Expressionism

While Anne Sexton and Robert Fagles were both inspired by the Van Gogh painting The Starry Night, they execute their ideas into two similar yet very different poems. Primarily, despite the fact that both poems are named after the same painting, the subject, their experiences, and the speaker of each poem are different. Additionally, both poets stimulate the reader’s senses through different images to evoke a similar gloomy atmosphere and convey the theme of death and madness. Thus, Sexton and…

Painted in 1880, The Storm, by Pierre-Auguste Cot, is an oil painting currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two subjects, a youthful woman and man, are the central focus of this work. The Storm is notable not only for its subject matter, but also for the striking way in which it is depicted; the technical mastery of Cot is evident in the well-rendered, linear style, and the dynamic and atmospheric nature of the painting inspires a greater sense of interest in the viewer. The…

Kodak Time to change…. George Eastman decides to take the photography world to a new level when the frustration of dealing with the mess and weight of the wet plates. By 1879 he has patent an emulsion-coating which can mass produce dry plates. This leads to the creation of the company, The Eastman Dry Plate Company. In 1884 the join of Strong leads to the company taking on 14 shareholders, and Eastman introduces Negative Paper. Kodak becomes a house hold name when it is registered in 1888…

Perhaps the greatest meditation on how art serves the soul, came in 1910, when Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky published The Art of Spiritual Harmony, an exploration of the deepest and most authentic motives for making art. A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. It explains Kandinsky’s own theory of painting and crystallizes the great ideas that were…

In 1886, Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh moved to Paris, France and was inspired by Japanese artist and other Impressionists whom were also studying Japanese art work. He admired the elegance, bold colors, and striking designs that characterized ukiyo-e prints. van Gogh adopted Japanese influence into his work (known as Japonisme) and it is evident in his most famous work, Starry Night. (http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Painting/508/Starry-Night.html) Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Night,…

Le Mayeur uses expressive brush strokes with prompt movements to bring out the energy and vibrancy of the festival scene, where it is almost as if the movements in the painting were brought to life, and one can almost feel the atmosphere and imagine being a spectator of the Balinese dancers through the portrayal of the light and textures. He uses two different techniques of painting in the foreground and background respectively to create pictorial depth. This can be seen in the rich and vivid…

The video begins us with being introduced to Katharina Grosse in her studio in Berlin, Germany. She is seen photographing a poem by Ernst Jandl for a christmas card, and while she talks about how she’d always loved language, she tells us that the moment she learned about painting a new love began. Katharina points out the strong contrast between poetry and paintings. She discusses how while a poem follows “a certain order system” which makes it quite “linear,” painting possesses a certainly more…

The Modern Way of Sitting Joan Brown’s piece titled Girl Sitting 1962 depicts a nude female body in a sitting pose. This colorful piece was made in 1962 and can be found in the Oakland Museum of California. Located on a white wall within a thin black frame that is five by four feet tall, the painting is composed of oil paints on a canvas. The subject is positioned toward the left; therefore, leaving a big empty space on the right. Overall, several factors contribute to deliver an effective…

Paul Cézanne was born in 1839 and was a Post-Impressionist French painter. His work contributed to the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavor to a new world of art in the 20th century (“Paul Cézanne”, 2016). Cézanne worked on his painting “The Large Bathers” for seven years, which remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1906. It is often considered Cezanne’s finest work (“The Bathers (Cézanne)”, 2016). Cezanne aimed to disregard current trends and give a…

My aesthetic experience at the Museum of Fine Arts and the art work with the biggest emotional reflection on me was, “Dance at Bougival” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1883). This piece is often noted as “one of the museum’s most beloved works.” The open-air cafés of suburban Bougival, just outside of Paris, was a popular spot of recreational activities for city dwellers. The Impressionist painters would often visit these areas, seeking inspiration for their paintings. Renoir, utilizes fierce color…