task 2,7,8 - Pierre-August Renoir

Renoir started life as a poor working class boy, working as a porcelain painter in a factory - a job that was intense and delicate - good grounding for the work he would later do.

"Acknowledging modern criticism of Renoir's sensuality, Lawrence Gowing wrote: “ "Is there another respected modern painter whose work is so full of charming people and attractive sentiment? Yet what lingers is not cloying sweetness but a freshness that is not entirely explicable...One feels the surface of his paint itself as living skin: Renoir's aesthetic was wholly physical and sensuous, and it was unclouded...These interactions of real people fulfilling natural drives with well-adjusted enjoyment remain the popular masterpieces of modern art (as it used to be called), and the fact that they are not fraught and tragic, without the slightest social unrest in view, or even much sign of the spacial and communal disjunction which some persist in seeking, is far from removing their interests." ”
Albert Aurier, an art critic and early essayist on the impressionists, wrote in 1892: “ "With such ideas, with such a vision of the world and of femininity, one might have feared that Renoir would create a work which was merely pretty and merely superficial. Superficial it was not; in fact it was profound, for if, indeed, the artist has almost completely done away with the intellectuality of his models in his paintings, he has, in compensation, been prodigal with his own. As to the pretty, it is undeniable in his work, but how different from the intolerable prettiness of fashionable painters." ”
In a preview to the exhibition 'Renoir Landscapes 1865-1883' at the National Gallery, London in spring 2007, The Guardian wrote that "Even Degas laughed at his friend's style, calling it as puffy as cotton wool," but that "if we're going to love him, we need to love his chocolate box qualities, too."" http://www.pierre-auguste-renoir.org/biography.html

"In the early 1870s, Renoir and his friends joined with other avant-garde artists to form a loose-knit artistic circle now known as the impressionist movement. He participated in the first impressionist exhibition (1874) and throughout the 1870s remained committed to impressionist ideals. Renoir, however, continued to produce paintings of a more traditional sort, including portraits and scenes of leisure enjoyment, such as Le Moulin de la Galette (1876; Musée d'Orsay, Paris).
In his portraits and society paintings, Renoir masterfully rendered the shimmering interplay of light and color on surfaces, the prime goal of impressionism, but also kept an underlying sensuality." http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Art/Renoir/Renoir.shtml


Renoirs' style is very soft and quick (looking), while still being detailed and subtle. He used colours that closest to what was actually there, instead of the glorified style and colouring used in the old Masters paintings in the Salon and other important galleries. He showed great perception in displaying parties and ordinary scenes, while the old Masters used stuffy, set-up scenes in studios. 

The painting shows a dancing couple, captured in a moment of joy. The canvas is tall and thin, almost clinging to the dancers, as if making them the most important people in the world - which they may have felt like at the time; there is also very little in the frame besides the dancers, adding to this feeling. The colours of the clothes may represent a sort of Yin and Yang of the relationship they may be having; he wears a dark suit, she has a light frilly dress. 

task 2, 7, 8 Cezanne

(b. Jan. 19, 1839, Aix-en-Provence, Fr.--d. Oct. 22, 1906, Aix-en-Provence)

Cezannes' early work was very dark - other contemporary artists considered him very strange and avoided him; until one friend took him to his country home. He started to brighten his work and paint landscapes using a style very different form the dark one he had been using before - the colours were bright, bold, as if the subjects were permanently in the sun. His later, more colourful work has this strangely bright quality, the soft edges and the strange seemingly all round view points. His influence of the Cubists was based on how he worked - reducing much of the objects he painted to their basic shape - circles, squares triangles etc before filling them out to the actual object.

The painting may suggest the presence of death in life. The skull seems to be leering over the fruit, as if jealous of their life, or waiting for them to join it, at the same time the layout of the fruit also seems to be more like they're on the offensive. The lighting seems to contradict all of this, with its bright, yellowy colour - suggesting happiness and the height of life, rather than death constantly hanging over your shoulder, or having to fight it. 

