On the 26/9/2011 I attended my lecture with Chris Aughton. We looked at cave art, we all had our own views and opinions as to what we thought about the art that was created almost 30,000 years ago.
We talked about the history of art, Chris explained to us that modern art is disliked by many people, simply because the piece of art that is created is a reflection of the society it is made in, so with how the country is at the moment there is a very good explanation as to why some of the art created in this day and age is not as popular as many pieces of art that was created from as far back as the cave art.
I found it very interesting as to why the cave people created art, to me there are a few reasons as to why I think they felt the need to express themselves through drawings. They possibly wanted to leave something behind that would help people to understand what they did in their everyday like and also what happened to them many years ago, I also like to believe that they drew them to show there siblings when they got old enough what they would be expected to do to fend for the family.
Over all i thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, I am going to upload one of the pictures that we where shown yesterday, it is the one that inspired me the most and also made me want to research the subject further.
Cave art - What do think the reason behind this drawing was??
We also looked at what the ideal women was perceived as all those years ago, the men would create sculptures out of substances such as bone, ivory, wood, clay, the sculpture would focuses on wide hips, bellies and large breasts. They saw this as their ideal women, big breasts to feed their children, wide hips to carry the children, big bellies to show that even though times where hard the women still had their fair share of food to keep them looking healthy. Many people who has discovered these sculptures believe they where symbols of fertility.
This is what the sculptures look like, they never seemed to find any with facial details carved in. This is what the men used to think a perfect women should look like, do we think the views of men of this day and age have changed?
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On the 3/10/11 we briefly went over what we discussed last week about the cave art and to why looking at this was relevant for our subject that we are studying. We were looking at the cave art because Chris was showing us how they used to express themselves, when I take a photography I do this to express myself, its the same as what you decided to wear in a morning, you put on something that is expressing how you feel on that day.
We then went on to discuss Egyptian, Greek and roman culture.
Egyptians
When the pyramids where built over 4700 years ago they where built as tombs for the pharaoh's and queens, to some people the pharaoh was a god.
This is a picture of what the inside of one of the pyramids looked like,
They where built like this to make people who are not welcome in the pyramids to feel intimidated. Sometimes traps where even placed around the pyramids so if there were any trespassers they would be caught.
The Egyptians created many pieces of art, low relief sculptures (sculpture but carved into a wall, gives depth).
This is a low relief of Ashurbanipal hunting the lion, this was found in the palace at Nineveh.
The definition of low relief is "where the plane is scarcely more than scratched in order to create background material"
We also looked at the the drawings that where created, these where made for the pharaohs, queens and the dead people in the tombs, they would be an illustration of what was going on in their life, and also their religion and belief. Here is a couple of photographs of the drawings so you can see the similarities between them,
As you can see there are quite a few similarities between low relief and the paintings, they always seem to be painted from the side, Heads were almost always depicted in profile view in two-dimensional art. It is easier to draw a face from the side in order to get the nose correct.
Graphic design is were images and text are put together, the egyptians did this quite a lot as they wanted to explain what they had drawn.
I do enjoy looking at their art, although it is all 2 dimensional its very knowledgeable as to what was actually going on at that time and what things they believed hould happen. It is like writing a bibliography.
Greek
Greek art is mainly five forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, pottery and jewelry making.
The arts of ancient Greece have exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries all over the world, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture. In the West, the art of the Roman empire was largely derived from Greek models. In the East, Alexander the Great's conquests initiated several centuries of exchange between Greek, Central Asian and Indian cultures, resulting in Greco-Buddhist art, with ramifications as far as Japan. Following the Renaissance in Europe, the humanist aesthetic and the high technical standards of Greek art inspired generations of European artists. Well into the 19th century, the classical tradition derived from Greece dominated the art of the western world.
This is the Pantheon in Greece, the building actually looks straight but it is slightly bent, it is a very powerfull piece of architecture.
I would like to go an explore this building for myself, it would be a great experience, I would also like to photograph it from different angles so then I could actually take my time with all its beauty.
Fresco - is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance. Declining in popularity, they enjoyed something of a revival in the 20th century.
This is on the celing of Ferapontov Convent in Russia, it was completed by Dionisius. To create fresco you paint directly onto wet plaster.
As a photographer I like to express myself, I think this is what they were doing when playing with Fresco, they wanted to show the rest of the world what they were capable off.
Roman
Roman art has the visual arts made in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work.Metal work, coin-die and gem engraving, ivory carvings, figurine glass, pottery and miniture book illustrations are sometimes considered in modern terms to be minor forms of Roman art, although this would not necessarily have been the case for contemporaries.
The Romans also made a Panthenon to feel impressive about their buildings,
As you can see it has the same front as the one in Greece but then the back of it is round, they have done this because they wanted this building to look powerfull, they thought that the one in Greece was so powerful looking that they would use their ideas, but they have also used some of their own ideas to make it look a bit different.
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On the 10/10/2011 we talked about the Renaisance, how Jesus was a very big influence on most of the art that was created. Jesus was either liked or hated by the people that lived in the era that he did, some believed he was a powerful men but others believed that it was all a lie. The followers of Jesus became a cult and they soon had to flee Egypt because they were persicuted. There soon became a loss of infastructure, this is because a lot of art is created to represent a "state" of the country and the civilisation of the time it was made, so when art was being created at the time of Jesus being around there was a lot of mixed opinions.
Byzantine art
This art is not as good as the Roman art, it is very similar because they used similar ways of creating them but because there was a loss of infastructure it just wasnt as good,
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
This is a piece of religious art, it looks like Jesus sat in the middle shadowed by angles. It has been done quite 2 dimentional but it still tells a story as to what certain people believed was happening.
Gothic art
This was the age of chivalry. The Gothic movement lasted more than 200 years, beginning in Italy and spreading throughout Europe. It began with the architectural triumphs of the 12th century (the height of the Middle Ages) when Europe was seeking to move beyond the Dark Ages and into an era of radiance, confidence, and prosperity. It was accompanied by a strengthening of Christianity, when magnificent new cathedrals were being constructed throughout Northern France (Amiens, Chartres, and Reims).
Photographers can also lie about an image that they have taken because in this day and age we have software like, photoshop, aperture and lightroom, we can use any of these to change the original image to make it look totally different to what it started out as.
I will now go more into depth about certain artists and not just what kind of art was created in what time.
Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (1266/7 – January 8, 1337), better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late middle ages. He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.
.This is a sculpture of what Giotto was said to look like, he looks like a very determind man.
These are called an Icon, they are called an Icon because it differenciates them from an Idol (idolatry) They are made of wood to represent the cross, she is always the center of the composition, and hierarchic scale also makes sure that she is the focus of attention. The gold background reinforces her divine status, as do the surrounding angels.
I would like to go an explore this building for myself, it would be a great experience, I would also like to photograph it from different angles so then I could actually take my time with all its beauty.
Fresco - is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance. Declining in popularity, they enjoyed something of a revival in the 20th century.
This is on the celing of Ferapontov Convent in Russia, it was completed by Dionisius. To create fresco you paint directly onto wet plaster.
As a photographer I like to express myself, I think this is what they were doing when playing with Fresco, they wanted to show the rest of the world what they were capable off.
Roman
Roman art has the visual arts made in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work.Metal work, coin-die and gem engraving, ivory carvings, figurine glass, pottery and miniture book illustrations are sometimes considered in modern terms to be minor forms of Roman art, although this would not necessarily have been the case for contemporaries.
The Romans also made a Panthenon to feel impressive about their buildings,
As you can see it has the same front as the one in Greece but then the back of it is round, they have done this because they wanted this building to look powerfull, they thought that the one in Greece was so powerful looking that they would use their ideas, but they have also used some of their own ideas to make it look a bit different.
