First Blogging Assignment

                                           The Vietnam War through Art The Vietnam War, commonly called the American War as well as the Second Indochina War, was a war that spanned nearly twenty years, starting from November 1st, 1955, and lasted all the way up to April 30th, 1975.  This war had a great influence on those involved in the war and outside and was able to be reflected through artists that were involved during this period. To help illustrate this for you, here are some examples I chose.: Martha Rosler is an American artist, born in New York City, New York, in 1943. This first painting is entitled,  Cleaning the Drapes.  It featured in Martha Rosler's series of photomontages called  House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home   (c. 1967–72). I thought the contrast of the black and white photo behind the color curtains was inter...

 Early Modern Blog, by Jasper Carpenter.  The Influence of World War I   A Dawn, 1914  by Charles Richard Wynne (a.k.a. C.R.W.) Nevinson.  Nevinson is considered the definitive British artist of the First World War.  This particular painting is set in Flanders, part of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It hauntingly transports the viewer to the time when French soldiers, known as poilus, marched to the trenches that would become the stuff of their living nightmares. Little did they know what horrors awaited them there. These soldiers were not volunteers, and instead were conscripted. The uniforms worn by the soldiers appear dark blue with grey and black, interspersed with reds, oranges and browns. The shapes remind me of cubism with the geometric shapes of the faces and bodies, and the weapons held by the soldiers, as well as on the buildings. There is a solemnity to the marching as the head to the trenches, many to their deaths. You can almost hear the ...

  Romantic Vs Realistic For this assignment, I will be comparing Romanticism and Realism style arts. The romantic era was a mixture of different art styles over time. These two styles have similarities but also differ. For the first two pieces of art, I will start with Romanticism style. The first example I have chosen is titled The 28th July 1830,  Liberty Leading the People.  This was created by  Eugène Delacroix . Its size is  260 x 325 cm and it can be viewed in  Paris at the Louvre Museum.  The painting shows a semi-naked woman who is holding up high in one hand the French tri-color flag, while carrying a musket with a bayonet in the other hand. It is like an action shot, where she is charging forwards, with a group of people around her who are also carrying weapons.  On the ground around her are dead soldiers, but I am not sure if they are supposed to be French soldiers.  I think 'Liberty' here must be the human personification of Franc...

 Art and Scientific Discovery in the 1700's With all the topics to choose from, I chose to base this assignment around the theme of Art and Scientific Discovery in the 1700's . I am choosing to go with art that was influenced by the free-thinking people of the 18th century who were influenced by the enlightenment. Painting 1. For the first piece of art, I chose "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump." This art piece was created by Joseph Wright of Derby in 1768. It depicts a person conducting an experiment on a bird in front of an audience. As you gaze from left to right at the painting you can see a man and woman looking at each other. They may be confused on if the experiment will work out or not. On the right side of the painting, you see a man looking at a woman who has turned her head away from the bird, as if she is upset. There is also a young girl shown in between the man and women on the right who is looking up but seems hesitant and fearful for the bird. Y...

 Baroque Blog Assignment by Jasper Carpenter The work I chose for this assignment is the "The Flagellation of Christ," which is an oil-on-canvas painting created by the Italian Baroque painter known mononymously as Caravaggio in 1607.  The Oxford Dictionary of English explains the term "flagellation" is used to describe a "flogging or beating, either in a religious discipline or for sexual gratification." Here, it depicts the brutal flogging of Jesus Christ before he was crucified. To give you a better understanding, the scene shows Jesus surrounded by what looks to be three people: two men standing upright on either side of him, and a third bending down to pick up something from the ground. These men are likely soldiers under Pontious Pilate as their faces don't seem upset about having to flog Jesus. Caravaggio.org describes these men as "torturers," which is a good description for them.  Jesus, while portrayed with a muscular, taut body, is...

  Italian and Northern Renaissance Blog Assignment by Jasper Carpenter.           The Sistine Chapel forms part of the Vatican in Italy and was named after Pope Sixtus IV. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is particularly famous for the incredible paintings by Renaissance artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarotti Simoni, known simply by the mononym Michelangelo . He was born in Caprese, a village in the Republic of Florence on March 6, 1475, and became a painter, sculptor, poet and architect during his lifetime. The paintings - also known as frescoes - on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are some of his best-known works, composed of nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, including one called The Creation of Adam (Creazione di Adamo). Frescoes are a particular artistic technique used in mural paintings that are executed wet lime plaster. Water is combined with dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, eventually becoming part of the wall as it drie...