MC ARTHIS Mid. 1

what craft is, example of craft?

refers to specific media, including ceramics, glass, jewelry, weaving, and woodworking.

Often, craft objects have a utilitarian purpose or perhaps evolved from a utilitarian origin 

prayer rugs, pottery, etc.

what is content in a work of art? Not the same as subject.

mass of ideas associated with each artwork

imagery, symbolic meaning, display, customs/beliefs/values, writings

Composition – give an example of composition

balance, rhythm, proportion and scale, emphasis, unity, and variety.

Which art term describes the materials that make the artwork,

Medium

understand what visual form is and what it encompasses

“What elements compose it, and how are they arranged?

refers to the way the artwork looks — the arrangement of its visual elements. It’s not about what the artwork means (content) or what it’s made of (medium), but rather how it is put together so we can see and experience it.

• Formal elements: line, shape, color, texture, space, light, and value.

• Organization: how these elements are arranged — composition, balance, rhythm, proportion, emphasis, unity, contrast, etc.

• Physical appearance: size, scale, and overall visual impact.

Bwoom mask

Influenced Picasso and cubism

ceremonial, from the Kuba or Bushongo culture of Central Africa, circa nineteenth–twentieth centuries

At that time, African artworks like the Mask were being brought to Europe through colonial trade, and they dramatically influenced Western art. Also, Picasso’s blending of figure and space echoed the theories of scientists like Albert Einstein on the mutability of matter, energy, and space. Clearly, the content contains complex ideas related to European ideas of sexuality, to colonialism, and to modern scientific theory, all of which may require study to learn and understand.

Wood, Beads, Shells, and Cloth, Head-Sized. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.

Ancient Egypt – the style of ancient Egypt

A cultural style consists of recurring and distinctive features that we see in many works of art emanating from a particular place and era. For example, the cultural style of ancient Egyptian art (with strong outlines and flattened figures in flattened space) helps us to group its paintings across hundreds of years. Stylistic differences make the art of ancient Egypt readily distinguishable from other cultural styles. (To further define, culture is the totality of ideas, customs, skills, and arts that belong to a group of people. In contrast, a civilization is a highly structured society, with a written language or a very developed system of communication, organized government, and advances in the arts and sciences.)

used lots of iconography

Art versus craft – can they be the same or are they always exclusive?

they can overlap, are not exclusive

Chiaroscuro -

refers to the use of strong contrasts between light and dark to create the illusion of three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional surface.

• Leonardo da Vinci – subtle chiaroscuro to create lifelike figures (e.g., Mona Lisa).

• Caravaggio – pushed it into tenebrism (extreme dark backgrounds with spotlighted figures, e.g., The Calling of Saint Matthew).

• Rembrandt – master of light and shadow in portraits (The Night Watch).

• Raphael and Michelangelo – Renaissance use of chiaroscuro in frescoes.

Properties of color

Hue - pure state of color (name)

Value - light (ting) and dark (shade) within a hue

Intensity - brightness (brilliant, vivid) and dullness (faded, dull) (chroma and saturation)

Primary Colors

red, blue, green

combined produce largest number of new colors

Secondary colors

mixing two primary colors

yellow, cyan, magenta

Tertiary colors

mix primary with neighboring secondary

complimentary colors

opposite of each other

analagous colors

similar in appearance

yellow, yellow-orange, orange

Contemporary art and classical culture share same images?

Some artists want to occupy the space between fine art and popular culture. For example, Kiki, from 2010 (Fig. 1.17), is by the contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, who produces paintings, designer handbags, and installations of large-scale inflatable art. His work is a blend of Western and Japanese fine art, popular culture, design, and animé (contemporary Japanese animation) and always reflects a self-conscious consumerism. Murakami also sells multiple-edition prints of works on paper and canvas through galleries and the Internet. His 2010 exhibit in the Palace at Versailles juxtaposes the magnificent yet pompous array of the palace’s marble and gold with the brash plastic brightness of his sculpture.

Principles of design – what demonstrates rhythm? Choose a word

repetition of carefully placed elements separated by intervals. A pattern

When it comes to architecute and early construction, Stone Henge is a particular form of construction; what is it?

New Stone Age, with megalithic structures built over a widespread area. Religious rituals were mixed with astronomy and agriculture, as at Stonehenge

monolithic rock structure, post and lintel?

What it called when an artist uses line to create a drawing?

Contour line drawing

• Line drawing → emphasizes outlines, edges, and linear marks rather than shading or color.

• Contour drawing → a type of line drawing that captures the outer and inner edges of forms.

• Gesture drawing → quick, expressive use of line to capture movement or posture.

Balance – principle of design 2 kinds – symmetrical and asymmetrical balance

symmetrical - visual weight is distributed evenly throughout the composition.

Asymmetrical - achieved by the careful distribution of uneven elements.

Image in the question asking about international style architecture – identify what it is

style of architecture based on simple geometric forms without adornment

Binders and pigments – each material has a particular binder. Asks what it is in a certain kind of paint

• Encaustic: hot beeswax mixed with pigment

• Oil: ground mineral pigments mixed with oil

• Acrylic: pigment suspended in a plastic binder

• Fresco (fresco secco and buon fresco): plaster mixed with pigment

• Tempera, gouache, watercolor: water mixed with pigment

Kinetic sculpture – what about it makes it connetic

(movement) – alexander Calder Crinkly with a Red Disk, 1973. Steel and paint. Konigstrasse, Stuttgart, Germany.

What is performance art? How do you describe it

A live-action event staged as an artwork. The human body is the prime element in performance art. Performance is related to installation because it transforms the space

• Suzanne lacy and leslie labowitz. In mourning and in Rage. Photo by Maria Karras.

