In medieval times, the arts were predominantly in the service of religion, as they have been in human societies from the beginning. They were not regarded "aesthetically" as something meaningful and significant in and of themselves, but instead valued only insofar as they revealed the divine. Renaissance artists gradually replaced eschatological with anthropocentric concerns, but during the transition from a God-centered to a man-centered art their works portrayed either a familiar ideal/divine realm or the actual world in which they lived. The artists' "art" consisted of accurately representing that subject matter using craftsmanlike standards of beauty, harmony, and excellence.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
perspectivism
In the Annunciation, Leonardo makes dramatic and convincing use of linear perspective. Everything in the painting recedes towards a single vanishing point on the horizon. This gives the impression that the angel and the Virgin share the same, unified space which extends continuously all around them.
Leonardo di Vinci - Annunciation (1474)
idealism in art
At its most general, Idealism asserts that the physical world is less important than the mind or the spirit which shapes and animates it. Idealists choose the soul, the mind or the psyche over the body, the material and the historical. When ideals (of appearance, or proportion for example) regulate the way an artist represents the world his work can be described as Idealist.
Plato's Theory of the Forms was the the most important Classical influence on Renaissance Idealism. The Ideas, or Forms, contain all that is necessary and universal and are therefore perfect and unchanging while the material world is simply a deceptive procession of changing appearances which have no more reality than shadows.
The leading artists of the High Renaissance--Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo --are all associated with slightly different forms of Idealism. Michelangelo's was most identified with the Platonic Forms because of his reliance on ‘disegno’(design). The term is used to describe art which is shaped by the artist's imagination rather than by his imitation, or copying, of a natural model. Michelangelo's art also idealised the body by giving it monumental proportions. His figures are usually astonishingly muscular.
Michaelangelo - Leda and the Swan (1530)
Raphael's figures are equally idealised but they are characterised by sweetness of expression, serenity, elegance, clarity of line and beauty of colour rather than physical grandeur.
Raphael - Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1508)
Leonardo's Idealism was different again. It was characterised by an emphasis on finding the Divine in the perfectly human. Beauty, subtle facial expression, the unity of the figure with its setting and the elimination of unnecessary detail to suggest emotion, were all aspects of his Idealism.
Leonardo di Vinci - Benois Madonna (1478)
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Renaissance artists strove to paint the Ideal, not because they shied away from looking at the world, but because they wanted to capture the absolute and universal truth hidden within it.
establishment art
Academicism promoted Classical ideals of beauty and artistic perfection and established a clear hierarchy within the visual arts, preferring grand narrative or history painting and advocating life-drawing and classical sculpture.
George Stubbs - Whistlejacket (1762)
Stubb's Whistlejacket was an example of the meticulous attention to the figure which characterised Academic painting. Within the Academy tradition artists were expected to have a sound knowledge of anatomy.
Joshua Reynolds - Colonel Tarleton (1782)
Reynolds was one of the advocates of the 'grand manner' in painting. His Colonel Tarleton is a perfect example of the grand manner adapted for a portrait. The portrait displays Colonel Tarleton's military virtues - his nobility and bravery - and his personal triumph over everything base inhuman nature. His clothes are relatively plain and the activity in the background has been simplified to avoid any overt theatricality.
romanticism
Casper David Friedrich - Tree with Crows (1822)
The trees look dead but they are set against a sunset, reminding us that death is inevitable, part of the cycle of nature and not to be feared. However, the painting invites a melancholy response in the viewer rather than a philosophical indifference. Romanticism privileged nature as a source of truths about human experience which could be most effectively expressed in art and best understood intuitively or emotionally.
realism
Gustave Courbet - The Artist's Studio (1855)
Realists aspired to paint what they saw, even what was dirty and unpleasant. The Artist's Studio can be read as Courbet's critique of this failure to engage with the real world as he saw it: the artist's studio is grimy and crowded, but the painting on his canvas shows a beautiful landscape which bears no relation to the world in which the artist lives. Courbet was also showing himself to be both a master of Realist painting and of the style of painting he was rejecting.
