Thursday, April 26, 2012
Norman Rockwell's Incorporation of His Life in His Art Work
“Some people have been kind enough to call me a fine artist. I've always called myself an illustrator. I'm not sure what the difference is. All I know is that whatever type of work I do, I try to give it my very best. Art has been my life.” – Norman Rockwell (source: Brainy Quote)
The famous visual artist Norman Rockwell has been able to successfully capture emotion from the hearts of those who view his Realist paintings. In the article Rediscovering Norman Rockwell from the art history journal American Artist, the author Henry Adams explores how Rockwell became the great artist people consider him today, along with inserting some of Rockwell’s famous images to support and aid his claims. “At one time, critics condemned his artwork as nothing more than kitsch . Now, however, his paintings fetch $1million or more a piece (Adams .54)” Adams argues that Rockwell was one of the 20th century’s greatest artists and this was due to the perplex connections he drew from his own life experiences and the world around him that led him to showcase this in his art work.
Adams’ first begins to support his argument by providing the reader with background information about Norman Rockwell’s life and how Rockwell acknowledged it in his art work. Adams states that Rockwell’s illustrations achieved the impact they created because they touched on deep-rooted anxieties. “In many ways, in fact, Rockwell's actual character was completely at odds with his reassuring public image. Consider these examples: He underwent analysis by the famous psychoanalyst Eric Erikson; he voted for Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate for president; he had the poetry of Rimbaud read to him as he painted; he opposed American military involvement in Vietnam. Moreover, his personal life was by no means the happy ideal suggested by his paintings (Adams 56) ” The author then discusses how Rockwell was married three times; his first wife was unfaithful and committed suicide and his second wife became an alcoholic and was manic depressive. However, Adams finalizes his claims by arguing that suffering was part of what connected Rockwell with his immense audience. Rockwell's anxieties helped connect him to viewers of his art. Rockwell has even been quoted saying, "I sometimes think we paint to fulfill ourselves and our lives, to supply the things we want and don't have…”
The author continues supporting his main claim by discussing how Rockwell transformed his traumatic life experiences into a self-motivation allowing him to progress his artwork. Adam’s delves into Rockwell’s depressive condition; he was chronically depressed and this made him very anxious. Rockwell soon began working long hours; about 10 hours a day, seven days a week, helping him to create over 4,000 paintings. Despite the large number of painting he produced, Adam’s states that Rockwell was very adamant in making sure every little detail of the painting, from the shoes his subjects wore to the writing on newspaper his subjects may have been holding. This flawless execution is what Adams argue helped make Rockwell a phenomenal artist.
Adams lastly supports his main argument by detailing the reader of Rockwell’s success during the 1940s and 1960s that led to him being recognized and respected as a great artist. The author goes into much detail about Rockwell work The Four Freedom’s, “based on …the central principles of the American way of life: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear (Adams 58). In this serious of Painting’s, Rockwell broadened his horizons by incorporating people of all types from various backgrounds helping him to explore social and cultural issues such as racial inequality. During the 1960s Rockwell became passionate about Civil rights and created a series of images exploring this, such as The Problem We All Live With, which showed an African American student, Ruby Bridges, being escorted to school by federal Marshall’s.
In conclusion Henry Adams detailed in his article Rediscovering Norman Rockwell, how Rockwell became the great artist he is considered today. Rockwell establish himself as a respected artists by incorporating connections from his life experiences into the image he projected for us all to see.
Works Cited
Adams, Henry. "Rediscovering Norman Rockwell." American Artist 66.(2002): 52-76. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. Apr. 2012.
BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. Apr. 2012.
Adams’ first begins to support his argument by providing the reader with background information about Norman Rockwell’s life and how Rockwell acknowledged it in his art work. Adams states that Rockwell’s illustrations achieved the impact they created because they touched on deep-rooted anxieties. “In many ways, in fact, Rockwell's actual character was completely at odds with his reassuring public image. Consider these examples: He underwent analysis by the famous psychoanalyst Eric Erikson; he voted for Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate for president; he had the poetry of Rimbaud read to him as he painted; he opposed American military involvement in Vietnam. Moreover, his personal life was by no means the happy ideal suggested by his paintings (Adams 56) ” The author then discusses how Rockwell was married three times; his first wife was unfaithful and committed suicide and his second wife became an alcoholic and was manic depressive. However, Adams finalizes his claims by arguing that suffering was part of what connected Rockwell with his immense audience. Rockwell's anxieties helped connect him to viewers of his art. Rockwell has even been quoted saying, "I sometimes think we paint to fulfill ourselves and our lives, to supply the things we want and don't have…”
The author continues supporting his main claim by discussing how Rockwell transformed his traumatic life experiences into a self-motivation allowing him to progress his artwork. Adam’s delves into Rockwell’s depressive condition; he was chronically depressed and this made him very anxious. Rockwell soon began working long hours; about 10 hours a day, seven days a week, helping him to create over 4,000 paintings. Despite the large number of painting he produced, Adam’s states that Rockwell was very adamant in making sure every little detail of the painting, from the shoes his subjects wore to the writing on newspaper his subjects may have been holding. This flawless execution is what Adams argue helped make Rockwell a phenomenal artist.