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On the 10/10/2011 we talked about the Renaisance, how Jesus was a very big influence on most of the art that was created. Jesus was either liked or hated by the people that lived in the era that he did, some believed he was a powerful men but others believed that it was all a lie. The followers of Jesus became a cult and they soon had to flee Egypt because they were persicuted. There soon became a loss of infastructure, this is because a lot of art is created to represent a "state" of the country and the civilisation of the time it was made, so when art was being created at the time of Jesus being around there was a lot of mixed opinions.
Byzantine art
This art is not as good as the Roman art, it is very similar because they used similar ways of creating them but because there was a loss of infastructure it just wasnt as good,
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
This is a piece of religious art, it looks like Jesus sat in the middle shadowed by angles. It has been done quite 2 dimentional but it still tells a story as to what certain people believed was happening.
Gothic art
This was the age of chivalry. The Gothic movement lasted more than 200 years, beginning in Italy and spreading throughout Europe. It began with the architectural triumphs of the 12th century (the height of the Middle Ages) when Europe was seeking to move beyond the Dark Ages and into an era of radiance, confidence, and prosperity. It was accompanied by a strengthening of Christianity, when magnificent new cathedrals were being constructed throughout Northern France (Amiens, Chartres, and Reims).
Unlike the Romaneque and Byzantine art that preceded it, the Gothic period was characterized by an increase in a naturalistic style. This quality (naturalism), which first appeared in works by Italian artists during the 13th century, came to be the dominant painting style throughout the Continent and lasted until the end of the 15th century.
This is showing Jesus nailed to the cross, ladys around him looking very unhappy about the situation but in the sky there are what looks like something from hell. When Gothic art was created the artists tend to lie quite a bit, they wanted people to be wowed by what they were producing so they slightly changed them and took them out of perspective.Photographers can also lie about an image that they have taken because in this day and age we have software like, photoshop, aperture and lightroom, we can use any of these to change the original image to make it look totally different to what it started out as.
I will now go more into depth about certain artists and not just what kind of art was created in what time.
Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (1266/7 – January 8, 1337), better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late middle ages. He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.
.This is a sculpture of what Giotto was said to look like, he looks like a very determind man.
These are called an Icon, they are called an Icon because it differenciates them from an Idol (idolatry) They are made of wood to represent the cross, she is always the center of the composition, and hierarchic scale also makes sure that she is the focus of attention. The gold background reinforces her divine status, as do the surrounding angels.
These are very religious items, I would say that 98% of catholics will own one of these, I am a catholic and I have 2, you can buy them on the interent but I purchased mine when I paid a visit to a very religious town in Poland. Yes they are still quite 2 dimensional but they are beautiful.
Quote - Art is a lie that lets us see the truth.
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520), better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michealangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.
This painting that Raphael has done is brilliant, the perspective is correct. The building looks the right size and so do they men. In other artists paintings eveything just looks out of perportion, the buildings would look tiny and the people would look huge so you would look at it and thing those people are never going to fit in their house.
This is very relevant to my photography because Raphael could have used a camera obscura to help him with getting the perspective correct,
I have created one of these camera to try and get an image on a piece of paper, they have slightly changed over the years but they are still used for the same reason.
The garden of Earthly delights
Hieronymus Bosch born Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken ( 1450 – 9 August 1516), was a Dutch painter. His work is known for its use of fantastic imagery to illustrate moral and religious concepts and narrative.
He is famous for a Triptic, it is called the garden of earthly delights, created between 1490/1510,
Left panel (Adam and Eve),
This panel is showing what happened in the time of Adam and Eve, how innocent it all looks. Some of the things he has painted in are a bit perculiar, he wasnt there so he was probably just trying to imagine what was there and what was happening.
Middle panel (earth),
Right panel (hell),
This is the right panel and its supposed to represent hell, this panel is also very crazy but I think he seemed to think that his life was like hell because there is a face in the middle and it has been said that it is a portrait of himself. It was believed that all animals that came out at night were evil so Bosch painted them in this panel to show that they were evil.
Bruegal
Pieter Bruegel (Brueghel) the Elder ( 1525 – 9 September 1569) was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but he is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which Brueghel is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel.
This painting is called Netherlandish proverbs, it is overflowing with references and most of the representations can still be identified; while many of the proverbs have either been forgotten or never made the transition to the English language, some are still in use. Proverbs were popular during Bruegel's time: a number of collections were published including a famous work by Erasmus.
Here are a few of the refrences,
To shit on the world
To stick out the broom
Big fish eat little fish
These are just a few, there are actually over 100 refrences in the painting. I think it is ingenious what Bruegal did, he wanted to show what thoughts you can get from just viewing a simple object.
Van Eyck
Jan van Eyck (or Johannes de Eyck) (before c. 1395 – before 9 July 1441) was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century.
This is the Arnold Finely portrait, it is said that the man in the painting is Eyck, a self portrait. The symbols in the painting tell a bigger story, artists tend to put things in their paintings to give you something to think about.
The colour red represents their was love and romance in their relationship, the lady might have not been pregant, they might have painted it that way to show that she was able to mother a child, the fruit on the side shows they were wealthy and his hand gesture is maybe showing that he is welcoming you into his home.
These is also a mirror on the back wall,
This is showing the back of the couple and also showing the other person in the room, it could have been the priest as it was also said this could have been the day they got married.
I like this painting, its quite clever how he has painted things that werent actually there just so the viewer has more to think about.
In photography we would class this as juxtaposition because you have got an image and then you have a reflection in the mirror. Its an image within an image.
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On the 17/10/2011 we are still in the renaissance, we are also looking at how all these artists have recorded the world.
Da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius , perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci points out, however, that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.
This is called The last Super, it is when Jesus announced that one of his 12 disciples will betray him, the disciples seem to be quite upset at the statement that Jesus has just made as they are all talking amongst themselves and some of them seem quite angry.
Da Vinci also painted the famous painting Mona Lisa, it seems with the way he has done it that he has kind of done a self portrait as the lady does seem to resemble Da Vinci. The eyes of Mona lisa always seem to follow you round, no matter were you stand in the room. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519.
I have taken many photographs of people before and if you take it in a certain way you can also get the effect of it looking like they are following you around the room, it doesnt seem as wierd when a family members eyes seem to be following you but if I had this on my wall I would feel like I was being watched all the time.
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576) better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di cadore, near Belluno. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.
It shows her with a passionate devotion. Mary's modest pose is that of the classical beauty Venus.
This type of art was placed in churches and cathedrals as they were classed as being very powerful, they were also very popular with they rich as they collected them. If a certain rich man had one and another found out they had to have it aswell, they felt inferia if they didnt have what every other rich man had.
Velazques
Diego RodrÃguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).
The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting.
In this painting you can see his little girl, dwarfs, the maid and a man, the man is Velazques himself, when you paint yourself in the picture you are breaking a fourth wall by looking out like your achknowledging the viewer. He maybe did this because he wanted a painting of himself with the people in his life that he loved, he loved painting dwarfs and he obviously loved his child or maybe he just loved his life.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
This is painted on the ceiling of the sistine chapel, the perspective of it isnt quite right, the length of Adams leg would be really long if he was to lay it flat and his penis seems to be underexagerated. It is showing God passing on knowledge to Adam, its really clever how he has painted God in a brain.
This is what the whole of the roof looks like, its gorgeous, it must have taken some time to complete it. I would love for my work to be displayed in this way for the whole world to see it. He must have been proud of himself.
Michelangelo was also a sculptor, he created the famous David,
This is also seems to be out of proportion but it was designed to be looked up at to give a dramitic effect, so his head might look quite large but when you look up at it, it seems correct. The way he has sculped the expression on his face is a bit perculiar,
He looks a bit worried and scared, I dont think this is the way that Michealangelo wanted it look, he would have wanted him to look strong and powerful, I dont get this impression.
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Boroque scholl of painting.
Caravaggio painting dramitic lighting into his paintings to make it look more effective, I think it worked because most of the light is focused on the man in the white robe, who is supposed to be Jesus, he is the main man in the picture. The men are looking at a hole in Jesus's body because they dont believe it is him. He has had a spear put through his chest so the other men felt the need to check it out.
