Impressionist Exhibition~~

one of the first piece i say and what really caught my eye was the flock of eagles ( i think ). The way the artist composed it and painted it really created this effect where this huge flock of birds just comes straight at you and this has a point of perspective.

Georges ROCHEGROSSE

Knight of the Flowers, 1892

this painting is really pretty with the many different bright color which i think i very rarely seen in the old masters works which only consists of mainly earthly color.
the work shows a scene when Parsifal ( in Wagner's opera Parsifal) bring good to triumph over evil.

Here are two works inspire by a shakespeare's play Macbeth. The work is presented like a sketchbook page and the use of simple colors like black grey and white complements it.

This painting has a very defined fore ground and back ground which are shown using the two contrasting color black and white. This painting looks like a battle has just ended, where bodies are strewned everywhere and there stands a lone sphinx over looking the scene. in the distance, smoke rises from the city (Paris) set alight by enemy fire. Under the dark sky, a winged woman is in tears and questions the sphinx in vain fro an explanation for the chaos and horror and war, by the sphinx remains silent.

I feel that the artist is also trying to say that people start war when they are not able to find an answer to their problems and after the war has ended, they are unable to answer for their killings.

Sphinx: a winged creature having the head of a woman and a body of a lion often noted for killing people who cannot answer its riddles.

The way this painting was painted is very interesting as it is painted using pointalism. as seen in the picture below. The way the artist depicted the smoke is also very interesting where it takes up 1/4 of the painting. And this created a negative space in the painting.

Although this work looks simple and not completed, but i think it still looks very eyecatching the way the subjectmatter is depicted. Where the little kid look alone in the dark (the shadows and shading ) as compare to the background ( not completed and very light compared to the foreground)

This work is an great example when examining the effect of light hitting object and how it highlights certain things.

Claude MONET

Boats: Regatta at Argetiteuil 1874

he uses short choppy brushstrokes in his painting. These lively fragmented strokes may be used to suggest wind and movement of the choppy water. A great emphasis can be seen in the depiction of the reflection in the water of the sky and the boats etc.

Eva GONZALES

A Box at the Theatre des Italiens 1875-1878

Edouard Manet was Gonzales's teacher and hence slight influence can be seen espectially the woman holds a strong resemblance to manet's Bar at the folies bergere. The strong contrast in the light skin tone of the woman and the dark background together with the suit of the man, this makes the woman the focal point.

Charles ANGRAND

Couple in the STreet 1887

Angrand became friends with Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Vincent Van Gogh who introduced him to the techinque of Divisionism. (seen below in detail) the painting depicts a modest working-class couple in a suburban street illustrates Angrand's desire to tackle the modern subject.

Paul CEZANNE

The Cardplayers 1890-1895

the subject and composition was simplified, doing away with the details in the players' surroundings and any sense of dramatisation. This confers a timeless, monumental aspect to the scene, which is enhanced by the elaboration range of colours applied in juxtaposed patches with wild brushstrokes.

Claude MONET

Study of a Figure Outdoor 1886

he was interested in figure within a landscape, modified by being outdoor. monet enhances the composition's decorative character wile heightening the impression of movement. Everything in the picture quivers with the figure enveloped in light and air.

AND HERES SVENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~ >:D -POINTPOINT-

Marianne STROKES

The Young Girl and Death

this painting depicts a young gitl in white, surprised in her bed by death, in the guise of a black angel with huge wings. The medieval aspect of the room, the composition, the attention to detail , the depiction of the young girl in profile, the angel's gesture and even the curved shape of the picture all give the work an archaic feel typical of Pre-

Raphaeltism in Britian at the time.

Paul CEZANNE

Portrait of Madame Cezanne 1888-1890

i feel that this portrait really resembles the painting that we learnt, Henry Matisse's portrait of madam matisse. with the cut throught the centre of the painting, and having two different color of warm and cool color beside each other.

