Author: Oliver Beardsley (Page 1 of 3)

Class 24

In class 24 we began by entering the museum together as a keen mean art judging machine. As a class we discussed the our favorite art pieces and why made them interesting to us. My favorite was a Georgia O’Keeffe painting of pine trees and birch trees. Abstracted to the point of no recognition. The colors and subtle lines are close to flowerlike softness which makes sense when it comes to Georgia O’keefe’s paintings which often incorporate flowers, abstracting them to look more like a culmination of beautiful lines than a flower. 

Class 23

In our twenty third class we started discussion by talking to Andy Warhol. He has some surrealism qualities as he has very little artist intervention, but he included outwards facing commentary on the world around him, particularity the rapid industrialization of America instead of expression of the subconscious. Andy Warhol said everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. Then came minimal art with even less artist intervention or presence in the in 1980 art is now avant-garde by nature, Judy Chicago makes her The Dinner Party table with Yonic place settings honoring women artist. Everything becomes up to interpretation of the viewer. 

Class 22

In class today we we started off discussing the nuanced background of Frida  Kahlo and how her mixed heritage influenced her art, she has a Hungarian Jewish father, and an indigenous Mexican mother. We also talked about her mental and physical sides as sh was serviearly disabled at a young age. 

Then moving into purism, we looked at the glass current style of buildings, one example that I plan to visit is the Seagram Building. Then, in post war art, the idea of capturing motion in art is explored from recording motion with the dripping of paint to blurry objects. Positive and negative spaces balance and the weight of colors are delved into as well. 

Today in class we discussed how art has been about representing the world and what we are looking at realistically and how Pablo was at the front of a shit away from that initiative. Cubism is born. It’s the process of observing the forms of an objet from multiple angles and combining all information into one mass. the cubits as a group go to public lectures about the human experience and how that experience is made up of constant change. And everything is affected by your experience and influenced by specific biases applicable to you. Cities inspire the cubism movement as well, as they are repetitive in from from block to block you might see the same store twice. This idea is visible in Cubism in the repetition of geometric shapes that are common in cities. Then comes Duchamp who makes art by calling something another thing (calling a urinal a fountain) which generates ready made art and and photo montages or collages. Following, surrealism attempts to capture the subconscious by removing artists intervention in the art as much as possible, or by determining subjects of a piece of art  randomly. 

Class 20

In class 20 we began with Gaugin. Gaugin travels to French polonaise, the Caribbean, and Tahiti in search of pure life, he wanted to paint from the view of a child, not have anything from society or knowledge of other art weigh in on his creations. He was also looking to dream something in its simplest form. He began representing what he felt as the reason for looking for isolation was an opinion about the rapid progression of urban society. 

Symbolism is born, converting feeling and emotion. They objectify the subjective instead of subjectifying the objective. Themes with love and death are appealing as they are strong in emotion and simpleton represents what going on. The Scream represents the scream of the world as two-thirds of an island collapsed due to volcanic eruptions that caused tinted sunsets for 6 months and the loudest sound (ever?). This theme conveys emotions but forms a larger event that many experienced. Moods are explored through the uncomfortable combination of colors. And individuals like Rudolf Steiner assign colors to feelings and elemental things. Red usually is something bad, or not desirable, blue is usually something seen as good and pure, and yellow is seen as something happy sensual, or spiritual. 

During class, we discussed the coming about of post-impressionism. Color in paintings begins to drive the form of things and the emotion being portrayed in these paintings. Permanence becomes a theme in Post Impressionism. This is seen in Cézanne’s work of a mountain from where he is form. His angle changes but the mountain remains through different works. The color pallet is also simple and stable and rhythm in shape is created by color to make the landscape also stabilize the composition. Composition also plays a large role in Cézanne’s work with branches of trees and later on, dark outlines drawing emphasis to forms. Cézanne is trying to work like Poussin but from the perspective of nature. His work moves towards abstraction later on as he reduces shapes to cones cubes and spheres.  Van Gough copies Plum Estate, showing attraction to the downward angle and flattening of space. Using frontal colors like red as backgrounds and passive colors like green as foregrounds, Gough flattens space. He also conveys emotion with the acidic combination of red and green in the night cafe. In The Starry Night, the cypress tree is larger than the church, and through reading his letters to his brother we know Van Gough valued nature over religion as a way to think about death. 

