Yves Klein

Yves Klein was a French artist born in 1928 who died at the age of 34. I first encountered Klein this past summer at an exhibition of his work; Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. He was an innovator who worked in painting, sculpture, performance, photography, music, theater, and architecture. He pursued his art in search of an immaterial spirituality, specifically through his use of pure color, primarily a ultramarine shade of blue that he created and patented; International Klein Blue (IKB). Klein created a series of monochromes in various colors and textures as he explored the nature of color. His fascination with color is apparent in this quote,

After having gone through several periods, my research has led me to paint unified monochrome pictures. My canvases are therefore covered by one or several layers of a single color after a certain preparation of the support and using various technical procedures. No drawing is visible, no variation in hue; there is nothing but the UNITY of a single color. The dominant invades the entire picture, as it were. In this way I seek to individualize the color, because I have come to believe that there is a living world of each color and I express these worlds. My paintings, moreover, represent an idea of absolute unity in perfect serenity; an abstract idea represented abstractly, which has made me rank myself with the abstract painters. But I hasten to point out to you that the abstractionists do not understand it this way and they reproach me, among other things, for refusing to provoke relations between colorsÉ. I think that the color "yellow," for example, is quite sufficient in itself to render an atmosphere and a climate "beyond the thinkable"; what is more, the nuances of yellow are infinite, leaving the possibility to interpret it in many different ways.

Klein experimented with different ways to express individual colors particularly in his discovery of sponges. He was fascinated with the way sponges absorbed the pigment and their ability to become impregnated with color. This curiosity with saturation also reflects on how he wanted viewers of his art to engage with his work. They should be transported through his art and come out the other side impregnated with its sensibility. Klein's experimentation with sponges and monochromes led to several large scale works that he created for the Gelsenkirchen Opera House in Germany. The works were wire reinforced plaster reliefs

, covered with natural sponges and spray painted in IKB.

Klein's anthropometries were another experiment in the expression of color. He had nude female models cover their bodies with blue paint and then press themselves onto sheets of white paper in strategically planned ways. This entire process was part of a larger performance piece that was attended by a formally dressed audience and accompanied by the Monotone Symphony (a piece of music created by Klein).

My personal favorite of Klein's various series are his fire paintings which he created by burning the paper while simultaneously pouring water onto the support. The resulting effect was a print of the flames with traces of water to which he added paint. His artistic endeavors were often experimental and this was no exception. Klein created his first large series of fire paintings at the French Gas Company's Test Center where the process was overseen by a fireman as you can see in the picture below. I find the end result truly incredible, and I when I saw this work in person, could only think of the glow of liquid metal (it's the first image at the top).

Although Klein's career was cut short by his premature death, he was extraordinarily prolific in all facets of his art. His development of new techniques, mixing of mediums, and philosophical and spiritual approach to his art made him a highly significant contributor to 20th century art.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Beyond Flowers

A love for painting and a love for flowers seems to run throughout my family lines. My grandmother was once an art teacher and artist herself with a particular affinity towards big beautiful flowers. Apparently unbeknown to the both of us, she passed this special admiration onto me. With this is mind, it was only natural that my choice of artist to report on is Georgia O'Keeffe, as her works seem to speak to the matriarchal heritage of artists in my family.

Biography:
O'Keefe was born on November 15, 1887 in Sun Prarie, Wisconsin. She was the second of seven children and was quickly thrust into the world of art, as her abilities were recognized by her teachers at an early age. After graduating high school, O'Keefe was determined to make art her life. She studied in Chicago as well as New York, where she mastered her style of imitative realism. She was introduced to a new style of art from Arthur Wesley Dow. Under his influence, she began to see art an an expression of personal ideas and feelings in which the subject matter "was best realized through harmonious arrangements of line, color, and notan" (Georgia O'Keeffe Museum).

Her work was shown to renowned photographer and impresario, Alfred Stieglitz, in 1916. He immediately saw promise and offered her financial support to paint in his gallery, 291. She moved from Texas to New York and fell in love with Stieglitz. He worked arduously to promote her work and exhibited her paintings at The Anderson Galleries (1923- 1925), The Intimate Gallery (1925-1929), and An American Place (1929-1946). It is during this time taht she acquired most of her fame and prestige.

