Monday, February 28, 2011

Leonardo da Vinci's Drawings

A drawing of a flying machine
If you didn't take my advice about joining Stumble upon you really honestly should! It is an awesome website that piles all of your interests in one spot and takes you from website to website of your interest. It is a great way to pass the time and to procrastinate from doing homework!

Drawing of studies of the shoulder and neck
Actually this website has helped me with my homework including my blog. Recently I stumbled upon a gallery of all of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings. Not only is this really sweet but it directly correlated to by blog topic! One of his more famous drawings is actually depicted in the background of my blog; The Vitruvian Man. Check out some of others and click the link for more!

A lot of these drawings are of human beings and the internal aspects of our bodies. Some historians say that da Vinci would actually rob graves in order to dissect the human body while others declare that he paid grave robbers to bring him his subjects to study.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1QMIoP/www.drawingsofleonardo.org

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Arnolfini Marriage

This piece is truly amazing, but not to the untrained eye. The Arnolfini Marriage is an oil painting created by Jan van Eyck in the year 1434. This is a painting is a portrait of a wealthy Italian merchant named Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife in their home in the Flemish city of Burges.


This piece is considered to be one of the most original and complex paintings in Western art history. The illusionism and detail of the painting is incredible for the time. What many artist are in awe about this painting is the use of light to create interior space (I know you probably don't understand that if you aren't artsy fartsy).

Particularly where I notice the most detail the foreground of the piece is the woman's dress. But what really blows my mind about this piece is mirror placed behind them. Here take a look for yourself.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
If you haven't heard about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I guarantee you have seen it or at the very least parts of it.

The painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was painted by Michelangelo between the years 1508 and 1512. This painting was commissioned by Pope Julius II and this piece is considered one of most elaborate and well known works of the Renaissance. Just so we aren't confused here, the Sistine Chapel is a part of the Vatican located in Rome (or Roma if you speak Italian). If you still don't know that I am talking about, this is where the Pope operates out of, yes the "Pope."

The ceiling paintings are a part of a larger scheme of decoration spread throughout the chapel. Such decorations include the largest fresco The Last Judgement painted by Michelangelo as well as other aspects created by other artists of the time.
The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.

Depicted on the ceilings are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis. The Creation of Adam is most recognized of these nine scenes. Others include: The Seperation of Light and Darkness, The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth, The Seperation of Land and Water, The Creation of Eve, The Temptation and Expulsion, The Sacrifice of Noah, The Great Flood, and The Drunkenness of Noah.


To learn more about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and all the art behind it, simply click the link.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Sweet!

Found this video of a digital 3-D remake of Michelangelo's famous sculpture the David! Check it out!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Theft of the Mona Lisa

Want to know how much power one piece of art can possess? Consider this.

 In the year of 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. The thief acted swiftly and the piece was stolen one morning before the museum was open to visitors and when guards were not present. When the guards noticed it was missing they assumed the painting had been taken down for inspection and photographs. It wasn't until the day after the theft that museum officials finally noticed it was missing.

The French borders were shut down and departing cargo ships as well as any public transportation vehicle were searched. The museum didn't open until nine days later, the painting still hadn't been found. By this point the missing painting was front page news all around the world. People lined up by the thousands just to see the empty spot where the painting once stood.

This is were it starts getting crazy. A little after a week after the theft, a man named Joseph Gery Pieret presented himself to French officials with a small statue, claiming he had stolen items from the Louvre in previous years. Long story short, he claimed to be selling these pieces to none other than Pablo Picasso. Thinking that they had found a circle of crime that may be associated with the theft of the Mona Lisa, Picasso was brought in for questioning.

The accusations were true that Picasso had bought from Pieret. Though he denied it in court, Picasso almost certainly knew the two sculptures were lifted from the Louvre. Both Picasso and Pieret were let go free because prosecutors couldn't build a strong enough case that supported the two were involved with the theft.

Vincenzo Peruggia after he was taken into custody
Years passed and nothing had come up. Rumors arose that Mona Lisa was all around the world, from South America, to Switzerland, to New York. It turns out the piece had never even left France. The thief of the piece turned out to be Vincenzo Peruggia an Italian house painter and carpenter. He was arrested in Florence 1913. His hopes were to bring the piece back to Italy and enact revenge for Napoleon's large theft of artworks all across Europe.

Peruggia was able to steal the piece because he had once worked at the Louvre, he knew the exits and escape routes, as well the glass frame that encased the piece. He actually helped build the glass frame. Once he successfully had stolen the piece, it was placed in a closet in his apartment where it stayed for two years. He was caught when he tried to sell the Mona Lisa to a Florentine art dealer.

