Emu Dreaming

This painting titled Emu Dreaming (Where has my beautiful home gone), acrylic on canvas, was painted in 2007. You can see the fence posts in the painting and the barren landscape behind the figure in the front. The impact of the farming revolution in Australia is clearly evident here, as is the artists negative view of its effects on his world.

 

I really like the humanoid character in the foreground, its wavy etherial limbs and seemingly hermaphroditic form remind me of the aliens from the x files. The colors and landscape remind me of a clear blue day in montana, the emu does not. I like this artists work, you can see some of his other paintings at the address below.

 

 

This accompanied the painting on the artists website:

 

Aboriginal Story: Emu Dreaming,
Emu had been sent out by our creator to explore the land. During this time Emu had a family that spread to many different parts of the land. The Mother Emu would come back together with other mothers and discuss issues about he country. They know they are all safe in Emu country for her husband Red Kangaroo is the lore man.

 

 

http://www.waynekrause.com/

Wayne Krause was born in Hillston, Australia in 1969. He grew up in a tiny town called Merriwagga with a population of only around 80 people. Waynes family was the only aboriginal one in the village, the nearest living aboriginal family was about 27 miles away. He learned about his peoples culture and heritage from his grandmother but got his initial inspiration to draw from comic books. His inspirations for his modern fusion of aboriginal art and modern art styles come from his peoples history and the world around him. While his art is influenced by western styles I still consider it to be a standalone mostly because of the subject matter. Much of his painting deals with the clash between the ancient australian land and the outside forces that shape that world today, particularly the British colonization of the country and the agricultural exploitation and destruction of the environment.

Big Yam Dreaming

This work was created by Emily Kame Kngwarreye in 1995 when she was 85 years old. Titled Big Yam Dreaming (done on canvas with synthetic polymer paint) Kngwarreye finished this painting in two days, the same amount of time it took her assistants to paint the canvas with black primer. The work, done in Delmore Downs, Northern Territory, was not sketched, rescaled, or retouched by the artist. It currently resides in the Collection National Gallery of Australia. The painting is massive, three by eight meters, and is rolled onto a large custom made spool and travels in a crate specially designed to contain it. Each time it is stretched out and put up in an installation it requires about 12 people to complete the task.

 

I very much like the black and white used here, it reminds me of seeing a spiderweb in the early morning during summer still covered in dew and almost glowing in the predawn light. The lines are seemingly random and stitched together to by nothing but chance and the artists whim, but it flows for me none the less. To have completed a work like this with no pre planning and have it still flow together and work as a composition really impresses me, I imagine that planning it would have created something far less beautiful and organic.

 

Kngwarreye didn’t start painting prolifically until she was in her late seventies and it is estimated that she created almost 3000 paintings during her eight year span as a painter. Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born in 1910 the Utopia Community in the Northern Territory in Australia, about 230 km north east of Alice Springs. She spent the majority of her life working in her home creating Batik – a cloth dying process in which the parts of the cloth which are meant not to be dyed are covered in wax. Acrylic painting was introduced to her village by Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association and Kngwarreye’s paintings received early acclaim for their design. After the introduction of acrylic medium, Kngwarreye started creating at a massive rate, at 3000 paintings in 8 years, almost 1 painting a day.

 

 

 

Below is a photo of the artist, titled Emily all dressed up.

There is a pretty neat video of the artist painting Big Yam Dreams and some footage of it being put up at a Tokyo art show.

 

http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/utopia_the_genius_of_emily_kame_kngwarreye/unrolling_of_big_yam_dreaming/

 

further information on the painting and artist can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Kngwarreye

http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/utopia_the_genius_of_emily_kame_kngwarreye/emily_kame_kngwarreye/

http://nma.gov.au/exhibitions/utopia_the_genius_of_emily_kame_kngwarreye/behind_the_scenes/

I found some old food in my fridge, is that art too?

