Surrealism
 |
| An example of Surrealism art |
Between World War I and II, another art movement developed in Europe, it is the Surrealism. The principles and roots of the Surrealism grew from the Dada movement, an anti-art movement that formed before World War I but expressed in a positive way. In 1924, Andre Breton a major spokesman of the Surrealism published "The Surrealist Manifesto". Surrealism art is a link between the unconscious an concious mind where dreams and fantasy meet the everyday's reality.Breton believes the unconscious mind as the key to imagination. Famous painters such as Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst amongst others emphasised on the content of free form and gave a new alternative to contemporary art.
Salvador Dali
 |
| Salvador Dali |
One of the most famous artists in Surrealism is the Salvador Dali, born on the 11th of May 1904 in Figueras,Spain. Dali was not just a painter, but a sculptor, graphic artist and designer.His mature artistic style was developed mostly when Sigmund Freud erotic writings had subconscious imagery with a significant and when he joined the Surrealists movement after going through the phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical paintings. In 1929, Dali joined the Surrealists movement, between those years (1929-1937) he produced extraordinary surrealist paintings. Dali followed a process which he himself called it the paranoiac critical, were brought up his hallucinatory states to bring up the images for his paintings. The paintings Dali drew, described them as "hand-painted dream photographs" and depicted strangely hallucinatory characters. His visit to Italy in 1937 was influenced by the Renaissance, mainly the painter Raphael. Dali adapted that style for his paintings and due to that, Andre Breton expelled him from the Surrealists movement. During 1940 till 1955, Dali moved to the USA and there he spent his time designing fashionable shops, jewellery, theatre sets, interiors and exhibited his eccentricity that made him famous in this movement. Between the 1950 and 1970, his paintings had religious themes, erotic subjects representing his childhood memories and other themes using his wife, Gala.Apart from painting he produced two films, Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age D'Or ( 1930) , with Spanish director Luis Buuel, they featured grostesque but suggestive images. Salvador Dali was one of the most famous artist of the 20th century.
The Persistance of Memory-Time
 | |
| The Persistence of Memory, 1931, oil on canvas
One of the most famous paintings in art history and in the Surrealist movement is 'The Persistence of Memory' by Salvador Dali. It was done in 1931 and first it was exhibited first at Julien Levy Gallery in 1932 until 1934 it was moved at the Museum of Modern Art in New York till present. This painting may have different interpretations, but the main theme is time and dreams. The clocks are representing the passing of time as we experience the dreams in our sleep. When we are sleeping or in our subconscious mind, time is irrelevant but we hold on to memories. When asked about the significance of the melting clocks, Dali replied that it was a Surrealist perception of Camembert cheese melting in the sun and represents an unconscious symbol of space and time.Only one clock isn't melted which is the orange clock with ants at a centre point representing the anxiety time brings on us. We humans are always anxious about time that we are late for work, not accomplish a task or goal in our lives before we die, deadlines given at work or school and many more.The ants though are found in many of Dali's paintings and they symbolise decay, due to time everything decays and dies and we are always against time. In the middle of the composition there is a creature, which is an abstract self-portrait of Dali and it appeared in other paintings. The creature has one-eye opened and suggests that it is dreaming or decaying after a long time gasping the air. The objects are placed within a sunlit landscape inspired from his homeland Catalonia. To sum it up this painting is a representation of time, death, birth, reality and sexual desires
|
Post-Impressionism
The post-impressionism movement was founded by a group of young artists such as Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Guaguin and Georges Seurat that took Impressionism style to a new direction.It started in the mid 1880's till around the early 1900's. The term indicates the link there is with Impressionism, the artists still drew objects and scenes that were in front of them and using short brush strokes but made it more expressive and developed their own style. An artist and critic, Roger Fry organised an exhibition in Grafton Galleries London, 1910 with the name 'Manet and the Post-Impressionists', it was Fry that came up with the term Post-Impressionists.Post-Impressionism inspired movements such as Cubism, Expressionism and Pointillism.Each artist took an aspect from Impressionism and exaggerated it and created their own style and focused on the emotional, spiritual, symbolic and structural elements. Georges Seurat developed the brush to a million dot and founded the Pointillism movement while Van Gogh used more vibrant colours and painted thickly on the canvas using the impasto technique.Van Gogh used energetic brush strokes forcefully and expressed his emotions more, he later founded the Expressionism movement. By time they went to a modern journey from the past to the future. They pushed the Impressionists ideas more and built a solid foundation for modern art of the 20th century.
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch artist from Groot-Zundert, Netherlands born in 1853. Van Gogh was part of the group that formed the Post-Impressionism, until he started to get interested more in Expressionism.The idea of careful analysis of the scene or objects and effects of colour and light, Van Gogh wanted to destroy it and used more vivid colour and short expressive brush strokes. The spiritual and emotional side of his art led him to Expressionism were emotions and moods are more expressed. In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris were he met other artists such as Degas, Pissaro, Gauguin, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec. During that time his main influences were Impressionism and Japanese woodcuts, it was during his stay at Paris that hot obsessed with bright, symbolic and expressive colours. All of his works were produced in 10 years, the most famous are 'The Starry Night", "The Potato Eaters" and many more.Gauguin and Van Gogh were about to establish a school but it failed after Van Gogh attempted to kill Gauguin. During his life Van Gogh suffered from metal illnesses such as hallucinations and depression and in July 1890 he shot himself. From all the paintings he had painted in his lifetime only one got sold, it was "Red Vineyard at Arles"; (Puskin Museum Moscow).