AND MY FAVOURITE PAINTING IN THE WHOLE EXHIBITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vincent VAN GOGH

Starry Night 1888-1889

i've always loved van gogh's works and this is REALLY pretty!!! ( i'm trying to paint a replica of it now~~ >:D) i love how he uses his brushstrokes to create the ripples on the water and the reflection of light on water. i think the roughness of the oil paint reflectes the light and this adds to the feel.the composition is also great with the top half of the painting of a lighter color and this really makes it look as if the sky is shining onto the water creating the reflection.

And here are some details of the work:

Paul GAUGUIN

The Alyscamps, Arles 1888

The composition is made up of an arrangement of converging triangualr planes. In the right-hand area, Gauguin's choice of colours is arbitrary, notably in the blue tree trunks and decorative arabesques of the japanese-looking red bush. the landscape is also of simplified forms and the colors are flat. Gauguin opened the way to Fauvism and abstract art.

Theo VAN RYSSELBERGHE

Sailin Boats and Estuary 1892-1895

Theo was also introduced to divisionism and a fondness for traditional perspective made him reluctant to give everything a geometric from, which was one of the premises of Neo-Impressionism. Nevertheless with the opportunit to stylise the compositional elements in a radical fashion. The billowing clouds dissolve into the mauve sky as it merges with the horizon, while the islands and mainland disappear into the indigo and orange mist.

Paul CEZANNE

The Gulf of Marseille Seen from L'Estaque 1878-1879

he depicts the vegetation and rocks with juxtaposed brushstrokes to create a solid structure withoutmodelling them. All man-made constructions such as walls and houses are given a darkoutline to accentuate their geometrical shapes. This simplification of elements into vubes, cylinders and cones would become more prominent in cezanne's works.This painting is faithtul to Impressionism in its palette of light colours, but diverges from it radically in the distance between those elements which are composed and those which are real.

Claude MONET

Brance of the Seine near Giverny 1897

monet closely observed through changes in light, weather, atmosphere and time. he depicted the shady banks of Seine, lined with large trees leaning across the water and the full, fast-flowing river with variations in time an weather. this painting evokes a peaceful world where time is suspended and notheing happens. the artist's only concerns are the colour and a seemingly infinite variety of reflections.

Andy Goldsworthy

For this class activity, my partner (sushi) and i were very interested in this piece of work.

This work looks very mysterious and very interesting. this is actually made of sheets of ice of different shape, size and thickness. This work also made us wonder about the process of which the piece was made. the smooth reflective surface of the ice, reflects light in all directions making it look as if it is glowing. This created a very magical yet mysterious atmosphere as we start to wonder what was enclosed within the work. This work is site-specific to us as we feel that the strong contrast of the light and dark of the ball of ice and the dark black back ground really brings the subject matter forward and catches the attention of the viewer. The site at which this work is placed is also in a very natural environment, complementing the ice which is a natural material, making the man mande ball of ice feel some how possible to find in everyday life. Furthermore, the geometric shapes and the lines created by the different shapes and sides of the sides of the sheet of line makes it look like there is slight cubist influence in it. The stillness of the ball of ice balancing as if it could topple with a small breeze makes it feel like time has stopped and also creates a zen feeling to it. Being the bright focal point, the background becomes the negative space of the work very diffent from some as usually white blank spaces are seen as negative spaces.

We were given tasks to create our own Andy Goldsworthy inspired art work.

So this was done with a few others when we were sitting under a tree!! <3 however we all feel that this was unsucessful.

from the works of Andy Goldsworthy, we concluded that he usually uses very natural materials like stones, pebbles or leaves. We gathered leaves and twigs and tried to create a circle with the twigs showing the spiral that always appear in Goldsworthy's works. However, since we were working with mother nature, no two twigs were the same and hence it didnt have the very uniformed look seen in Goldsworthy's works. Then we proceeded to use dried leaves to create a 'blooming' effect where the leaves bloom out from that circle from the darkes to the lightes. And we faced the same problem as the twigs where the leaves were all of different shade and sizes and the greatest problem was that they were not flat. we tried pinning them flat with twigs and it just ended up a mess.

And then.............

BLOW WIND BLOW!!! Everything flew and it ended up like this...

Hence, in Andy Goldsworthy's works, it is very hard to create what he had done as we need to learn to work with mother nature and actually examine it and use it to our advantage. It was not simply about putting things together but also planning was a important part of it.