Wandering through the lists of artists and art styles I could chose from I hopped from one to another not really interested in what they had to offer or the message they were trying to send. I happened across something called appropriation art; basically the artist borrows parts of already existing visual work or even entire works and includes them, usually unaltered, in their works. This doesn’t have to pertain only to the visual arts, some artists take sounds, mass produced objects, or styles from previous works and use them to make something new. While the medium or portrayal of appropriation art may change the one near constant factor is that it whatever is borrowed is put into a new context, meaning that it is viewed in a different way – from a different angle, a different mindset, through new eyes.

 

When looked at from a broad stance, any artist who was influenced by another besides themselves can be seen as an appropriation artist, since nearly every artist has incorporated some element that was used by someone before them. Leonardo Da Vinci used biological, engineering, and medical information he got from others to create works of art and technology, Marcel Duchamp turned a urinal upside down and signed his name to it creating Fountain.

The first artist I researched was Sherrie Levine, born April 17, 1947 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. She is a photographer and appropriation artist whose notable works include photographs of photographs taken by Walker Evans during the Great Depression as well as photographs of works from a book of Van Gogh’s works.

 

 

Her work entitled Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A.P.) was created in 1991 and is modeled after Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 presentation of a urinal also entitled Fountain. Sherrie Levine took Duchamp’s idea of presenting a common urinal as art and turned the common urinal into a highly polished bronze cast sculpture. She borrowed the Duchamps ideas of artistic relativism and created version of it that demanded to be seen through different eyes. I prefer this one to the original but only because I see it as mocking the mockery of “art”

This work, also by Levine is titled Yellow Knot Prototype and was created by Levine in 1985 out of common plywood. The artist painted the plugs used to close holes in the plywood bright yellow. Again, Levine has taken something common and everyday and presented it in such a way that it can be termed “art”.

My third selection from Levine is a printing of a cartoon mouse named Ignatz from a cartoon series published between 1913 and 1914 by George Herri Itman titles “Krazy Kat”. The work is done on wood paneling and is titled Ignatz: 6. The artist again has borrowed work from someone else and made it into her own work by placing it on a different medium.

The painting below Krazy Kat: 8 is another in the same series. I included it here for continuity purposes.

 

 

 

 

Greg Colson is the second artist I chose for my appropriation art gallery. Born in Seattle, Washington in 1956 Colson is most famous for his use of salvaged junk materials for use in creating wall sculptures; of particular interest are his pie charts and stick maps. A review from the New York Times states that: “In nearly all of Mr. Colson’s works, the combination of modesty and grandiosity, of mental exactness and physical imprecision adds up to an odd, sad beauty. Elliptical as they are, his pieces often seem to scrutinize the conflict between the active center and deserted margins of industrialized society”

 

Colson created Tulane Stadium in 1987, it is a combination collage/inking done on a discarded used pizza box. It’s hilarious that this worked as art, fantastic even. This man may be my favorite artist of all time simply because of his use of medium. I like the how the stains and mess are juxtaposed against the order and obvious planning of the stadium design. While I find the work entertaining it still works on an aesthetic level.

Colson also created a wall piece titled Heliocentric Model (Spalding Sun) in 2001 out of Enamel, acrylic and pencil on wood panel with balls, buttons and shelves. Once again it is a reuse of everyday things to create something entirely different. I wouldn’t normally think of these everyday spheres as planets but when put on a background with connecting concentric orbits they change their identities and become extraterrestrial. The work kind of reminds me of a Spartan shield .

 

The last work of appropriation art I decided to share was this work by Colson of the major Baton Rouge surface streets made with found sticks, boards, and rulers. Titled Baton Rouge the work was created in 1988 and, much like the works of many impressionist painters I find that the more distance I put between myself and the work the more like streets it actually becomes. It also reminds me of some of the environmental art we studied in this section like the stick arrangements hanging from a tree.

