Two Worlds Collide

Somehow I skipped a post so this is my make up post!
Aziz and Cucher relates to the ideas presented in the lecture "A Collision of Two Worlds" by showing us just how they can manipulate the looks of an actual photograph. Even though we know people like these items captured from the Dystopia Series could never be real, they make us double take and assume at first glance that they are real because of the work of art being an actual photograph, even if it is manipulated. It really took me a long time to contemplate my interpretation about this artwork because I’m not sure what my interpretation is. When I look at these images, they make me question who these people are and what they are feeling. Although a lot can be told by looking at someone’s eyes I cannot do that with these portraits. Yet, even though parts of the facial portions are gone so I cannot read their expressions, I feel that the people in these images are sad and lonely. When I look at them, I immediately feel somber and a sense of longing to be able to help these people through the rough times they seem to be having. Although I find these images unsettling, I still have a yearning to reach out to them and help them in any way I can.
Manipulated digital images are very disturbing to me. Just when you think you could be looking at something that was captured in a real situation, you find out that it has been altered and changed from its original layout. I don’t like the idea of manipulating digital images because of the fact that when you look at a photograph, you believe that something like that exists, and to find out it is not is worrisome, because who knows how many times you look at a photograph, thinking that it is real, and it has been altered in some way. A huge controversy comes to mind when I think of this. Models, actors, actresses, singers, etc. all seem to be very beautiful. Sometimes I wonder how come I never meet these perfectly proportioned, drop-dead gorgeous men and women on the street, but come to think of it, it can all be adjusted with photoshop! That’s a scary thought, knowing that men and women everywhere worry and struggle with their appearances because they look in the mirror and all they see is themselves as they are, not with beautiful lips, flawless skin, and perfectly proportioned busts and butts, not to mention with those flat, six-pack abs that they never work out but come naturally. It is sad and discouraging to many people around the world to see this kind of fantasy world that all these amazingly beautiful people live in. It makes many people feel the urge to become one of these people, and this is the reason so many people turn to drastic measures, spending obscene amounts of money on things such as cosmetic surgery, insane diets, or expensive cosmetics, to attempt to receive these results.

What I've Learned From Art

I think it would be very difficult to pick out one thing and call it my "most memorable thing" that I have learned all semester. Although, there were a few things that really stuck out in my mind, and I think these things will be the ones I will remember for a very long time. First and foremost, for some reason, I have always been enthralled with atmospheric perspective. I know, I know! What an odd thing to remember out of all the things we learned! But for some reason, I was just immediately fascinated by this idea, and have found it to be true in every representational painting I have paid attention with. From the beginning this was something that I remembered and always noticed about the painting. This key term ended up being the first thing I recognized when analyzing a painting.
Another part of this course that I really enjoyed was form and content. I had heard those words tossed around before in previous art classes, but because I was always taught the actual process of drawing and painting in these art classes (which, by the way, is definitely my worst subject-not because I dislike it, but because I'm no good at it!) so I never really paid attention to things like the key terms. Now I know that when we speak about a work of art's form, we are talking about everything that I like to call "physical"-from the material used to create the art, to the actual things that are painted (trees, grass, etc.), to how it is organized in the painting. When we speak about a work of art's content, we are talking about everything I like to call "mental"-from how it makes us feel or act to what we think it means.
I also really enjoyed iconography because when I am looking at a work of art, I generally see the basic, main idea. It is very difficult for me to try and delve deeper into what the painting actually means. In short, I'm great with describing the form of a painting and not so great at describing the content. I never understand what certain items mean in a painting, and am in awe when others are able to pull very meaningful things out of a painting that I just passed right over. I really enjoyed employing iconography on The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, and I especially loved listening to everyone else's take on this painting-like for instance what the dog and the oranges mean, how the bride is holding up her dress, and the meaning of the reflection in the mirror in the back.
Overall, this class was a great success. I not only learned from what the teacher had to offer, but I learned from what other classmates had to say, which is very difficult and I imagine almost impossible coming from an online class. I hope everyone else got as much out of this class as I did.

