Claude

III When it came to the Surrealist movement in art, the leader of that movement was more easily identifiable. It was Andre Breton, who also found fame later as a French poet. Yet when one mentioned Surrealism in art, the first name that came to the minds of most art critics and students of art history was that of Salvador Dali, not Andre Breton. This was an ironical state of affairs because Andre Breton and the Surrealists had formally expelled Salvador Dali from their art movement in 1939.…

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds some of the most influential and historic art work. One famous painting, Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau was created in 1864. Gustave Moreau was a French painter born on April 6, 1826 and died on April 18, 1898. His painting, Oedipus and the Sphinx is 6′ 9″ x 3′ 5″ in dimension and the medium used was oil paint on canvas. His famous painting was first exhibited at the French Salon of 1864 and has became a successful piece to this day and was the…

One point in Malcolm Gladwell’s book that stood out to me was when he talked about the artist in Paris in 1860 and how they didn’t conform, which I think you shouldn’t. He quoted historian Sue Roe when she wrote, “works were expected to be microscopically accurate, properly ‘finished’ and formally framed, with proper perspective and all the familiar artistic conventions (pg. 66),” but the artists he wrote about didn’t follow those rules. His book is about underdogs but, when he wrote about…

By the beginning of 20th century, the effects of modernity were being increasingly felt across European cities, as people left behind provincial life in search of the opportunities afforded by the industrial revolution. In response to the changing cityscape, many artists began to look for inspiration elsewhere, often escaping to rural spaces to seek out a connection with the natural world. One such artist was André Derain, who, in July 1905, left his home and studio in Paris to travel to the…

Another similar painting done by Derain titled “Winding Road L’ Estaque” has some differences, but in many ways is similar to “The Trees”. The medium of this work is oil on canvas and is 4'2.5" feet in length by 6'4.5" feet in width. Derain went about painting this image in a way that is stylized because the objects in the image are painted in Derain’s perspective and are not naturalistic in nature. Although some of the figures are abstract, they are all representational and are recognizable.…

It’s safe to say that Gustave Caillebote’s “Paris Street, Rainy Day” is one of the most easy recognisable paintings of the 19th Century France. The large oil painting is certainly interesting as Gustave tends to show a more pessimistic view on Paris breaking the pattern that the Impressionists have put into place, a pattern that Gustave seems to enjoy breaking. Instead of painting with a loose brush Gustave chooses to go with smaller and much more delicate work which might be mistaken for…

The use of perspective in both Raphael’s The School of Athens and Asher Brown Durand’s Kindred Spirits emphasizes the different subjects of each painting and distinguishes between significant and detail oriented additions to the pieces. Although perspective is used to reach a common goal throughout both pieces, each artist relied upon contrasting approaches to the perspective in order to accentuate certain elements of their work. For example, Raphael applies the one-point perspective system to…

Gustave Caillebotte was a french impressionist artist of the nineteenth century. He grew up in a wealthy family and inherited his father’s fortune in 1874. At that time he had already made aquantasist with several impressionist artist and soon began to focus on art. He made his debut in the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Gustave was an impressionist artist but his style differ from many of the other impressionist artist because his work was more realistic. One of his most famous…

Claude Monet The paintings of Claude Monet include three main stages of a woman’s life, which are youth, matrimony and upbringing a child. The first stage of a woman’s life is youth entitled “Lily Butler in Claude Monet’s Garden”. Youth could generally be defined as an age of people between childhood and maturity, which based on cultural or social viewpoints of the particular society. The painting represents a young woman dressed in white long attire, arching herself a little to the front to…

portrays a significant development for one character hearing another through inner thoughts. In Banana Bottom, Claude McKay demonstrates the protagonist Bita Plant’s significant devotion to her cultural idealism such as rape, society of the lower classes, religion, traditions, and world views which created an impact on her self-confidence and heritage. In Banana Bottom written by Claude McKay, the…