What is the difference between "subject" and "content"?

 Why do some artists/cultures prefer using brushes to create work?

What's the significance of his "Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast (1870)"?

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It is representational and highly realistic. However this paintig bears no resembelance to Puget Sound, Bierdstadt had never even been. It is natural realistic rather than realistic; naturalism a representation of realistic realms, however, it's from a visual subjective point of view; i.e. puget sound has all the characteristics of the NW

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La Grande Vitesse is an expansive, eye-catching steel sculpture, painted in the artist's signature Calder Red, that measures 54 feet long, by 43 feet high, by 30 feet wide.It was created by Alexander Calder in 1969, and is often simply referred to by locals as "The Calder.'' Its formal name translates roughly into "the great swiftness," a reference to the river flowing through the city's heart.

Located on the Calder Plaza in front of the Grand Rapids City Hall, the sculpture serves as a distinctive landmark and symbol of the city. Its likeness can be found on most things related to the city, from its letterhead, to its street signs, to its city vehicles. Technically speaking, the sculpture is known in the art world as a "stabile'' - a stationary sculpture that uses multiple flat planes to give the appearance ofvolume and movement. Before Calder began work on the sculpture, he studied the architectural plans, scale, and materials of the buildings adjacent to the site. He designed a sculpture that responded well to the plaza and the surrounding architecture. The sculpture was also designed to provide a dramatically different view from each corner of the square.

The project was first conceived in 1967, when the city of Grand Rapids was planning a new city hall to help bring the blighted area back to life. A request for funding from the fledging federal National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) resulted in the agency's first project in its public arts initiative - a grant of $45,000 to the city of Grand Rapids.

Nancy Mulnix, who co-chaired the sculpture project with Peter Wege, retired vice chairman of Steelcase, and her committee then raised the additional $83,000 needed to complete the project. Alexander Calder, considered one of our country's preeminent artists and sculptors, was then selected to create the first civic sculpture financed by both the federal government and private funds.

The nearly complete sculpture arrived in May of 1969 - 42 tons of art in a series of enormous crates. The 27 separate sections of the sculpture still needed to be bolted and welded together, and cranes lifted the towering pieces into place. The entire assembly process took five days, after which the vivid Calder Red paint was applied, proclaiming the project complete.

While the sculpture tends to evoke a range of reactions and comments from onlookers - from "distinctive,'' to "monstrosity,'' to "way out'' - it served its intended purpose. It not only helped revitalize the area, but it also sparked the city's interest in art and led to a new art museum, symphony hall and a civic theater soon after.

It's also been said by those involved with the project that it gave the community a positive attitude that "anything is possible.'' According to City Historian Gordon Olson, "It led to a change in attitude so that the assumption now is that every good community project should include a piece of public art.''

In honor of the Calder sculpture's birthday, the City of Grand Rapids celebrates the event with an annual arts festival, which encompasses ten city blocks and is attended by a half a million people.

In her canvas "The Dead of Christ" what perspective technique did she use in this work?

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She has applied foreshortening in order to represent Christs body. The dimensions of the closer extremities are adjusted in order to make up for the distortion created by the point of view.

What inspired her "Carambola"? 

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Her work is founded on formal relationships. All of her works begin with squares, which dominate her paintings even when they are covered up. She uses not only geomertry in her work, but colors the cause conflict. She is a Brazallian artist; geometry and conflict are her "inspirations"

Be familiar with this person:

Drawing and painting became the centre of Bridget Riley’s life from an early age and, after her school years at Cheltenham Ladies College (1946-49) she studied atGoldsmiths College, London (1949-52) and later at theRoyal College of Art (1952-55). Her studies were centred round life drawing and she worked mostly in black and white. The image to the right is a very early Bridget Riley, “Nude”, which was drawn in conte and pastels around 1951-1952 either whilst still at Goldsmiths or at the start of her time at the Royal College. Riley’s time at the Royal College was confusing and difficult and she found the teaching and direction unrewarding. She was reaching the point where she wanted to establish her own style and express herself in her own way but found herself unable to do so in an institutional framework.

