Arkansas Passes Privacy Bill That Could Kill Street Photography

One reason I've been a little leery about taking photos of those I didn't know:



Arkansas Passes Privacy Bill That Could Kill Street Photography

July 4th Painting

This painting I just finished painting last Wednesday just in time for July 4th.

Heart of a Warrior By Jack E. Dawson

A couple months ago my brother and I were at the Great Passion Play attraction in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  While we were there we came across an art exhibit of a Christian painter from near Joplin, Missouri by the name of Jack Dawson.  The painting that really caught my eye in the exhibit was “Heart of a Warrior.”  His paintings are full of christian symbols.  In this painting, Jesus is represented by the soldier, the toy lamb in his hand, and the face in the rock on the right side of the image, for example.  The description of the $5 copy I have reads

“The heart of a true warrior celebrates freedom for all.  Driven by a passion to relieve suffering and set captives free, the warrior goes to battle for others’ good, even at the cost of his own life.  The anguished face of captivity appears in the rock beside him as he kneels at edge of the world, reaching out in freedom’s name to those crying out for liberty.  A child approaches, trusting the extended hand that gave him the cookie he holds.  Now it offers another gift, a toy lamb that represents the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  His own wounded and bandaged fingers proclaim ‘I love you’ in sign language.  The strong left hand defends ‘old glory,’ wind torn and bullet riddled, but still flying on its broken staff.  His weapons are ready for battle, but the warrior is equipped for ministry.  Beside him grow five poppies, honoring the dedication of the five branches of service.  As the light of Lady Liberty reaches out to the ‘tired poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’ the spirit of freedom rises from the smoke of the twin towers forming a cross that conveys the greatest freedom, God’s grace and mercy.”

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. – Luke 4:18

Center campus a Glow

Here is the next project I had to do. It's supposed to be digital art that's related to North Arkansas College. Can what I did be considered art though? Lol. (note: the photo used is not mine, I don't know who took the picture. I just take credit for what I did to it.)

Logo for ekim travel company

Cross of Calvary

Cookin' On The Creek Logo

Recently, my intro to digital media class had a chance to create a logo for a client.  The Harrison Chamber of Commerce wanted a logo for the upcoming 4th annual “Cookin’ On The Creek” Festival.  My logo wasn’t chosen which is ok, but it wasn’t too bad.  what do you all think?

Razorback #1

We Were Featured In The Harrison Daily Times Yesterday

Kristina and I were featured in the Harrison Daily Times newspaper yesterday, advertising our booth at the Central Ozarks Farmers & Artisan Market - which is held on the Harrison Square each Tuesday and Saturday from 6:00am until 12:00pm through October (Although we probably won't be there on Tuesdays anymore).  She has over 200+ patterns of scrunchies to choose from, headbands and bracelets - all handmaid.  My paintings are there also for sale.  I have 10 paintings ready to sell, and currently working on more and I also take custom orders.  Next Saturday (September 7) we will be there from 6:00am until 5:00pm during the Blue Sky Art Festival.  Stop by and support your local art and crafters!

“Crosses On Cavalry”

This is my newest painting I just finished tonight.  It’s an 8x10 I call “Crosses On Cavalry.”  What do you guys think of it?

4 Strats

This is a new painting I just did today.  it’s an abstract painting of a Fender Stratocaster body.  what do you all think of it?

“Abbey Road In A Variety of Greens And Greys”

I recently sold the painting I painted a couple weeks ago Titled “Abbey Road In  A Variety of Blues.”  So tonight I decided I would stick to the tried and true ones that sell and paint another version of it.  I call this one "Abbey Road In A Variety of Greens & Greys" - Original mixed medium painting (acrylic & collage) I painted.  It is for sale for $10 if anyone is interested.

My Original Artwork

I thought I posted some of these on my blog, but apparently I didn’t.  I started painting in the fall of 2012 after taking a basic design class in college.  I than got hooked onto painting.

These are some paintings I have done since than and also for that class.  Some of these are even for sale if you’re interested.

Here’s a tip for you: I don’t recommend using that spray adhesive glue when making collage paintings: the adhesive gets all over your hands, and when trying to fix the pieces you’re gluing on they won’t fix right because your hand is too sticky.  your best bet is to probably use a glue stick. lol.

