Mabunda Goncalo, Untitled, 2011, Mozambique

This is a mask made by Goncalo Mabunda, in Mozambique. I chose this piece because a good friend of mine had a great collection of masks from places she’d traveled to around the world, and this reminded me of her. After reading a bit about it, I found that it was made from pieces of decommissioned, wielded weapons. So this piece also has lots of history behind each piece of it and can make many great statements about the battles and casualties of the African continent. Mabunda worked with decommissioned weapons from the 16 year civil war in Mozambique, and some see his art as both political symbolism and a positive message of transformation from warring states to a more peaceful or humanized state.

http://www.jackbellgallery.com/artists/29-Gon%C3%A7alo-Mabunda/overview/

This is a 50000 Zaire bill carved in wood and inked, it is 19″ x 39″ x 1″ and I chose it because I enjoy finance, and while looking through all of the African art and being unable to relate to it, I found these carvings of several different countries’ currencies and thought: “hah! love it!” He’s making ‘big money’ get it?

When asked about why the big money he responded: “Some rich people put their money in a vault. This money is dormant and loses value. I ask these rich people to surrender part of this money to me and I will carve them money of wood which they can live with and show to others. And this wooden money will also acquire value.”

http://www.caacart.com/pigozzi-artist.php?i=Ngetchopa-Jean-Baptiste&bio=en&m=63

In this post I will showcase a couple Classical Realist artists.

Graydon Parrish, Remorse, Despondence and the Acceptance of an Early Death, 1999, Mead Art Museum

First up: Graydon Parrish, born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1970, but spent most of his childhood in Texas.  His parents’ collection of European 19th century art exposed him to art at a young age and influenced his choice to pursue art academically. He graduated Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in 1988 and then  joined other students who’ve become leaders in the classical art revival at the newly formed New York Academy of Art. After graduating in New York, Parrish went on to study at Amherst College for a B.A. in independent studies. His thesis painting, Remorse, Despondence and the Acceptance of an Early Death, was purchased by trustees of the Mead Art Museum, and is exhibited there.

Graydon Parrish, Victory, 2002, Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas

Unknown sculptor, Athlete crowning himself, 300-100BCE, Getty museum

Parish’s work is very obviously influenced by classical style. He creates many nudes, and the physique and postures of his subjects are very beautiful and elegant. Victory (left), another of his works, was actually influenced by the ancient Greek bronze statue: “An Athlete Crowning Himself” (right), making his work, again, even more obviously classically influenced.

My personal favorite of Parrish’s work, and what I think best shows his talent, but also arguably conceptual art, is his The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001. In this painting he has plenty of conceptualistic flavors, but it is also very classically painted. He says this painting “represents the endless cycle of human frailty; how we are blind to tragic events, no matter in what form and no matter how many have come before.” It is very clear what this means when looking at the painting (below).

Graydon Parrish, The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001, New Britain Museum of American Art

Next up: Jacob Collins, born in 1964 in New York City. He comes from a family of artists and scholars, and knew from a young age that he wanted to be an artist. He studied at the New York Studio School after graduating from The Dalton School, an Ivy League preparatory school. Then he moved on to earn a B.A. from Columbia University, and also attended the New York Academy of Art and joined the Art Students League of New York.

Unlike Parrish, Collins has a broader scope of works. Collins’ work, Yellow House at Thompson’s Point in Sunshine (below) is a landscape style oil painting. The shadows on the house from the trees make the painting feel as if the viewer is there in the picture, or looking at a photograph. I see this realism in many paintings by Jacob Collins, such as Candace (2004, unknown location), where some of the painting looks like a painting, but if you look at the crucifix on her neck; or in Richard (2011, unknown location) with his facial features and lighting, it again looks like a photograph.

Jacob Collins, Yellow House at Thompson’s Point in Sunshine, 2012, Adelson Galleries, New York, NY

While Collins seems to be better known than Parrish for his works of Classical Realism, I enjoy Parrish’s pieces more due to the closer ties to actual classical paintings and painters. With Parrish’s work, one could mistake it for an actual piece from the Classical era if the viewer misses the modern subjects (like the planes and cityscape in The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001).

