Grade 12 Visual Art 2008
Acrylic Painting Project
Instructor: Peter Marsh
After studying the Impressionist movement you are now aware of a number of the main characteristics that described their painting approach:
Bright and cheerful colors.Visible dashing brushstrokes.Contemporary subject matter.Open-air painting.Analysis of light effects.Awareness of optical color mixing.Analysis of reflections and refraction.Emphasis on colour rather than formIntimate scenes of everyday lifeAnd one should also add, characteristics of 'Japanese Prints',those being: angular viewpoints, flatness, familiar views, and stylized rendering.
Use the above information in order to approach a painting in the Impressionist manner. Choose a contemporary scene that you think may have inspired the Impressionists and use it to create your own painting using their methodology.
You'll be painting using acrylic paint. If you have never used this medium before, you will find that it is water soluble only when it is wet. So it is extremely important to make sure that you keep your brushes wet, and wash them out immediately after painting, using soap and water. Failure to do so will mean that the paint will dry and become indissoluble in water and will ruin the brushes.
It is likely that you will be painting on masonite board, as opposed to canvas because this is a cheaper approach for the amateur. The board will be prepared either by covering it with gesso or some type of latex paint to seal the surface. In applying the gesso or the latex the paint should be thinned so that the surface remains reasonably un-textured. Again, it is important to wash this type of paint out of the brushes immediately after use.
In order to create your composition you should do a number of sketches which experiment with the placement of people and objects. Remember to keep in mind major dynamic points, the rule of thirds, and other elements and principles of design that we have discussed in our art history periods.
Once you have finished design sketches you may transfer your composition onto the masonite board using pencil. After this it is useful to do a little ‘under painting’ on the board to get started, which, in general, is a matter of creating a dark and light version of the work using fairly neutral colors. When using acrylic paint, one should be careful not to put dark colours beneath areas where you are going to expect light paint. Acrylic paint is more transparent than oil paint, and so this is an important consideration in the expectation of vibrant looking colours. Acrylic paints were not available when the Impressionists were painting, so they used oil paint, which contains more pigment and is more opaque.
You should paint using an easel, either a desk easel or standup easel, because you will need to stand back from your work fairly often in order to see what you are doing.
In approaching a painting about light it is important to know that highlights only show up in the painting when every other area is less intense than the highlight. Once you understand this important point it then becomes apparent that every section of the canvas has to be painted in order to display a full range of values that range from shadows to highlights.
Good luck with your painting!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Impressionism
Grade 12 Visual Art
Wexford Collegiate School For The Arts
Impressionism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor/writer: Peter Marsh, 2008
If you go to Sheppard and Warden in Toronto to Remezzo’s family dining restaurant, you will notice the “Moulin de la Galette” a copy of a famous Impressionist painting, painted on the wall. The truth is, you will see Impressionist images, repeated as decoration all around the world, and if you are lucky, you will see the original paintings in various famous art galleries. Or maybe not, as the case may be. In this past month $163 million worth were stolen from a museum in Switzerland, and this theft included four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet. Many of these works are so coveted that some shortsighted rich people are willing to purchase them on the black market, so that they can keep them in their own cloisters for their own private viewing!
At the time the Impressionists were painting they provided a revolutionary new approach to the subject of painting. Whereas many previous painters in the preceding 500 years had approached the canvas wishing to express form as exactly drawn objects with colour applied as a skin over their surfaces, this new approach was a colour and light convention. It is sometimes hard to say why a new approach to painting suddenly emerges, and “Impressionism” might seem to be a non sequitur to “Social Realism”, however, consider the fact that painting had moved in a more painterly direction over the period since the "Neo-classicists", and additionally photography had seriously entered the field of the three-dimensional representation of an image on a two-dimensional surface. In this situation it’s not so hard to believe that artists would start thinking about the physics of light, new approaches to the two-dimensional surface, and to the application of paint.
Whereas, previously, landscapes and objects had been painted with due respect for aerial perspective and various aspects of reflection there had been little thought about how light actually works, its various daytime qualities, various daytime hues, refraction, reflection, and how the colour of an object is a composite of all the objects around it. The Impressionist, were the first set of artists to set their sights on the expression of colour and light.
Of course this is not to say that the artist in this time completely discarded social realism. Far from it, the Moulin de la Galette mentioned above was completely a contemporary painting and was for the most part painted on site. Paintings of myths and legends had long since disappeared from the mainstream and Impressionist painters not only discarded formal academic procedures, but also deliberately painted in the outdoors, and this was referred to as painting “en plein air”. One might also notice that the darker social venues of Gustave Courbet have been replaced by much happier surroundings. The subjects are enjoying a walk in the garden, a visit to the lake, or at a party at the ‘Bar at the Folies Bergères’ (by Edouard Manet ,1882). And also one might note that these artists are not striving to bring a didactic message, but instead are centering in on an analysis of painting itself. Their important work will lead to the cornerstones of 20th-century art. From their work will spring the “Fauves” movement and its “Expressionists” psychological colour, the “Cubists” with their analysis of form and composition, and the “Surrealists”, who will re-examine the meanings of reality. So although they are using everyday life as their subject matter, and examining light and color, they are actually building the foundation for vast new forms of thinking and expression.
Despite the foregoing stream of academic verbiage, the everyday bloke enjoys the paintings, because they are really joyous, colorful, and uplifting. They are full of sunshine and light and color, happy subjects, dancing brushstrokes, and delightful contemporary scenes, the likes of which had never been seen before. As a result, impressionist paintings have enjoyed unparalleled popularity and reproduction.
In the short span of a survey course it is difficult to cover adequately all the events that led to this modern movement. Suffice it to say that in the run-up we have skipped over some truly great artists like Ingres and Delacroix, Goya and Daumier, Millet and Corot, and a goodly number of other artists in other countries like Eakins, Turner, and Constable. We may see some of them in class presentations but you should also look them up for yourself, and see some of their impressive images, if you have the time.