"Abbey Road In A Variety of Blues”

 

 

 

 

“Back To The Future”

 

 

 

 

 

“Objective Abstraction Guitar”

 

 

 

 

“Repeated Motif Guitar”

Frank Lloyd Wright

I was raised in Phoenix, Arizona and I remember while living in Phoenix passing by a street named Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd.  At the time I didn’t even know who Frank Lloyd Wright was, but than soon after, I came across photos of some neat looking buildings and turns out he was the architect of those buildings.  They were photos of Falling Water in Pennsylvania and the Robie House in Chicago.  I later saw some more photos of his work and became more intrigued by his architecture.

On June 08, 1867 he was born as Frank Lincoln Wright in Richland Center, Wisconsin to William Wright, a preacher and Anna Lloyd Jones, a teacher.  His mother’s Welsh family had settled the area near Spring Green, Wisconsin.  During the early part of his childhood he moved around a lot because his father traveled to several states taking up ministry until the family finally settled in Madison, Wisconsin in 1878.

According to one of his biographies, before he was born his mother once said that he would grow up to build beautiful buildings.  He was influenced to be an architect from an early age.  In 1876 his mom visited an exhibition in Philadelphia and saw an exhibit of educational blocks called Froebel Gifts which were created by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel, the German educationist.  She bought a set of the blocks and brought them home to her young son who began building 3-Dimensional compositions with them and the blocks also influenced his approach to design.

His parents divorced in 1885 when he was 14 which caused some financial stress and so to help support the family, at age 18 he went to work for the dean of the department of engineering at the University of Wisconsin.  He also changed his middle name to “Lloyd” in honor of his mother’s family name.  He wanted to be an architect so two years later, in 1887, he left Madison bound for Chicago, Illinois.

When he got to Chicago he found work with a couple of firms before he got hired on by Dankmar Adler & Louis Sullivan where for six years he worked directly under Louis Sullivan despite the fact that Sullivan showed very little respect to his employees.  Sullivan gave Wright great design responsibility and so as a show of respect, Wright would refer to him later as Lieber Meister which is German for “Dear Master.”

At the age of Twenty-Two in 1889 he married his first wife, Catherine Lee Tobin, just 7 days before his birthday.  He met her a year earlier during activities at the All Souls Church.  Sullivan helped the new couple out  by granting Wright an employment contract for 5 years.

In the Oak Park suburb of Chicago he built his first house which was for his new family in a wooded corner lot.  It is designed reminiscent of the East Coast shingle style with it’s prominent roof gable but has Wright’s ingenuity.  He would later add to the house as necessary for his ever growing family of six kids.  His children remembered it being very lively living there and it wasn’t long before the family’s expenses escalated that Wright was tempted to accept independent residential design jobs. 

He did these on his own time, but in 1893 Sullivan became aware of it and charged Wright with breach of contract.  Wright left the firm of Adler & Sullivan creating a rift between him and Sullivan for two decades but when one door closes, another one always opens and the closing of the door to him of Adler & Sullivan opened the door of opportunity for Wright to finally go out on his own and opened an office and began to design homes that truly belonged to the American prairie. 

His first independent commission was the William H. Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois and over the next sixteen years he set the standards for what would become known as the Prairie Style home which would reflct the long and low horizontal prairie the home would sit on.  The homes also had low pitched roofs, deep overhangs, deep overhangs, no basements or attics and usually long rows of casement windows that further emphasized the horizontal theme.

Some important residential works Wright designed at this time are the Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York; The Avery Coonley House in Riverside, Illinois; and the Fredrick C. Robie House in Chicago, Illinois.  Some important public buildings designed during this time were the Larkin Company Administration Building in Buffalo New York (which is now sadly demolished) and the Unity Temple in Oak Park.

He left his family in 1909 for a stay in Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney who was a client of his that he fell in love with.  During this time he worked on two publications of his work: one was The Wasmuth Portfolio which were drawings and the other was of photographs called the Ausgefuhrte Bauten und Entwurfe von Frank Lloyd Wright.  Both of these were published in 1911.  They brought him and his work international recognition and also influenced other architects.

He returned back to the states in 1911 and began construction of Taliesin near Spring Green which would be his home with Mamah Cheney.  He also earned jobs to design two more important buildings: Midway Gardens in Chichago, Illinois and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan which would sadly be demolished in 1968.

