It seems as though Jules Cheret started the trend of using women in advertising. As Prof. Triff stated in class...when you look at these posters "it makes you want to go there", I do believe that is what Cheret's posters create. The women he depicts are not being used in a sexual way to advertise these places and things, but rather in a free, fun loving way which I think was very liberating for those times. Women were probably not used to seeing themselves portrayed that way. He uses colors that compliment, bright colors, fun "free" text. The text he used for the titles on the poster (the larger text) immitates the movement of the women. Eventhough these posters are very old and created a long time ago, they can still be looked at today by present day designers as inspiration for advertising now.
Nicolas Tesla (1856-1943) demonstrated his Tesla Coil in 1891 one year before Jean Delville painted this “Portrait of Madame Stuart Merrill”. Tesla’s machine produced high voltage currents which would among other things make your hair stand on end. Tesla believed in the occult and was easily discredited when he later came into confrontation with America’s favorite inventor, Thomas Edison.
In addition to electrical phenomenology this image has many trappings of the occult: a) The old black book with triangle inscription. b) The eyes in a hypnotic extreme upward position. c) The triangular blemish less adolescent angelic face contrasts with a receding hairline of a wasted older woman d) The long witch like fingers clutching the book and frame the face e) A supernatural radiance appears to extent outward beyond the hair.
The symmetry about the midline enhances the primitive power of the image. There is less vertical symmetry but the triangle appears to balance the face and the blue cyan shirt balances and emphasized the cyan eyes. This composition suggests that the painting may serve some mysterious pre-Raphaelite purpose. The framing is also non traditional with the image spilling over the frame.
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec's poster art is without a doubt a staple within graphic design. When I clicked on his name though I was surprised to find his art work, not only his poster work. I'd always known his posters but never his art so i clicked on a few and was amazed with his line quality, color choice and figural depictions. It is truly a recognizable style yet still different than his poster work. In his paintings an or drawings he seemed to have a rougher sort of style and not quite as clean and simple as his posters which leaves his paintings to convey this emotion within his subject matter, style and development not quite depicted in his posters. And to think he was doing these style drawings hundred some odd years ago, people copy his style to this day.
The design of Beardsley’s work seems simple, mainly black ink on white paper with limited color in some of his pieces. Upon further inspection, there is great detail in each work. Beardsley created depth by juxtaposing lights and darks as well as detail and simplicity. Alongside an almost vacant area usually sits an area of great detail in each of his pieces. Detail is also very apparent in the facial expressions of his subjects. The strong, emotional facial expressions rival the traditionally serene and simple expressions pictured on work of other artists depicting Asian women.
For someone who was seemingly asexual, Beardsley’s work displayed a fair amount of sexuality. It is possible that Beardsley was retreating into a different world, a world filled with sexuality that he never experienced. Beardsley was an artist of the Decadence movement so it is probable that this world of sexuality was where he found his relief. He was such a young man when he became ill and eventually died, that he was probably unable to experience many things experience by other men his age. For this reason it would make sense that he used his artwork to imagine things he never experienced or felt.
Detail is also very apparent in the facial expressions of his subjects. The strong, emotional facial expressions rival the traditionally serene and simple expressions pictured on work of other artists depicting Asian women.
Jean Delville’s Portrait of Madame Stuart Merrill caught my attention because two things; (1) the obvious inspiration of the occult and (2) it reminds me of Rand’s “Eye Bee M” poster. For the occult, if not noted through the triangle on the black book, than Madame Stuart Merrill’s facial expression, electrifying red hair, or her soulless grey eyes give off the impression of mysticism. Therefore, everything on the portrait conveys his message… even the pale colors seem to bring the essence of spirituality. Compared to the “Eye Bee M” poster of a more recent (yet no so since it is from 1981), they both seem to have the concept of directness through a symbolical technique. Both very interesting artwork. The IBM is composed it figures representing each letter while Delville has the thaumaturgic triangle that is known to be used to cast spells and summons demons and usually near ritual sites.