Perhaps before moving on, we should realize that in any society a degree of acceptance has to be established for most forms of artwork. In French society in the 19th century, the highest test for any artist seeking public recognition was to attract the eye of the jurors for the annual national ‘Salon’ exhibition. Thousands of pieces were submitted for the judgment of these people. Unfortunately, as the Salon grew in popularity the requirements for acceptance grew into a sort of formula that constricted truly creative advancement. As a result by 1863 the numbers of those rejected had grown to a considerable size such that a decision was made by ‘the rejects’ to hold their own “Salon des Refusés”. Although the advisability of exhibiting with those who have been rejected is questionable, some artists were able to surmount that stigma and accrue some growing recognition for their work. One of the greats, whose ‘Le déjeuner sur l'herbe’ (Luncheon on the Grass) had been rejected by the official Salon, was Manet. This remarkable piece, which fitted the classical requirements of entry, depicted two female nude bathers, two male clothes figures, some still life objects, and somewhat idyllic scenery. But the scene was contemporary, and as such it was an affront to the moral standards of the times. This significant defiance pointed towards the abandonment of the Salon formulas, and the independence of the artist to pursue individual expression and creativity.
So by 1874, when the Impressionist formed their own society the groundwork had been laid for some truly significant new directions. Official names on the society list to be remembered for the advancement they made, include Renoir and Pissarro, Dégas, Sisley, Monet and Cezanne. The fact that Manet is not included in this group of names is truly amazing. Although he pursued the Holy Grail of the salon, his work actually made great strides in new expressions of reality using stark contrasts, visible brushstrokes, contemporary subject matter, and blatant engagement of the observer.
Monet’s “Impression Sunrise”, is one of those seminal pieces that not only gives a name to this complete movement but also marks out the characteristics of a whole lifetime of work. Those same characteristics could be listed for all the members of the group and might read as follows:
Bright and cheerful colors.
Visible dashing brushstrokes.
Contemporary subject matter.
Open-air painting.
Analysis of light effects.
Awareness of optical color mixing.
Analysis of reflections and refraction.
Emphasis on colour rather than form
Intimate scenes of everyday life
And one should also add, characteristics of 'Japanese Prints',
those being: angular viewpoints, flatness, familiar views, and stylized rendering
Monet, who is famous for his water lillies, is also known to have painted over 40 renditions of “Rouen Cathedral”, and 15 paintings of a haystack in a field: all this to study the change in quality of light on any given subject and how it might be rendered on a canvas.
Dégas, who is the draftsman of the group is famous for his paintings of figures in the ballet studio, a great portrait of the “Belleli Family”, female nude studies, and also some great renderings from the horse races.
Renoir is marked as a great colorist. Personally, I remember being stopped in my tracks by his painting “The Swing”. It is a truly scintillating combination of brushstroke and color that conjures up the dappled light falling on some figures on a beautiful sunny day. This same impression must be true of his already mentioned “Moulin de la Galette” of 1876, and his “Luncheon of the Boating Party” of 1881. Consider that none of these artists live in a vacuum, and few of them have work that stays the same for the whole of their career. Their peers and their history, push them into constantly new directions. Such is the case for Renoir, who, as he moves towards his full 78 years, creates growing abstraction with his color and brushstroke and moves away from the specific to the more monumental expression of the human form.
To these names must also be added Toulouse Lautrec and Marie Cassatt if we are not to forget them in their un-bracketed personal expression. Although allied to the characteristics of impressionist works they pursued their own directions along with a number of other artists who are not mentioned here. Toulouse Lautrec is of course the character who hung out at the Moulin Rouge and other notorious brothel-like clubs and drew and painted the dancers and others who frequented those establishments with their fancy outfits, top hats, and long gowns. These people appeared in paintings and lithographic posters on a regular basis. Marie Cassatt is about as far in the other direction as one could get, born of a wealthy American family, having transported herself to Europe for her art studies, she became famous for her intimate studies of family life and her wonderful pastel drawings.
For me personally Sisley and Pissarro are honest adjuncts to the greater names I've already mentioned. Their work on cityscapes and landscapes displays many of the aforementioned characteristics of dancing brushstrokes, dots of color, optical color mixing, everyday scenery, and devotion to the study of light. And also who could leave out Seurat with his monumental attack on the dot as a mode of expression for the vagaries of light effects (see Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte". Considering the nature of his work I am not surprised that he died at the age of 33!
Personally, and perhaps for many other students of art history, Paul Cézanne is possibly the most substantial of them all. Over his long and individualistic painting career, Cézanne moves progressively towards abstraction, but not to the level approached by the likes of Picasso, Dali, and Matisse. Although he paints still life's and landscapes with the occasional inclusion of houses and people, his objectivity is focused in on the two-dimensional nature of the canvas. There are so many thoughts that run through an artist’s mind while he or she is working on a piece, it is almost certain that advancements that are attributed to his work were deliberate and sequential.
His first landscapes, fitted into the traditional bracket, however, his constant and increasing forays into the disintegration of form, the distortion of form to create balance, analysis of composition, and the abstract expression of both brushstroke and color, are no accident. Through the genius of his work he set a path that led in many directions and prepared the way for the giants of modern art who came after him.
The shattering of brushstroke and abstraction of colour led to work by Matisse and the Fauves. His struggles with composition were seeds for the likes of Picasso, Braque (Cubism) and Mondrian. And the dreamlike quality of his later figurative works are a springboard for the Expressionists and Surrealists minds.
With all of the above in mind it is easy to see why the impressionists hold such an important place in art history. They are the marking point that completes a 500 year development that regards the canvas as a sort of window on the world, (and a three-dimensional representational window at that). Following their work, future artists examine the canvas as a two-dimensional surface that might be approached in a more honest fashion. That is not to say that realism is abandoned, rather they work with the realization that what is depicted on the canvas is a production of the mind rather than an illusion of reality.
Peter Marsh February 18, 2008
Wexford Collegiate School For The Arts
Impressionism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor/writer: Peter Marsh, 2008
If you go to Sheppard and Warden in Toronto to Remezzo’s family dining restaurant, you will notice the “Moulin de la Galette” a copy of a famous Impressionist painting, painted on the wall. The truth is, you will see Impressionist images, repeated as decoration all around the world, and if you are lucky, you will see the original paintings in various famous art galleries. Or maybe not, as the case may be. In this past month $163 million worth were stolen from a museum in Switzerland, and this theft included four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet. Many of these works are so coveted that some shortsighted rich people are willing to purchase them on the black market, so that they can keep them in their own cloisters for their own private viewing!