In 1914 while working on Midway Gardens, a servant murdered Mamah Cheney and set fire to the living quarters of there home.  Emotionally distraught, he was only able to find solace while working and rebuilt Taliesin in Mamah’s memory.

1922 – 1934 were architecturally creative and financially catastrophic for Wright.  He got an office in Los Angelas, California but had trouble finding work when he returned from Japan in 1922.  He than left the west coast and went back to Taliesin.  Only some of his projects would go into construction during this decade and this decade was a time of great design innovation for him.  Among some of his unbuilt designs are the National Life Insurance Building in Chicago and the St. Mark’s In The Bowerie apartment towers for New York City.  He also married Olga Lazovich in 1928 and turned to writing and lecturing which introduced him to a larger national audience and wrote 2 important publications in 1932: “An Autobiography” and “The Disappearing City.”  He and his new wife founded an architectural school called “Taliesin Fellowship” at Taliesin at about this time as well.

He moved his new family and his new school to the warmer climate of Arizona in 1934.  Wright at this time was still considered by some to be a great architect but one whose time had come and gone.  He proved the critics wrong when in 1936 he staged a remarkable comeback by designing the S.C. Johnson and Son Company Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Edgar Kaufman family house (which is also known as Falling Water) in Pennsylvania.

He decided he wanted a more permanent winter residence in Arizona so he purchased some land in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, Arizona and began construction of Taliesin West.

In 1943, even though the world was at war he received a letter that initiated the most important and challenging job of his later years if not his entire career.  He was asked to design a building to house the Solomon R. Guggenheim collection of non-objective paintings.  The Guggenheim Museum is in New York City on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and still stands to this day and took over sixteen years to build.

With the end of the war in 1945, business boomed.  The Research Tower for the SC Johnson Company, a skyscraper in Oklahoma, and several buildings he 
designed for the Florida Southern College were built and some projects that never were developed beyond the design table were a sports club for Hollywood, California; a mile high tower for Chicago and a plan for greater Baghdad.

He was still actively involved in his work up until his death, including overseeing the construction of the Guggenheim in 1959 he was stricken by an illness that hospitalized him.  On April 9, 1959 he passed away just two months shy of turning 92 years old.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This is an original article I wrote on one of my favorite architects, but I found my sources elsewhere, so just have to give credit where credit is due as always.

Frank Lloyd Wright - Wikipedia. n.d. 08 December 2012 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright>.

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation: Biography. n.d. 08 December 2012 <http://www.franklloydwright.org/about/FLLWBio.html>.

Ansel Adams

Thumbing through various magazines as a kid, I saw some interesting black and white photos that I thought looked very interesting. One in particular was a night sky image taken in the desert that had a shot of the moon in the top right corner. I didn’t even really think of how famous the photograph was when I first saw it, I just knew I really enjoyed it. Some years later (2003) a friend of mine wanted to take me to an art museum in Springfield, Missouri to see a traveling exhibit. He mentioned it was an exhibit of Ansel Adams. I asked him who was that and he described him as a famous black and white photographer. I thought it was cool but didn’t take any interest at first because I didn’t recognize the photographer’s name at the time. When we got to the museum and I saw the Ansel Adams exhibit, I was shocked at how familiar I was to his photographs after all. I knew the artist’s work for years and didn’t even realize it! He’s an awesome photographer. I really enjoy his work.

He wasn’t just a photographer – he was also an environmentalist and was born on February 20, 1902 in San Francisco, California. His father was a businessman by the name of Charles Hitchcock Adams and his grandfather was a wealthy timber baron. When he was four years old, an aftershock of the great San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 threw him to the ground and broke his nose very badly which had distinctly marked him for life. Ansel was an only child and his mother was almost 40 years of age.

He had problems fitting in at school as a child due to his shyness, his nose and his genius. At one point later in his life he had noted that he might’ve been diagnosed as being hyperactive. He may have also suffered from dyslexia. His parents sent him to several different schools, but he wasn’t very successful. His dad and aunt ended up tutoring him. He got a “legitimizing diploma” from the Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School, equivalent to completing 8^th grade.

He had a very solitary childhood, and he found joy in nature. He took long walks to the Golden Gate Bridge, hiking the dunes and meandering along Lobos Creek.

At the age of 12, he taught himself how to play the piano and read music. This was his primary occupation and in 1920 became his intended profession. Even though eventually he gave up music for photography, the piano brought discipline to his frustrating and erratic youth. Also, the training as a musician profoundly informed his visual artistry as well as influential writings and teachings on photography.