What do you call a work of art that is site specific? Made for a specific environment?

installation art

Fresco painting true or false – is it durable or not very durable

it is very durable because the pigment gets cured into the plaster

What are the types of water based paint media? Three kinds – water color, ,

water color, tempera, gauche

Where in the world do we find ceramic art?

(everywhere)

What are we analyzing in a formalist critique ?

(just the visual elements we can observe) not worried about context, just the image

If we are using a psychoanalytical criticism, what are we primariluy concerned with?

(emotional content) holds that art should be studied as the product of individuals who are shaped by their pasts, their unconscious urges, and their social histories

Feminist criticism

concerned with the oppression of groups (especially women) in a given society, along with the oppression of their belief systems. (perspective of women)

Venus of Willendorf, Austria, c. 25,000–20,000 BCE

Fertility idol, four inches tall

Understand what context refers to in a work of art – IE if we are looking at iconography or symbolism in a work of art, does that describe context?

No; Cultural, Historical, Geographic location, Political, Religious, Social conditions

What is iconography?

(symbolism or visual metaphors implied through visual images that are not what we see)

Speechless – sharon lachaud

The experience of women in a contemporary fundamentalist Islamic culture

US capitol building – how does it employ symbolism?

Its design reflects Greek and Roman architecture, visually connecting the government of the United States to the ideas of democracy (Greece) and power (the Roman Empire). The building has two wings, instantly conveying the idea of the two houses of Congress and physically containing them. The central dome symbolizes unity.

Nighthawks – what is the subtext of nighthawks?

WWII, (feeling of doom or entrapment, no door in or out)

Gentilescis Judith and holiphernes – shows you an image and asks a question abouit it

Herself a victim of rape and ill treatment from men, Gentileschi brought an immediacy to the beheading scene that is different from the idealized, sanitized way that male painters depicted the biblical event.

Rembrandts the Nightwatch question

everyone paid the same amount but not everyone got painted the same way. By showing members of the merchant class rather than nobles, this painting reveals it is a product of Protestant middle-class culture. 

What happens to aboriginal paintings when they are done with them? (they destroy them)

(they destroy them)

What was the significance of saltcellars from North Africa? Why would people collect them?

The European nobility used elaborate saltcellars as a status symbol, while medieval Europeans used salt to distinguish the status of guests: prestigious people sat “above the salt,” while people of lower rank sat below. (container to hold salt, symbol of status and wealth for Europeans) ivory

Qustion about Wayne Tabo Slices of Cake Painting

Pie Counter shows the plentifulness, standardization, and bright colors in contemporary mass-produced cafeteria food, which is so appealing to many Americans. The thickly textured paint and bright colors are visually seductive and very different from de Heem’s style. Thiebaud also alludes to the fact that, for many, the abundance of fattening food has become something to resist rather than something to eat, while mass-media advertising pushes it.

Question about andy Warhol – the one in the book

Heinz 57 Tomato Ketchup and Del Monte Freestone Peach Halves (Fig. 5.13), dated 1964, are silk-screened wooden sculptures that look like mass-produced cardboard packing boxes for common grocery store items. In the United States, packaged foods are often more familiar than food in its natural condition, and Warhol is celebrating this commercialism, indicating that most people enjoy it and are comfortable with it. To him, the design of a ketchup box is art and, therefore, as meritorious and meaningful as any other work of art. Its formal qualities are bright colors, large type, simple graphics, and an organized layout. Yet there is a sense of irony to the work because whatever is merely comfortable eventually becomes hollow and meaningless. This work was created during the Pop Art movement, which was noted for glorifying popular culture items into art icons. (anti-commodification of art)

Know what vanitas is. What is a vanitas image?

a still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.

ultimate emptiness and impermanence of earthly things.

What does it mean when you see rotting fruit, skull, or wilting flowers in a painting?

• Mortality (skulls = death is inevitable).

• The fleeting nature of life and beauty (wilting flowers, rotting fruit = time passes, youth and pleasures fade).

• The futility of wealth and earthly pleasures (luxury items shown alongside decay).

In short: these symbols mean “memento mori” (“remember you must die”)—a call to reflect on the brevity of life and the importance of spiritual over material things.

How did we describe post-modern architecture?

(bright, colorful, eclectic, fun, dynamic)

Question about caves at Lascaux, what the purpose would have been

The paintings’ exact purpose is unknown, but some anthropologists propose that rituals could be performed on the animals’ likenesses to ensure a successful hunt. Spears and arrows were painted in or perhaps actually thrown at the image of the prey, ritualistically killing it. However, other scholars argue that the painted “arrows” are few and could be plant forms. They propose that these paintings paid homage to earth and animal spirits. Either way, the current consensus is that these images had a ritual purpose linked to bounty in nature and the human food supply in the Paleolithic era.

Pomo baskets question

– given to daughters when they reach milestones

Pueblo bonito question – Anasazi communal living – specifically circular spaces

communal centers for ceremony and contemplation.

Georgia okeefe – what did her paitnings often feature?

flowers

Question about venus of Villendorf

fertility idol for prehistoric people

1.Having to do with the purposes and powers of art, how it functions in society. Give examples of artwork that demonstrates those purposes an point to certain elements that show that

2. How this class is formed – chronological approach versus thematic. Compare and contrast those two ideas. What is the benefits of each? Negatives?

3. Food and shelter – look at the objectives for chapter 5 specifically objective 1. How does art making figure into a culture of society as it pertains to survival? Give examples with specific works of art

4. Discuss close looking – why is it important and what does it achieve? How do you do it?