"Paul Cézanne was born on January 19, 1839, in Aix-en-Provence, France. While in school, he enrolled in the free drawing academy in Aix, which he attended intermittently for several years. In 1858, he graduated from the Collège Bourbon, where he had become an intimate friend of his fellow student Emile Zola. Cézanne entered the law school of the University of Aix in 1859 to placate his father but abandoned his studies to join Zola in Paris in 1861. For the next twenty years, Cézanne divided his time between the Midi and Paris. In the capital, he briefly attended the Atelier Suisse with Camille Pissarro, whose art later came to influence his own. In 1862, Cézanne began long friendships with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His paintings were included in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, which displayed works not accepted by the jury of the official Paris Salon. The Salon itself rejected Cézanne’s submissions each year from 1864 to 1869.

"In 1870, following the declaration of the Franco-Prussian War, Cézanne left Paris for Aix-en-Provence and then nearby L’Estaque, where he continued to paint. He made the first of several visits to Pontoise in 1872; there, he worked alongside Pissarro. He participated in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874. From 1876 to 1879, his works were again rejected for the Salon. Cézanne showed again with the Impressionists in 1877 in their third exhibition. At that time, Georges Rivière was one of the few critics to support his art. In 1882, the Salon accepted his work for the first and only time. Beginning in 1883, Cézanne resided in the South of France, returning to Paris occasionally.

"In 1890, Cézanne exhibited with the group Les Vingt in Brussels and spent five months in Switzerland. He traveled to Giverny in 1894 to visit Monet, who introduced him to Auguste Rodin and the critic Gustave Geffroy. Cézanne’s first solo show was held at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris in 1895. From this time, he received increasing recognition. In 1899, he participated in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris for the first time. The following year, he took part in the Centennial Exhibition in Paris. In 1903, the Berlin and Vienna Secessions included Cézanne’s work, and in 1904 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, Paris. That same year, he was given a solo exhibition at the Galerie Cassirer, Berlin. Cézanne died on October 22, 1906, in Aix-en-Provence."

http://www.paulcezanne.com/bio.shtml

"Pissarro's influence was important in Cezanne's artistic development. His palette lightened somewhat and he remained throughout his career devoted to the practice of painting directly from nature. However Cezanne reacted against the lack of structure in the Impressionist paintings and said that he intended to make Impressionism into "something solid and durable, like the art of the museums". He did indeed move decisively beyond Impressionism and is placed alongside the Post-Impressionist artists Seurat, Van Gogh and Gauguin.
For many years still-lifes and landscapes were Cezanne's preoccupation. Completing more than 200 still-life compostions in his lifetime, Cezanne wanted to 'conquer Paris with an apple', and become famous for his still life paintings. 'Apples and Oranges' is one of his most well known still-life compositions. Applying the same methodical analysis to these works as he did with his landscapes Cezanne was concerned with recording minute variations in tone and colour observed over long periods as well as the forms from empirical geometry he considered the most frequent in nature - the 'cylinder, sphere and the cone'."

http://www.theartgallery.com.au/cezanne.html

history of art

PRE-MODERN 1800 - 1880 AD (CE)


Neo-Classicism 1750 - 1880 AD
(USA: Federal/Greek Revival)
(Canada: Georgian Style)
"In painting it generally took the form of an emphasis on austere linear design in the
depiction of classical themes and subject matter, using archaeologically
correct settings and costumes."
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/jhreid/neoclassicism.htm

Romanticism 1800 - 1880 AD
(Canada: Victorian)
 "With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789... [The] blurring of stylistic boundaries is best expressed in Ingres' Apotheosis of Homer and Eugène Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus (both Museé du Louvre, Paris), which polarized the public at the Salon of 1827 in Paris. While Ingres' work seemingly embodied the ordered classicism of the David in contrast to the disorder and tumult of the Delacroix, in fact both works draw from the Davidian tradition but each ultimately subverts that model, asserting the originality of the artist—a central notion of Romanticism"
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm

