Non-western

I chose this piece by Margi Grobbelaar called Hippo Pod. I chose this particular piece because of the fine detail she put into it and because I also think hippos are interesting. Grobbelaar put the fine details I like to see in art work with the use of the bubbling water around the hippo’s mouth and rippling water effect around some of the hippo’s bodies showing slight movement. I also like how she added the little birds to the painting adding also some authenticity of a real hippo pod. She also has most of the hippo’s looking away or with their eyes shut except one who is staring right at the viewer which I thought was attention-grabbing.

Margi Grobbelaar is from Bulawayo which is in the southern region of Zimbabwe, and she was schooled in Harare. Margi unlike a lot of painters did not pursue a career in art right away she actually did not have the opportunity at her school to have art classes because art as a subject was not offered there. So instead she became a lawyer and only when she was married, a mother and her children grown did she actually become a full time artist, teaching herself the techniques along the way(huntnet). Margi whose husband is a professional hunter has had much exposure to the real Africa to help her find much inspiration for her artwork. She uses the time in the bush hunting with her husband to gain insight for her work she takes many photos and notes, detailing the landscape, light, the different shades, and varieties in color and so on. She uses these notes and photographs to keep her animals and her artwork to as true to their habitat as possible(huntnet).

Click to access Ahthe%20Art%20of%20Margie%20Grobbelaar.pdf

http://www.artnetafrica.com/Paintingview.asp?ID=501

Non-Western

The early Ming dynasty was a period of cultural restoration and expansion. The reestablishment of an indigenous Chinese ruling house led to the imposition of court-dictated styles in the arts. Painters recruited by the Ming court were instructed to return to didactic and realistic representation, in emulation of the styles of the earlier Southern Song (1127–1279) Imperial Painting Academy. Large-scale landscapes, flower-and-bird compositions, and figural narratives were particularly favored as images that would glorify the new dynasty and convey its benevolence, virtue, and majesty. The Ming Dynasty is a period when various painting styles arose and different genres of painting flourished. The genres and subjects of painting, the traditional painting of human figures, landscapes, flowers and birds continued the trend of popularity. The painting of plums, orchids, bamboos and miscellaneous subjects were also in full motion. In regards to painting skills, great achievements had been made in ink painting on landscapes and freehand brushwork of flowers and birds.

In Ming Dynasty paintings, the customs of both the Southern Song painting academy and the Yuan scholar artist were improved further. While the Zhe School of painters continued on with the descriptive, ink-wash style of the Southern Song with great technical ability, the Wu School looked into the expressive calligraphic styles of Yuan scholar painters emphasizing restraint and self promotion. In Ming painting, each form is built up from a set of brushstrokes; the execution of these forms is an inimitable personal performance. Imposing the importance of personality in art over just technical skill, the Ming artist aimed for mastery of performance rather than lengthy craftsmanship.

The poem at the top of the piece reads below.
I hear you have opened up a “Dao path” near the ocean,
Where clouds of leaves and frost-covered flowers vie in wondrous splendor.
I too have built a new residence at Zhixing Mountain,
May I share some of your autumn colors on my eastern hedge.

I chose this piece of art from the Ming Dynasty, by Lu Zhi called Planting Chrysanthemums. I chose this piece because it caught my eye with its light colors to help emphasize the detail of the rocks and trees and also the landscape of the piece is stunning, with the high cliffs and shadowed mountains, like apparitions in the background. In addition I also found charming the huts tucked into the trees, low in the valley of the cliffs, it has fantastic detail, the fence protecting the entrance with its gate welcoming visitors to the valley residence. The roofs of each hut are well detailed you can see the difference between the straw or bamboo and the stone roofs. It is a breath taking view that I enjoy very much. Lu Zhi was the son of a Suzhou schoolteacher and a pupil of Wen Zhengming. After his father’s death, Lu supported his family by selling his paintings. About 1557, Lu retired to the mountains west of Suzhou, where he led a reclusive life cultivating rare flowers, writing poetry, and painting. Awash in mist and soft colors, the crystalline mountains in Lu’s painting evoke perfectly the dreamlike Peach Blossom Land of the immortals.

Source: Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

https://classes.uaf.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_60839_1%26url%3d
(https://classes.uaf.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_60839_1%26url%3d) .

Street Magic

Kurt Wenner born in Ann Arbor, Michigan He attended both Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center College of Design. Before working for NASA as an advanced scientific space illustrator. He is an artist best known for his realistic street painting and chalk murals using a technique called anamorphosis. These 3D chalk drawings on pavement have been featured in many newspapers and on several television shows (Wikipedia).
Kurt Wenner produced his first commissioned mural at the age of sixteen, and by seventeen was earning his living as a graphic artist. He was employed by NASA as an illustrator to create paintings of future space projects and extraterrestrial landscapes. In 1982, he left NASA, sold all of his belongings, and moved to Italy to study art. Living in Rome, Wenner studied the masters and classical sculptures in the museums. In 1991, he was commissioned to create a piece to honor the visit of Pope John Paul II to the city of Mantua. The event was broadcast live on television throughout Italy(KurtWenner.com).