Art Visit

On Wednesday, June 4 I went to the Crocker Art Museum for my art visit. During my time there I visited several exhibitions, but my two favorite by far were California Art and European Art. Viewing art in person is very different from viewing it in a book or on a computer. It seems much more alive and vivid in person than it does in a two-dimensional setting. When you look at art in places such as books, you can't really get the sense of the artwork because of many certain factors. These factors could be that it wasn't printed to original size, it maybe would not show the texture of the artwork, or, in the case of types of art that are three-dimensional in person, you cannot view the entire piece. The only part you can view is the part the photographer captured.
Viewing it in person gives you the advantage of seeing the artwork through your own point of view and really being able to enjoy it.

My favorite work of art was in the California Art exhibition and the E.B. Crocker Collection. The name of the painting is Sunday Morning in the Mines, painted by Charles Christian Nahl in 1872. The original size is 274.3cm x 182.9cm. To give you some background about the artist, he is an emigrant from Germany who painted many scenes from the gold-rush time during his career. I really enjoyed this painting because of the controversy that it established. If you look closely, you will notice that this painting has two very different meanings. On the right-hand side are the diligent church goers, reading the bible on a Sunday morning and washing their clothes, perhaps as a Sunday ritual. On the left side of the painting are the more rambunctious gold miners. There are depictions of people fighting, beating their horses with whips, and even perhaps some intoxicated people on this fine Sunday morning. Even in the far back and to the left are some people fighting. This side must contain the sinners, for all their actions are proving them to be morally corrupt. There is also a man smoking, standing almost dead center in the painting. What I also found interesting about this painting was that there is a large redwood tree that divides the painting into equal halves, almost separating one lifestyle from another.

To the left is a picture of me next to my favorite painting! Seeing this work of art in picture form just does not give it justice. You can see from the size of me compared to the size of the painting that it was magnificent in size, really a beautiful work of art. I had walked around the museum and only had two more rooms to go and was disappointed because nothing I saw really caught my eye enough the way this artwork did. When I saw this piece I immediately knew that this would be it. Oh, by the way, I don't know what's wrong with the date and time on my camera, but I definitely wasn't there at 10:30 at night :-).

There actually was one more painting, in the last room that was left for me to look at, that really caught my eye. This is an oil on canvas painting called In the Artist's Studio, by Edouard Marsal. It was painted in 1889 and is located in the European Art section of the Crocker Art Museum, with the measurements being 81.3 x 65.5 cm. As soon as I saw this painting, I was sucked into it. It looks completely three-dimensional in person. It really looks like if you put your hand on the painting, it would just move into the room instead of touching a flat, two-dimensional painting. Marsal was born in France in 1845 and loved to paint scenes with history and genre in them. At some point in his life he was also a professor, teaching from an academic point of view the love for making works of art just as beautiful and great as the one to the left.






Overall, I am really glad that this visit was a requirement for the course. I do not believe that I would have gone to an art museum on my own, especially because I'm so busy between school and work. I realized that throughout these last two months, I really am able to appreciate and love art, something that I somewhat struggled with before. I'm able to look at a painting and really feel connected to it because I have been taught to appreciate it, and not take it for granted. I have been to Crocker Art Museum many times, especially in grade school. It was a required field trip every year for the art program at my school. Although, my experience and the things I took out of this trip have changed drastically from when I was a child. When I used to visit Crocker, I just thought of it as a free day from school and an excuse to get out of the classroom. I would walk around with my little friends and talk and laugh and have a good time. The most recent time I did walk around with the same best friend I had in grade school, but this visit was different in the sense that I was really able to enjoy the journey and appreciate the works of art in front of me. Overall, this trip exceeded my expectations.