When taking a photograph I would position a light on the main subject so it would show up as being the most important part of the photograph and to also gain shadow and sometimes depth.
This is called sleeping cupid, when you think of a cupid you think of a cute, podgy looking baby with wings, a cross bow and a smile on their face, this cupid looks more like a man than a baby and it doesnt look happy at all. I think Caravaggio painted it like this because he wanted to show the dark side of love. Love does have its ups and downs, its right and its wrongs, its good and its bad, this is what is painted in the picture. He has also painted light into his painting which I think shows maybe there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
When taking a photograph I would position a light on the main subject so it would show up as being the most important part of the photograph and to also gain shadow and sometimes depth.
This is called sleeping cupid, when you think of a cupid you think of a cute, podgy looking baby with wings, a cross bow and a smile on their face, this cupid looks more like a man than a baby and it doesnt look happy at all. I think Caravaggio painted it like this because he wanted to show the dark side of love. Love does have its ups and downs, its right and its wrongs, its good and its bad, this is what is painted in the picture. He has also painted light into his painting which I think shows maybe there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
Boucher
François Boucher (29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture. He also painted several portraits of his illustrious patroness, Madame de Pompadour.
If you was to compare this to Caravaggio's cupid you would see that this cupid looks much more happier. I would have said before actually researching into both images that I prefer Boucher's painting because its cute and loveable but now I would have to say Caravaggio's because it has more of a meaning, there is more than meets the eye, you can look at it for ages and still see something different each time.
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On the 31/10/2011 we talked about going from renaissance art to secular art,
Vermeer
Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer, baptized in Delft on 31 October 1632 as Joannis, and buried in the same city under the name Jan on 15 December 1675, was a Dutch painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.
The Milkmaid, sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, is an oil-on-canvas painting of a "milkmaid", in fact a domestic kitchen maid. Vermeer liked to paint every day situations, this lady was just doing her daily chores, filling up the milk, cutting up the bread. You can also see that he has painted light into his image, just look Caravaggio did, so this technique must have caught on, you cant blame them for using other artists ideas, they obviously knew it was a good technique to use it themselves.
I like to photograph my nieces and nephews so when they get older I can show them what they used to get up to when they were babies, its keeping hold of a memory that you dont want to loose. I do the same as what Vermeer used to do, he want to keep a memory, thats what I am doing when photographing my family.
Gericault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he became one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.
This is called Raft of the Medusa, it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Medusa, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation, dehydration, cannibalism and madness. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain perceived to be acting under the authority of the recently restored French Monarchy.
I like this painting, although it is quite dull you can still see what is going on and also make out the problems that have already occured. Gericault will have probably exagerated the scene but that was just to probably just help you understand how terrible of an ordeal it was.
Eugene Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement.
commemorating the July revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X of France. A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricouleur flag of the French revolution in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The painting is perhaps Delacroix's best-known work.
This image looks a bit strange to me, many people believe that men should be the ones going out into the world and working, bringing home the money and the women should stay at home, clean, cook and look after the children. In 1830 I would say that men still believed this so I am very confused as to why a women is leading the men. Maybe he painted it like this so it would get your attention or maybe it was actually a women leading all the men.
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch golden age.
The painting is renowned for three elements: its colossal size (363 x 437 cm ~ 11ft 10in x 14ft 4in), the effective use of light and shadow, and the perception of motion in what would have been, traditionally, a static military portrait.
He has used light and shadow in a very good way, he has made the little girl appear alot more brighter than anybody else becuase he wanted to show how fragile the city was. I do love this painting, his techniques and abilty to make it look like people are moving. I can make people look like they are moving when taking a photograph but it must have been a bit more idfficult for Rambrandt those man years ago, it is magnificent.
Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the old masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era. The subversive and imaginative element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists, notably Manet, Picasso and Francis Bacon.
This is seen as the first modern painting, he painted this becuase he believed this is what would happen if there was a war. I think he had quite a good idea of what a war is about, there are people with the guns and the people who die and he has even graphically shown a couple of the recipients already dead.
Many artists are now using the technique of adding lighting into their paintings to illuminate a certain object or person.
Constable
John Constable (11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home, now known as "Constable Country", which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
This is called Hay Wain, Constable liked to belive that this was what the whole of England was like, he painted this area of land from every angle, he wanted to remember it all becuase his wife had died and he wanted everything in memory. There is so much detail in this painting, he must have put some much time and effort into them, he would have had a lot more time on his hands so maybe the time he used to spend with his wife he spent painting his pictures.
I like how he has painted the clouds, they look incredibly real. When I take a photograph that is going to have quite a bit of sky in it, I like to make sure that there is always something there, if there arnt many clouds I will set my camera to a long exposure so I have more of a chance of capturing something in that area.
Niepce
Nicéphore Niépce (born Joseph Niépce) March 7, 1765 – July 5, 1833) was a French Inventor, most noted as one of the inventors of photography and a pioneer in the field. He is most noted for producing the world's first ever photograph in 1825. Among Niépce's other inventions was the Pyrelophore, the world's first 'internal combustion engine', which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brother Claude, finally receiving a patent on July 20, 1807 from the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, after successfully powering a boat upstream on the river Saone.
This is said to be one of the first photogrpahs to be found, he apparently did do another photograph but because many people tried to make a duplicate it got destroyed. This was said to have had an 8 hour exposure, it is said to be more of a novelty than anything else. I like Niepce's determination, he obviously wanted to see what he was capable of doing. Its not very good but it is the first every mechanically recorded image.
Camera's now have long exposure times so that you can captured the right about light in your image or you can have movement. I use a long exposure when photographing water because you get a lovely silk effect and sometimes the water looks like milk.
Manet
Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Luncheon on the grass, this painting earned the impressionists a great deal of media attention. Whilst a nude in a classical setting was considered acceptable, one in a contemporary setting was not. It caused a public scandal and was savaged by the critics.
The painting itself is beautiful, the detail thats gone into it is amazing but why would a naked lady be having a picnic in the middle of a forest with two full dressed men. Maybe she was there for a sexual nature or maybe she just liked being naked, there is a lady in the background in a river, she could have been washing her clothes. Each person will see it differently, that is why some people like it and others dont.
Monet
Claude Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plain air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, sunrise.
The primary subjects of all of the paintings in the series are stacks of hay in the field after the harvest season. The title refers primarily to a twenty-five canvas series begun in the end of summer of 1890 and continued through the following spring, using that year's harvest. Some use a broader definition of the title to refer to other paintings by Monet with this same theme. The series is known for its thematic use of repetition to show differences in perception of light across various times of day, seasons, and types of weather. The subjects were painted in fields near Monet's home in Giverny, France.
I have taken several photographs throughout the day of the same tree to see what results I would get depending on the weather and the light. The shadows obviously moved depending on the sun, in the early morning the tree looked wet and when the sun was going down it had the golden hour effect. Each photograph is different, even though its of the same tree. Monet was playing with light, just like I like to.
Van gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh ( 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died at the age of 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted. His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.
Painted in 1888, oil on canvas,its a painting that depicts Van Gogh's bedroom at 2, Place Lamartine in Arles, Bouches du Rhone, France, known as his yellow house. The door to the right was opening to the upper floor and the staircase, the door to the left served the guest room he held prepared for Gauguin. The window in the front wall was looking to Place Lamartine and its public gardens. This room was not rectangular, but trapezoid, with an obtuse angle in the left hand corner of the front wall and an acute angle at the right. Van Gogh evidently did not spend much time on this problem, he simply indicated that there was a corner, somehow.
I'm not to keen on this image, it looks like a child has drawn it, he was going through mental problems so maybe thats why his work is crazy. I kind of like the strokes he has used and the bold colours but not so happy with the structures. I suppose your paintings will differ depending on your mood and you state of mind. When I am taking photographs I tend to shoot things that are similar to my mood, I dont do it on purpose, thats just what my thoughts seem to tell me what to do. When I am happy I want to take light pictures outdoors or in a studio but when I am sad I would rather take quite dark photograpgs and be on my own.
