Scientific Discovery

Scientific Discovery

In the 19th century impressionist painters were forced to react to photography as it became more popular and challenged their art. They were encouraged to be true to nature and to exploit aspects of painting that photography couldn’t achieve such as colour. Impressionists wanted to capture reality in a different way. Photography inspired artists to pursue other means of artistic expression.

marmaduke duke

This website is for a band. Their theme is strange, bizarre and old fashioned, the website reflects this. The book is ripped and tattered and dirty to set this old fashioned atmosphere. The site also has a mystical feel to it with the videos playing on the page making

THe reduced cost of digital technology and software

Computer technology is continually increasing in power and dropping in price. In 1981 an IBM PC with 256Kb of RAM and CPU: 477Mhz cost £1736. Now in 2009 a DELL XPS is available with 3Gb of RAM, CPU: Dual 2.66GHz for $899. As computer power increased so did software capability. Because of competition of a range of specialized tasks, software is becoming cheaper and is even available for free. Using software to create digital art is becoming more common and is a hobby for the average person, because of this the cost barrier has been removed for Digital art and design and freeware is available for almost all aspects of digital art and design. Like software, technology has become more popular to the average person e.g. Video cameras and Digital photography cameras. Digital art and design has become more accessible as the cost of technology has fallen and power has increased.

Punk - 1977

Bold colours lots of contrast

Displays attidute and her expression shows a devious and rebelling look.

modern technique no traditional media as punk bebelled against old people, rockers and hippies.

International Typographic Style.

Emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity

Characteristics of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, and flush left, ragged right text.

Surrealism - 1924

Characteristics of surrealism include

inexplicable happenings, dream like themes and hallucinations.

Like symbolism meanings are fed to the viewer through a strange art language which we have to de-code. The artist has used oil on canvas to create a realistic dream like world.

Bauhaus - 1933

It shuns ornamentation and favors functionality

Uses asymmetry and regularity versus symmetry

It grasps architecture in terms of space versus mass

Bauhaus buildings are usually cubic, favor right angles,

(although some feature rounded corners and balconies);

they have smooth facades and an open floor plan.

Constructivision - 1919

Tatlin Tower. Model of the Monument to the Third International

Developed from cubism and italian futurism.
Constructivists didnt want to create Art for Arts sake. They wanted their art to have social purpose.
It was a response to changes in thechnology and contemporary life, it advocated a change in the art scene, aiming to create a new order in art and architecture that referenced social and economical problems.

Tatlin's sculpture favours simple shapes like alot of constructivists did. The metal materials used depict the dominance of the machine in the modern world and its triumph over nature.

Futurism - 1910

The city Rises - 1910

Umberto Boccioni,

Futurists admored speed, technology, youth and violence, The car, teh airplane and the industrial city.
All that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature. They were also passionate nationalists. They were extrememly passionate and rebelled against harmony and good taste.
"the smear of madness"
"expression of violent desire which burns in the veins of every creative artist today"
"we rebel against spinless worshipping of old canvases, old statues and old bric-a-brac. Against everything which is filthy and worm ridden and corroded by time"
They praised originality however daring, however violent.

This painting feature what was at the time a modern urban scene in the background. Although put to the back of the painting and cornered with little detail, it seems to be the main part of the painting. Everything else seems to be flowing from it in a sea of force and intension. The artists thick and violent brush strokes show fast movement and represent determinatio, passion and the anticipation of futur events.

Pop Art

Roy Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl (1963) on display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Used popular images and icons and incorporating and re-defining them in the art world.

Often subjects were derived from advertising and product packaging, celebrities, and comic strips.

The images are presented with a combination of humor, criticism and irony.

Abstract.

Abstract

Robert Delaunay
Rainbow, 1913
Oil on canvas

"Abstract art is art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead user colour and form in a non-representational way. It does not represent reality as we see it," en.mimi.hu/finearts/non-representational.html
This painting by Robert Delaunay is a good example of this. I can see trees, the sun, clouds and the rainbow but they are not represented in the usual way. The colours are almost random and the images look like their collaged.

Post Impressionism - 1886

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Portrait of Émile Bernard

Post impressionists recected the limitations of Impressionism. They contintued the use of vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brush strokes and the real life subject matter. This painting shows all of theses characteristics. Post impressionism also distorted form for expressive effect and used unnatural or arbitrary colours. They wanted to add the structure to their paintings that Impressionism lacked.

This painting has a realistic subject but the texture looks more rubbery on his clothes and too rough on his skin. The colours in the painting are all very siilar creating an eerie and serious atmosphere. The lines are very soft looking adding to the atmosphere.

Art Deco 1939

Art deco 1939
Chrysler building

Art Deco is characterized by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer and inlaid wood.
· The bold use of stepped forms and sweeping curves
Here the sunburst motif has been used which is typical of Art Deco.

De stijl - 1917

Mondrian CompRYB

Mondrian CompRYB

· Oil on canvas.
· Simple
· Interesting because it was new and different.