His first camera was a Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie that his parents gave him and from 1916 to his death he spent a lot of time in the Yosemite Sierra. He had hiked and climbed and explored the area and he gained self-esteem and self-confidence and joined the sierra club in 1919. He met Virginia Best and they both were married in 1928 and had 2 children. The marriage ended his attempt at a music career.

The Sierra Club scene played an important role in Ansel’s early photography success. The club’s 1922 Bulletin featured his first published photographs and in 1928 he had his first one man exhibition at the club’s San Francisco headquarters. Also, each summer the club would have a month long hiking trip normally in the Sierra Nevada. The participants hiked each day to a new campsite, as the official photographer of the outings he realized he could earn enough to survive with his photographs.

In 1927 he made his first fully visualized photograph “The Face of Half Dome”. He also met San Francisco insurance magnate Albert M. Bender. Bender was also a patron of arts and artists. Right after they met, he literally set out to prepare and publish Adams’ first portfolio! This changed Ansel’s life tremendously! He than was able to pursue his dreams.

He also made several trips to the southwest where he collaborated with Mary Austin and together published a book titled “Taos Pueblo” in 1930. He also met Paul Strand who is another photographer that inspired him to move away from the pictorial style he favored to a more “straight photography.” Ansel was about to become straight photography’s mast articulate and insistent master.

Even though he was profoundly a man of the west, during the 1930s and 1940s he spent a good amount of time in New York where he met photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Ansel admired Alfred’s work and philosophy. The Stieglitz circle played an important role in Ansel’s artistic life. The Delphic Gallery gave him his first show in New York in 1933 and in 1935 his first widely distributed book “Making A Photograph” was published.

All the recognition though didn’t get rid of his financial pressure. In 1935 he stated in a letter “I’ve been busy, but broke.” He spent a lot of his time working for clients such as The National Park Service, Kodak, Zeiss, IBM, AT&T, Life Magazine, Fortune Magazine and Arizona Highways Magazine. In 1938 he wrote to a friend “I had to do something in the near future to regain the right track in photography. I am literally swamped with commercial work. It is very restraining to my creative work.” He constantly worried about how he was going to pay his next month’s bills. This was very stressful for him until late in his life.

Ansel’s technical mastery was legendary. He was probably to photography what Jimi Hendrix was to guitar playing. He was arguably, probably the greatest photographer there ever was. He was frequently consulted for technical advice and was the principal photographic consultant for Polaroid. He also developed the famous and highly complex “zone system” of controlling and relating exposure and development, enabling photographers to creatively visualize an image and produce a photograph that matched and expressed that visualization. Books he has written on the topic are the most influential ever written on the subject.

He endlessly travelled the country looking for natural beauty to photograph. He also felt an intense commitment to promoting photography as a fine art and played a major role in the establishment of the first museum department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

He was a major activist in causes dealing with protecting the wilderness and the environment. Over the years he has been a part of several meetings and has written many letters in support of his conservation philosophy. However his greatest influence came from his photography. His pictures became the symbols of wild America. When people think about national parks or the nature of the environment itself, they often think about an Ansel Adams photograph.

Even though wilderness and the environment were his passions, photography was his calling but he never made a creative photograph specifically for environmental purposes. He was also criticized constantly for never including humans or evidence of them in his landscape pictures. French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once said “The world is falling to pieces and all Ansel Adams photographs is rocks and trees!” Many national parks are preserved and protected to this day, mainly because of Ansel and his colleagues efforts.

In September of 1983, he was confined to his bed for four weeks after a leg surgery to a remove a tumor and on April 22, 1984 at the age of 82 he passed away from a heart attack. His vast archive of papers, memorabilia, negatives and proof prints are in the John P. Schaefer Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. He has received a number of awards during his lifetime and posthumously, even some have been named for him. In 1968 he was awarded the Conservation Service Award by the Department of the Interior and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. He was also inducted into the California Hall of Fame posthumously by Governor Arnold Shwarzenegger and in 1985 the Minarets Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest were renamed the Ansel Adams Wilderness and Mount Ansel Adams, and the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography was created in 1971 and the Wilderness Society created the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation in 1980. In December of 1992, Abigail Foerstner wrote in an article in the Chicago Tribune about Ansel Adams: “He did for the national parks something comparable to what Homer’s epics did for Odysseus.”

