Word: spatula
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Wrinkles & Chins. The bone-dry climate of North Africa, however, has preserved almost perfectly the portraits painted at Faiyum, especially those done on wood panels in encaustic (a mixture of beeswax and pigment, usually applied with a cauterium, or hot spatula). Today, these paintings tell historians most of what is known about portrait technique 1,100 years before the Renaissance. Modeling and shading were expertly done. Except that the anonymous workmen of Faiyum customarily enlarged eyes (large pupils being considered at the time a sign of beauty), classical realism was faithful in portraying hair styles, jewelry, wrinkles and occasionally double...
...arms and hands of a man twice his size. His biceps are as big as a shotputter's, and his fist looks like the business end of a sledge hammer. His fingers, whose tips are cushioned from years of "cleaning the piano's teeth," are spatula-shaped; the all-important little finger is as long as the index finger, which is just a shade shorter than the middle finger. Thus, with the extension of his long thumbs, he can encompass a twelve-note spread on the keyboard. Most pianists are happy if they can handle a tenth...
...described in the avant-garde Revue Blanche his own brand of action painting. "I approach my painting with only a vague idea of what I want to present. Let's say: the image of a cool, benign forest opening towards the sea. Now I am beginning. With my spatula (I do not possess any brushes) I throw on colors, distributing them and mixing them right on the surface. I am mixing many colors, fourteen, fifteen perhaps, evolving a labyrinth of hues and shapes. Finally, the entire surface is swimming in color. I retreat a few steps to look...
...another, and the digging--a chore which falls on trained college and graduate students--proceeds horizontally from one trench to the other, one thin layer at a time. The digger usually pokes his way along with a large screw driver bent into a right angle. Occasionally he uses a spatula-like tool to skim off the dirt. As the work proceeds boards are placed down to prevent damage to the underlying stratum...
About five minutes after an off-Broadway play called The Apple, by Jack Gelber, begins, a character picks up a spatula, slings blobs of paint at a transparent plastic canvas, and then kneads the goo together with a rolling pin. Peering around this cunningly messy parody of abstract art with a confiding leer, the actor announces to the playgoers: "I'll admit why I'm here-therapy...