Dada - 1916

Dada

Hoch-Cut With the Kitchen Knife – 1919


Collage of pasted papers
Like cubism it is full and interesting with many of the same colours
Expressing reaction against the bourgeoir capitalist society

cubism - 1907

Juan Gris - 1912
Cubism
Juan Gris – 1912
Oil on canvas
Shapes create illusion
Fuzzy texture irregular create movement in the image
The similar colours make the picture more difficult to break up.
This cubist painting breaks traditional art rules by painting the subject for different viewpoints.
This painting is attempting to show the subject as the mind would see it and not the eye.

Fauvism 1905

Matisse - Green Line - 1905

Oil and tempera on canvas

wild brush work

strident colours,

subject matter has high degree of simplification and abstraction

strange and interesting

Art Nouveau 1890-1905

Like impressionism, Art Nouveau was a reaction to academic art. Characterised by organic, especially floral and other plant inspired motifs as well as highlt stylized flowing curvillineour forms.

Maude Adams as Joan of Arc, by Alfons Mucha, 1909

Alfons Mucha has used oil on canvas to produce this Art Nouveau painting. Most Art Nouveau paintings are chracterised by sinuous, assymetrical lines based on plant forms. Like many of his other peices Muchas has painted a healthy young woman in flowing vageuly Neoclassical looking robes. This also gives it a romantic feel. The flowers behind the womans head form a halo, making me see the symbolism influences as well as the dreamlike theme of the painting. The artisits decorative style means that the peice is full of detail and is interesting to look at. Even though the painting is of a scared woman, the pale pastel colours keep a calm and romatic atmosphere. Her perfectly flowing dress and hair add to this romantic style. The flowers in the painting have been used for more than background detail. They have been used to frame it and to decorate the whole peice. Although their colours are not dissiimilar to the womans dress they still stand out because of their bubbly shape against the dresses flowing lines. The painting has a very realistic look but the thechnique he has used to colour it gives it a flatter and more cartoony texture.

Symbolists 1886

French symbolism was both a "continuation of the Romantic and a reaction to the realistic approach of impressionism. The term sumbolism means the systematic use of symbols or pictorial conventions to express an allegorical meaning. The symbolist painters used these symbols from mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soal." Symbolists believed that art should show the truth but not in a direct way. They paint absolout truths in a metophorocal and suggestive manner. The theme of most symbolist paintings are death, dreams, evil, decedance, femmes fatales, adrogyny, perversity and the occult. www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c19th/symbolism.htm

The Death of the Grave Digger by Carlos Schwabe

Oil on Canvas

Shwabe has used a mystical theme to create this symbolist painting. He has used oil to successfully create a realistic scene, building up different layers to create depth, shade and realism. The brush lines are very difficult to see if possible at all. He has used a realistic location, a human subject and another realistic subject to create a realistic happening as if it were an everyday one. He has produced this scene with different symbols which the viewers have to read to get the meaning of the painting. Behing the two main subjects the background is detailed and interesting. This keeps the viewer interested for longer with more to look at and the the snowy scene creates an atmosphere of peace ans silence. To be sure that the audience's focus is on the two meanigful subjects in the painting, Shwabe has chosen dark colours to contrast with the light background. Also the drooping branches of the tree they are under seperates the background from the foreground and we are able to view them seperatly. The wings on the female subject symbolise that she is an angel and her dark colours show that she is the Angel of Death. Her scythe shaped wings also imply this. The green glow hovering in her right hand symbolise and are an example of her powers. She is looking down to the ground which we accosiate with hell but she is also pointing up to the sky which would make us think that she is sending him to heaven. The fact that she is displaying both options could suggest that she has not yet chosen where to send him. Her elegant wings are reaching into the grave and look as if they are suppoting or cradling him maybe to comfort him. The presence of the angel tells us that this man is dead. He is holding a spade in one hand meaning that he was digging the grave himself which suggests that he caused his own death. This is also implied with the expression on his face. He doesnt seem surprised that death is visiting him just amazed at her appearance. The artist has used the rule of thirds to draw the viewers eye to the male subjects head, the straight line that the angels body creates and also makes us follow her left arm up to her hand not letting us miss this important symbol. The positioning of the subjects also play a symbolic part in the peice. The man is not only below the angel but he is in the ground and looking up at her. This humbles him and strips away any importance he has as a person. The angel is high and mighty rightly looking down on her client. She is taking control and using her powers to death with the death of this man.

Arts and Crafts 1880 - 1910

Designed by Morris and the Philip Webb

"The Arts and crafts movement was a reaction to idustrialisation. Arts and crafts was a reformist movement that influences British, Canadian and American architecture, decorative arts, cabinet making and craft. It consisted of auethentic and meaningful styles. When looked at on a whole it was neither a anti-industrial nor anti-modern. The movement turned entirly against machines and towards handcraft. " www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Arts_and_Crafts_movement

This house seems to have neo-gothic influences. It looks very rustic and has "cotegey" sufaces. To express the inherent beauty in craft some products were deliberatly left slightly unfinished resulting in a rustic and robust effect. This doesnt apply to this building but it still has other Art and crafts chrecteristics. This is a very old gothic building and i can see the similarities such as the pointy decorations and old windows.