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Abstract expressionism critical essay
Expressionism art essay
Abstract expressionism critical essay
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Lori Earley was born in Rye, New York and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she received her BFA. Growing up she was always interested in art, but she was barely exposed to any. Lori’s style of contemporary surrealist figurative art was fully created on her own, since she matured early in her life. Her normal style is shown through her technique with oil paintings, but she also is talented with paper and graphite. Because her paintings are so unique, this made it possible for her to become the successful artist that she always dreamed of. Lori shows her mood and emotions through the different women she depicts in her paintings. The special aspects that she adds to all the people in her paintings is abnormally
Alice Neel’s painting Suzanne Moss was created in 1962 using oil paint on canvas. As the title suggests, the painting depicts a woman’s portrait. Now resigning in the Chazen Museum in Madison, WI, this portrait of a woman lunging is notable for the emotional intensity it provokes as well as her expressionistic use of brush strokes and color. The scene is set by a woman, presumably Suzanne Moss, dressed in dull back and blues lounging across a seat, staring off to the side, avoiding eye contact with the viewer. The unique style and technique of portraiture captures the woman’s piercing gaze and alludes to the interior emotions of the subject. In Suzanne Moss, Alice Neel uses desultory brush strokes combined with contrast of warm and cool shadows
Subject: Our docent, Mary, shared with us that this artist loved to paint the human body and was well known for his painting of the human body and skin. This piece certainly highlights those skills. The colors of the hair and skin are incredibly life like.
Ermel, Debra. "Elgin Artist with a Dream." Illinois History. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Before beginning our discussion on the chosen Australian surrealists, background discussion of surrealism, its influence and impact, is necessary. Surrealism is the first international art movement in Australia. In fact, European surrealists perceive Australia as a “surrealist place” because of its vastness, its distance from the other continents and its appeal as a “down under”. When the surrealist movement b...
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
The composition of this painting forces the eye to the woman, and specifically to her face. Although the white wedding dress is large and takes up most of the woman’s figure, the white contrasts with her face and dark hair, forcing the viewer to look more closely into the woman’s face. She smokes a cigarette and rests her chin on her hands. She does not appear to be a very young woman and her eyes are cast down and seem sad. In general, her face appears to show a sense of disillusionment with life and specifically with her own life. Although this is apparently her wedding day, she does not seem to be happy.
The pictures say a lot, however, with petite information. The artwork she displays are somehow complex, and one gets to understand their meaning over time as she uses vivid imagination to bring out facts and fiction together.
In a century that equated the evolution of modern art with the will toward abstraction, Lawrence's early success and his sustained visibility are remarkable. He has walked a careful line between abstract and figurative art, using aesthetic values for social ends. His success at balancing such seemingly irreconcilable aspects of art is a fundamental characteristic of his long and distinguished career. In Lawrence's work social themes, often detailing the African-American experience, are expressed in colorfully lanky, simplified, expressive, and richly decorative figurative effects.
Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman grew up in suburban Huntington Beach on Long Island, the youngest of five children and had a regular American childhood. She was very self-involved, found of costumes, and given to spending hours at the mirror, playing with makeup (Schjeldahl 7). Cindy Sherman attended the state University College at Buffalo, New York, where she first started to create art in the medium of painting. During her college years, she painted self-portraits and realistic copies of images that she saw in photographs and magazines. Yet, she became less, and less interested in painting and became increasingly interested in conceptual, minimal, performance, body art, and film alternatives (Sherman 5). Sherman’s very first introductory photography class in college was a complete failure for she had difficulties with the technological aspects of making a print. After her disastrous first attempt in photography, Sherman discovered Contemporary Art, which had a profound and lasting effect on the rest of her artistic career (Thames and Hudson 1). Sherman’s first assignment in her photography class was to photograph something which gave her a problem, thus, Sherman chose to photograph her self naked. While this was difficult, she learned that having an idea was the most important factor in creating her art, not so much the technique that she used.
When first approaching this work, one feels immediately attracted to its sense of wonder and awe. The bright colors used in the sun draws a viewer in, but the astonishment, fascination, and emotion depicted in the expression on the young woman keeps them intrigued in the painting. It reaches out to those who have worked hard in their life and who look forward to a better future. Even a small event such as a song of a lark gives them hope that there will be a better tomorrow, a thought that can be seen though the countenance by this girl. Although just a collection of oils on a canvas, she is someone who reaches out to people and inspires them to appreciate the small things that, even if only for a short moment, can make the road ahead seem brighter.
Robert Motherwell unlocked creative forces during a time when Abstract Expression was frowned upon. Motherwell gave art a voice. He used raw emotional vitality during an era when American painting had become the prevailing force in international art. The role of Motherwell was quite distinctive. It helped to give the onlooker a sense of historical realization that such work can be perceived as not for what it is but what we think it is. It changed the audience’s awareness of reality. Robert Motherwell taught himself to paint and made friends with other surrealists such as himself. Just as psychoanalysts use the term free association, which is a mental process by which one word instinctively means another, Motherwell’s art expresses such
...y G. L. Hood’s life, I came to find that our connections ran deep. “Hood wrote that she had been ‘especially fond of art’ since childhood” (Wolanin 15). Like Hood I too have been interested in art since childhood. Since the age of eight I have been creating my own signature style — exploring colors and brush strokes. Hood is an inspiration to me, although she started off so young, her paintings ended up in a museum. Hood’s story has taught me that I can succeed in anything that I have a passion for.
Many artists are drawn by love and use it as inspiration for their artwork, but Leonora Carrington said "[she] didn't have time to be anyone's muse...[she] was too busy rebelling against [her] family and learning to be an artist." (Carrington). The talented Leonora Carrington dedicated all her efforts into growing as an artist; she was committed and determined. Her distinctive technique won her the acknowledgement as one of the few female surrealists. Leonora Carrington was well known for her unique paintings, however she refused to reveal the hidden mysteries behind her paintings. She is well known throughout the world as one of the main components of surrealism.
Abstract Expressionists used numerous sources from the history of modern painting to combine the old with the new, for example: the expressionism of Van Gogh, the abstraction of Kandinsky, the saturated colors of Matisse, and the fascination with the unconscious of surrealist painters like Dali. Abstract Expressionism was less a style than an attitude. Another thing that was important to painters was to tap into the psychic self, also a steady faith in the expressive character of the “mark”.
With this article art critic, Eleanor Heartney, discusses contemporary artists whose works forward a postmodernist view of reality, which holds no one perception of reality is any truer than another and that all realities are merely constructs of our individual minds and imaginations. Whether the works were crafted with the photographic lens alone or in combination with other media, the artists reviewed in this chapter often pair representational and abstract formalisms in commenting upon the subjective nature of truth and reality. In this respect, Heartney claims Vija Celmins and Chuck Close both dealt with precision, and extrusion in commenting upon the eye and mind working together to construct individual realties. Other artists like Vik Muniz and Malcolm Morley combined painting and the photographic images in