After leaving the Royal College in 1955 Riley returned to Lincolnshire to look after her father who had been seriously injured in a car accident. The problems that had started in Riley’s final years at the Royal College were compounded by her current situation and led to a complete physical and mental breakdown for the artist.After her father began to recover, she returned to Cornwall for three months in an attempt to recuperate. She tried to paint during this period but with very little success.Bridget Riley returned to London in 1956 and started to paint again but made little progress. In the first half of the year she was an in-patient at the Middlesex Hospital – she later moved to a hostel – and took a job selling glass at an antique shop in Marylebone Lane. It was a bleak and difficult time for Riley. 

In 1956 Bridget Riley saw an exhibition in London that had a significant impact and helped shape her creative thinking and sense of direction – an exhibition of American Abstract Expressionist painters at the Tate Gallery, the first exhibition of its kind in the country. Riley moved into teaching and from 1957-1958 she taught art to girls aged 8-18 at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Harrow, introducing them to the sequences of shape, line and groups of colour, hoping to release their truly creative impulses and to discourage blind copying of the real world. Bridget started to paint again during this period in a more exploratory style – the main influences being Matisse and Bonnard and she started to visit exhibitions again and renew contact with the art world.

“The music of colour, that’s what I want” (Bridget Riley)

Riley’s introduction of colour to her work was something she was cautious of. The black and white paintings depended on the disruption of stable elements. No such stable basis could be found for colour as the perception of colour is relative – each colour affects and is affected by the colours next to it. Over time, she began to accept this inherent instability and made it the basis of her work. From 1967 onwards Riley increasingly began to use colour. She also started to use more stabilised forms – often simple vertical straight or wavy lines. It was the positioning of the colour itself that produced the feel of movement she wanted to convey. The colour groupings affected the spaces between them to produce fleeting glimpses of other colours and hence the illusion of movement.

Bridget Riley’s paintings of the late 1960s and 70s became mainly concerned with the visual and emotional response to colour. She experimented with various palettes and forms during this period. Zing 1 (shown right) introduced a colour twist theme, making use of twisted vertical stripes to create horizontal zones of colour.

Following on from the innovation of Zing 1, the mid- 1970s saw Bridget use curves more and more frequently in her work. These ‘curve’ paintings saw a widening of her understanding of the relation of colour and light. Riley’s curve paintings are some of her most peaceful and emotional works, something that is reflected in their often poetic and musical titles.Until 1978 Riley restricted herself to three colours for each of her paintings. 1978’s Song of Orpheus series expanded this to five. Further expansion was yet to come.

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Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude, were a married couple who created environmental works of art. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born on the same day, June 13, 1935; Christo in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, and Jeanne-Claude in Morocco. They first met in Paris in October 1958. They then fell in love by creating art work together.

Their works include the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, the 24-mile (39 km)-long artwork called Running Fence in Sonoma and Marin counties in California, and The Gates in New York City's Central Park.

Credit was given to "Christo" only, until 1994, when the outdoor works and large indoor installations were retroactively credited to "Christo and Jeanne-Claude".^[1] They flew in separate planes: in case one crashed, the other could continue their work.^[2]

Jeanne-Claude died, aged 74, on November 18, 2009, from complications of a brain aneurysm.^[1]

Although their work is visually impressive and often controversial as a result of its scale, the artists have repeatedly denied that their projects contain any deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic impact. The purpose of their art, they contend, is simply to create works of art for joy and beauty and to create new ways of seeing familiar landscapes. Art critic David Bourdon has described Christo's wrappings as a "revelation through concealment."^[3] To his critics Christo replies, "I am an artist, and I have to have courage ... Do you know that I don't have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they're finished. Only the preparatory drawings, and collages are left, giving my works an almost legendary character. I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain."^[4]

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(Be very familiar with Monet) Claude Monet was a famous French painter whose work gave a name to the art movement Impressionism, which was concerned with capturing light and natural forms. Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France. He enrolled in the Academie Suisse. After an art exhibition in 1874, a critic insultingly dubbed Monet's painting style "Impression," since it was more concerned with form and light than realism, and the term stuck. Monet struggled with depression, poverty and illness throughout his life. He died in 1926.

One of the most famous painters in the history of art and a leading figure in the Impressionist movement, whose works can be seen in museums around the world, Oscar Claude Monet (some sources say Claude Oscar) was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France.

