Theo van Doesburg was a famous Dutch painter, theorist, architect, and designer. He was the founder of Dj Stijl movement which means The Style in English. He also started to publish a magazine by the name of Dj Stijl from the year of 1917. It was an avant-garde magazine. Famous painters, designers, and architects like Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, Gerrit Rietveld, and J.J.P. Oud joined this movement with Doesburg. This famous personality devoted his life to the understanding of art from the rational, essential, and universal aspects. The Will to Style is a lecture given by Doesburg and it tries to critically analyze the features of the new style which he advocated for. The main argument of this lecture is that only collective solutions
can influence the art. The development of technology and artistic instinct is the key to creating a new style through the use of existing machinery. The machine is indeed a supreme example of the mixture of intellect and instinct. It effectively represents the related cultural style. Doesburg argues that machine is a part of materialism, and this section of philosophy and art considers the application of the craftsmanship as the true and clear expression of the inner thoughts and feelings. The spiritual philosophy was renewed by the movement initiated by Doesburg. Thus, it became able to realize the immense potential of the artistic expression. The machine is hugely effective and obviously necessary in creating a new kind of artistic style that is not confined to the individual level of the artist. When it comes to creating a style for the collective people, machines play a huge role. According to Doesburg, hand craftsmanship is of little importance in such cases because the development of technology does not need it too much. Human beings were also considered as machines during the age of materialistic philosophy. But human beings were the medium of cultural development and social liberation. The main issue is ensuring the quality, and not the quantity of the production. Therefore, the use of machines must be properly guided by the artistic consciousness. Doesburg goes on to say that the requirement of the current age is the constructive certainty at both the ideal and the practical dimensions of life. This certainty can only be assured by the use of the machines. This requirement has given birth to the mechanical aesthetic. The much-desired style would be the one that offers us liberation and crucial repose. This new style should not include romantic hollowness, unnecessary spontaneity, and decorative meaninglessness. Rather, the main feature of this style would be heroic monumentality. The probable opposites would be reconciled through this new style. The use of this style would effectively conceptualize the notions of spirit, love, and magic so that it becomes the style of a perfect man. Doesburg suggests that this new style should have the features of certainty, openness, clarity, unbiased religious energy, truth, simplicity, universal relationship, synthesis, logical construction, original and true form, collectivism, and mechanization. The need for the application of this new style can be traced in several forms of artworks and creativity. This style can be hugely effective in the field of purely utilitarian production. We can trace and realize the urge for this style in the construction of the developed architectures like rail bridges, advanced cars, skyscrapers etc. The truth and objectivity within the construction of these objects are clear and pure. This is similar to the nature of a newly created art. This is the reason why the artists of the new generation are being inspired by the use of machines. Doesburg stresses on the expression of the absolutes of life rather than creating real objects. This theory is termed as Neo-plasticism.The new style should find its purpose and absolute goal in the abstraction of form and color. This will of this style should also focus on the harmonious representation of all arts. Precisely, this new art style should lead to the spiritual reconstruction of the human beings.
Every one is scavenging for the next big gadget- the future is a standard that society strives to have in their grasp. However, Joel Achenbach a former humor columnist solves the mystery of the future in his article, “The Future is Now: it’s heading right at us, but we never see it coming” .he presents a sense of urgency describing that the future is not something that society needs to wait for it happens behind closed doors. He argues that the future is a fast pace entity that occurs all around us. Achenbach proves this point by sticking to his humorous style, with the use of witty allusions to Sci-Fi films.
I wander down the Hall of Mirrors in the French Palace of Versailles. Soon after I am thinking of the converse style, and recall that German Architect Mies van der Rohe has created the most simplistic a...
Mr. Schnabel chose to engage in the Neo Expressionism method of art, that style of art dominated the art market from the 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. The fascination with this type of art satisfied a hunger for something different, and touched the public in several ways (Brenson).
Spending time looking at art is a way of trying to get into an artists’ mind and understand what he is trying to tell you through his work. The feeling is rewarding in two distinctive ways; one notices the differences in the style of painting and the common features that dominate the art world. When comparing the two paintings, The Kneeling Woman by Fernand Leger and Two Women on a Wharf by Willem de Kooning, one can see the similarities and differences in the subjects of the paintings, the use of colors, and the layout
In William Zinnser’s essay “Simplicity” he states that “clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other.” He believes that people speak more complexly then they have to and that the key to good writing and speaking is simplicity. In his argument he goes on to say that often writers are not careful enough. They know what they are trying to say but do not know how to put it down on paper. They assume that the reader will understand what they are thinking even though their writing is not obvious to others. He does make several suggestions for improvement. Very easily one could make their writing easier to understand by simple corrections.