Cezanne
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was a French artist and Post Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matiisse and Picasso that Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot be easily dismissed.
Still Life with a Curtain (1895) illustrates Cézanne's increasing trend towards terse compression of forms and dynamic tension between geometric figures.
To me this painting looks quite flat, this is one of the main reasons as to why I never used to like still life photography, I have now seen what still life is all about and its not just bowls of fruit. Cezanne has placed items in a specific way to make them look interesting, this is what I try to do when I am photographing still life objects.
Schiele
Egon Schiele (June 12, 1890 – October 31, 1918) was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.
This is a self portrait of Schiele, it doesnt look like much but it is very expressive. It does show what he would look like with just a few squiggles and lines and just one colour, black.
I dont like how he paints, I think he could have taken more time and put more effort into his work but its each to their own because some people will think this work is very creative.
Klimt
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals,sketches, and other art objects. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism, nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil.
If you look closely at this painting you can see that her face is so realistic, if you just took a short glance the face could pass as a photograph just stuck onto a painting. He always painted like this and quite often than not he used the same lady model, the face look real but the rest of it has to be made up, I dont think in that yearthere would have been a chair quite like that. Maybe he did this becaue he wanted to get the veiwers attention, it certainly got my attention.
When I am photographing a person I like them to stand infront of something that is interesting, I dont like it being too much but a plain wall doesnt do much for your image, if you have say for instance a bush behind your model you can create the bokeh effect, this makes the face stand out, especially the eyes and the rest of the image looks blurred but you can still make out what it is. I do this because I want people to be "wowed" with my images, this could be the reason behind Klimt added such crazyness to his.
Munch
Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The scream, is part of a series, The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.
This is called Scream, when you first look at it you would think that the person is screaming, their not, They are reacting to a scream. In the right hand corner of the picture is a mental institute, his sister is situated there, a patient in there has started screaming so he has covered his ears and the the sky and the water also seem to be reacting to the scream.
It looks like Munch has painted using really thick strokes but he hasnt, he has actually added alot of detail to it. I do like this image, I will be honest, I didnt like it until I actually knew the story behind it, now I do i find it very interesting and also knowledgeable, like the saying "dont always judge a book by its cover".
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On the 7/11/2011 we started looking more at art and design,
Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Completed between 1851-52, currently held in the Tate Britain in London, it depicts Ophelia, a character from Shakespear's play Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river in Denmark.
Rumours have it that she wanted to kill herself because her own husband had murdered her dad. She must have been upset if that was the case but she doesnt look upset in the painting, maybe she is just happy that no long from them she wont have to worry about it any longer.
Millias has painted it very well, the detail he has put into it is amazing, the flowers in the river and the poppys in her heand, which do represent death, the robin in the tree just above her head and the tree trunk that is just laying on the river bank. He really thought about what messgae he wanted to get across to the viewers.
Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868 – 10 December 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and artist. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main representative of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European design. He was born in Glasgow and he died in London.
These chairs are very bold, to be fair they dont actually have that much to them but they arnt boring at all. I like them I think they are diffferent and that they would brighten up any house. I suppose he just wanted people to remember him for something different.
Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and crafts movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti which profoundly influenced the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century. As an author, illustrator and medievalist, he is considered an important writer of the British Romantic movement, helping to establish the modern fantasy genre; and a direct influence on postwar authors such as J.R.R Tolkien. He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production, and one of the founders of the Society for the protection of ancient buildings, now a statutory element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK.
These are the types of wallpapers that Morris created, they are very beautiful, the detail he has put into them is great, the first image it took me two glances to notice the rabbits in it. If I had this on my wall though I think I would have a constant headache, its just a buit too much to take in all at once.
Art Nouveau - is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decrotive arts, that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art".
Example of Art Nouveau.
Art Deco - is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and jewelry, as well as the visual arts such as painting, graphic arts and film. The term "art deco" was first used widely in 1926, after an exhibition in Paris.
Example of Art Deco.
Bauhaus
A school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933.
The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during the first years of its existence. Nonetheless it was founded with the idea of creating a 'total' work of art in which all arts, including architecture would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design. The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.
I know that Walter probably spent a lot of time creating this building but I think its ugly, its just so square, the only thing that I like about it is the angle that the photograph was taken at because you can actually see quite alot of the building and you can also see the small detail, such as the bars on the windows.
De Stijl
De Stijl, Dutch for "The Style", also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917. In a narrower sense, the term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands. De Stijl is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), propagating the group's theories.
The Red Blue Chair is a chair designed in 1917 by Gerrit Rietveld. It represents one of the first explorations by theDe Stijl art movement in three dimensions. The original chair was constructed of unstained beech wood and was not painted until the early 1920's. Fellow member of De Stijl and architect, Bart van der Leck, saw his original model and suggested that he add bright colors. He built the new model of thinner wood and painted it entirely black with areas of primary colors attributed to De Stijl movement. The affect of this color scheme made the chair seem to almost disappear against the black walls and floor of the Schroder house where it was placed. The areas of color appeared to float, giving it an almost transparent structure.
It doesnt look comfy at all but its supposed to be, it would definatly add something different to a room. The colours stand out so much because the rest of the chair is dark and the colours have been done very bold. I do like it, it has something different and it makes you want to sit in it to see what it is like.
Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname.
The Barcelona chair was exclusively designed for the German Pavillion, that country's entry for the Internationl Exposition of 1929, which was hosted by Barcelona, Spain. An icon of modernism, the chair's design was inspired by the campaign and folding chairs of ancient times.
Chris told us that we ever see one of this going for cheap that we should buy it because they are generally very expensive. I wouldnt mind having one of these in my house, they look attractive and comfy. They were created in 1929, they look very modern, designers are still making chairs that look very similar to this so it must be a popular design for other people wanting to use his ideas.
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On the 14/11/2011 we started the introduction to applied arts,
Applied arts -refers to the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use
Now I will explain the difference between expressionism and abstact because that is what we are now moving onto.
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality.
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.
Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (16 December 1866–13 December 1944) was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat, he began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
Composition VII is the pinnacle of Kandinsky's pre-World War One artistic achievement. The creation of this work involved over thirty preparatory drawings, watercolors and oil studies. Each of these is included in the exhibition, documenting the deliberate creative process used by Kandinsky in his compositions. Amazingly, once he had completed the preparatory work, Kandinsky executed the actual painting of Composition VII in less than four days. The exhibition includes a series of four photographs taken between November 25 and 28, 1913, offering a fascinating record of Kandinsky's artistic procedure. Through all of the preparatory works and in the final painting itself, the central motif (an oval form intersected by an irregular rectangle) is maintained. This oval seems almost the eye of a compositional hurricane, surrounded by swirling masses of color and form.
The viewer receives quite a shock in moving from the apocalyptic emotion of Composition VII to the geometrical rhythm of Composition VIII. Painted ten years later in 1923, Composition VIII reflects the influence of Suprematism and Constructivism absorbed by Kandinsky while in Russia prior to his return to Germany to teach at the Bauhaus. Here, Kandinsky has moved from color to form as the dominating compositional element. Contrasting forms now provide the dynamic balance of the work; the large circle in the upper left plays against the network of precise lines in the right portion of the canvas. Note also how Kandinsky uses different colors within the forms to energize their geometry: a yellow circle with blue halo versus blue circle with yellow halo; a right angle filled with blue and an acute angle colored pink. The background also works to enhance the dynamism of the composition. The design does not appear as a geometrical exercise on a flat plane, but seems to be taking place in an undefined space. The layered background colors - light blue at bottom, light yellow at top and white in the middle - define this depth. The forms tend to recede and advance within this depth, creating a dynamic, push-pull effect.
Its marvellous how he has gone from natural forms in art to stylized, I like both of them, when you look at they both togther you can tell that Kandinsky has painted them both because they do have slight similarits but yet they are so different.
Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian (March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944), was a Dutch painter.
He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non repreentational form which he termed Neo Plasticism. This consisted of white ground, upon which was painted a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the three primary colors.
