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Hercules sculptures inspire
artist to follow his heartIf being out of step with prevailing fashion is an artistic virtue, Snowden Hodges has certainly earned his stripes.
The Baltimore native, who has lived and worked in Honolulu since the late 1960s, is known for his realistic portrayal of still life. While art buyers have always admired his work, Hodges knows his classical representation style hasn't fit in with contemporary art trends that favor ideas over techniques.
Hodges is taking another step out of the mainstream with his current exhibition of drawings of sculptures of Hercules, which grew out of a 13-month-long visit to Florence, Italy, in the mid-1990s. The exhibit opened yesterday in the Honolulu Academy of Arts' Graphic Arts Gallery and continues through June 16.
"I can sell all the orchids and crotons that I can paint, but figure drawing is always hard. Even on the mainland, there are not a lot of people who appreciate it, but in Hawaii it's pretty hopeless," Hodges said.
Knowing that, Hodges, trained by the country's best realism artists, nevertheless indulged his own preference. Figure drawing has been his favorite and always will be; having an audience isn't an issue.
Taking a sabbatical from his teaching job at Windward Community College, Hodges and his family took a working trip to Florence, the haven of Western art. Like a kid in a candy store, Hodges scoured every depository for works of art. Of all the works he saw by masters such as Michelangelo and Donatello, he was most awed by six marble statues created by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Vincenzo de' Rossi.
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De' Rossi, a contemporary and follower of Michelangelo, received important commissions as did Michelangelo, but his name isn't as recognized.The statues depict the labors of Hercules and are housed in the Palazzo Vecchio, a fortress-palace dating to the end of the 13th century. There are actually 12 impossible tasks Hercules undertook as penance for slaying his own children in a fit of madness, according to Greek mythology, but only six are in the palace, which once served as a ducal palace of the famed Medici family and remains as a gathering place for public ceremonies.
Hodges admired the statues for the glorification of the human body and the incredible skills with which they were created. Most of all, he was drawn to the powerful display of human emotions conveyed through the dramatic poses, the juxtaposition of light and dark and the underlying struggle of good vs. evil.
"I wanted to draw them not like sculptures, but like real people. Filled with life and emotions, like real life," said Hodges, who did not slavishly copy the sculptures, but took his own artistic license to heighten the sense of drama.
After he returned to Honolulu, Hodges developed large drawings from sketches that he had made from his daily visits to the palace. He used a variety of materials: charcoal, conte crayon, pastel, watercolor and even a little oil and acrylic paint to help create depth and make the drawings lively. He employed unexpected angles and exaggerated certain details.
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His work may be in the tradition of classical realism but it requires interpretation and abstraction, as does conceptual art, he said. Drawing techniques and understanding of human anatomy and perspective -- old-fashioned artistic skills -- and contemporary art are not mutually exclusive."Those things were out of fashion when I started studying art in the late 1960s. I was never in. Now the pendulum has swung back, and people are saying classical representation is back in. To me it's never been out," Hodges said.
Regardless of the style of the artist, as long as he or she is living and working now, the work is contemporary art, Hodges said. But having those traditional values and skills helps him go beyond creating merely pretty pictures. When he draws or paints, he hopes to communicate a feeling, a mood, which is more important than making realistic representations.
"You don't just see it, but you also feel it. When you look at a painting, it should flood you with emotions, not just appeal to you intellectually."
Looking at art is similar to looking at people.
"Some are very pretty and also very smart. So the more you look, the more you see. Some are pretty, but there's not much going on behind the good-looking surface."
Hodges will be featured on "Egg the Arts Show," airing 10 p.m. Friday on KHET. The 30-minute program will focus on the human body, and Hodges' work is the subject of the "One-Minute Egg" segment that devotes 60 seconds to an artist.
Place: Graphic Arts Gallery, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 900 S. Beretania St. Snowden Hodges: "Florence
and the Labors of Hercules"
Time: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, through June 16
Admission: $7; $4 for seniors, students and military; free to academy members and children 12 and under; free on the first Wednesday and Sunday of the month
Call: 532-8700
Featuring: Figure drawing classes taught by Snowden Hodges; some drawing experience required Windward Atelier at
Windward Community College
Time: Beginning mid-May for six weeks, five days a week
Cost: $775
Call: 235-7433 for more information
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Suzanne Tswei's art column runs Sundays in Today.
You can write her at the Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, Suite 7-210, Honolulu, HI, 96813
or email stswei@starbulletin.com
