non-western art (Mexico)

 

Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón was a Mexican painter, born in 1907 to 1954 in Coyoacán. Best known for her self-portraits, Kahlo’s work is remembered for “pain and passion”, and intense colors. After a car accident in her teen years, she struggled in health, and this was reflected in her paintings. In a way, most of her paintings are self-portraits. During her career as an artist, Frida created 200 works mirroring her life experience of physical and emotional pain. Today, more than half a century after her death, her paintings make more money than any other female artist. Her life has passed but her legacy lives on forever.

The painting I chose is called The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, and Senor Xolotl, painted in Mexico City in 1949 (close to her death).This painting is initially overwhelming. There is so much going on. Your eyes goes many places. It is my favorite of all her pieces. I think its brilliant. At first it was hard to understand. Then i started brainstorming and reading up on its meaning. Its supposed to be a Madonna image, that shows her in the embrace of mother earth who is protecting and nourishing her, held within the wider embrace of the universe. Frida (the madonna) is holding a baby Diego Rivera. She is the center and this is the center of the universe as she sees it, just like the pregnant Guadalupe is humble in her painting. There are no male deities here.  This is a painting of female power, life, and motherhood: the earth and the moon, fertility and childbirth, the cycle of birth to death, and Diego as her child.  This painting forgets conflict and celebrates oneness with the universe.

 

 

non-western art (Africa)

Out of all the cultures represented in the links to non-western art, Africa was my favorite. I love the bright, vivacious colors in the paintings and the scenes of simple, full life. My favorite Fine Art African artist is Leslie Luhem, born in 1970 in Dambala, Western Liberia. Lumeh taught himself how to paint and earned a diploma in architectural drafting from the Booker Washington Institute. After a civil war tore his country into pieces, he recreated scenes, first in simple pencil sketches, and then in watercolors onto canvas. His works attracted an unexpected number of people, Liberians, foreigners, and international journalists. Lumeh wasn’t an artist long, before he started receiving commissions from private collectors as well as institutions.

I have many favorite pieces from his collection. It was hard to choose one favorite so I am going to display three. The first painting is called The Fishing Village, painted in 2009, location unknown. I love the greens and blues in this painting. This pictures is so full of life, the trees, the water flowing, the children playing. It is a beautiful scene. I love it.

 

The second picture I chose to display is called Flower Sellers, painted in 2010, location unknown. I love the bright, vivid colors in this painting. This scene invites you into the every day routine of these villagers. I can picture myself in the shoes of these women, feeling the sun on my back as I walk downhill with my water pail.

 

The third painting I chose to display is called Peaceful, painted in 2010, location unknown. The title of this painting is appropriate because peace settles upon me when I look at it. The sky is beautiful, the sun shining down on the huts. Again, it invites you into the lives of the villagers and reminds you to broaden your perspective of the world.

post-modern art gallery

The theme of my Post-Modern art gallery is “becoming one with nature”. There is tremendous power in the nature around us. It was the first art ever created. When I look at these pieces that I’ve chosen, they come alive around me and I can feel the elements in the art. These paintings help me put the stresses of our world aside and replace it with serenity and simplicity.

The first artist I am displaying is Lisa Fifield. Lisa is from the Oneida tribe in Wisconsin. Growing up, she traveled with her family every summer visiting different places of the world. They would go to other Native American settlements and they even went to Alaska. Lisa was inspired by nature and started a deep study on nature artufacts. She ended up doing watercolors that captured Indian life on the plains. People say you can actually taste and feel the elements of her painting. That is what I experienced looking at them.

Her first piece I chose to present is Helen Hide Bird. I couldnt find a date or place that it was created. This is my favorite of her pieces. When I look at it I can image the wind blowing through my hair and the smell of clean air. This represents peace to me. The girl protrayed in the photo seems to be at one with her environment and loving her life. Amazing painting.

 

The second painting I chose to represent her is Birch Bark woman, which I couldn’t find a location or exact date on. I do know that it was painted in the 90s. This painting is perfect for my theme “one with nature”. This shows the spirits of the human and the tree as one. They are connected to the core. To native Americans the tree represents healing.

