What is art? Both artists, Marcel Duchamp and Constantin Brancusi, explore this philosophical question to its limits. Duchamp argues that art involves the inner vision of the artist to make it art. Duchamp makes us ask philosophical questions on the nature of art itself while Brancusi exhibits the concepts of aerodynamics and flight with the most ambiguous of designs from early 20th century yet. Both sculptures, Fountain and Bird in Space, push the boundaries of what abstraction can be for sculptures in the 20th century with their simplistic exterior yet deeper connotations. Both sculptures exude a sense of simplicity about them in terms of their form and content. However, underneath their simplistic exterior, they both carry concepts. Duchamp …show more content…
It represents what birds do that we love so much by using the aesthetic form to communicate the idea. As the viewer moves around this sculpture, the light that is reflected off of the bronze surface changes, shifts, and flickers. This gives the viewer the impression of light and movement. In addition to the reflective light that bounces off of it, it has a curvilinear exterior with a gentle organic arching, to give the idea that it was made for the aerodynamics of flight. It doesn’t seem like a mechanical motion even though it’s made of an industrial grade material like bronze. The bronze itself also is a quality to be examined since it is so highly polished that it almost looks like gold. The pedestal below the bronze is part of the sculpture and it’s made of limestone and right below that is another pedestal made of wood. It’s almost as if it’s a hierarchy of materials from being the most industrial at the top with the bronze, to the most natural with the wood at the bottom. The idea from the sculpture portrays the ascension from the material to the immaterial. The bronze’s reflective surface really drives that point home. However, besides this astonishing idea and technique that Bird in Space demonstrates, its historical background is quite notable as …show more content…
Brancusi tried to push the boundary of abstraction for art so much that it even caused a court case to emerge even. In 1926, Bird in Space arrived in New York harbor on a steamboat where it underwent examination by customs along with other Brancusi’s works that were intended to be displayed at a show. However, while art is not to be taxed, customs refused to acknowledge Bird in Space as art and kept insisting it was an industrial metal object and tried to tax it as such. It was taxed at 40% of the sale price which came out to be about $230 back then (that would be $2,800 today). This ensued an argument which brought the matter to the courthouse as an appeal. The nature of the Bird in Space is so ambiguous that whether it was art or not was highly debated over. Eventually Brancusi won and this became the first time the court considered a very abstract, non-representational sculpture as art. Another sculpture known as the Fountain also has an unusual backstory, but not as prominent as the Bird in
Sculpture is a medium that artists in ancient Greek commonly used to express spoken truths in an unspoken form. Every piece of ancient Greek sculpture has more than what the eye sees to explain the story behind the [in this case] marble.
What does the work consist of? Who authored it, and how? What is it based on, and how does it relate? What is it, and what will become of it? The answers to these questions, collectively, form an important response to a bigger question: What is art? What does it mean to describe a piece as “a work of art”?
Duchamp’s piece was not controversial because of the simplistic nature of the piece, nor the oddity of it- it was controversial because he had not made it himself. People were very opposed to this idea because they believed that art was something made and not found. Duchamp’s “ready-made” art, which were always mass produced objects made by machines, was offensive to them and so they rejected it wholeheartedly. Unlike Fountain, Kandinski’s Little Pleasures was not rejected because of the nature of its ’creation’, it was rejected because people had never before seen art with such a lack of recognizable forms. Before Kandinski, art had always had representations of things from life, and Little Pleasures seemed almost completely arbitrary to them with no connections to the world they lived in. As such, both pieces were, at first, denied the title of “art” because society was unable to break from tradition and admire something
The statue is made of marble, instead of the bronze statue. This statue is one of the earliest marble statues of a human figure carved in Attica. The statue is a kind of symbol; he does not in any way a likeness. This is my first expression when I saw the statue: the statue is showing me a simple, clear action that was used by Greek youth sculptures throughout this period. Looking at this statue, he expanded into 3D space, because he is standing straight and facing forward without any exaggerated movements, thus the post makes him look closed-off and a column his limbs are locked in space. Therefore, the standing posture, the decorations on his body, his hair and knee’s texture and how the Egyptians impact Greek art, is what makes me interested in it. A question that has always been in my mind is
The medium is Granodiorite and the technique used was sunken relief, which is a technique were the sculptor chisels deep outlines below the stone’s surface. The sculpture does not seem to be originally painted. The Egyptians created coloristic effects through contrasting shadows and highlights. They used natural pigments to color some sculptures, however this was not the case. There are deeply cut areas in the back of the statue that create deep shadows and the use of natural light helps to bring up the highlights. The granodiorite has natural colors that helped the sculptor show more of those shadows and highlights. The statue is mostly in a warm hue and it may be caused because of the lighting inside the museum. These warm colors make the details stand out more. At a closer look of the structure there are different colors that can be easily identified, such as white, yellow, brown, black, gray and small spots of orange. The statues seems to be carved in one piece. There are no signs indicating it
The trip to the metropolitan museum was a great trip to learn and to study art. What is art you may ask, well art is an expression you use to show a visual picture. It can be through painting or through sculptures. Some other example of art is music, literature and dancing. For today 's paper we will be talking about art as a sculpture. The two sculptures in this photo are King Sahure and a Nome God and Marble Statue of Dionysos leaning on archaistic female figure (Hope Dionysos). You can find these statues in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. King Sahure and a Nome God is an Egyptian art that was made in 2458-2446 BCE. The artist is unknown. It was during the 5th dynasty and it also belong to the old kingdom. The Marble statue of Dionysos Leaning in the archaistic female figure is a Greco-Roman art. Belonging to the Roman imperial period of the late first century A.D. Augustan or Julio-Claudian period 27 B.C., to 68 AD. It is classified as a stone sculpture and it is made out of marble. The height of the statues is 82 ¾ inches. There is no evidence who was the original artist.
