Decorative arts

I visited the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU. There were several artists on exhibit there from different parts of the Caribbean, Central and South American and the United States. The most beautiful piece that I saw was a tapestry that showed what looked like two women facing in opposite directions. One was red, one was black. While I was looking at it I was wondering how long it took the artist to make the piece because it is very detailed and complicated but kind of…

“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” – Salvador Dali (One small see 2014: 60). To this day surrealism is still destroying the shackles that hold us to the socially accepted normalities of the art world. We as graphic designers are constantly being challenged to be unique, different, inspired etc. in our field of work. In this essay I will be discussing one of Adam Martinakas’ works, namely, The Divisions of Pleasure, 2012(Figure…

Paint has been in use from prehistoric times and has played an important role in decorative art over the centuries. Two of the oldest and most respected paints used by artists and craftsmen are tempera and oil paints. Used for centuries and easily made by the artist, in comparison to other paints, these were the primary paints of the Italian renaissance. These paints continued to be used in the centuries after, though tempera is not as popular as it once was, oil still remains a standard paint…

Historical or Mediocre? Driving to the Jepson Center of Art was fairly easy. Jepson is placed in a little square in downtown and the center is pretty huge, so finding it was no problem. Although I had to park on the back side of the center, I didn’t mind the short walk to the front of the building. When I got inside though I was pretty confused. In most museums that I went to there was always a line to the front desk to pay and a smiling friendly face to greet me. I was not faced with any…

depth of profundity of the facial expressions and pleasing apotheosis of serenity and dignity, in their technical refinement and excellent modelling and in their sensitiveness and restraint they have few parallels in south India plastic art. The sculptural art of the Airavatesvara temple compared to the great magnitude of the edifice is not prolific nor is it the product of any atelier noted for refined sensibility and freshness of ideas. Everything has now been standardized in sculpture as…

On the third floor of the Harvard Art Museum, there hangs a self-portrait of Kerry James Marshall, depicting the African American artist with a large, colorful paint palette in his right hand. Across the room rests an old, wooden arm-chair in a glass display case, used by the President of Harvard on special occasions such as convocations and commencements. These two seemingly dissimilar objects echo each other in intricate ways, and they bring about a unique part of Harvard’s history to the…

I have places inside me where there are works of art: internal abysms that feel full, physical, like forces that fuse past and present. In the early 2000s, I spent four straight days in the Prado; all of it's still within me like some huge, Proustian madeleine. Almost every Bosch, Cézanne, Matisse, Alice Neel, Bill Traylor, Martín Ramírez, and Marsden Hartley that I've ever seen can flash like lightning at will. I spent a day enraptured by Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar. (I…

Chapter 2 – The Arts and Crafts Movement The Arts and Crafts Movement of the second half of the 19th century was an English aesthetic movement that started an appreciation of decorative arts throughout Europe. It is difficult to say what exactly can be described as ‘Arts and Crafts’ as the craftsmen and women associated with the movement were working within a spectrum of crafts; as architects, printers, painters, sculptors and jewellers. The revival of Arts and Crafts in the second half of the…

My visit to the Tampa Museum of Art took place on the 4th of February 2017. The Tampa Museum of Art is located at the heart of downtown Tampa and is home to some of the most widely acclaimed creative works of art in the United States. I had never been to a museum prior to my visit. My visit to the Tampa museum was very informative and a rare occasion to learn about the beauty of art. I was pretty anxious from the beginning because I didn’t know where to start, but after speaking with a security…

socialist form in content. Anything other than those art form that was practiced was culturally outlawed and heavily unacceptable in Poland including all Eastern nations. Abakanowicz finished high school and have attended two art Academy. First she went to Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts, but relocated. The second Academy is one of the leading art school in Poland, and graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1954.…