The Starry Night -Time
 |
| The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Arts New York |
Van Gogh had the desire to paint the night sky 'en plein air' like an Impressionist although he had his doubts if he can achieve his aim. This painting was done in June 1889, on the window of his room at Saint-Remy de Provence during the time when he was suffering from mental illnesses.Although he wanted to paint it from nature, it was done in daylight and drew it from his memory. In the center it shows the village of Saint Remy and added a cypress tree. This drawing can be compared with the one one that Van Gogh painted a year before, "The Starry Night Over the Rhone". It was painted in September 1888 at the hospital in Arles.Unlike "Starry Night" this one was done directly from nature during the night using a gas lamp to work. The Ursa Major was repositioned from north to south. Time in this two paintings is an important factor. Both of them were painted in a different month, season and year, although the two shows a clear, starry night, the atmosphere around may have varied a bit. In Starry Night over Rhone, Van Gogh captured a moment in time while the other depended on his memory and good observational skills.In Starry Night there is movement, the stars are in a swirl while the other is more still. Night time is usually associated with still and calm atmosphere, but for the latter we see the opposite.
 |
| The Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888 |
About.com,2013.Post-Impressionism-Art History 101 Basics.[online] Available at:< http://arthistory.about.com/od/modernarthistory/a/Post-Impressionism-Art-History-101-Basics.htm>
[Accessed 26 October 2013]
|
Van Gogh Gallery,2002-2013.Vincent van Gogh Biography.[online] Available at: < http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/biography.html >
[Accessed 26 October 2013]
Nicolas Pioch,2002. Gogh,Vincent van.[online] Available at: < http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/ >
[Accessed 26 October 2013]
ArtFactory,2013.Post Impressionism -The Roots of Modern Art.[online] Available at: < http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/post_impressionism.htm >
[Accessed 26 October 2013]
[Accessed 26 October 2013]
Victorian Age Inspiration
The Victorian Age was a period were changes occurred due to inventions of technology started to take place followed by a change in society too. Queen Victoria reigned for 64 years in the nineteenth century and Britain went to an expansion in art, fashion and high prosperity which led to the use of bright and vivid colours in paintings representing all this. In art they returned to classic realism which was popular with Roman and Greek societies. Due to the changes, the public, artists and scientist portrayed art and aesthetics in a different manner due to the technological advance which were made during that era.
 |
| An example of Victorian paintings portraying the countryside: 'On the Avon near Bath" |
Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 till 1901 and Britain was one of the most powerful. The Victorian art saw different movements and these were all produced during the Victorian era, they consist of Classicism, Neo-Classicism, Realism, Impressionism followed by Post-Impressionism, Symbolism and Victorian. Classicism was influenced by many movements along the time and from realistic it changed to vivid colours and emotional strokes and replaced the realistic form and shadow.Post-Impressionism ended the era of Queen Victoria's reign.
The growth and prosperity during the era in Britain, inspired many artists to focus on high fashion and modern elegance. The Victorian artwork which was produced was very elegant and popular and made Britain popular for their finery, modernity and elegant etiquette in the world and as a result Victorian art portrayed high-class events in bold colours showing how wealthy and happy people were.They also depicted scenes from the English countryside, this was a point of view for many people
 |
| High-class society |
During the 64 years Queen Victoria reigned,many advances in photographic and architectural technology affected changes in art styles that occurred in Victorian art. Changes happened in form and decorum due to technologies that were getting invented.
 |
| 'Too Early' , James Tissot, 1873 |
Contemporary Art Inspired from Victorian Era
As time went by, Victorian art always remained popular and inspiring to design or art. Many art movements got inspired and developed from it such Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The Arts and Crafts movement (1860-1910) which was set-up by William Morris was inspired from the Victorian era and created many patterns and designs. Contemporary artists such as photographers, fashion designers, graphic designers as well as product designers produced collections with Victorian art but with a contemporary twist.
Victorian art made a boom in history since the changes took place and people woke up on their feet to work and produce art and coming up with new, innovative concepts. Along the time photographers did reapplications of paintings in their photography, fashion designers produced haute couture collections inspired from Victorian clothing or paintings.As seen in many of the paintings, women wore bright or pastel colours combined with flowers on their head or the painting scene set in the English countryside. Later in the twentieth century modern Victorian was invented and this was the Steampunk. Although steampunk is much more based in design we can find some contemporary paintings with this new theme.
 |
| Helen Warner, 2012, inspired from Millais. |
An example of reapplication of a photo.
 |
| 'Opehlia', John Everett Millais, 1851-1852 |
Victorian Art Inspiration in my Visual Product
My idea for the visual product is a headpiece that is inspired from steampunk and Victorian art. These two movements although they a different from each other still there is a link between them because both of them are a revolution in art and design. Headpieces were very popular with the high society class in Victorian era, they used to be adorned with flowers, lace and comes in different shapes and sizes. They used to wear hats and headpieces for particular occasions yet some used to always wear.
 |
| Lady in a Rose Hat by Sue Halstenberg (n.d ) |
This painting above is a modern painting although no date was given. What I liked in this painting is the lace on her chest up till her neck, it inspired me to add lace in the design of the headpiece and have a combination of an edgy and fashionable headpiece combined with classical and soft look that make it very feminine. Lace is one of my favourite materials because it's very classic and makes any clothing looks timeless, on the other hand steampunk is very edgy and modern.
avictorian.com,2009.The Victorian Artists.[online] Available at : < http://www.avictorian.com/victorianart.html >
[Accessed 17 December 2013]
No comments:
Post a Comment