Gray Tree is an oil painting, it was made in 1912 on canvas on a board.
The work came at a time when Mondrian was beginning to experiment with Cubism: its foreground and background elements seem to intermingle, and the palette is very restricted. The tree is subtly oval in form, following another Cubist practice seen in works by Picasso and Georges Braque. Mondrian's oval became explicit, framing the work, in paintings that followed over the next three or four years.
Even though Mondrian has only seemed to have used minimal colours and stokes you can see that its a tree. I love this picture, even though there isnt much to it, I just like the way he has done it, it looks like it could have maybe taken him an hour to do but It actually look him longer than expected, he was very determind to paint exactly what he was thinking.
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930.
The expansion in colour adds brightness to this image. His focus on the construction of rectangular shapes from different types of lines reveals his deeper understanding of contrast and balance. This piece, in addition to Mondrian's compositions from 1922 and 1929, demonstrates his focus on simplicity.
Mondrian wanted to create his own style, you would think that he could only make one kind of this painting but he made quite a few and they are all different, they are part of a series. I do like them but I would buy one as I think that if I was going to pay a lot for a painting I would want more than just a few lines and rectangles off colour.
In photography I also like to created simple images so that they are easy on the eye but they also make the viewer wonder how and why I did it like that.
Klee
Paul Klee (18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was born in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually mastered colour theory, and wrote extensively about it; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory.
The Golden fish glides through the kingdom of its underwater freedom, all lesser fish leaving a clear space for its gleaming body. This is a magical fish with runic signs upon his body, scarlet fins, and a great pink flower of an eye. He hangs majestically in the deep, dark blue magic of the sea, which is luminous with secret images of fertility. The great fish draws the mysteriousness of his secret world into significance. We may not understand the significance, but it is there. The sea and its creatures are arranged in glorious homage, belittled but also magnified by this bright presence. This quiet nobility, the brightness, the solitude, the general respect: all are true of Klee himself. Whether the art world knew it or not, he was their ``golden fish''.
I like how Klee has made the goldfish a lot brighter than anything else, it makes you focus on it, it has to be the most important part of the painting, hense the title of it being The Golden fish. It is very child like though, make he wanted it like to this to show a simple gold fish and if he hadnt painted it any other way he might not felt like he was getting across the point that he wanted to.
Braque
Georges Braque (13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.
Cubism - In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.
As you can see it quite strange looking, all he was trying to make sure was that you saw everything that he was seeing, he painted from all angles to try and give it more of an impact. He also uses different colours to try and represent light and shadow, it is very funky looking, if I didint know the reasons behind why he painted like this I would think he had issues.
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno MarÃa de los Remedios Cipriano de la SantÃsima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. He is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.
This painting is very famous, Picasso has painted it from different angles so he feels that the viewers can tell exactly what is going on, quite a lot of his work in this time had a tinge of blue, this showed that Picasso was going through quite a depressed time as one of his close friends had just died. There are a lot of symbols in this painting,
Bull - represents Spain
Light on the roof - represents Gods eye, painted as a light to brighten up the room
Severed arm - Picasso saying that he doesnt think the Spanish are going to win the war
If you look in the middle of the painting there seems to be like a newspaper effect, he painted this in because he wanted to show the viewers he wasn't actually there.
I think this represented war quite well, it shows death and unhappiness. Maybe the light that is a symbol of Gods eye is showing there is light at the end of the tunnel. I like how he has painted it, I thought at first that maybe it could have done with a bit more colour but then I realised that if he had added more colour it would have looked totally different, it would have given off a different vibe, it needs to be quite dull to show that it was a horrific, terrible time.
Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.
In such pieces he made use of an already existing object. In this case Duchamp used a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt". Readymades also go by the term Found object. The art show to which Duchamp submitted the piece stated that all works would be accepted, but Fountain was not actually displayed, and the original has been lost. The work is regarded by some as a major landmark in 20th century art. Replicas commissioned by Duchamp in the 1960s are now on display in a number of different museums.
This is classed as the most important piece of art, Duchamp changed the essence of the object forever when he moved it from the toilet as being a urinal to a gallery being classed as art.
The essence of art isn't being able to paint, change an Fstop, art is what goes on in your brain not what you do with your hand.
Duchamp liked to challenge what art is, when I take photographs, it will mean one thing to one person and something totally different to another. This is what art is all about, everybody see's it different, this is why it is enjoyed world wide as everybody has their own perspective.
He also created a piece of art that is called Given, its a bit different from anything that I have ever seen,
This is a big wooden door, when you stand directly in front of it you trigger a light switch that turns a light on from behind the door, there is a small crack in the door, you can look into it and this is what you see,
It isn't a painting its actually a model, its a naked lady, holding a lit lamp. Duchamp has added quite a lot of detail to this. I do like how creative he has been, I would like to visit it for myself to actually get the full effect. He was obviously very passionate about art that he tried something different, there are many different responses to this, some think its brilliant and others think its a bit reveling, but that is what art does, it makes people have disagreements. When I created my pin hole camera and tried to get an image I really enjoyed doing it because it was something a bit different.
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Surrealism - is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members.
Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.
Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy and social theory.
Freud
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. An early neurological researcher into cerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy, Freud later developed theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst. Psychoanalysis has in turn helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach.
Freud was critisised because he studied women's bodies and he was a man, it was frowned upon, it also didn't help that he lived for such a long time because if he had died at a younger age he would have become more famous for his ideas and discoveries.
He looked into the brain with quite a lot of detail, he came up with the theory that the brain contains 3 elements; ID, super ego and ego.
This is what he believed the brain was like, when you experience something gate ways open up from one area to another, for example if you saw someone being hurt you would have totally different feeling to any day to day feelings so your super ego would pass messages through to your ego which would probably make you do things that you never thought you would have to do.
Freud also came up with a theory that a 3rd of men think they can rape someone and get away with it, he said they rape people because of their own backgrounds, for instance they have been abused at sometime in their life or maybe that is what they know to be normal, this is because they have different messages being passed between their super ego and their ego than what most people do.
Quite a lot of English people find it difficult to believe some of the theories that Freud came up with because he was German, some of their words can have several meanings and they didn't like this as they didn't know which one was the right one.
For example - (Triebe) - Impulse
Sex drive
Slip
Young shoot
Driving force
He also likes to really think about what dreams mean, he also thought that your dreams where what your mental state was like, I always got told that your dreams relate to what you have been thinking about before you go to bed, not if your mentally stable or not. Does this mean that if you have a dream about someone you know murdering somebody that you are sick and twisted or could it mean that you are vulnerable and scared? This is what Freud would look in to.
Chris then set us a task of drawing the person sat next to us but there was a condition, we wasn't allowed to look at the paper while drawing, we could look when we had taken the pen away from the paper so things like the eyes were in the correct place. We did this to see what our brains tell us when we are trying to do a task differently that what we would normally do. This is my drawing,
This is a student, Vicky, I am quite impressed with my drawing as it actually looks like a person.
Salvador dali
Chris then set us a task of drawing the person sat next to us but there was a condition, we wasn't allowed to look at the paper while drawing, we could look when we had taken the pen away from the paper so things like the eyes were in the correct place. We did this to see what our brains tell us when we are trying to do a task differently that what we would normally do. This is my drawing,
This is a student, Vicky, I am quite impressed with my drawing as it actually looks like a person.
Salvador dali
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalà i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), commonly known as Salvador DalÃ, was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres.
Dalà was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. DalÃ's expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.
Dalà attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to a self-styled "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.
Dalà was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem and to the irritation of his critics.
The well-known surrealist piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. It epitomizes DalÃ's theory of "softness" and "hardness", which was central to his thinking at the time. As Dawn Ades wrote, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order". This interpretation suggests that Dalà was incorporating an understanding of the world introduced by Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. asked by Ilya Prigogine whether this was in fact the case, Dali replied that the soft watches were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun.
