Artist Spotlights

Art 1/Artist Spotlights

You will be introduced to selected works of art and artists as they relate to the curriculum. In your sketchbook:
1. Complete a thumbnail sketch of the work
2. Document the #, heading, and credit line
3. Review all provided resources - take notes
4. Answer the questions completely and with specificity; complete sentences should reveal the question (write legibly or type/print)

Entries started in class must be completed as homework by the same day/next week

MORE ART HISTORY!

The Artist Spotlight Series

9/10/2018

What WAS Art? What IS Art? WHY is Art? What WILL Art Become....? HOW will YOUR art compare?

Art and art history are inextricably linked... This series will take you through selected periods of art history and will allow you to consider how and why art has changed over the years. This investigation may help you to answer the questions above, although you'll likely change and refine your answers throughout the year. As you consider the life, times, and innovations of each artist, think also about how this knowledge can affect the art that YOU will make.

PLEASE NOTE:

The thumbnail sketches associated with these sketchbook entries will serve as opportunities to draw every day but they are separate from your "Daily Drawings."
A thumbnail sketch is small and quickly done BUT it should still be completed with effort and observation. Pay attention to contours, shapes, proportion, composition, etc. This type of observation helps you to better understand the work of art and how the artist may have approached their work.
Pay special attention to the ways that art has changed over the years - but perhaps you'll also notice similarities... what drives ALL artists?
We will only scratch the surface - art history is HUGE and it keeps growing. Take any opportunity to be curious about things that we are not able to cover in this course.

To get us started:

Watch the video below
Take notes to document important/interesting facts, bits of information, thoughts, etc.
Write a reflective response, which may include some or all of the following:

What did you already know?
What information was totally new to you?
What would you like to investigate further?
Did the video help you think about art in a new way?
General thoughts/impressions about the content of the video.

#16 - Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968)

5/11/2018

FIRST: watch the video below. Along with the "criteria for art" that you considered with AS #14, consider now the "purposes for art" as explained in the video.
NEXT: go on to learn more about the artist, Marcel Duchamp, so that you can consider the way that he approached the definition of "art."

Bicycle Wheel, 1951 (third version, after lost original of 1913), metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool, 51 x 25 x 16 1/2", Museum of Modern Art, © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp

From Metropolitan Museum's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History:

Duchamp has had a huge impact on twentieth-century art. By World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists as “retinal” art, intended only to please the eye. Instead, Duchamp wanted, he said, “to put art back in the service of the mind.”

With Bicycle Wheel (1913), the first readymade, Duchamp moved toward a creative process that was antithetical to artistic skill. He wanted to distance himself from traditional modes of painting in an effort to emphasize the conceptual value of a work of art, seducing the viewer through irony and verbal witticisms rather than relying on technical or aesthetic appeal. The object became a work of art because the artist had decided it would be designated as such. Bicycle Wheel consisted of a fork and the wheel of a common bicycle that rested upon an ordinary stool. The mundane, mass-produced, everyday nature of these objects is precisely why Duchamp chose them (later works would include a snow shovel, a urinal (Philadelphia Museum of Art), and a bottlerack (Philadelphia Museum of Art), to name a few). As a result, he ensured that the fruits of modern industrial life would be a fertile resource in the production of works of art.

ART has served many different purposes over the course of history. First, list at least three of those reasons as specifically mentioned in the videos. Then, explain the purpose(s) that YOU feel is the most important.
Review your answer above AS WELL AS your criteria for "art" as listed for AS #14. Using that information, explain how conceptual work like "Bicycle Wheel" aligns with your understanding and appreciation of ART.
Finally, write YOUR definition of ART.

CURIOUS? Here is even more information:

How Duchamp's Urinal Changed Art Forever

#15 Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929)

4/27/2018

Two Cheeseburgers, with Everything (Dual Hamburgers) 1962
Burlap soaked in plaster, painted with enamel
7 x 14 3/4 x 8 5/8" (17.8 x 37.5 x 21.8 cm)

In the spirit of Claes Oldenburg, you will be making a 3 dimensional, clay sculpture that is related to the general themes of Pop Art - and to your painting, specifically.

Oldenburg drew numerous preliminary sketches for his sculptures - so you should do the same. Since your sculpture will be in-the-round, sketch what you envision it will look like from all angles, as in the thumbnails below (if your sculpture was an ear bud or a flash drive). THINK AND DRAW:

What sculptural object can relate to your painting? ("relates" means that it won't necessarily be a replica of your painting's exact subject) - remember, it is always better to brainstorm more than one idea!
Oldenburg said that food had "architecture" and "structure." How can this concept help you to develop the form that you will sculpt? Think about your sculpture as "architecture" ..... you will have to build it - how?
Should your sculpture be created in separate parts (as in the sandwich shown in the video)? Why? How? Or will you sculpt/attach details onto the outer edges of a basic form (sphere or cube, for example)?
Use your study of linear perspective help you to draw the most accurate thumbnails of your sculptural ideas? If stuck - draw the box into which your sculpture can fit! Envision the positive and the negative space and use this to help your drawing.
KEEP IT SIMPLE - clay sculptures need to be sturdy and compact AND you will be making this sculpture in a matter of hours.

#14 Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987)

4/16/2018

Campbell's Soup Cans
1962
Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases
Each canvas 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm).
Overall installation with 3" between each panel is 97" high x 163" wide
Museum of Modern Art, New York (incl. link to brief but helpful audio)

FIRST: Watch this video and take notes so that you can review some basic facts and characteristics of Pop Art:

Then, watch the following videos/take notes to continue building cumulative knowledge about Warhol and his place in art history:

List your criteria for art; what in your opinion, is needed in order to call something "art"? List as many characteristics as possible.
Find a dictionary definition of ART. Write it in full (included the source) and compare/contrast this definition of art with the list that you wrote for question #1.
Andy Warhol said “everything is art.” Do you agree or disagree with his statement - and what reasons do you have for your opinion?

