Chuck Close

Chuck Close is an American painter and photographer who is known for his photo-realism and massive paintings. I first heard of him on the Colbert Report and was intrigued by his style of art. He creates paintings by using a process called gridding. This process basically involves composing a painting out of small blocks, and he makes each block an abstract art piece. What I found interesting about him is that despite having Prosopagnosia, which is also known as face blindness, he specializes in portraits. He claims that he didn't know his wife's face two years in to his marriage. He remembers faces by flattening them into the paintings that he creates, as the face blindness is caused by errant depth perception. Click here for photo gallery. Here are some of his paintings that I liked:

Progression of Art Styles

As we all know art styles have radically changed over the centuries. But it was only until I actually looked up the progression of art styles in history that I realized how many different types of art styles there are, and that's just in painting. We have touched on a few of the styles in class, such as cubism. This style was sparked by the invention of the camera, now people could see images from any perspective that the camera could reach. Cubism takes this idea and represents many points of view on the same image, creating a distorted image of the original subject. And it is the introduction of a new view point that always sparks new styles. Another example is Abstract art, this was created because some artists believed that there was no need to represent real objects. Instead they chose to change the view point to interpret colors and shapes that are not recognizable and portray their message through vaguer images. What I found interesting is that there have been no radical style shifts in art in the 21st century.

One art style that i found interesting is Kinetic Art. This style explores how things look when they move and usually involves parts that are designed to set in motion by some internal mechanism. This type of art developed in response to technological advances, using motors and sensors to create motion. This is especially interesting to me as I am majoring in mechanical engineering, the idea of machines being piece of art is intriguing.The motion cannot be captured by images, and is better viewed in videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcR7U2tuNoY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50eWUdyKGxE

MoMA website

We have recently been discussing museums and focusing on the web design choices these museums make. Most of the museum websites have very interactive websites that have high quality graphics that work smoothly and integrate with the art to present a seamless user interface for viewing art and searching for exhibits. One website that is a good example of such seamless integration is the Museum of Modern Art website. This website has a vast number of galleries for view online, but they have managed these galleries to make easy to navigate and enjoy the galleries. In terms of visual design the website embodies the word clean, they use light colors highlighted with brighter colors that pop and everything is linear and structured. I believe this visual design has been chosen to reflect modern art which follows the same aesthetics. One thing I did notice about this website thought, is that every page you visit has a button to send you to the MoMA shop. This gives me the feeling that MoMA is very retail oriented.

Stolen Art

Whenever I see art in popular media it is usually about art being stolen from museums, but the fact is that much of the art in museums are stolen from other people in the fist place. Most of this art is attained from colonization or as wartime loots. An example of wartime looting is during the World War 2. The Nazis stole art from Jewish families and other victims of the expansion of Nazi Germany. I was surprised to see that I recognized some of the art that was stolen. There was the “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” by Vincent Van Goh and also a sculpture by Michelangelo called “Madonnas of Bruges”. 

This is a controversial topic in the art world. Should we return the art to its original and, some would say, rightful owners? Some museums sympathize with this view and return most of the art, although sometimes keeping important ones. It is a complicated matter, especially when the art in question has been engraved into a new society and embedded into its culture.

Museums

I had never thought about how art is displayed to us could affect our view of it, it seems like a basic idea but is a very interesting one. O’Doherty makes the point that what we are viewing in museums is in fact something that has been editorialized, just like a magazine, by a curator. Many choices have to be made in displaying a exhibition, the art pieces have to be displayed in an organized fashion in order to make a coherent point and to educate the average viewer, how much space does each painting have for itself. The environment in which you view art is important and definitely impacts your view of the art.

This can be exemplified by examining different environments. The one I am most familiar with is the contemporary design used in museums today, this is the design in which I viewed the titian Exhibit and the Dali Exhibit. The contemporary designs main objective is to reduce distraction and let the viewer focus solely on the art and its message. Many art pieces reside in places of worship such as cathedrals, here every architectural detail is tweaked to emphasize grandeur. Grand arches outline murals, creating windows into important religious events. Murals are placed on huge domed ceilings often lined with gold paint. Here we can clearly see that the environment influences our view of the art.

Propaganda

Expanding on the idea of art acting as an agent in our societies, Propaganda’s sole purpose is to act upon and influence society through the medium of posters, ads, etc. towards a specific cause or view. I chose to focus on war propaganda as they are the most abundant and personally are more interesting. Racial prejudices and stereotypes run rampant in war propaganda as well as patriotic symbols such as flags. This form of propaganda was used in World War 2 to recruit men into the army and to raise money for the war, appealing to fear and heroic ambition. American posters during this time mainly depicted axis leaders in antagonistic symbols such as snakes, and many appealed to buy war bonds. On the other side the Nazis use propaganda to the furthest extent, molding every form of media to display some message that influenced the German people’s views. Nazi Germany is a very interesting environment in which to examine just how much art influences us. Nazi propaganda was mostly filled with anti-Semitic messages, depiction of Americans as monsters and messages convincing the population of the country’s productiveness and military prowess.

Role of Art in Societies

I have always thought that changes in art happen at a time when our view is influenced by some outside element. This could be an invention such as a camera, or it could be something as pivotal as a revolution such as the French Revolution which sparked many changes in French art. I came across and interesting essay by composer Richard Wagner who examines the role of art thoroughly and discusses its degradation through time. He believes the highest conceivable form of art to be Drama, and it is from this point on that the degradation begins. As Greece is absorbed in the Roman Empire Drama gives way to philosophy. He believed that the Christians did not create art for the very joy of it but instead as an offering to their God, when instead they should offer in deeds and not objects. It is from here that Wagner notes that changes in society have caused art to sell 'her soul and body to a far worse mistress - Commerce.' Art is split into two categories here, Opera and plays. He says that plays lack ‘the idealizing influence of music’ and operas ‘forestalled the living heart and lofty purpose of actual drama’. Although I do not agree with Wagner’s view that the newer forms of art are a degraded subdivision of the “original” art of drama, his examples of how art has changed through cultural changes help understand the role of art better.