   

    

       

This article is original, but I have to give credit where it’s due so here’s the bibliography.

Ansel Adams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 19th October 2012. 15th and 20th October 2012 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams>.

Turnage, William. ANSEL ADAMS BIOGRAPHY | | The Ansel Adams GalleryThe Ansel Adams Gallery. 2012. 15th and 21st October 2012 http://www.anseladams.com/ansel-adams-information/ansel-adams-biography/.

Pablo Picasso

I remember growing up thumbing through some art books and going to museums and coming across some Pablo Picasso paintings that I really found out that I enjoyed very much. I am really only familiar with two or three of his paintings, and one of them I learned was painted during his “blue period.” That painting was of course “The Old Guitarist” from 1903. I am an amateur musicologist so one of my hobbies is music and music history and so the painting represents a lot to me: with it’s dominant color being blue it could represent the blues genre. The way he’s strumming the guitar, it kind of looks like how someone might strum a classical song. Or a blues song even. He painted it in 1903, and so looking at it also makes me imagine the American roots stuff of that era. Another painting of his that I really like is “Three Musicians” from 1921. I think it’s a really colorful painting and in a way reminds me of the jazz era.

On October 25, 1881 Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso – Pablo Picasso – was born to Don Jose Ruiz y Blasco and Maria Picasso y Lopez. He was a painter, co-founding the Cubist movement and he was also a sculptor. His dad was also a painter and taught at the School of Crafts and ran a museum. He was born in Malaga, Spain.

He became interested in drawing at a very early age and painting realistically throughout his childhood and teenage years. “Piz”, which is a short form of the Spanish word for pencil “lapiz”, was his first word according to his mom and at seven years old his dad taught him figure drawing and oil painting.

Picasso’s family moved to LA Coruna, Spain in 1891 where his dad started teaching at the Instituto da Guarda art school and in 1892 Picasso joined his dad at the art school as a student. He attended the school for three years where he received a classical art education.

In 1895 Picasso’s father started to work at the La Lonja Art Academy in Barcelona joined once again by Picasso. With help from his uncles, he decided to move to Madrid, Spain in 1897. He dropped out of school around this time because his teachers couldn’t help him solve the technical problems he had. He wanted to be more like the classical painters Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn and Diego Velazquez. No matter how great he was at such a young age, he couldn’t match the masters.

He realized he would not progress while in Madrid so he decided to quit his studies and with his father’s aid he was able to have two of his first paintings “The First Communion” and “Science and Charity” included in a large exhibition which made him a recognized artist in Spain, and he wasn’t even seventeen years old yet!

The organic forms that we associate Picasso with today were due to what he learned from a Catalan architect by the name of Antoni Gaudi when he lived in Barcelona, Spain. Picasso went from being “Picasso the traditionalist” to “Picasso the Great Innovator.” Also while staying in Barcelona he would visit the Els Quatre Gats Cafe (“The Four Cats”) often. On his visits to the café he met and befriended several artists that regularly made visits to Paris, France for work. Picasso soon followed suit.

At the turn of the 20^th century, Paris had become the center of avant-garde art and Pablo Picasso had become an avant-garde artist and while still living in Barcelona he helped found a magazine with a writer by the name of Francesco de Asis Soler called “Arte Joven” (young art). When the magazine folded, Pablo moved to Paris.

Pablo Picasso was like the famous singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in a sense, as in his style of painting changed a lot over the years, just like Bob Dylan’s musical styles changed a lot over the years as well. Between 1899 and 1900 his painting style changed tremendously from a very dry style to a romantic style. The Picasso we know today was just starting to flourish. Some artworks by him from that era would remind you of work done by Henri de Toulouse-Latrec or Cornelis Theodorus Maria Van Dongen.

Picasso and an artist friend of his by the name of Carlos Casagemas got there first studio together in Montemarte, Paris, France in 1900. Around this time Picasso used a technique of oil painting that’s a bit blurred and reminds one of soft pastels. “Dancer In Blue” was painted around this time and shows off his fascination with the Paris night life. Another painting of the time is “Le Moulin Galette” which was an homage to Toulouse-Latrec.

Picasso changed his painting technique to divisionism in 1901. He also experimented with expressionism around this time. He also began to paint circus artists.