 

http://www.olinda.com/VC/lectures/Levine_page_1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherrie_Levine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_art#Artists_using_Appropriation

http://amica.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/AMICO~1~1~122923~57800:Fountain–after-Marcel-Duchamp–A-P?qvq=w4s:/who/Levine,+Sherrie;lc:AMICO~1~1&mi=10&trs=12

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Colson

 

http://gregcolsonart.com/stadium_tulane.html

http://gregcolsonart.com/solarsystem_spalding.html

http://gregcolsonart.com/stickmaps_baton.html

Propaganda, Propaganda for everyone!

Talk about a painting with staying power. This image has had the depth and power to remain in active circulation for almost a century. This lithograph, created by James Montgomery Flagg in 1917 for the United States effort to recruit troops for the war effort. This image would be used for both World Wars and would continue to be used for US recruitment, I think I have seen this poster on display at army recruitment offices within the last few years. I think this goes along with the other kinds of prowar proamerica propaganda produced by the US during this period. Like the Buy War bonds posters and the posters painting the germans like monstrous villains like in the works below:

It can be said that all the countries involved with a war are smart to put out propaganda of some type. For those people that lack knowledge of why they should hate and fear the enemy it gives them a reason and for those that need reminding it shoves the ideas into their faces whenever they open a magazine or walk past a government office.

Uncle Sam is old and white haired but his resolve and strength are never in question in this image. The artist used himself as a model for the face and used war vet for the body pose(a living vet, I realize that sentence sounds morbid).

The image was most likely inspired by a poster for the British Government created by Alfred Leete titled “Lord Kitchener Wants You” painted in 1914 for the British War effort:

as well as by another World War I recruiting poster depicting the British persononification John Bull:

In fact, there are an entire series of contemporary works in the same vein as Flaggs work. I say series because they all have the same basic idea, an easily recognizable figure is demanding/imploring the populace to support the war effort. The paintings, which can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kitchener_Wants_You show how a single idea, the artist and painting directly addressing the viewer, can have massive impact on the success of a work. I think there was a great deal of reluctance involved with getting into the first war between Germany and Britain and these posters, this one in particular, made the war feel much more personal. It was directed at “You”, even now looking at the poster I feel a but remiss about never joining the military, but then I shake off the cold, steely eyed stare of Americas personification and realize how propaganda works.

 

information can be found here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm015.html

and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam – just some info on possible origins of the faux American

It’s funny that the mocking words of critics can spawn the terms that define a movement. Much in the way the term “Big Bang” came from a harsh critic of the theory, Fred Hoyle, the term impressionism came from a critics satirical review of Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant). The style is a massive departure from the works of Romance artists and those that came before them. Impressionist artists strove to capture in their paintings an exact moment and all the things that made that moment significant. Varied lighting, using colors to define forms instead of distinct lines, and the attempt to capture and convey movement set this style apart from its predecessors. When looked at from a distance the paintings look to be one solidly drawn work, but if one draws closer to the painting it becomes clear that the work is instead made of dots or splashes of color which the human eye combines when viewed from a distance. Its fascinating to think of being able to create something meant to be seen from a distance while working with it at an intimate distance and the painting still coming out in a successful way.

When comparing Impressionism to the styles that emerged before it there is a definite rift between the styles. Most of the styles no matter what their subject matter tended to try to portray things in a more idealized form – be it an idealized human form or the creation of a perfectly constructed building or setting. These paintings are more a flash- if you look too long at them you see them for what they really are – a combination of dots and slashes of color and not a solid image. But looking at the works of the early Impressionists the way I like to look at them: quickly and taking in the entire thing at once, gives you the impression of having caught a glimpse of something fantastic in a moment in time or a vivid memory.

The painting I found that exemplifies the “best looked at from a distance” aspect of Impressionist art I find appealing is called The House of the Hanged Man painted by Paul Cezanne in 1873 while he was in a town called Auvers-sur-Oise to the north of Paris. It was in the first impressionist exhibit in 1874. When I first saw the painting I couldn’t tell what it was despite the title so I moved my computer and stood about 5 feet away, the image seemed to get clearer the further away I got. Its quite a nice painting when viewed from a distance, but the closer I get the less I enjoy it. It seems to be a matter of perspective that determines whether or not I like this style of art.