Aubrey Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. Most of his images are done in ink, and feature large dark areas contrasted with large blank ones, and areas of fine detail contrasted with areas with none at all.His later works definately did the opposite for the woman image then Jules Cheret did. They portrayed women in an erotic way, while Cheret's poster ads depicted women as strong, lively creatures. I like his work though cause although he seems a little sick in the head his images are so complex. He surely has a great talent and a sturdy hand. His Peacock Skirt from 1892 was my favorite shown because the image can also be looked at as negative and positive space since it is in black and white and there are huge contrasts of filled and open spaces. If you look at it from afar or with your eyes slightyly squinting you see a unique design rather two women. You can definatley see his Japanese shunga influence in this drawing.
Like many other Art Nouveau artists of the 19th century, Grasset decided to portray women in his artwork differently than the previously conservative, homely matron. While Jules Chéret was showing the free, fun loving gal as basically a prototype of the modern “sex sells” advertisement chick, Grasset took to a look of more natural appearing beauty and thoughtfulness. The pure elegance of the figure captured in his 1894 print, “The Art of Drawing”, is undeniable – here you see a private moment between a young female artist as she studies a long stemmed plant. Her facial expression is deep in her own thoughts, and the big smiles of Chéret’s girls are nowhere to be found. Instead, her lips are pursed tightly, eyes wide and transfixed by the detail on the leafy buds held in her beautifully expressive left hand, while a sketchbook and pen are held tightly by her right. This girl has a real personality, which is what sets Grasset apart from the pretty, happy, yet mostly fake expressions of other artists of the time.
Mucha’s style is essentially just a florid cartoon, the look of it was very faddish and became unpopular even before his death. His real genius was in his ability to operate within a confined area. It is uncomfortable in a way to see all the beautiful flowing designs trapped within a rectangle. I think it very fitting for the subjects he chose as well. He always depicted females, graceful confined, which must be speaking about the position of women in the time period. His work has a distinct split between its purpose, those created for commercial patrons or those created out of leisure. I think the commercial art is just as successful, if not more than his other works. The Mucha style would work well today as commercial art; the works could easily be used today as a label, because of their limited dimensions, on a high end product just as easily as it did one hundred years ago. See "http://dump.poquette.net/Mucha_Moet_and_Chandon_Cremant_Imperial_1899_23x60.8cm.jpg" --Raymond Mathews
As news outlets are swarmed with news about the Obama momentum, super-delegates, Chavez versus Exxon, Iraq and heaven forbid we forget...Britney Spears, one news event has really captured my attention:
ZURICH ART ROBBERY (Monday)
"Armed robbers stole paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from a Zurich museum, police said Monday, calling it a "spectacular art robbery."
I decided to expand on this current and relevant subject but start it off with one of my favorite artists of all time, Johannes Vermeer.
Not only was he a great painter, but as we talked about in the last class, Vermeer used photographic approaches to measure and compose his paintings. Very few people can draw a perfect tile floor from side perspective without natural talent.
Art, its preservation, authenticity and protection (not to mention the increasing value of paintings) is probably one of the most fascinating subjects in art, design and for us students being a part of the world's creative class it should be of interest.
An excerpt from art historian Simon Houpt’s book, Museum of the Missing:
"Until one late winter night in 1990, a frame held The Concert, one of only thirty-six known works of Johannes Vermeer. Like so many of his paintings, it is famously enigmatic. It quietly imposes itself on the viewer, insisting on contemplation. In the Dutch Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, a wide-backed chair sits in front of the easel, placed there so that a visitor might pause to reflect on its secrets.
Now if you go to the Gardner, you will see a heartbreaking tableau: that chair staring up at an empty frame, as if in eternal contemplation of the loss. Imagine you could collect all of those stolen lost works together in one place. You would have a world-class museum. It would hold one hundred and fifty Rembrandts and five hundred Picassos. You could stroll through the Renaissance galleries to admire Raphael’s and Titians, da Vincis and Durers, Rubenses and Caravaggios. The Impressionist section would include works by Renoir and Degas, Monet and Manet and Matisse, Pissarro and his friend Cezanne. Skip your way to the history of Western art via Vermeer, van Gogh, Constable and Turner, Dali and Miro, Pollock and Warhol…"
Ever since human beings started to record and collect their own artistic manifestations, the value of them becomes almost impossible to number.
Paintings become a breath, a whiff of the past, a generation-binding statement and in some occasions, a stand-alone memoir of years, people, eras, values and talent gone by. Author P.B. Coreman’s and writer of Van Meergeren’s Faked Vermeer’s and De Hooghs’ summarizes this phenomenon.