HIS ENTIRE LIFE WAS FOCUSED ON HIS WORK; NOTHING ELSE QUITE CAME CLOSE

How did her piece "God Bless America" use elements of the flag symbolically?

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The American flag has been turned into a prison cell, this was painted at a time when African American's were supressed (1964); the star represents a Sheriff's badge. The white woman is the face of contradiction and bigortry, pledging to a flag that promotes racism.

The relationship between a work of art (the figure), and the surface on which the work is made (the ground); i.e. the instant a shape or painting is placed on a wall

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He worked in collaboration with Vlado Milunic to construct "dancing house" or "Fred and Ginger". This building was in the Czech Republic, and any American design there seemed foreign, Gehry being the American architect. 

A number of his buildings, including his private residence, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are cited as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, which led Vanity Fair to label him as "the most important architect of our age".^[2]

Gehry's best-known works include the titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles; Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, France; MIT Ray and Maria Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Vontz Center for Molecular Studies on the University of Cincinnati campus; Experience Music Project in Seattle; New World Center in Miami Beach; Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis; Dancing House in Prague; the Vitra Design Museum and the museum MARTa Herfordin Germany; the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; the Cinémathèque française in Paris; and 8 Spruce Street in New York City.

It was his private residence in Santa Monica, California, that jump-started his career. Gehry is also the designer of the future NationalDwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.^[3]

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Female Nude, Back View 

"Harmony in the Red Room"; in this painting he almost eliminates a sense of 3D by uniting the different spaces of the painting in one large field of uniform color and design. The window in the painting can be interpreted as a literal window, or a framed picture hanging on the wall

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Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (French: [ɑ̃ʁi emil bənwɑ matis]; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.^[1]

Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.^[2][3][4][5] Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting.^[6] His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.^[7]

How are John Taylor and Howling Wolf's renditions of Treaty Signing at Medicine Creek Lodge different?

How do the terms analytic, classical, expressive and romantic, all relate to line?

How does Hung Liu, Pat Steir, Sol LeWitt utilize line in their work?

"Relic"

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She is a Chinese born artist who was born in the US. Her work continiously addresses womens place in both pre and post revolutionary China. She has characters meaning "female" and "nu wa"; nu wa is the female creation goddess who made people and animals out of lumps of clay she flung around with a rope 

Painted "The Death of Socrates". How does the image use vertical and horizontal lines?[image]

Right angles dominate the painting; the is much structure and control, careful graphing was planned for this painting

In the oil painting "Arnolfini and His Wife Giovanna Cenami", what is the significance? 

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She is not pregnant, her green dress and bloated belly is suppossed to represent fertility. The groom has his shoes removed as a commandment to God. The dog is associated faithfullness. We can also see him and his wife in the mirror in the painting, 1434. These two probably weren't married yet, the decor in the house seems to suggest a symbol of status at this time. The way they are holding hands seems to indicate they are mutually agreeing to wed. 

In her short video "touch", what is it's significance? after tight rope walking for an hour a day she realized that she wasn't learning how to balance, but how to be more comfortable out of balance. The film was shot in front of her childhood home in the bahamas. 

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"flag"

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it presents an opportunity to look at a familiar image. John said the flag is something to be "seen but not looked at, not examined". At first it looks like a poorly painted American flag, and then one realizes it doesn't actually look like the real flag! Where are the stars at? the stripes? are they off centered? Furthermore it is made with bits of newspaper that are visible, which makes it controversial. It was painted in 1954 during a time of Cold War... John asks us to consider his art as a painting, not what it literally is. 

His art on plywood "Flag (1954-55)" we should ask the question how does the composition affect how the work is seen? 

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It presents an opportunity to look closely at a a familiar iamge. Johns said the flag is something "seen but not looked at, not examined"; this was painted at atime when audience members were upset about the visible newspaper lumps under the painting 

The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center is located in Nouméa, New Caledonia. 

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What type of architecture is this? It is designed with te Kanak culture in mind, the Italian artist studied throroughly before building. He blended traditional grreen architectural techniques into his work; the building are made of wood and bamboo. The panels you see on the top scoop up breeze from the local ocean, and use it to cool off the modern rooms below. An expression of the harmonious relationship is typical in Kanak culture. 

In his "Charles The First 1982", what is it's significance?