Realism 1830's - 1850's AD
"Realism - the accurate and apparently objective description of the ordinary, observable world, a change especially evident in painting ... Realism sets as a goal not imitating past artistic achievements but the truthful and accurate depiction of the models that nature and contemporary life offer to the artist. The artificiality of both the Classicism and Romanticism in the academic art was unanimously rejected, and necessity to introduce contemporary to art found strong support."
http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c19th/realism.htm


Impressionism 1870's - 1890's AD
"Impressionist art is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. They paint the pictures with a lot of color and most of their pictures are outdoor scenes. Their pictures are very bright and vibrant. The artists like to capture their images without detail but with bold colors. Some of the greatest impressionist artists were Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Pierre Auguste Renoir."
http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~MidLink/Impress.html

MODERNISM 1880 - 1945 AD (CE)


Post Impressionism 1880 - 1900 AD
"The term "Post-Impressionism" was invented by Roger Fry as he prepared for an exhibition at Grafton Gallery in London in 1910. The show was called "Manet and the Post-Impressionists" (November 8, 1910-January 15, 1911), a canny marketing ploy to pair a brand name with younger French artists whose work was not well known on the other side of the English Channel.The exhibition included the painters Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, George Seurat, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Othon Friesz, plus the sculptor Aristide Maillol. Post-Impressionists pushed the ideas of the Impressionists into new directions, their modernist journey from the past into the future."
http://arthistory.about.com/od/modernarthistory/a/Post-Impressionism-Art-History-101-Basics.htm

Expressionism 1900 - 1920 AD
"Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist attempts to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in him. He accomplishes his aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later 19th and the 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements."
http://www.artmovements.co.uk/expressionism.htm

Fauvism 1900 - 1920 AD
"Fauvism is a movement in French painting that revolutionized the concept of color in modern art. Fauves earned their name ("les fauves"-wild beasts) by shocking exhibit visitors on their first public appearance, in 1905. At the end of the nineteenth century, neo Impressionist painters were already using pure colors, but they applied those colors to their canvases in small strokes. The fauves rejected the impressionist palette of soft, shimmering tones in favor of radical new style, full of violent color and bold distortions"
http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/fauvism.htm

Cubism 1907 - 1914 AD

"Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed. Cubism was an attempt by artists to revitalise the tired traditions of Western art which they believed had run their course. 

In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress than in the previous four centuries. During this period inventions such as photography, cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane heralded the dawn of a new age. Artists needed a more radical approach - a 'new way of seeing' that expanded the possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of communication and travel. This new way of seeing was called Cubism - the first abstract style of modern art. Picasso and Braque developed their ideas on Cubism around 1907 in Paris and their starting point was a common interest in the later paintings of Paul Cézanne."

http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/cubism.htm

Dada 1916 - 1922 AD
"Overall, Dada artworks present an intriguing paradox in that they seek to demystify artwork in the populist sense but nevertheless remain cryptic enough to allow the viewer to interpret works in a variety of ways. Like the Cubists, some Dadaists portrayed people and scenes representationally in order to analyze form and movement. Other artists, like Kurt Schwitters, practiced abstraction to express the metaphysical essence of their subject matter. Both modes sought to deconstruct daily experience in challenging, rebellious ways. Key to understanding Dada works lies in reconciling the seemingly silly, slapdash styles with the stringent anti-war message. Tristan Tzara especially fought the assumption that Dada was a statement; yet Tzara and his fellow artists became increasingly agitated by politics and sought to incite a similar fury in Dada audiences." 
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm

Bauhaus 1920s - 1940's AD
"The Bauhaus is one of the first colleges of design. It came into being from the merger of the Weimar Academy of Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts. It was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and was closed in 1933 by the Nazis.

   "The Bauhaus holds a place of its own in the culture and visual art history of 20th century. This outstanding school affirmed innovative training methods and also created a place of production and a focus of international debate. It brought together a number of the most outstanding contemporary architects and artists. The Bauhaus stood almost alone in attempt to achieve reconciliation between the aesthetics of design and the more commercial demands of industrial mass production.