“The time is not long past when only two acceptable criteria existed for the appreciation of works of art-the aesthetic, including the study of style, form and color, and the history of art, which placed various works in the proper historical frame and reviewed the relevant documents.”
What binds the future generations to conserve them? Their quality and historic value. So as human beings continue to collect, rescue, fight for and revive paintings, their value and history becomes an institution by itself and the painter becomes a master and a protégé of the art world.
In his History of the Restoration and Conservation of Works of Art, Alessandro Conti says, “In attending to the neglected history of the survival of works of art over time [one] can achieve two goals. The first to make us critically aware of how knowledge and response to the art of the past is framed by the interventions of previous generations. The second is to demonstrate that the afterlife of paintings is a wider constituent of a wider cultural history.”
Henry Van de Velde was not only a painter, but also an architect and interior designer. I feel that having these traits allowed for him to feel comfortable with his skills and pursue a design aberration. Just looking at his poster for Tropon food concentrate, one can see a confident, bold differ from the past. His design was completely ahead of his time. His flowing strokes and font have a 1970’s look much more modernized than the turn of the 19th century. The complimentary yellow and purple colors interact to draw the viewer in. The sort of melting flow drips down in a hypnotizing fashion. When looking at this poster I just couldn’t keep my eyes off of it, constantly looking from one thing to the next. Aside from the wispy dreamlike curves, the top contains a very spacey font with hard curves and angular edges. A stiff maze-like backdrop creates even more visual tension. This bounces off with the curves creating a complete eye drawing exchange
It's really interesting to me the architectural work from the modernist or art nouveau movements. The natural element is so obvious, and so different from the previous styles. It represents very well the revolution of thought that was happening at that time. The work with metal is extremely fine, and they make it look so organic, like forgetting its properties. Even today it's difficult to find such crafty designs. This is more likely because we have gone trough different revolutions and art moved away from the naturalistic view and today for instance we can see that architecture is extremely minimalist and functional, it is much boxier, opposed to the soft and curvilinear style of the art nouveau, but it still retains some of that connection to the nature.
I noticed the work by Randolph Caldecott. I love the inviting colors and the strong lines he uses. The illustrations tell the story so well I wonder if I even need to read the story itself. Caldecott was a very influential illustrator of the Victorian Era. Caldecott, along with Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway were the three biggest contributors of children’s book illustrations in the late Victorian time period.
Caldecott was so successful and well-known during his time that children would eagerly await Christmas because that was the day that he released two books he illustrated. These books continued to come out on the same day for eight years, with lines of excited children.
Randolph died at a very young age. He was not even forty when he died from a severe chill received in northern Florida. Some of the admirers of his work included artists such as Gaugin and Van Gough. His death was such a tragedy that his friends had Sir Alfred Gilbert design a memorial in his honor. It was placed in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Another, more famous, tribute to his name is the annual Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book illustrator for children. This has been awarded since 1938 and has included such books as The Polar Express and Where the Wild Things Are.
Being an artist that works in pen and ink myself, it was no surprise that Aubrey Beardsley’s work caught my eye immediately. The variation in his lines is unbelievable. His strokes range from think dark patches of black perfectly transitioning into the beautiful thin, curving delicate lines. I think it is the contrast in his pen work that really stopped me at first glance. Beardsley is able to balance the black and whites perfectly. The delicacy of his lines make such a strong statement on their own that there is no need for color. However, in his illustration Isolde the color palette he chose works impeccably with his delicate, sensual style. The red background against the whites and blacks really allows this image to stand out amongst some of his others. Looking at Isolde in particular, I noticed that his delicate, simplistic style with the particular red he uses in the piece makes it take on a Japanese like style, so I was not surprised to read that he was inspired by Japanese woodblock prints not only in their artistic style, but their erotic subject matter.
Professor Triff brought up an interesting notion in last weeks lecture. As I recall, at one point he said that art is that which has no function. For whatever reason these words got me thinking on the subject. This cannot be true can it? Art must have a function. When researching the subject I found the discussion of it in many places and in many forms. The dictionary defines function as practical use or purpose in design, and art as the application of human creative skill producing works to be appreciated for their beauty and emotional power. These definitions are both very broad. When one creates a painting of, anything really, the paint has a function. The canvas has a function, the easel, and the pallet. The brain functions to produce the painting. The painting must have a function as well, if for nothing else than allowing the painter, the artist, to express their own ambition to be creative. An urge that goes to the very core of what makes us human. Then the viewer of these works interacts with them on their own level. Having the piece stimulate their own thought process, possibly altering their perspective and appreciation of whatever is being presented to them. The argument could continue, but that seems pretty functional to me.