I find Wenner’s work very appealing, it has a shock and awe side to it that is hard to look away from. Wenner’s work is extremely detailed which I like in artwork very much, also it has a degree of difficulty I think that is not found as much in work with canvas. He has to work to make the street art the exact right size and shape to make it look correctly when seen at the right angle or if his measurements are off the art will be distorted and unbalanced.

Dies Irae

Office Stress

Reflections

Julian Beever was born in the UK and is an artist who’s famous for art on the pavement of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium . Beever gives to his drawings an amazing 3D illusion. He does these drawings on the sidewalks of assorted cities mostly in Europe. Using Rembrandt pastels and a creative imagination, sidewalk traffic is baffled by the 3D look of these sidewalk renderings. Some of the pieces are over thirty feet long but appear to be about three feet high(WikiPedia).
Beever gives his drawings an anamorphosis view, his images are drawn in such a way which gives them a three dimensional look when viewing from the correct angle, but when viewed from the wrong angle they can look a good deal distorted. These pictures show a couple of the drawings from the wrong view, not what you would expect(WikiPedia).
Using the same technique as Kurt Wenner, called anamorphism that creates the illusion, or Trompe-l’oeil. His street paintings appear to defy the laws of perspective. Besides the 3D art, Beever paints murals and replicas of the works of masters. He is often hired as a performance artist and to create murals for companies. Beever is interested in advertising and marketing, as well(Wikipedia).

Like Kurt Wenner Julian Beever is another artist who I think has some very astounding detailed artwork, especially when you consider that he his doing it on the sidewalk of the street. His artwork is very remarkable to look at it. It really looks like it comes right out of the street and is floating there or it looks like you could really jump right into it like with the art called The Plunge.

The Plunge

Ballatines

When looking at the image from the wrong angle it becomes a distorted image and you can see just how big the artwork actually is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Wenner
http://www.kurtwenner.com/artist.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Beever
http://www.timotca.org/demo4/biography.html

Blog 5

This painting by John Singer Sargent in 1918 appropriately named Gassed, I saw awhile back during school, shown to me by a history teacher. Although Sargent was better known for the quality of his portraits and his paintings of high society, his immense reputation led to Sargent being requested to do this remembrance painting. In 1918, he went to the north of France and during his excursion; he saw many groups of soldiers that had been blinded by canisters of mustard gas, a now banned practice by the world’s governments. He used this as a subject for a painting depicting a line of young men with their eyes bandaged a copious amount of them in fact in extreme anguish, as they moved forward among the many dead bodies of other soldiers lying on the ground. The vast horizontal format of this painting gives effectiveness to this composition(http://www.art-ww1.com/gb/texte/072text.html). I think this painting has a lot of emotion in it. It does not jump off the canvas at you right away, but if you look close enough and try and put yourself in the boots of those soldiers, you will find that emotion, the pain and hurt. The soldiers with the bandages over their eyes having to be led by an injured core men, in a line of injured with their arms on the man in fronts shoulders because they have been blinded, tripping over the dead bodies of their fellow soldiers is to me very distressing. Sargent captures the shame of chemical warfare very well here and shows why chemical weapons is banned and should have never been discovered.

World War I or the Great War was a military conflict centered on Europe that began in the summer of 1914. The fighting ended in late 1918. This conflict involved all of the world’s great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, due largely to great technological advances in firepower without corresponding ones in mobility (Wikipedia). It was the second deadliest conflict in history. The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, is seen as the final straw that triggered the war. Long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, such as the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, France, and Italy, played a major role. Ferdinand’s assassination by a Yugoslav nationalist resulted in a Habsburg ultimatum against the Kingdom of Serbia. Several alliances formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; as all had colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world(Wikipedia).

Blog 4

I do not hate Impressionism, but I don’t think I enjoy it that much. Although I think it was an important era for art. It helped develop modern art and many new techniques. The main objection I have to Impressionism is that when I look at a majority of the paintings I feel as if I should be wearing glasses because they have those loose brush strokes and crossing of lines. This gives the impression that the painting seems to be blurry. I do enjoy the bright colors and creative thought behind the paintings I think it gives the artist a real style to call their own, that people can pick up on and know who the artist is, of a painting by the technique, color scheme and brush strokes. The artists aren’t all painting in the same drab colors, or subject such as an event in history or religion (Wikipedia). My favorite piece from this era would still have to be the one that kick started and gave it its name, Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise, I love the color scheme he used in this piece with horizon and the sun that fire orange and the grey, blue color covering the landscape, which it looks like may come from the factories in the background, but the one thing I like the most is the reflection of the sun shimmering off of the water, I think it really makes the painting.

