Richard Avedon brief.

Richard Avedon was an American based photographer normally famous for his outstanding fashion photography works; his fashion photos had been celebrated and used for Life, Vougue, and Harper's Bazaar, etc. Avedon was described as the person whose photographs represent the American images of beauty and style for half of a century. 

Avedon often captured his model in a special motion; it could be exact moment or position as his model was posing; that way the photographs that came out were usually dramatic because of the model's motion and the way of composing in the frame. 

His portrait photographs were also extremely expressive in a wide range from celebrities to his acquaintances and ordinary beings; his objective contains from public figures and politicians to celebrities like Marilyn Monroe in his work body, as he self claimed that he was always a portrait photographer. 

 The composition of the entire piece was outstanding without a doubt, but what really makes the difference would be the way of how Avedon position the model in each of his photographs; no matter it is a portrait scape or a fashion cover shot, the art of human form
always stands out and provides an incredible sense of emotion; dramatic, humorous, sometimes scary, emphasizing the dynamic of the picture.

Marcel Duchamp brief.

Marcel Duchamp (Heri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp) is an American artist mostly recognized in painting and sculpting. He was famous as a chess-player beside as a great figure of experimental art as well. He was considered as one of the three artist who helped define and promoted the development of plastic art and in 20th century along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. As a prominent figure in art history, he redefined the art in some way by introducing conceptual art to the world, where the term "Ready made" comes from.
A ready made is a piece of art but almost completely based on a found object; Duchamp took the found object and simply sign it or reposition it to turn the ordinary object to a piece of modern art.

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

Bicycle wheels by Duchamp

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was a Hungarian photographer born in Budapest, and within his time he began as a darkroom assitant and a journalist photographer; Capa left German because of the rise of Nazi and headed to Paris where he started his career of photojournalist and shared a darkroom with the Henry Cartier-Bresson, one of the greatest figure of candid photographic. He helped Bresson founding the Magum, which turned out to be the most famous world-wide photo agency with a lot of photographer members in it. The influence from masters were shown, as Capa traveled to Spain several times to document the civil war.

 Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936)

                                 

Above is publicly considered as the most famous and representative work of Robert Capa:  Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936) .  The shocking moment was exceptionally expressive in terms of composition.

Taken during D-Day Invasion.

His pictures taken in the extremely earthy environment have shown a great level of realism with the stunning impact of the moment, as Picture Post titled him "the greatest war photographer in the world." I think the pictures itself are typical examples of documenting reality, but more importantly, the moment he captured in most of his pieces reminds of Bresson's 'decisive moment' theory; so to speak, a decisive moment is a photographer's intuition of capturing the exact moment that could be used as a photo. Capa's body of work express the exact idea of a war photojournalist, which is documenting and recording the real war lives, but meanwhile the impact and the power in his picture is also a evidence showing his great understanding of craftsmanship in photography, that is, to capture the most representative moment from those massive moments in real life. 

Captured German Soldier  in Normandy

Fauvism brief.

Fauvism is an art style usually expressed in painting with  extremely strident color and relatively wild brush works; being the very first movement of modern art in 20th century, the birth of Fauvism came from the inspiration from artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Paul Gauguin. The French word "Fauve" represents "wild beasts", which in some way explains the wild, uninhibited brush works and expressive colors used in fauvism painting. Henri Matisse was unquestionably a prominent figure in the development of fauvism; he was a draughtsman and was regarded as a representative figure of French painting, but initially he was considered as a Fauve depending on his work style.

Dance

Self-Portrait by Henri Matisse

Andre Derain is another French painter who is also the co-founder of Fauvism in the early 20th century with Henri Matisse; they worked together in 1905 through a couple of years and he later on shifted from fauvist palette to new classicism, which is a relatively more muted tone.

'Henri Matisse'  portrait by Andre Derain

Goya .brief.

 Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes , as known as Francisco Goya (1741-1828), is considered as the one of the greatest Spanish painter and printmaker of the late 18th century. He traveled to different places through his long career and was extremely valued as an artist at his time. With being an successful and valued painter, Goya jumped through different styles as he was growing as an artist and eventually became pessimistic in some way. He moved Italy at the age of 14 and began to study with José Luzán Martínez. His contribution to Spanish art was huge, and to a great extent he promoted the Spanish enlightenment. His work were relatively romantic later in career, expressing the relationship between naturalism and ideal beauty, but some of his pieces (like Black Painting series) showed an opposite approach in which loneliness and fear, the feeling of struggle and desperate were strongly expressed.

The Second of May 1808, 1814

Plate 4

Yard with Lunatics, c. 1794

Witches' Sabbath or Aquelarre

Sacrifice to Pan, 1771.

                                       

Arts and Crafts movement .brief.

The Arts and Crafts movement emerged from Britain in mid 19th, attempting to reform the art design and trying to present a new appreciation of decorative art forms. The movement began in the second half of 19th century, when designer William Morris dedicated himself into reform the "craftsmanship."

The room: furniture by Phillip Webb and decor by William Morris.

As the picture shown above proofed, artists' collaboration were flourishing during the the movement; the painters provided the original designs and skilled craftsman were responsible to produced it, so there were so many furniture manufacturing, jewelry and metal making going on to that date, and different kinds of material like painting, sculpture, architecture and decorative art, textile, wallpaper, graphic and books were involved because of the collaborative "firm" in the movement.  William Morris and Phillip Webb, the architect, Ford Madox Brown, the painter pushed the movement through their spirit of craftsmanship and the movement were widely spread and reached a new level by 1880s.