Conceptual Art

To me, conceptual art is a category that, at first, does not make sense to the viewer. Conceptual art is also something that may never make sense to the viewer unless they read the artist's point of view on the work of art in question and try to understand it from the artist’s perspective. It may bewilder the mind, making the viewer wonder why these works of art were even created.
As in the work of art with the toilet in the middle, it may cause viewers to think, why was this made? What purpose does it have? How can I consider this a beautiful and breathtaking work of art?
For me, the work of art with the toilet in the middle is 100% conceptual. When I first heard about this work of art, I pondered how this could even be called art. How could a maze of plexiglass and an open toilet sitting in the center of the maze mean anything?
My own preferences about conceptual art are somewhat scattered. On one hand, I am really intrigued by certain pieces of conceptual art. I can stare at them for long periods of time, perhaps trying to figure out how it works, or what it means. Sometimes I am even intrigued by things that I have no clue about the meaning of the object that is in question. For the most part, the more eccentric the better, because it seems to get more intriguing and different the more peculiar it gets. On the other hand, though, sometimes I'm turned off by pieces of conceptual art that I view as odd or disturbing. If it is really challenging for me to see the beauty or meaning behind it and I find it disquieting then I find that I might be somewhat opposed to that work of art.

My Favorite Painting

This painting is called A Pastoral Landscape. It was painted between 1648 and 1650 (different sources state different dates, all between these two years) by Claude Lorrain. The medium used was oil on copper. I actually found this painting in our A World of Art book on page 482.
Claude Lorrain was a French artist that spent much of his life painting in Italy. He was born to the name of Claude Gellée in 1604 or 1605 (again, controversy with the dates) in Chamagne, Vosges. He moved to Italy when he was very young, about 17 or 18, but didn't really gain popularity until the age of 33. Most of his paintings were of landscapes similar to this one.
What I really enjoy about this painting is the vivid sunset in the background. I am definitely always in awe when I look at the sky, no matter what time of day it is. I think the sky is beautiful day or night, rain or shine. Although, my favorite time to look at the sky is during sunset or sunrise. The colors that the sun makes are fascinating, just like the sky painted in this work of art. It is beautiful. If you also take a look at all the things that are supposed to be "farthest away" in the painting, they definitely have a bluish hue. Perhaps this is due to the use of atmospheric perspective. Weird--I hadn't read the passage in the book about this painting until I had written this much and in the first couple sentences it talks about employing atmospheric perspective! I guess I called that one-haha.
I also enjoy the vivid change in colors of the trees. The ones that appear closer to us are a deep, emerald green as if we were right in the middle of spring. The trees that appear farther away than us appear yellowish, almost like trees do at the start of fall.
From the text, it seems as if this painting were created to give us a balance from our crazy lives and take us to a more serene, calm view that was designed to pull us out of the harsh world we live in a place us in a kind of fairytale, a comforting view "bring[ing] us to a world of harmony and peace" pg 482.
Using oil in painting takes a very long time to dry. This is great because it allows the artist to fix any errors that are made. It also blends well, allowing unique designs and gradients to form. Most importantly, oils do not dry by evaporation. Oils dry basically by a slow, flameless combustion reaction. They are also permanent and durable and can be applied thickly. Lastly, the colors do not change in drying. This is very important because if an artist is trying to portray an image a certain way, say by using watercolors, the end effect will look different then when they started, because the colors tend to look darker after drying. Oils do not have this negative effect.

Thomas Kinkade...Artist?

