BLOG 8: Ming Dynasty

Ming dynasty, 1460

This is Chinese art that was done in 1460 during the Ming Dynasty by the Xia Chang. It is title Bamboo in Wind and is a hanging scroll. Calligraphy is used to draw the detailed picture on the scroll.

Bamboo is a symbol if integrity and strenght because it does not break when it bends. This art embodies that as a message. The artist Xia Change was one of the most famous bamboo artists of his time and his art work was popular in China, Korea, and Japan. During the Ming Dynasty this type of art was very popular because of what it represented. It also took a lot of skill and mastery to be able to create this type of art so the artists were well respected.

I chose this picture because I find it very peacful and unique. It is also very interesting to look at because of the extreme detail in it. I think Chinese art is very beautiful.

BLOG 7: FRIDA KAHLO

I first heard of Freda Kahlo from one on my aunts. She was wearing a large locket with a tiny self-portrait of Frida in it. My aunt said that she really admired Frida, thats why she had a picture of her in a locket. I thought that this was all strage but after reading up on Frida I have have gained some understanding. I decided to write this blog about Frida becaue at first glance I found her to be very strange because she paints self-portraits and leaves in her unibrow and her flaws for everyone to see- most people would not do that. I was also interested in reading about her to try and discover why my aunt likes her so much.

Frida is a mexican artist, her mother was part mexican, part native and her father was Eurpoean and Jewish. Frida grew up with four sisters and two half-sisters. At the age of six she caught polio causing one of her legs to remain significantly thinner than the other for the rest of her life. She grew up during the Mexican revolution and witnessed fighting and war even as she entered college. She studied medicine and had almost completed her schooling to become a doctor when she was in a serious bus accident that left her immobile for a year. Among many things she broke her spine, that pain left from this accident affected her for the rest of her life. Also, during the accident a metal bar pierced her uterus, leading to her many miscarriges. Art the accident Frida became a painter and married a famous mexican muralist and had many lovers outside of her marrige (many of them were women). She was a communist and painted in the traditional mexican style. 20 years after her death she become internationally popular, as well as a cult figure. Today her biographies and paintings are wildly popular, as is jewery featuring her paintings.

Below is a self-portrait painting by Frida Kahlo called Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. It was pained in 1940 and is currently located at the University of Texas in Austin.

Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940

Frida used vivid bright colors and flat demensions in the traditional mexican style. She also often painted monkeys into her paintings because of their traditional native mexican meaning. This perticular painting shows Frida with a monkey on one shoulder and a black cat on the other. She also has a Raven hanging from thorns around her neck and humming birds around her head. This painting is highly symbolic. The thorns portray the physical pain that she expericed for most of her life.

BLOG 6: An Exhibit On Anamorphosis

The dictionary definition of Anamorphosis is “distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image.” This term, however, has found a contemporary meaning: 3-D Street Art. Through the late 80’s and the 90’s many street artists rose to international fame because of their amazing talent in creating anamorphosis street art. Two of the great street artits of all time, Kurt Wenner and Julian Beever, were famous for anamorphosis.

KURT WENNER has been called the most imporatnt artists in the anamorphosis street art movement. He was born in Ann Arbor Michigan and began earning a living off his graphic designs at 17. He studied art at a graphic design school and worked for NASA as a young adult “creating conceptual paintings of future space projects and extraterrestrial landscapes.” After doing this he is reported to have sold all of his belongings and moved to Italy were he studied the works of the master painters of the Renaissance. He was inspired by Renaissance frescos and sculptures, which shows in his style. His street paintings began in 1982 and have become internationally famous and he has been commisioned all around the world to do them (for businesses and people).

