The House of Marta Pintuco

“The House of Marta Pintuco” was painted by Columbian artists, Fernando Botero in 2001. All of Botero’s work has been influenced by the Baroque era. He has always had a fascination with this. It is believed that this can be attributed to his youth in which was spent in Medellin, Columbia which holds the most aesthetically impressive Spanish Baroque Cathedrals. Since then, he has always associated Baroque with beauty.

In this particular painting, you see at the far right, an unattended cross0eyed baby sitting on the floor. At the far left, you see an older lady with a poignant expression of wistfulness and regret as she looks through the door to see prostitutes and their clients eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping and taking turns having sexual relations. This is a very interesting painting because it is such a raw portrait of reality. Granted  this doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen, and Botero isn’t afraid to let it be known. Its a very honest painting.

http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A43526

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/the-majors/Content?oid=1439083

Catharis

 

This is a mural created by Jose Clemente Orozco in 1934 and was titled Catharis. Jose Clemente Orozco was born on November 23, 1883 in Jalisco, Mexico. He was greatly influenced by the work of Jose Posada. His paintings were always very clear and detailed. The art movement known as Symbolism was his greatest influence in that aspect. During a school experiment, he lost his right hand and partial sight in his right eye.

He was one of the most complex mexican muralists. His works were dedicated to depicting the truth. His work often shows violent displays of conflict, chaos and misery. He focused on showing personal suffering in a pessimistic, skeptical, yet still sympathetic way. In the picture above, he was trying to portray the never ending cycle of Humanities self destruction and moral decay. The picture really frightens you as you look at it. It tries to imply the obsession with modern technologies in technology and machinery. If you look closely, you can see that all of the humans are being sucked into what seems to be a mechanical quicksand.

Art on the Streets

(The Nile-1983)

(Jimmy Best…-1981)

 

(Per Capita-1981)

The three paintings above were all created by Jean-Michel Basquiat. All of his paintings were done on the sides of buildings or useless trash. He turned things that were generally dull and boring into a great interesting piece of art. He started painting in his teen years and was known world wide by age 23. In 1983, he collaborates with Andy Warhol to work on a few pieces. His artwork is shows all across the world, his popularity is increasing and he is becoming more and more famous until August 1988 where he dies from a drug overdose.

(Ghetto-2007)

 

(Times Square-2007)

 

(Spirit of the Water-2007)

All of the above paintings were painted by Kurt Warner. He began his street painting career on the streets of Rome in 1982. It only took a short two years for him to become well known. He was very known for his 3-D paintings, otherwise known as anamorphic or illusionistic style paintings. Wenner has turned into a visual spectacle, a performer for many to watch as they walk on the streets. He did some amazing things on the street sidewalks.

 

 

 

 

 

This is Edward Hopper’s most important work titled “Nighthawks”. This painting intrigued me at first because of the loneliness I felt from it. There are only four people in the entire picture. And of the four, three of them, the customers, all have their shoulders hunched over. They seem to be trapped because as we look in through the windows, we don’t see a door for them to get out. There is a door but it doesn’t seem as if that is the way to get out. The customers there seem to be very lonely and depressed. If you look closely, the couple’s noses resemble beaks, which could have some reference to the title. They are the only ones out; the streets outside of the café are completely empty. He was “only painting the loneliness of a large city”. (Wikipedia) This painting was painted immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 which was the start of America’s involvement in WW1. It was inspired by a diner in Greenwich village in Hoppers home neighborhood in Manhattan.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawks

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper/nighthwk.jpg.html

Impressionism: Love it

I really enjoy Impressionistic art. I like being able to make my own interpretation of it and it still being right. I think that the way the brush movements are intricately placed makes it very easy to just get lost in the painting. The way they blend the colors changes the traditional ideals of the placement of colors. It seems the older day philosophy was to stay in the lines; with the new impressionistic ideas, this wasn’t so much of a rule anymore. However, the neat thing about it is that there is still a subject to the painting. You can still figure out what the painting is supposed to be about. It takes an artist to create art in the past, but it takes an artist with an imagination to create impressionistic art.

For instance, in Monet’s painting of the Festival in Paris, looking from far away, you can clearly see what it is. However, the closer you get to the painting, the easier it is to get lost in it. Between the vast amount of flags or people, the colors and way each one is painted is different from the rest. Each brush stroke is clearly defined and  unique. The styles he uses make it look almost 3D. You feel like you can look down the long streetway is if you were there.

A complete contrast to Impressionism is actually during somewhat of the same time era, Realism. Realism is as close to looking at the real thing as you can get. This is a prime example of staying in the lines. These paintings are amazing as well, but they are very different from the Impressionistic paintings. Pretty much a completely different genre.

 

This work was created by Jacques-Louis David, it is titled The Death of Socrates. This picture is interesting because it is portraying a tragic event. In this portrait, Socrates was given a choice of going into exile by giving up his philisophic vocation or dying. He felt so strongly about his philisophic beliefs that he decided to die. The picture is portraying Socrates dying by being forced to drink poison. He believed that “The unexamined life is not worth living”. This work can portray the rise of the middle class because Socrates was in the middle class. He was advancing his knowledge with his increasingly popular philisophical beliefs. As a result of his knowledge, he ended up in the situation above. The story behind this picture forces you to look deeper into the picture. I found this work very apprealing because of all of the different elements of it. You have the people that are already grieving his death, then you have other people in the picture that appear to be happy that justice is being done. They seem to be very violent figures.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates

 

I chose Georges de la Tour’s painting of The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs. I found this piece very entertaining. I liked the scandal implied. Here is this guy who is being very deceitful to get ahead in the game. You can see that he is almost taking advantage of the women’s lack of attention. With both women’s attention not really on the game at hand, he is then able to get ahead  in the game.

The people featured in this picture appear to be of a higher class, perhaps located in the upper middle class. The women in this picture are wearing extravagent gowns and could perhaps be royalty however, it  be is difficult to tell. They are definitely considered to be high class citizens. The women that is serving them looks to be a peasent of some sort. This could however be a sign that there the lower class is on the rise. This women in particular is wearing a nice gown that a normal lower class citizen couldn’t afford.

The idea of being deceitful had to of orginated from royalty. Royalty back then is very similar to politics, and in politics there is always lying and cheating. The fact that the man in this painting is cheating means that they have to have some sort of influence on royalty.

Netherlandish Proverbs

Pieter Bruegel’s piece of art, the Netherlandish Proverbs, symbolizes many things. It is a wonderful example of Humanism. Humanism is the philosophy that values the worth and dignity of the individual who seeks to discover what is best about humanity. This piece of art exhibits the basic philosphies of humanism. If you study what these average people are doing, they are accomplishing common everyday chores to better themselves and their lives. Each chore that these people finish adds more and more to their worth as an individual.  I thought that this piece of art was appealing because it exemplified the average citizen rather than the royal or religious figures that you saw quite common around this time and beforehand. The Netherlandish Proverbs was created by Pieter Bruegel in Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.

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