Artists and their Art

Over the past five months I have been looking at and studying famous works of art all over Europe. I have visited the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, George Pompidou Center, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Uffizi, Accademia di Firenze, Narodni Museum Prague, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Musee des Beaux Artes Lyon, and the National Portrait Gallery. This blog post is about some of the famous pieces of art that I’ve seen, the artists who made them and their styles.

Realism, Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is a very interesting piece of artwork because of its history and the way it is painted. The portrait called the Mona Lisa was painted by an artist named Leonardo Da Vinci.  Leonardo Da Vinci was requested to draw a man’s wife whose name was Lisa Gherardini.  Lisa lived in a rich family that made their wealth from selling silk.  The work of art was requested by the family to celebrate the completion of their home and also to celebrate their second son being born.  The Mona Lisa was painted with oil paint.  The panel was made with a type of wood called cotton wood. Because of the materials he used, the painting stayed nice for six centuries without having to be restored.  The Mona Lisa is also known for its realism.  She looks amused like a real person would look.  An Italian man stole the painting and hid it, but later people got it back and returned it to The Louvre.  The Mona Lisa was a new style because before most portraits were in profile.  In the final analysis, the Mona Lisa is a spectacular painting.

The Mona Lisa is a great example of realism and that is one of the reasons why I like it.  Realism is when you paint things realistically.  The Mona Lisa has lots of aspects of realism.  One of them is the fact that the background is made to look a bit blurry (sfumato).  When people’s eyes look at someone usually they don’t see the things behind the person perfectly clear.  Another reason why the Mona Lisa is a good example of realism is because the way he shades her face and her clothes looks very well done.  The wrinkles in her shirt look like a real piece of clothing.  Those wrinkles were used a lot in realism.  I really like this painting because Da Vinci made her so realistic.  He makes it seem like you are in the painting and that you are looking at her.  I also think it’s interesting the way the Mona Lisa is smiling.  It looks like the cross between a smile and a normal face.  Some people joke around that she was told to smile, but when she did Da Vinci could see her nasty teeth so he told her to close her mouth.  With these details, I think the Mona Lisa is noteworthy.

Impressionism, Water Lillies and Japanese Bridge

The Impressionist movement was when young painters rejected traditionalists by painting in their own styles.  In the first place, Impressionists painted things outdoors and painted what they saw.  They drew everyday people like friends and family.  In addition, Impressionists often focused more on the scene than on the subject.  These painters were never very exact with their images and the subject was often not in the center of the painting.  Also Impressionists focused a lot on light.  They usually made lots of small strokes creating an idea of the scene.  In 1874 impressionist painters made an exhibit.  Among the artists that were in the exhibit were Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Pissaro, Manet and others.  There was a total of thirty-five artists.  Claude Monet, one of the artists in the exhibition, became very famous for his Impressionist paintings.

I really like Monet’s painting called Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge because of its aspects of impressionism.  One of the aspects of impression is that if you look up close, you can see that all of the brush strokes are very small and skinny.  It just looks like a brunch of lines, but when you go back and look at it, your eyes make out the picture.  That is very typical of Impressionism.  Another aspect of impressionism is how Monet uses light in the picture.  In the water he uses light colors to show the reflections of the trees and makes them look wrinkled to show ripples in the water.  He also puts some bright spots on some plants to show the sun shining on them.  I really like this painting for a couple of reasons.  One reason is I think it’s really interesting how Monet makes the light and reflections in the water.  I also think it’s cool how he uses green on many things but still makes them look real.  Another thing I really like is having your eyes fix the picture together.  As shown above, this is a great example of good Impressionist art.

Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait

Vincent van Gogh made a big contribution to art.  First, he changed the style of art with the use of amazing colors.  Van Gogh used colors to show moods or emotions.  Instead of drawing it exactly like he saw, he used color to show what he felt about the scene and drawing it his way.  Van Gogh usually used dark and gloomy colors for the earth and bright colors in other areas.  Second, Van Gogh used thick graphic brush strokes and dark outlines.  He used a lot of paint to make it thick and made many different brush strokes in different directions to make images.  With these techniques created a new style of art.