 

The next artist I am showcasing is the brilliant Andy Goldsworthy. Born in 1956, Andy is a British environmental artist who teams up with nature, collaborating and creating beautiful masterpieces. After creating his scultures he photographs each one only once. His goal in his art is to gain understanding by becoming intimate with nature, again, “becoming one with nature”. He only uses things he finds to create. It is all natural.

The first piece of his I chose is Yorkshire Sculture Park. This is one of his famous works and it was created only a few years ago in April 2007 in England. What I love about this piece and about Andy’s art is that all of his materials existed before we existed. Nature is the purest art form. This is a really cool display.

 

The second piece I chose from his works is Before the Mirror, created in 1987, couldn’t find the location. This is amazing. It doesn’t seem like there is detail in this but there is. Each branch is strategically placed and the sticks are huge. Looking through the “mirror” you can see the hills. It is such a brilliant idea. The mountains look small through the eye of this “mirror” perspective. Great concept. I love this piece.

 

The third piece I chose of Andy’s is Storm King Wall built in 1998.It is located in Hudson Valley, New York. It is a little over a mile long and beautiful. My favorite feature is how it staircases down into the water. I love how it curves wherever it feels, around the trees, going nowhere particular. Again, the idea of using nature to create natural, environmental art is not only fun but inspiring!

 

Out of all the hundreds of images I have seen relating to Andy Goldworthy, i saved my favorite for last. It is called Ice Sculture: Treesoul. I can’t find a date or location on it but it rocks! When I look at it I think of the light within. This icicle is reflecting light in a cold dark place. The snow makes the ice brighter. The natural light causes the scene to take your breath away. This is marvelous and I want it in my house!

WWI and its influence on early modern art

Before WWI, artists were seeking to become more creative with their art. They wanted the content in their paintings to have a “shock factor”. There was an intense use of color and a huge focus on sexuality. Here is an example of the art before WWI began; it is Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted in 1907. 

 

If Picasso was looking to stand out and shock people, he accomplished the task. If this painting was hanging in a museum on a wall with a hundred other paintings, it would catch your eye. The positions of the bodies in this photo are strange but creative. There isn’t much used of color but the color that is used, helps capture their nakedness. One of the questions I have looking at this piece is, “Why were some of the women painted to have normal faces and others weren’t?”In all the readings it states that some were in masks and some weren’t but I wonder what Picasso’s reason was for it.

 

After WWI the creativity shifted. People were so tired of blood and battle that the only pictures they wanted to see were those of serenity, peace, and simplicity. Art stopped being so controversial. Here is an example by Georgia O’Keeffe called the Lawrence Tree, painted in 1929.

I absolutely love this painting. It’s beautiful and I do feel at peace looking at it. The war is over and now the art reflects the emotion of the human heart, the feeling of just wanting to lay back and look at the stars, without a care in the world. It’s perfect.

 

 

 

 

Impressed by Impressionism

Next to the Romantic style, the paintings of the Impressionists are my favorite. They are beautiful. The work isn’t as harsh as previous styles. It is soft and brilliant in color. There are no dark colors or harsh lines.

The Post-Impressionist style is said to have paintings with more emotion but actually, I see and feel more emotion when I look at Impressionist paintings. I love how Impressionists painted with no boundaries and hardly any lines. I feel like I can use my imagination more, when I look at the Impressionist paintings. The Post-Impressionist paintings look like photographs.

Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet, painted in 1872, is my favorite of all the art displayed.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

I chose Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as my representation of the Classical Era. This is my favorite piece from the presented material.

Serenade No. 13for stings in G major, also known as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, meaning “little serenade” in German, was beautifully created by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1787. This piece comes to life when played with two violins, a viola, and a cello, and is known as chamber music.

People tend to naturally equate classical music to the prestigious and the wealthy, but this is not the case. In all actuality most of Mozart’s classical musicians were middle-class laborers. Middle class people fund classical music just as well as the wealthy. Middle class citizens were among those in the audience at the operas in the classical age and the middle class made classical music popular and kept its popularity alive until our present age.

