Retro-Writings: An Essay on Ralph McQuarrie
Retro-writings is a presentation of essays written at some point in the past. These essays are presented without editing, exactly as they were turned in. This first essay was written for a Contemporary Art class in December of 2000, my freshman year of college. This is the rough draft, as the final draft has been presumably lost to the winds of time.
Ralph McQuarrie: An Artist of film
The film world is relatively new compared to some forms of art. If one were to look at painting, they would see that painting as a medium has been around since nearly the beginning of art. Film, on the other hand, is relatively new. Most artists who work in it aren’t really considered artists. One of these men, Ralph Mcquarrie, has been working in the field since the 1960s. He has changed the way that people view conceptual art, and the way that the world views science fiction.
Ralph McQuarrie began his career in film in 1969. When the lunar module landed on the moon, NASA wanted drawings of it so that people could see what it looked like without the fuzzy lines of television. Ralph McQuarrie was the man who drew those images. His background in drawing, strangely enough, comes from a fairly formal background. He was influenced by his grandfather, a watercolor artist, and his mother, who sketched and painted. He began studying art at the age of ten in classes during high school. He took mainly the technical drawing classes, and was soon offered a job at Boeing. While working there, his job forced him to gain the skills that he would need to do conceptual art for science fiction movies.
Soon after, Ralph began to create background matte paintings for movies, along with movie posters. In 1975, he began working on conceptual art for a movie that would change the world. George Lucas hired Ralph to come up with conceptual art ideas for a script of his called “Star Wars.” McQuarrie had to define an entire universe based on a script, and he followed through. His drawings helped the movie get pitched to Fox studios and eventually get filmed.
In the image to the left, you can see some of the conceptual art that McQuarrie did to pitch the movie. This particular image shows Luke, as a girl, standing over Mos Eisley. This same image appears in the movie almost exactly like this with the exception that Luke is a boy. The two suns are not merely balls of light, but are actually viewed as they would look if you were to look right at them. It is more of a landscape than just a picture for a movie. If you look at many of the drawings that he did for the movies, you will see that George Lucas took the idea of the painting directly to the movie.
The image to the left is one out of “The Empire Strikes Back.” At least it should be. This scene never appeared in the film at this angle, however, for the painting McQuarrie was choosing to tell the story with the picture. He had to show what an entire scene showed in one picture. To do that he uses our sight lines and manipulates them to show what he wants to. By having Obi-Wan in the foreground, we are able to see more of the picture than if he was in the background due to his transparence. Next we have Yoda, who is below the sightlines of the rest of the scene. We can still see Luke at the top as the dominant figure, while also having Obi-Wan and Yoda as a powerful presence. It is in this way that McQuarrie’s art helped to get Star Wars financed by Fox.
But concept art isn’t all that he has done. There is a saying that goes “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Ralph McQuarrie is one of the people who is important to that concept. He has done cover art for Science-Fiction novels that is now famous among certain people. He began doing book art for the Star Wars novelization but then went on to do things for the top writers in the field. Among those he did art for was Isaac Asimov. The picture seen here is from Asimov’s “Robot Dreams.” Obviously the title calls for something with a robot, and McQuarrie pulled through with it. The picture personifies the robot by showing it curled up and sleeping. Immediately, it is something that will intrigue the reader.
McQuarrie went on to do the concept art for the next two star wars films, along with concept art for many other films. For the film “Coccoon,” made in 1985, his work received an academy award.
Among others things, his concepts included the above, a storm being sent down to Earth by an alien ship. If one looks at his art, they will realize that he doesn’t just do these paintings to get the job done. Instead he puts feeling into them, and tries to make them as true to the movie as he can. He doesn’t just do a picture of a storm, instead he has the storm reflecting on the water, while a man on shore seems to be blinded by it.
The same is true of almost all of his concept art. Even on those concepts for spaceships he includes people and emotion. For this reason I believe that Ralph McQuarrie is an important artist who will continue to work on films for some time to come.