At the time the Impressionists were painting they provided a revolutionary new approach to the subject of painting. Whereas many previous painters in the preceding 500 years had approached the canvas wishing to express form as exactly drawn objects with colour applied as a skin over their surfaces, this new approach was a colour and light convention. It is sometimes hard to say why a new approach to painting suddenly emerges, and “Impressionism” might seem to be a non sequitur to “Social Realism”, however, consider the fact that painting had moved in a more painterly direction over the period since the "Neo-classicists", and additionally photography had seriously entered the field of the three-dimensional representation of an image on a two-dimensional surface. In this situation it’s not so hard to believe that artists would start thinking about the physics of light, new approaches to the two-dimensional surface, and to the application of paint.
Whereas, previously, landscapes and objects had been painted with due respect for aerial perspective and various aspects of reflection there had been little thought about how light actually works, its various daytime qualities, various daytime hues, refraction, reflection, and how the colour of an object is a composite of all the objects around it. The Impressionist, were the first set of artists to set their sights on the expression of colour and light.
Of course this is not to say that the artist in this time completely discarded social realism. Far from it, the Moulin de la Galette mentioned above was completely a contemporary painting and was for the most part painted on site. Paintings of myths and legends had long since disappeared from the mainstream and Impressionist painters not only discarded formal academic procedures, but also deliberately painted in the outdoors, and this was referred to as painting “en plein air”. One might also notice that the darker social venues of Gustave Courbet have been replaced by much happier surroundings. The subjects are enjoying a walk in the garden, a visit to the lake, or at a party at the ‘Bar at the Folies Bergères’ (by Edouard Manet ,1882). And also one might note that these artists are not striving to bring a didactic message, but instead are centering in on an analysis of painting itself. Their important work will lead to the cornerstones of 20th-century art. From their work will spring the “Fauves” movement and its “Expressionists” psychological colour, the “Cubists” with their analysis of form and composition, and the “Surrealists”, who will re-examine the meanings of reality. So although they are using everyday life as their subject matter, and examining light and color, they are actually building the foundation for vast new forms of thinking and expression.
Despite the foregoing stream of academic verbiage, the everyday bloke enjoys the paintings, because they are really joyous, colorful, and uplifting. They are full of sunshine and light and color, happy subjects, dancing brushstrokes, and delightful contemporary scenes, the likes of which had never been seen before. As a result, impressionist paintings have enjoyed unparalleled popularity and reproduction.
In the short span of a survey course it is difficult to cover adequately all the events that led to this modern movement. Suffice it to say that in the run-up we have skipped over some truly great artists like Ingres and Delacroix, Goya and Daumier, Millet and Corot, and a goodly number of other artists in other countries like Eakins, Turner, and Constable. We may see some of them in class presentations but you should also look them up for yourself, and see some of their impressive images, if you have the time.
Perhaps before moving on, we should realize that in any society a degree of acceptance has to be established for most forms of artwork. In French society in the 19th century, the highest test for any artist seeking public recognition was to attract the eye of the jurors for the annual national ‘Salon’ exhibition. Thousands of pieces were submitted for the judgment of these people. Unfortunately, as the Salon grew in popularity the requirements for acceptance grew into a sort of formula that constricted truly creative advancement. As a result by 1863 the numbers of those rejected had grown to a considerable size such that a decision was made by ‘the rejects’ to hold their own “Salon des Refusés”. Although the advisability of exhibiting with those who have been rejected is questionable, some artists were able to surmount that stigma and accrue some growing recognition for their work. One of the greats, whose ‘Le déjeuner sur l'herbe’ (Luncheon on the Grass) had been rejected by the official Salon, was Manet. This remarkable piece, which fitted the classical requirements of entry, depicted two female nude bathers, two male clothes figures, some still life objects, and somewhat idyllic scenery. But the scene was contemporary, and as such it was an affront to the moral standards of the times. This significant defiance pointed towards the abandonment of the Salon formulas, and the independence of the artist to pursue individual expression and creativity.
So by 1874, when the Impressionist formed their own society the groundwork had been laid for some truly significant new directions. Official names on the society list to be remembered for the advancement they made, include Renoir and Pissarro, Dégas, Sisley, Monet and Cezanne. The fact that Manet is not included in this group of names is truly amazing. Although he pursued the Holy Grail of the salon, his work actually made great strides in new expressions of reality using stark contrasts, visible brushstrokes, contemporary subject matter, and blatant engagement of the observer.
Monet’s “Impression Sunrise”, is one of those seminal pieces that not only gives a name to this complete movement but also marks out the characteristics of a whole lifetime of work. Those same characteristics could be listed for all the members of the group and might read as follows:
Bright and cheerful colors.
Visible dashing brushstrokes.
Contemporary subject matter.
Open-air painting.
Analysis of light effects.
Awareness of optical color mixing.
Analysis of reflections and refraction.
Emphasis on colour rather than form
Intimate scenes of everyday life
And one should also add, characteristics of 'Japanese Prints',
those being: angular viewpoints, flatness, familiar views, and stylized rendering
Monet, who is famous for his water lillies, is also known to have painted over 40 renditions of “Rouen Cathedral”, and 15 paintings of a haystack in a field: all this to study the change in quality of light on any given subject and how it might be rendered on a canvas.
Dégas, who is the draftsman of the group is famous for his paintings of figures in the ballet studio, a great portrait of the “Belleli Family”, female nude studies, and also some great renderings from the horse races.
Renoir is marked as a great colorist. Personally, I remember being stopped in my tracks by his painting “The Swing”. It is a truly scintillating combination of brushstroke and color that conjures up the dappled light falling on some figures on a beautiful sunny day. This same impression must be true of his already mentioned “Moulin de la Galette” of 1876, and his “Luncheon of the Boating Party” of 1881. Consider that none of these artists live in a vacuum, and few of them have work that stays the same for the whole of their career. Their peers and their history, push them into constantly new directions. Such is the case for Renoir, who, as he moves towards his full 78 years, creates growing abstraction with his color and brushstroke and moves away from the specific to the more monumental expression of the human form.
