it now and I can see how so much of it is roughed in, and done in little more than silhouette and outline. Genius how he can allude to so much detail while creating so little.

To the ignorant 13 year old, a few things stand out: What's that divot in his elbow? Are the triceps at the back of the arm really shaped like an upside down heart? Look at that big, round, naked man-ass. How did he get his right leg buried into the vegetation? What are those round things flying off of his face? Did he inadvertently take a chunk out of his face with his spear? That mammoth is COMING STRAIGHT AT YOU!!

Seriously, Frazetta's handling of composition, perspective, paint detail and blurriness give an amazing impression of movement, both of the viewer towards the mammoth, and of the mammoth towards the viewer. But look at how there is this placid patch of foreground. The twisted vines on the right are in perfect focus. Don't trip!!

Notice the unfinished parts, and how they don't matter: The flat chunk of flesh under his elbow, the weird chunk of sky at the top of the painting, the mammoth's ears.

But that's it. This is why this is still one of my favorite Frazetta's. It's very satisfying in how much actually is finished. Say, 20%. Same with the original/revised "The Destroyer".

I don't have much more to praise or criticize about this painting. Sure, it contains little more than the traditional 4 or 5 Things Frazetta always paints: Twisted roots, mammoth/lion/etc., action dude. But at least there isn't any bimbo who tripped on herself so bad her ass is sticking up in the air.

Jongar Fights Back

While the golden age of illustration - about 1900 to about 1930 - was past when Frank Frazetta was born, Frazetta was the first Rock Star artist (if you don't count Maxfield parrish, and there wasn't any rock and roll in his day, so there).
His paintings are the closest thing to rock and roll you can get with a picture. The simplicity and single-mindedness of the subject matter, and the economy of technique ... the un-self consciousness of the artist, the way the work appeals to the visceral in the viewer, but doesn't leave us with anything intellectually. Sorry, rock and roll.

Without any preamble, I'd just like to say... "Will you look at those hooters?!?".

Seriously, there almost isn't any other reason for this painting to exist. When his wife saw this, she couldn't have been happy.

Okay, okay. This is art criticism.

Look at the alluring way the light fades as it travels down her leg, then from her ass (the actual highlight of the action) to her boobs. The monster is just a support for her lively figure, and Mr. Jongar is just a sketched-in foil to help you tell your Mom that this poster isn't just about the lady with the pendulous "jongars".

Besides Frazetta's impressionistic color handling - look at the oranges, reds, purples, etc in what any other artist would paint the green skin of the monster as GREEN - one aspect of his technique jumps out of every single painting is his adherence to realistic lighting.

And the base layer of lighting is flat shadows which, in frazetta's neo-technique of pen and ink, he learned during the golden age of comics, as a contemporary of the masters of interpreting lighting in pen and ink, Wally Wood, Will Eisner and others. Look at every single comic book on the racks today, and you will be very, very hard pressed to find any one of them in which lighting is realistically rendered, much less in black and white, much, much less with a careful technique like that used by one of the greats like Prince Valliants' Hal Foster.

Frazetta has created lively and believable shadow areas under Jongar's rib cage, behind. his bow-holding hand, under his jaw, and falling off of the shoulders of the "babe" and onto the mosters back.

These shadows, which lack any detail whatsoever but are still far from "dead", are not only the hallmark of Frazetta's fascinating technique, they are a primary tool in the efficiency of his technique, and one aspect that makes him a professional illustrator and not a fine artist. 

Like the Rock Star Barbarian Snow Sled guy painting, 90% of this painting is just sketched in. It's like Frazetta had a formula on a post it note on his easel: 5% finished detail, 30% semi-finished, 65% sketched in. The rocks, the non-existant detail of the monster's front foot - what is that? A claw? A pliers? I've never figured it out.

The shadows cascade down from the tip of the bow to the shadow under the bottom most rock like a rhythmic clash of base and drum. The shapes and colors are again like rhythmic cadences underneath the shadows. And the whole thing is piled up (like a turd? Like a coiled, organic, whipping being?) in Frazetta's traditional and easily understood "power triangle" composition.

Hey... where did his arrow disappear to under Jongar's chin?

The Silver Warrior

Which painting should I start with?

When you type "Frank Frazetta" into google, then choose "images". This is the first image that appears. It's as good a place to start as any.

I'd like to start with the details of Frazetta's personal technique that are rarely mentioned, and talk about where they come from and how they work so well.

First, and probably most impressive, is how Frazetta chooses to simplify some things and detail others. It bears noting that, inch by square inch, most of his canvasses are roughly sketched in. In this particular painting, I can count the finished parts with one hand:
1) His left arm. Should I mention here that fully 1/4 of the men in Frazetta's paintings have an outstretched arm? Can we agree that he had a mirror in his studio or not?

