“A common aspect of walking in the city can be frustration, or irritation. There are people walking faster than you; peope walking slower than you; people walking at you; people walking across you.” (O’Mara, 2019, p. 114)
Even with the covid restrictions, and particularly in the months of spring and summer, it was possible to see how London is a crowded city. By sketching the underground constantly I was gathering all the unknown figures who became these sketchbook crowds and that also became part of my painting. The idea of depicting a figure in a space ended up being of particular importance in my practice. Crowds are, symbolically, a space in their own right.
In the book The Crowd a Study of the Popular Mind the author Gustave Le Bon examines the different kinds of crowds and its distinctive characteristics. In terms of research, this was an important topic in order for me to understand social and behavioral aspects of how we deal with each other, particularly in such a specific time as we live with a pandemic. Masks and social distancing, do they form a new type of crowd? Or do they completely erase that concept?
“The clattering dims, the tunnel is gone. I look around me. But the faces of those beside me hardly change as the station gives way into the amber light of the afternoon.” (Judah, 2016, p.108)
Many artist depicted crowds in different situations, like the old masters with large paintings of religious and royal motifs, like Rembrandt or Rubens, but also the modernist painters, like Renoir or Manet, or even contemporary examples, like the german artist Thomas Eggerer.
Artists and authors
Charles Baudelaire
Walter Benjamin
Gustave Le Bon
Peter Paul Rubens
Thomas Eggerer
Books, exhibitions and others
Le Bon, G. (2008) The Crowd a Study of the Popular Mind. Radford: Wilder Publications
Solnit, R. (2001) Wanderlust a History of Waking. London: Granta Books
Baudelaire, C. (1972) The Painter of Modern Life. London: Penguin Classics
Glaeser, E. (2012) Triumph of the City. London: Penguin Books
Judah, B. (2016) This is London. London: Picador
Greene, J. (2014) Moral Tribes. London: Penguin Books