Here is a video that shows you what Dali's reasons were behind each item in his painting,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DZXyEEbhEw
I like this painting, it makes you think about it in a lot of detail, when looking at the clocks I would say he painted them like that because he felt like all his time was melting away but it wasn't, he did the clocks like this to resemble melting camembert chesse. There are a few objects in this painting, when you start looking at it you would probably think that Dali was mental but I think its very creative, it makes the brain think that little bit harder as to what it might all mean.
Ernst
I like this painting, it makes you think about it in a lot of detail, when looking at the clocks I would say he painted them like that because he felt like all his time was melting away but it wasn't, he did the clocks like this to resemble melting camembert chesse. There are a few objects in this painting, when you start looking at it you would probably think that Dali was mental but I think its very creative, it makes the brain think that little bit harder as to what it might all mean.
Ernst
Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
Frottage - in art, frottage is a surrealist and "automatic" method of creative production developed by Max Ernst.
In frottage the artist takes a pencil or other drawing tool and makes a rubbing over a textured surface. The drawing can be left as is or used as the basis for further refinement. While superficially similar to brass rubbing and other forms of rubbing intended to reproduce an existing subject, and in fact sometimes being used as an alternate term for it, frottage differs in being aleatoric and random in nature.
It was developed by Ernst in 1925. Ernst was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing. The patterns of the graining suggested strange images to him. He captured these by laying sheets of paper on the floor and then rubbing over them with a soft pencil.
We then looked at Exquisite corpse - also known as exquisite cadaver or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.
We created one in the lecture, this is the one that me and 3 other students completed by folding the paper into four, drawing your image on one of the sections, you can follow on from the lines that they have left you as guide lines,
As you can see, everyone had different thoughts as to what to draw, a phycologist would say that we drew what we did because of a mental state that we are going through, I drew the house so that could mean that I like being at home or it could mean that this house is a bad place and it plays an important part in my memory. In this case I drew a house because I have just moved to a much nicer house and I love it.
These are poets,
- Rimbaud
- Baudelaire
- Lautremont
“As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table.”
This would be taking juxtaposition into consideration as this means placing 2 objects together that dont normally go together and also incongrous which means not being in place. We talk about juxtapostion quite a lot when photographing as it makes a photograph seem so different yet beautiful as you are seeing something that you had never seen before even if you have walked past it in the street.
The reason of this lecture was to learn about Surrealism so we went on to talk about what we think is surreal and what a few people actually thought it meant because in this day and age the younger generation use words for certain things that shouldn't be being used in that context for example, wicked, it means that someone is mean and vindictive but the younger generation use it to say that something is amazing or cool. Its wierd how words get interpreted the wrong way.
I believe that this is definatly surreal,
Take a look and you will see what I mean.
Chris then showed us a couple of videos to see how we would react,
I didn't like this videa at all, it gave me the creeps. Why would someone want to do that to another human being, it made me feel all funny. I think my brain and body reacted like this because I am anot used to seeing anything like that. It doesn't happen in normal every day life. The film was made by Salvador Dali so he probably did it to get a reaction out of people, he didn't actually cut that ladys eye he did it to a sheep eye, but you dont know this when you are watching it.
This video shows you what happens in a slaughter house, I dont like things like this, yes I eat meat but I dont like seeing how the animals actually get killed. It isnt very nice how it is done, I looked away when they started cutting their necks because to be honest I couldn't handle seeing the sheep being hurt. The men that are doing the slaughtering are also whistling, they are just going about their every day life so they dont see what they are doing as anything out of the ordinary, their brain wont be telling them to look away as they see it every day and the think its normal were I dont see it as normal, I know it happens but you try and ignore the fact.
Watching those two videos did make me realise that everybodies brains work in a different way, mine is very sensitive to things that are horrifying to the eye were other people might find it knowledgeable.
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On the 28/11/2011 we talked about what happened with American art, they didn't really have their own art movement, but they did create some fantastic pieces of art.
Cornell
Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker.
Cornell liked to place items in box like objects, he would place them in there to try and create a scene, in this case I think he was showing a cockatoo sat on a bit off wood but it seems to look like he is placed in a kitchen, with the bit of string that he has going to the cupboard it looks the cockatoo is trying to open it to get what's inside.
I do like Cornell's work its very creative. he must have had some fun actually making these, they are something different. Its like a mini-set build that we have to produce for our objects brief, we have to build like a diorama of something that we have an interest in so maybe thats what Cornell was doing.
Hopper
Hopper's Early Sunday Morning shows a stretch of street. It's a terrace of two-storey properties, with a line of shop-fronts running beneath a line of red-plastered apartments. It may be a street in New York, where the artist lived. The row is viewed flat-on. From the curb of the pavement to the guttering of the roof, it becomes a formation of straight parallel bars. With no dramas of near and far, or of up and down, the scene runs levelly across the picture.
His paintings have a narrative or suggest a narrative, when looking at his work you try to tell a story, this is what he wanted viewers to do. If i stand directly in front of this painting I feel like I am there and that I could reach out and touch the items in the painting.
Hopper was maybe creating paintings like this to show people in this day and age what it looked like in 1930. it would have changed so much. He may have also done it for his own records. so he could remember what it looked like or just to record things that might not seem that important but to some people they will be.
Pollak
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.
The painting was done on an 8' × 4' sheet of fiberboard, with thick amounts of brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of it, forming a nest-like appearance.
Pollak was famous for his action paintings: the physical side of painting. He enjoyed seeing the paint dripping down the paper to see what effect he would get. Obviously none of his paintings were ever going to be the same or even similar because of the technique he uses to create them but I do like them, even though all he has done is basically throw paint at a piece of paper there must have been a bit of technique behind it. Some of them are quite dismal but I think this one was character but everybody will have different opinions, quite a lot of viewers will say that its boring and they don't know what they are looking at.
Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz (September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".
A quote from Rothko himself,
"I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however – I think it applies to other painters I know – is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it."
We then went on to talk about pop art in England that was created around the late 1950's.
Blake
Sir Peter Thomas Blake (born 25 June 1932) is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for the Beatles' album.
This is a self portrait, it is not very typical. it shows his equal respect for historical tradition and modern popular culture. He may have based this image on Thomas Gainsborough’s famous portrait The Blue Boy (illustrated to the left). But Blake’s blue fabric is not silk but denim – a material associated at the time with American youth culture.
Blake’s fascination with American popular culture is further emphasised by his baseball boots and badges, and the magazine dedicated to Elvis Presley, who had just become well known in Britain. Blake uses these objects like a traditional portrait painter, to suggest his interests or achievements.
I like how Blake has painted this, the composition is done really well, the fence behind him and the tree just to his left hand side, viewers right, give the painting something a bit more. When I take photographs I always try and get a good composition as it sees easier on the eye, if the composition is a bit off somehow you find yourself not quite knowing what you are looking at.
Warhol
Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and member of highly diverse social circles that included Bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons.
He was quite obsessed with celebrity's, he believed that everybody, yes everybody consumed a celebrity, you just needed to help it come out.
If you look at the painting the tins of soups have different flavour's on them, he apparently did this because he was trying to show that soup can be like a celebrity but different. He loved reputation as you can see, as I said before, different flavours but the same piece of art.
Warhol was obsessed with quite a few aspects in life, death, money and obviously celebrity's. He even did a sequence of electric chair paintings, the same but in different colours. He believed that life could be a car crash so he also did a painting of a car crash. I like how he wanted to paint his emotions and all the things that make him tick. Its the same when I take a photograph, I like my emotions to be in them, the happier I am the more joyful my pictures are.
Lithtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein (October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the basic premise of pop art better than any other through parody.Favoring the old-fashioned comic strip as subject matter, Lichtenstein produced hard-edged, precise compositions that documented while it parodied often in a tongue-in-cheek humorous manner. His work was heavily influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book style. He himself described pop art as, "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting"
He was a artists that created comics, they have so much detail in them, I love how dramatic they are. Lithtenstein was also very interested with love and death. There always tends to be a suggestion of narrative in his work that would suggest a bigger story. He liked to leave a bit so the audience felt like they have a bit to fill in, it gives the viewers something to think about, they then feel like they own the painting because they have done something for themselves, somebody hasn't told them what the story is all about.