   "The teaching program was organized in the form of workshops to produce works that were both aesthetically pleasing and useful. The creed of this program asserted that the modernization process could be mastered by means of design. As a result, in 1923 the Bauhaus turned it attention to industry. The first major Bauhaus exhibition which was opened in 1923 reflected the revised principle of art and technology a new unity spanned the full spectrum of Bauhaus work. It was Art and Technology, a New Unity, which was also the name of the workshop in which the art was created. "
http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/bauhaus.htm

Surrealism 1924 1920s - 1940's AD
 "The main aim of Surrealism Art is to make drastic reductions on the role played by consciousness and intervention of will. Max Ernst used collage and frottage techniques to further the cause of Surrealism Art while André Masson experimented with automatic drawings. Man Ray and his famous Rayographs, Dalí, Magritte, and Miró who produced oneiric images that sought to cause a juxtaposition of disparate elements were other, highly influential members of the Surrealism Art movement."
http://surrealismart.org/



MODERN & POST-MODERN 1945 AD - Present (CE)

Abstract Expressionism 1945 - 1960 AD
"Emerging in the 1940s in New York City and flourishing in the Fifties, Abstract Expressionism is regarded by many as the golden age of American art. The movement is marked by its use of brushstrokes and texture, the embracing of chance and the frequently massive canvases, all employed to convey powerful emotions through the glorification of the act of painting itself.
Some of the key figures of the movement were Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline. Although their works vary greatly in style, for example the sprawling pieces of Pollock at one end of the spectrum and the brooding works of Rothko at the other, yet they all share the same outlook which is one of freedom of individual expression."
http://www.artmovements.co.uk/abstractexpressionism.htm


Pop Art 1960s AD
"The term first appeared in Britain during the 1950s and referred to the interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer products. Influenced by the art seen in Eduardo Paolozzi's 1953 exhibition Parallel between Art and Life at the Institute for Contemporary Arts, and by American artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, British artists such as Richard Hamilton and the Independent Group aimed at broadening taste into more popular, less academic art. Hamilton helped organize the 'Man, Machine, and Motion' exhibition in 1955, and 'This is Tomorrow' with its landmark image Just What is it that makes today's home so different, so appealing? (1956). Pop Art therefore coincided with the youth and pop music phenomenon of the 1950s and '60s, and became very much a part of the image of fashionable, 'swinging' London. Peter Blake, for example, designed album covers for Elvis Presley and the Beatles and placed film stars such as Brigitte Bardot in his pictures in the same way that Warhol was immortalizing Marilyn Monroe in the USA. Pop art came in a number of waves, but all its adherents - Joe Trilson, Richard Smith, Peter Phillips, David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj - shared some interest in the urban, consumer, modern experience."  
The Bulfinch Guide to Art History

Minimal Art 1960s AD
"Minimal art was an artistic style, which emerged in America the late 1950s. The term was taken from an essay about modern American art by art philosopher Richard Wollheim in 1965. Hard Edge and Colour Field Painting tendencies were an important pre-requisite for the development of this style, as they had essentially prepared the ground for the use of very simple, reduced minimal forms. Minimal Art first established itself in painting, and then sculpture, where it had the greatest impact.
Minimal art sculptures were primarily made from industrial materials, such as aluminium, steel, glass, concrete, wood, plastic or stone. The objects, frequently reduced to very simple geometric shapes, were industrially produced, thus removing the artist’s personal signature from the work. The works were also characterised by serial arrangements of a number of bodies/shapes, and large dimensions" 
http://www.kettererkunst.com/dict/minimal-art.shtml
 
 






































http://www.arthistoryguide.com/

editing

shoots

The initial shoot - the crit session during lesson time - meant that For my final shoot I looked at more buildings, used a tripod and a long exposure on the camera with a low ISO.