WEEK 12: Pollock's work of art

Number 1 by Jackson Pollock, 1949, 5'3"*8'6", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

At first look, the painting looks like a mutlitude of curved lines, arcs, spots everywhere: green, yellow, white and colors in that tone.

To create such a painting, Pollock had unstretched canvas on the floor and painted on it directly, from above, with precise gesture. The painting was already in his mind, he only had to reproduce it and could not be stop in his process. It was like a transe, he knew precisely what he wanted to reproduce and dripped the paint on the canvas with no hesitation.

The purpose of Pollock's painting was for people to lose themselves in the contemplation of  his work, to forget about the outside world, see and imagine whatever made us feel better out of it. Pollock's work is indescribable but full of energy, of emotions that comes toward us in a wave. He is to me one of the most unexpected artist of this century and one of the most talentuous: indeed, he is able to transmitt emotions through a work that, from an outside cold look, looks like nothing when it is everything.

In his unapologetic materialism there are refreshing and unregenerately American qualities, as there are in his effort to breathe spirit into the refractory matter he chose to make the substance of his art. These distinctly native qualities mix matter-of-fact realism with respect to materials, and an innocent idealism. Only a supreme innocent would have felt free to disregard the intrinsic appeals and cultivated uses of the language of paint, and gambled with raw pictorial effects to the degree that Pollock did. And only an idealist of transcendent powers could have won from such patently non-artistic content a deep and moving lyricism.

Jackson Pollock

Sam Hunter, Jackson Pollock, Bernard Karpel

The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art
Vol. 24, No. 2, Jackson Pollock (1956 - 1957), pp. 3-16+18-19+21-36

Week 11: The colorful art of Andre Derain

View of Collioure 1905 by Andre Derain 26*32 3/8" Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

This painting is a representation of a small port on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France called Collioure. First in front of us there are weath fields borded by trees typical to this region: Tall with leaves only over their top that give an impression of them wearing a hat. In the background, we see a town with its houses and red roofs. One of the buildings seems to stand out more than the others, and its shape might suggest that it is a church. Eventually, behind the houses is the dark blue see that differentiates itself from the lighter blue sky. On the top right of the painting, between sky and sea we can observe the outline of an hill diving into the water. The drawing is colorful, balancing between warm colors like yellow, red and orange that confuses eyes between the wheat field with the village and the green and blue hues of the trees, water and sky.
The artist uses an all new technique of painting at that time: he mixes teh Pointillism of Seurat but add a touch of freshness in it by making it less strictlike. Indeed, Andre Derain was also inspired by the work of Van Gogh and Gaugin: the vivid colors and the thicker "points" (if, in fact, they can still be called points).

Also, Derain did not paint this to give a realistic representation of what he saw. For instance, the colors are certainly not accurate to this landscape. He painted this in hope to transmitt his feelings, the warmth of the sun, the shinning light that it produced, the breeze and the smell coming from the sea. His purpose was not to make us look at the painting but to invite us in a voyage to this place, to influence us to enter the painting and lives it with all our sensations: taste, smell, sounds of the crickets.. Through his art, Andre Derain hoped to bring us to a better place for a little while, that would last as long as we contemplated his painting. And indeed, being from France, i personally feel like taking a trip back home through this image and it brings in me warm emotions. The purpose of the author's work is then fulfilled.

[View of Collioure] by Derain, rarely or never before seen in this country, surpass the promise held by reproductions

The Wild Beasts -- Fauvism and Its Affinities at the Museum of Modern Art

Henri Dorra

Art Journal
Vol. 36, No. 1 (Autumn, 1976), pp. 50-54

Week 10: Graphics manuscript

Bahram Gur and the Princess in the Black Pavilion 1538 from a manuscript of Hatifi's Haft Manzar, Bukhara, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

This painting is a minature from a manuscript. It seems like it is divided in two parts and the down part is divided again in two parts. In the part at the bottom, there are four characters that seem to be visiting: two on the left are examining a paper while drinking a few beverages that are present in front of them and two on the right seem to be playing instruments while enjoying oriental beverages also. At the center of the representation are the two characters: they are slightly bigger than the other ones. On the left there is a man serving a beverage which seems to be tea and on the right a woman sitting on a pillow and apparatenly waiting for her tea. Her head is turned toward the man as if they are conversing. I suppose they are also visiting. All these characters are sitting on a carpet and oriental objects as candles and dishes are gathered around them. Then in the top part, there is a huge door and at the top of this door a window. From this windown, a woman seems to be hiding behind a curtain, observing the scene below her. The entire painting is colorful and full of details as for the carpets and the walls.