Impressionism is clearly a whole new breed of painting style what with its short, thick brush strokes used to quickly capture the essence of the subject rather that its detail. Previously duller more plain colors were used like in the Italian Renaissance; black was used regularly, in Impressionist works black paint is readily avoided. Wet paint was placed into wet paint without the waiting of previous applications to dry, producing softer edges and an intermingling of color, which leads to the yielding nonappearance of lines. Unlike work from the previous era’s which maintained strict lines and color separation (Wikipedia). I am I think a detail person I enjoy a painting with immaculate detail that makes me wonder how they did it, how they made it so graphically real. So I actually prefer a mixture of Impressionism with the previous styles a detailed, but bright colored and creative piece.

A little more detail then some Impressionism paintings, but still with bright colors and softer lines. This Alfred Sisley, View of the Saint Martin Canal, Paris 1870.

Andrea Pozzo’s trompe-l’oeil dome at Sant’lgnazio 1685. Althought a ceiliing painting I very much enjoy the extreme detail and lines that these painting’s have to offer, compared to the less detailed Impressionist paintings.

Blog 3



The great 5th symphony was created in 1804-08 by Beethoven Van Ludwig. This piece of music by Beethoven is one of the most well known works in all of classical music. It is made with four movements an opening sonata, an andante, and then a fast scherzo which leads to the finale with no break between movements. The 5th symphony was first performed in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien in 1808. (Wikipedia)

The 5th symphony had a long drawn out creation. The first writings were done in 1804 shortly after the completion of the 3rd symphony. However he was constantly interrupting his work on the 5th to put in order other works of music. The Fifth Symphony had its debut on December 22, 1808 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna consisting entirely of Beethoven firsts, the concert was also directed by Beethoven himself. The concert was more than four hours long. The Sixth symphony also made its debut the same night, in fact, the two symphonies appeared on the program in reverse order the Sixth was played first, while the Fifth appeared in the second half of the performance. With only one rehearsal before the concert the orchestra did not perform very well at all. The audience who was very cold, for it was winter and the auditorium was cold also the audience was taken aback by the length of the performance, did not give the Fifth a rave review by any means. The Fifth did not hit its stride until a year later when E.T.A. Hoffmann gave the Fifth an ecstatic review. (http://www.favorite-classical-composers.com/beethovens-5th.html)

The reason I like this symphony so much is of course for its iconic opening in the 1st movement the four note motif then runs double, arguably the most well known musical phrase in the world. It just reaches out and grabs you while setting the tone for the rest of the performance. The 2nd movement is a little slower; less dramatic it keeps your attention with a couple big moments, but doesn’t grab you like the first. 3rd movement moves back to the dramatic tones, with a dark scherzo. Beethoven slows the pace down and stresses the first beat. The 4th movement is much more uplifting and happy with a quicker pace.( http://www.favorite-classical-composers.com/beethovens-5th.html)

Blog #2 Baroque

This exceptional piece of art work created by Andrea Pozzo in 1685 is called trompe l’oeil, it is located in the dome at Sant’Ignazio a Jesuit church in Rome. What I like about this piece of art is the intense detail and creativity that was put into this ceiling, it makes me just sit an stare and marvel how they created such a wonder without the advancements we have today. The method used such as foreshortening and other spatial techniques required to make a flat ceiling appear three dimensional, along with the talent and effort put into the ceiling is another reason I really enjoy this piece of art. The painting is supposed to celebrate the missionary spirit of two centuries of adventurous apostolic spirit of Jesuit explorers and missionaries. Today, this would appear to incentivate the expansion of Roman Catholicism, along with the overseas enterprises of the day, to other continents. It was also a combative Catholicism (wikipedia). Andrea Pozzo was a Jesuit painter creating works of art. After all the back and forth fighting between the Catholic’s and Jesuit’s, the Pope called the Council of Trent to try and come to some sort of comprehension between the two.

Intro

Renaissance Blog

This creatively eerie engraving was done by Albrecht Durer. Know most popularly by the name The Knight, Death and the Devil; it was also at times called simply The Rider. The Rider which was engraved in Germany around 1513 is a favorite of mine between the two Renaissances’ art works. The Rider could possibly represent a metaphor on Christian salvation. The knight is riding along a desolate patch of land to a castle on the hill, which could be his destination. The castle could possibly be a representation of God, as the knight, stays on the true path to God he ignores the fear and evil, escorted by his faithful dog. This represents the steady faith the knight has in God. Unmoved either by Death who is standing in front of him with his hour-glass in his outstretched hand, a cold reminder of how life is slowly slipping away, his time on Earth limited, or by the goat faced Devil behind him, who is a faithful reminder to the knight to stay on his path to God and not too stray. I also appreciate very much the detail Durer put into this engraving from the musculature of the horse’s bodies and mane to the dogs fur, how its angled back showing the forward movement as the dog is in a running motion. Also the knights armor is finely etched with the different lines and joints, per portioned to his body. This piece of art really caught my attention and sustained it with its creepy characters, stellar detail and how the artist encompassed them all together to make a great piece of art work.

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