Week 7

For me, this has been a week of finishing things, tying up loose ends, that sort of thing.
My "violent seascape" watercolor painting was pretty much finished last week, but it was on Tuesday that I decided, "It's done." I signed my name in the corner, and that was that.
I Found it quite eyeopening to see other people's seascapes. How can we all take one thing, and come up with such a wide range of feelings & explanations?
I've been wondering,
Can people only relate to paintings that portray feelings or events that they themselves have experienced?
It would be interesting to find out details about this.

Oh yes, we also watched a movie in German.
Needless to say, I don't believe I understood one word.
Oh well.

Week 5

What stands out from this week?

Baroque Art---Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, usually known as Caravaggio, was born on September 29, 1571 in Milan Italy. Caravaggio is often referred to as the “Bad Boy of Baroque” due to his fiery temper, violent behavior and not so pleasant encounters with the law. He studied still life painting, and was apprenticed in Milan, to a master who had actually trained under Titian, a painter who was a part of the 16^th century Venetian School.

Sometime around 1590, Caravaggio moved to Rome where he shifted his focus from still life to young boys and life on the streets. There are a few key defining characteristics of Caravaggio’s work; he was known for his ability to realistically capture moments of strong and sometimes violent human emotions, and his use of chiaroscuro, a dramatic use of shadow and lighting, created a pronounced 3D effect. Chiaroscuro later became known as Tenebrism. He worked at a great speed from live models and since very few of his drawings appear to have survived, it is very likely that he preferred to work directly on the canvas.
                Most of his paintings are Biblical scenes, with many identifiable people from Caravaggio’s time in the paintings. The scenes that he depicted were more often than not, violent and gruesome events from the Bible, which was very different from the whimsical and idealized scenes painted in his time. Caravaggio’s work rivaled that of Michelangelo’s, although their styles were considerably different. Michelangelo painted idealized bodies (think very muscular), Caravaggio pioneered realism, which is “painting what you see”, and has in turn influenced many other artists along the ages, such as Jusepe de Ribera, Rembrandt, and Bernini.

Defining the Baroque period is an extremely difficult thing to do, because you can’t really say that Baroque is defined by a specific painting or artist that lived in this time period. Despite this all, I think that every art movement must have a source, a point of origin. The origins of Baroque can be traced to Caravaggio, who learned much from the Carracci family, but came up with other ideas of his own.
                It can be said of Caravaggio that he almost single-handedly created the Baroque art style, because he set aside all the ‘rules’ of painting at the time, and painted what he saw, instead of some over-the top idealized painting depicting religion or humans. Of some of the key characteristics of Baroque, movement, chiaroscuro (or tenebrism), and emotion, all of which I see Caravaggio having played a huge part of shaping these key elements, and even redefining them for his time. All of his work is a great example of tenebrism, the drastic change of light to dark, creating strong, emotive, and upon occasion violent depictions of street life, or more commonly, Biblical scenes.

                Considering the fact that Caravaggio greatly shaped Baroque art, I think it’s safe to say that he influenced many of the artists that came in the following years of the Baroque period. Artists  such as Rembrandt, continued to apply the techniques used by Caravaggio, such as chiaroscuro and realism, into their own work. If Caravaggio had not lived and started the Baroque period, I’m not sure what our paintings would be like today. Would we continue to paint idealized human forms and religious scenes?  Perhaps we wouldn’t have had so many art movements, experimenting with emotion and different ways of depicting scenes realistically. The art world would definitely be different, if not completely altered.

                I have quite a few paintings that I enjoy of Caravaggio’s, but it’s so difficult to choose because they all have such a dramatic use of dark and light. They really do leave quite an impression on the viewer, which is one of the things I like most about his work; it’s so strong, and stirs up a lot of emotions.
Hopefully at one point in my life, I’ll be able to convey strong feelings through my own work, just like Caravaggio!
    

1. I like this painting because he defined soliloquy, ( talking to oneself) in painting. He did what Shakespeare did with his plays, except in the form of pictures. 

     2. I LOVE the dramatic shadows. 'nuff said. :)

           3. I think that this painting is a really good example of his usual violent paintings. This is rather gruesome, but very striking.

Symbolic Color

White: Numb, clean, age, unity.


Black:Oppression, night,shine.


Grey&Brown: Earth, rustic, antique.


Yellow: Childhood, positivity.


Orange: Fire, passion.


Red: Intensity.


Green: Fertility, fresh. 


Blue: Tranquility, freedom, openness. 


Violet: Originality, youth. 




Overall, I think colors, are interpreted differently by all. There are similarities & differences, due to cultures, etc..

Henna

Aren't the patterns beautiful?

Week 1- What I Learned

It's so strange to think that it's already the second semester. 

This week was nice, just a sort of change in pace in art class, and we got to reflect on Ben's presentation from last week. Last week, well, let's just say that his presentation kind of helped me to finally make the decision to paint what I want, what I like, and to not be afraid of the finished product. 

We watched a few watercolor videos in class, and then were assigned a new project. Paint something, in watercolor, and it'll be a card for Ben. 

I  didn't think that I would like watercolors, but honestly, they're really I'm growing to actually like them. The way I can transition the colors, from a blue, into a light blue, to purple, or whatever I feel like. 

I also like the way that a black ink pen looks on the paper, after I've gone over with color. Washed out, kind of blurry, but still there, slightly defined. I"m really enjoying this actually...

and honestly? I didn't want to stop painting when class time was almost up...:)

Can't wait to see how they turn out. 

ALSO, 

I just remembered this, I'm really interested in henna, Persian, and Islamic art. Hmmm.....

Oh, I do love the Holidays.

This year I decided to be a bit more creative in my gift-giving.
This is something that resulted from my decision.

I used the same fabric that I used on the bird. This is an "Aromatherapy Pillow". I think...anyhow, it's filled with dried lavender. :)

It smells amazing...