I think I would enjoy to read a full comic that Lithtenstein has created, they look very interesting and I would like to try and figure out the story for myself, I like a good challenge.
We then briefly discussed Op art, this is the process of looking, challenging the nature of how we see things.
Bridget Riley
Bridget Louise Riley (born 24 April 1931 in Norwood, London) is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of Op art.
It’s impossible not to remain hypnotize staring at the geometrical patterns created by the colours, rhythms, textures mix. The work seems to move and go out from the painting.
Carl Andre
Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks (such as Stone Field Sculpture, 1977 in Hartford and Lament for the Children, 1976 in Long Island City, NY) to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space (such as 144 Lead Square, 1969 orTwenty-fifth Steel Cardinal, 1974). In 1988, Andre was tried and acquitted for murdering his wife, artist Ana Mendieta.
I'm not too keen on Andre's work because it doesn't look artistic, this just looks like a pile of bricks and when they got put in a museum he didn't even put them together himself he got somebody else to do it for him. This would be as bad as me trying to take a long exposure without using a tripod, its lazy and careless.
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On the 5/12/11 we talked about post modern art but it wasn't classed as an art movement,
Postmodern art is a term used to describe an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as Intermedia, Installation art, Conceptual Art and Multimedia, particularly involving video are described as postmodern.
Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy, (born 26 July 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.
Land art - Earthworks (coined by Robert Smithson), or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. It is also an art form that is created in nature, using natural materials such as soil, rock (bed rock, boulders, stones), organic media (logs, branches, leaves), and water with introduced materials such as concrete, metal,asphalt, or mineral pigments. Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, rather, the landscape is the means of their creation. Often earth moving equipment is involved. The works frequently exist in the open, located well away from civilization, left to change and erode under natural conditions.
Goldsworthy uses repetition in this photo. He also places rocks of similar colors in the same region in order to make an image that would not normally be seen
I know it isn't but the centre of the rocks looks like a deep hole, it appears to be never ending but it wont have been. The way he has placed the rocks its stunning, how they are lightly coloured in the middle and darker coloured on the outside, I would love to know what his main reasons behind creating this was. I would like to try and create something like this for myself but I would also be quite upset because I would know it was only going to last a few days maybe a week and not forever.
The emptiness or area between, around, above, below, or contained within objects. Shapes and forms are defined by the space around and within them, just as spaces are defined by the shapes and forms around and within them.
I think this is beautiful, when I first saw it I thought it was a cobweb but then I looked again and I realised it was twigs. Its amazing how he has put this together, I also like the reflection he has got of the trees in the background, it gives the image something a bit different. Maybe he used twigs because of the trees in the background, he wanted to keep the materials similar.
Harvey
Marcus Harvey (born 1963 in Leeds) is an English artist and painter, one of the Young British Artists, (YBA).
Harvey is known for his tabloid-provoking 9 by 11 feet portrayal of Moors murderer Myra Hindley, created from the handprints of children, and shown in the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in 1997. The painting had to be temporarily removed from display for repair after it was attacked in two separate incidents on the opening day, in which ink and eggs were thrown at it. The Times newspaper's art critic, Richard Cork, wrote that:
This portrait really makes me think, it is created from the plaster casts of children's hands, he did this because Myra tortured children in a horrific way, so he thought the best way to get the message across was to use something to do with children to create it. Its also quite upsetting and makes me feel uneasy staring at a huge portrait of a murderer, its not normal. She is a very famous lady and all because of her own bad ways. I can see why Harvey did this, it was even named sick art and placed in an over 18's area in the gallery because it wasn't right for young people to see it as it also became an icon of evil."Far from cynically exploiting her notoriety, Harvey's grave and monumental canvas succeeds in conveying the enormity of the crime she committed. Seen from afar, through several doorways, Hindley's face looms at us like an apparition. By the time we get close enough to realise that it is spattered with children's handprints, the sense of menace becomes overwhelming".
Harvey is famous because of this portrait, as a learning photographer I wouldn't like to be famously known for photographing someone that had done such a horrific act but then on the other hand it gets you known to the world so I would have to seriously think about it before doing something thats 'out there'.
Rielly
This is a painting of a family member but he blacked out the face because they were people in his family that had died and he couldn't remember what they looked like.
This will be a portrait painting of a child thats in his family. At first when his work was placed in a gallery it was classed as pedo art because the paintings of the children were placed next to the ones with backed out faces, this wasn't done to show that those men weren't allowed to be shown because of something bad they had done, he just placed them in the way he wanted.
I do like these, as a photographer when you are shooting a portrait you want to focus on the eyes and get the face in the correct place and this is what Rielly has done when painting all of his paintings apart from the blacked out ones obviously.
Saville
Jenny Saville (born in Cambridge in 1970) is a contemporary British painter; best known as one of the Young British Artists. She is known for her large-scale painted depictions of naked women.
This is an example of Saville's work, I don't like this as she looks dead, she might be but it is just a bit disturbing to me, I do like the strokes of paint that she has used and the colours I'm just not too keen on the painting itself.
Saville was very interested in the female form, she liked to paint women no matter what shape or size they were.
Gordon
Douglas Gordon (born 20 September, 1966) is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. He lives and works in New York.
This is called 24 hour phyco, it i the film that Alfred Hitchcock created but Gordon has slowed it down that much that it lasts 24 hours.
What Gordon had to say,
"24 Hour Psycho, as I see it, is not simply a work of appropriation. It is more like an act of affiliation... it wasn't a straightforward case of abduction. The original work is a masterpiece in its own right, and I've always loved to watch it. I wanted to maintain the authorship of Hitchcock so that when an audience would see my 24 Hour Psycho they would think much more about Hitchcock and much less, or not at all, about me..."
I like the film that Alfred hitchcock created but I think I would get fed up watching it when it has been slowed down and made to last 24 hours. I think Gordon was just wanting to express how he felt about the film and wanted people to actually ee it for what it is, I do this in photography, I want the viewers of my photographs to see that I am expressing myself through my images, it gives them more of a narrative.
Lucas
Sarah Lucas (born Holloway, London, 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour, and include photography, collage and found objects.
Lucas likes to play with objects to create human parts, this is image is showing 2 melons and a bucket with is representing a women, I dont think its right she has used a bucket to shows the womans vagina as some women will be greatly offended by this and the mans parts are shown using 2 oranges and a cucumber, well this could be misleading as all men re different shapes and sizes. I think Lucas's work will be judged by many people as you are either going to think its creative or insulting, I do like her reasons behind doing creations like this, it is showing the males perception of a womens body, not every man in the whole of the world will just see this is what a women is about. She is brave.
Koon's
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects, such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces.
Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works, nor any critiques.
This art was quite popular, it may not have been liked but because it was something different many people went to see it. Koon's made this for his child, to me this is showing all he wants to do is make his family happy, this is a brilliant reason for creating something. In photography we sometimes take photographs of reflective objects to see what effects we will get, Koon';s object is very reflective and I like how it is giving you an idea what you cant see from this image, that there is roads and buildings, it makes you want to see more.
Emin
Tracey Karima Emin (born 3 July 1963 in Croydon) is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs (Young British Artists).
In 1997, her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent appliquéd with names, was shown at Charles Saatchi's Sensation exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London. The same year, she gained considerable media exposure when she appeared drunk and swearing on a live Channel 4 TV discussion.
This is Emins actual bed, she placed it in a gallery to show everybody what she was like, there was used condoms and tampons on the floor, to me this is to much information and you can obviously see that she was very untidy, didn't make her bed and left everything everywhere. Many people don't like this, they don't see why they should have to pay to go and look at this when they could do it themselfs. I think Emin was just wanting to show what kind of a women she was, it does portray her to be a bit of a player with the used condoms on the floor yet she is still a women that has to do normal things.
Hirst
Mueck
Ronald "Ron" Mueck (born 1958) is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.
