Art Exam 3

 In relief printing, the artist outlines the image on the surface, and then cuts
away the material around it. The result is a raised image, or relief, such as
images on coins or manhole covers, both of which could be used to make a
print. In other words, the raised area or SURFACE on the block or plate
is inked, and that raised area is what prints on the paper.
 Utagawa Hiroshige’s View of Nihonbashi is a woodblock print. In the
foreground a woman carries a samisen, a type of musical instrument
resembling a banjo and often used to provide musical accompaniment in
theatrical and dance performances of the period. Such professional
musicians had little of no social rank. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the
samisen player in the print walks alone, following a group of Sumiyoshi
dancers grouped under a large red, white, and blue umbrella.
 As we looked at the impression made by a Sumerian cylinder seal of around
2600 B.C., we noticed that the figures were arranged in two levels. The
former are larger and seated, and the latter smaller and standing . . . This is
an example of hieratic proportions, in which size connotes rank.
 We examined the effects of drypoint in Durer’s Saint James by the Pollard
Willow. In the image, Jerome’s expression is intensely meditative, and he
gazes fiercely into space. We have to look closely to catch the sight of the
faint Crucifix at the corner of the desktop. This, we know, is an object of
Jerome’s devotion, but it is not the object of his gaze. Jerome looks past
the crucifix at an unseen, possibly divine presence, and it is the viewer
who sees the Crucifix.
 Dox Thrash’s print, The Defense Worker, was made for President Roosevelt’s
Works Progress Administration Program (WPA). This was a government
funded plan to provide work for artists, writers, and other creative people
during the Great Depression and subsequently to organize the workforce
with the coming of World War Two.
Thrash ennobles the worker by elevating him visually, by his monumental
proportions, and by the glow of white light emerging from a velvety

black background . . . Here the light is symbolic . . . It glorifies the
defense of the nation in wartime, and accentuates the forward thrust of
the patriotic worker.
 Andy Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper is a humorous play on the repetitious
patterning of wallpaper.
As an iconographic motif, the bull has a long and distinguished history in
Western imagery and myth. In antiquity, bulls represented the power and
fertility of kings. Warhol has turned the motif into satire, for his bulls
have become benign commodities, decorative, rather garishly colored
multiples just as silkscreen itself is a medium of multiples.
 In Degas’ Woman Leaving Her Bath, we find irony in the image. The irony is
that, although a servant holds up a towel to shield her eyes from her nude
mistress, we are in the front of the scene and see the figure clearly. The
action of the servant thus highlights the forbidden nature of invading the
bather’s privacy. Degas further eroticizes the picture by focusing the viewer
on the nude through the sharp diagonal of the tub and the tilted floor. At the
same time, the formal arrangement of the monotype creates the
Impressionists cropped view that resembles an asymmetrical candid
photograph. This also accentuates that our gaze is intrusive, and that
we have caught the bather unaware, for neither she nor her maid seems
to know that we are present as viewers.
11 Review
 During the American Civil War, Matthew Brady became one of the most
important early war photographers.
In his photograph President Lincoln at Sharpsburg, October 1862, Brady
shows a bearded Lincoln in his characteristic black suit, coat, and top hat.
On the left is Pinkerton, head of the Secret Service, and on the right stand
Major-General John A. McClernand. All appear against a backdrop of tents
and trees, but Brady represented Lincoln formally as the mainstay of the war
and the country. He does this by Lincoln’s central placement and the
stable vertical tent pole rising behind the president’s hat and carrying
our gaze upward through the sturdy tree trunk.
 One purpose of photojournalism, in addition to visual reportage, is to
shock viewers and promote political and social change.

