"Tosca"

"Tosca"

Higher design outcome.

click to take a closer look

Half a year later and this painting still holds it's status as the best piece of artwork I have produced so far. Well, in my eyes anyway.I believe its the best for two reasons. The first is quite simple - its 100% original, 100% David Ross. With everything else I've done, I have been thinking things like "I'll try and give it the structure Cézanne would" or "I'll do this van Gogh style". With "Tosca" I didn't copy or imitate anyone. The second reason is that it achieve everything I wanted it to achieve. More often that not, I will produce a piece of artwork and be dis-satisfied with it, no matter how impressive or pretty it looks, because it doesn't match what I had in my head or because I failed doing what I was trying to do. "Tosca" is even better than I could have hoped. In fact, it's given me the self-confidence to believe that I have the ability to be a succesful, original artist. If I am still painting as an old man I will look back on this as a turning point. The important question I am asking myself is "will I be able to improve on this."

Just so you know, the woman in the picture is Flora Tosca. The opera is set in Rome, hence the coloseum and pillars. Flora Tosca is having a hard time of it right now. Her lover has just been murdered, she has just murdered her lover's murderer, she is being chased by soldiers, and, in my picture, is contemplating suacide just as she does in the opera. Hopefully you can see how the dramatic/unrealistic perspective, the tilted camera angle, the impression of smoke/fire, Tosca's pose, and the harsh colour scheme, all convey her distress.

To me, The coloseum and pillars are characters in this painting every bit as much as Tosca herself. She's about to kill herself, so after what she's done (murder), there is some kind of judgement going on in the painting. The large shadows which cross at her point give the impression of interegation; its like a spotlight. I tried to make the coloseum look sinister like the devil and make the pillars look glorious and majestic like God. I came up this idea halfway through the painting process but it was very much intentional.

So, thats why I think this is the best thing I've done and why it's the only original thing I've done.

Stay tuned for my next entry...