Since 1929, the scenery of New Mexico had inspired O'Keeffe and three years after Stieglitz's death, in 1949, she relocated permanently. The landscape became a huge source of inspiration for O'Keeffe and her landscape paintings New Mexico became as famous as her work in New York. In 1986, at the age of 98, O'Keeffe passed away.

Her Work:
In the early years between 1915 and 1918, O'Keeffe experimented with abstraction. She used abstraction in an expressive manner, which made her stand apart from her American counterparts. By the end of this period, she was using water colors as her primary medium to express her enthusiam for the landscapes which inspired her.


Blue II 1916

This early piece of O'Keeffe's represents her expressive abstraction and use of color. The image is ambiguous, yet highly evocative. What it is exactly that inspired her is unclear from the painting itself, but the flow of lines and contrast in values is very expressive.


Red Canna, 1923

This piece of art represents O'Keeffe's philosophy on nature and flowers, in particular. She believed that flowers are so small that many miss their beautiful details. As a result, she decided to draw them large. This image is clearly abstract in nature, but again is evocative beyond its deceivingly simplistic appearance. O'Keeffe focuses on the inside of the red canna, looking beyond what easily meets the eye. Again, her lines are very fluid and reflect the beauty of nature. She doesn't use a wide range of colors, which gives the painting a very warm tonal feeling.



Light Iris, 1924
Light Iris is another example of O'Keeffe's interest in a close interpretation of flowers. As opposed to Red Canna, O'Keeffe uses cool tones to evoke a different sense from this painting. Again, the style is abstract and impressionistic in that the purpose of the image is not pure factual representation. The close up perspective of the flower allows for one to see a flower in an unnatural perspective and pay close attention to finite detail. The yellow accents add a aesthetically pleasing aspect to the blue-green tones that dominate the image. Again, the painting is very fluid and the flower seems seamlessly perfect.




This picture demonstrates O'Keeffe's inspiration from New Mexico. Painted in 1935, Ram's Head, White Hollyhock, Little Hills was painted in the later part of O'Keeffe's career which ended in New Mexico. At this point, she focused on aspects of nature beyond flowers. She had a particular attraction to the vast landscapes of New Mexico, as represented in this image. This picture is impressionistic, with the floating ram's head skull. Interestingly enough, O'Keeffe manages to insert a floating flower into even the most stark of landscapes.

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was born in rural Spain and was influenced at an early age by an artistic family-friend he and his family stayed with during the summers. Dalí kept many sketchbooks and diaries which reveal that he greatly admired artists such as Francisco Goya, El Greco, Velazquez, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. Dali also read a great deal of philosophy and psychology as he grew up, specifically works by Voltaire, Kant, and Freud. These works came to have a significant impact on his future painting techniques. Dalí moved to Madrid to complete his education and continued to be highly influenced by his contemporaries.

Most people associate Dalí with his eccentric surrealistic work. While the majority of his body of work is surrealistic, I think it’s important to emphasize that Dalí, like us, first mastered basic techniques such as perspective, drawing from real life, and working with positive and negative space. His surrealism emerged after a long process and many years of sketching in sketch books and playing around with many techniques. Like Picasso, Dalí was formally trained as an artist and could draw and paint realistically if he so chose, but rather decided to incorporate additional techniques, styles, and symbolism into his work that differed from the “realistic” path.

Dalí played around with cubism a bit and in the late 1920s began to incorporate more imaginative images into his drawings and paintings. He combined his “interest in the problem of perception and the nature of reality” with his artistic abilities to create recognizable yet distorted scenes and subject matter (Wach 8). Through his work Dalí wanted to combine elements of the physical external world with those of the intangible internal psyche, and painted pictures that could almost be acceptable as dream worlds. He incorporated modern thoughts of Freud and Einstein on the relativity of time and the relationship between the subconscious and conscious world throughout his work. Common symbols he used were time, eggs, human figure, animals, and elements of nature such as rocks and water. Dalí lived most of his life in Spain, but also lived briefly in Paris and in the United States during the Second World War. He painted, wrote, made films, and dabbled in other artistic endeavors up until his death in 1989.

