In today’s last class we took a trip to the Colby Museum and looked at works that were apart of the periods we have studied throughout the semester and also artists that we studied or in the textbook. One of my favorite paintings in the Museum is the David Clyde Driskell, Blue Pines, 1959. I love the color scheme of his work along with the distinguishing black lines that outline the trees.
Author: Gabriella Landau (Page 1 of 3)
I could not attend the last lecture class due to a sickness but what I took from the textbook reading about Post-Modern art was that it began in the late 1900s and involved lots of pop art and media. A famous artist from this time was Andy Warhol. I got to visit his museum when I went to Prague and I really admire his Marilyn Monroe paintings. I love the repetition of her face with the many different color schemes. I am also fond of the Cambell’s soup Cans, since it reflects the mass production of goods made and represented the “American dream”.
In today’s class we continued talking about Frida Kahla. She got into a bad accident when she was 18 and started her painting journey. She painted from her interest in naïve Colonial pictures and folk imagery. Her paintings derived from her mind and relationship in her lifetime. We looked closely at The Two Fridas, which she created wen she was divorcing her husband Rivera. On the left is a European version of Frida, all pale and sickly while on the right is a Mexican Frida, with darker skin and a more traditional outfit. This portrait identifies the trauma Frida went through.
We then looked into Neo-Plasticism. This style of art pursues the realization of utopian ideals. Then moved onto Post war art which was mainly abstract expressionism which emphasizes the direct emotions of the artists and the use of foreground and background to illustrate movement.
In today’s class we took a trip down to the Colby museum to view paintings in Landay’s gallery. All the paintings were from the Baroque period and we looked closely into each one to use for our take-home exam. The painting that stuck out to me was Jacques Courtois Bourguignon (1621–76). Battle Scene (with Castle in Background). I enjoyed the action and movement the painting had along with the bright blue school contrasting with the muted color tones of battle.
In today’s class we discussed Fauvism and Symbolism. Symbolism is portratyed in artists artwork as to how they feel and their emotions. Fauvism which was dervied from Post-Impressionism, brought bright colors from the post-impressionist time. A work that stood out to me was The Scream by Edvard Munch. He incorporated very strong and bright colors and followed lines and contours like how Van Gogh did in some of his most popular pieces. With the bright colors and the emotion of the man this painting was made to capture the nature of a scream during an eruption of a volcano. The cause for the sunset was due to the 6 months of overcast because of the smoke. An artwork by Matisse called The Joy of Life represents Fauvism. For example, the bright colors that are used arbitrarily and the unique color scheme of the scene allows the viewers to view the painting as joyful and pleasant.
In todays class we looked into Post-Impressionism. In post-Impressionism we categorized it into two ideas, the first being Form and the second being Personal Expression. Each being unique to certain artists in this movement. Paul Cézanne, a talented artist in the post-impressionism movement focused a lot of his work on Form. A popular work called the Mont Sainte-Victoire, which was Cézanne’s home and was painted trying to capture different light aspects and use line to make the bright colors of the landscape stand out. Over the years Paul Cézanne’s work evolves to be more abstract while continuing the use of bright color but increasing his use of dark outlines. I enjoyed Cézanne’s artwork because of the use of his brushstrokes and how its not perfectly blended in.
Todays class was an online lecture where we looked into Impressionism. Impressionism involves visible brushstrokes, light, and a capture of transitory feel of modern life. Impressionism sometimes looks like a continuation of realism. We first looked into the work of Claude Monet, who painted the Boulevard des Capucines. Monet painted this from his view from his room and is a city scene of the bran new set of streets of the grand boulevard. We looked at Edouard Manet and his le déjeuner sur l’herbe painting. This painting was rejected by the salon in 1863 and is considered an Impressionism painting because of its loose brushwork and the depiction of modern life. The lights and darks of the color also signify an impressionist painting. This work although has a flaw of an undeveloped background compared to its developed foreground.
In todays class we looked into Realism. Realism art depicts the world as it exists. We looked at many artist taht incorporate realism into their art. We looked at a bunch of landscapes the first being Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), View of Rome: The Bridge and Castel S. Angelo with the Cupola of St. Peter’s. This landscape is painted in a straight forward manner with little imagination and is simply just what we see. We also looked at the The Sower, by Jean-François Millet. A simple peasant painting which was made to represent the work peasant do. The absence of the mans face was not to paint a picture of a single individual but to praise all peasants. Another significant painting that represents Realism is the The Stone-Breakers, by Gustave Courbet. He paints two men, father and son breaking stone into tiny pieces to build a road. They are labour men, dressed in rags and dirt, and again with no visible face to symbolize labour men working as a collective.
In today’s remote class we covered the last -ism, Romanticism. Romanticism was a movement that dominated the West. The dramatic change in art was a result from the French revolution, Napoleonic wars and beginning of industrialization and urbanization. The conflict and uproar from the wars caused writers and artists to put a sense of emotion into their writings and paintings. Emotions of violence, suffering, war, chaos were exemplified into an “ideal beauty”. The creations produced in the Romanticism movement were not only exotic but extreme and terrorizing.
Grande Odalisque an exotic painting, created by Jean-Auguste- Dominique Ingres is a painting of a Turkish women. The elongated neck, is a tie to the mannerist style along with the small feet and the scarf wrapped around the women’s face. This painting was made to make viewers dream rather than think.
On the other hand we looked at a painting with a different type of setting. “The Raft of Medusa” created by Theodore Géricault. The suffering, and gruesome portrait of all the men trying to stay afloat on the sunken ship is the other style of romantic art. It allows the viewer to feel for the people portrayed rather than depict symbols out of it.
In today’s class we discussed the Neoclassicism movement which is a combination of ancient classical greek and roman art. Neoclassicism art began in the mid 18th century and looks a lot different from Rococo art. It involves a lot of primary colors, lines and very detailed paint techniques.
We looked at many artworks from this time starting with Nathaniel Holland’s painting of the Second Duke of Northumberland with his Tutor. This portrait was made to represent the grand tour (also known as the grand tourists) where students would travel to Rome with their tutors and gather replicas and pieces to bring back to decorate their homes. This idea is similar to what we call study abroad. When I studied abroad I did a somewhat similar thing and collected stickers and postcards from each country I visited, which is not the same as sculptures but is still the same concept.
We also looked into the architecture. Starting with the Chiswick house designed by Lord Burlington, we focused closely to the similarities the house has to the Villa Rotunda built in 1566 and with the Pantheon built in 126 in Rome. All three of these structures have the same unique dome circle and very similar column structures. Bringing this similar structure back to the United States, the University of Virginia’s library called the Rotunda was designed by Thomas Jefferson and has very similar model structures to the Pantheon.