heat
Andre Derain - Bridge over the Riou (1906)
Derain has simplified his landscape subject matter into a colourful pattern that flattens the landscape almost entirely. It's difficult to work out what is in the foreground and what is in the distance. Shadow and light are shown as different (through related) colours rather than as darker and lighter shades of the same colour. Derain uses a characteristic intensity of colour to capture the vividness and heat of the Cote d' Azur landscape and climate.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
kosuth
Joseph Kosuth - Clock (one and five) (1965)
This work is composed of five elements: a photograph of a clock, a clock and entries from an English/Latin dictionary for the words 'time', 'machine' and 'object.' By placing a real clock beside a photograph of one, Kosuth questions why we consider a photograph but not the object itself to be art. This juxtaposition also challenges the idea that art is beautiful and/or functionless.
the viewer, not the artist
Sol LeWitt - Wall / Floor ("Three Squares") (1966)
Sol LeWitt has assembled aluminium beams covered with enamel to obtain a simple cubic form. The artist intends the work to be "created" through the perception of the spectator. The "creation" will change according to how the object is viewed.
The opportunity for multifarious objective interpretations to validate the work defies the conventional belief that art objects express or explore the artist's personal experiences. A further challenge to preconceptions forces us to judge the work as a concept not as an object made by LeWitt.
conceptual art
Conceptualism emerged in the 1960’s and was first defined and promoted as a movement by Sol LeWitt in 1967. Its central claim is that art is a 'concept', rather than a material object. There are strong precedents for Conceptualism in the work of the Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp.
Conceptualism is shaped by four basic tenets. The first is that the art work is an idea, or concept, rather than a material object. To understand the idea that shapes an art work is to understand the work itself - so it is possible to understand an art work without ever having seen it.
Conceptualists deliberately blur the distinction between language and art when they define the art work as an idea or concept. Regardless of whether a Conceptualist art work employs wood or canvas, the real work is the idea and the language used to construct, manipulate and explore it. The artist's intention and the spectator's response are an integral part of the art work itself. This has radically affected the materials used in Conceptualist art, and the way such works are made.
Conceptualism also criticises the commercialisation of art. In a capitalist economy commercial value is attached to tradeable objects, especially those which support and endorse current social arrangements. Designating an object as 'art' can be a sure means of increasing its material value, so it can be bought, sold and insured for enormous sums. When Conceptualists assert that the art work is the idea, not the material object, they hope to disrupt this trade, or at least problematize it.
Finally, by emphasising the concept over the art work Conceptualists attempt to disrupt the process by which ownership translates into social status and cultural authority. Individuals become important collectors because of their wealth, not because of what they know about art. However, institutions such as museums and galleries can shape and influence our experience of art through their powers of selection and omission.
Sol LeWitt - Cubes in Color on Color (2003)
pomo art
Post-Modernism developed from critiques of architectural modernism in the 1970s. By the 1980s, visual art which criticized society was also being referred to as “post-modern”. Post-Modernism is effectively a late Modernism many of whose critiques can be traced back to Modernism itself.
Architects took the lead in the development of Post-Modernism. They criticized the International Style of Modernist architecture for being too formal, austere, and functional. Post-Modern architects felt that International style had become a repressive orthodoxy. It had been adopted by the corporate world and exploited at the expense of its social vision.
Post-Modernist architecture uses more eclectic materials and styles with greater playfulness. Parody of earlier styles is a dominant Post-Modern trait. Another is the refusal to develop comprehensive theories about architecture and social progress.
The ethical touchstone of Post-Modernism is relativism—the belief that no society or culture is more important than any other. Although few Post-Modern artists are pure relativists, they often use their art to explore and undermine the way society constructs and imposes a traditional hierarchy of cultural values and meanings. Post-Modernism also explores power and the way economic and social forces exert that power by shaping the identities of individuals and entire cultures.
Unlike Modernists, Post-Modernists place little or no faith in the unconscious as a source of creative and personal authenticity. They value art not for its universality and timelessness but for being imperfect, low-brow, accessible, disposable, local and temporary.
While it questions the nature and extent of our freedom and challenges our acquiescence to authority, Post-Modernism has been criticized for its pessimism: it often critiques but equally often fails to provide a positive vision or redefinition of what it attacks.
jeff koons
...takes mass produced objects from everyday life and exhibits them as art. This thwarts our expectation of art's authenticity and uniqueness. Koons' work deliberately provokes us to consider how art institutions impose cultural and economic value on objects, and challenges our acceptance of their definitions of 'art'. These consumer items are exhibited as art to make us reflect on how our most private dreams of success are shaped by the culture and economy in which we live.
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