Greek Painted Vases - Amphora

            This vase was completed around 490 bc by a famous artist of the time, referred to as the Berlin artist. This artist was known for forgoing the use of rigid frames to outline his figures so that the contour of the vase is still prominent and the focus of the piece is on the solitary figure in the middle.  This particular figure is a musician, who is playing a kithara, which is a wooden string instrument.  The figure on the other side is said to be either an instructor or a judge who is actively listening to the kitharode (as the musician was referred to).  The purpose of these amphora vases was to hold or transport grapes, olive oil, wine, oil, or grains.  I chose this vase because I find its shape very aesthetically pleasing.

Egypt Presentation

Link: http://prezi.com/30hvlce-yfdi/copy-of-art-history-egypt-today

Iamikan's lines walls of Core Consciousness

      by: Vikki Matsis, October 14, 2010, Charleston Scene
      http://www.charlestonscene.com/news/2010/oct/14/iamikans-artwork-lines-walls-of-core-consciousness/

      This artist's main concern is staying true to nature, by means of choosing mediums and materials only directly found in nature.  His name is Courts Iamikan and he developed these methods while living in Turkey.  How did he come to use such atypical painting methods?  First, let me describe to you the way that his paintings take form.  He mixes pigment with anything from seawater to salt crystals and lets any natural chemical changes take place.  Vikki Matsis interviewed him about his mysterious techniques and he had this to say: "We are all magicians. I let the results speak for themselves. No need to break down the synchronicity of what you are doing, that takes away all the magic of what art is anyhow. Nature continues to be the greatest magician to mankind."  
      This artist has never picked up a paintbrush either.  Surprising?  He is completely self-taught in these methods and uses mainly his fingers to apply paint to unusual surfaces such as glass, canvas, steel, wood, and acrylic glass.  This is actually part that he says is most difficult; getting the paint to adhere to these surfaces.  However, one way that he combats this problem is by allowing pieces to sit in total darkness once completed.  He lets his paintings sit in darkness for up to three months to all the materials to fuse without the influence of perception.  I think that this man's techniques are very unique and clever and display a substantial knowledge of what makes good art, with a primary focus on how art is made.  Although the pieces themselves are beautiful, it is the process by which they were made that sets them apart.  I liked this article because I enjoyed hearing an artist's perspective that is very different from mine.

The Temple of Aphaia

            With class discussions now revolving around Greek architecture and the role it played in Greek social society, I found that my favorite piece was not purely an architectural detail, but a sculpture intended to hide part of a structure that was not seen as aesthetically pleasing.  Lining the east pediment of the temple of Aphaia, a grouping of life-like three-dimensional figures illustrate the battle against Troy led by Herakles.  These figures are made three-dimensional so that they would be seen properly from all angles.  However, the placement of the figures according to their body position and their proximity to the ground was done so that the dark receding corners of the pediment area would be covered.  At the centermost part of this line of soldiers stands Athena, who is not only the main focus of the battle, but also the unifying point of the composition.  

            The realness of the skin and bone structure of these figures demonstrate the artist’s clear discipline in the area of anatomy.  My favorite of all the sculptures is the one titled the Fallen Warrior.  He is one of the figures in the overall layout whose horizontally sprawled body is functional in hiding one of the corners of the three-dimensional shape of the pediment.  He is depicted as being in his last moment alive and pulling an arrow out of his abdomen.  In the pictures below, he is the figure on the far left.  The treatment of his muscles and body positioning display a classic Greek treatment of the human body, which is that it is an idealistic portrayal of human size and proportions.

  

Downtown Presbyterian Church

              When my group discussed our feelings on the Egyptian architecture in the church, many different opinions arose.  Some people in my group were under the impression that for a place of worship (let alone Christian worship) to have any representation of a belief system that honored numerous gods was simply unacceptable and therefore not visually appealing.  Others in my group formed their opinions of the church's architecture completely separate from the building's purpose, and looked at it in a very non-objective way.  Personally, I chose to observe the church's architecture as a separate entity of its identity, and then critically question why a place of Christian worship would have been in favor of decorating its building in such a way.
               The architecture was most effective in transporting the visitor from downtown Nashville to a place across the Atlantic Ocean.  Certain techniques employed by the architect to achieve this visual effect were: showing large columns painted in perspective along the back wall, creating blue skies in the squares of the coffered ceiling, and including papyrus, lotus, and other river plants in the illustration of the stained glass windows.  The color palette was very specific to not only the time period that this style refers to, but the cultural origins that it stemmed from.  The main colors used in this design were: mustard yellow, greyish teal, bright blue, pink, and reddish browns.  The most occurring shapes in this building's design were triangles and trapezoids, which created a very geometric look.  Although curved lines were not typically found in the main structures built in ancient Egypt, they were sparingly included in the case of the illustration of Lotus or other flowers.

The Narmer Palette: Just as cool as the pyramids......

          Transitioning into talk about Egyptian culture and art this week, I was interested to learn about something in Egyptian art that was not just a part of the pyramids.  I have studied the pyramids in school before, and while I find them very interesting, I was hoping to talk about something just as important and similar in its historical meaning, but without hearing the same things I've heard before.  The Narmer Palette, therefore, intrigued me because it is a set of modest-sized carvings into green schist that conveys a very pertinent message from Egyptian history without being the size of a cruise ship.  The use of heiroglyphics spells out in pictures on the palette that upper and lower Egypt were to be united.  This was done by including the symbols papyrus and lotus flower, which represent lower and upper Egypt respectively.  

          These two palettes also explain much about the social classes at that time in Egypt.  By having the middle figure be the largest and placed in the compositional pose, he is designated as the character in this story with the most power.  This figure is meant to represent the king named Narmer who is shown with a fairly ambiguous face and no signs of his age at the time that the palette was completed.  This was custom in Egyptian art that portrayed powerful rulers because the Egyptians believed that a person would assume the identity they were portrayed with in carvings when they passed over into the afterlife.  

New Orleans artists react to BP Oil Spill

              As a fundraiser to benefit the victims of the oil spill on the Gulf coast, a contest was held to create a work of art that would best express the emotional response to the disaster.  All of the pieces were sold to raise money to cover the various expenses from the oil spill.  In total, the contest raised $23,000 with an overall winner selected from all the admissions.  Helen Stoilas covered this story in The Art Newspaper in Issue 216 on September 10, 2010.  The chosen winner of the contest was political cartoonist Steve Breen of the San Diego Union-Tribute who came up with the design shown above.  The thing that makes this painting unique is that the artist actually mixed oil collected from the shores of Pensecola Beach, FL to make the paint.  His described technique was to water it down slightly to make it more fluid to paint with.  I chose this article because it focused on the role that artists play during and after natural disasters. Within the article, director of New Orleans’ Prospect Biennial, Dan Cameron,  described the crucial role the city’s artists have played during the oil spill “volunteering as first responders, supporting organisations that advocate for sustainable gulf economies, and documenting the crisis as it unfolds”.  I feel like this is a way in which I have never viewed artists and their connection to history, but it makes their relationship more clear to me now.

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/New-Orleans-artists-react-to-BP-oil-spill/21346