Monday, March 18, 2013

Thomas Eakins The Gross Clinic

Thomas Eakins The Gross Clinic

I find this piece of artwork so interesting. I love that in art you have the literal and the figurative meanings behind everything. In this painting the forehead and hand are lit up, meaning its 2 part surgery. They are combing cerebral, scientific, with manual, hands. The thing that makes me cringe is that in this time they were using no drugs, he felt everything they were doing. It used to be a form of butchery, but now we are looking at the professionalization of surgery. In the professionalization of surgery they combined the stand off physician and the manual doctor. This pointed out the idea of professionalism in Human Society. The President of the Pennsylvania academy in Philadelphia lost this job. He believed that if he could feel what the human body felt like in his arms he could paint them better. So he got naked and carried around his wealthy students. So he got fired. This called attention to recent development in recent American History. Alice Walton wanted to make a museum in Arkansas of the best American Art. Hired art historian to go around and buy all the art around America. People are getting angry that she is taking all the artwork and relocating them to Arkansas. Philadelphia rose up and raised enough money to counter her offer to keep it in Philadelphia. Charles Dawson Shanley wrote a poem around this time called The Walker of the Snow, and one of the prose read: “But they spoke not as they raised me;/For they knew that in the night/ I had seen the Shadow-Hunter/ And had withered in his blight”. Although this doesn’t have a lot of direct correlation to the artwork, it does in my eyes. This man in the poem saw things the others had not seen. Felt the way others would not as he lie in the snow. This artwork shows the surgery in a classroom for people to come and see. For that that was originally not seen by the public, to be brought into the light.

The Soothsayer's Recompense

The Soothsayer's Recompense by Giorgio de Chirico was painted around 1913 and was only one of many of his paintings that depicted Ariadne in her famous position she held as she fell asleep on the beach waiting for the man who she wishes to be with forever to return, which of course he does not. Ariadne is present in a few of Chirico's paintings, which may raise the question as to what role she played in his life as he was a child or what she means to him that she is so important to be in all of these different paintings.

Ardiadne, also painted in 1913 by Giorgio de Chirico shows Ariadne in her reclining position in a desolate public square that, too, is the scene of many of Chirico's paintings. This is a different perspective of the same town square that is in a lot of is paintings. Perhaps the reason he painted Ariadne so often was that her story evoked his native past of Greece. The train that is in the background of this painting and the one prior is represntative of his father of whom he was afraid. His ather worked on locomotives, so this may be why he is represented here as one.

Melancholy, 1912 by Giorgio de Chirico came out the same year as a song entitled "My Melancholy Baby" may have either influenced or been an influence on the title of Chirico's painting of the same year. it is a relatively short song with few lyrics, but the lyrics depict two lovers perhaps, one asking the other to cuddle up to them so they can chase away all of their fears or they will be melancholy too. This painting has the same Ariadne figure in the same position as she so often holds in this artist's paintings in the same empty town sqaure that is a scene he often uses with the sculpture of Ariadne.

Page Boy at Maxim's

Chaim Soutine was a Russian artist from 1894-1943. Soutine was a individualist Expressionist painter who was part of the group called Les Mandits. Les Mandits is translated to "The Damned" and they were called this because they are viewed as the cursed painters who lived the stereotypical Bohemian artist lifestyle.

With his work Page Boy at Maxim's and Woman in Red Soutine use abstract techniques to overemphasize or distort the sitter's appearance in accordance his own emotion. In the Page Boy at Maxim's the sitter is represented from Soutine personal experience. The sitter had asked for a tip and it angered Soutine because he had no money and that the page boy was actually above Soutine in society for he actually had a job. And for this the slight distortion of the sitters facial expression and poster are depicted as above. This can be related back to Freud's theory of projection and altercations of the id,ego, and superego.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee was born in Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His unique

style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. In the piece above, Ad Parnassum each blot of color represents a sound. Paul Klee did not have synesthesia but he completed several works that played with the idea, such as Ancient Sound; Abstract on Black. With Ad Parnassum Klee is representing a huge symbolic performance of Apollo, the muses, Mount Parmassus and the doorway in the bottom left as the portal. I believe that the doorway and the top of the mountain are well paired and represented for that are of the same shade of colors in which portrays their connection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yhRzk_B8zc

With his piece Ancient Sound; Abstract on Black Klee acknowledges how sounds work through his paint and shades of green. Here Klee understands darker colors represent lower tones in nature and lighter shades represent higher pitch tones. And for this, the viewer has a sense that this squares above are coming out of the painting in a pyramid type of arrangement.

Fagus Shoe Factory

The Fagus Shoe Factory, designed by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer is an important piece of architecture for modern art because of the what it says about how we have changed. Today, all that matters in the real estate realm is price per square foot and how to most efficiently use up that space. What the Fagus Shoe Factory displays with is large glass walls is a time when the building was built for the shopper's interest and not just for the owner's turnover. The glass opens the entire shop with natural sunlight that one would hypothesize affected the customer in a positive psychological manner. This building shows a time when people were beginning to discover leisure shopping as they had more time. The question is whether architecture techniques sell more with the emphasis on price per square foot or back then shopper pleasing environment. Today's society may not be representational due to a recent recession and the fast pace speed of life in everyday activities. However, The Fagus Shoe Factory remains an iconic symbol of progression and ideology.

Pretty interesting, Fagus Shoe Factory in 60 seconds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNOrbI8W_4M

"The Figure 5 in Gold"

Charles Demuth was a famous American painter from 1883-1935 who completed his work The Figure 5 in Gold in 1928.

Demuth's inspiration behind this painting came from a poem that his friend William Carlos Williams wrote title "The Great Figure" just as Marsden Hartley's Portrait of a German Officer.

The Great Figure

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

Among the rain

and lights

I saw the figure 5

in gold

on a red

firetruck

moving

tense

unheeded

to gong clangs

siren howls

and wheels rumbling

through the dark city.

The Figure 5 in Gold is Demuth's testimonial to his friend for it is part of a series that Demuth worked on that included portraits of his friends. Here, Williams is represented through his poem of the fire truck and initials and name on the canvas.

The painting resembles European cubism and futurism, but his distinguishably American Precisionism. With this new technique Demuth represents the passing of time by enlarging the number 5 so the the firetruck appears to approaching the viewer. The work also depicts a new form of technology and transportation advancement. This piece represents the awe and ambivalence with people had at the new technology that people would stand and get hit by the approaching fire truck.

Culture Mechanism