week 13?

The first video that I watched was the lowdown on lowbrow.  I learned that the term was once used to describe art that was used with pornography but is now associated with art that nobody knows how to categorize.  The term lowbrow was invented by a man named Richard Williams.  The art that is included generally includes pictures of women and hot rods.  Lowbrow is also used in rock posters often in the 60s with a mixture of psychedelic art.  This period would rise after WWII.  This was because people began to fear the unknown.  I enjoyed this film and it did help me to open my eyes on what to do with art that goes against the grain but it did not help me with my project because I have such a specific topic.  This video was very interesting to learn about the artwork that you may not normally think of, such as artwork on posters.

The second video that I had watched was the Tate approach.  The Tate gallery was so popular that it had received a million visitors in a few month period.  There is controversy about this museum because it lacks important parts of chronology.  It focuses on British art and lacks western influences as well as female artists.  One of the aspects of the video was useful in creating the project in that it shows peoples responses to artworks that are placed in a room together that are not from the same period or same medium.  There was one room that contained traditional art and modern art and it supposedly desgined that way to make you think of the parallels between the artwork.  I think that this showed me that viewers can be confused or get frustrated or offended if it is done this way.  This video was more of an art gallery tour and I prefer more historical videos like the Indian one.

The next video on the Native Americans was my favorite.  It was about the laws that were made to prevent archeologist from keeping remains of Native Americans as well as important artifacts in rituals.  This movement started in Iowa and would spread across the country.  I was not surprised to hear that the collection of skulls was collected to prove that the caucasion race was superior.  I was however shocked that during that time that they believed that Native Americans were above African Americans.  Native Americans were forced to live on reservations while African Americans could live within the society inventiually.  I just thought that the scientist would have them the lowest ranking.  I do not believe in a superior race, I was just shocked that how he justified it.  I also liked the tribal affiliations and how the Native Americans refuse to believe science.  Migration patterns were in the beginning of being discovered with the uses of genes in bones in Native American but then was made illegal.  This did not really help with the project I thought, at least directly but I feel that it helps to explain to us as to why there are such limited artworks out there now that pertain to Native Americans.  It also shows us was to why pieces like pottery which are considered art are not in museums as much because if it was used in ceremonies, Native Americans can have it back.

The last video I watched was the George Eastman House.  I was not aware that such an important part of history as well as art was so close to Buffalo.  I think that this video has made an impact on me as the viewer and I would like to visit it.  This pointed out to me that there is more to art then the usual and that film should be considered.  I did learn in the book about film but I guess until this video I did not think to choose this as a topic for my project.  One quote that I enjoyed form this video being a history buff is that by displaying and keeping certain videos it shows people in the future was a culture what we value and then maybe they can understand us.  The collection contains a huge variety of films from the century including silent films, operas and even King Kong films.  This house was all made possible by George Eastman the father of popular photography.  He invented motion picture films as well as the first affordable personnel camera.  I really enjoyed this film.  It showed me the importance of preserving and restoring art.

art gallery

I went to the Burchfield Penny Art Gallery for this assignment.  This assignment was a little different that the last one because I had to focus on space, architecture and lighting.  There we two major types of lighting in this gallery.  The front of the gallery used a lot of natural lighting from the ceiling as well as some big windows found throughout the gallery.  For the most part threw the gallery there were individual lights pointing on the pictures.  The walls were white for the more modern art and dark grey in the rooms with the older collections.  I noticed several pillars in the middle of the buildings and beautiful wooden staircases for some of the architecture.  The museum was set up so that it flowed for you to walk through.  There wasn’t much option as to which direction to go, it seemed to me that it was designed for you to walk a certain way.  One thing I did notice as far as space is that the ceilings were extremely high.  Some of the rooms had works of art hanging from the center from the high ceilings.  The art work was for the most part evenly spaced out.  I thought it was odd that some of the art work was hung so high that you really good not get a good look to analyze and interpret it.  Most of the artwork was not individually labeled.  The name of the artist would be on the wall and sometimes there would be one sign for all the artworks.  Most of the modern art work did not have frames.  The room with the older artwork had old elaborate bronze thick frames.  I feel the gallery can be broken into old and new.  The older artworks were similar in that they contained usually a self portrait or a picture related to wars going on.  They differed in that they picked different topics on wartime to focus on.  The modern art in the gallery different because some of it was three dimensional, some of the artwork was photography.  Other consisted of collages and some were drawings and paintings.  Each room had a specific theme.  The proximity of the artwork varied in different parts of the museum.  Some rooms only had one picture on a wall, usually in the center.  Other walls contained pictures evenly spread out, one following the other.  The artworks that hung from the ceiling generally were in the center of the room.  One of the exhibitions I passed was the exhibition cabinetry design.  There was a lot of pottery and plates in the cabinets with war themese painted on them.