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Basquiat is grafitti inspired, and made this piece as a homage to jazz sazaphonist Charlie Parker. African American heroes are subjects of many of his works. The "S" we see is for Superman, the crown is a symbol of Basquiat's, the "X" has significance to his iconography. Charles first is a reference to the King of England, who was beheaded by protestants. Furthermore the (c) symbol suggests ownership and exercising property rights. 

book and TV series "Civilization" he understood the conventions of greek sculpture, his interpretation of African masks were just incorrect and ignorant; "The the Negro imagination it is a world of fear and darkness, ready to inflict horrible punishment for the smallest infringment of taboo."

WHAT IS ETHNOCENTRIC APPRAISAL? His ethnocentric reading of the African mask misses it's ritual; it's celebratory use in African culture, and the mask acts as a vehicle through which the spirit world can be reached. 

In his "Last Supper" what kind of perspective does he use in this fresco secco [watercolors on dried plaster]?

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One Point Linear Perspective; the "center point" is at Christs head, which makes him the focal point. Da Vinci applied a fully frontal one point perspective system

Countour Lines: outlines tend to emphasize flatness of shape

Implied Lines: no continous mark that pulls one line to another

Impasto: thick, bold strokes

Lines can express emotion, and are therefore said to be expressive

In his "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2" it was created in 1912, and went to the Armory Show in New York City in 1913. It was both ridiculed and prized by critiques, Teddy Roosevelt said it reminded him of a Navajo blanket; other people said it reminded them of a shingle factory that exploded. 

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On March 18, 1912, Marcel Duchamp received an unexpected visit from his two brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, at his studio in Neuilly-sur-Seine. They informed their younger brother that the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants exhibition in Paris, which included themselves, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, and others, had rejected his Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. These Cubist painters had refused to display the painting on the grounds that "A nude never descends the stairs--a nude reclines." Although the work was shown in the Salon de la Section d'Or in October 1912, Duchamp never forgave his brothers and former colleagues for censoring his work.

What is the significance of his "Self"? 

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A sculptural mass that stands about 6 feet high, made of wood. It seems to be very dense, however, it is made with light coverings of wood. This deception is what the fragility of "self" seem real... 

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In 1979, Congress grants a Vietnam War veterans' committee the right to build a memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., dedicated to American soldiers killed in the conflict in Vietnam. The committee puts the design out for competition convening a blue-ribbon panel of architects, sculptors, and landscape architects to evaluate more than 1,400 submissions. When the winner is announced, no one is more surprised than the student architect herself, Maya Lin, a 20-year-old Yale undergraduate. The panel is moved by the simplicity, honesty, and power of Lin's design: a V-shaped, sunken wall of black stone, with the names of those killed in action engraved in chronological order. To search out a loved one, a mourner will walk along the monument and find the name among the 57,661 listed. Lin describes the Memorial thus: "I went to see the site. I had a general idea that I wanted to describe a journey...a journey that would make you experience death and where you'd have to be an observer, where you could never really fully be with the dead. It wasn't going to be something that was going to say, 'It's all right, it's all over,' because it's not."

Lin is young, a woman, and Asian-American, and her design lacks the realistic statuary of most war memorials. From the moment the design is publicized, a small group within the Vietnam Veterans' community feel Lin's statement is an affront. One opponent comments, "One needs no artistic education to see this memorial design for what it is: a black scar, in a hole, hidden as if out of shame." The protesters want to change the color of the wall to white and to add an eight-foot-high sculpture of wounded soldiers and a flag in a central position at the wall. While Lin and the committee count the American Legion among their supporters, the protesters secure the attention of then-radio broadcaster Patrick Buchanan and Congressman Henry Hyde. Hyde marshals Secretary of the Interior James Watt to issue an ultimatum: Lin's wall must be redesigned to include the suggested changes, or it will never be built.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which has final say over the design, listens to arguments for and against Lin's wall. Claiming pragmatism, the commission finds a compromise. The wall will remain black, but it will include the statue and flag -- not at the center, but off to the side.