Wow was this an interesting blurb to read about! I never knew all this information about Thomas Kinkade! Believe it or not, I didn't even know he was still alive! I'm not sure how naive that statement is, but I'm going to go out on a limb to say it is probably pretty dumb. I never had any inkling of knowledge that Thomas Kinkade was being investigated over cheating people out of their investment money, trying so hard to make a profit off his prints, or, probably most important, using Christianity as an excuse to lure people into spending money on his paintings because of the connection they had with the paintings and their religion. I could see how some would consider his work as "chocolate box art", because some of his works of art do look like they belong on that $7.99 rip-off version of See's Candies.
Also, what is going on with him not even touching some of his works of art, and then selling them for extreme amounts of money with his famous signature on the bottom!!???? Is this what artistry has turned to? Paying other people to make pieces of art, signing your name at the bottom, and giving them to the highest bidder? Because last time I checked that sounds strangely similar to fraud!
I went to the Art Show today in Auburn and talked with a few of the artists about their works of art. Whether it is ceramics, photography, using Photoshop to create images, or using materials such as pastels, there is one thing all these artists seem to have in common: they all love what they do. While they obviously need money to live, they truly love their work and obtain real joy in being artists. This common theme was very easy to see even just by looking at the artists. To them, it is not about the money they make through their work, but about the enjoyment they get when working on and finishing a piece of artwork. So this brings me to my next question: why in the world would Thomas Kinkade stop selling original paintings just because sales of his prints were declining? Is it really about the money? Surely it cannot be that he needed to focus his attention on doing things to make money, because he is worth around $53 million. I doubt his halt in selling original paintings had anything to do with "necessary financial gain", or, more simply put, money to live.
Onto the next point: people have been investing their money into Thomas Kinkade art galleries with the false thoughts of investing in something that would bring them closer to God and Christianity, especially with Kinkade's so-called "beliefs". And then he has the nerve to deliberately sell his same paintings that are in the galleries that are being funded by these trusted people at venues for cheaper prices!!! How could he hoodwink and manipulate these people out of thousands and thousands of dollars and not even care? Obviously he is a different person than he pretends to be because he also shows a different side of himself when he is drunk. What's that old saying? It is something to the fact that someone's true nature comes out once they have had a few drinks--their honest personality shines through, or, in his case, forces its way out of him.
To sum up this outraged blog entry, I believe that Thomas Kinkade is a shrewd capitalist who has mastered the "art" of money making by manipulating and deceiving many people by pronouncing false beliefs and giving people false hopes all in a ploy to take their money away from them.

Analyze That!

I absolutely loved this picture! It is so beautiful I had to do this blog entry on it. So beginning with line...there is definitely contour lines with the girl and the beach and mountains in the background. They appear to curve away from us, giving the painting depth. There is an implied line on the ground and coming up the girl's dress, with her left arm making the definition of the line. There is also a line that the waves from the beach makes getting more dramatic as the eyes draw closer to the girl. As for space...the painting is a two-dimensional image giving three-dimensional qualities. The objects in the left of the picture, including the mountains and part of the beach and water, are smaller in scale than the part of the beach on the right and the girl in the front. According to picture plane, the girl is overlapping in front of the beach, making her look closer to us than the beach. There is frontal recession, with the girl being the focal point on one-point perspective. The recession seems to be diagonal, because the girl is set off to the side and not the middle. Onto analyzing light and color! First of all, there is definitely aerial perspective because there is a blue hue in the background, including the sky, water, mountains, and even the sandy part of the beach. There is definitely use of chiaroscuro. In one example, there is a shadow to the left of the girl. It is supposed to be the shadow of the girl because the light is shining onto her from the right. There maybe even be some modeling, shown in the curvature on the left of the girl's dress, and some on her red sweater or blanket. There is a highlight on the right side of her dress, again modeling the light coming in from the right. The girl's dress is white and her sweater or blanket is red. Although, the artist did purple and pink colors outlining the red material against the white dress, perhaps to transition from two totally different colors a little easier. The intensity of red is very bright and is a primary color, thus is eye-catching. In a way, the illusion of the sun makes the painting seem warm and inviting. Although, the blues and purples make the image seem cooler and less warm. Also adding to the "coast-like weather" is the illusion of the wind, which seems to be blowing the girl's dress towards the right.

Watch the Magic!