To these names must also be added Toulouse Lautrec and Marie Cassatt if we are not to forget them in their un-bracketed personal expression. Although allied to the characteristics of impressionist works they pursued their own directions along with a number of other artists who are not mentioned here. Toulouse Lautrec is of course the character who hung out at the Moulin Rouge and other notorious brothel-like clubs and drew and painted the dancers and others who frequented those establishments with their fancy outfits, top hats, and long gowns. These people appeared in paintings and lithographic posters on a regular basis. Marie Cassatt is about as far in the other direction as one could get, born of a wealthy American family, having transported herself to Europe for her art studies, she became famous for her intimate studies of family life and her wonderful pastel drawings.
For me personally Sisley and Pissarro are honest adjuncts to the greater names I've already mentioned. Their work on cityscapes and landscapes displays many of the aforementioned characteristics of dancing brushstrokes, dots of color, optical color mixing, everyday scenery, and devotion to the study of light. And also who could leave out Seurat with his monumental attack on the dot as a mode of expression for the vagaries of light effects (see Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte". Considering the nature of his work I am not surprised that he died at the age of 33!
Personally, and perhaps for many other students of art history, Paul Cézanne is possibly the most substantial of them all. Over his long and individualistic painting career, Cézanne moves progressively towards abstraction, but not to the level approached by the likes of Picasso, Dali, and Matisse. Although he paints still life's and landscapes with the occasional inclusion of houses and people, his objectivity is focused in on the two-dimensional nature of the canvas. There are so many thoughts that run through an artist’s mind while he or she is working on a piece, it is almost certain that advancements that are attributed to his work were deliberate and sequential.
His first landscapes, fitted into the traditional bracket, however, his constant and increasing forays into the disintegration of form, the distortion of form to create balance, analysis of composition, and the abstract expression of both brushstroke and color, are no accident. Through the genius of his work he set a path that led in many directions and prepared the way for the giants of modern art who came after him.
The shattering of brushstroke and abstraction of colour led to work by Matisse and the Fauves. His struggles with composition were seeds for the likes of Picasso, Braque (Cubism) and Mondrian. And the dreamlike quality of his later figurative works are a springboard for the Expressionists and Surrealists minds.
With all of the above in mind it is easy to see why the impressionists hold such an important place in art history. They are the marking point that completes a 500 year development that regards the canvas as a sort of window on the world, (and a three-dimensional representational window at that). Following their work, future artists examine the canvas as a two-dimensional surface that might be approached in a more honest fashion. That is not to say that realism is abandoned, rather they work with the realization that what is depicted on the canvas is a production of the mind rather than an illusion of reality.
Peter Marsh February 18, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Watercolour Painting Project
Your first practical studio project in this course is a watercolour painting.
You are required to study neoclassical architecture and its characteristics and choose one of these many (four examples above: The Hockey Hall of fame Yonge and Frint Street, Union Station on Front Street, University College, and Harthouse, both on the University of Toronto Campus, just west of Queens Park)buildings as the inspiration for a watercolour painting. To make it easier for you, I have already taken quite a number of photographs from neoclassical pieces around the city of Toronto, which include a number of buildings from the University of Toronto, The Ontario Legislature, Union Station on front Street, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and various other appropriate pieces. These photos are located on the Mac computer in our room and you are free to choose a piece from this collection and print it out on the printer. See me if you need assistance.
Once you have the image printed. You may need to “grid-up” the image, or part of the image, to a more appropriate size to fit your 15 x 11 watercolor paper. In order to be creative, feel free to render the building in any way you please, but it should be obvious that the piece you've chosen has been the inspiration for the work.
You will be issued a nice piece of watercolor paper for this project, and we will also review the use of watercolor as a medium. There are some small pamphlets on watercolor painting that I have assembled in order to summarize the use of the medium. I will assist you individually, and also make group demonstrations that will help you handle this medium.
To get started, you should do some small thumbnails, and then progress to drawing with pencil on the watercolor paper. Any use of pencil on the watercolor paper should be very light. Try not to touch the paper with greasy hands, because this will affect the application of the watercolor.
Since we have quite a bit of art history to cover it is likely that at least on some days you're painting regimen will be interrupted while we progress with more discussions about our art historical period.
Social Realism
Grade 12 Visual Art
Wexford Collegiate School For The Arts
Social Realism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor: Peter Marsh, 2008
The saints and gurus of our great religions have decided long ago that what exists in the universe is here to stay and that it is unlikely that any part of it can ever truly disappear. Based on this logic, the everyday bloke can have faith that he/she will go to heaven, but unfortunately, for the folks lined up in Courbet’s “Burial at Ornan”, (1850), perhaps his friends and relatives, they have reached one of those points in life where they have to question both their logic and their faith and decide if this ignominious burial has portent for their own lives, and their entry into the great beyond. They stand there, inert, in their own contemplation, as the minister approaches the grave with his words of final reckoning, peace, and hopeful blessings.
I think it is no mistake that the painting verges on the monochromatic. Despite the wish to couch starkness in kindlier terms it is often the case that things are either, up or down, on or off, black or white, dead or alive. The ‘black or white’ palette echoes this finality and sets the somber mood of the painting. It also gives the painting, a graphic and stark reality, fitting to the occasion if you are a social realist as Gustav Courbet was. The starkness is only relieved once by the cleverly placed red at the paintings major dynamic point, and perhaps echoed by the one third proportional division marked by the blue stockings.
Unlike its most recent predecessors, this painting is not an artificial allegory of present-day events. The clothing is contemporary, the scene is contemporary, and the people are contemporary. To do this Courbet has stepped outside the traditional field of accepted academic painting to introduce a style and thinking that will give dignity and acceptance to the everyday working person.
Courbet exudes this same egalitarian strategy in two other famous works, “Bonjour Monsieur Courbet” (1854), and “The Stonebreakers” (1850). In the first painting, we see the artist himself, both in the title and in the poses, purposely elevating his social position to the equivalent of the moneyed elite.