The Vietnam Veterans' Memorial is dedicated on Veterans' Day, 1982. There is general critical acclaim for the clarity of Lin's vision. The statue and flag are installed two years later, and in 1993, a second statue honoring women who served in Vietnam goes in alongside it. The Vietnam Veterans' Memorial is now the most widely visited monument in Washington, D.C. Lin continues to work successfully as a sculptor and designer in the U.S.

How does the work "Suney" manipulate space? 

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A yellow sheet of mylar (plastic like susbtance) is stretched over the walls of part of a gallery, the other half is bathed in natural light. Each half has it's own entrance, and experience in the opposite space results in "reversed" effect 

Lines are drawn on the picture plane in such a way as to represent parallel lines receding to a single point on the viewers horizon, called the vanishing point. The recession is said to be frontal. If the vanishing point is to one side or the other, the recession is said to be diagonal. 

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The edge of a shape or figure depicted by an actual line drawn or painted on the surface. A shape therefore, can be indicated by an outline

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This piece by Yoshitomo Nara uses heavy black outlines. 

In her "The Treason of Images" what does this work make you question?

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This translates into "this is not a pipe", this image is contradictory to use becuase we see the image of the pipe and think of it as a literal object, instead of something on paper. This is very literal.

In John Serra's "Tilted Arc (1981)" what's the significance? 

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It was installed in the Federal Plaza in Lower Manhatten in 1981 without any issue. In March 1985 William Diamond (newly appointed Regional Administrator of the General Services Administration), the company who initially advocated for the piece had it taken down. In 1989 after failed protests and lawsuits the artist had it dismanteled. It was later destroyed. Once it was moved, it lost its means for existence. Site specific artwork, he claimed, shouldn't be intercepted by politcal power, and it loses it's meaning/value once it is moved. 

What does his photograph of "Lisa Lyon" mean? What's it's significance? 

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Line is a very versitile element; it indicates countour and volume and direction of movement. Vertical and horizontal geometries (in line) have typically been viewed as male. Male and female nudes are thus sexist; males take a more strong and rational pose, women seel a more weak and emotional pose. In the picture of Lyon's she is imitating a pose from the Greek Bronze "Zeus"; both are challenging traditional stereotypes..

When there are two vanishing points in a composition, a more dynamic composition often results. A complex compostion can be created, i.e. Gustave Caillebotte's Place de l'Europe on a Rainy Day 1876-77.

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What are four iconic symbols in The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, and what do they represent?

➢ Green wedding dress meant to suggest brides natural fertility

➢ Groom's removal of his shoes is a reference to God's commandment to Moses to take off his shoes when standing on holy ground. 

➢ Single candle burns in the chandelier above the couple, symbolizing the presence of Christ at the scene

➢ The dog is associated with faithfulness and marital fidelity

What are representational works of art? Abstract? Non-objective?

What are some ways that artists make flat space seem three-dimensional?

What are the different types of perspective (1 pt., 2 pt., axonometric)?

What are the three basic properties of color (pigments)?

What are the visual elements?

What are three steps in the process of seeing according to Sayre?

What building in your text has extreme bilateral symmetry? 

What does Sayre mean by "active seeing"?

What is local, perceptual (atmospheric), and arbitrary color?

What, according to philosopher Nelson Goodman, "selects, rejects, organizes, discriminates, associates, classifies, analyzes and constructs?"

When were they first understood? 1pt, 2pt, and axonometric perspective?

Responsible for formulating "rules" of what we call atmospheric or aerial perspective, such that objects farther away from us appear less distinct, often bluer in color, and the contrast between light and dark is reduced.

(15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time.[1] Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank,[2][3][4] his genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.

Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".[5] According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote".[5] Marco Rosci, however, notes that while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality, his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unorthodox for his time.[6]

Where is this work located, why is it an earthwork? Spiral is symbolic design of earth, i.e. Egyptians designated it to cosmic forms and between unity/multiplicity.. many forces are working in the universe 

Great Salt LAke, Utah. Black rock, salt crystals, earth, red water (algae). It looks different today than it did in 1970 as well

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what ritual was this part of? 

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it serves as an exampel of slab construction; clay is rolled out flat, like a pie crust, and shaped by hand. The tea bowl has a special place inn the Japanese tea ceremony. The ceremony itself is a work of art, the teamaster lines up the proper utensials, caligraphys and works of art for the guest, inviting them to leave their daily struggles behind