William Morris's "Trellis" wallpaper design

vase and bowl from the Paul Revere Pottery

The movement had a great influence left from industry revolution which we could see in some of the architecture work, but the products at this time involved a large amount of artistic value besides machinery. Also, the craftsman were refusing to accept the idea of modern industries because they thought it lost the traditional craft method in the work. Therefore, the movement had produced many finished structure done with traditional craftsmanship and the spirit.

William Morris's Red House designed by Phillip Webb done in 1860.

The Robert Owen Museum, Newtown, by Frank Shaylor.

Edward Weston .brief.

Edward Weston is widely respected as an art photographer in 20th century who mainly focuses on photographing still life, portraits and human form artistically. Majority of black-and-white photographs are grainy and sharp focused, also a large numbers of his work are close-up shots: the images are extremely rich in details.

Nude

Weston's photography pieces have the texture of oil paintings in many ways if you look from distance; when looking more closely what really stands out the most is the subject itself. 

Pepper

Cabbage

Weston's interest and his passionate about nature and form provides him the unique style of combining them together. From 1927-1930, Weston kept taking close-up shots from different nature subject in daily life like rocks, shells and vegetable (pepper and cabbage) ; he brought out the detailed texture of nature and was interpreted that he was trying to express the American lifestyle that emerged from California.

The most attracting factor in Weston's work would be the way he set up the subject; the pepper would be a great example-Weston presented the pepper in a uncanny form that transformed the pepper from a still life to a human form. It had the sense of motions and the curve really spoke a lot for human form. Also in general, it was really interesting for Weston's work that there was always a sort of absurdism in his pieces: the low key lighting, the oil texture and the uncanny forms of the subject.

Rococo brief.

Rococo (so-called "Late Baroque") was a style of interior design, decorating, furniture design, sculpture and architecture originated in Paris in 18th century but was adopted and spreaded throughout first in France then in many other countries like Germany. The style used curves and natural forms frequently in decorating to enhance the sense of elegance, and the use of natural light in architecture was also extraordinary. The world Rococo was developded from rocaille, a French world that refered to ornamentations that were made of rocks or encrusted shells.

 Rococo painting was initiated in Frence, and the very first pieces were produced by Antoine Watteau and Francouis Boucher.

Francois Boucher

                                                                  

Cupid a Captive, oil on canvas by Francois Boucher in 1754

Jean Antoine Wattseau

Mezzetin, Jean Antoine Watteau in 1718-20

                                               

Vermeer brief.

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was considered one of the greatest dutch painter with the other artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn of "Gouden Eeuw", a golden period in dutch history where its art reached the peak. Vermeer spent his entire life in and got recognized in Delft. The artist was not so wealth that he had debt that were not yet paid off when he died, probably because he worked slowly and carefully with patience and had been using very expansive pigment on most of his pieces. 

Girl with a Pearl Earring, oil on canvas, 1665

 The painting above was considered to be the most representative piece of Vermeer; the intensity of light was extraordinary, which he created by using limited palette. Using monochrome was also his signature style that he would put a layer of gray shades over his canvas to increase the luminosity of the painting.

The Milkmaid, oil on canvas,1660

Woman Holding a Balance, oil on canvas

Girls Seated at a Virginal

Girl with the Red Hat, oil on panel, 1665/1666

JAN Van Eyck

2/7/18

Jan Van Eyck (possibly active between 1390-1440 according to the existing record of his life) was a Netherlandish painter famous for his achievement of developing the Early Netherlandish painting as well as leading the Northern Renaissance. Living in Bruges, his works included early Gothic painting style and mainly focused on realism and naturalism, especially for some religious subjects, figures and symbols. He continued to work on oil painting with using religious symbols; his work had been copied and imitated but still remained great values, and he was also admired by most artists during Renaissance.

The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434.

The symbolism interpretation in this piece is endless; the hand Arnolfini used to hold his wife was left, indicating that the marriage might be "left-hand marriage" that means the marriage is unequal-in the left-hand marriage female is "obliged to forfeit all the usual rights of property and inheritence." Also the dog standing between the couple was considered to be a symbol of faithfulness-the dog was there to ensure the marriage's success.

Giotto

1/31/18

Giotto (Giotto Di Bondone) was an italian artist (most known for his painting) and an architect born in Florence and was considered to be one of the first artists in italian Renaissance. He worked during the period of italian Renaissance and his talent of art, especially for his painting, were highly prized and he also got paid by the commune of Florence for his skills.

Lamentation c.1305 by Giotto 

The painting piece above is one of Giotto's masterpieces named Lamentation Giotto painted for the Scrovegni Chapel, describing a emotional story of the lamentation of Christ. It's a fresco painting that involves Byzantines style; the figure of Christ seems to be the focal point for the entire piece, and the facial expression of every figure highly increases the emotional impact. What adds to the emotional effect would be the angels that flying above the dying Christ: their body movements are very dramatic.

Gargoyles & Grotesques

Bill
1/24/18

Gargoyles are Grotesque that are carved in or formed, which are often used in architectural fields especially for Gothic buildings. Grostesque (referring to the word grottoes) is a decorative, imagery art form that usually represents of bizareness or unpleasantness and sometimes a weird mood or feeling when it appears in theatrical performances. The animal heads or totem, distorted living shapes and mythical creatures are parts of Grotesque, and the difference between Grotesque and Gargoyles is Gargoyles are used as a water spout in architecture while Grotesques are purely decorative things. Gargoyles are used by architects to prevent rainwater and divide them to protect the building from rainstorm.
                                         
                                                        Gargoyles:

Grotesques:

Head of a Grotesques

Real life Grotesque

There are extremely relevant and easy to be mixed up.