Photography and Sculpture

 

 

Maine Pump by Walker Evans. This photograph is considered an instant collage. The definition of collage is objects in a particular "scene" or photo that normally arent associated with one another. This is considered a collage because the water pump is placed right in front of a door blocking the pathway. Realistically this scene would never take place.

 

 

 

 

Bob Dylan by Annie Leibovitz. This type of photograph would be considered a Portrait Photograph. Annie is most known for her photgraphs of celebrities. She started doing this type of photography for the magazine The Rolling Stone. Most of her photographs are of people either standing still or doing random things.

 

 

 

 

Untitled by Cindy Sherman. In many of Cindy's photographs she is trying to dipict a sense that the photograph is part of a film reel and she is capturing a moment in the film. This is called stage photography. Cindy will use different people and props to make it look like the photograph was shot of a movie giving the sense of more events taking place.

 

 

 

 

Pieta by Michelangelo. This statue is a carving sculpture. the carving process is when an artist takes a big block of wood or stone and starts to chip away at it using different tools. This is a very skilled line of work but once mastered the results are stunning such as the statue above. The artist that take this line of work can visualize different forms and scenes in a blank chunk of material.

 

 

 

 

The Myth of the Western Man by Robert Arneson. To achieve this type of sculpture the artist must use a technique known as modeling. The base material for this process is clay. Clay is known for its maluability and durability. It is very easy to mold clay and keep it in the shape you want it while working on the entire piece of art. Once finished the artist puts the clay into a kiln and fires the clay with rising temperatures to harden the clay.

 

 

 

 

Storm King Wall by Andy Goldsworthy. This type of art is extremely interesting and can be completed on different scales. This is considered Earth art. the artist uses the landscape and material found on the earth to create their piece of art. These walls are smaller scale forms of earth art but some other pieces of art can span miles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prints and painting

 

 

The Blindness of Tobit by Rembrant van Rijn. This work created by Rembrant is pretty amazing because it is an etching. An etching is where the artist applies a ground, a substance he/she can "carve" into, to a metal plate. after applied and hardened they can start etching the picture out of the ground exposing parts of the metal plate. An acid solution that was applied before hand starts to eat away the metal where the artist carved out resulting in a plate that will produce a picture when printed.

 

 

 

 

Artist's wife by Emil Nolde. This type of artwork is similar to etching in a way. This is known as woodcut or wood engraving. This form of artwork is done by cutting grooves in the end grain of the piece of wood. the purpose is for the grooves that are cut out and the narrow fisures made by the artist are not going to hold any ink, then once pressed to paper will create the image desired.

 

 

 

 

Peasant woman by Diego Rivera. Diego Rivera is known for making pieces of art by using plaster as a canvas. This process is called Fresco. The artist will apply plaster to a surface and depending on the artist they will start paining right away while the plaster is still wet, Buon Fresco (true fresco), or will wait till the plaster is dry before painting. If this process is done carefully and by a skilled artist the painting can be preserved for a long time.

 

 

 

 

Oleanders by Vincent van Gogh. This artist is very well known through many generations and his style of art is easily recognizable. Many of his works of art are completed by using oil paint. By using oil paint the artist can blend colors on the canvas itself and create a variation of hues and tones. Oil paint dries very slow so the artist can rework and "edit" the painting through out the entire painting process.

 

 

 

 

March Wind by Charles Burchfield. In this piece of art the artist used pigment and added it to a water solution with a binder before puting it on paper. After achieving the right color desired they then brush the pigment water directly to the paper. This causes the paper to become damp but still hold the color. This type of art is called watercolor for reasons explained above.

 

 

 

 

Tombstones by Jacob Lawrence. The process to make this form of art is very similar to watercolor except there is an additional step. Once the watercolor is created the artist then adds chinese white chalk to make the color opaque (light can not pass through it). once mixed with the chalk it is nearly impossible to blend colors as you can see above. It also makes the image appear two dimensional. This is known as Gouache painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aspects of design

The Portrait of a Lady holding a Rose by Thomas Dewing . This piece of art is a great example of an Asymmetrical design. if you notice at the bottom half of the painting it is taken up by most of the lady's dress. The same could be said for the left portion of the work. The artist put more of the weight of the painting in the bottom left hand portion.

 

 

 



 

The Painter and his model as klio by Jan Vermeer. The artist did a great job at bringing your attention to a certain object in the room in the painting. If you couldnt tell it was the book that the model was holding. It is brighter than its surrounding making it the first thing you look at. this is known as Emphasis.

 

 

 

 

 

Nixes Mate by Larry Poons. It may be hard to focus on any single point of this painting but that was the purpose of it. Poons uses Repatition of the tiny ovals and places them in a pattern across the entire painting in different colors. Repatition uses many patterns and same colors.

 

 

 

 

The Penitent Magdalen by Georges De La Tour. In the middle of the painting there is a fine line where you can see two seperate images by the use of light and dark. This is known as contrast and is shown very well by the ladys arm and the darkness behind the mirror. It is the most noticable element in this painting.

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled by Katsushika Hokusai. When you look at a painting where do you look first? then where do your eyes move next? This is known as visual movement. In this painting I  found to start in the left top corner moved right to the women on the rocks then down to the drowning people. where do your eyes go?

 

 

 

 

 

Mojo Office building by Cleas Oldenburg. Our normal expectations of the scale of binoculars on average are about the size of a small dinner plate. In the work of art the size of the binoculars is blown way out of proportion. Other than visual pleasure this work of art is also being used as a functional part of a building. 



