Watching the film “Tim’s Vermeer” was thought-provoking to me. The film follows Engineer, Tim Jenison, as he attempts to reinvent the technology he believes 17th century Dutch Artist Johannes Vermeer used to create his masterpieces. Jenison uses a lens and mirror to reflect the scene onto a table and paints what he sees until it is a perfect match.
The idea that Vermeer used technology is not a new one. American Art Historian, Hyatt, pointed out that unlike most painters of the time, Vermeer was not in the habit of evening out sizes as modified by distance. “Now if Vermeer were painting from an image seen in the camera obscura, his eyes would not converge more for a near object than for a far one and he would tend to paint near objects bigger
Regardless of taste, an appreciator of art should be able to recognize when an artist exerts a large amount of effort and expresses a great amount of creativity. Understanding the concepts incorporated by truly talented artists helps the viewer better understand art in general. Both Van Eyck and Velasquez are examples of artists that stood out in their time due to their unique vision and their innovative style, and are therefore remembered, recognized, and praised even centuries after their works were completed.
I observed a very unique series of photographs by Vik Muniz called Seeing is Believing. Vik Muniz’s images are not simply photography but are pictures of complicated pieces of art he has produced at earlier times. Utilizing an array of unorthodox materials including granulated sugar, chocolate syrup, sewing thread, cotton, wire, and soil Muniz first creates an image, sculpturally manipulates it and then photographs it. Muniz’s pictures include portraits, landscapes, x-rays, and historical images.
Benjamin, Walter, and J. A. Underwood. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
The art world of photography is changing all the time. Peter Schjeldahl starts out with a very strong and well written paragraph about the world of art. Peter Schjeldahl says, “You can always tell a William Eggleston photograph. It’s the one in color that hits you in the face and leaves you confused and happy, and perhaps convinces you that you don’t understand photography nearly as well as you thought you did”. These couple of sentences are very strong and flow so well together, and they grab the reader’s attention. Peter explains how William Eggleston was known as a great American photographer.
During his short life, Georges-Pierre Seurat was an innovator in an age of innovators in the field of art. This french painter was a leader in a movement called neo-impressionist in the late 19th century. Unlike the broad brushstrokes of the impressionist, Seurat developed a technique called pointillism or divisionism. In this method, he used small dots or strokes of contrasting color to create the subtle changes contained within the painting. Seurat was an art scientist in that he spent much of his life, searching for how different colors and linear effects would change the look or texture of a canvas. He was painstaking in his work, the technique he chose taking much longer to produce a work of art.
Comparing different works of art from one artist can help a person gain a better understanding of an artist and the purpose of their artwork. An artist’s works of art usually have similarities as well as differences when compared together. Sandy Skoglund is a photographer that stages entire rooms to create a scene for her photographs. Skoglund uses painting, sculpture, and photography to create her artwork. Due to the fact that most of her photographs are created in similar ways, almost all of her photographs have similar components represented throughout the photographs. Differences can be found in her artwork as well. Skoglund’s Revenge of The Goldfish, 1981 (Figure 1), is a popular work of art that is represented at the Akron Art Museum
The vast influence of observation was highly apparent in paintings during the Scientific Revolution particularly for artists like Jan Vermeer (Fiero, 120-121). According to, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Vermeer was intensely preoccupied with the behavior of light and other optical effects such as sudden recessions and changes of focus (Liedtke).” In Vermeer’s painting The Geographer, I think he pays attention very well to the light in this particular painting. It is obvious the source of the light is coming from the window next to the man in the painting. He captured the way light hits various objects in the room and the shadows they create in a very realistic manner. It is also, apparent Vermeer’s precise technical abilities and careful observation to everyday human activity that support in the realism of this particular painting. I like how he captures this individual briefly taking a moment away from his work to possibly double check something as someone would do to check their own accuracy. Jan Vermeer captured everyday life in his impressive realism paintings, which showed people a different world that existed around them. Similar to, the art influencing different viewpoints of the world was new literature of Enlightenment
The Art Story Contributors, “Vincent van Gogh Overview and Analysis” The Art Story Contributors Acessed July 12, 2017. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-van-gogh-vincent.htm
“Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams?” These are the words of Tim Burton, a renowned director who plays by his own rules when creating a story for the big screen. Growing up different from most kids, Burton was influenced by many unique people and movies such as Edgar Allen Poe, Dr. Seuss, and German Expressionist films. He used their styles to create many memorable films himself, such as Edward Scissorhands and Alice in Wonderland. In these recognizable blockbusters, like most of Burton’s movies, the use of satire and visual features are present to support the thematic concept of conformity vs. individuality.
Walter Benjamin projected the future of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, providing the basis of aesthetic evaluation for photography, film, digital and reproducible art. In the film Basquiat, directed by Julian Schnabel and starring Jeffrey Wright, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, and David Bowie as Andy Warhol, the art world is explored in the midst of defining itself in light of the changes brought about by the technology of the twentieth century.
Accompanying the article by Edmunds are photographs of Vyse and Waller variously at work at the studio in Cheyne Row. They are pictured, as though at work throwing pots on a wheel, standing at an open kiln, and generally demonstrating their craftsmanship. Vyse poses as though he is at work on his 1930 figure, titled
“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.” Georges Seurat said that he loved science as much as he loved art, and he used science in his art work. French painter Georges Seurat, famous for his large scale paintings was also the creator of a new style of painting called pointillism.
Vanitas, found in many recent pieces, is a style of painting begun in the 17th Century by Dutch artists. Artists involved in this movement include Pieter Claesz, Domenico Fetti and Bernardo Strozzi . Using still-life as their milieu, those artists and others like them provide the viewer with ideas regarding the brevity of life. The artists are giving us a taste of the swiftness with which life can fade and death overtakes us all. Some late 20th Century examples were shown recently at the Virginia Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia. Among the artists represented in this show were Miroslaw Balka (Polish, b. 1958), Christian Boltanski (French, b. 1944), Leonardo Drew (American, b. 1961), Felix Gonzalez-Torres (American, b. Cuba, 1957- 1996), Jim Hodges (American, b. 1957), Anish Kapoor (British, b. India, 1954), and Jac Leirner (Brazilian, b. 1961).
These works are as effective today at inspiring the viewer as they were hundreds of years ago. The Baroque period saw an overflow of creative excess. Just as children become amazed when a magician takes a rabbit out of his magic hat, Baroque painters created the special effects of their time create the same awe inspiring magic. By balancing color, light and shadow, perspective, illusionism, linear perspective, naturalistic figures borrowed from antiquity, and other trompe l’oeil techniques this magic was made. Within room, palaces, churches and chapels, these artists worked a special kind of magic that created space where there was none, and beauty where little had existed before.
Gustave Caillebotte, however, was an Impressionist that did not rely on painting en plein-air. He turned towards the innovation that was photography, invented during the mid 1930’s, to guide him i...