Friday, March 27, 2009
Assignment 5
This painting by Caravaggio was very interesting to me due to his signature use of tenebrism and also the fact that it is a true baroque painting with an scene of religious subject matter - Death of a Virgin- with no religious references or symbolism. It shows the world as it is - a natural representation of the death of a virgin and her grieving companion. As with most of his paintings, these figures are large and actually fill the canvas - you feel as if they are IN the room with you. Amazing to think that this GREAT artist was imprisoned and unsuccessful attempts were made to kill him for his "criminal" offenses. I find this painting particularly beautiful, it definitely pulls at my emotional heart strings. I am grateful that he was able to accomplish so much in his short life for those to emulate and enjoy.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Assignment 4
Well, I have tried to post the image but, NOT WORKING! Aghhh! Sorry, please refer to your books
Wow! The story about Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper and the disastrous results of his experimental technique of working directly on dry intonaco really hit home for me! My mother made custom mosaics for a living. She too was prone to experimenting with materials and techniques. She invented a style of 3 dimensional mosaic using slate of various types (silver, rust, and serpentine), which we gathered off of the mountain sides of Northern California, to make these 3-D mosaics of birds and trees. Then one day she decided that the rusty tin cans we saw at the garbage dump was a magnificent color so we gathered that! And she made sculptural 3-D mosaics (some as large as 8' by 12') of various types of trees. She always envisioned a call from one of her clients informing her that their custom mosaic shehad made for them had disintegrated... so far so good, however, she has been to repair a few that showed signs of "some disintegration". It is the danger of the creative mind that they may get them inadvertently into trouble as a result of their overactive imaginations and creativity. So, I truly could relate to Da Vinci's situation with the Last Supper and the failure of his experimental technique as it fades away. I am also in awe of the abilities of artists' to apply the technique of foreshortening to convey such accurate visions. My visits to many of the museums in Florence, Italy presented first hand observation of the amazing technique applied to mosaics particuarly on ceilings. Another technique used by my mother to give her mosaics 3-dimensionality was that of chiarosuro - in which she heavily contrasted tones of color to give her mosaics depth - although this technique was not applied to her "garbage rusted tin can" mosaics.
Wow! The story about Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper and the disastrous results of his experimental technique of working directly on dry intonaco really hit home for me! My mother made custom mosaics for a living. She too was prone to experimenting with materials and techniques. She invented a style of 3 dimensional mosaic using slate of various types (silver, rust, and serpentine), which we gathered off of the mountain sides of Northern California, to make these 3-D mosaics of birds and trees. Then one day she decided that the rusty tin cans we saw at the garbage dump was a magnificent color so we gathered that! And she made sculptural 3-D mosaics (some as large as 8' by 12') of various types of trees. She always envisioned a call from one of her clients informing her that their custom mosaic shehad made for them had disintegrated... so far so good, however, she has been to repair a few that showed signs of "some disintegration". It is the danger of the creative mind that they may get them inadvertently into trouble as a result of their overactive imaginations and creativity. So, I truly could relate to Da Vinci's situation with the Last Supper and the failure of his experimental technique as it fades away. I am also in awe of the abilities of artists' to apply the technique of foreshortening to convey such accurate visions. My visits to many of the museums in Florence, Italy presented first hand observation of the amazing technique applied to mosaics particuarly on ceilings. Another technique used by my mother to give her mosaics 3-dimensionality was that of chiarosuro - in which she heavily contrasted tones of color to give her mosaics depth - although this technique was not applied to her "garbage rusted tin can" mosaics.
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