On a more personal note, I chose Dalí because of all the eccentric side-notes to his artistic story. In my Spanish classes, the teachers always mention how in 1936 he addressed a crowd at the London International Surrealist Exhibition dressed in a full diving suit, helmet and all. He said he wanted to convince the audience that he was “plunging” into the human mind with his work. One teacher toured Dalí’s house in Spain and reported that he put the head of his bed against the wall with a window, then put a mirror on the wall across from the bed and the window so that he could observe the sunrise when he woke up in the morning. Dalí also made several very strange films. Watch just the first 2 minutes of this video and you’ll get a taste of his style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHTWDNii87k

(the first part is a spanish interview, but there are subtitles)

Girl Sewing, 1925-6.

This study drawing of a woman sewing shows Dalí’s attention to perspective even in surrealistic works. He uses more linear, rather than empirical, perspective here, but it is obvious that Dalí has thought a great deal about where his line of sight is, and what he can and cannot see in the painting. His drawing has several reference points that make it easy for him to reference in his final work—just like our drawings.

Study for Portrait of Frau Isabel Styler-Tas, 1945. Pencil.

The second piece I chose is also a study drawing for a work. Here he incorporates a more empirical (though arguably surrealistic) perspective defining the woman in the foreground and the distant hills rocks and trees as the background. He does a good job also of using stronger lines in the foreground and less defined/harsh lines in the background to give even more depth to the piece.

Portrait of Frau Isabel Styler-Tas, 1945.

Soft Watch Exploding 1954 ink.

Finally I chose a study drawing for Dalí’s perhaps most widely-recognized piece. His exploding soft watch incorporates external themes of memory and time, and is based on a recognizable item [i.e. a pocket watch]. He does a good job of using negative space to define the shattered bits of clock breaking apart, and his quality of line also adds to his theme of questioning the immutability and mobility of time.

Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion 1954.

Bibliography:

Dorsey, Paul. http://daliplanet.blogsome.com/category/hitchcock/.

Bailey, George. 19 Aug 2001. http://sdali42.tripod.com/gbdaliphotos.htm .

Felix Fanes. “Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image 1925-30.” Yale University Press; New Haven: 1999.

“Salvador Dalí: A Guide to His Works in Public Museums.” The Dalí Museum; Cleveland, 1956.

Vision Works. 2010. www.changingworld.com

Wach, Kenneth. “Masterpieces from the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum.” Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers; St. Petersburg, FL: 1996.

In perusing the Lilly collections, I came across an Art on Paper review of an exhibit in the Gladstone Gallery in New York which featured the work of an artist by the name of Basil Wolverton. I was immediately drawn to the work because Wolverton’s illustrative style and quirky titles reminded me of… me.

Research done, I discovered that Basil Wolverton was an American cartoon artist born in1909 and working c. 1930-1970. His pen and ink illustrations depend on stippling and hatching to create the illusion of value; this meticulous approach was necessary if one wanted to achieve a tight graphic feel in the time before computers took over. Wolverton’s subject matter is totally inane- strange creatures with comical bodily characteristics. His sense of huor and inventiveness are obvious; he self-identified as a "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Pecuilar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet." In addition to creating over 1300 comic pantels, Wolverton did work in the fields of advertising, caocatures, greeting cards and novelty products. His final project was a series of Bibical illustrations entitled the “Last Days” depicting the an apocalyptic aned of the world in his characteristic style.

Wolverton died in 1978, and was inducted into the cartoon industry’s Hall of Fame in 1991. The Gladstone exhibition features fork of the likes that elevated Wolverton to Mad magazine fame, in the era before the comics code was adopted and “swampt things, lopped-off heads, and bloody sledgehammers” were perfectly acceptable. His satirical caricatures and “lovingly detailed” depictions of the end of the world take center stage; and viewers had the opportunity to get up close and personal with his marks.

Long-necked Model, 1950 Ink on paper; 14 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches (36.8 x 29.2 cm)

Take Long-necked Model, for example. The piece offers a commentary on the fashion industry, portraying a model as an overly sinewy and made-up figure, teetering into the domain of grotesque. Examining the craft of the piece, Wolverton's hatches are tiny and precise, placed just-so the create cartoonish value. A strong black outline gives the figure definition and furthers the graphic style.

Nell No-Smell, 1972 Ink on paper; 17 x 20 inches (43.2 x 50.8 cm)

Nell No-Smell provides another example of Wolverton's style. I particularly like the description of hair, with depth created through line-work alone. Clearly, the subject matter is unusual, but it is fun to look at and interpret. Wolverton's legacy lives on not only in exhibitions like this one, but as the father of the underground comic movement.