He found a way to use his imagination, poetry skills and ability to spot artistic innovations and use them in his work with modern art. While in Paris he had some difficult years where he didn’t earn enough from his work.

His “Blue Period” began around 1901 and ended about 1904. This was a time when he used the color blue as the dominant color in his work. At 20 years old he was an accomplished classicist painter and he was also dissatisfied with traditional art. Picasso and his contemporaries were experiencing the after-shock of an artistic eruption by the name of Vincent Van Gogh which hurdled the art world towards abstract art. Inspired by this, the blue period marked the end of his development and his work eventually would culminate into cubism and the first steps to modern abstract art.

On an interesting side note, he started painting in blue because his friend Carlos Casagemas committed suicide which caused Picasso some trauma which he found expression for in a series of sentimental paintings that he painted in blue. He also lived in poverty during part of his stay in Paris which may have contributed to the melancholy paintings.

Picasso’s next period was his “Rose Period,” which was an era where pink dominated his paintings, however he still continued his blue period work until his cubist period which followed his rose period. It wasn’t until the period after that – his “neo-classicist” period did his work begin to show playfulness that would remain a feature in his work the rest of his life. Picasso also had a “black period” which occurred from 1906 to 1907 and is an era where his work was heavily influenced by African art. One famous piece from this period is “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

Even though his blue period seems to be more popular, his rose period has greater importance to art history. In 1904 his work regained it’s romantic style with paintings that had warmer colors in them – many in pink, hence why the art world called it his “rose period.” The most expensive painting in the world from May 2004 to June 2006 was Picasso’s rose-era painting “Boy With Pipe” from 1905. It sold for a whopping $104,000,000!!

A constant theme in Pablo Picasso’s blue and rose periods was the desolation of social outsiders: prisoners, beggars, circus people or poverty stricken people. Paintings of the lower classes of society was a conscious move towards the political left. He also became commercially successful during his rose period.

One very interesting trait of Picasso’s was how he was able to emulate styles and methods of other painters and still create original paintings. For example: Paintings by Vincent Van Gogh were the influence for “The Death of Casagemas” and “Portrait of Jaime Sabartes (The Beer Glass)” and the work of Paul Gauguin were his influence for “The Absinthe Drinker.” He enjoyed imitating other artists like an actor enjoys portraying different people.

His Cubism period lasted from around 1909 to about 1912 and it refers to a style of painting he developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colors. A further development in the genre was where cut paper pieces or even parts of newspapers were cut out and pasted into compositions – making it the first time the art of “collage” was used in fine art.

After World War I, Picasso was in his “Neo-classical” era. His works from this era were influenced by the work of renaissance painter Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael) and French neoclassical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. In the 1930s, the minotaur became a common motif in his work. What is probably his most famous painting was painted in this era and was inspired by the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. This painting is called “Guernica.”

In the 1950s his style changed yet again: He made a series of works influenced by Diego Velazquez, Fracisco Goya, Nicolas Poussin, Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet and Eugene Delacroix. He was also commissioned to sculpt a 50-foot high sculpture in Chicago, Illinois known as the “Chicago Picasso.” It is one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago and was unveiled in 1967. He even donated it to the city, refusing the $100,000 offer the city offered him!

His final works were more daring, colorful and expressive. Some were even dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or as slapdash works from an artist who was past his prime.

He passed away from a heart attack at 91 years of age in Mougins, France on April 8, 1973 while entertaining friends with his wife Jacqueline, who committed suicide 13 years later at the age of 59 because she was very devastated and lonely after Picasso’s death. His final words were “Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink anymore.”

During his lifetime, Picasso had produced around 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, 12,000 drawings, and numerous tapestries and rugs. There are now museums that house his work exclusively: Musee Picasso in Paris, France; Museo Picasso Malaga in Malaga, Spain and Museu Picasso in Barcelona, Spain. He is also featured on several postage stamps around the world.

The following are some of his paintings:

    

The Old Guitarist                The Three Musicians

 

   

Dancer In Blue                                           Death of Casaemas

 

     

Guernica                                                 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

 

    

Science and Charity                                    The First Communion

 

This is an original article, but some research was made while writing it.

Bibliography:

Pablo Picasso – paintings, biography, and quotes of Pablo Picasso.
30 September 2012 and 08 October 2012. < http://www.pablopicasso.org/>.

Various authors. Pablo Picasso. Wikipedia.
08 October 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_picasso>.

