Modern Art *^.^*

Modern art consist of many different styles but the style I'm going to focus on is abstract expressionism. These types of paintings are far from realistic. If anything they become a physcal form of feelings from the artist applying the paint. These artist use huge canvas and use a wide varitiy of colors to the feeling they wish to show.

The First artist i'm going to talk about is William de Kooning. He is an amazing painter through many of his pieces have violent brush strokes giving a harash yet interesting composition to look at. I personally love his pieces since he changed the way to show woman on canvas. Abstract expressionism makes you think about the piece you see and try to figure out watch the artist was trying to get the viewer to see.

Woman II
The next artisti'm going to talk about is Jackson Pollock. At first i didn't like his work. I thought that anyone with a paint brush can throw paint on to a over size canvas. But we watched a movie and showed how he mst likey would have painted his paintings and i thought it was interesting. Though Pollock seems a little crazy so ho his paintings were kind of shows his craziness in my opinon.

Cathedral

Post-Impressionism <^>.<^>

As the name of the period states Post-Impressionism is the movement that comes after impressionism. many of the post impressionist didn't like that the impressionism lacked form and a sturdy. This style of painting is not realistic but it's not impressionism with the watery effect. This style has hard edged and dark outlines. the colors look like there placed next to each other creating the shading and giving you the objects you see.

The first painting I'm showing is by Paul Cezanne called Still life with Peppermint bottle. The picture kind of looks cartoon like with the thick border and the very dark shadows and creases in the blanket. The lighting on the bottles is ever blunt and don't dissolve in to make a smooth look making the light look like It was thrown on to the bottle.

The next artist I'm talking about is Vincent van Gogh and is painting his Self Portrait. This refers a lot back to the impressionist style due to how the paint was applied. With the short strokes, but the picture looks semi life like ignoring the watery and fantasy look of impressionism and keeping the post impressionist style going.

Impressionism =^.^=

Impressionism is an art style where the artist tries to capture an impress of what the eye sees at a given moment and the effect of the sunlight on the subject. What i can say about impressionism is it's awesome. When you look up close to an Impressionist piece you wouldn't be able to really tell What your looking at. All you would see are colors and short brush strokes ,depending on the artist.

A very famous impressionist artist is Claude Monet. One of the art pieces he created was titled The Haystack, End of Summer,Giverny. The painting as a water looking effect to it. From a far distance you can see there haystacks in the painting. As you move closer the picture starts becoming more blurry and the colors look like they may be separating.

The next painting I'm going to display will be anothers of Monet's called Rouen Cathedral. It's a very beautiful piece. Has the under water looking effect along with an amazing choice of colors. The blue int he shadows seems to pop out.

N.Y.C. Field Trip Reflection

That was a very long day starting at 5 a.m. ending at 8p.pm about. The trip to New york wasn't bad driving in NY was a little crazy ,but that's a city for you there's always traffic. The first Museum we went to was the Whitney. An awesome museum the educator was really nice and had us thinking in depth of the paints. She gave us the advice of looking over the art then reading the title it can change you view on the painting. The first painting we saw was by William de Kooning and the piece was Woman and Bicycle. Personal I'm a de Kooning fan and i was very interested in this painting. At MoMA they actually had Woman I on display and it was very interesting to see both Museums having one of my favorite artist on display. Though at the Whitney there was a part of the gallery were there was a room with documents that were printed larger. I think the information the documents was educational and stuff America needs to know, but it's not art and should be else where. We left the Whitney and went to MoMa, i loved it there. They have tons of Picasso pieces i think they had more of him then anything else.
I was disappointed that the starry night painting was there but I may go back when hopefully it's back. The Monet Water Lilies is amazing i don't think I've even seen anything that big in my life. I love impressionism and the massive size was mind blowing.
After leaving MoMa the class went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was so beautiful. The wood work and rose windows were amazing. There were fly buttresses and the height of the Cathedral was ungodly. After that we went in group around the Rockefeller center area.. Those that found it.. then after that the bus picked us up and we all went home. That was a great trip and i learned a lot seeing all those pieces of art.