According to the Oxford dictionary, Art is an expression or application of human creative skill and imagination producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. (oxforddictionaries.com). In the area of the Arts, it seems that knowledge is attained through a holistic lens, where its approach towards knowledge emphasizes the whole of an artwork rather than their constituent parts (simplyphyschology.com). Art can be accessible since the audience is able to experience it directly, with the help of our senses. As viewer we enjoy aesthetic pleasure, which involves an appreciation of the contents in relation to vehicles or supports. (Levinson, 1996) In fact, according to Jerrold Levinson’s ‘The Pleasures of Aesthetics’
In his 1971 paper “Personal Identity”, Derek Parfit posits that it is possible and indeed desirable to free important questions from presuppositions about personal identity without losing all that matters. In working out how to do so, Parfit comes to the conclusion that “the question about identity has no importance” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:3). In this essay, I will attempt to show that Parfit’s thesis is a valid one, with positive implications for human behaviour. The first section of the essay will examine the thesis in further detail and the second will assess how Parfit’s claims fare in the face of criticism.
When it comes to the topic of addiction, most of us will readily agree that it is a miserable trait to possess. An addiction is a physical and psychological state of being that if not treated correctly could result into harmful wrongdoing. In The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, he recounts a story in which a fatigued housewife named Angie Bachmann lost all of her family’s assets, amounting to a million dollars due to a gambling addiction. Every habit has three components: a cue or a trigger of an automatic behavior to start, a routine the behavior itself, and a reward which is how our brain learns to remember this pattern for the future. According to Duhigg, “you cannot extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it” (63). Duhigg suggests that in order to change ones bad habit the “Golden Rule” must be implied. The Golden Rule is a theory of shifting a habit by retaining the old cue and reward, and tries to change only the routine. Duhigg’s answer to the question in the chapter title, “Are we responsible for our habits?” is simply “Yes.” If we have an awareness of our habits, then we are responsible for their consequences. In the case of Angie Bachmann, she should be held accountable for her gambling debts because she was well aware of her own bad habit and did not try to seek for help.
Art Deco as an art mover has had a lot of influence in the history of arts and was under the influence of the past art movements and different cultures, the present lifestyle and the societies of the life changing World War I and II. In design Art Deco was glamorous and in style it was luxurious. Major influences were the styles of art and the French crafts of high standards, different cultures and avant-grade art. It wasn’t just a normal style that reflected adventure, entertainment and leisure but a highly enjoyed taste by all classes of people with different minds after Second World War. It handed down its concepts of design and traditional and modern visual styles to younger generations while at the same time its styles influencing many present-day designers (Hillier & Escritt, 2004).
Maurits Cornelis Escher was born on June 17,1898, in Leeuwarden, the capital of the province of Friesland, located in the northern Netherlands (Locher, 7). He spent the majority of his youth in the town of Arnhem, where he attended a public high school. There, he was encouraged by the drawing teacher, F.W. van der Haagen, who early on recognized Escher’s propensity for becoming an artist. After having completed secondary school, Escher followed his father’s advice and enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. Here, another faculty member...
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).
This essay will provide a simple but informative definition of path-based design referring to the works of Aldo Van Eyck and Peter + Alison Smithson. It will discuss the positives and negatives that come from this design concept and propose reasoning behind the different ways the style has been expressed by these three architects. After the discussion the conclusion will provide a summarized definition of path based design and it’s key attributes.
My book report is about Vincent Van Gogh, as portrayed in the 1934 biographical novel Lust for Life by Irving Stone. Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter, who is most well known for his contributions to modern art. The novel covers a ten year period in Van Gogh's life, eventually leading up to his suicide in 1890. Within the book report, I will discuss Van Gogh's personality, his mental problems, and his relationships. I am going to be comparing the novel to the 1990 film, Vincent & Theo, directed by Robert Altman.
Minimalism was a logical development of trends that started at the beginning of the 20th century - more notably, in architecture with the Bauhaus and Mies Van Der Rohe’s philosophy of “Less is More”. There was a new way of looking at things, challenging old ideas of form and style. This philosophy was absorbed in the art stream, which was freed of its classical linkages and where Minimalism grew to be influential across several genres.
According to Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of “culture” is “the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time”. On the other hand, accroding to Raymond Williams, it is more complicated. However, ther is something that is certain: Culture is ordinary, which happens to be the title of an article he wrote to define and explain what culture is.