Jackie ♥

.008 - Favorite So Far

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:22:45 GMT

My favorite artists so far having changed since the beginning of the course much.

My first is still Edvard Munch for how beautifully weird his work is. He's so strange and his paintings are just something I've loved and grew up with. There isn't much else to say, really. My favorite painting of his still being Scream and it's something I'd love to see in person one day.

The second is still Vincent Van Gogh, who is only more of a favorite of mine after getting a better look at his beautiful paintings. His use of color, the swirls, ... I've already talked about how much I love it but let me mention something else that added into how much I'm in love with this. Not only his paintings but the artist himself became fascinated to me.

There's actually an episode of the newer Doctor Who called Vincent and The Doctor that I accidentally caught on the BBC channel. I don't even watch Doctor who but I had to stop when I realized who they meant by 'Vincent.' I won't spoil it here because I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend watching it for the pure beauty of it. Some shots are shown above. There's one scene where they take him and he realizes his own greatness and it was quite a tearjerker.

And lastly, of course. I still love Salvador Dali for his surreal worlds he creates.

.003 - 1910 to 1950

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:52:48 GMT

Entry three gets combined with entry five, right? One museum trip.

Between 1910 and 1950 came a lot of works I can come up right off the top of my head like the description about The Scream in the last post. All memory! ...Though I hate about 90% of them. Loathe. They're terrible. Half the things look like something I'd doodle in my notebook. At age 4. What art-art was then-- and I mean paintings specifically are horrible.

One exception that I enjoy and the one I immediately thought of seeing the period in the assignment was of Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory. A really odd name for the painting, I think -- as people that usually aren't familiar with any art know it as 'that one painting with the melting clocks' and saying the name of it at them might have them thinking there would be a painting of a brain or something.

I first found it out because there was a Loony Tunes cartoon where the imagery of it was used. And knowing me, you'd get I'm pretty fond of cartoons and interested in where they get their ideas for things.

Besides the fond memories of cartoons, the painting itself is phenomenal in my opinion. I once read somewhere that Dali was thinking of the theory of relativity when he painted it? ...But I'm not sure how true that is. It's in this Art History book I have that he based the clocks on some kind of cheese. In any case, it's a very meaningful piece though the meaning might be different for people looking at it. I think the name of it along with the melting clocks and the ants actually represents the passing of time. Time goes on, you start forgetting things, and then death.

Now to save one a horrible rant about how much I hate soup cans (though because cans are art anything I say after this is now also art)

...What I consider actual art from this period is things from The Golden Age of Animation. This came into being. The first feature-length animated film... animation in general.

Walt Disney came along between this time period and I could go on about him for hours. Hours and hours. Unless you've played the recent Mickey Mouse game for the Wii -- most aren't aware Mickey Mouse came into being because Walt lost the rights to an anthropomorphic rabbit by the name of Oswald. Thank Universal for their fine print contracts for that one, world!

Don't forget about Warner Bros. Their first cartoon Sinkin' in the Bathtub(click it to watch!) from 1930. It follows Bosko through a little adventure after some gags in a bathtub. Bosko became the first reoccurring character-- staring in over 3 dozen shorts after that one. His design was based off of Felix the Cat but since he resembled a blackface of the time he ended up being a boy. ....A little racist, yeah but it's important for the period. Disney and Warner Bros cartoons then were on par with animation but Warner Bros had a budget of about $6000 per cartoon and Disney spent $10,000.

Cartoons were groundbreaking and important for the art world, the film industry, and my brain. The above Porkey Pig cartoon that got me interested in Dali? Dough for the Do-Do is from 1949. Animation is very very relevant.

Also relevant? Comic books. Most superheroes originated from this period-- and that's art but I've already used up my wordpage so I won't get too into it.

.002 - Art of 1860 - 1910

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:57:57 GMT

The period was rather difficult to pick since I had trouble thinking of paintings I actually knew the name of and like. Most didn't come between 1860 - 1910 or aren't available for viewing at all in the nearest museums. I'll probably have to pick another couple of work of art or two for a museum visit.