The lack of deference in his pose suggests immediately the obliteration of any social differences, a political belief that was dear to his heart and caused him many troubles in his life, and some say eventually killed him. Although he also painted landscapes and used a more painterly application than his predecessors, “The Stonebreakers” is another painting of the ilk he is truly famous for, because it too depicts a ‘social realist’ situation. Here, going about their daily work, are the faceless and lowly stonebreakers, elevated to the canvas like more famous ancestors, and thereby giving a slap in the face to traditional painting.
Gustav Courbet’s social realism spelled the end of both neoclassicism and romanticism. It should also be said that his work put the working class ‘on the scene’ as they struggled in difficult economic and changing times brought on by the industrial revolution. Courbet would have been sympathetic to the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the beliefs of Marxism, and his tradition was continued by the likes of Daumier, Manet, and Ben Shan and Diego Rivera. Gustav Courbet’s social realism, expressed in these three works, was a sympathetic expression of the lives of the working poor. It wasn’t a “pretty movement”, neither was it pleasant for those who did their best to understand art. Social realism was a classic new direction giving dignity to a class of human existence.
Although social realism in painting and artwork extends to this day its beginning is marked by Courbet’s life span from 1819 to 1877
Social Realism is the first great painting movement that marks the beginning of the period to be studied in Grade 12 Visual Art. It should now be easy to understand why I marched us back to the French Revolution. Social Realism was a definite departure from its neoclassical and romantic predecessors and marked the beginning of a journey towards modern times.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Grade 12 Visual Arts "Romanticism" notes
Grade 12 Visual Art
Wexford Collegiate School for The Arts
Romanticism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor: Peter Marsh, 2008
Artists are rarely stupid people. They have to know a little bit about everything to live their penurious lives and they can generally stretch a dollar a lot further than most successful business men. The great ones definitely have the innate ability to look through the muck of life and raise the significant pieces to their canvas for us all to think about. Such is the case of Theodore Gericault, who brings us the romanticism of the “Raft of the Medusa”.
To get started one has to question the nature of laws and how far their jurisdiction extends into the vagaries of being shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean without enough life boats. It was the same fictitious question that was asked of the American Supreme Court in the case of the landslide entombed spelunkian explorers who wanted to draw straws to eat each other in order to stay alive (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cse.htm). In the case of the Medusa, a French Frigate, the morals of normal society were blown away with the wind that shipwrecked them and the rule of law was rapidly reduced to ‘every man for himself’. We can read about this in the history of this real event and we can also see it clearly in the desperate humanity of the crew piled high and wide on a less than adequate raft. The boats officers have already left the scene in the only life boats available and the starving remainder is eking out their plight while hoping for rescue. And there was some cannibalism!
This true episode caused a huge stir in French society from 1816 to the 1820’s. Gericault’s painting hangs in the Louvre as the greatest of all the renderings about this incident and also as the most famous marked beginning of the period entitled “Romanticism”. Unlike its Davidian precursors the “Raft of the Medusa” is not an idyllic metaphor of the classical past, rather it contains real people, involved in a contemporary real event. Out of approximately 150 cut loose at sea about 15 survived!
Notice the characteristics of many romantic paintings that are embodied in this piece. It has some exoticism, for that period in time, in the Negro figure that hails the distant ship on the horizon (it disappeared). It has strong diagonal lines in the placement of the figures and the raft which gives the painting a dynamic quality denied to most neoclassical works. Although mute in comparison to modern terms the painting has a ‘painterly’ quality produced by the flow of brushstroke. The contrasts are dramatic. The movement is dramatic. The sky is dramatic. The poses are dramatic. The painting has a combination that fills it with emotion. And to top it off the painting has a dynamic asymmetrical balance even though it follows ‘the rule of thirds’.
You will find these characteristics in many ‘romantic’ pieces of art. When artists leave the staid and sedate they wander off into romantic expression. When Baroque and Rococo architects took the placid and classic lines of the Greek pediment and bent it, and cut it, and concaved it, they were certainly visiting personal and emotional expression, and although it appears somewhat excessive, it certainly has mystic and emotional quality not expressed in the traditional mode. The same can be said of more expressive sculptors. People like Rodin and Brancusi are certainly visiting a more personal space in their work than can be found in the lines of our classical past.
Romanticism embodied the work of many other romantic artists which we do not have time in this course to cover, but you are certainly advised to at least take a look at their work. Outside of the history of painting Romanticism is also a cultural movement trying to free itself from the miseries of industrialization, looking for a more meaningful and beautiful life. William Blake, Delacroix, and Walt Whitman are just a few of the many artistic names that are attached to Romanticism.
Even though we must move on quickly to social realism it is important to note that many of these artistic forces are running concurrently throughout history, and just because we mark the history of “Romanticism” in painting with the spectacular “Raft of the Medusa”, it doesn’t mean that romanticism as a movement was confined to this time. Actually it stretched from before the revolution at least up into the middle of the 18th Century. As I have said previously, Romanticism as a concept can be found in the work of all times and it is a fairly constant foil to its classical counterpart.
Wexford Collegiate School for The Arts
Romanticism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor: Peter Marsh, 2008
Artists are rarely stupid people. They have to know a little bit about everything to live their penurious lives and they can generally stretch a dollar a lot further than most successful business men. The great ones definitely have the innate ability to look through the muck of life and raise the significant pieces to their canvas for us all to think about. Such is the case of Theodore Gericault, who brings us the romanticism of the “Raft of the Medusa”.
To get started one has to question the nature of laws and how far their jurisdiction extends into the vagaries of being shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean without enough life boats. It was the same fictitious question that was asked of the American Supreme Court in the case of the landslide entombed spelunkian explorers who wanted to draw straws to eat each other in order to stay alive (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cse.htm). In the case of the Medusa, a French Frigate, the morals of normal society were blown away with the wind that shipwrecked them and the rule of law was rapidly reduced to ‘every man for himself’. We can read about this in the history of this real event and we can also see it clearly in the desperate humanity of the crew piled high and wide on a less than adequate raft. The boats officers have already left the scene in the only life boats available and the starving remainder is eking out their plight while hoping for rescue. And there was some cannibalism!