The artist has realized here a work with an isometric perspective. Indeed, there are no converging lines or fixed points and the viewpoints are aerial and earthbound combined so that the scene can be depicted in its totality as God might see it. This representation has a religious purpose, it is here to illustrate a story present in a religious manuscript. Indeed, it is also dreamful and help the author telling its story through imagination and dreams.

"[...]The miniature is of very high quality, and the treatment of the dome and pavilion, with the designs picked out in gray and white, is original and effective."

Prince Bāysonghor's Niẓāmī: A Speculation

B. W. Robinson

Ars Orientalis
Vol. 2, (1957), pp. 383-391

WEEK 9: The exceptional light of Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Le Moulin de la galette 1876 by Pierre-Auguste Lenoir 4'3 1/2" * 5'9"  Musee d'Orsay, Paris

This painting is the representation of a party going on in the 19th century. People are in France, entertainning in the neigbourhood of Monmartre in Paris, on a Sunday afternoon. Closest to us are women conversing, men drinking and smoking. In the background, there are dancers, a couple particularly on the left attract our attention because it is a little apart from the other dancers. There is a crowd dancing, visiting, going to a cafe in the back. There are trees all around them that create an atmosphere of happiness and calmness by playing with the sunlight.

This painting was one of Renoir's happiest work of art. It also is the first painting in which with see this kind of light. Indeed, Renoir tried reflecting a dancing light, as we found it aroudn us, in nature. Before him, light was always represented as still, which was not the case out of the painting. Also, depending on the intensity of the light, objects were not always clear as they are in most painting. Especially with shadow, forms become more blurry, as if in a dream. Indeed, Renoir had to invent a new technique of paintign to express all these sensations provided by the light around us. And that is how impressionism was born. For the first time, a painting could capture and transmitt the sensations of perception. As in here, Renoir used his full Impressionist technique to create a work as in a picture: it captured a moment in time, with its emotions: there is color, movement and light surrounding us as viewers as if we were part of this scene, looking at it outside of the window or just contemplating the joy of this scene, drinking a wine of good glass and enjoying the sun and the company of others. This personally is one of my favortie painting. It express so much in an instant, transport us among these people that are happy, enjoying life and not worrying about a thing. The work of the artist is fully accomplished because it brings happiness and hope of happiness in a world that has became more and more complicated with less and less simple pleasures. This painting, throughout time, reminds us that there is happiness in this world, right by our door, everywhere and anywhere.

The new relationship of the figures, the tonal co- ordination, and especially the projection of the dancers to an impressive scale marks a decided ad- vance over the earlier compositions. Yet a spiritualaffinity binds the three celebrated painting,[...].

Title: A Great Renoir
Author(s): James S. Plaut
Source: Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Vol. 35, No. 209 (Jun., 1937), pp. 30-33

WEEK 8: Ceiling images by Michelangelo

Creation of Adam 1511 by Michelangelo, detail of Sistine Chapel ceiling

In this painting, there are two main characters, God and Adam. Adam, on the left, is laying on an hill. He looks absent because his body is entirely formed, as its naked representation shows us, but still lifeless. On the right, God seems to fly toward him. He is accompanied by many other characters that are gathered around him. They are angels from Heaven. Howeverm one of them appears particularly strange to our eyes cause it is a woman. The story says that Michelangelo wanted to represent Eve by God's side, under his arm as his protected child. Indeed, Eve had not been created at the moment, she was still an idea in God's mind. Another personnage attract our attention inside this group: God points at a child in particular who is, in Michelangelo's work, the Christ who has not come on earth yet. But the main point in this work of art is the two hands reaching for eachother, almost touching at the point, the one of God which is aiming for Adam's and Adam's which is just standing there. The difference is significant too between God's look which is concentrated on his chore, bringing the spark of life inside this body, Adam, to live and the empty look of an inanimate Adam.
The symmetry is so perfect that the end of each finger is pointing at the center of this piece of art. Indeed, Michelangelo wanted to reaffirm that God created humans at his image, as if there was a mirror in this picture reflecting God's personnage in Adam's. Also, the painting is concentrated on a few colors: red stands out as envelopping all the characters from Heaven and God is dressed in a pink robe as to be differentiated from the other bodies. The pale pink color of Adam's body stands out by itself on the green grass around him. 

