Grant Wood The best possible introduction to Grant Wood's American Gothic is the fact that it was listed by The Washington Times as one of the most important icons of the 1930's in America: "Hardship at home and conflict abroad...the Great Depressio Continue Reading...
Yet art history continues to privilege prodigious output and monumental scale or conception over the selective and the intimate. In the two sculptures discussed here, Bourgeois and Nevelson prove that they are equal to the task provided by the male Continue Reading...
Dadaism in the Modern World The Danger of Definitions: Dadaism and its Modern Manifestations Though there have been countless movements and representations of rejections of convention in the history of modern art in many cases these standards were Continue Reading...
psychoanalytic as portrayed by H. Segal. It has sources. Psychoanalytic approach to aesthetics can best be understood by understanding the theory/ies that guide us on the study of this particularly complex discipline. The theory and guidelines of p Continue Reading...
Peter Voulkos, a clay sculpturist who died in 2002, was important because he brought clay forward as an artistic medium in its own right. Until Voulkos demonstrated the art of clay, people tended to think of "pottery" as either functional ware, a cra Continue Reading...
Nostalgia for the Past Nostalgia can take many forms, but can perhaps be summarized by the phrase 'appropriating selected aspects of the past for the use of the present'. It tends to involve an emotional or spiritual response to the past rather than Continue Reading...
Tarsila Do Amaral One of the most important Brazilian artists of the 20th century, Tarsila do Amaral, was born in Sao Paulo in 1886. She had a privileged childhood as the grandchild of a rich farmer. This brought with it various advantages, includin Continue Reading...
Banksy "The immature poet imitates and the mature poet plagiarizes," said T.S. Eliot. If imitation is indeed the finest form of flattery, then does it follow that plagiarism is a worthwhile pursuit? Indeed it can be. Street art, including visual art Continue Reading...
He also asserts that government participation in the arts beyond its role as a consumer can pose significant hindrances to the artistic processes. He claims that politics tends to "seek stability, compromise, and consensus," and as a result avoids s Continue Reading...
But the cool tone of the images in Warhol's works is one reason why a viewer might be tempted to read a kind of backhanded affection for advertising and consumption in Warhol's series, as well as satirical parody. What Hughes calls this affectlessn Continue Reading...
His work can be seen as fitting into a wider context of artists working to represent the France their generally well-off and comfortably middle-class and upper-class purchasers wanted to see and to believe in. The purchasers of Millet's works may ne Continue Reading...
Philosophy Analyzing Rembrandt The following paper is a response to questions regarding the painting, "Aristotle with a Bust of Homer." The painting was painted by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1653. It is oil on canvas and access to the painting is gained Continue Reading...
These pastel-colored etches influenced Degas' late-life paintings. Those were characterized by women frequently engaged in some type of grooming, such as bathing. Rather than the tightly-structured lines of his earlier works, these later works seeme Continue Reading...
When the work was near completion a reporter came to the cite to interview Rivera and took many scenes from the work as examples of a dangerously revolutionary idea, despite Rivera's impassioned explanation and led the public to believe that Rivera Continue Reading...
Realist Painting Style and Realism The Realist style owes its existence to the Realist concept. "Realism is democracy in art," Courbet believed. (Nochlin, xiii) Taking that as the credo upon which the works of the artists were constructed, the style Continue Reading...
Impression Sunrise and the Boating Party The painting responsible for giving the Impressionist movement its name, Claude Monet's Impression Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant in the original French), is an important study of water and light, with wa Continue Reading...
Mary Cassatt and Impressionism Mary Cassatt was an Impressionist and post-Impressionist painter covering individuals -- especially women and children -- at a time when their role in society at large was becoming more prominent and self-assured. Like Continue Reading...
In conclusion, Heinrich Wolfflin, an art critic of the early 1950's, points out that Leonardo's the Last Supper exhibits all of the classical elements of Western art and those of the High Renaissance. Also, the three major trends of 15th century pa Continue Reading...
Art of Being Human Post Why study Arts and Humanities? Benefits of the Arts and Humanities I believe the study of humanities and arts is vital to offsetting usefulness and the more idealistic issues pertaining to quality of life (QOL). Hence, I w Continue Reading...
One the right is a statue of Athena, god of wisdom, light, and the city. On the left is Apollo, sun god, holding a lyre. Arching over the top of the painting is a great, wide semi-circle in a space resembling a basilica annex. Philosophy in the Mid Continue Reading...
