POST 9

EVERYONE: Do a mini research project on a work of art or architecture from the late 20th century.When writing your post, please include a link to an image (or the actual image, if possible) within your post. Including a link or image will help other readers to follow your discussion.
After finding a work of art that captures your interest, you should use scholarly websites or an academic journal online) to learn more about this specific work of art. For example, look for ways that art historians have analyzed or discussed this specific work of art. Or, you may be interested in researching the history about the patronage, creation, or function of the work itself.

FRIDA KAHLO- The Broken Column

 “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” – Frida Kahlo. 

When Frida was a young child she was part of a horrible bus accident, which left her with lifelong pain and suffering, and she incorporated this into a lot of her works. She also went through a numerous amount of other things that made her render her physiological and physical pain, of these things is included a miscarriage, but she also depicts herself as non-human merged with different things, sometimes she is doubled, or distorted and fragmented.

This painting was done shortly after she went through a surgery on her spine. The column signifies her spinal cord and the opened portion of the chest could be how she feels her body is falling apart, and not holding itself together anymore. Frida is a Hispanic woman, which leaves the viewer wondering why she may have chosen to render a Greek column rather than her own cultures column. In this sense it is a cliché, which almost anyone, can identify right away as a column, which happens to be placed where her spinal “column” would be. The pins and needles that are all over her skin, show how she felt on a consistent basis. I know this for a fact because I was in a car crash and spinal cord injuries leave you feeling like your skin is being stabbed all over the place. Another thing that brings focus into the painting is the bright white cloth that is draped on her lower torso, with pins that go into what we would assume to be her right leg. After the crash she had some sort of deformity in her right leg, and always covered it up with long dresses, and in this sense, we can take it that she is bare on top because she can’t control how she feels on her torso, but she can hide the deformities that haunt her. As well as, she is also covering her womb area, which is another thing she is embarrassed by and chooses to hide this in her painting. The one thing that I’m attracted to is the bonds that hold her together like a corset, it seems to be the only thing that is holding her body together, but I can’t find any articles about why she made this choice. But upon looking at this painting I realized that I was only looking at her since she is the main focus but then I noticed the barren waste land behind her, and what does this stand for. It symbolizes the feeling of aloneness and how she feels like no one knows the pain that she is going through, and there’s no one there to help her out of this pain and misery. The background highlights the vulgarity of her, more so her wound, as the background is more cool colors with her warm colors on her body.

The way that Frida paints, is considered Surrealist, but she said, “that it dealt not with dreams worlds, but rather with her own lived reality”.

sites used:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/life/index.html

http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/57/index.html

http://www.streetsie.com/spinal-injury-art-frida-kahlo/

Hardin, Terri, "Firda Kahol; A Modern Master", April 1997, New Line Books Limited, Singapore, used 5/22/2012.

post 7/8

Option #2: Select one or two works of art from this week’s reading assignment, and analyze if/how these works of art were influenced by Cubism. You will want to mention at least one Cubist work of art, in order to prove your point. End your post by giving your own opinion of Cubism’s influence. What movements in the art world do you think could exist (or could not exist) without Cubism?

Gino Severini "Armored Train in Action"

      Cubism is a form that Pablo Picasso started in the early 1900's. Picasso was a classically trained Academy student of art, and was rather astonishing at Illusionist painting, but wanted to go against the academy so he did, and he also had the upper hand in the situation as he knew exactly what the Academy wanted, and knew what he wanted to go against. He came up with a term which he uses quite often in his paintings, and after knowing this knowledge you just might find a new found appreciation for his works. The term is "Simultaneity" which is seeing 2 views of a subject matter at the same time, for instance if you look at the faces he paints one side is the profile view and the other side of the face is a different angle on the same face. With this Pablo Picasso went further with his inventive works and started cubism, which its sole purpose was to only go against the Academy, which always seems to be for the very realistic looking paintings that follow accurate measurements, and no being able to see the artists hand in the work.