Michelangelo was a talented painter whose work will never be able to be reproduced by anyone again. All his life, he worked for popes and other nobilities as kings but he concentrated his paintings and sculptures to religious theme as in the Sixtine Chapel. He always tried according his ideas and beliefs to what his masters asked. As in this piece, he gave his own interpretation of the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the father breathes life into his first creation, Adam, the first man. And his interpretation is believed to be realistic and the best physical representation of this Biblical story. Indeed, Sistine Chapel is one of the most visited place on earth nowdays, and all thanks to the work of Michelangelo that depicts an impressive illustration of the Bible, found nowhere else around the world.

Michelangelo had full or nearly full freedom to select the episodes to be included, it may be supposed that it was his own idea to use a passage from the Book of Proverbs in The Creation of Adam. Perhaps it fascinated the artist-himself a poet-with its rare beauty, and in his ravishing portrayal of Divine Wisdom on the Sistine ceil- ing, he created a worthy equivalent.

Title:  The Divine Wisdom of Michelangelo in "The Creation of Adam"
Author(s):  Maria Rzepińska
Source:  Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 15, No. 29  (1994), pp. 181-187

Religion views by Duccio

Christ Entering Jerusalem, detail of Maesta Altar 1308-11 by Duccio 40*21" Museo dell'Opera, Siena.

In this colorful painting, we see the Christ with his disciples coming into a city. A crowd seems to be awaiting the procession with offerings, branches of a saint plants. There are kids which look excited, and elder men that look more solemn, two of them holding their hands whether in sign of respect and disagreement. But i would rather think respect since this is a work of art to the Christ and to show his magnificence. Two men even climb in trees to reach the branches of the sacred trees to bless the Christ and his group with them. In the background, at the top of the painting, there is a church standing there, which is probably the Christl goal.

The athmosphere of the paintings give a sense of space, a certain athmosphere which is particular to religious painting. Indeed, to celebrate the Christ, the artist decided to realize a painting with a sense of space and movement. Indeed, the way Duccio has designed them, the people seem actually to be moving and expressing the admiration adn their impatience in the crowd for instance. And the fact that he was able to put so many crucial details that lead the way from the Christ to the church create a picture so real. Indeed, the work of art is an impressive proof of the importance of church. The Christ attract our eyes by his posture over the dunkee and by the gold circle around his head. And that it exactly what the artist tried with lines and diagonales. He wanted the viewer's look to focus on the Christ, to express how central he is in the artist's religion and life and how he should be in ours. This painting is an unique contribution to the recognition of God in religion. It effectively transmitt the message that Christianity wants to convey.

This was Duccoi's novel, almost unprecedented, contribution to the art of the period, the use of architecture to demarcate space rather than to act as a simple backdrop.

Title: Toward The Renaissance
Source : Living With Art p. 391 (Eigth Edition) by Mark Getlein

The mystery of Lascaux

Horse and Geometric Symbol 13,000 B.C.E, Cave painting, Lascaux, France. 

This work of art is a paint of what looks like a horse with some other signs around it. The designs are pretty simple, primitve, which seems logical since this was made 13,000 years ago.

As we saw in the video, the artist painted a horse that he probably saw when being in a transe or jsut being in a cave. The confused geometric signs probably appeared to him too, as it is a reaction to the brain that appears to the human eye while unconscious or staying for too long in a dark place. Indeed, horses were assimilated to gods in the people's mind at this time because they were sacred to them and that is why they were the main animal painted, because they materialized to them in the first place. 

Infinity room by Yakoi Kusama

Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kusama, 2002 9'7" * 12' * 12', Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

This work of art consists of a small room with mirrors on all sides, a pool in the center and 150 small lights hanging from the ceiling. In fact, once you entered the room by yourself (it is the wish of the artist) you're surrounded by all these lights and it looks like there are hundreds and hundreds of them between the reflection of the water and the different mirrors. The entire work brings into being an impression of thousands and thosuands of ligthing bugs flying above the water at night. There are so many of them that it actually looks like they are in movement.
http://www.mediavr.com/infinityroom2.htm

The artist created this room as an escape for the mind, as a way for humans to be transported out of our world, to live an unforgettable experience in a place out of space. Indeed, Yakoi Kusama wants the viewer to enter the room alone and to enjoy this experience by himself/herself and then share the emotions that it awoke in him/her with other people, once out of ther room. Her purpose has alwasy been to represent infinity and to share the feelings that living infinity brings in us, what uncredible senses it reveals in us and how it brings our imagination to live. Yakoi Kusama created with her work a whole new world, and revealed to us the power that exists inside of us, the one of our minds.