For my two pictures I chose a gift basket full of different types of loofahs. The first picture, shown on your left, was taken during peak sunlight hours, around 2:30 pm. The second picture, shown on your right, was taken during a less "bright" time of day, around 6:30 pm. Let's begin with an analysis of the first picture. The hue of the wood definitely has an orange tint, and because the sun is shining so brightly on the wood, it shows every flaw and every age line. The color of the wood is also very saturated and filled with vivid color intensity. The loofah in the top left corner is vivid yellow hue, making it have a darker value of yellow. The bow connected to the loofah in the baggy in the top right looks almost transparent, with the rays of light hitting the material directly and exposing its true substance. The hand-held loofah with the black front has that same orange hue as the container. Also, the black portion is sparkling and has a gray hue, making it a lighter value of black. Now onto the picture on the right. First of all, the wood definitely has more of a yellow hue, making it a much lighter value of color than the wood on the left. Although you can see some age lines on the wood, you cannot see every flaw in it, and the light is much softer and lighter because the sun isn't directly hitting it. Even the picture doesn't look as clear as the one taken earlier in the day. The loofah in the top left corner is now a soft, dull yellow, similar to the yellow hue you would find on a baby blanket. The bow connected to the loofah in the baggy looks like more of a solid colored material now, really picking up a gold hue that I didn't see as much around 2:30. The wood handle on the hand-held loofah is much lighter and almost looks faded. The black part looks much more black, giving it a darker value.

Analyze This!

Line and Space

I am trying to apply key terms such as outline and implied line to my daily life by looking at things around me and trying to identify which key terms they relate to. For example, I fit people for glasses for a living. I deal with many different types of lenses with different base curves and unique things such as Franklin bifocals or ultexes and even progressives many of the time. Obviously lines are very important in optics. Optics is in fact all based upon light refraction, which is basically about the way a ray of light reflects off of the retina. All of these rays are types of lines. As far as contour lines go, I have noticed in my friend's room that there is a wrestling poster of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and it shows multiple pictures of him, some looking farther away than others. All of this has to do with contour lines and directing and tricking our eyes into thinking the images are farther away than they really are. Linear perspective is portrayed in a picture my mother has framed on her wall. It gives the illusion of a landscape with the water farther away, and the beach closer up. This gives it a three-dimensional effect because it gives depth to the picture, instead of everything looking as if it is on the same plane. Everything is becoming more visually interesting because I'm starting to look at things such as pictures and paintings through more advanced eyes, rather than through the eyes of an amatuer.

Controversial Art

Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary 1996

Controversial art is beneficial for many reasons.
For one, it opens our delicate little minds to the idea that there are things out there that we never knew or could conceive about. For instance, I was raised Catholic and was taught the idea of The Virgin Mary being a white woman, and Jesus being a white man. Now, there have been ideas thrown around through things such as movies or the radio about talk of a "black Jesus". Now although I had heard of this idea, I had never thought of The Virgin Mary as being a black woman. Not that this idea is wrong in any way: please don't misunderstand my ignorance for disbelief or hatred of any kind. I was just raised with certain beliefs and taught not to challenge them. This painting was very interesting to me because it did challenge what was ground into my innocent little mind from the time I was a baby: the idea that the Virgin Mary could be a black woman. As far as the mayor of New York, and the same man that was willing to pull funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for hosting The Holy Virgin Mary, he was appalled by the painting. The exact painting, in fact, that he had never even seen. There was discussion of elephant dung being thrown at the portrait by avid Catholics (which turned out to be false: what actually occurred was the artist used the elephant dung because in his African culture, elephant dung was part of the earth, so, in fact, it was not a sign of disrespect, but rather a sign of reverence for him to include this material in his painting) and these same people being opposed and offended by the painting.
Continuing on with my original point: another reason why controversial art is beneficial is because it goes outside the box. It stands out. It is different and unique and sometimes crude. It gives us a reason to turn our heads at these types of work, because, unlike regular art it is controversial. It gives us another plane, another level of art that was not touched had it not been different than regular art.
And moving on to my last point of controversial art: it sparks conversations and discussions between two people. While some of these talks may be heated and eventually turn into arguments, they allow us to broaden our minds (if we are open enough for them!) and really analyze a new type of art. A category in itself, controversial art forces us to stare at things we might not be comfortable with in an effort to understand it.
I do not believe that the world would be a better place if all art conformed to predetermined standards. The reason being that art is an expression of oneself. One should be allowed to release whatever feelings or emotions that person has into a piece of art. America is supposed to be about the freedom of expression, and what kind of country are we if we give artists predetermined standards, or limits to their creativity?
Before I did section three of this course, I found myself a more conservative person when it came to art. I didn’t really believe that one should be what I thought was “crude” when it came to creating something that in my mind was supposed to be beautiful. Now that I am a little more educated on the subject, I realize that art doesn’t have to be beautiful to be amazing. It doesn’t have to be conservative to have a deeper meaning. We can appreciate and love a piece of art for what it is, and not be so closed-minded as to what an artist should or should not create. I now realize that art is an expression of oneself and may mean many different things, no matter what it looks like. It is our job as the viewer to analyze the painting for its true meaning, not just the face value.