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In this water color painting I see a house that is extremely old.  To the side of the house there is a barn.  Both the house and the barn are surrounded by trees.  With in the trees there is an owl.  There is a wide open feild with trees further in the background.  This painting by Charles Burchfeild is not a realistic one.   This paitning reminds me of something scary.  Burchfeild uses space to empahsize the house.  He also uses colors that depict old and frightening tones.  The trees do not appear to be in proportion to the house.

This spray painting is of a garbage pile.  There is a pond in the front that shows the refelction.  This very well could exist in real life.  The artist uses rythm and repeats the same thing over.  He also uses light in the reflection of the pond to empahize how large it really is.  He also uses dull colors to show how the site is gloomy.  I think the artist is trying to get you to realize how much garbage there can be found everywhere and I feel that this painting is effective.  I think the medium  of spraypaint that was used also represents clutter and filth becuase of the negative image spray paint carries.

This particular artwork is literally just a hermit crab on top of a rocket ship.  This artwork is inside a cage with out a top, almost like a crib.( didn't capture the whole picture in my image)  The artist choose all white ceramic for this artwork.  This can symbolize the symblicity of the message she is trying to convey.  The symbolism beheind this is that a person or hermit crab is often viewed to be from another world.  I believe this is what the artist is trying to get across.  This sculture is one of three in the exhbit that have similar meanings about people who are seen as hermit crabs.  The sculpture is placed in side an empty cage with nothing around it.  The space also emphasizes the simplicity.

video 11-12

The first video that I choose was the Picasso and Matisse one.  I thought this video did a great job showing many of the differences between the two artists.  I picked this video because I like a lot of Picasso’s work but was unfamiliar with Matisse’s work off the top of my head.  We study Picasso in many chapters in the book.  This video breaks down the two artists and points out a lot about them.  I particularly enjoyed a lot of the quotes in the video, “Life’s a Bitch” “ Drawing is art with less materials” “ Painting a picture is a dramatic action in course which reality is disengaged.”  I learned more about Picasso then what I could get from the reading in the book.  I learned that ¾ of the object that he uses in his paintings never existed.  He often used worthless objects because they interested him.  Picasso’s work after WWII turned very dark.  Picasso was a very impulsive man.  Matisse is believes that man breaks free from nature.  Matisse was a man that was unaware of his talent for the longest time.  Unlike Picasso his art did not turn dark after WWII.  Matisse believed that the sky symbolized both pleasure and anguish.  Painting caused Matisse panic, fear and struggle.  Gretude Stein would bring both Matisse and Picasso together.  They would respect each other and they would exchange their work.  I enjoyed this video.

I also watched the video on Dada and surrealism.  Like the book this video stated that Dada and surrealism would bypass reasoning and reach the unconscious mind.  I picked this video because this section in the book caught my eye for some reason.  This was a reaction to WWI.  Kurt Swhitters would use Picassos collage techniques.  He says that art is a life of his own.  He would use objects like tram tickets in his work.  He was also into music and poetry.  He would soon be exiled out of the country.  This video was not that interesting to me. 

I watched the video on Expressionism.  Edward  Munch would use the relationship of men and women and sexuality in his paintings.  He is famous for his painting on Ashes.  He would use colors that would symbolize emotions such as red black and white.  He claims that he does not paint what he sees but what he saw.  He was also known to create his work several times and alter it each time and create a new meaning.  Franz Marc in this video was known for his painting the Blue Horse and the Tiger.  He would boldly renounce everything. This video mentioned a lot of what we learned in the book.

I watched the video on Cubanism.   This video relates to our textbook in several areas.  A famous Cubanist painter Juan Gris would often in cooperate architecture in his paintings.  He is known for his painting the Violin and the breakfast table.  Another well known cubanist painter would be Marcel Duchamp.  He would focus on movement in his paintings through space and time.  We covered this when discussing elements of art as well.  Dulaney was an artist who would take this a step farther and would focus on light and color in his work.  He used this in the Eiffel Tower.  He would not stop at the surface but analyze the inner law.  He was also known for his circular form art.  The colors themselves were the objects in this painting.  I thought this was interesting.  He said that this particular art was not meant for interpretation but designed just to look at.  I found this topic interesting and a touched base on this topic in my Mexican History class and how art influenced politics. 

mask

Yurupari Mask

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Ticuna people, Western Amazon, Brazil

14 inches, reeds, wood, bark cloth
I choose this mask because it really stood out to me.  Compared to other Amazon masks this one to me looks the most authentic.  My guess would be this mask would orginate during the slavery period in Brasil when the African American population was the largest.  I think this mask looks the most African and it caught my eye because of that. 