In Fireflies I knew above and underneath. I was them. Yet... upon entering, one was walking on a platform. It was shorter and wider than a diving board, but I feared that if the platform weren't strong enough or if I lost my balance, I'd be plummeting into infinity. I felt risk and longing, even though I also felt at one with the space, embraced by the gorgeousness that literally reflected me in a mirror facing the door. Here was bliss, the union of Energy and Consciousness. I didn't want to leave. And the piece haunts me.

Title: Vaginal Aesthetics
Author(s): Joanna Frueh
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 18, No. 4, Women, Art, and Aesthetics (Autumn - Winter, 2003), pp. 137-158

Dorothea Lange, an artist devoted to the migrants

Migrant Mother 1936 by Dorothea Lange  4x5" Library of Congress, Washington D.C

In this picture in black and white, we see four characters, a mother with her two children and one infant in her lap. What attracts at first our look is the mother's expression. She looks like she is lost in her thoughts, worried, preoccupied about something. Indeed, her eyes have an anxious look, they do not look like they are fixed anywhere in particular but more somewhere that us viewers cannot see but only imagine, the mother's mind. The multiple wrinkles on her face witness her worries, her lassitude too. In fact, she does not seem to be really old but her aspect let us believe that she has known hard times and that her life experience make her older than she is in reality. By her side, hiding their faces in her neck and crowling on her are two children, most likely hers. Both of them look like they could be resting or trying to be the closest they can to their mothers because they are scared.Their bodies's postions also express their tiredness. All the characters wear clothes which are worn out, dirty. One of the children's hand is really dirty and also the baby's face seems to be dusty, draker at some points as if tiny particles covered it, both of them standing out darker in the picture than most of the personnages' apparent skin. These elements tell us that their living conditions are probably mediocre. Also, we know that they are immigrants but the idea of them having traveled for a long time is  confirmed by their global aspect: exhaustion, filthiness.

Dorothea Lange used to work for the Farmer Security Administration, documenting the impact of federal programs in improving rural conditions.It is while travelling to realize her work that she falls upon this woman and her children. Touched by her, she will take a few different shots of her and her family. Once back in San Francisco where she lived, she alerted a newspaper providing it with a couple of her shots. As a result, the government rushed to send food into the migrants' camp. Indeed, Dorothea Lange was not initially an artist and had not learnt to work in an art school but the impact of her work was beyond anything that anyone could have expected. Actually, I believe that when she spontaneously took these pictures she was hoping to help this people by claiming their needs through her photography. Indeed, the power of the pictures, the emotions they carry had an incredible effect on the population and the governement at that time. And still today, they remind us of what happened, faithly transmitting the history of these people.

You know there are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you. And you just hope you have enough time to get it organized in af raction of a second on that tiny piece of sensitive film. Sometimes you have an inner sense that you have encompassed the thing generally. You know then that you are not taking anything away from anyone, their privacy, their dignity, their wholenes

Title: Instructional Resources: Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange
Author(s): Dorothea Lange; Carole Henry
Source: Art Education, Vol. 48, No. 3, The Broader Context (May, 1995), pp. 25-28+37-40

Week 3: Raphael and the catholic religion

Disputation of the Holy Sacrament 1509-1510 by Raphael 200 × 300 Vatican Museums

On this painting, there are three parts. On the top above all the characters are angels gathered around the God Father, who seems to be carrying a depitction of earth. Underneath him is then the Christ, sitting in front of what looks like to be a representation of the golden sun. The Virgin and Saint John the Baptist are close around him, The Virgin looking at him in a motherlike way, and Saint John pointing at him. Eventually, at the center, rests the Holy Spirit. On each side of this assembly, the Most Holy Trinity, is the Triumphant Church which is composed of prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament consorting apostles and martyrs, seated in an arc above the clouds. Eventually, underneath these Holy figures, remains the Militant Church. And so, Raphael uses bright colors for his composition. However he reserves the gold one for the angelic pieces. Nevertheless, this art work is a remarkably detailed: Looking carefully, the clouds are composed of countless angels. Moreover, the peculiar features assist us in getting the expression and the gesture of the personnages, which themselves incite us to believe that an argument is going on between the different actors of the scene, especially the ones present on the ground.