Rexer, Lee. "Basil Wolverton at Gladstone Gallery, New Your." Art on Paper. November/December (2009): 98-99. Print.

"Basil Wolveton." Wikepedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 2 Nov. 2010.

"Basil Wolverton." Web. 2 Nov. 2010.

"Basil Wolverton." Gladstone Gallery. Web. 2 Nov. 2010.

The drawing of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

by Yumian Deng

Brief Biographical Information: extracted from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

(b. April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [now in Italy]—d. May 2, 1519, Cloux [now Clos-Lucé], France)

The son of a landowner and a peasant, he received training in painting, sculpture, and mechanical arts as an apprentice to Andrea del Verrocchio. About 1490 he began his project of writing treatises on the “science of painting,” architecture, mechanics, and anatomy. His theories were based on the belief that the painter, with his powers of perception and ability to pictorialize his observations, was uniquely qualified to probe nature’s secrets. His numerous surviving manuscripts are noted for being written in a backward script that requires a mirror to be read. In 1502–03, as military architect and engineer for Cesare Borgia, he helped lay the groundwork for modern cartography. Though only some 17 completed paintings survive, they are universally seen as masterpieces.

His drawings:

Leonardo is one of the greatest artists ever. His drawing is very technical, classical and graceful. He paid great tension to details and how his drawing can reveal the real object. In order to draw realistically, he even made anatomic study of human or animal body, which is prohibited at that time. He also master the law of perspective and we can see clearly the vanish point from his drawing or painting (The Last Supper, for example).

We can see the precise perspective Leonardo utilize for the background from this drawing. (drawing captured from LEONARDO DA VINCI-Artist, thinker, and man of science by EUGENE MUNTZ)

This great detailed drawing is a study drawing of an angel. Every lock of curly hair is carefully drawn. I am amazed by how consistent those hundreds of curve lines are, which require great techniques and huge amount of patience. I can't even draw straight lines this good. (drawing captured from LEONARDO DA VINCI-Artist, thinker, and man of science by EUGENE MUNTZ)

At first sight, the drawing on the left looks just like a black and white photo, only by close inspection did I confirm it's a drawing. This exemplify how realistic his drawing is. (drawing captured from LEONARDO DA VINCI-Artist, thinker, and man of science by EUGENE MUNTZ)

Another example. (drawing captured from LEONARDO DA VINCI-life and work paintings and drawings by Ludwig Goldscheider)

Universally recognized one of the best artist ever, Leonardo is also a great engineer, inventor, medical scientist, and so on. He utilize his art talents in his other field of works, too, include engineering sketch, anatomical drawings and so on. They record his inventions and discoveries, which in turn help him draw better.

Here are some pictures from webs.

Han van Meegeren - Forgery and Fame

Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio, 1606, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Christ at Emmaus, Han van Meegeren, 1936, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Self Portrait, 1928, van Meegeren

two sketches by Han van Meegeren

Background

Han van Meegeren is noted as one of history's most notorious art forgers. Born October 10, 1889, to the name Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, he was a Dutch painter and portraitist. In 1907, despite his own dreams, van Meegeren left home to Delft, the hometown of Vermeer, to learn architecture at the Delft Technical College. There he took electives of drawing and painting. Van Meegeren left architecture school in 1913, to focus exclusively on art. He studied at The Hague, where he received a very well regarded award called The Gold Medal - marking the student (every five years) that produced the best work. He became a lavish artist, with jobs all over Europe - and acquired a name for himself as a talented portraitist. Though van Meegeren believed he was a great painter; he was not. Talented though he may have been, the public did not praise his work. His subjects were versatile, he painted biblical scenes, society portraits and nightclub dancers In 1922, he organized an exhibition of his biblical paintings, Christ at Emmaus being one of them. They were not taken by the critics, who were more interested in Cubism and Surrealism, rather than van Meegeren's focus of 17th Century art. After being hailed by the critics for "lacking originality", van Meegeren raged that his genius was not being recognized as what it truly was, and devoted his last twenty years of his life to proving the public wrong.