Sticking with the theme of ‘large-scale’, this baby girl is approximately five metres long - ladies, stop thinking about it - and she’s actually kind of beautiful. The detail is magnificent - her eyes are shiny, her hair is matted, her finger and toenails are clear and frail and she looks genuinely affronted to be so suddenly brought into the world.
I do like what Mueck does, we always see things in a perticular way and sometimes when they change slightly we get a little freaked out, he has changed the size dramatically, I think he has done this to make the viewers see that this baby girl is still just as beautiful even though she is huge, you also get to see everything a little more clearly as its so large. I love his work I think its great why he does it.
Like this is a model of his dad, Mueck had always seen his dad as the trong heroic type, as we all see our dads, they are the ones that can fix anything, do anything and always make you feel special. When Mueck's dad died he saw his on the table and he thought how small and fragile he looked even though all his life he had seen him as the big strong man he had always believed him to be, so when he created this mould he actually made it slightly smaller than he actually was to show everybody how fragile he looked.I want to go and view all of his work, it is mesmerising, I would also like to know every reason behind each one, it is all so interesting.
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On the 12/12/2011 we went into photography, Chris said that this is about filling in background knowledge.
Definition of photography is:- the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. The result in an electronic image sensor is an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing. The result in a photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is later chemically developed into a visible image, either negative or positive depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing.
The first ever recorded image was created by a man called Niepce, it was said that he did create one or two more before the one that is known to be the first photograph but they where tampered with that much that they where no longer visible.
This was created in 1826 and the exposure time was 8 hours, you can see that the exposure was quite long as there is areas throughout the image that show the sun was there. After this was created everything changed as people then knew that things could be done mechanically as well as manually.
Daguerre
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and physicist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography.
This also had quite a long exposure time but it is the first ever photograph that captured human beings, there will have been many other people walking up and down the street but they wont have been in the frame for long enough.
I like to use long exposure times on some of the images that I am trying to capture, I would use when I am taking pictures of running water as it makes the water look as if it is silk. We obviously have better cameras now to what they used to so I can choose whether I want a long exposure or a short one depending on what kind of thing I am photographing.
Talbot
William Henry Fox Talbot (11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography. He was the inventor of calotype process, the precursor to most photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an artistic medium. His work in the 1840s on photo-mechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. Talbot is also remembered as the holder of a patent which, some say, affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. Additionally, he made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, and York.
This is a negative so it could be reproduced over and over again, it was the first time this had been done. I like how he has done this, it shows all the detail which is really good considering it was the first time it had ever been done.
There is a saying 'The camera never lies' but this is said to be the biggest lie humans have ever told.
The Kodak camera was very popular when it came out as nobody had ever seen anything like it, Kodak's slogan was 'you press the button we do the rest'. There was also alot of dispute about photography because some people were saying it mimicked artistry.
Adamson
Robert Adamson, (April 26, 1821 – January 14, 1848) was a Scottish pioneer photographer.
Adamson was born in St. Andrews, he was hired in 1843 by David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), a painter of romantic Scottish landscapes. He was commissioned to make a group portrait of the 470 clergymen who founded the Free Church of Scotland. Hill required calotypes from which he would paint. Distinguished persons from many fields came to be photographed by the partners. Together they made more than 1,000 portraits and numerous views of Edinburgh between 1843 and 1848, until Adamson died at the age of 26. Hill returned to painting and the partners' great work was not rediscovered until 1872.
This image wasn't natural, it was put together, he placed all the items and the people in the places that he wanted them to be, he thought that was the best way to capture these fishwives.
He went on to capture eye catching compositions, as it is easier to carry a camera around with you than carrying an easel and all the paints. Many people take photographs, they are a lot easier to share with the world because we now have the internet to post them on.
Quite a lot of photography now is put together, I like to photograph still life objects and most of the time you have to place the objects in the way you want them to look so we are only doing now what Adamson did all those years ago with the fishwives.
Blossfeldt
Karl Blossfeldt (June 13, 1865 – December 9, 1932 -- age 67) was a German photographer, sculptor, teacher and artist who worked in Berlin, Germany. He is best known for his close-up photographs of plants and living things. He was inspired, as was his father, by nature and the way in which plants grow. Especially pansies.
Blossfeldt liked to show the potential of photography, he wasn't taking these pictures to become famous he wanted to show people what you can see if you look close enough, he was actually appreciated by accident. Although he wanted to show the images he took in their natural form, if he didn't like them he would use a scalpel to change them which is contradicting the reasons behind why he first starting taking the images.
I like his photographs because of how much detail he shows, you can see all the shapes and textures but he also changed them which is what I do now when I want to slightly change any images that I am taking, I use Photoshop, aperture or lightroom. We can obviously change a lot more now that what he could but its still manipulating.
Fenton
Roger Fenton was born in Crimble Hall, Heap, Bury, Lancashire, 28 March 1819.
Fenton visited the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in London in 1851 and was impressed by the photography on display there. He then visited Paris to learn the waxed paper calotype process, most likely from Gustave Le Gray, its inventor. By 1852 he had photographs exhibited in England, and travelled to Kiev, Moscow and St. Petersburg making calotypes there, and photographed views and architecture around Britain. His published call for the setting up of a photographic society was answered with its establishment in 1853; the Photographic Society, with Fenton as founder and first Secretary, later became the Royal Photographic Society under the patronage of Prince Albert.
Fenton was the first person to photograph wars, he captured the civil war, he created the most informance images of the 19th century, he was actually at the battles so he knew exactly what was going on and the best ways to photograph it so other people knew exactly what was going on but there was a bit of a problem when he starting adding things to his images that change the story totally,
As you can see this is some of the roads that led in and out of camp that all the trucks drove up and down, there was a bit of a discussion about this image as there is this one and also one without all the canon balls so its said that Fenton added the canon balls to tell a different story but it also playing with the viewers minds. The titles of photographs can be misleading because you take it for what you re being told and not what is actually going on.
Yes I can change my images and add things to them to make them look different but when its something as serious as a civil war you could think that he wouldn't want to tamper with it.
Adams
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park.
With Fred Archer, Adams developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs and the work of those to whom he taught the system. Adams primarily used large-format cameras despite their size, weight, setup time, and film cost, because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images.
Adams founded the Group f/64 along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston. Adams's photographs are reproduced on calendars, posters, and in books, making his photographs widely distributed.
Adams photographed this tree in every season, it wouldn't have been easy to get to either as it was like a 20 mile hike away from any roads or pathways. He was very dedicated.
You have to be dedicated to become a good photographer, you have to ask your self certain questions, would you travel to the moon and back for a once in a life time experience? Are you determined? all of which you can only answer for yourself.
Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz is known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.
He liked to split up images, if you look carefully you can see the top deck is full of rich people and the bottom deck is full of poor people and to make it look more split up he has used a bridge to help his create the effect he was looking for. Its whats called steerage.
I do like how he has done this as you can see whats going on more clearly, it gives you more of an idea how people were treated in that day and age.
Salgado
Sebastião Salgado (born February 8, 1944) is a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist.
Salgado documented what it was like to work in a mine digging for gold. These workers were digging to find gold for the rich, they used to the gold to put it into jewellery, tv's and other items that rich people processed. Many terrible things happened in those mines, they could either work for $15 a month of $30's worth of heroin, the majority of them choose heroin as they thought it would also get the through this terrible ordeal but they didn't remember at the time that they had gone in there to get money to send home to their families and obviously when they starting taking drugs they got addicted and forgot about their families and quite a few of them will have caught HIV and died. It was a terrible ordeal but Salgado wanted to show the rest of the world what terrible things that had to encounter to make them think about buying all those expensive items that have got the gold in that these miners had to work so hard to find.


































































