This true episode caused a huge stir in French society from 1816 to the 1820’s. Gericault’s painting hangs in the Louvre as the greatest of all the renderings about this incident and also as the most famous marked beginning of the period entitled “Romanticism”. Unlike its Davidian precursors the “Raft of the Medusa” is not an idyllic metaphor of the classical past, rather it contains real people, involved in a contemporary real event. Out of approximately 150 cut loose at sea about 15 survived!
Notice the characteristics of many romantic paintings that are embodied in this piece. It has some exoticism, for that period in time, in the Negro figure that hails the distant ship on the horizon (it disappeared). It has strong diagonal lines in the placement of the figures and the raft which gives the painting a dynamic quality denied to most neoclassical works. Although mute in comparison to modern terms the painting has a ‘painterly’ quality produced by the flow of brushstroke. The contrasts are dramatic. The movement is dramatic. The sky is dramatic. The poses are dramatic. The painting has a combination that fills it with emotion. And to top it off the painting has a dynamic asymmetrical balance even though it follows ‘the rule of thirds’.
You will find these characteristics in many ‘romantic’ pieces of art. When artists leave the staid and sedate they wander off into romantic expression. When Baroque and Rococo architects took the placid and classic lines of the Greek pediment and bent it, and cut it, and concaved it, they were certainly visiting personal and emotional expression, and although it appears somewhat excessive, it certainly has mystic and emotional quality not expressed in the traditional mode. The same can be said of more expressive sculptors. People like Rodin and Brancusi are certainly visiting a more personal space in their work than can be found in the lines of our classical past.
Romanticism embodied the work of many other romantic artists which we do not have time in this course to cover, but you are certainly advised to at least take a look at their work. Outside of the history of painting Romanticism is also a cultural movement trying to free itself from the miseries of industrialization, looking for a more meaningful and beautiful life. William Blake, Delacroix, and Walt Whitman are just a few of the many artistic names that are attached to Romanticism.
Even though we must move on quickly to social realism it is important to note that many of these artistic forces are running concurrently throughout history, and just because we mark the history of “Romanticism” in painting with the spectacular “Raft of the Medusa”, it doesn’t mean that romanticism as a movement was confined to this time. Actually it stretched from before the revolution at least up into the middle of the 18th Century. As I have said previously, Romanticism as a concept can be found in the work of all times and it is a fairly constant foil to its classical counterpart.
Grade 12 Visual Art
Wexford Collegiate School for The Arts
Neoclassicism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor: Peter Marsh, 2008
The modern era's rush to modernity started with the not so heraldic beginning of the period entitled “Neoclassicism”, in the late 1700’s. In many ways neoclassicism was a rush to the past rather than the future. The French Revolution of 1789 is a pretty good marker for the beginning of the modern period. It is the first great revolution of many, celebrated in the storming of the Bastille, the cutting off of heads with the guillotine, and the Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities”. Of course the American Revolution was taking place between approximately 1773 and 1800, and it is not to be discounted because in its own way it followed many of the tenets of its French counterpart. One can see immediately that both formed their own republican governments with architecture to match. So although both were throwing off the bonds of monarchial government, courts, and exorbitant taxes, they both look to the past for expression off their newfound republicanism.
Greece is famous for the initial foundations of democracy with its questioning philosophers Socrates and Plato. These thinkers and others established the rights of the individual to express an opinion. Their logical and ‘Socratic’ thinking brought about a similar architecture, constructed on idyllic proportions, carefully styled elements aimed at classical beauty, and lasting principles of design. This “classical architecture”, developed over hundreds of years, became the foundation of the same in Imperial Rome, another society based on republican government, even though it's emperors had great power. To the Greek Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian ‘orders’ the Romans added, the Roman arch, the dome, concrete, and of course massive basilicas. A thousand years later, in the 1500’s and 1600’s, the ruins all of these buildings in Italy were carefully measured and studied in order to revive the great classical stylings of the past, after a lack of equal accomplishment in the dark ages. Although it was a revival of ‘classicism’, in Italy it is called the “Renaissance”, and in the northern Netherlandish countries, it is referred to as the “Northern Renaissance”.
We shouldn't miss the point that the Northern Renaissance was preceded by the Gothic period or Medieval Period which was responsible for the development of the pointed Gothic arch. This new structural invention diverted the huge weight of the arch along thin spindles of stone to flying buttresses. This artifice should not be diminished in its importance, because it overcame the shortcomings of the massive walls of Greek and Roman architecture, and in so doing, opened the interiors of buildings to the tracery patterns and colours of huge stained-glass windows, and the spacious feelings of indoor light.
The historical period following the 1600s of the Renaissance saw a continuous stream of added opulence and styling to the basics of classical architecture. These periods are referred to as the Baroque and the Rococo. Although they are in some ways the pinnacle of artistic development they are also an expression of spending gone mad at the expense of lower levels of society. For the most part, it wasn't the working people who enjoyed the extravagance of these architectural excesses (filled with paintings, sculpture, and gold leaf). It was inevitable that it would come to a blunt end, and that happened in Europe with the French Revolution. Although revolution began in France and America, it was an alert to all other countries conducting themselves in the same manner. Although there is a continuous stream of revolutions in the world, the last great one in the period we are studying is the Russian Revolution of 1917. That is, of course, if you don’t count the two world wars, which also figure greatly in artistic expression.
We are officially studying the period 1850 to 1970, but it seems prudent to start with the French Revolution in 1789, for although it may seem today that modern society is aimless in its direction, it is far easier to look back and sum up what happened in a given era. The voices of the future may have a far different view of today than what we have. In the case of the French, it is easy to look back and say that they got rid of a monarchy and established, at the beginning, republican government. However, this sums up 20 years in 28 words, and the times were far more difficult than the sentence. What we can see in retrospect, however, is a definite nod to the classical past.