Adams lastly supports his main argument by detailing the reader of Rockwell’s success during the 1940s and 1960s that led to him being recognized and respected as a great artist. The author goes into much detail about Rockwell work The Four Freedom’s, “based on …the central principles of the American way of life: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear (Adams 58). In this serious of Painting’s, Rockwell broadened his horizons by incorporating people of all types from various backgrounds helping him to explore social and cultural issues such as racial inequality. During the 1960s Rockwell became passionate about Civil rights and created a series of images exploring this, such as The Problem We All Live With, which showed an African American student, Ruby Bridges, being escorted to school by federal Marshall’s.
In conclusion Henry Adams detailed in his article Rediscovering Norman Rockwell, how Rockwell became the great artist he is considered today. Rockwell establish himself as a respected artists by incorporating connections from his life experiences into the image he projected for us all to see.
Works Cited
Adams, Henry. "Rediscovering Norman Rockwell." American Artist 66.(2002): 52-76. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. Apr. 2012.
BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. Apr. 2012.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Graffiti Revolution
Basquiat was a heroin addict, dated Madonna, and a best friend of Andy Warhol. Basquiat was an innovative artist who caught people’s attention with his work. Michele Washington in her article “Shaping the Language of Visual Culture” claims that Basquiat’s early graffiti revolutionized the graphical design industry and media today by bringing unknown forms of expression like graffiti and rap into the mainstream which evolved graphical design into the expansive field it is today.
Washington first claims that graffiti has become extremely influential in today's graphical design culture. She calls modern designers “Basquiat’s Boyz” because they grew up in the hip-hop and graffiti culture of the 80s and 90s. Graffiti spread over the five boroughs of New York following Basquiat’s work and rise in fame. This graffiti influences design students today who take graphical design to learn how how designs are created.
Washington next claims that graffiti has brought in raps influence and other subcultures into design, this outreach has caused design students to look to farther places like filmmaking, fashion, and industrial design for for inspiration. This need for innovation in the design environment has caused design schools like parson school of design to offer new programs on integrated design. People being educated in expanding their design basics proves how much the influence of Basquiat has changed design from its roots.
Washington also claims that graffiti has caused huge changes in media and marketing. She talks about how consumers are bombarded with marketing that takes on a urban approach. This “visual noise” as she describes it, is being used to sell products to young people who are attracted to this strategy. Graffiti even makes its to mainstream media conferences and advertising expos.
Finally, Washington states how influential graffiti can be so influential in politics and social change. Designers feel that graffiti creates more emotion in their work and can influence people to change their ideas. It can especially relate to young people who are interested in hip hop.
In conclusion Washington feels that Basquiat’s early graffiti and his explosion into the mainstream has caused a huge change in the way that media and graffiti operate in today's visual culture.
AUTHOR:Washington, Michele Y.
TITLE:SHAPING THE LANGUAGE OF VISUAL CULTURE
SOURCE:International Review of African American Art 20 no2 12-15 2005
Washington first claims that graffiti has become extremely influential in today's graphical design culture. She calls modern designers “Basquiat’s Boyz” because they grew up in the hip-hop and graffiti culture of the 80s and 90s. Graffiti spread over the five boroughs of New York following Basquiat’s work and rise in fame. This graffiti influences design students today who take graphical design to learn how how designs are created.
Washington next claims that graffiti has brought in raps influence and other subcultures into design, this outreach has caused design students to look to farther places like filmmaking, fashion, and industrial design for for inspiration. This need for innovation in the design environment has caused design schools like parson school of design to offer new programs on integrated design. People being educated in expanding their design basics proves how much the influence of Basquiat has changed design from its roots.
Washington also claims that graffiti has caused huge changes in media and marketing. She talks about how consumers are bombarded with marketing that takes on a urban approach. This “visual noise” as she describes it, is being used to sell products to young people who are attracted to this strategy. Graffiti even makes its to mainstream media conferences and advertising expos.
Finally, Washington states how influential graffiti can be so influential in politics and social change. Designers feel that graffiti creates more emotion in their work and can influence people to change their ideas. It can especially relate to young people who are interested in hip hop.