Mozart was one of the most famous classical composers and very popular with the middle class. Just as his fans, Mozart had a middle-class income. He had fame but struggled to be financially secure. Mozart was said to have the greatest child prodigy the world has ever seen and died a predominant musical genius of the classical age.

Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop

 

Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop is my favorite piece of Baroque visual art presented in this section. It was imagined and created in Musée du Louvre, Paris, by Georges de la Tour in 1645 and is among the most famous of his works. Georges de la Tour was a famous French painter of the Baroque era.

When I look at the painting I see a few interesting things. The painting is classified as a simple genre scene and not a strict religious piece because of the lack of symbolism. There is no background in this scene and the only light in the picture, comes from the boy’s candle. I love the kindness in the eyes of the father and the delight in the eyes of the boy. The father has given the boy purpose and worth. It is a picture of the the training up of a boy into a man. Though the scene is ordinary, it speaks of the future. It can be a picture of every ordinary family. It also is a picture of Joseph and Jesus and God the father to his creation. That is what I see.

The realism in the painting is quite obvious. When we discuss realism in the arts, we are discussing how well the piece depicts ordinary life and every day routine. In this photo the carpenter is teaching his son his trade. His son helps him and they work together. REALISM. The religious overtone of the painting is that the son is the Christ child.

Georges de la Tour was heavily influenced and supported by royalty. He started a good living in Luneville in the Duchy of Lorraine. He was the official court painter to Louis XIV. Tour had a style of realism and tenebrism together. Tour was a young man during the early Italian Baroque and quickly became famous. King Louis XIII, Henry II of Lorraine, and the Duke de La Ferte were among the royal who collected Georges de la Tour’s work. George held the “personal esteem of the Governor of Lorraine, the Marechal de la Ferte, for whom he painted a Nativity, a St Alexis, a St Sebastian, and a Denial of St Peter. His works fetched high prices (600-700 francs or more).”

 

Source: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/old-masters/georges-la-tour.htm

The Isenheim Altarpiece

The Isenheim Altarpiece was an oil painting created by the hands of Matthias Grunewald. It was painted somewhere between 1506 and 1515 but wasn’t popular or of great value until the 16th century. The Isenheim Altarpiece was painted for a monastery that was known for its hospital work. These monks took care of those who suffered from the plague and skin diseases. The painting was to be a message to them that Jesus shared in their suffering and understood their afflictions.

The Isenheim Altarpiece is known as one of the greatest Renaissance paintings of the 16th century. At the same time that Raphael was decorating the Vatican in Rome, the Isenheim Altarpiece was being produced. This piece of art is considered one of the most significant pieces of religious art of the Northern Renaissance. Five years before Luther introduced his Protestant theses this painting came to be, and is a great interpretation of the torment experienced during the early 16th century when the Protestant Reformation came in with this message. The Roman Catholic church did not except this painting. They rejected it and did not support it’s creator. The Isenheum Altarpiece and its misery is the direct opposite of Italian High Renaissance works such as Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, which is so graceful and beautiful.

This is a very dark depiction of the Crucifix. One critic described it as, “the most beautiful painting of ugliness in the history of art.”There are nine paintings and eight wood carvings. Everything was painted on hinged panels so that they can be altered to unfold different scenes. I think it is interesting that the only color used in the painting besides the browns and blacks, is red. The first thing I think of when I look at the painting is the word “blood”. I think of Jesus spilling his blood for those he loved. The pains of life don’t seem as overwhelming when I look at this painting. It is very affective. I’m sure the monks drew strength from it and then when it became famous, others drew strength from it.

The Isenheim Altarpiece is now being protected and displayed in the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, one of greatest museums in France just outside of Paris. Some pieces of the wood carvings were chipped due to vandalism during the French Revolution, but over-all it is still  in great shape. This museum has the honor to hold many pieces of early Renaissance art.

The Isenheim Altarpiece is, and will always be, affective artistry. The history it shares will keep teaching for years to come.