Jacques-Lois David is renowned not only as a great artist but also as the propaganda mouthpiece for the new republic. Ironically in this leap into the future David employed the great lessons and myths of the past as expressed in Greek and Roman mythology. You can check this out for yourself in the painting “The Oath of The Horatii”. In this painting you will encounter all the characteristics of classicism, and in order to discuss the artwork of the times intelligently, you will need to remember some points, and here are a dozen that may be useful in discussing “Neoclassicism”:
1. Reference to the classical past.
2. Static rather than dynamic planes.
3. Depiction of classical architecture.
4. Classical, formal or symmetrical balance.
5. Logical rather than emotional, or at least emotions under control.
6. Realistic and relatively subdued colour.
7. Little reliance on brushstroke as a strong element of design in the work.
8. Generally a polished or smooth surface.
9. A peaceful, static, or still, ‘overall feeling’ to the piece
10. A great knowledge of human anatomy, and the drawing of objects with relation to ‘form’.
11. Excellent control of linear and aerial perspective.
12. The artist is painting for a patron rather than for himself/herself.
See if you can decide some of the ways these characteristics are apparent in the Oath of the Horatii below:
Can you see the symmetrical balance?
Three figures on the left, three swords in the middle, three figures on the right?
Three archways housing each grouping?
Each plane is parallel to the picture surface?
Roman costuming painted in 1789!
Classical architecture?
Representational painting with no brushstrokes evident? (you can see them when you view the painting in person if you step closer to the painting, but they are smoothed out carefully)
Painted for a purpose at the time (sacrifice of the person for the good of the republic)
As far as Neoclassical Architecture goes one could immediately refer to the design of The Arch De Triomphe, which although constructed 30 years later was designed in 1806, and was modeled after the Roman Arch of Titus circa 80 AD. The Washington Capitol Building (started in 1793) is also a great example of neoclassical architecture of the time. Neoclassical painting had a much shorter life than neoclassical architecture, and was probably more or less gone with the advent of “romanticism”, but was certainly dead with the arrival of Gustav Courbet and his “social realism”. This is not true of Neoclassical Architecture which continued successfully until well into the twentieth century, Union Station, with its great Roman Barrel Vault being started in 1914, and opened by the Prince of Wales in 1927!
Neoclassical architecture has been so successful that you can find it around the world; likely in every country of the world. It has been used by countries and banks to exude an aura of strength and security, by religions to attach us to our past and take us into our futures, and by every house in Toronto as a welcoming front porch. In fact neoclassicism has lasted up until the present and its elements can be seen in postmodern construction. But its use is now limited, because building methods and cultural stylings have been massively revamped since the establishment of the Bauhaus in 1925. Many neoclassical buildings unlike their historical counterparts have been built over a steel frame. In these cases, the decorative classical outside is just a pretty façade overlaying a steel structure. This construction method was used time and again over a century and a half from the time of the French Revolution until the 1925 German Bauhaus began a revolutionary examination of modern materials and media. This school marked the death knell of neoclassicism and the modern search of the global “International Style”. Visitors to every modern city can readily see great examples of our neoclassical past and our ‘international style’ future.
You can improve your artistic vocabulary by learning some of the words that describe classical architecture. Generally, the three steps at the bottom of classical building are referred to as the stylobate and stereobate. Columns are made of drums, sometimes have flutes, and always have a capital. They are surmounted by an architrave, triglyphs, metopes, pediments, sculpture, coffered ceilings, acroteria, and various other bits and pieces. Each complete design is called an ‘order’. There are three orders each recognizable by the capitals on their columns. The bowl shaped capital is the Doric order. The capital with the curly volutes is the Ionic order. The capital with the spray of acanthus leafs is called the Corinthian order.
The period referred to as neoclassicism is followed by the period referred to as romanticism. Classicism and romanticism are concepts that continuously repeat themselves throughout art history. On the one hand, classicism offers a worldview that insists on order, logic, balance, calmness, formality, and organization. For most people, this is not a realistic view of the world. We all find that this idyllic viewpoint is continuously interrupted by the unexpected, the serendipitous, the chaotic, and the emotional occurrences of everyday life. The logical and the emotional are continuously at odds with one another, both within individual people, within societies, and between countries of the world. As a result, the art history of the world consists of a continuous flow of artistic expression that mirrors these battles.
You would be wise to look for expressions of classicism and romanticism while following the periods we will discuss. You may find them in Social Realism Impressionism, the Fauves, Art Nouveau, Dada, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop and OP. Although the Times change societies have an architectonic structure that cannot be avoided in the discussion of Art.
Wexford Collegiate School for The Arts
Neoclassicism: a quick summary for your notes
Instructor: Peter Marsh, 2008
The modern era's rush to modernity started with the not so heraldic beginning of the period entitled “Neoclassicism”, in the late 1700’s. In many ways neoclassicism was a rush to the past rather than the future. The French Revolution of 1789 is a pretty good marker for the beginning of the modern period. It is the first great revolution of many, celebrated in the storming of the Bastille, the cutting off of heads with the guillotine, and the Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities”. Of course the American Revolution was taking place between approximately 1773 and 1800, and it is not to be discounted because in its own way it followed many of the tenets of its French counterpart. One can see immediately that both formed their own republican governments with architecture to match. So although both were throwing off the bonds of monarchial government, courts, and exorbitant taxes, they both look to the past for expression off their newfound republicanism.
Greece is famous for the initial foundations of democracy with its questioning philosophers Socrates and Plato. These thinkers and others established the rights of the individual to express an opinion. Their logical and ‘Socratic’ thinking brought about a similar architecture, constructed on idyllic proportions, carefully styled elements aimed at classical beauty, and lasting principles of design. This “classical architecture”, developed over hundreds of years, became the foundation of the same in Imperial Rome, another society based on republican government, even though it's emperors had great power. To the Greek Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian ‘orders’ the Romans added, the Roman arch, the dome, concrete, and of course massive basilicas. A thousand years later, in the 1500’s and 1600’s, the ruins all of these buildings in Italy were carefully measured and studied in order to revive the great classical stylings of the past, after a lack of equal accomplishment in the dark ages. Although it was a revival of ‘classicism’, in Italy it is called the “Renaissance”, and in the northern Netherlandish countries, it is referred to as the “Northern Renaissance”.