If someone who had no prior knowledge about art, or the elements and principles of design, were given five seconds to look at these two paintings, they’d probably say they had almost nothing in common, other than the fact that they both feature mountains, and it’d be true for those people. But, if you are someone that does know a lot of information
We encounter art everyday. Art is paintings and sculptures, music and dance, film and photography. It is also fashion designing and architecture, novels and magazines. These seemingly different things have one thing in common – they are all ways in which humans convey themselves. For thousands of years, humans have used symbols to tell a story or describe a struggle. Art is the use of these symbols, symbols that represent us in some distinct way.
To conclude, both sculptures do not have much in common, but it is obvious that the artists had knowledge in human anatomy and was able to sculpt them spectacularly. It is also obvious the break from somewhat idealistic to realistic human nature. The change is so drastic that one might not believe that both sculptures come from the same Greece because it is so well-known for its astonishing artworks found in temples, building, etc.
The trials and tribulations of flight have had their ups and downs over the course of history. From the many who failed to the few that conquered; the thought of flight has always astonished us all. The Wright brothers were the first to sustain flight and therefore are credited with the invention of the airplane. John Allen who wrote Aerodynamics: The Science of Air in Motion says, “The Wright Brothers were the supreme example of their time of men gifted with practical skill, theoretical knowledge and insight” (6). As we all know, the airplane has had thousands of designs since then, but for the most part the physics of flight has remained the same. As you can see, the failures that occurred while trying to fly only prove that flight is truly remarkable.
AA theory by Clive Bell suggests the pinpoints the exact characteristic which makes a work true art. According to Bell, an artwork must produce “aesthetic emotion” (365). This aesthetic emotion is drawn from the form and formality of an artwork rather than whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing or how well it imitates what it is trying to depict. The relation of objects to each other, the colors used, and the qualities of the lines are seemingly more important than what emotion or idea the artwork is trying to provoke. Regardless of whether or not the artwork is a true imitation of certain emotions, ideals, or images, it cannot be true art unless it conjures this aesthetic emotion related to formality (367).
Many people believe that a urinal is the most influential piece of modern art from the twentieth century. This piece called “Fountain” was created by Marcel Duchamp. There are conflicting views on whether this represents art, but how can one claim it as art or not if there is no set boundary for art. Art is the use of any method or any activity that alters something to a different state, whether that be philosophical or physical. Art is subjective, and to make art is to create which involves combining ideas to form meaning.
During the ancient times in Greece, Plato was the first human to document and criticize the existence of art and artists. He mentioned that human art was always in a form of a representation of something else. In one of Plato’s famous works, he demonstrates the idea of art is like an “imitation of nature” (Blocker 3). In other words, the purpose of art was to represent nature and nothing else. Art was not created for the sake of its own self nor was it created to appreciate its own beauty by any means. Instead, art, usually in forms of writings, paintings, or sculptures, was created to only to represent nature, Gods, emperors, families, or other important individuals. Furthermore, Plato had a very critical view towards the existence art in our society because art makes us more emotional, and our emotions lead to many errors about life. He believed it is our rational thinking, not our emotions or senses, which helps us und...
Neither Formalism nor Neo-Formalism is the defining answer to the questions raised in the nature of art. As before, we are left to wonder, what theories will be created and indeed shot down by the philosophy community in relation to the nature of art next?
... the reader understand the meaning that is behind it, like so “the poem concludes by asking rhetorically whether its listeners now understand the truths produced by both birds and poetry” (SparkNotes Editors). Besides nature being compared from birds a deeper meaning is behind this symbol and this is “art produces soothing, truthful sounds” (SparkNotes Editors) just like the soothing sounds from a bird that anyone can enjoy.