I found this image of an impressionist cake while wandering the internet, I thought it might be something my classmates would enjoy…at least the idea of cake is enjoyable.

Information on Cezannes Painting can be found at this address:

http://impressionist1877.tripod.com/cezanne.htm

Moonlight Sonata

When trolling through the lists of compositions created during the Classical period I found this one the most appealing. Its cool and lively tones remind me of something from a modern jazz compilation instead of something composed two centuries ago. Moonlight Sonata was created by Beethoven during the summer of 1801 while he was staying at a Hungarian estate belonging to the Brunswick family.

The real name of this piece was Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor “Quasi una fantasia” but it got its  more famous moniker “Moonlight Sonata” in 1832 from poet Ludwig Rellstab who compared the sonata to the feeling of moonlit night.

The work was discovered after Beethoven’s death in 1827, being been one of his unpublished works created in the interim between larger compositions.

It is said to have been dedicated to Beethoven’s seventeen year old student the Countess Giulietta Gucciardi for whom it is thought the composer was a bit lovesick. From my research I don’t think his feelings were returned by the Countess, maybe that’s why the music is at once lively and chilling. There is another theory as to the somber feeling during the last act particularly ; Beethoven spent the time around this composition at the bedside of a dying friend. People living with death walk everywhere with it and it pervades everything they do. It is only reasonable to believe that his music was just as influenced by a friends death as it was by his love for the Countess.

I find this piece both enchanting and at the same time a bit depressing ; like when you’ve lost your keys in a poorly lit Fun house or really deep ball pit.

The sonata has three parts:

Adagio Sostenuto

Allegretto

Presto Agitato

Further information can be found at these websites.

http://www.all-about-beethoven.com/moonsonata.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_Sonata

The Union of Earth and Water by Peter Paul Rubens

The painting I chose to represent Baroque art was The Union of Earth and Water by Peter Paul Rubens. The work was completed in 1618 and can be found to day in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg Russia. I was unable to determine from my research where the painting was originally created but I did find references to it being obtained from the so called Chigi Collection in Rome.

I am not ashamed to say that I find the female form to be one of the greatest subjects in art. Rubens depiction of the Cybele plays perfectly into the paintings flowing nature as her gentle curves and relaxed posture draw the viewer’s attention to her as well as the detailed objects around her. She is clearly the most important character in the painting both because she is shown in full frontal profile and because she is a pale white figure connected to a darker character – her partner Neptune – god of the sea. I like the painting because most of what I have seen in this lesson has been landscapes, still lives, and religious paintings; so this one stands out for me.

The painting while not directly connected with the Council of Trent can be viewed as being in opposition to it. The painting depicts gods from Roman and Greek myth so it is clearly not related to the church. In fact its depiction of the gods of another religion is in clear opposition to the Council of trents dictation that art should draw people to the church. At least that’s how I see it.

Information on the Council of Trents edicts can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

The image above is titled The Expulsion From The Garden Of Eden and was painted by an artist called Masaccio sometime after 1423. The work is a fresco and is only a single panel from the painted walls of the Branacci Chapel within the Florentine church of Santa Maria del Carmine.  The fresco shows Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden of Eden.

What really strikes me about this painting is the shame and suffering evident in the characters. They look like two misbehaving children banished to the corner after a fight involving cookies. The figures themselves are clearly influenced by humanist views. While the characters were cast from paradise they still had their beauty and in them you can still see that they have the potential to succeed in the harsh world into which they are cast. They walk erect and are still colored brightly despite their much less enchanted existence.

While not immediately tied to the Medici family found in the time known as the Renaissance it would be an ancestor of Cosimo de Medici named Cosimo III de’ Medici that ordered the fig leaves to be painted over the genitalia of the paintings subjects.

Further information concerning this works connections with Humanism can be found at the following site: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m/masaccio/brancacc/expulsio/expuls.html

The man who would be me.

I will let the photo speak for itself.

I command the clouds to leave at once.