We shouldn't miss the point that the Northern Renaissance was preceded by the Gothic period or Medieval Period which was responsible for the development of the pointed Gothic arch. This new structural invention diverted the huge weight of the arch along thin spindles of stone to flying buttresses. This artifice should not be diminished in its importance, because it overcame the shortcomings of the massive walls of Greek and Roman architecture, and in so doing, opened the interiors of buildings to the tracery patterns and colours of huge stained-glass windows, and the spacious feelings of indoor light.
The historical period following the 1600s of the Renaissance saw a continuous stream of added opulence and styling to the basics of classical architecture. These periods are referred to as the Baroque and the Rococo. Although they are in some ways the pinnacle of artistic development they are also an expression of spending gone mad at the expense of lower levels of society. For the most part, it wasn't the working people who enjoyed the extravagance of these architectural excesses (filled with paintings, sculpture, and gold leaf). It was inevitable that it would come to a blunt end, and that happened in Europe with the French Revolution. Although revolution began in France and America, it was an alert to all other countries conducting themselves in the same manner. Although there is a continuous stream of revolutions in the world, the last great one in the period we are studying is the Russian Revolution of 1917. That is, of course, if you don’t count the two world wars, which also figure greatly in artistic expression.
We are officially studying the period 1850 to 1970, but it seems prudent to start with the French Revolution in 1789, for although it may seem today that modern society is aimless in its direction, it is far easier to look back and sum up what happened in a given era. The voices of the future may have a far different view of today than what we have. In the case of the French, it is easy to look back and say that they got rid of a monarchy and established, at the beginning, republican government. However, this sums up 20 years in 28 words, and the times were far more difficult than the sentence. What we can see in retrospect, however, is a definite nod to the classical past.
Jacques-Lois David is renowned not only as a great artist but also as the propaganda mouthpiece for the new republic. Ironically in this leap into the future David employed the great lessons and myths of the past as expressed in Greek and Roman mythology. You can check this out for yourself in the painting “The Oath of The Horatii”. In this painting you will encounter all the characteristics of classicism, and in order to discuss the artwork of the times intelligently, you will need to remember some points, and here are a dozen that may be useful in discussing “Neoclassicism”:
1. Reference to the classical past.
2. Static rather than dynamic planes.
3. Depiction of classical architecture.
4. Classical, formal or symmetrical balance.
5. Logical rather than emotional, or at least emotions under control.
6. Realistic and relatively subdued colour.
7. Little reliance on brushstroke as a strong element of design in the work.
8. Generally a polished or smooth surface.
9. A peaceful, static, or still, ‘overall feeling’ to the piece
10. A great knowledge of human anatomy, and the drawing of objects with relation to ‘form’.
11. Excellent control of linear and aerial perspective.
12. The artist is painting for a patron rather than for himself/herself.
See if you can decide some of the ways these characteristics are apparent in the Oath of the Horatii below:
Can you see the symmetrical balance?
Three figures on the left, three swords in the middle, three figures on the right?
Three archways housing each grouping?
Each plane is parallel to the picture surface?
Roman costuming painted in 1789!
Classical architecture?
Representational painting with no brushstrokes evident? (you can see them when you view the painting in person if you step closer to the painting, but they are smoothed out carefully)
Painted for a purpose at the time (sacrifice of the person for the good of the republic)
As far as Neoclassical Architecture goes one could immediately refer to the design of The Arch De Triomphe, which although constructed 30 years later was designed in 1806, and was modeled after the Roman Arch of Titus circa 80 AD. The Washington Capitol Building (started in 1793) is also a great example of neoclassical architecture of the time. Neoclassical painting had a much shorter life than neoclassical architecture, and was probably more or less gone with the advent of “romanticism”, but was certainly dead with the arrival of Gustav Courbet and his “social realism”. This is not true of Neoclassical Architecture which continued successfully until well into the twentieth century, Union Station, with its great Roman Barrel Vault being started in 1914, and opened by the Prince of Wales in 1927!
Neoclassical architecture has been so successful that you can find it around the world; likely in every country of the world. It has been used by countries and banks to exude an aura of strength and security, by religions to attach us to our past and take us into our futures, and by every house in Toronto as a welcoming front porch. In fact neoclassicism has lasted up until the present and its elements can be seen in postmodern construction. But its use is now limited, because building methods and cultural stylings have been massively revamped since the establishment of the Bauhaus in 1925. Many neoclassical buildings unlike their historical counterparts have been built over a steel frame. In these cases, the decorative classical outside is just a pretty façade overlaying a steel structure. This construction method was used time and again over a century and a half from the time of the French Revolution until the 1925 German Bauhaus began a revolutionary examination of modern materials and media. This school marked the death knell of neoclassicism and the modern search of the global “International Style”. Visitors to every modern city can readily see great examples of our neoclassical past and our ‘international style’ future.
You can improve your artistic vocabulary by learning some of the words that describe classical architecture. Generally, the three steps at the bottom of classical building are referred to as the stylobate and stereobate. Columns are made of drums, sometimes have flutes, and always have a capital. They are surmounted by an architrave, triglyphs, metopes, pediments, sculpture, coffered ceilings, acroteria, and various other bits and pieces. Each complete design is called an ‘order’. There are three orders each recognizable by the capitals on their columns. The bowl shaped capital is the Doric order. The capital with the curly volutes is the Ionic order. The capital with the spray of acanthus leafs is called the Corinthian order.
The period referred to as neoclassicism is followed by the period referred to as romanticism. Classicism and romanticism are concepts that continuously repeat themselves throughout art history. On the one hand, classicism offers a worldview that insists on order, logic, balance, calmness, formality, and organization. For most people, this is not a realistic view of the world. We all find that this idyllic viewpoint is continuously interrupted by the unexpected, the serendipitous, the chaotic, and the emotional occurrences of everyday life. The logical and the emotional are continuously at odds with one another, both within individual people, within societies, and between countries of the world. As a result, the art history of the world consists of a continuous flow of artistic expression that mirrors these battles.
You would be wise to look for expressions of classicism and romanticism while following the periods we will discuss. You may find them in Social Realism Impressionism, the Fauves, Art Nouveau, Dada, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop and OP. Although the Times change societies have an architectonic structure that cannot be avoided in the discussion of Art.
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