In conclusion Washington feels that Basquiat’s early graffiti and his explosion into the mainstream has caused a huge change in the way that media and graffiti operate in today's visual culture.
AUTHOR:Washington, Michele Y.
TITLE:SHAPING THE LANGUAGE OF VISUAL CULTURE
SOURCE:International Review of African American Art 20 no2 12-15 2005
Ad Reinhardt's Yellow Painting
Sims, Patterson. "THE COLLECTION: Ad Reinhardt." MoMA.org. Oxford University Press. Web. 20 Apr. 2012.
Andy Warhol's Serial Imagery
Image by Tyler Silva Photography
Nine years after Andy
Warhol’s death the art world decided to put together a large-scale exhibition
of his work to consecrate his reputation as one of the greatest artists of the
twentieth century. Jennifer Dyer’s article “Understanding Andy Warhol’s Serial
Imagery” was intended to explain her thoughts on how the work inside Warhol’s
exhibition should be analyzed. She believed that as a result of a
media-oriented society and Warhol’s celebrity like lifestyle, the structure of
his work should be viewed through his powerful public persona. Although the
environment of “A Factory” was drug-based, sexually charged, and full of
iconography from that time, she argued Warhol used his work as a mechanism to
illustrate the meaninglessness of it all. Warhol felt that the “sex, drugs, and
rock and roll culture” had over ridden society and created a false stigma of
what really was important in life. By analyzing the slightly altered techniques
of abstract expressionism utilized in Warhol’s work, Dyer argued that Warhol’s
work expressed the significance of the mundane and the idea that actuality is
good.
The first major element Dyer describes is the
structure of Warhol’s work, which she sees in the cultural and political
environment of the day. She argues that the connection between Warhol’s persona
and the artwork are formulated from this environment and that through their
relation we may understand his art. Dyer believes Warhol’s style of reworking
features of abstract expressionism can be seen as invalidating his era’s
predetermined models of artistic value that he felt were unfitting. In many of
his pieces he challenges traditional conceptions of iconography by repeatedly
presenting them as meaningless. This forced viewers to take a stand on issues
that had been normalized such as death, penalty, racism, and late modern
capitalism. Dyer thought his views of society were even more evident by how Warhol
concretizes the American soul and exploits aspects of the media-oriented
culture in much of his work. The large, repetitive, and simple pieces that
Warhol created didn’t incite the viewer to ponder its meaning, which Dyer
believed to bring the realness to these messages.
A second argument Dyer makes, based on Warhol’s
sarcastic personality and attempts to slight the culture of the day, Warhol’s
works must be viewed ironically. Since image making is supposed to be an
extremely meaningful practice, the viewer must read them as a humorous challenge
to the sacred tradition. Dyer believes Warhol accomplishes this by presenting the
insignificant and arbitrary which reveals the significance of the mundane
things of ordinary life, previous cultural icons, and practices in the world. By
the treatment of these mundane entities as divine, the serial imagery reveals
the significance of every day’s continual repetitious activity. He uses this
technique to pull the glamour out of the casual, everyday things. When most
people view images such as his, they think that glamorous imagery is supposed
to manifest what viewers can never be. Warhol used things like Campbell’s soup
cans, toys, and car crashes to change tradition and add even more significance
to the mundane.Another large feature of Warhol’s works is that there is no distinction between ground and image. All of his images are continuous and no elements in the pieces are delineated over another. Dyer argues that this continuity makes for little depth or perspective, unlike the traditional use of perspective to sharpen the unreality of the images. The lack of depth restricts the viewer from accessing the subject in the image and deflects the viewer’s attention away to the surface of image. The viewer then sees the painting in its entirety and doesn’t spend time deeply gazing into the painting to figure out its meaning. Warhol made it very obvious the subjects in his images and never tried to trick people or use complex imagery in his paintings. Dyer believes that getting people to view Warhol’s images as a whole helped get his point across that the mundane is not a concealed mystery. It is something that shouldn’t be hidden by the media dominated culture and its significance needs to be remembered.
Dyers opinions on how to view Warhol’s exhibit and
the idea that he viewed the mundane as significant stemmed from her idea that
Warhol was a product of his synthetic free activity. Warhol participated within
society in such a manner as any other celebrity would, but never allowed the
media or fame change his personality. Dyer believed that Warhol realized the
importance of uniqueness and understood that he transposed this through his
paintings. His continual freeness by awareness led to his work’s message that
the mundane is significant.