Dies Irae by Kurt Wenner, Aug 2005

By Kurt Wenner, 2006, Located at the National Museaum of Singapore

Untitled, Drawn at Waterloo Station in England, 2007

JULIAN BEEVER is an English chalk artist based out of Belgium. He has been creating anamorphosis street chalk drawings since the early 1990’s. His style is different from Wenner’s because it is not as influenced by Renaissance art. Beever makes his living by doing promotional chalk drawings from businesses througout Europe and North and South America. He is internationally acclaimed for this and still works as a street artist to this day. An interesting thing to note anout Julian Beever’s works is that they are usually untitled and undated. Their existance is portrayed by photographs of people standing with or near them after they have been completed.

Julian Beever

Julian Beever

Julian Beever

(If you have trouble veiwing the entire picture just click on it and it will open into a new window)

All of the art works I have exhibited in my blog have many common themes: They are street art and they all are anamorphosis art works. The three works by Wenner are absolutly beautiful! They look just like the classics of the Renaissance except they have a modern twits- they are down on a city sidewalk. To me they look like portals into another world or into the past and I wish it was possible to jump in to them, like in the movie/book Marry Poppins! The works by Beever are more modern (meaning they do not reflect a past style of art) but they are still amazing, like optical illusions- and they still have the same “portal” feel as Wenner’s works. Overall I find the anamorphosis style to be captivating and unearthly, they have a science fiction feel to them that is absolutely enthralling.

Individually I think the paintings shown in this blog speak for themselves. The first one posted is by Wenner in the Renaissnce style, and the second one is done in the same style as the first except it has a more Asiantic feel, which to me make it more contemporary. I love the third one! It is definetly contemporary and is very playful, I think that it is set in sounthern America because of the watermellon and chickens.

The fourth picture I posted (the first one by Beever) is a promotion for a water company and shows the water piping under a sidewalk. The next one is of an archaeological dig- I really like this one because of how real it looks! It’s almost as if you could jump into it. The last one is straightforward- a Coke advertisement but it reminds me of Pop Art and Andy Warhol because of the way it looks in the middle of the street.

BLOG 5: Dadaism

Cut with the Photoshop Lasso through the last Bush Culture of the United States

[caption id="attachment_27" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Cut with the Dada Kitchen knife through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919"][/caption]

Dada or Dadaism is an art movement that is a reaction to the atrocities of WWI. The artists that participated in this movement would meet in groups to have discussions and share ideas. Also, some of them participated in antiwar demonstrations. The Dada form rejected tradition and sought to be unique and different. This is because the artists and many intellectuals of the time believed traditional values to be the cause of WWI. WWI one was caused by the alliances of the European royal families and fought by the masses; the common people doing their civic duty and following their leaders to fight for their countries. However, new technology made WWI the first “modern war” and killed more people than any pervious war, ever. So you can see why the Dada artists and many people would blame tradition and the common people of Europe for the suffering and bloodshed of WWI.

A really interesting piece of Dada art is a collage by Hannah Hoech and is titled Cut with the Dada Kitchen knife through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919. To me the title basically explains the piece- its drawing attention to Weimer and tieing it together with the German culture at that time. I like this collage because of its detail and the fact that it doesn’t focus on one subject but ties many political statements together in a chaotic way.

A modern example of the meaning of this piece can be found that this website:https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/mcm0750/Cut+with+the+Photoshop+Magnetic+Lasso+through+the+last+Bush+Culture+of+United+States
This web site shows a collage titled: Cut with the Photoshop Lasso through the last Bush Culture of the United States. I think it puts the original piece in a more modern perspective- it definitely helped me understand that original better.