Pablo Picasso "Glass and Bottle of Suze"

     Picasso came up with a specific technique which we now call, collage, but it is the art of taking things and making them into art, such as the painting to the right "Glass and Bottle of Suze", which is made of what seems to be newspaper clippings, and he uses very minimal charcoal to accent a few things, and though we know that this is a flat thing, he juxtaposes a three dimensional view onto the viewer and we can see depth within the art piece.
     Gino Serverini's "Armored Train in Action" is a great example of Futurism, but it is a different form from cutting and pasting like Picasso has done in some ways. Severini's group of artists pulled ideas from cubist art to be Avant Garde, since in order to be avant garde you have to pull from at least one of the aspects of, difference, reference, and deference. Their main focus in their art was to advocate war and revolution, so giving the cubist art a little more Saint Simonian Avant Garde purpose, rather than just having art for art's sake. The subject matter is a lot more noticeable , or identifiable, than the cubist artworks. We can also see the geometric shapes that come from the cubists as well, even the flatness of the painting yet still a bit of depth in it. But still a lot more able to understand than the cubism.
      Cubism's influence in art is a hit of miss, but it definitely opened the door for the more abstract art forms that we see today such as, Dadaism, minimalism, and potentially all the other out there art forms. I do not think that these art forms could ever exist without Cubism. But the more traditional art forms, like illusionist, and realist, maybe even Impressionist art would still be in existence without cubism, one because they had already made a debut before this art movement and people were aware of their existence, but also because the subject matter was more "readily available" for the viewer to know what was going on, and the viewer doesn't have to feel violated, in the sense that the artist is trying to "hide" something from them. But overall, I think that cubism opened the doors for artists everywhere to truly explore their true potential.

POST 6

Option #2: Use your knowledge of Primitivism to analyze a painting by Henri Matisse, "Blue Nude: Souvenir at Biskra" (1907). First, consider how this female nude is different from other depictions of female nude that exist in Western art. Why is this work avant-garde? Using what you know from reading p. 174-177 ("Challenge of the Avant-Garde"), how can we interpret this painting as being influenced by primitivist ideas? Feel free to mention if/how this painting reminds you of any of Gauguin’s works. (Please note that Matisse is a Fauvist painter from the early 20th century. Although Matisse made this painting a few years after Gauguin’s death, we can still pinpoint some connections between these two artists via Primitivism.)

Henri Matisse, "Blue Nude: Sovenir at Biskra" (1907)

 

The female nude that is depicted in Henri Matisse’s “Blue Nude: souvenir at Biskra” is different from female nudes in Western art, because of many reasons. First she does not seem to be in a very relaxing pose though she is laying down, her feet look scrunched in to her body, and her left arm is pulled up above her head in a very unnatural pose. Secondly, she is very muscular comparative to normal Western female nudes, she has very toned arms, and torso, as well as her posterior isn’t very “not proportioned right”. Lastly she does not seem to have very “feminine” hair, it seems to be rather short and her face masculine. This work however is Avant-Garde because of the new “primitive” art movement, as we talk more about the term Avant-Garde, it seems to mean the new art form that did not exist before its time. 

Primitive art releases itself from the post-impressionists which paid a lot of attention to color and form and lighting, with strict attention to their surroundings. With Primitive art it pulls away from all of these things and looks back to the Egyptian and Greek art forms, which are more outlined subjects and solid block color backgrounds. 

This painting is influenced by primitive art because of, how she does not resemble traditional female nudes, and she is boldly outlined. As we look at the painting we see the bold strokes of colors not only on the woman but in the background. Let us talk about the woman first, she is a flat skin color in nature, with strokes of blue that try to show where the shadows on her body lay, this differs from previous art forms of the century because artists would of used other shades of nude to help form shadows and contours of her body, the blue color is not necessarily at question here, as impressionists would of most likely used that color too, but the primitive form only uses other colors to shadow the body form, and no other shades of nude. As we look at the background we can see that she is surrounded by bushes and ferns, but that is the image that out brain puts there, they are actually wide strokes of the artists brush that takes the shape of these things. 

Gauguin, "self-portrait"

Matisse’s painting resembles Gauguin’s works such as Gauguin’s, “self Portrait” we see the bold outlining again. As well as the “flowers” that are in the foreground only resemble flowers that our minds can put together. Another thing that we can compare from this specific painting is the apples in the back ground. If we pay attention to the red apple we see the shaded area of the apple is a light baby blue, showing that even though it is a red apple you do not have to use other shades of red to portray a shade and contour of the apple, and if we look at the background behind the green apple we see the shade on the, what seem to be a wall, which is baby blue again. Finally is the human form, unless Gauguin is morbidly obese and his shoulders rather rounded instead of broad, his attention to human form in his painting is almost thrown out the window, but we still get the idea that it’s a man, not an animal or alien of some sort.