PART 4 THEMES Artistic Voice and Evolution Chapter 4.11 Expression Art here the visual arts A medium of expression where an artist communicates with an audience-artists usually need to make -part of the satisfaction is in the DOING Personal statements Self-portraits Explorations of non-visual experience The sensations of hearing music, experiencing nature and human thought Original creations or consciously borrowing Expression is crucial to the creation of art-but how deep, masterful or magical that is the challenge and definition between masterpieces and just another piece (Bluebonnets) Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts, Debra J. DeWitte, Ralph M. Larmann, M. Kathryn Shields
PART 4 THEMES Self-Portraits Chapter 4.11 Expression Can represent the physical appearance of the artist Often (should) convey internal as well as external traits Is a ready made subject-it is at hand often an proving or testing ground Artist assuming the role or persona of someone else Another form of self-portraiture, much like an actor portraying another person on the stage Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts, Debra J. DeWitte, Ralph M. Larmann, M. Kathryn Shields
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939. Oil on canvas, 5 8 5 8. Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico
1940 Self Portrait with Thorns Post-divorce from Rivera The dead hummingbird is considered a good luck charm for falling in love in Mexican folklore. The panther is symbolic of bad luck and death and the monkey is a symbol of evil. Rivera gave Kahlo a monkey as a gift, Rivera is symbolized by the monkey, especially since he inflicts pain by tugging the thorn necklace hard enough to make her bleed and the thorn necklace alludes to Christ s crown of thorns, thus likening herself to a Christian martyr. In line with this interpretation, the butterflies and dragonflies could symbolize her resurrection.
Love Embrace of the Universe 1949 Her remarriage to Rivera is celebrated here. She loved to mother him, and shows him here as her love child literally. She is mother goddess here, fruitful in her love for him. Duality of day, night and suggests an eternal, forever, life sustaining love.
PART 4 THEMES Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas Chapter 4.11 Expression Kahlo s self-portraits combine her appearance with references to her feelings and forms one-third of her artistic output The Two Fridas Expresses distinct aspects of the artist s identity and mixed cultural background (Mexican/German) She physically suffered most of her life-polio as a young child, then a bus accident that broke most of her bones. 35 operations that never really reduced her pain Exaggerations emphasize the sensitive emotional content Hearts on the outside of the bodies with the artery joining the two women together http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou0eocpdjm4 Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts, Debra J. DeWitte, Ralph M. Larmann, M. Kathryn Shields
ORLAN, Seventh surgery-performance, entitled Omnipresence, November 21, 1993. Smile of Delight (Sourire de Plaisir). Cibachrome in diasec mount, 43¼ 65
ORLAN, Fourth surgery-performance, entitled Successful Operation, December 8, 1991, Paris
PART 4 THEMES Chapter 4.11 Expression ORLAN, Seventh surgery-performance, entitled Omnipresence ORLAN s self-portraits An extreme approach to constructing the self Series of plastic surgeries to transform her appearance Documented the entire process (surgeries and healing) Omnipresence Operating theater as stage for her performance Only a local anesthetic during the surgeries Read aloud from philosophical and poetic texts Transmitted a live feed of the surgery to CBS News Also photographed the phases of her transformation Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts, Debra J. DeWitte, Ralph M. Larmann, M. Kathryn Shields
PART 4 THEMES Chapter 4.11 Expression Finding an Artistic Voice Artists are inspired by various sources Their own experiences, dreams, fears Resulting images Sometimes very different from the way other people might have experienced a similar emotion or event Original context of a piece of art Helps us to understand the artist s intentions Important in order to perceive in the work that there is more than meets the eye But can also get in the way-the work should stand on its own! Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts, Debra J. DeWitte, Ralph M. Larmann, M. Kathryn Shields
Market Gardens of Vaugirard 1879 Mandolin in a Chair 1880 Finding an Artistic Voice and Artistic Style Evolution: Paul Gauguin Paul Gauguin s earlier works evoking styles of other Impressionist painters
Among the Mangoes 1887 Influenced by japanese prints (Degas) and cloissone enameling, he travels to Martinique and starts developing his unique style of painting
The Seed of the Areoi 1892 Bright, flat color with heavy outlines Slightly unatural color/light is used to come closer to nature The Areoi were a secret Polynesian society that held that the male sun god mated with the most beautiful woman on the islands to spawn a new race of man. Here Gauguin portrays his own mistress as the woman of the myth.
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897 Reading from right to left, follows the birth, adolesence, to death of man. Looking for the meaning of our existence and an attempt to get closer to nature and a more pure, unspoiled society. Escaping from the decay of western societies.
GOYA Artist s style did not change. His message and viewpoint changed completely due to what transpired in his lifetime. (Left) La Cometa (The Kite), 1778 and (Right) The Family of Charles IV, 1800 GOYA
(Left) The Third of May, 1808 and (Right) Saturn Devouring His Children, 1823 GOYA
2 images from The Ravages of War series of etchings, 1810-1820 GOYA
Around 1775, Goya achieved his first popular success. He became established as a portrait painter to the Spanish aristocracy. He was elected to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1780, named painter to the king in 1786, and made a court painter in 1789. A serious illness in 1792 left Goya permanently deaf. Isolated from others by his deafness, he became increasingly occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his imagination and with critical and satirical observations of mankind. Goya served as director of painting at the Royal Academy from 1795 to 1797 and was appointed first Spanish court painter in 1799. During the Napoleonic invasion and the Spanish war of independence from 1808 to 1814, Goya served as court painter to the French. He expressed his horror of armed conflict in The Disasters of War, a series of starkly realistic etchings on the atrocities of war. They were not published until 1863, long after Goya's death. Upon the restoration of the Spanish monarchy, Goya was pardoned for serving the French, but his work was not favored by the new king. From 1819 to 1824 Goya lived in seclusion in a house outside Madrid. Free from court restrictions, he adopted an increasingly personal style. In the Black Paintings, executed on the walls of his house, Goya gave expression to his darkest visions. A similar nightmarish quality haunts the satirical Disparates, a series of etchings also called Proverbios. All but one of his children had died. Goya sank into despair and, later, madness. In 1824, after the failure of an attempt to restore liberal government, Goya went into voluntary exile in France. He settled in Bordeaux, continuing to work until his death there on April 16, 1828.