The creation of the focal point was not easy and that also leads to eye movement. It is hard to obtain defined line and geometric shape when it comes to nature as nothing is perfect and nor are they the same. ^^


And here's shuhui (i think) to say HI!!! <333

(NOTE: the brances behind her looks Andy-Goldsworthy-ish~~) :D

Christo and Jeanne Claude - wrapped coast-

These are some pictures of the wrapped coast by Christo and Jeanne Claude. :D
How it all started:
Christo initially moved into a industrial area and started working there and that was when he encountered oil drums. Then, he went to experiment with them stacking them up like this!!:




I really like the second and third one as the material he uses to wrap the oil barrel really blends well with the oil barrel and it gives the effect he wants, the texture, but at the same time keeping the organic form of the oil barrel.

In the two pictures above, we can see the sketch of his work before he did it. Without the sketches, i will really think that his works (the stacking of the oil barrels) were done at random. The scale of the art work is also something i would want to learn from~ :)

Now back to the coasts, Christo was interested in the texture and process ( packaging and wrapping) and the materials he uses to wrap things are transparent, translucent or opaque. He usually uses fabric. 1. to translate fragile nomatic quality of theproject. 2. want to also have the movement of the fabric where the wind can be 'seen' and felt. One thing about his works is that they are not permanent. For me, this is something very hard to accept if those were my work, because I do like works that are 3D stay 3D and not like it to be translated into phorography. I feel that if it was translated only into videos and photography, much of the essence of the work has been lost. No longer can we feel the wind and look at the dancing of the fabric in the wind and no longer can we really feel the massiveness of the project, standing beside it. However, Christo also has his own reason as to why he kept all his works temporary. 1. he wanted to keep his works fresh. 2. he was into recycling and all the materials (fabric) he used will be recycled.

one may wonder that for such a huge project, sketchs might not be enough for christo to visuallize the real work. Hence christo also created models or replicas of the thing that were to be wrapped and wrappes it. Materials for many artists is a great problem. The high consumption rates of paint etc. may burn holes in artist's wallet. Hence, to pay for his projects, christo would sell his prep work and sketch to save up for every project he does.

Comments on the Wrapped Coast:

What i like:

i really like the scale of the project where the artist is bold enough to create something of such a big scale. And despite the simplicity of the look of the project, the creation of the work requires much planning and alot of work done in installation of this site-specific work. The idea of using fabric which will move and flow beautifully in the wind is AWESOME! Since chrito only uses one single color in his work,we can clearly see the slightest shadow casted or the bright patch recieving direct sunlight. This contrast in light and dark will nicely show the texture of the coast.

What i dont really like:

i really dislike the fact that the fabric he uses actually looks like its disrupting the site. Hence this takes away the overally beauty of the site. Unlike the wrapping seen in the wrapping of the oil drums, where the color blends in well, the strong contrast of the natural earthly color is being covered by a much too clean white. Hence, it looks as if nature is being taken over by some huge man-made thing. Well, it this was the message it does work but i think the greatest loss was the beauty of the site being covered. If a translucent piece of fabric was used where the difference in light and dark can still be see and where the natural beauty is also seeping through it, i think that would be wonderful. Also regarding the fabric, i feel that fabric of a higher elasticity would complement the work better as in many parts of the work seen, the fabric does not hug the details to the coast that nicely. Hence many details were ommited. and that gives the work a lesser feel interms of the texture.

This is my favourite work!! Although this work is of the same subject matter, i really do see the beauty of nature in this one. This one is called packed coast, and hence i can assume that the transparent materials used is material similar to cling wrap. since this time, the material used are transparent, this allows the viewer to actually see the subject matter and feel the beauty in the colaboration of the coast and the material used to 'pack' it. The bright reflection of the sun on the reflective transparent material also gives a great effect, almost changing the texture of the coast, making it look smooth and glossy. The lines also forms geometric shapes, like a slight cubist influenced art. Although this work does not have the smooth flow of fabric in the wind, it somehow seem softer, as the light reflected off the sharp edges of the coast makes it look softer and smoother. :D