Emotion in Our Art
Miro’s style of painting was that he would paint whatever came to his mind. It would freely flow from his brush to the paper without thinking anything through before, relying strictly on his subconscious thoughts. This is where his extremely abstract paintings come from. And, the moods of the painting can be correlated to these subconscious thoughts as well as whatever emotions he experienced while painting affected the outcome as well. This is shown by the, “decisive change in style, culminating in brilliantly colored, densely composed” (Henning pg 235) style that he adopted in the early 1920s. At this point in his life, Miro had finally found a place among the surrealist community befriending people like “ Andre Manson, Henry Miller, and Ernest Hemmingway” (Henning pg 1). Finding a sense of purpose and friends could have led to this positive feeling in his paintings.
However, his paintings were to take a drastic turn in the late 1930s. Miro had a very strong connection with Spanish culture as he was raised in Spain for much of his early life. As the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, he was unable to return to his true home. This clearly had a deep emotional effect on Miro. In these later paintings, the “acerbic colors express Miro’s tormented mood” (Henning pg. 238), which were reinforced by the demonic figures that could be found more frequently and in greater numbers than in his previous art. In the end, Miro became so disgusted by human nature that he, “felt a deep desire to escape” (Henning pg. 239).
Clearly in the instance of Joan Miro, a style of a painter can be affected by one’s emotion and this conclusion is not all that surprising. By taking a look at some of the artwork found in and around UNC it is easy to tell what an artist was feeling. And although this may seem like an obvious answer, it still gives us a better understanding of what artists like Joan Miro wished to portray in their work.
Works Cited:
Henning, Edward B. "A Painting by Joan Miro." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66 (1979): 235-240. Print.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Two Views of Life
Diego Rivera uses a series of different images to help depict the illusion of man control of both the physical and biological world. In the article, Gilbert analyzes the painting and makes several conclusions using background knowledge and inferences. First, at the center of the mural is a gloved man who apparently seems to be working some controls. These can be assumed to be controlling all that is going on around him. Crossing through him are two oval shapes with several images inside. One portrays icons that can represent the physical world, such as planets and stars flying, while the other show biological figures including cells and vegetation. Also right under the man is a hand grasping a ball that is supposed to represent a fertilized ovary. All of these images combined give the effect of man’s advances in science to be able to control the world around him, such as biology, physics, and most importantly, reproduction.
Frida Kahlo’s painting Moses (the Nucleaus of Creation) gives a much lighter view on the topic of fertilization. Gilbert again uses several observations to draw a conclusion about the purpose of her artwork. First is the use of tripartite painting, or dividing the painting into three sections. However, when the picture is looked at in a broader view, it appears almost as if the whole image depicts one large uterus and ovary system. Also, at the very center of her creation is a developed baby in a uterus. She puts this here trying to show that a women’s fertility is the center of the universe. She puts the faces of many religious men around the womb. This is to drive home the importance that without fertilization, none of these would be in existence. Kahlo also uses other images around this to strengthen the point of its importance. For example, there are textbook like drawings of cellular processes of mitosis. She uses these as proof that fertilization is the basis of all life. From interviews, it becomes apparent that fertilization is a symbol for ultimate love. She believes this because of her studies in medicine. Even though sperm and egg are both “on the point of death” their union creates a rejuvenated individual that carries on the life (Gilbert). The use of background knowledge and observations from her painting, we can see her view of procreation as an act of ultimate love and the center of all life.
Though sharing a life together, both of these artists have completely different views on fertilization and how it should be approached. Gilbert’s article gives great examples of direct images that prove this idea. Perhaps it is because of this argument that led to their eventual divorce. No one will ever know, but we can be sure of their individual depictions of procreation and life in general.
Art is an important part of all societies. This holds true for UNC as well. There is art all over campus, from the paintings of billboards the the pit, to the galleries in the Ackland Art Museum. This artwork brightens up our day and also can give the inquisitive mind something to ponder over.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Coffee Experiment Follow-up
Sound bit Citations:
countdown news intro: clubsound
shower: Ch0chhi
snoring: jppi_Stu
alarm clock: jackstrebor
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Self Improvement through Exercise
Hmmm sound by agent vivid from freesound.org
Cheer by acclivity from freesound.org
Small audience clap and laughs by oniwe from fresound.org
Approx. 800 cheer by lonemonk from freesound.org
Both static music at beginning and transition music found from freesound.org
College and Coffee
Sound bit Citations:
countdown news intro: clubsound
shower: Ch0chhi
snoring: jppi_Stu
alarm clock: jackstrebor
Water Drinking Behavior Modification Self Experiment
mansardian- news end signature http://www.freesound.org/people/mansardian/sounds/61322/
mattj09- bubbling sound
mattj09- bubbling sound
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