I agree with what Lisa said... Cherets works do have a very inviting fun atmosphere to them. they do "make you want to go there". The idea of using attractive women in advertising is an amazing one. Cheret uses (what seems to be) watercolors to depict the fragility of the women in his posters, and the contrast between the watercolor and the heavy lines created by the text is beautiful. The delicate placement of the women around the text and the underlying message of the poster are impeccable. His mastery of this ability makes these pieces simply breathtaking.
Post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was the catalyst of the art world's movement towards marketing. With his works being spread all across Paris for the sole purpose of promoting night clubs and cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge, his influence on future artists as well as advertising methods cannot be over looked. Apart of the Art Nouveau, Toulouse's art was highly influenced by the style of using free flowing lines and decorative curves. As well as being a print maker, he was a skilled water colorist and lithographer. Thought many of his better known works were done in oil and pastel. "At the Moulin Rouge" (1892-95) is a prime example of Toulouse's skill with oil on canvas. This painting, like many other of his pieces, centered around the Moulin Rouge. He spent much of his time there as sort of a distraction from his debilitating life. Being just under 5 feet tall due to a childhood accident in which both of his legs were broken resulted in an irreversible deformity he lived with the rest of his life. At the Moulin Rouge, Lautrec focused much of his time on drawing the singing drunks as they danced the night away. He used this place as an escape from his personal life, and in doing so he was able to capture the divine decadence of a society and use it to funnel his creative strengths. In conditions of adversity the artist flourishes. For Toulouse-Lautrec, that is undeniably true.
22 comments:
It seems as though Jules Cheret started the trend of using women in advertising. As Prof. Triff stated in class...when you look at these posters "it makes you want to go there", I do believe that is what Cheret's posters create. The women he depicts are not being used in a sexual way to advertise these places and things, but rather in a free, fun loving way which I think was very liberating for those times. Women were probably not used to seeing themselves portrayed that way. He uses colors that compliment, bright colors, fun "free" text. The text he used for the titles on the poster (the larger text) immitates the movement of the women. Eventhough these posters are very old and created a long time ago, they can still be looked at today by present day designers as inspiration for advertising now.
Nicolas Tesla (1856-1943) demonstrated his Tesla Coil in 1891 one year before Jean Delville painted this “Portrait of Madame Stuart Merrill”. Tesla’s machine produced high voltage currents which would among other things make your hair stand on end. Tesla believed in the occult and was easily discredited when he later came into confrontation with America’s favorite inventor, Thomas Edison.
In addition to electrical phenomenology this image has many trappings of the occult:
a) The old black book with triangle inscription.
b) The eyes in a hypnotic extreme upward position.
c) The triangular blemish less adolescent angelic face contrasts with a receding hairline of a wasted older woman
d) The long witch like fingers clutching the book and frame the face
e) A supernatural radiance appears to extent outward beyond the hair.
The symmetry about the midline enhances the primitive power of the image. There is less vertical symmetry but the triangle appears to balance the face and the blue cyan shirt balances and emphasized the cyan eyes. This composition suggests that the painting may serve some mysterious pre-Raphaelite purpose. The framing is also non traditional with the image spilling over the frame.
Interesting observation Alfred.
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec's poster art is without a doubt a staple within graphic design. When I clicked on his name though I was surprised to find his art work, not only his poster work. I'd always known his posters but never his art so i clicked on a few and was amazed with his line quality, color choice and figural depictions. It is truly a recognizable style yet still different than his poster work. In his paintings an or drawings he seemed to have a rougher sort of style and not quite as clean and simple as his posters which leaves his paintings to convey this emotion within his subject matter, style and development not quite depicted in his posters. And to think he was doing these style drawings hundred some odd years ago, people copy his style to this day.
