Maurice de Vlaminck was born in 1976 in Paris. He started painting as a teenager but we don’t have much art from his early life as he went and served in the military. He didn’t truly start his artistic career until after he was finished serving in the army.  

Vlaminck was proudly part of the Fauvism age of painting. So much so that he resented painters like Picasso for taking over the genre with cubism, thinking that cubism was driving real painting into the ground. He was heavily influenced by Van Gogh and apparently greatly admired both Van Gogh as a person and his paintings.  his style is insteresting, using bold strokes and colours, not aiming for realism but more of an impression of his subject matter. More refined than cubism but still with abstract qualities.  

I love art nouveau and I find the moulin rouge exciting and fascinating so I chose my art piece because it  is a middle ground between those two things. I chose to do a poster design, which I originally thought was unambitious but very quickly came to a different conclusion. I did tons of sketches and had to sort through so many artworks before finding the one I eventually chose. To get it right it took a lot of planning and precision and those are not typically a strong suite of mine. It was also a challenge trying to colour match, I hope the colours came though well in the photograph. I think I could’ve spent more time on the written components but overall, I think I should get a high B or A-.  

William Blake was an amazing painter but he is recognized more for his poetry than his paintings. He was frequently dismissed and did not gain much renown during his lifetime. Now, after his death, he is considered a visionary in poetry and visual art. His pieces are bold and striking, sometimes taking a moment to figure out what you are looking at. He was born in London and after being educated primarily by his mother he apprenticed under James Basire, an engraver. The forms in his paintings are soft around the edges but meticulously detailed if you look closer. I chose to do my blog post on William Blake for selfish reasons. I have been watching a lot of Hannibal and one of William Blakes’s pieces, “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun” is the central focus of season four of the show. The main antagonist of the last season is obsessed with becoming the great red dragon in the work of art.  

Art Nouveau  

As much as we are supposed to choose an event from the survey timeline, I broke the rules a little bit on this post. I love art nouveau and I really wanted to write about it. Art nouveau is a fascinating movement that I have frequently found myself inspired by when doing my own work. It has beautiful organic shapes, neutral colours, and amazing depth despite its flat colours. It also inspired much of the art in the 60’s and 70’s and served as a foundation for psychedelic art.  

Design  

Design was a big part of Art Nouveau, a key element to many of its iconic imagery and posters was incorporating text into illustrations or thoughtfully framing illustrations with text and embellishments. A lot of the most recognized pieces of art from the movement were advertisements and poster designs. I would say the foundation of current day poster design began with art nouveau. The artists took care with visual hierarchy and made meticulously detailed illustrations with plenty of embellishments. Alphonse Mucha is an iconic artist from this time period and probably who most people think of when they think of art nouveau. He is said to have had a skill with printing that was unrivaled.  

Features of Art Nouveau design is organic shapes, whiplash curves, detailed illustration and flat and neutral colours.  

Architecture  

Art Nouveau architecture is facinating and beautiful, using those same organic shapes and natural curves but this time in staircases and buildings. Architects like Hector Guimard ran with this style and designed beautiful pieces of ironwork for subway stations and buildings. The craftsmanship of ironwork and furniture is where the core of art nouveau really comes into play. The movement came from the arts and crafts movement. The ideology of that movement came from a rejection of industrialism and a value for well-made products with thoughtful design.  These products being well made and beautiful is a big reason we still see these antiques around today. They didn’t break down as easily as many of the mass produced products of that era.