Within the painting, the narrow space in which the woman is seated, with child and tome in lap, is otherwise toned by a severe symmetry. Furniture, window and angles are cut with a perfect sharpness, exposing only rightly angled arrangement. This is Continue Reading...
Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam The Creation of Adam (1512) as conceived and depicted by Michelangelo represents a significant moment in art history because it brings a humanistic style of expression and sense of realism to the art world that Continue Reading...
Formal Analysis Jacques Louis David's Oath of Horatii is the best known and most explicit depiction of neoclassical painting, owing to its inclination to patriotic concern and stiffness. Apparently, Pierre Corneille's play named Horace is th Continue Reading...
Gothic Literature Art, as defined by Plato in his paradigmatic work The Republic, serves both as a definition qua definition - a way of telling us what art should be in and of itself - and as an exemplar of other aspects of society. Plato was fundam Continue Reading...
The financial rewards from teaching or art criticism are not great; in fact, the art historian rarely becomes wealthy unless he or she can already afford to invest in an art collection. However, the art historian works in the field of his or her cho Continue Reading...
Artistic works are often referenced in categorized by their particular genre or style. For example, in painting there are a number of different genres such as Abstract, Impressionism, Modernism etc. (Harrison, 2009). The term "history paintings" or s Continue Reading...
Daughter of Time "Everybody knows that Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, murdered his two nephews. But everybody could be wrong -- according to Scotland Yard's Inspector Grant, who studies 500-year-old evidence to try to determine who Continue Reading...
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy by Michael Baxandall. The paper presents the thesis of the book, evidence of the arguments put forward by the author to support his thesis, details of the structure of the book, and a critical analy Continue Reading...
Reframing The ArchiveWe dont need the new sentence; the old sentence re-framed is good enough, said Kenneth Goldsmith.IntroductionThe last two years have radically altered the way most of us live, work, and create, forcing us to reconsider our conne Continue Reading...
Oracle Bone Script and Modern Design In today's domain of alphabetic scripts, the Chinese system of writing is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. Rather than using a number of letters, the Chinese have come up with several thousand complicated characters o Continue Reading...
Classical Symphony Music, like other forms of art, evolved from numerous traditions that, when taken together, formed a new way of thinking about, and performing, certain types of works. Audiences change over time, and certain musical compositions t Continue Reading...
Arts In "The Berlin Key," Latour discusses the way in which simple objects can acquire suddenly "the dignity of a mediator, a social actor, an agent, an active being" through use. This is a version of aesthetics which imagines the artwork as automa Continue Reading...
architects in the 21st century is the issue of sustainability. Not only is there no consensus opinion on how to approach the issue of sustainability in academic circles but there is also no formula of integrating sustainability into architectural cu Continue Reading...
Although in general he would discuss his work in detail, Van Gogh only mentions this painting twice, in letters 595 and 607. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" cannot be discussed outside of its artistic context. Thus, it is important to note here that Vinc Continue Reading...
Sistine Modonna and the Swing Paintings The Swing and the Sistine Madonna are both masterpieces of their era, long lasting in both technical success and celebration of their chosen subjects. Raphael and Fragonard approach their sources with deliber Continue Reading...
This is an essential part of understanding Seurat -- the ways in which he sought a seamless blending between art and science. He saw no barriers to doing so because his own ways of working along with his understanding of how the world worked lead hi Continue Reading...
Marcel Duchamp took a urinal, called it "Fountain," put it in an art show and then defended his action on the grounds that as he was an artist and he said the urinal was art, then it was. This is just the sort of thing that has given modern art a b Continue Reading...
9/11 Memorial in New York City Selection Analysis "Memorials serve so many essential functions: they give us a context for remembering the past, engaging the present, and reflecting on the future. We are seeking to honor the lives lost in the atta Continue Reading...
Ezra Pound's Meditatio Meditatio When I carefully consider the curious habits of Dogs I am compelled to conclude That man is the superior animal. When I consider the curious habits of man I confess, my friend, I am puzzled. As one of the fathe Continue Reading...
During this penultimate period of violence under Rojas, the violence that wracked Colombia assumed a number of different characteristics that included an economic quality as well as a political one with numerous assassinations taking place. These w Continue Reading...