IYurupari Mask
Ticuna people, Amazon
20 inches, carved wood, bark cloth hood 

I Picked this particular mask becuase I love learning about the tribes in Brasil.  I think that the western Amazon is a very interesting place and I think that these masks show the the tradtional skin and texture of the indiginous poeple.

I enjoyed this project.  I wasn't show much into the actual drawing of the mask but I really did enjoy looking at all the masks.  I concentrated on three masks from the Amazon region.  I tried to portray all three of the masks into one.  I stayed with the colors yellow brown orange and grey because that is all the colors they seemed to only contain.  I kept the mouth narrow becuase in all three mask no one was smiling.  The eyes are narraw as well in all three.  I put the background of the eyes yellow because in the first mask that had yellow eyes it really caught my attention.  I felt this was the focus point of my mask.  I used long lines for the nose because it seemed like they all had long noses.  I think I would enjoy doing this project in an actual art classroom where there would be more materials to create this mask in 3D. 

Yurupari MaskWhite Man mask
Wichi people, Northern Argentina

9 inches, painted wood


I picked this particular mask because I study Argentina in school and I thought it was interesting.  THis mask depicts the white men that arrived in Argentina, the Wichi tribe would make fun of the white men from Spain who looked funny to them.  This reminds me of the reading in the text about the African masks and how they too would represent the white men that came to Africa. 

week 10

The first video I picked was the one on Buddhism.  Different relgions have always fascinated me.  Reading about the influence in art from Buddhism made me want to look into it more.  THis video begins to explain people who practice Buddhism believe you should be in the world and not of it.  They try to free themselves from their ego.  This video showes parts of India where the rivers flourished.  Buddha was seen as a saint and savor in India.  The city of Sanchi would honor buddha with relics every where.  Stuppas were an archetecturial influence that Buddhism had in culture.  They were funeral burial sites.  Much of the Buddhist art contains elephants, pot belly dwarfs and lions.  One thing I found interesting is that there is a very well known monastry in upstate New York.  This video was very educational and showed a lot interesting art work

The Second video that I choose to watch was the one on Hinduism.  Hinduism and Buddhism are very similar and I thought that this video would be just as interesting.  One thing I liked about this video was the music it used in the background.  I enjoy the spiritual music of India.  Hinduism beleives that Heaven is on Earth.  They differ from Buddhist in that they believe in reincarnation and everything that they do will affect who they will be in their next life.  The oldest city in the world is Varanasi in India.  India has very elaborate architecture all over becuase they beleive that can worship anywhere.  One of the cultural aspects of India is the burial of their dead.  Aarti is the name of the ceremony that is used where the dead float across the river into the afterlife.  During this whole ceremony Hinduists are not allowed to touch the dead body.  I think that this video was important in understanding where some of the Indian art and why it is so important in the Indian society.  This video showed the importance of architecture in India.  This can be related to our lessons on Indian Art as well as architecture.

The third video that I watched was the one on African Art.  I picked this one because I think that African tribes are very interesting.  African Art  is dress, hair and tradtional relics.  African art is used in ceremonies, especially dance.  This video was interesting when it got to the part about the masks that are used.  Most of the masks rarely date back 200 yrs plus because of the very degrateable materials that they are made of.  The video also talks about tradtional rock painting in Africa.  we seen this several times int he text when it talks about cave paintings.  The pictures were very interesting becuase they were dead on what the animals really looked like.  They were very accurate and you can easily pick out what each animal is supposed to be.  This video then goes on to talk about the Bronze casting in Egypt.  We have learned several items about Egyptian art in previous chapters.  I think this video captured some very interesting African masks and really caught my attention.

The last video that I picked was the one on Japnese art.  I picked this one hoping it would be on modern Japenese art, anime.  I knew the odds of that was rare because the textbook talks apart early artwork but it was worth a shot.  This video is about the Great Wave that is known everywhere in Japan.  It shows us how nature inspires.  The orginal painting was done in layers by Hakusai.  One thing that I found interesting in this video is that it was so cheap to obtain a copy.  I found it hard to believe that something so valuable in a culture was so cheap.  The great wave painting was important becuase it shows the freezing of time.  This was a new topic in art at this time.  The wave is commonly known by many and often used in everyday Japanese culture.  Poeople have pictures of waves on their clothes,walls and even tattoo a wave on their body.  The wave symbolizes the cause and affect, chaos and order.  I think that this video was interesting because it really shows us how important it is.  I thought the tattoos really made me realize how important it really was.