Class 18

In this lecture, we started by looking at the first photograph and how it was made. The first photographs were made in a one-off style where you could only produce one positive from the negative and that was it. This used metal, and resin that hardened when exposed to light. Then, self and more complicated chemical process. To make a process that allowed for the reproduction of the same image. America embraced photography and its ability to capture life exactly. This idea aligned well with realism. 

Then we moved into impressionism. Key ideas are as follows. Less clarity within the paintings. Paintings show daily observations but with more importance with a royal look given to these daily scenes. These daily scenes are also painted with less depth of field, emphasizing the subject in the foreground more. The foreground is often cast in a more frontal displaying lighting that shows off points of contrast and everything there to see. each brushstroke takes on its color, letting the viewer’s eye blend everything. This gave more emphasis to color especially when most emphasis was placed on the foreground. More contrasting subject matter is found in these paintings as well. For example, Olympia, a painting by Manet of a prostate lying in bed nude. The lines used to define the edge of her body are in charcoal giving her body a strong emphasis in the scene. A maid brings flowers to her bedside and a black cat is arching ing its back as if surprised with its tail pointed directly upright. The presence of the cat which is often associated with women’s sexuality negatively speaks to the shaking subject matter and the position the cat is in. 

Simple compositions also emphasize color. Japonsime, the influence of Japanese art is seen in impressionism with people having strong outlines, and being painted from a somewhat downward angle—Japanese prints which didn’t focus on depth of field aligned with the focus on the foreground as well. Moving out of impressionism, Whistler began looking into the idea of bringing inspiration for painting from music. Music being abstract it’s no mystery where this idea leads. 

Class 17

Today in class we discussed the origins of realism and where it moved to as it is observing as true to life as possible, landscapes where the natural origin of this style of painting as you can go somewhere and easily observe. Landscape and then paint it. They are also stationary. It focuses on portraying how everything appears in life as it’s seen. Light is important as it is the source of value that defines how a shape is portrayed visually and color is less important moving toward feeling like an afterthought. Art aims to show the lives people are living by including clues to their class location and occupation. Subject matter feels plane and well seen even before it is painted, for example showing a French farm with cows plowing a field for grape vines. Titles also gain more importance as they help to describe to the viewer exactly what we are looking at. Lots of sympathy for the lower class is shown through the depiction of their life and what they do for us(the sower) in America, commentary on the post-civil war world is made through images of kids playing games about connecting and togetherness. Showing a realistic pastime but also working as symbolism. 

In class today we discussed romanticism. It’s formed from many ideals that are not of the current time and place. From fantasizing about an idea that is far off and more of a dream than a reality to visually including exotica in European paintings. Dream-like ideas were used for propaganda in some cases, for example, Napoleon’s conquests were documented, appealing to the Pashto son those bad in France seeing a hero off helping and conceding in a foreign land. The paints are not based on fact but on an idea that you want to believe. This brings the saying ignorance is bliss to mind. The romantic idea can also be applied to history, as gothic architecture was used in the reconstruction of British parliament buildings. This was not a forging stile geographical but from the past… therefore making the architecture foreign. A combination of this idea comes in the form of the Royal Pavilion, a building in Britain that draws inspiration from the Taj Mahal but in essence does not look like the Taj. It just takes some features and uses them to conquer the idea of the Taj it does not recreate the Taj. Romanticism makes you feel for something. It doesn’t show what’s there. 

Class 15

In class, we discussed the Enlightenment meaning that the idea of all knowledge springing forth from religion was being questioned and knowledge was being founded in reason.  The prominent figures of Issac Newton and John Lock. The idea of seeing as believing and knowing is experiencing came to be. Logic and Morality gained great importance. Neoclassicism is the first ISM to come about and is based on the Grand Tour which was the final stage of education like studying abroad. The Nobel simplicity and calm grandeur of classic art were appealing and it inspired much architecture of the time as the Wigs came to power they embraced neoclassicism as a form of showing a connection to democracy as they were a more democratic political party in England’s parliament. The Pantheon is seen inspiring many buildings as an example of this. Taking a design from a book that documents classical artwork, a factory man makes Wedgwood (blue and white relief vases) Paintings start to adopt a strong composition saying a lot but not focusing on emotion.