My favorite painting of all is The Scream painted by Edvard Munch. You know that painting with the alien-looking person putting his hands on the side of his face and screaming? Currently it's own display in Munch Museum in Oslo --- which is all the way in Norway.

I like The Scream because it's unique. My mother gave me an umbrella with the painting on it when I was a lot younger and I've been buying the same exact umbrella every time it breaks because I like it so much. I use to think the painting was of an alien but looking into it and what every art book says it's probably something inspired by a Peruvian mummy mixed with insanity. It's said to represent the "universal anxiety of modern man."; It makes you think and I quite enjoy it. The use of color and how everything in it just seems so completely bizarre is part of what I think makes it a really famous work and why people would want to steal it a lot.

MoMA unfortunately only has a single painting actually on display as far as I'm aware from Munch called The Storm. It's a depressing piece and absolutely pales in comparison to works of his that I've seen. It's dreary and doesn't have a lot of color-- but then again he is painting something taking place during a storm so that's probably what he was going for there.

There is a painting actually in the MoMA that happens to be a favorite of mine. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. It doesn't matter the history behind why he actually painted it and if he did it because he had a "terrible need for religion" or whatnot. What matters is that it's so intricately put together and inspirational that I've ended up basing a majority of things I draw on how it's put together. The many many careful little strokes put together in flowing lines to make up the image is incredibly difficult to do instead of making one single stroke with a single color. You lift your hand up and put it back to make up the image.

I always found the swirls relaxing and showing the window blowing and the clouds and starts without actually drawing out the clouds or a star shape like so many other artists might. Just a careful use of color and it's all right there.

.001 - What is art?

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:15:20 GMT

‘Art’ has had many definitions and interpretations throughout time. There’s no definite definition for it. ‘Art’ is subjective. Art is whatever an individual person interprets as art for themselves, it seems. In that sense, anything and everything can possibly be art. If a person looks at a painting and says it is art—it is art, though it might only be art to that person, since art is what an individual things is art. Paintings are only listed as art in a textbook – because a majority of individuals would think paintings are art.

Every person attempting to define art would then give a different definition of what it is. About.com’s Shelley Esaak lists several points and raises questions about what it is and say’s my entire first paragraph where I decide art is subjective – “would require a stack of paper from here to the moon to cite all of your 6.8 billion references.” This is true and I really shouldn’t go into this that far or it would be TL;DR (that’s ‘Too Long; Didn’t Read’ meaning it was too long so you don’t want to read it/didn’t actually read it, for you people not aware of the various internet slang here).

Esaak sums it up a little nicely and settles for: Art is form and content. That, to me, is basically saying art is everything and subjective in a very philosophical way that doesn’t require the 6.8 billion references she thought it would. Now that I’ve established art is subjective here I will end this with a short list of some things that I subjectively view as art or not. Feel free to add these to your own subjective view.

- Anything that one takes considerable effort to make aesthetically pleasing for themselves or others is art.

- Anything that one takes little to no effort for the purpose of impressing an art critic/teacher is not art. Meaning: If you pump out a very poorly written poem for no other purpose but to not have an incomplete homework assignment – I wouldn’t consider it art and you’re very very undeserving of that grade and ticking me off. ….However, if there was little to no effort put into this and everyone in the class is pleased with it, I may view it as art depending on if you’re a comedic genius or not and the poem makes me laugh.

- Good jokes are art.

- Crayon doodles by children are art, even if it doesn’t look anything like what they say it does.

- Photographs taken by teenage girls and given the self-description of ‘artsy photos’ are not art. That is just a picture of a slightly tilted tree and making it black and white is not going to make it any better.

- The tree itself is art, especially the color-changing leaves.

- Photographs candidly taken are art.

- Cartoons, anime, Pixar-esque animations, and comic books are art. And also very colorful.

- Floor tiles are art.

- Fashion, make-up, and hairdos are art.