The design of Beardsley’s work seems simple, mainly black ink on white paper with limited color in some of his pieces. Upon further inspection, there is great detail in each work. Beardsley created depth by juxtaposing lights and darks as well as detail and simplicity. Alongside an almost vacant area usually sits an area of great detail in each of his pieces. Detail is also very apparent in the facial expressions of his subjects. The strong, emotional facial expressions rival the traditionally serene and simple expressions pictured on work of other artists depicting Asian women.
For someone who was seemingly asexual, Beardsley’s work displayed a fair amount of sexuality. It is possible that Beardsley was retreating into a different world, a world filled with sexuality that he never experienced. Beardsley was an artist of the Decadence movement so it is probable that this world of sexuality was where he found his relief. He was such a young man when he became ill and eventually died, that he was probably unable to experience many things experience by other men his age. For this reason it would make sense that he used his artwork to imagine things he never experienced or felt.
sorry, forgot to write my name on mine...
-Michaela
Detail is also very apparent in the facial expressions of his subjects. The strong, emotional facial expressions rival the traditionally serene and simple expressions pictured on work of other artists depicting Asian women.
Good point, Michaela.
Jean Delville’s Portrait of Madame Stuart Merrill caught my attention because two things; (1) the obvious inspiration of the occult and (2) it reminds me of Rand’s “Eye Bee M” poster. For the occult, if not noted through the triangle on the black book, than Madame Stuart Merrill’s facial expression, electrifying red hair, or her soulless grey eyes give off the impression of mysticism. Therefore, everything on the portrait conveys his message… even the pale colors seem to bring the essence of spirituality. Compared to the “Eye Bee M” poster of a more recent (yet no so since it is from 1981), they both seem to have the concept of directness through a symbolical technique. Both very interesting artwork. The IBM is composed it figures representing each letter while Delville has the thaumaturgic triangle that is known to be used to cast spells and summons demons and usually near ritual sites.
Aubrey Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. Most of his images are done in ink, and feature large dark areas contrasted with large blank ones, and areas of fine detail contrasted with areas with none at all.His later works definately did the opposite for the woman image then Jules Cheret did. They portrayed women in an erotic way, while Cheret's poster ads depicted women as strong, lively creatures. I like his work though cause although he seems a little sick in the head his images are so complex. He surely has a great talent and a sturdy hand. His Peacock Skirt from 1892 was my favorite shown because the image can also be looked at as negative and positive space since it is in black and white and there are huge contrasts of filled and open spaces. If you look at it from afar or with your eyes slightyly squinting you see a unique design rather two women. You can definatley see his Japanese shunga influence in this drawing.
Nickster: Your comment is right on and makes me think how much Japanese has influenced Western design then (and now with the influence of anime).
Like many other Art Nouveau artists of the 19th century, Grasset decided to portray women in his artwork differently than the previously conservative, homely matron. While Jules Chéret was showing the free, fun loving gal as basically a prototype of the modern “sex sells” advertisement chick, Grasset took to a look of more natural appearing beauty and thoughtfulness. The pure elegance of the figure captured in his 1894 print, “The Art of Drawing”, is undeniable – here you see a private moment between a young female artist as she studies a long stemmed plant. Her facial expression is deep in her own thoughts, and the big smiles of Chéret’s girls are nowhere to be found. Instead, her lips are pursed tightly, eyes wide and transfixed by the detail on the leafy buds held in her beautifully expressive left hand, while a sketchbook and pen are held tightly by her right. This girl has a real personality, which is what sets Grasset apart from the pretty, happy, yet mostly fake expressions of other artists of the time.
-Emma Cason-Pratt
Mucha’s style is essentially just a florid cartoon, the look of it was very faddish and became unpopular even before his death. His real genius was in his ability to operate within a confined area. It is uncomfortable in a way to see all the beautiful flowing designs trapped within a rectangle. I think it very fitting for the subjects he chose as well. He always depicted females, graceful confined, which must be speaking about the position of women in the time period. His work has a distinct split between its purpose, those created for commercial patrons or those created out of leisure. I think the commercial art is just as successful, if not more than his other works. The Mucha style would work well today as commercial art; the works could easily be used today as a label, because of their limited dimensions, on a high end product just as easily as it did one hundred years ago. See "http://dump.poquette.net/Mucha_Moet_and_Chandon_Cremant_Imperial_1899_23x60.8cm.jpg"
--Raymond Mathews
As news outlets are swarmed with news about the Obama momentum, super-delegates, Chavez versus Exxon, Iraq and heaven forbid we forget...Britney Spears, one news event has really captured my attention:
ZURICH ART ROBBERY (Monday)
"Armed robbers stole paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from a Zurich museum, police said Monday, calling it a "spectacular art robbery."