During the Great Depression, the photographs of Dorothea Lange were
calculated to evoke empathy with the plight of the rural poor. In her
photograph, Migrant Mother, the mother is posed as a close-up, so that we
clearly see her worried, pensive expression. Her children, who are also in the
photograph, are bedraggled, unkempt, and wearing fraying clothes.
 In Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still # 16, the artist herself plays the
starring role and challenges the expected roles of women in film and in
society. In the image, Sherman is in the guise of a bored 1950s housewife,
primly and passively smoking in front of a television set.
Her plain surroundings, in which a chair is the only visible piece of
furniture, accentuates her boredom and detachment. In contrast to the
neatly dressed man in the portrait on the wall, Sherman appears frumpy, and
her silver shoes seem at odds with the rest of her outfit.
 Georges Melies produced a memorable fantasy film in 1902 entitled A Trip to
the Moon. He created early special effects with the surreal image of a rocket
ship landing in the eye of the man in the moon.
In addition to special effects, he also introduced fantasy and science
fiction to film, and these have remained popular genres to the present day.
 In 1941, Orson Welles produced Citizen Kane. He used a number of new
techniques, including beginning the story with the death of the main
character and making the rest of the film a flashback.
He also used low-angle shots to emphasize the towering power of the
media giant William Randolf Hearst.
In the still (image) that we looked at, Kane extends his right hand in a gesture
made by Roman generals when addressing their troops. He stands before a
huge poster of himself, projecting a serious, pensive expression and his name
is in large, clear, uppercase letters.
12 Review
 Greek myth accorded great importance to the craft gods . . . especially
Hephaestos and Athena. Hephaestos was the blacksmith god of the forge.
He made armor for the gods and heroes, and taught people how to
transform materials into utilitarian objects.
Athena taught people the art of weaving.
Because of their creativity, as well as the usefulness of the objects they
created, these gods were credited with having “civilized” humanity.

 The three main types of ceramics are Earthenware, Stoneware, and
Porcelain.
Earthenware is porous.
Stoneware is fired at high temperatures and is not porous. It is sturdier than
earthenware.
Porcelain is made from Kaolin and feldspar. It is the most costly type of
ceramic and is typically translucent and white. Because this technique was
first used in China, we continue to speak of “china” when discussing
porcelain objects.
 Jens Quistgaard made a teak ice bucket for Dansk International Designs in
1960. Quistgaard’s style, often referred to as Danish Modern, is
characterized by simple elegance, smooth surfaces, and graceful contours.
The design of the ice bucket was influenced by the long curves of the
Viking ships that are part of the artist’s VIKING heritage and also by the
smooth elegance of Japanese ceramics, which he admired.
 When we looked at stained glass pertaining to Chartres Cathedral, we noticed
the rich colors of the glass. There were reds and blues, juxtaposed with
Solomon’s yellow crown, which transformed the outdoor light into colored
light. The symbolic meaning of this transformation is the notion that
when entering a cathedral, one enters a new world, a spiritual
microcosm of heaven on earth.
13 Review
 Sculpture is usually defined as a three-dimensional image, having height,
width, and depth.
 Carving is a subtractive process, so-called because the artist forms an image
by taking away from the original material. It is thus nearly impossible to
revise errors, making it necessary for the artist to think three-dimensionally
and conceive the sculpture from every angle before starting to carve.

 Lazlo Moholy-Nagy’s work is kinetic as we saw in his work Light Prop for an
Electric Stage. This means that it actually moves rather than being a
representation of movement. Unlike mobiles, which move because of air
currents, Moholy-Nagy’s work moves when its electric motor is turned
on.
 In the assemblage of John Chamberlain entitled Debonair Apache, we might
say that there has been a “democratization” of the medium because
Chamberlain creates sculptures from one of the most widely used American
consumer products . . . the automobile.
 The Vietnam Wall was dedicated in 1982. This work memorializes the
58,000 Americans dead or missing from the Vietnam War and has become on
of the most visited sites in the United States. The artist responsible for this
work was Maya Lin. She said that the Vietnam Wall represented a “cut
through the earth – a wound in American History that might be healed
through time and art.
Formally, there is no beginning and no end, the only chronology being the
order of the names inscribed on the surface according to their date of
death.
 We identify physically with three-dimensional objects in a way that is not
possible with pictures, because we too are three-dimensional, and we exist
in a three-dimensional space