BLOG 4: Impressionism and Postimpressionism

Starry Night

I really enjoyed studying the Impressionist Era. The paintings look like rain drops of color splashed on to a page with an under watery haze but when you step back and look at the whole painting it actually depicts something; its amazing. It seems that creating an impressionist piece would be much harder than a classical one because it would require more creativity and vision, and one would have to stretch their imagination and mind in order to see the world with an impressionist view point. Impression, Sunrise, 1872 by Claude Monet is an example of what I find so fascinating about Impressionism because of the colors and the way the light is presented; it makes me feel like I am there and seeing the scenery myself. The visible paint strokes and dashing colors seem more real to me than classical art because they lack the perfection and staged timing of classical painting. Impressionism captured the elusive moment in a way the classical painting captures an object. I also liked Postimpressionism because it verges even more into the imagination, creating a dream world with bright colors and blended contrasts. I am sure everyone has seen the painting Starry Night, 1888 by Vincent Van Gough, which is my favorite Postimpressionist painting. Growing up a copy of this was hanging in my living room, and I have spent many hours looking at it.

Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh, 1881: http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/van-gogh-vincent-starry-night-7900566.jpg

Impression Sunrise, Claude Monet, 1872: http://www.monetalia.com/paintings/large/monet-impression-sunrise.jpg

BLOG 3: Classical Era

Franz Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composure during the classical period. He created many works and is very famous, even to this day, for being the “Father of Symphony.” One of his pieces that I like is Symphony No. 94 in G major, The Surprise (1791) which is one of Haydn’s “London symphonies.” This symphony begins light and bouncy but becomes increasingly more elegant sounding. It makes me think of people walking up though a garden to go to a dance at a king’s palace. This work would have had a broad appeal during Haydn’s time because of its elegance and entertaining composition. Its sound constantly changes and varies, as not to sound repetitive or get boring. The middle class would have enjoyed this and during this time actually able to afford to go to a concert to listen to a performance like this.

Link to a video of featuring the symphony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtNqCI1Elx0&feature=PlayList&p=4F11ABE068325CAF&index=24&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

BLOG: 2 BAROQUE

Rembrandt was a Dutch painter during the Baroque era and lead the “Dutch Golden Age” of Dutch art. Many of his painting were portraits of the merchant class or royalty because he was commissioned to do them. During his time period the Merchant class was growing increasingly wealthy because of the beginning of international trade and banking. Gaining a commission played a great role in his creation of art. The counter-reformation council of Trent also influenced art of his era’ maybe of his portraits were depicting biblical events, such as

Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburg, 1635- Rembrandt

[gallery], 1633. Science also influenced his art because it allowed him to study the human form more, as well has develop better paint. I really enjoy his painting Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee, 1633, it is just so beautiful and captivating- and the history of the actual painting is very interesting. In 1990 it was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and is still to this day missing.

BLOG 1

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_24.63.111.jpg

Samson Rendering the Lion is an engraving by Albrecht Durer. It is one of his earlier woodcuts and has an amazing amount of detail. It depicts the story of Samson from the Book of Judges in the Bible where Samson takes on the power of God and rips apart a lion with his bare hands. This woodcut is not as famous as others done by Durer, like Apocalypse, but it still incorporates his style and craftsmanship. From looking at the online picture of it you can see the depth; there are mountains in the distance and castles, a detailed skyline, as well as vegetation. Also, Samson and the lion are meticulously carved, even Samson’s calf muscles are included and the lion’s mane is very intricate.
This carving represents the time period that it was made in. (Even though it is depicting a story from Biblical times.) Samson is using God’s strength to tacked and subdue a force of nature, this represents what was going on during the 1400’s because people were using their ingenuity and developing machines and new ways of farming to cut forests and control the world around them. Also, you can see in the carving that behind Samson in the distance the scenery is dominated by castles; man-made structures, which show how man has taken over the land, taking it back from nature.
Durer was a German artist and raised in Nuremburg. This is where he practiced and created his art and craft. However, he also studied the works of the Italian Renaissance because it was documented that he visited Italy on two different occasions (1). As a German artist he lived in the area of Europe that would later become ground zero for the major religious movement of the Protestant Reformation; Durer, having lived in the 1400’s though would not experience it full force himself. Also, Durer was never commissioned by the Medici family, but in Venice he was granted commission by wealthy merchants, so royalty also affected and helped his work.

CITATIONS: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/durr/hd_durr.htm

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