Visual Literacy Reflections

In this unit, I really learned the idea of art being interpreted as you would like to interpret it. I wasn't really quite sure what to think when it was stated in the first unit that art can be interpreted many different ways with none of them being wrong; although, I know now that statement is true. There are so many ways to interpret just one piece of art! My whole life, when I looked at a picture, the most I would see was that first "onion-layer" of content: what the most simple, basic meaning was. Now that I have been shown an example of how to really tear apart a piece of art and analyze every inch of that work, it means a little bit more to me than just a picture or a painting. I finally understand the difference between representational, abstract, and non-objective, which I have pretty much almost always been confused about. I also now have a few more words to add to my description category, (and ultimately make me sound like I sort of know what I'm talking about!) which would be form and content. My conversations about art may now be a little bit more intellectual rather than the general "yes I like this one!" or "no I don't".

A World of Art

The image that was most intriguing for me in Chapter One was Albert Bierstadt's The Rocky Mountains. The painting includes brown, muddy colored mountains with a sunny yet cloudy sky. The second "set" of mountains are sprinkled with snow. Many green trees are embraced in the presence of the six by ten foot display. There are many animals and people, along with several brown tents. There is a waterfall in the middle of the picture with a lake reflecting the mountains. The rest of the ground is filled with grass, sticks, and rocks. Something that seems kind of unusual is the warm tones of the painting, which make the weather seem warm and inviting, matched with the snowy mountaintops in the background. I really enjoy this painting because I love paintings of landscapes and nature itself. It is so calming and nurturing to look at. I am also very intrigued by the reminder of the days when westward expansion was in play and the Indians were being stripped of their land. The most interesting time in history class for me was learning about colonization and the migration west of those people, slowly taking what would become known as The United States away from the Native Americans. In my opinion, the painting is communicating the message of serenity that the Native Americans used to have before colonization took place.

About Me

Hmm..so about me. I guess we will start with the basics: I'm 19 years old, and have been at Sierra College for two years now. I'm transferring to Sacramento State in the fall to get my Bachelor's degree in Chemistry. From there I plan on going to Optometry school at Berkeley. I graduated from Granite Bay High School in 2007. I did my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college at the same time, if you were confused about the dates. I currently work at Lenscrafters and Eye Exam of California, and have been for about 7 months now. I got the job to make sure that I wanted to become an optometrist, or an eye doctor, for those of you that didn't know. I absolutely love it there and it has definitely made my calling more apparent. I also work at Longs Drugs as a bookkeeper. I have been there for over 3 years, as it was my first job ever. I'm in the process of finally quitting though.

As far as my personal life goes, I have a boyfriend who I spend most of my time with. He and I were best friends before we starting dating in late 2007. I watch The Office on a regular basis, and must admit that I am addicted to Professional Wrestling. Other than those things, I have pretty much no time for anything else.

Any questions let me know!