DCCC Art & Design Club

Learn 2-D DESIGN. New studio art course offered at Downingtown branch campus of Delaware County Community College. Application deadline is AUG 20th (course # ART122-60).

Instructor: Professor Jaime Treadwell
website: http://www.jaimetreadwell.com/

Learn about the basic Elements and Principles of Art + Design. This is a great course for anyone looking to explore, learn or to begin a career path in the visual arts. No experience required. www.dccc.edu/admissions-financial-aid/admissions/how-apply

** Article contains mentions of sexual assault **

Awesome article mentioning classical works of Medusa and her use as a symbol to demonize female leaders whenever male authority has felt threatened by female agency.

The Timeless Myth of Medusa, a R**e Victim Turned Into a Monster Since Ancient Greece, the snake-haired Gorgon has been a sexualized symbol of women's rage.

Renaissance (1300-1600 C.E.)

Type of movement: a broad cultural trend affecting the art world from its greater impact on general culture as a whole

Characteristics: order, symmetry, perspective, Classical, space, movement

Location: Mostly Italy (Florence, Venice, and Rome) but also some of Northern Europe

Summary: The word Renaissance means "rebirth." It encompasses the period of Western Art that was a time of rediscovery, enterprise, and change. Artists during the Renaissance were interested in revisiting the classical past of Greece and Rome, but with the intent to surpass the work of the ancient world. This competition amongst Renaissance artists eventually led them to acquire a higher status in society and were recognized as being above craftsmen or artisans based on their talents and ideas.

Little, Stephen. ...isms: Understanding Art. Universe Publishing, 2004.

Starting today I will be supplementing my art analyses with breakdowns of iconic historical art movements. Please check them out!

Which is more disrespectful: to alter an American flag in the hopes of spurring conversations on the current divisiveness in America or to demand the removal of the flag, infracting the First Amendment and attempting to silence the conversations attempting to take place?

The First Amendment comes under fire in the controversial debate of Josephine Meckseper's "Untitled (Flag 2)" after Kansas Republican candidates pressure Kansas University to have it removed on the grounds of desecration.

Flag Art Is Censored at Kansas University, Warhol Foundation Weighs In Josephine Meckseper's flag was created precisely to comment on the vast canyon of political division in the United States, but it may soon split the state of Kansas across party lines.

*Bit late on this one, but the day is not over yet!* Today's painting is Chaim Soutine's "Woman in Blue" (or La Femme en bleu in French). Oil on canvas, c. 1919.

Soutine was a Russian-French artist of Jewish origin who contributed to the expressionist movement while living in Paris. Inspired by classical European painting, Soutine developed a highly iconic style, focusing on shape, color, and texture, instead of presentation. His style bridged traditional painting styles with the emerging abstract expressionism movement.

The unidentified model of the portrait "Woman in Blue" is a prime example of Soutine's expressionist painting style. The artist creates an unforgettable portrait with his establishment of mood through form - he paints his figure with a hunched posture, oversized, misshapen hands, and piercing unevenly spaced eyes. He suggests a chair behind his sitter but deliberately paints it blue, serving to further accentuate the appearance of a hunch. With the angle at which the model is positioned, her elongated body appears primed to stumble out of the picture plane. Soutine arranges the model close to the left and right sides of the canvas, creating a sense of claustrophobia and further heightening this effect. Lastly, the intricate, lavish layering of red, yellow, blues, greens, pinks, and orange in her face and hands bestow the figure with an intense feeling of expressive quality.

Dolkart, Judith F., Lucy, Martha, and Gillman, Derek. The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks. Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Currently in the collections at The Barnes Foundation

Today's featured piece is Paul Cézanne's "Young Man and Skull" (Jeune homme a la tete de mort). Oil on canvas, 1896-1898.

Over the years, Cézanne explored themes of mortality in his work, as seen in paintings such as "Young Man and Skull" and "Still Life with Skull." Each of these pieces distinctly feature a skull, Cézanne's chosen metaphor for death. He juxtaposes it alongside vibrant life, such as ripened fruit in "Still Life with Skull" or a sturdy young man in "Young Man and Skull."

In "Young Man and Skull" the youth's soft skin and bright eyes counterbalance the hollow cheeks and empty, darkened eye sockets of the bone. The artist further highlights the duality of life and death by surrounding these two heads with dense plant-life from the folded textile in the background. A subtler touch is the branch on the tapestry that appears to be emerging from the young man's head, potentially remarking on the growth that occurs during life.

The young man possesses an air of pensive melancholy with his far-off look and head supported by his arm propped up on the table. The isolating rumination of Cézanne's portrait is similar in imagery to earlier paintings of the hermit St. Jerome and Mary Magdalene.

Dolkart, Judith F., Lucy, Martha, and Gillman, Derek. The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks. Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Currently in the collections at The Barnes Foundation

Today's work is Horace Pippin's "Supper Time", an oil painting on a burnt wood panel, c. 1940.

Pippin was an African-American artist from West Chester, Pennsylvania who was entirely self-taught. Albert Barnes, who was attracted to the work of self-taught artists, bought several of his paintings and invited Pippin to enroll as a student at the foundation. Despite not receiving any formal art training, he developed a technique of using a hot poker to "carve" into his paintings, leaving unusual yet striking mark-making.