I decided to expand on this current and relevant subject but start it off with one of my favorite artists of all time, Johannes Vermeer.
Not only was he a great painter, but as we talked about in the last class, Vermeer used photographic approaches to measure and compose his paintings. Very few people can draw a perfect tile floor from side perspective without natural talent.
Art, its preservation, authenticity and protection (not to mention the increasing value of paintings) is probably one of the most fascinating subjects in art, design and for us students being a part of the world's creative class it should be of interest.
An excerpt from art historian Simon Houpt’s book, Museum of the Missing:
"Until one late winter night in 1990, a frame held The Concert, one of only thirty-six known works of Johannes Vermeer. Like so many of his paintings, it is famously enigmatic. It quietly imposes itself on the viewer, insisting on contemplation. In the Dutch Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, a wide-backed chair sits in front of the easel, placed there so that a visitor might pause to reflect on its secrets.
Now if you go to the Gardner, you will see a heartbreaking tableau: that chair staring up at an empty frame, as if in eternal contemplation of the loss.
Imagine you could collect all of those stolen lost works together in one place. You would have a world-class museum. It would hold one hundred and fifty Rembrandts and five hundred Picassos. You could stroll through the Renaissance galleries to admire Raphael’s and Titians, da Vincis and Durers, Rubenses and Caravaggios. The Impressionist section would include works by Renoir and Degas, Monet and Manet and Matisse, Pissarro and his friend Cezanne. Skip your way to the history of Western art via Vermeer, van Gogh, Constable and Turner, Dali and Miro, Pollock and Warhol…"
Ever since human beings started to record and collect their own artistic manifestations, the value of them becomes almost impossible to number.
Paintings become a breath, a whiff of the past, a generation-binding statement and in some occasions, a stand-alone memoir of years, people, eras, values and talent gone by. Author P.B. Coreman’s and writer of Van Meergeren’s Faked Vermeer’s and De Hooghs’ summarizes this phenomenon.
“The time is not long past when only two acceptable criteria existed for the appreciation of works of art-the aesthetic, including the study of style, form and color, and the history of art, which placed various works in the proper historical frame and reviewed the relevant documents.”
What binds the future generations to conserve them? Their quality and historic value. So as human beings continue to collect, rescue, fight for and revive paintings, their value and history becomes an institution by itself and the painter becomes a master and a protégé of the art world.
In his History of the Restoration and Conservation of Works of Art, Alessandro Conti says,
“In attending to the neglected history of the survival of works of art over time [one] can achieve two goals. The first to make us critically aware of how knowledge and response to the art of the past is framed by the interventions of previous generations. The second is to demonstrate that the afterlife of paintings is a wider constituent of a wider cultural history.”
GABY BRUNA
Henry Van de Velde was not only a painter, but also an architect and interior designer. I feel that having these traits allowed for him to feel comfortable with his skills and pursue a design aberration. Just looking at his poster for Tropon food concentrate, one can see a confident, bold differ from the past. His design was completely ahead of his time. His flowing strokes and font have a 1970’s look much more modernized than the turn of the 19th century. The complimentary yellow and purple colors interact to draw the viewer in. The sort of melting flow drips down in a hypnotizing fashion. When looking at this poster I just couldn’t keep my eyes off of it, constantly looking from one thing to the next. Aside from the wispy dreamlike curves, the top contains a very spacey font with hard curves and angular edges. A stiff maze-like backdrop creates even more visual tension. This bounces off with the curves creating a complete eye drawing exchange
It's really interesting to me the architectural work from the modernist or art nouveau movements. The natural element is so obvious, and so different from the previous styles. It represents very well the revolution of thought that was happening at that time. The work with metal is extremely fine, and they make it look so organic, like forgetting its properties. Even today it's difficult to find such crafty designs. This is more likely because we have gone trough different revolutions and art moved away from the naturalistic view and today for instance we can see that architecture is extremely minimalist and functional, it is much boxier, opposed to the soft and curvilinear style of the art nouveau, but it still retains some of that connection to the nature.