One of my favorite paintings by Van Gogh is called Vincent Van Gogh Self-portrait.  Obviously by the name you can tell that it is a self-portrait.  As you can see in this painting, he uses very long and skinny brush strokes.  But sometimes when he is drawing things more intricately, he uses short brush strokes.  You can also see how Van Gogh makes twirling lines.  You can also see this technique in another painting by him called Starry Night.  One thing that Van Gogh did in lots of his painting is use lots of different colors to make images in the art.  He uses lots of color on his face, coat, and in the background to create realism.  He puts many colors on his face and makes shading with them.  Another thing that I like is how he puts twirls in the painting. For example, he uses twirls to show wrinkles in his coat.  In conclusion, because I like realistic art, I really appreciate how Van Gogh uses color to create shades.

Picasso, The Guitar

In the year of 1909 Picasso painted in a style called the cubist style. Cubist artists focused on shapes. They painted their subjects from lots of angles and reassembled facial features into different places. Cubist artists later started focusing on structure.  This period was called Analytical Cubism. During the Analytical stages of Cubism, artists used geometry to give structure to their paintings and colors became duller and less important.  Picasso painted people like his mistress and his companion Ferdinand Oliver. One of the most famous Cubist paintings was Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. In this painting there are five women all next to each other. The three on the left were inspired from a carving and the two on the right wore African masks.

The Guitar, by Picasso, is a typical cubist painting.  First, in this painting you can see the guitar from different angles all at once.  Picasso shows you the guitar from the bottom, the left side and straight on. Second, Picasso uses shapes like squares, rectangles, and circles to give the painting structure.  You can see a square at the bottom of the picture and a circle in the middle of the guitar.  Finally, the colors in the picture are very dull.  Picasso only uses shades of brown, grey and black.  There is also a sculpture by Picasso that looks just like the guitar in this painting, except it is made of cardboard and is three-dimensional.  Like the painting it uses shapes like arches and squares, it has dull colors, and the angles are unrealistic and weird. I am not a huge fan of Picasso, but I think these pieces of art show his talent at creating a new style.

Expressionism, The Scream

Expressionism focuses on emotions and feelings rather than on realism.  Expressionists usually use bright colors and agitated brush strokes to help viewers “see” the emotions behind the things they paint. The Expressionist style started in the 1900’s in Germany.  Some famous Expressionist artists were Edvard Munch, Max Beckhman and Ernest Ludwig Archer.  Abstract expressionism, a later style, started in New York.  Some of the very famous abstract artists are named Jane Frank, Franz Kline, and Barnett Newman.

The Scream, by Edvard Munch, is an example of an early Expressionist painting. You can see how the artist uses the subject, color and technique to create emotion.  The person in the picture looks terrified and the shadowy people in background look like they may attack. The colors in the sky are bright, but the dark water adds to the emotion of being afraid.  Even though the brush strokes flow, they look out of control and scary like wind.  I like this painting because the way the artist makes the person look you start to get a little scared.

Abstract Art, Untitled

The goal of Abstract Art is to create an experience for the viewer using color, line, form, texture, composition, pattern and process. It “speaks without words” and without representing people, places or things.  An abstract artist said that you have to look at the whole thing to experience it.  Abstract art came out of the United States after World War II.  This was the first time New York became the center of art in the world instead of Paris. 

In the piece above, the artist uses many shades of blue and lots of shapes to create an experience.  I can see a bright blue star in the bottom left corner and another star with eight sides at the top.  One of the reasons I like this piece is because you can choose what it is.  It reminds me of Captain America.  The skull-like thing at the bottom looks like his helmet and the blue stars remind me of the American flag. This work doesn’t have patterns or symmetrical lines, but it still creates clear ideas for me.

The styles I have talked about here are Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism and Abstract Art. Each of the artists who created these styles was trying to make a change in art at the time. They created new techniques for blending paints together, making brush strokes, and using color. They also changed how people think about art, what they notice about art, and what they experience when looking at art. Now I experience art differently. When I look at the different styles of art, I think about what it looks like to me, I notice the colors and patterns the artist uses, and I experience emotions. Out of all the styles, I think I like realism the most because I like to draw things in that style. I have learned techniques like sfumato for shading and vanishing point for making things look three-dimensional. Visiting museums can get tiring after a while, but it’s helped me learn about how to make my own art.

This is my last post for the school year because my trip is coming to an end. Thanks for reading my blog!