In "Supper Time" Pippin uses a hot poker to construct the lines of the chair, windowpanes, door panels, and the forms of the three figures. He leaves a good portion of the panel exposed, enabling it to become an active part of the composition, where it forms the skin of the three figures, the table, and the view through the window.

The artist uses white paint to establish everyday objects which creates a stark contrast to the otherwise darker environment. The balance of these white blocks of color is carefully laid out - the snow through the window balances the laundry to the left and the younger girl's dress offsets the garments on the woman to the right. An interesting tension forms throughout the piece through the horizontal and vertical lines that shape the interior. Only the diagonal lines of the table and the one woman's arms serve to break the gridlike framework.

Dolkart, Judith F., Lucy, Martha, and Gillman, Derek. The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks. Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Currently in the collections at The Barnes Foundation

Today's piece is Paul Gauguin's "Haere Pape", which loosely translates to "she goes down to the fresh water" in Tahitian. Oil on canvas, 1892.

After spending several years in Brittany, France, Gauguin traveled to Tahiti, the largest of islands in French Polynesia in Oceania. In search of exoticism and natural purity, Tahiti represented to Gauguin a static, "primitive" culture that was untouched by modern industry or European conventions. Ignoring the fact that Tahiti was modernizing, Gauguin refused to abandon his romanticized vision and painted his ideal island of "a culture frozen in time", with a specific focus on brown-skinned women.

In this work, the artist presents a young Tahitian woman harmoniously coexisting with the environment. Gauguin blends elements of the natural world and the human figure by painting a tree branch to resemble a human arm and echoing the flower print of the woman's skirt in the ripples of the water and the shapes of the trees in the background. This interplay enforces Gauguin's idea that nature and humans are not cataloged separately, but intertwined energies that are present within the other.

Dolkart, Judith F., Lucy, Martha, and Gillman, Derek. The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks. Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Currently in the collections at The Barnes Foundation

Next up, for all you perspective lovers out there (Treadwell) we have:
Giorgio de Chirico's "La Meditazione del Pomeriggio." This translates from Italian as "The Meditation in the Afternoon" but it is also known as "The Arrival." Oil on canvas, 1912.

Notable for painting stark yet dreamlike imagery of Italian piazzas, de Chirico juxtaposed themes of antiquity and modernity in his work. Influences on his work were quite diverse, ranging from the Swiss symbolist works of Arnold Bröcklin to Nietzche's philosophy to monuments of his Mediterranean heritage.

De Chirico focused on painting Mediterranean cityscapes, notably of arcaded buildings and palm trees. In this particular painting, an aged building on the left casts a long shadow across the uncannily vacant square. Parallel to it on the right is a newer, more pristine building, the white of its walls highlighted in the afternoon sunlight. A deep rhythm is formed from the receding arches into the background and their angles are a palimpsest of Renaissance explorations of perspective. A white monument of a figure clothed in modern dress contrasts this antique reminiscence and appears to oversee the still, barren space. The movement of a train in the distant background breaks the quiet meditation of the foreground, suggesting an area of swift energy from the long trail of billowing smoke and rippling pennants in the wind.

The metaphysical works of de Chirico appealed to many avant-garde French critics, in particular, Guillaume Apollinaire, whose brief career influenced many Modernist movements. In addition, Giorgio de Chirico's work and Scuola Metafisica (School of the Metaphysics) style of painting later proved essential to the surrealists of the 1920s.

Dolkart, Judith F., Lucy, Martha, and Gillman, Derek. The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks. Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Currently in the collections at The Barnes Foundation!

To start off this series of posts, we have:
Paul Cézanne's "Leda and the Swan" ("Léda au Cygne" in French). Oil on canvas, c. 1880-1883.

This piece is a more unusual work by Cézanne because of its specific literally narrative, that represents the mythological story "Metamorphoses" by Ovid, an ancient Roman poet. The story tells of the Greek god, Zeus, who came down to earth and disguised himself as a swan so he could seduce Leda, the daughter of King Thestius.

Although Cézanne painted many female nudes, this is perhaps considered one of his most overtly sensual. The curvaceous line of Leda's hip helps to drive the erotic mood of the piece and Cézanne does this by repeating curvilinear forms throughout. Most noticeably are the ones in the swan's neck and wings, the drapery, and in Leda's arms, hair, breasts, and garments.

In this work, Cézanne refrains from subscribing to stylistic painting conventions of the 19th century. He purposefully abandons painting the skin with smooth or soft strokes and instead aggressively layers the skin with blotchy paralleled strokes of yellows, oranges, greens, and blues. These marks appear all throughout the canvas, albeit not in the background, a technique he developed during the 1880s.

Dolkart, Judith F., Lucy, Martha, and Gillman, Derek. The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks. Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Currently on display at The Barnes Foundation!

Hey all! Starting today, I'm going to be posting pieces of art that I find really interesting from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia! I've been learning about these works from being on a student outreach council at the Barnes. I'll be including some technical specs on the piece as well as a synopsis/analysis of the work. I'll try to keep them brief little posts people can read about within 5 minutes. Hopefully, this will help stay in touch with the art world while summer break is still on! :)