Explorations in Art

 INSALLATION ART      One of the themes we looked at this week, was Installation art. These works can be extremely diverse and are often large, mixed-media sculptures, or builds that are setup to viewed in person for a set length of time. There are many elements from other types of art that come together in this theme, including perspective art, found object art, abstraction, and, yes, explosions.  TADASHI KAWAMATA      The first artist we will be looking at this week, is Tadashi Kawamata, a Japanese contemporary artist who has made some very famous installation works. His style consists of mostly woodwork, and found objects to make towering sculptures. Tadashi Kawamata - Chairs for Abu Dhabi, 2012      This installation was titled Chairs for Abu Dhabi  and consists of 1,000 different chairs. This work is meant to represent diversity, and for Abu Dhabi being a busy city that attracts people from all over, was only fitting. As all places that attract people from all over for business, t

Early Modern - Dada Exhibit     A bit of background on this style, the Dada movement originated in Switzerland after the First World War, and was essentially an artistic counter-culture movement to express the distain for everything that was going on at the time, from war politics, to art. To better understand the movement and the work, lets look at the first piece.  The Pillars of Society - George Grosz     The first Dada work I'll cover is titled "The Pillars of Society", and was painted as an oil on canvas by George Grosz in 1926. For something painting with such a specific message, it's wonder how that message is still just as relevant today, if you adjust some of the dated details. There are four main subjects that we see and upon closer inspection, they are the pillars the painting is named after.        The frontmost character is a Nazi, as you can see a swastika on their tie, and they are representing war. A sword is in his hand, drunk on 'power', and

Impressionism Art Impression Sunrise - Claude Monet        The first of four paintings that we will be looking at is titled Impression Sunrise, by Claude Monet, one of the the most famous Impressionism painters from this time. Monet is one of my personal favorite artists, and I absolutely adore this style. Impression Sunrise gives a good idea of what most of Monet’s work is like, so that’s another reason why I choose this painting. This oil on canvas comes in at 48 x 63cm and was first displayed at the Impressionist exhibition in 1874, two years after it was made. Now it resides in Musée Marmottan Monet, in Paris.       Taking a closer look at this work, we can see it represents a l lot of the impressionist styles with elements placing less of an emphasis on shape and line, while still holding form. The use of color is what I believe brings all of this piece together, we can see that the sunrise is giving off shadows of the boats hidden in the fog, suggesting shapes to us to give us

      In this Blog post, I will be looking at three different works, from three different artists that we read about in the Classical unit. The artists are Jacques-Louis David, Angelica Kauffman, and Benjamin West. While there was a lot of art being created at this time that was quite diverse, I saw, what I interpreted as a deeper level of morality in the following works. All three of the works I chose have tones of death, morality, grief, and sorrow. I will now go over each piece, and explain its relation to morality and the tones previously mentioned. The Death of General Wolfe     The first  piece I will be looking at is by the American painter, Benjamin West. This piece, titled The Death of General Wolfe  was painted in 1770, and is an oil on canvas style and is on display at The National Gallery of Canada, in Ottowa. This painting is a depiction of how this General Wolfe, died in battle during the Seven Year War. Now, how dose this piece relate to morality? When you look at the v

  Judith Slaying Holofernes | Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1614-1621   Artemisia Gentileschi       Gentileschi was a talented Baroque painter who began putting out amazing artwork at a young age. She had a focus on realism and painted a lot of women from stories, folklore, and notable allegories; while highlighting their naturalism. Sadly, a lot of her story and career were not as talked about as how she was raped and the story of that covered up many of her achievements. Now, she is talked about and appreciated by people all over the world and has many paintings in prestigious art museums.   Judith Slaying Holofernes      This painting is something of a self portrait, where Gentileschi is getting revenge for when a man named Agostino Tassi raped her. She wanted to kill him and get revenge and when there was no way of getting justices, the closest thing was to paint it. In this, Judith, the woman with the sword is Gentileschi, and the man, Holofernes, is Agostino. T

Effects of Good Government in the City   “Sala Della Pace” or "The Effects of Good Government in the City and in the Country”, was created by Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s in Siena, Italy during 1338-1339. These murals on the walls of a display room that portray an allegory of the government’s influence on the people, city, and countryside. While this may seem a bit early for the Italian renaissance, this was one of the early works that focused on some signature characteristics of the Italian renaissance, as well as humanism aspects.  Allegory of the Good Government      The return of humanistic ideals into the mainstream of art during this time had a lot of the same elements of past art pieces but applied more towards humans (body, size, overall atmosphere). I feel something artists did at this time was bridging the gap between more religious works, making it more relatable. The churches liked this and to keep the religious work going, ended up paying artists a good amount of money to c