Dorothea Lange – Migrant Mother, 1936, California

Dorothea Lange’s existence is probably best known only because of the Great Depression causing President Roosevelt to create many administrative bodies to give work to newly unemployed workers, namely the Resettlement Administration (Kennedy Center).  The Resettlement Administration, later the Farm Security Administration paid Dorothea Lange to travel around the country to take pictures to record the conditions caused by the Great Depression.

Perhaps her most famous picture is Migrant Mother where she took a picture of Florence Owens Thompson with her kids in their lean-to tent in Nipomo Valley, California (Library of Congress). The woman’s husband had died of tuberculosis while pregnant with her 6th child and she had remarried to have a total 7 children at the time the iconic picture was taken. Her husband and two of her sons had taken the radiator of their car to get repaired while they waited in the pea-picking camp.

While the Mrs. Thompson was destitute, and had 7 children at the time, she was later able to claim that Lange’s facts weren’t all correct. For example, Lange had noted that the woman had sold her tires to buy food, but they had not. Mrs. Thompson didn’t claim she had lied or anything though, but instead thinks she simply mixed up some of her stories.

I chose this piece because of its depiction of the entire era. The people were hard working, and good mannered. Dorothea Lange’s photography showed more about emotion and character than anything else. She captured it right!

Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

Kennedy Center, http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/students/features/master-work/lange-migrant-mother.aspx

1855 France, Gustave Corbet – The Painter’s Studio

I am a bit on the fence on whether or not I like Impressionism. I like some paintings, and not others. When Corbet made his realist paintings, he was starting to create his Impressionist style while mashing the paint together on the canvas, giving the canvas texture, and trying to steer away from the stereotypical scenes of the day. I really enjoy political art, like The Painter’s Studio above, wherein Napoleon is portrayed as a poacher for taking the government the way he did (Matthew Collings).

For example, I really like the Portrait of Juliette Courbet that Corbet did in 1944 (at left), before he started moving towards his newer methods of painting. It seems to be more real, clear, and is an all around wonderful painting compared to the clarity of an Impressionists work. In contrast, Saint-Georges Majeur au crépuscule by Monet in 1908 (below this paragraph), is an Post-Impressionist painting, where even if you stand back from the piece, it is still messy with its looser brush strokes (Coursework). I could not really see what that sunset would look like, and while it is vivid and a wonderful piece, I see things in a high clarity that this simply doesn’t start to represent.

So, to summarize, while I enjoy the subject matter of Impressionism, I do not care for the technique used to make the Post-Impressionism paintings. I actually like almost all of Corbet’s paintings, and very few of Monet’s.

Matthew Collings – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7BSdUjWpN0Q
Coursework – http://amtf200.community.uaf.edu/2009/05/05/533-impressionistic-painters/

My wife and I in front of a painting of Napleon at Les Invalides (Also Napoleon’s tomb) in September 2012, but I could not find any information about this particular piece online, so unfortunately I have no artist or date. The painting depicts Napoleon on a horse in a field.

This post will be centered on the growing economic power of the middle classes in the 1700s. Specifically in France, because I have some show-and-tell items.

While the middle classes were getting more and more enraged with the ruling powers in France, they were getting more and more restless as well. All of this culminating in the French Revolution with very bloody beheadings of thousands of aristocrats and noble-people, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette (French Revolution).

Napoleon Bonaparte I, best known for his campaigns across Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt, staged a coup d’etat against the Directory of France and was able to get the Council of Ancients to make him First Council. He was able to bring France back to order and ending the French Revolution.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres – Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne. 1806 Paris, France. This painting was about 8ft tall! If you look at the picture, you can see the floor and the ceiling. This piece is very intricate, you can make out minute details all over it, and there is symbolism in his carrying Charlemagne’s scepter and the Hand of Justice.

The next step in his glory was to be elected Emperor in 1804, because of the change in governments. He believed in a “government for the people,” but not in a “government by the people.”

After Napoleon became Emperor, the economic gap between the middle and ruling classes in France were much tighter. The middle classes were now much better able to be patrons of the arts as well as the ruling classes had been for years prior.

The reason I chose these three pieces were because my wife and I recently went to Paris and we happened upon the Armory, and Napoleon’s Tomb, where we saw many paintings and armors, as well as diagrams of Napoleon’s battles. I just wanted to showcase them to some people who may appreciate them more than most!

This painting, titled: Napoleon, was painted after his death by Delaroche in 1845 (he died in 1821) Paris, France. He is tired, relaxing, stressed even. I think the artist was trying to reportray him as a man of the people.