BBC On This Day | 8 | 1973: Art Master Picasso dies. BBC.
30 September 2012 and 08 October 2012.<http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates
/stories/april/8/newsid_2523000/2523469.stm>.

Carsten-Peter Warncke and Ingo F. Walther. Pablo Picasso biography.
30 September 2012 and 08 October 2012.<http://pablopicasso.
paintings.name/biography/>.

Pablo Picasso. Infoplease.
30 September 2012 and 08 October 2012. < http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ people/A0838929.html>.

Vincent Van Gogh

I remember as a kid growing up and seeing different paintings at some point or another and hearing about the artists behind those paintings. I found back than that I do enjoy Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings quite a bit. After reading some biographies about him I have gained a bit more interest and appreciation is his work. I have seen several of his paintings but I am of course more familiar with “Starry Night” and 2 of his self-portraits – one being the one he did after he cut off his ear. “Starry Night” is one of my all-time favorite paintings. How it has a neighborhood down at the bottom and in the night sky how he did the clouds and the stars and the moon and in the foreground what looks like a mountain or something helps make it such an interesting piece. One of my most favorite songs was even inspired by him and his work.

Vincent Van Gogh was a post-impressionist painter and was born on March 30, 1853 in Zundert, Holland in The Netherlands which is a predominantly Catholic area. His father was a Dutch pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church so he was brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere. Vincent was the oldest child and was given the name of his grandfather who lived from 1789-1874 and his stillborn brother who was born the year before he was. “Vincent” is a very common name in the Van Gogh family. Three of his grandfather’s six sons were art dealers.

He was highly emotional and also lacked self-confidence. His interest in art started at an early age when he began to draw as a child and continued to make drawings which lead to his decision to become an artist. July 1869 to June 1873 were happy times for him. He worked for an art dealer and was very successful and earning more than his father, however in 1873 he fell in love with his landlady’s daughter but when he confessed his feelings to her she rejected him. It made him increasingly isolated. He was also in another failed and unhappy romance. In 1876 his employer terminated his employment. He had also worked unsuccessfully as an art dealer and as a clerk in a bookstore in Belgium and was dismissed by his employer for overzealousness.

He decided to stay in Belgium to study art. He was determined to make happiness by creating beauty. His early Dutch period work is somber-toned genre paintings. The most famous of that period is “The Potato Eaters” which he painted in 1885. During that same year he went to Antwerp where he discovered the work of Peter Paul Rubens and bought many Japanese prints. He also began to drink absinthe (which is a distilled highly alcoholic beverage) very heavily. For most of February of 1886 he was ill and run down by overwork, a poor diet and excessive smoking.

He moved to Paris, France in March 1886 where he shared an apartment with his brother. He studied with Fernand Cormon. During this time he also met Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin who taught him impressionism so he began to lighten his very dark palette and paint in short brushstrokes like the Impressionists. During his stay in Paris he painted portraits of his friends, still-life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in Montmarte, Asnieres and along the Seine.

His nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions with his brother combined with painting all day undermined his health. He also had conflicts with his brother that his brother thought was unbearable so Vincent moved to Asnieres which is a northwestern suburb of Paris in the spring of 1887. While he lived there he met and became friends with Emile Bernard who was another Post-Impressionist painter. With Emile he adopted elements of pointillism which is a technique in which a multitude of small colored dots are applied to the canvas that when seen from a distance will create an optical blend of hues.

In February 1888 he felt worn out from his time in Paris that he decided to move south to a town named Arles. During his two years in Paris he had painted over 200 paintings.

He arrived in Arles, France on February 21, 1888 hoping for refuge because he was ill from alcoholism and smoker’s cough. He took a room at the Hotel-Restaurant Carrel. He moved to the town with thoughts of founding a utopian art colony. During his stay he met a Danish artist by the name of Christian Mourier-Petersen who became his companion for two months. To Van Gogh, Arles appeared to be a very filthy place and also exotic. He once wrote that it was the brothels and that the people there were drinking absinthe and that they all seem to be creatures from another world.

He enjoyed the landscape of Arles and paintings of his from that era are draped in yellow, untramarine and mauve colors. “They appear flat and lack perspective but excel in intensity of color.” Three paintings of his during that era were shown during the Societe des Artistes Independants.