The Forgeries

In 1932, van Meegeren went to the south of France, to work on a painting that would change the art world. It was extremely detailed work. Van Meegeren studied the lives of the artists he would forge, especially Vermeer's. He knew every intimate detail there was to know, down to how much money Vermeer owed his baker. He would practice over and over again the most intimate detail of the left hand of one of Vermeer's subjects. To van Meegeren, forgery was as much an art as creating his own work, and he worked incessantly on creating a piece that would be claimed "The greatest Vermeer ever". He worked with paints, making sure that he could acquire the exact blue Vermeer used. He would put canvases in the oven, attempting the cracked look with age canvases carry. He sketched every day Vermeer's composition and incessantly devoted himself to perfecting the light source from the left hand side of a painting and hitting the still life on the table. Experts have studied his painting “Christ at Emmaus” and decided that it is two paintings fused together. Instead of the still life mixing in with the subjects, the two are completely seperate and do not flow well. It is evident that the still life is completed just as Vermeer would present bread or a pitcher, but that the people lack depth and their proportions are off. Of course, at the height of Emmaus’ fame, no one saw this painting for anything than the beauty it beheld.

Impact on Society

The discovery of van Meegeren's paintings as the greatest forgery of the 20th Century gives immense insight into the art world. The recognition of van Meegeren's painting under the name of Vermeer shows us what we regard as a 'beautiful painting' and what cannot be beautiful, because it does not possess the same reputation. Thousands of people came to see Christ at Emmaus and art critics raved that it was the most insightful of all Vermeers. Yet as soon as they found out it had been a fake, they shunned the painting and stressed how obvious it was that it had not depth, structure or 'Vermeer'-like qualities. What changed their opinions? The painting had not changed - it was the same as it had been the first day that the art museum Boymans in Rotterdam had purchased it. But the norm had changed. People think something is beautiful because it has the name Rembrandt, or Klimt or Whistler on it. If we discovered a painting by Da Vinci that was merely a black dot, but if it was definitely a Da Vinci, it would be swarmed by the Louvre and critics would find a way that it was innovative and inspiring. In short, it doesn’t matter what your painting looks like, as long as it has a fancy name on it people are willing to spend a leg and arm for it. van Meegeren made over what is equivalent to half a billion dollars with his forgeries, and I believe he proved his point that people only like things that give you status, and make you seem important if you possess them. Christ at Emmaus still hangs in Rotterdam, but it is a forgotten and often shameful subject for critics.

Sources

1. Dolnick, Edward. The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper, 2008. Print.
2. Lopez, Jonathan. The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren. New York: Mariner Books, 2009. Print.
3. Liedtke, Walter. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings. New York: Abrams, 2008. Print.
4. Schneider, Norbert. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (25). Taschen 25 - Special ed ed. Köln: Taschen, 2010. Print.

Claes Oldenburg

In light of our final two projects, I thought I'd post something about large structural objects in unexpected spaces. For our drawings, we're just appropriating images and sketching them in as if there actually was say, a hippopotamus standing in the middle of the main quad. But what if there actually was some random object there? Like... the giant clothespin sculpture in Philly.

Enter Claes Oldenburg, Swedish sculptor extraordinaire. Oldenburg studied at Yale and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and is famous for the enormous sculptures he constructs in collaboration with his [now deceased] wife, Coosje van Bruggen. Their pieces depict everyday objects enlarged to monumental proportions and then placed within public areas. Such additions to parks and city centers were at first ridiculed, but their playful peculiarity is now beloved.

Take Typewriter Eraser, Scale X for example, housed at the National Gallery's outdoor sculpture garden. Standing 273.25 x 152.5 x 136 inches and weighing in at 10000 pounds, this painted stainless steel and fiberglass construction is no small matter. It's red wheel and blue strands are whimsical, and the idea of a typewriter eraser taking on such an important presence begs some thought into why its now obsolete form stands deified in monolithic statuary in the sculpture garden in the capital of the free world.

The Typewriter Eraser is not a sole case; Oldenburg's work appears around the globe. The aforementioned Clothespin graces the plaza outside Philadelphia's City Hall. At 45 feet high and ten tons, it too is too big to go unnoticed. Why is a clothespin sitting in the middle of City Square?

Why are there flying bowling pins at the intersection of two avenues in the Netherlands?

A saw slicing through the ground at the Tokyo Exhibition Center?

Why not? According to Oldenburg, such work "reflects both the surroundings and their context but through [his and his late wife's] imagination and selective perception." Through carefully planned sketches of the sculptures and their placement, as depicted above for the saw piece, his fantasies become physical realities. Take this spirit into the final project and do with it what you may.

- Rebecca Kuzemchak

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=107762

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Oldenburg

http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/