Because of Peruggia's patriotic reasoning for stealing the piece, he was considered a hero in the Italian press. His sentence was reduced, most likely due to the fact he was tried in Italy. The Mona Lisa was permitted to take an Italy tour before it returned to the Louvre. The publicity of the theft brought the piece to the status of fame. As one artists writes, "Mona Lisa left the Louvre a work of art, she returned an icon."

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Where are they hiding it now?

If you have never heard of Musee de Louvre, or simply put the Louvre in Paris, then you are missing out (in my opinion that is). Not only is it one of the largest museums in the world and one of the most visited, it is also a historic landmark for France. Nearly 35,000 objects are exhibited within this structure.

During the Renaissance this structure was used as a residence for artists. It was also used to hold valuables to Francis I. One of those valuables was Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, which still finds its home there today.

The most memorable pieces housed in the Louvre tend to be some of the 6,000 paintings. Only 12 curators oversee the paintings. I will let the photos of this place speak for itself. If you are ever in Paris by chance this something you don't want to miss. Check out the photos and links.

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en

Want to take a virtual tour? Check it! http://www.louvre.fr/llv/musee/visite_virtuelle.jsp?bmLocale=en

Monday, February 7, 2011

Interview with Local Artist


In the field of art, communication is a bit different then one might expect. This is mainly attributed to the fact that communication art wise is strictly visual driven. To gain some insight into this field and figure out exactly how artists communicate I interviewed a local artist named Tyler Tolle. He is heavily involved in the art program at Northwest and has a vast knowledge of the subject.

Tyler says that as far as communication goes between artists, it is somewhat limited. Typically the only oral communication involved in the field of art is done through critiques. A critique is someone viewing your work and telling you what works and what could be worked on. While the average person may look at a piece and say “I like the colors and how that part sticks out more than that part.” Where as an experience artist in the field looks at two different categories of the piece: elements and emphasis. Elements of a piece consist of shape, texture, form, value, contrast, space, and line. Emphasis is more how the piece is organized and where it takes you. You can explain a piece of art, but what I could tell you about the piece might not be what you see in the piece. 

To test this I sat down with two of my fraternity brothers, one which was an art major and the other just a regular Joe. I first asked the non-artist to describe a movie poster to me. He replied simply that certain things stick out more than others; he looked upon the painting in a very elementary type of way. I then asked the artist as to what he thought. He began to throw out words I had never heard. He talked about the layers of the poster, the values and the hues. He talked about the placement, the shapes and the lines. I was starting to get lost amongst the art mumble jumble.

The biggest communication that happens in the field however is silent. Visually artists communicate their thoughts through their works. Artists express their thoughts and emotions through their work. One thing that Tyler really wanted to make clear to me is that there is no set meaning for a piece. Art isn’t biased because each person has his or her own thoughts and ideas about a piece. He says good art has no direct message; it has several interpretations and meanings. In this field you communicate through writing, but very rarely. Sense there is no set interpretation to his art, he allows the other artists to view his piece, as they want to view it. Words on a piece of paper don’t allow that natural feeling. You create the piece, but the viewer completes it.

Tyler speaks of the biggest person he communicates with and it may surprise you.  The biggest person he communicates with is himself. He speaks with peers about their interpretation of their piece. He speaks with other artist and even artists that have passed that he doesn’t even know. He communicates through art, and others communicate to him through their art. Silent communication is key to the field. In order to better understand whom he communicates to and who communicates to him he looks at art to model after.

A lot of the time people think art is so simple. It isn’t just throwing something down with any emotion behind it. There is an assumption that art is very elementary and that its just filling space. There is much more thought to a piece Tyler says, you are constantly changing your ideas, sketching, then re –sketching, then sketching again. People don’t realize that masterpieces in museums weren’t just conceived as they are. A piece that sits in a museum has changed multiple times. It could have started as a sketch, then a painting, then completely repainted, then sketched again, then disregarded only to be re done. Someone may create a background for a piece just to let it sit for months or years then return to it later. There is no set process. No one knows the thought or the thinking done behind a piece other than the artist.

I am somewhat artistically minded and have previous education on the field, so I had few assumptions about the field. One thing I never really took the time to think about was the amount of thinking that goes into a piece. Not necessarily the simple pieces that we see day to day but the huge pieces we see in the places like the Louvre in France. I can’t comprehend how much work that is put into it. I wonder how many sketches and failed attempts it took before they arrived at the final one. My biggest question is; if they are constantly changing their piece, how do they decide that the piece is complete?