In May 1888 he signed a lease at the Yellow House and used it as a studio and he moved from the Hotel-Restaurant Carrel to Café de la Gare. He was hoping to have a place to display his paintings. Paintings like “The Night Café”, “Starry Night Over The Rhone” and “Vase with Twelve Sunflowers” were intended to form the decoration for the Yellow House. When describing “The Night Café” he wrote: “I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.”

In October 1888 his friend Paul Gauguin decided to visit him in Arles where they painted together and also visited Montpellier but there friendship began to deteriorate in December. Vincent wanted to desperately be treated as Paul’s equal. They fought majorly about art and Vincent felt fear that Paul would someday desert him.

Vincent was very frustrated and ill one day in late December that he took a razor blade and confronted Paul with it but panicked so he fled to a local brothel. He was very lonely and depressed at the time so he visited the prostitutes often as his emotional and sensuous point of contact with other people. He cut off his ear and wrapped it in newspaper and handed it to one of the prostitutes. He then went home staggering and was found unconscious by Paul.

He was taken to a hospital where he remained for several days in critical state. While at the hospital he asked for Paul but Paul had refused to see him. Paul once wrote of Vincent: “His state is worse.” Paul left Arles never to see Vincent again.

After he got out of the hospital, Vincent returned to the Yellow House but spent the next few months between the hospital and home suffering from hallucinations and delusions. In March police closed down his house because the local townspeople called him the redheaded madman.

He committed himself to the Saint Paul Asylum (Saint Paul-de-Mausole) in May 1889 and stayed a year. He moved to Auvers-sur-Oise in May 1890 and stayed with Dr. Paul Gachet who also treated other artists. Vincent also painted several paintings of the physician including “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” which is a pretty famous painting.

In February 1890 he suffered a new crisis where he had fits of despair and hallucinations where he couldn’t work. In between these fits he was able to work. On July 27, 1890 at the age of 37 he shot himself in the chest.

Vincent Van Gogh lived a very sad and tragic life. Over the years I have learned that most artistic minded people have lead very tragic lives. Some psychiatrists after reading about his life believe he had schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In 1971 after reading a biography about Van Gogh, Don McLean said it best in his very somber and sad song “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)”:

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...

This is an original article, but I did some research for my article.

Bibliography:

Van Gogh Gallery. His Life and Times. Van Gogh Gallery. 28 September 2012. <http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html>.

Various authors. Vincent Van Gogh. Wikipedia. 28 September 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_gogh>.

Vggallery. Vincent Van Gogh Biography. Vggalery. 28 September 2012. <http://www.vgallery.com/misc/bio.htm>.

Vincent Van Gogh Art. Vincent Van Gogh Biography. Vincent Van Gogh Art. 28 September 2012 <http://www.vincentvangoghart.net>.

McLean, Don. “Vincent (Starry Starry Night).” American Pie. 1971, United Artists Records UAS-5535.

Mrs. Walton’s Magnificent $2 Billion Museum, Where You Can See the Decline of American Art First-Hand

 I'm not sure if I agree with this article 100% or not, it's a museum I recently heard about from my Art Appreciation teacher.  I do hope to go to the museum sometime.

Mrs. Walton’s Magnificent $2 Billion Museum, Where You Can See the Decline of American Art First-Hand
 

Art Appreciation

Art Appreciation is one of my classes I have this semester.  I really enjoy it.  Towards the end of class yesterday my teacher showed us some famous paintings and there parodies so when I got home yesterday I was inspired to go online and see if I can find some of my own.  Here are some that I found.  Enjoy!

If I remember correctly, the face of the ghostface mask on “scream” was inspired by the face in the painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch.  Enjoy these!

 

         

American Gothic by Grant Wood              Batman Parody

 

         

Beavis & Butthead Parody                   The Kennedy’s Parody

 

    

Obama, Put a carrot in it! lol                Soldiers

 

 

            

The Beverly Hillbillies Parody                   Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

 

    

Astronauts                                                    modernized version by Clayton Talbot

 

    

Self Portrait by Vincent Van Gogh                  Simpsons Parody

 

         

Self Portrait – Ear – Vincent Van Gogh      Starry Night – Vincent Van Gogh

 

      

Batman Parody                                               Batman Parody

 

         

The Scream – Edvard Munch               The Beatles Parody

 

         

Home Alone parody                                Homer Simpson

(how did I see this one coming lol)

 

Idiots!