In his work, Raphael seems to separate intentionally the sacred personnages in his painting from their preachers. Indeed, the clouds create a barrier between both of those world, the one in the sky, Heaven, and the one on earth. As a matter of fact, Raphael was a fervent catholic and in throughout his entire life he tried to honor his religion throughout his work and to defend it as the golden one. The barrier he creates here could be to place the Saints above the people. Furthermore, the gold stands for the wealth, as intellectual as material, of the delegates of the Catholic religion. Therefore, through his art, he made himself the spokeman of the Catholic religion and of its magnitude.

Today, millions of people have visited the Vatican Museums and, through the paintings of Raphael, admired the eminence of the Catholic religion. Indeed, Raphael completed his purpose by promoting the grandeur of his religion views with his work.

Week 2: Ernő Weisz, 23-Year-Old Factory Worker, by Kata Kalman

This is the portrait of Erno Weisz,23 year-old factor worker, taken by Kata Kalman in Budapest in 1932. It is exposed in the National Art Gallery in Washington,D.C.
(size:9 1/2 x 6 15/16 inches)

This picture in black and white represents the portait of a tired man. His face as a whole looks young but his wrinkles and the look in his eyes make him look older, as if he had been through a lot already. The use only of black and white here helps the eyes catching the viewer attention. The white in this man's eyes get out in the photography and attracts us to view the eyes with more details than any other part of his face. Indeed, it seems like they have a story to tell us, a message to pass on to their viewers.

After World War I, life gets harder in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. Here, the artist denounces through her art work the difficult working conditions from which suffer adults and children in Budapest. Indeed, the lower classes do all the "dirty" and demanding work, put up with many hours a day and are paid a miserable salary. In fact, the face of this young man itself is enough to depict the hardness of his labor: his wrinkles and his tired eyes speek for themselves. He looks like someone who is not expecting much more of life, do not have much expectations because he learnt to let his ambitions behind in order most likely to try guaranteing the most decent life conditions for his family.

Kata Kalman's goal was indeed to show to the richer classes what was the daily life of their poorer neighbors: 
"Her photographs of workers, Gypsy girls and the children of the poor, introduced the middle class audience to a segment of society who lived within their apartments as servants but about whom they knew little. The physical distance was hardly noticeable but socially they lived worlds apart." (http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artist,show,1,48,0,0,0,0,0,0,kata_kalman.html)
Indeed, she realized her goals to open up the world to the dramatic case of the working conditions in which her people, in her country, suffered from and which were, until that time, completely ignored. Maybe, she was also hoping for some understanding from the richer Hungrian which could have tried helping those in need and changing the situation.

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=129981&image=27291&c=ggmodphoto

Week 1: Art in the Atrium by Kerry James Marshall

Monticello and Mount Vernon,the homes of American presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, were both painted by Kerry James Marshall in 2009. They are currently exposed in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Kerry James Marshall plays with colors and forms: looking carefully at the landscapes, we can find hidden heads and figures of slaves, suggested in the shadows , in the trees and in the water behind Mount Vernon.Indeed, Kerry Marshall tried using various colors for his paintings but at the same time, when drawing the hidden slaves, tried using the same colors as the background, to actually hide them. So in the trees for example, he uses a darker green but still a green to paint his slaves. Also, in both art works you can see dots that once connected, representing more slaves who worked on these plantations.
 In fact, Kerry James Marshall, an African American artist, has fully realized how people of colors have been left out of pictures during the life times of Jefferson and Washington. Acknowledging this, he studied history and its representation in works of art, to come up with this "visual game of seeking and finding the hidden meaning of each picture".  Indeed, he presents here two new paintings as puzzles, his purpose being to let the viewers connect the dots and discover for themselves what message he delivers throughout his work: slaves were part of the life of these two presidents, and throughout them, important to everyone. They cannot be forgotten.
Seeing these two paintings, i believe that this art work influence people in a way that, everyone who actually sees this work, realize how slaves were part of the American history. Indeed, they often are left out but they were here doing most of the work that others wouldn't do.They took part in building this country and making it what it is today. And Kerry James Marshall, throughout his pictures, help us remembering it and acknowledging too that, by hiding them in his pictures, that they actually were hidden from all art work for a long time.




http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/388
www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/marshall