Realism >o-o<

The artist that considered themselves 'realist' rejected the neo-classisim and romantic styles. the world in at the time was changing. People were moving to the cities and normally the people working in the factors were unskilled and poor. So romantic and the neo-classism style didn't fit. Realism represented everyday scenes and event as they actually looked.

One of the first realist is Gustave Courbet. He has painted many pieces but the one i'm going to talk about is called the Burial at Ornans. This painting is of a funeral in a normal town nothing over elaborate like in many paintings that have been created in the periods created before. Gustave painted the funeral for what he saw. People grieving and in black, a priest and a massive amount of people.
Another artist that was well known during this period was Edouard Manet. The painting will be The Railway which has a woman that looks like she's staring at the viewer holding a sleeping puppy. Then the little girl in the pictur has hr back turned to the viewer looking through the fence. In this piece you can see how different the style of painting is from Neo-classicism which looked like the character on the painting was coming to life. Where in The Railway it looks very airy like not standard form, with a freer look.

Romanticism <^.^>

Romantic art is a very dramatic and expresses strong feelings. And the majority of the events depicted in romantic style paintings are based off of true events.

In 1819 a painting calld Raft of Medusa was painted by Theodore Gericault. The painting shows about 15 men on araft put together by the scrapes of the ship of Medusa that was wrecked. The Medusa ship sank along the seas of Africa. Gericault made this to state the tragic events the men went through. The ship had an inexperienced captain that was the son of a noble men. So whent he ship went down the captain left on one of the life boats instead of staying with the sinking ship. The raft has a Diagonal effect, the bottom corners both show sign of death and loss of hope. While the top corner and diagonal from there cornerpart across from them show hope and the drive for life as they are calling the ship in the distance to come rescue them.

The next painting that is a great example for the romantic style is call The Lion Hunt by Eugene Delacroix. This painting is very exotic and dramtic. the deatil in the painting is amazing. the swirling colors and the way the shading gives a look of movement like the people and lions are really fighting.

Neo-Classicism <.<

Neo-classicism brings back he fundamentals of the Greek and Roman art. During this time Academies started up and students studied famous works of the past to develop their own skills. So the life like images came back. But the pieces these newer artist express there ideas of courage, sacrifice and love for ones counrty through many of these pieces during this period. This painting looks like a photograph which is amazing. Besides it being life like the picture shows how the politics influence the paintings. When Napoleon was in rule he made David the court painter.

Another picture David painted is the Death of the Marat. The picture shows the murder of the politican Jean-Paul Marat. THis painting just shows another way how the politics influence the art work when they are in control of it.

Rococo Art ^@.@^

The Rococo art style is very happy and carefree. Very flirtatious and dream like the painting's have a airy look. Many of the scenes show parties or people having fun. Normally the people in the pictures depicted are of upper class citizens dress in very elaborate clothing.

The Swing by Fragonard

The picture to the side is a seen a a woman in beautiful clothing being pushed on a swing by a man who might be her husband or suitor of sorts. Then in front of the swing a man in laying in the grass looking up the woman skirt as she is looking down at him. She might be seeing him or her side man. But there is obviously some attracted to each other.


This painting is called the Embarkation to Cythera by Antoine Watteau. This paintings shows a group of people either going or coming back from the island Cythera which is legend to be the home of Venus the goddess of love.

Baroque ar :D

The Baroque started because the Church was trying to draw people back to worship like they once have. So a counter-reformation happened and artist were commissioned by the Church and the baroque style developed. The Baroque art style is defined as a style characterized by movement, vivid contrast and emotional intensity. Baroque art is easy to identify with the bright color which looks like a spot light on the focal point the artist wants you to focus, the dark background helps the focal point pop out and makes it hard not to notice.

One of the most famous painting is the Girl with a pearl Earring by Vermeer who was a Dutch artist. The girl in the painting was a servant and Vermeer was attracted to her so he painted her.

Since many dutch citizens didn't want Religious paintings they preferred to have paintings of everyday life. Pictures of comfortable homes were appealing to the Dutch.