CURIOUS? Here is even more information about Pop Art!

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-pop-art.htm
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art

#13 Roy Lichtenstein (1923 - 1997)

3/30/2018

In your sketchbook, document this Artist Spotlight by #, name/dates, image (sketched or printed), and credit line info.

Since you have already learned about Roy Lichtenstein through the Scholastic magazine reading/assignment, there will be no further questions. Please keep those notes for reference and review.

If you are still curious about Roy Lichtenstein, here is more information from the ROY LICHTENSTEIN FOUNDATION

Whaam!
1963
Magna acrylic and oil on canvas
2 panels, 68" x 83" each
Tate Modern, London

LOOK: Roy Lichtenstein also worked in 3D - as you will also be doing!

Head with Blue Shadow
1965
Painted ceramic
38.1 × 21 × 20.3 cm (15 × 8 1/4 × 8 in)
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas

#12 - Masaccio (1401 - 1428)

3/9/2018

Holy Trinity
1427-28
Fresco
21' 10 1/2" x 10' 4 7/8"
Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Read/view the following resources and take good notes:

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, previous Artist Spotlight information, personal reflection, and additional research as needed:
1. It is easy to understand how linear perspective can be used to create architectural structures and spaces but how does it play a role in the representation of figures?
2. Define "Humanism." How do you see the use of linear perspective playing a humanistic role in Renaissance art?
3.There is a direct parallel between the development of ancient Greek sculpture and the way that figurative art developed in the Renaissance... Explain.

#11 - Giotto (1267 - 1337)

2/16/2018

Lamentation
Arena Chapel (Capella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy,
ca. 1305.
Fresco, 6’ 3/4” x 6’ 3/4”

Read/view the following resources and take good notes:

Article about Giotto and the Scrovegni chapel
Watch this video:

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, previous Artist Spotlight information, personal reflection, and additional research as needed:
1. This painting is directly across from another....As you consider the content of this work, what is important about the placement (across from, not next to!) and relationship of these two images?
2. How was composition traditionally used in religious paintings? How did Giotto change that?
3. In addition to the compositional innovation explained above, what other revolutionary and ground-breaking things did Giotto do, which earned his place art history?

CURIOUS? Here's some more information:
The video below compares Giotto's Madonna Enthroned with that of Cimabue's

#10 - Kehinde Wiley (born 1970)

2/2/2018

Willem van Heythuysen 2005
Oil and enamel on canvas
8' x 6', plus frame
VMFA, Richmond VA

from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19445412:
"Kehinde Wiley grew up on the violent streets of South Central in Los Angeles in the 1980s. When he was 11 years old, his mother sent him to art school where he learned to paint and immersed himself in art history as an escape from the reality in his neighbourhood. Today, Wiley is known for his portraits based on photographs of young African-American men whom he has approached on the street. Dressed in street clothes, his models are asked to assume poses from the paintings of Old Masters including Reynolds, Gainsborough and Titian."

READ THIS and take notes.

WATCH THIS:

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, personal reflection, and additional research as needed:

1. The SUBJECT of Wiley's work is the figure....explain his COMPOSITION as well as the CONTENT.
2. We are taught that "copying" is unethical. Wiley copies the compositions of existing works of art....so isn't he cheating? stealing? being dishonorable? If he's not "stealing," what is he doing? Explain your thoughts on this matter.
3. The background in a work of art can play many different roles but it usually supports the content. How do the backgrounds of Wiley's work support his intended content?

CURIOUS? Here's more information:

Videos:
Kehinde Wiley: Artist's modern twist to Old Masters' portraits
Curator's Choice: Kehinde Wiley's “The World Stage: Israel”
Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace (this one is long)

#9 - Justinian and His Attendants

1/29/2018

Mosaic from the north wall of the apse, Church of San Vitale
Ravenna, Italy, ca. 547

READ THIS: Art History Timeline/Byzantine

READ THIS: Justinian Mosaic, San Vitale

WATCH THESE VIDEOS:

How did they do that?

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, personal reflection, and additional research as needed:

1. Church mosaics usually depicted images of Christ and other Biblical characters and stories....why does this mosaic depict an Emperor?
2. What are the general characteristics of figures in the Byzantine style?
3. The artists who made this mosaic would have been aware of the realism depicted in earlier Greek sculptures....with that in mind, for what reasons are the figure depicted here more symbolic and seemingly without knowledge of the mechanics of the human figure?

CURIOUS? Here's some more information:

History of Mosaic Art

#8 Nike of Samothrace

1/2/2018

Unknown sculptor
Greece, ca. 190 BCE
Marble, approx. 8’ 1” high Louvre, Paris.

READ/TAKE NOTES: Greek Sculpture - Hellenistic

WATCH VIDEO/TAKE NOTES: (please note that one narrator misspeaks when explaining the date of this sculpture....maybe you can find the mistake....)

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, personal reflection, and additional research as needed:

1. Nike is the goddess of what?
2. List three adjectives that most effectively describe the characteristics of this sculpture. Compare these adjectives to those you wrote for Menkaura and His Queen. Are they similar or different? Explain.
3. List the style/time period of this sculpture. Explain how the Nike of Samothrace is the next, logical step that follows the Archaic, Severe, and Classical styles.

CURIOUS? Here's some more information:

Compare Archaic and Classical styles with what you now know about Hellenistic art

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