French Revolution, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

Napoleon Bonaparte I, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Bonaparte

Artemisia Gentileschi – Allegory of Peace and the Arts under the English Crown, circa 1638-1641

I really looked for a piece from Artemisia Gentileschi to write about in this week’s blog, and it was between this or Judith Beheading Holofernes.  Although both of these pieces were very obviously created for Royalty (The Allegory of Peace and the Arts Under the English Crown by Charles I of England, and Judith Beheading Holofernes by the Medici family in Florence),  I chose this one because it would be a bit more challenging (Mozzarellamamma.com). Here you can see artists, musicians, and heavenly figures relaxing and enjoying peace and art.  I really wish I could have found a larger resolution version of this ceiling!

This is The Allegory of Peace and the Arts Under the English Crown by Artemisia Gentileschi and her father, it is a ceiling piece done for Charles I’s wife Queen Henrietta Maria of England. It was originally painted in the Queen’s home in Greenwich, and now presides in the Marlborough House in London (MMDTKW.org).

Orazio was the painter of the English court, and Artemisia was called to court by Charles I probably for her fame at the time. This painting was the last that Artemisia and her father would work on together, as he died a year into painting this, and she finished two years later.

Mozzarellamamma.com, http://www.mozzarellamamma.com/2013/artemisia-gentileschi-an-italian-heroine/

MMDTKW.org, http://www.mmdtkw.org/RenRomUnit0700-0PixList.html

Christ in Limbo, Follower of Hieronymus Bosch

This is one of my favorite paintings from the Renaissance period, because it is creative, and visionary for the time. It depicts Christ entering the gates of Hell and telling them the good news of his unlocking the gates of heaven (Wiki).  This is Limbo, where people who were in God’s Favor would go if they lived before Jesus’ time, and he would go to unlock the Gates of Heaven for them to join him. This is what ensured that those before Christ would be able to get to Heaven. It’s a fantastic outline of what was considered taboo at the time, there are butchers skinning and bleeding people, demons tempting humans with gambling, and limbs and bugs all over the place!

This painting was actually painted by a ‘Follower of Bosch,’ but is often credited to Bosch because it was his style that was reborn in a ‘Bosch Revival” period in the mid 16th century.  If you were to search Google for “Christ in Limbo – Bosch” you would find that there are actually several paintings similar to this one, all with similar aspects. They usually contain a gateway with or without Christ’s presence; the burning city in the background, I presume it is the next level of Hell; and also the centerpiece that no one can miss, the giant mouth with people lined up in front of it and inside.

The piece was painted in the Netherlands (Philadelphia Museum of Art) a little before the Reformation. The reason there are several types of these paintings, and that there are none directly from Bosch, or directly to anyone, or a way to link them to anyone even, is because of the Reformation. During the Reformation, iconoclasm was common and many unknown works were lost, the ones that were saved were hidden away from the religious coups.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/103623.html

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Christ In Limbo by Hieronymus Bosch, 1575. Image:http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/christ-limbo-bosch-hieronymus

I believe that music can be just as influential as words in determining mood and actions of human behaviors. You can often ask people what kind of music they like to listen to, and see that people dress and think along the lines of the music they like. Actions and moods are different though, these are more affected by what they are listening to, not what they like to listen to.

If someone says they like to listen to rap, one could assume that they are listening to a lot of negative actions being depicted. And, if they listen to all kinds of Eminem, they will hear some negative actions taking place. On the other hand, if they like Eminem, it doesn’t mean they listen to it constantly, they could be listening to Yanni full time and have a perfect day every day! I would like to see more studies done on music’s influence on people’s moods on a daily basis though, because I would bet that every type of music can correlate a new mood.

Artists and musicians should not have to worry about how people will react to their art. It is unfair to the entire idea (in my opinion) that an artist should ever have to think about such things. This would mean they are focusing on what society wants out of their art instead of what their art will be contributing to society.

Aristotle and Plato believe that music should be censored to only allow works that speak or depict good actions and good morals. I wholly understand their ideas, but censorship is never good. Unfortunately there are a lot of arts that promote negative actions, and in a democratic state, where the dollar is the vote, the masses want more negative actions. In this light, one could argue that the entire state of the nation can be credited to music.