Visual arts

Don't see much on painting or sculpture in the culture forum - anyone up for discussing the wonderful world of painting?

I'm currently taking an art history course, and have been looking at modernism in art. This naturally leads to Manet's very striking "The Luncheon on the Grass" painting. The way the woman looks at the viewer is intriguing, specially since muses in art are usually facing away somewhere. This gives the painting so much life, since you can kind of see her thoughts. You're forced to engage her rather than simply gawk.

I haven't looked at much contemporary art yet, but I will soon

Good place to start looking at any art is the impressionists. It was there where the art became determined by the artists. Are you near an art museum? Do you paint or draw?

John Rewald's remarkable books on impressionism and post impressionism are very good and very readable. I always like Pissarro who was not only a great painter but a great teacher. He worked with Gauguin and Cezanne both of whom considered him their teacher. In his "Letters to His Son Lucien" you can read a lot about the art of that era and get a good sense of what was going on in the heads of the artists.

Manet, though he never showed with the Impressionists, is considered one of the founders of the Impressionist school. He painted along side Monet and Renoir and was close with Degas as well. Very interesting man!

Herbert Read's "Concise History of Modern Painting" and "Philosophy of Modern Art" are very good introductions to modern art.

Originally posted by mike169
Good place to start looking at any art is the impressionists. It was there where the art became determined by the artists. Are you near an art museum? Do you paint or draw?

John Rewald's remarkable books on impressionism and post impressionism are very good and very readable. I always like Pissarro who was not only a great painter but a great teacher. He ...[text shortened]... . He painted along side Monet and Renoir and was close with Degas as well. Very interesting man!

Performance art - I saw a lot when I was in NYC. NY was a blast! Everything goes on there. Any art you see will help you appreciate art and will definitely will help you in graphic and web design.

Never read him. I've (and just about everyone else) has seen modern art. I try to understand it but a lot I find not worth trying to understand. I remember Carl Andre was in a show at a NYC gallery and he dumped a pile of bricks on the floor. When the show was over he hadn't removed his bricks and the gallery called him to get them and he told them just to throw them away. He was a conceptualist so all the work was put on the viewer to figure out what he was doing. I thought it was funny - but was it art?

Today is Othan Frieze's Birthday!

Achille-Émile-Othon Friesz, who later just called himself Othon Friesz, was born in Le Havre in 1879. Early on he was encouraged by his parents to become a painter and as soon as 1892 he began training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, where he worked at Charles-Marie Lhullier's workshop. It was there that he met with Raoul Dufy and George Braque, with whom he developed a lasting friendship and travelled.
Over the years Friesz abandoned his former nature-orientated concept in favor of works formed by Fauvism.


The artist used a more traditional, austere technique in his late works, several of his earlier works, especially from 1907, are regarded as the boldest examples of Fauvism.
Frieze died in 1949 and is buried in Paris.

Today is German painter Gerhard Richter's 84th birthday. Richter was one of the founders of the New European Painting and often showed with the Neo-Expressionist Painters in the 1970's. He designed the major stained glass window in the Cologne Cathedral.

Yesterday was the birthdays of tragic Expressionist painters Paula Modersohn-Becker and Franz Marc. Both died in the early 20th century, Modersohn-Becker in child birth and Marc as a soldier in World War I.

Originally posted by mike169
Today is German painter Gerhard Richter's 84th birthday. Richter was one of the founders of the New European Painting and often showed with the Neo-Expressionist Painters in the 1970's. He designed the major stained glass window in the Cologne Cathedral.

Yesterday was the birthdays of tragic Expressionist painters Paula Modersohn-Becker and Franz Marc. Bo ...[text shortened]... in the early 20th century, Modersohn-Becker in child birth and Marc as a soldier in World War I.

YouTube

Originally posted by mike169
Today is German painter Gerhard Richter's 84th birthday. Richter was one of the founders of the New European Painting and often showed with the Neo-Expressionist Painters in the 1970's. He designed the major stained glass window in the Cologne Cathedral.

Yesterday was the birthdays of tragic Expressionist painters Paula Modersohn-Becker and Franz Marc. Bo ...[text shortened]... in the early 20th century, Modersohn-Becker in child birth and Marc as a soldier in World War I.

Thanks for the link! I won't be able to watch it for a while - computer messing up - but I will watch it. I've seen a lot of his blurry photograph pictures. It's okay but with a lot of them it gets old fast. That might just be me though.

Feb. 12th is the birthday of German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann. Beckmann developed a unique style in the 1920's reminiscent of the compressed spaces of medieval German art. He left Germany for Amsterdam when it became apparent that Hitler's intolerance would cost him his career. After World War II he was offered a position in St. Louis as an instructor. He died in 1951 in New York City walking on Central Park West near his home on W. 62nd St.

Feb. 13th is Grant Woods birthday. Woods is most famous for his painting entitles "American Gothic". Born in 1891 he died on the day before his 51st birthday of cancer.

Of "American Gothic" Time magazine wrote:

“American Gothic” depicts a farmer and his spinster daughter posing before their house, whose gabled window and tracery, in the American gothic style, inspired the painting’s title. The models were actually Grant’s sister Nan and their dentist. Wood was accused of creating this work as a satire on the intolerance and rigidity that the insular nature of rural life can produce; he denied the accusation. American Gothic is an image that epitomizes the Puritan ethic and virtues that he believed dignified the Midwestern character.”