Silver Warrior

2) The helmet. Those unique and polished highlights, somehow able to emulate layers of gloss and varnish, always impress.
3) You know what? There is no "3".
There is a second tier of finish that you can pick out in a bunch of places. The very frazetta-like (and really just tired "filler") decoration on the sled. The clothing... the parts that aren't just blacked out (more on that later. Hint: It's genius and skill). The sword.

Frazetta was a commercial artist. And by his own admission he was very lazy. So it shouldn't surprise anyone, if you actually tally up the amount of area covered by detailed and careful painting, to note that 90% of this painting looks unfinished.

Look at the bears, completely done in washes and sketched in shapes. Check out the ice mountain in the background.
And for gods sake, look at the background and foreground. Flat, splotchy color areas, barely any change in value or hue.
Do you see any detail in shadow areas? In real life, there is almost always bounce light that allows you to see details in shadow areas - especially on a bright Winter day with reflective snow all around. Frank's shadows are empty. Flat black or blue or some mottled color that hides definition. Always.
How are the skis mounted to this silly snow chariot? No one will ever know. Not even Frank Frazetta.

What's the point of this crabing? It's really admiration. Really! Ugh! I'm almost choking on it!
It's hard for me to say because I'm going to sound like all of the talentless fan boys out there. It's all been said before a hundred times, and in print.

Frazetta knew what to leave in and what to skip over. It's one of the 3 pillars of his work. Your eye is guided by, among other things, the natural and intelligent placement of levels of detail.

A perfect finish on the underside of the skis wouldn't add anything to the allure and power of this work. In fact, if every part of the painting had the same finish as, say, the helmet, It would probably be a more bland piece. I would like to see that. Someone who can work in the style of Frazetta finishing an entire painting  with a reasonable facsimile of his most polished technique.

In the end - and by the end I mean when you're done looking at this painting - you're left wanting more. You're left with a figurative boner for more Frazetta paintings. And this is part of the commonality of experience all Frazetta fans share. More, more, MORE! Frank was a consummate art tease.

But now I'm going to get mean.

Is this any different from any other Frazetta Painting? Other than we've got polar bears in the foreground instead of tigers?
Check out the hippie on the sled. Wasn't he in the band Thin Lizzie?
Like the gay-assed baubles hanging off his belt? They didn't have key chains back then. Like them? They're on every other frazetta painting.
What's his sword out for? Is he posing for a barbarian snow-biker chick? What are those silly wing-things off of his boots? They're not unique to this painting, or just to Frazetta boots. Bare arms in the frozen tundra? No wonder his skin is blue.
This is a picture of a harley biker in a fantasy barbarian snow land. It really is god awful silly.

But in the end, you can almost hear the polar bears roaring.

Whats this for?

I've been a fan of Frank Frazetta since I was 13 in 1974, when I first saw this book cover:

So I was instantly transformed into a fan. But I was also instantly transformed into an artist. Well, not instantly. But for the next 4 years, I tried to copy probably 4 Frazetta paintings. Then I discovered the then nascent Heavy Metal magazine, and Richard Corben, and Moebius. Then Barry Windsor Smith, then Berni Wrightson, then the Illustration annual, and on and on.

Now I'm 50, and I make my nut as a 3d artist. All of those years drawing and painting, and now I'm stuck in front of a computer all day.

So, to get back onto the business of actually creating something exciting, I'm painting again. Finally I'm able to make oils work (http://radiance-media.com/Traditional_Media.html). I'm never going back to the airbrush. It's great to be back to making art that people want to stand in front of and own. But who is the artist I want to emulate most?

Frazetta.

Now that I have 35 years of technique under my belt, I can begin to understand and even appreciate his rather inscrutable work. I'm buying the new volumes about the man, artist and his work. And the impression that I'm left with is...

Meh.

What a lot of bloviating, uncritical fan-boy Bull Shit. I've got the Fire and Ice DVD and god, it's so sad. After his strokes, even Frazetta himself can't describe what he does. He's so old that all he does is reminisce about the same things that have been printed about him for the last 40 years. Zero insight about how he creates his work. No regrets about any of it. No self-criticism at all.

In the world at large, there are precious few new insights about how he made what he made, and an ever-growing mound of worshiping fan-boy experts' so-called examinations of his work.

In an effort to get beyond this, and perhaps raise the intelligence of discussion about the most influential illustrator in the last 50 years, I'm going to go one painting at a time and discuss the work regarding its creativity, social outlook, place in art history, technique and every other aspect that I can think of. 

There is a lot that is amazing about the work of Frank Frazetta, but there just isn't any in depth analysis into what exactly is amazing about it. But there isn't a shred of criticism about things like the banal subject matter, the phenomenally limited library of imagery he uses (Hey, how about I put the moon in this picture, too!), the obvious sexism, or how to determine what and why that is, and then juxtapose all of that with why his work is so visually and viscerally juicy and tantalizing.

Wish me luck.