Art 100
Giotto - The Lamentation
Early Renaissance fresco painting. One of the earliest examples showing the beginning of the illusion of depth and realistic space, using techniques developed during this time period. Giotto uses a unified light source to create shadows and put the figures into the same "space."
Jean DuBuffet - Jazz Band
Art Brut This work is part of the Art Brut (literally "ugly art") movement. It is meant to capture the simple, spontaneous, child-like effect of untrained or "primitive" artists who are unconcerned with making it perfect. They are more interested in using art as an expression.
Leonardo da Vinci - The Renaissance Man
Artist Hero/Artist Genius A true Renaissance Man, Leonardo was an artist, sculptor, engineer, mathematician, scientist, musician, etc. Patrons in the Renaissance wanted artists who were more than just artists. Leonardo was revered in his own time. He did illegal dissections to understand the body better.
Henri Matisse - Beasts of the Sea
Collage. 2-D. Matisse cut out pieces of colored paper from different sources and pasted them on a flat surface. He used simple shapes and colors. Remember that a collage is created by pasting or gluing bits of paper or other flat items to a flat surface such as a canvas.
Jackson Pollock - Lavender Mist
Drip painting/ Gestural painting/ Action painting Pollock stood in the middle of his canvas and dripped paint on it using a stick or stirrer. He moved within the work using large, gestural movements. There is both unity and variety in this work, though you could also argue it is all unity and all variety. Each "drip" is carefully planned out.
JMW Turner - The Burning of the Houses of Parliament
Example of asymmetrical balance. The intense orange flames on the left balances the composition with the white bridge on the right. Our eye is drawn around the painting in a circular motion.
Kahlo, Frida - The Two Fridas
Example of symmetrical balance. Kahlo is dealing with her split identity between her European father and Mexican/Indian mother. She feels a part of both worlds, but separate. The Frida on the left, with the whole heart, represents the Mexican Frida, the side she ultimately embraced. She holds a tiny picture of her husband, and fellow artist, Diego Rivera.
Andrea Mantegna - Dead Christ
Foreshortening Mantegna used the technique of foreshortening in his image of Christ. This was a new technique developed in the Renaissance in an attempt to show realistic space. Foreshortening is used to make the body appear to recede into depth "behind" the picture surface.
Theodore Gericault - Raft of the Medusa
Gericault captures a dramatic moment when a raft of shipwrecked victims tries to flag down a passing ship. Using implied lines, Gericault pulls our eye through the composition, to draw our attention to certain points. The strong diagonals in the works add to the sense of movement and instability.
Francisco de Goya - The Executions of the Third of May, 1808
Goya uses light to emphasize the figure about to be executed. The victims all have faces, the executioners remain anonymous. The central victim raises his arms in a gesture reminiscent of a crucifixion scene. The guns of the soldiers draw our eye to the figure about to be executed. Goya was capturing the horrors of the French occupation of Spain.
Ernst Kirchner - Street Desden
Kirchner, like Munch, is picking up on the anxiety, angst and alienation felt at the turn of the century with the modernization of the world and the coming war. He uses strange colors and a skewed perspective to add to the discomfort. The people go about their business, unaware of each other, with black holes for eyes. The little girl in the center represents the artist and his sense of isolation.
Kathe Kollwitz - Death and the Mother
Lithograph Working in Germany between the wars, Kollwitz was trying to capture the emotion and horrors associated with death and violence. She used lithography as her medium because it was inexpensive and easy to reproduce. She wanted her art to be available to the poorest people. Anyone could own her art.
Portrait of Michelangelo from Raphael's School of Athens
Michelangelo is the ultimate Artist-Genius/Artist-Hero. He is in a state of melancholy and seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Michelangelo did much to promote the artist and raise their status. He was a celebrity in his own day.
Robert Rauschenberg - Bed
Mixed Media Rauschenberg used his own pillow, sheet and quilt in this work. It is a kind of "self portrait" because the items belonged to the artist himself. He hung the items on the wall then used paint and pencil on them.
Orlan
The French artist Orlan uses plastic surgery and her body as her medium to tackle issues of beauty and feminism. Her surgeries are performance pieces that she stages. She designs the process from beginning to end. She once incorporated parts of the bodies of the most beautiful women in art into her own face.
Anselm Kiefer - Wayland's Song
Mixed media. Kiefer references Germany's past during WWI and WWII. He is trying to come to terms with it and how the wars affected the people. The blood of the peasants are part of the soil. This was used by Hitler as political propaganda. Kiefer uses actual texture in this work (straw, dirt, paint, latex, etc.) to give the impression of actual soil and the damage done to it from the violence of the wars. As abstract a work as it is Kiefer still uses one-point linear perspective to give the impression of space.
Anselm Kiefer - Nero Paints
Mixed media. Kiefer, a German artist, is referencing the wars of both his father's and grandfather's past (WWI and WWII) and how the wars affected Germany. People didn't want to talk about it, but Keifer put down issues onto monumental canvases. His works recall the Holocaust and the German tradition of "Blood and Soil" - the tradition that underpinned German culture and was distorted by Hitler who turned it into the Supremacy of the Aryan Race. In this particular work he is also referencing the destruction of war. We see the red "blood" mixed in with what appears to be soil. In the center is an artist's palette with brushes tipped in fire. In the background houses are burning. The work is charred and burned - referencing both the Holocaust and the story of the Roman Emperor, Nero, who supposedly played the violin while Rome burned. In this case, instead of a violin, Nero is painting - but the outcome is the same. Kiefer uses actual texture to enhance the feeling of the work and to give the impression of actual soil and the damage done to it from the violence of the wars. As abstract a work as it is Kiefer still uses one-point linear perspective to give the impression of space.
Pablo Picasso - Guernica
Painted as a memorial to an attack on the tiny town of Guernica by supposedly Spanish forces under Gen. Franco, Picasso painted this giant work in record time. Instead of accurately portraying the attack, he instead tries to capture the emotions felt by the victims and himself.
Edvard Munch - The Scream
References the anxiety and angst people were experiencing at the turn of the century because of the modernization of the world and the fear of the Apocalypse. Munch uses glaring colors, a skewed perspective, and a strong diagonal to imply movement and add to the discomfort.
Keith Haring
Subway art. Haring uses outlines around primary colors. His works are simple and lack depth. The outlines, in this case, are all the same thickness. Influenced by the graffiti art of the subways.
Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Banjo Lesson
Tanner uses emphasis and subordination to make the figures of the old man and the boy stand out. The background is blurry and indistinct. The banjo also acts as a focal point. The arm of the banjo draws the eye to the boy's hand. The light color of the background also makes the darker figures stand out.
Vincent Van Gogh - Self Portrait
The epitome of the "suffering artist," van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime - to his brother, Theo. He also suffered from epilepsy and in a fit cut his earlobe off. He felt immense alienation and isolation and often tried to incorporate those feelings in his work.
Georges Seurat - Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
This Impressionist work uses a new technique mastered by Seurat called "Pointillism." Pointillism uses tiny dots of pure color placed next to each other. Close up, you can see the individual dots of color. From a distance, your brain uses "optical color mixing" to make the colors blend together. Colors appear brighter in this way.
Piet Mondrian - Broadway Boogie Woogie
Using only primary colors and geometric shapes Mondrian tries to capture the "music" and underlying grid of Broadway. Mondrian felt he could reduce everything down to the most elemental shapes. The repetition of the shapes, lines and colors creates a rhythm.