Line and Space



Adoration of the Child by Titian. This work of art is a perfect example of an artist using an outline. An outline is the outermost line representing a certain shape or being in a picture. For example you are aware of where the outline is of the man's arm on the right because it is bold and encloses the space so it gives you the sense that he has limbs.

 

 

 

 

Eagle by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. This piece may be a great example of an outline but it is also a great example of contour lines. Contour lines are a way that an artist draws the lines in a picture to give it "depth" or a sense of it being 3-Dimensional. This shows heavily near the neck of the eagle where the top of the wing is.

 

 

 

Self Portrait with a Straw Hat by Vincent van Gogh. Many works of Van Gogh are well known through out the general population. they are known and easily recognizable because of the style of his work. This piece of art and most of his works of art are amazing examples of expressive lines. Having that certain style of line work that most people can recognize and know its your work is a great definition of Expressive lines.

 

 

 

Contact by Steve DiBenedetto. Even though it may be hard to know what is going on in this work of art there is still an illusion we can recognize. Visual Overlapping is easily recognizable here by the images of helicoptors passing by or in front of a colorful chaotic circle. By placing the helicoptors there it gives the apearance that they are pssing by this giant object.

 

 

 

Erasmus of Rotterdam by Albrecht Durer. This may be kind of hard to show in this piece because it isnt as noticable as others but it does show Forshortening. Because of the angle that the the objects are portrayed in this picture they apear shorter than what they really are such as the book that is open closes to us and the table the man is writing on. the angle and way it is drawn gives the illusion they are shorter than what they would be if drawn from a different angle.

 

 

 

Seaweed, Maine by Paul Strand. This image is very chaotic and hard to focus on one single point. This was the purpose of the work. The chaos and complexity is part of Modern Experiments where the artist want to break free of traditional methods of art. They want to express themselves by being different which is how many artist in the past have done and have created different art movements. 



Different works of art

 



Popeye by Beatriz Milhazes. This work of art is a good example of form vs. content. At a first glance it just seems like it is just many circles within circles overlapping more cirlces but it can mean more than that. the artist might be trying to tell us something or have more meaning behind it than just shapes and colors. the vibrant colors she uses is said to come from her backround and the shapes may represent gears in a machine such as in much of todays industry.

 

 

 

Sea Cove by Albert Bierstadt. In this painting it is very clear as to what you are looking at. all the objects in this piece of art are recognizable in our eyes and most of us have seen these objects before. this is known as representational art, objects we can recognize and have seen in reality.

 

 

 

 

Eagle Dreaming by Clifford Possum. Unlike the piece of art above this, it is very hard to recognize the objects painted in this piece. This can be considered Abstract artwork. The less recognizable the objects are in art the more it can be considered abstract. Even though it is abstract you can still make out certain elements within it such as the large object in the middle may be the eagle and it is flying over a landscape of treetops. Thats just my interpretation but the point being is I was still able to make one.

 

 

 

Four Squares by Kazimir Malevich. This piece of art is a perfect definition of Nonrepresentaional works of art. Other than the obvious observations of the shapes of squares there isnt any other recognizable objects. This makes it very difficult for the viewer to determine the content of the work. We may not know what the meaning is behind the artwork but the artist may still be trying to say something.

 

 

 

 

Buddah at the Moment of Victory, 15th Century sculpture. This is a figure that is widely known throughout the entire world, Buddah. This figure is a great example of Iconography which is an image or figure that is widely known from generation to generation. Even if it is not who you believe in or what you believe in, it is still a figure you know of.

 

 

 

 

"Looting of the Churches of Lyon by the Calvinists" by Antoine Caron. This image dipicts acts against the Church and the religion in a whole which might make viewers of this faith angry, maybe even want to destroy this painting. This is a perfect example of an artwork being Iconoclastic. Iconoclast means that people want to destroy the image created because it is not what they believe or it causes angry within them for some reason.

 

 

Different Concepts of Art

 

The Ghent Alterpiece by Jan Van Eyck. This piece of art is a great example of an artist giving meaning to the immaterial. The dove in this photo represents a higher power or a greater spiritual force looking down on the land below.

 

 

 

Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol. Most of his works of art especially this one demonstrates how artsits make a visual record people, places, and events of their time period. His work of Marilyn Monroe captures not only her but what she stood for in her time which was female power and beauty.

 

 

 

 

Kansai International Airport Passanger Terminal by Renzo Piano. Many works by Renzo are excellent examples of how artists make functional objects and structures more pleasurable and elevate them with meaning. this is exactly what renzo accomplished with this structure.

 

 

 

Ladder to Heaven by Yayoi Kusama. This Installation piece of art demonstrates how artists help us see the world in new or inovative ways. Her works of art make the viewer feel like there is greater meaning in the world. It gives us a sense that there are greater forces than humanity in the universe.

 

 

 

Mother and Child by Pablo Picasso. Even though some of his works are abstract in design they still hold meaning to them. This piece of art may be slightly abstract but the meaning behind it is purely Aesthetic. The love between a mother and child is captured in this painting and can be said to be very beautiful.

 

 

 

Catch and Release, (Please) by Rebecca Salcedo. I feel that this work of art is a perfect example of the term Kitsch. Its very over the top and distasteful in a way but still an interesting concept. Its the type of art the makes you tilt your head and just wonder....why?