Bruno Rodríguez.M
Like forgetting its properties...
True, though iron is an extremely malleable material!
I noticed the work by Randolph Caldecott. I love the inviting colors and the strong lines he uses. The illustrations tell the story so well I wonder if I even need to read the story itself. Caldecott was a very influential illustrator of the Victorian Era. Caldecott, along with Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway were the three biggest contributors of children’s book illustrations in the late Victorian time period.
Caldecott was so successful and well-known during his time that children would eagerly await Christmas because that was the day that he released two books he illustrated. These books continued to come out on the same day for eight years, with lines of excited children.
Randolph died at a very young age. He was not even forty when he died from a severe chill received in northern Florida. Some of the admirers of his work included artists such as Gaugin and Van Gough. His death was such a tragedy that his friends had Sir Alfred Gilbert design a memorial in his honor. It was placed in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Another, more famous, tribute to his name is the annual Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book illustrator for children. This has been awarded since 1938 and has included such books as The Polar Express and Where the Wild Things Are.
Being an artist that works in pen and ink myself, it was no surprise that Aubrey Beardsley’s work caught my eye immediately. The variation in his lines is unbelievable. His strokes range from think dark patches of black perfectly transitioning into the beautiful thin, curving delicate lines. I think it is the contrast in his pen work that really stopped me at first glance. Beardsley is able to balance the black and whites perfectly. The delicacy of his lines make such a strong statement on their own that there is no need for color. However, in his illustration Isolde the color palette he chose works impeccably with his delicate, sensual style. The red background against the whites and blacks really allows this image to stand out amongst some of his others. Looking at Isolde in particular, I noticed that his delicate, simplistic style with the particular red he uses in the piece makes it take on a Japanese like style, so I was not surprised to read that he was inspired by Japanese woodblock prints not only in their artistic style, but their erotic subject matter.
Professor Triff brought up an interesting notion in last weeks lecture. As I recall, at one point he said that art is that which has no function. For whatever reason these words got me thinking on the subject. This cannot be true can it? Art must have a function. When researching the subject I found the discussion of it in many places and in many forms.
The dictionary defines function as practical use or purpose in design, and art as the application of human creative skill producing works to be appreciated for their beauty and emotional power. These definitions are both very broad. When one creates a painting of, anything really, the paint has a function. The canvas has a function, the easel, and the pallet. The brain functions to produce the painting. The painting must have a function as well, if for nothing else than allowing the painter, the artist, to express their own ambition to be creative. An urge that goes to the very core of what makes us human.
Then the viewer of these works interacts with them on their own level. Having the piece stimulate their own thought process, possibly altering their perspective and appreciation of whatever is being presented to them. The argument could continue, but that seems pretty functional to me.
I agree with what Lisa said... Cherets works do have a very inviting fun atmosphere to them. they do "make you want to go there". The idea of using attractive women in advertising is an amazing one. Cheret uses (what seems to be) watercolors to depict the fragility of the women in his posters, and the contrast between the watercolor and the heavy lines created by the text is beautiful. The delicate placement of the women around the text and the underlying message of the poster are impeccable. His mastery of this ability makes these pieces simply breathtaking.
Post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was the catalyst of the art world's movement towards marketing. With his works being spread all across Paris for the sole purpose of promoting night clubs and cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge, his influence on future artists as well as advertising methods cannot be over looked. Apart of the Art Nouveau, Toulouse's art was highly influenced by the style of using free flowing lines and decorative curves. As well as being a print maker, he was a skilled water colorist and lithographer. Thought many of his better known works were done in oil and pastel. "At the Moulin Rouge" (1892-95) is a prime example of Toulouse's skill with oil on canvas. This painting, like many other of his pieces, centered around the Moulin Rouge. He spent much of his time there as sort of a distraction from his debilitating life. Being just under 5 feet tall due to a childhood accident in which both of his legs were broken resulted in an irreversible deformity he lived with the rest of his life. At the Moulin Rouge, Lautrec focused much of his time on drawing the singing drunks as they danced the night away. He used this place as an escape from his personal life, and in doing so he was able to capture the divine decadence of a society and use it to funnel his creative strengths. In conditions of adversity the artist flourishes. For Toulouse-Lautrec, that is undeniably true.
Post a Comment