131 – Samantha Yeung

The Genius Storytelling of Hayao Miyazaki

12/15/202112/16/2021 Samantha Yeung1 Comment

Birth of a Legend

Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo in 1941. Because of Japan’s state during the war at the time of his birth and early childhood, much of his first memories were of evacuations and “bombed-out cities.” Though his father [name] enjoyed purchasing and displaying art, he didn’t have much knowledge about painting, so Miyazaki’s early interest in animation is quite interesting. It was possible that came from his mother who he was closest with, though she passed away from spinal tuberculosis later in Miyazaki’s life.

Early Career

Miyazaki graduated from Gakushuin University with a political science and economics degree, but he eventually found a job at Toei Animation. He stayed there for most of his early career, taking part in animating feature anime movies and slowly moving up the ranks. After leaving the company, his individual style began to develop shine through in manga strips he wrote for magazines.

Studio Ghibli

While he is a great illustrator and manga artist, Miyazaki is most known for his phenomenal and unique storytelling that he finally got to showcase through Studio Ghibli. The success of Nausicaa of the Valley inspired the creation of the infamous studio in 1985 and was later animated into a film produced by the company. Today, he has animated films include My Neighbour Totoro, Castle in the Sky, and Ponyo, and are all internationally recognized for their unique perspectives and mesmerizing music score.

Miyazaki’s voice shines brightly through his work. While all of his films have an absolutely captivating storyline, they all have underlying themes of environmental consciousness and conservation. As someone who has grown up with his films, they give me a nostalgic feeling of childhood innocence that I don’t seem to get with anything else. The serene qualities and accompanying music add a very nice touch and complete his works.

**My Neighbour Totoro Sketch** This is a sketch of the character Mei riding the Cat Bus in one of his signature movies titled My Neighbour Totoro. I have not looked into Miyazaki’s sketches until doing research for the blog, but I find it very interesting how little changes he made from these sketches to the final movie in terms of character design, atmosphere, etc. Fun fact: Totoro, the main character of the film (not shown) became the so-called mascot or logo for Studio Ghibli and can be seen in the opening credits of all of their movies!

**Ponyo Poster** This whimsical film features the adventures and discoveries of Ponyo, a fish princess, when she was discovered by a boy named Sosuke. She learns about the human world and provides such an innocent and child-like perspective, making me appreciate the little things in life just a bit more.

Spirited Away

Spirited Away is possibly my favourite movie of all time. I remember watching it as a child and being confused and rather scared, as there was a specific scene where the main character’s parents turned into pigs. Though obviously, I grew very fond of the film as I learned to appreciate the beauty of not only the animation, but also all other aspects of the movie. His mystical concepts are truly out of this world and balance just the right amount of fantasy and reality.

**Spirited Away Movie Still** This shot came from a scene in the movie featuring the main character, Chihiro, on the left and No Face on the right. No Face is a character that can produce gold from his hands to lure and eat creatures tempted by it. Maybe you can see how it can be quite haunting for children to watch some scenes in this move despite it being animated.

**Chihiro and Haku** Haku, the dragon and river God, is a friend in the film that helps Chihiro navigate this new and fantastical world that she gets herself into. Haku helps Chihiro to reunite with her parents and Chihiro aided Haku in remembering his lost memories in return.

I recognize that this blog post is mostly commentary on his life and films rather than specific illustration works. Despite that, I think that Miyazaki’s art was the perfect vehicle for him to grace us with his incredible talents, which, in a way, is precisely what being an artist is all about.

Happy holidays and happy almost retirement Jeff!

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Miyazaki-Hayao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki#Early_career
https://wherecreativityworks.com/illustrator-study-hayao-miyazaki/

Edward Hopper: The Artist of Empty Spaces

11/23/202112/09/2021 Samantha Yeung1 Comment

**Self-Portrait** Edward Hopper, like many other notable artists, was quite a loner especially at a young age. It was mostly due to his height, as he had an early growth spurt and was taller than six feet by the time he was in his early teens.

Born in 1882, Hopper was the youngest in a family of four and lived a comfortable life in Nyack, New York. He would often sketch boats while sitting by the Hudson River as a child, leading him to build a boat himself and seriously consider a career in naval architecture for a short time. He initially went to the New York School of Illustration for his education as his parents encouraged him to pursue a more commercial route in the industry, but he eventually left to attend the current Parsons School of Design instead. While he got into the field working as an illustrator at the New York Advertising Agency in 1905, Hopper was not satisfied, as his true passion lies in the world of painting.

**The Cat Boat** The type of boat Hopper ended up building during his teenage years was a cat boat. Later on, the first ever painting he sold for $250 would also be a piece related to boats, titled Sailing.

Reoccuring Expressions and Motifs

Emptiness is a common theme in Hopper’s paintings. Many of his works show couples in an unhealthy relationship, possibly due to his personal marriage issues, where the two would be occupying the same space while their minds wander elsewhere. The themes of isolation are particularly easy to resonate with today, as it echos the sudden shut-downs that COVID-19 has forced upon us.

**Train and Bathers** Hopper took a few trips to Europe that would go on to shape his painterly influences after he went back to New York City and start to gain recognition. He was mainly inspired by Impressionist painters like Degas and Manet as well as the trend of painting en plein-air.

**Office in a Small City Department** This painting is a great example of many aspects of Hopper’s style: angled buildings with usually one to two people as subjects, with the windows that seemingly dissapear to blend the existence of the interior and exterior environments.

**House on the Railroad** Another notable aspect of Hopper’s works is that he was constantly inspired by film and theatre. His creative takes, in turn, influenced future film directors as well as other writers and musicians. House on the Railroad is a prime example, as this was the original inspiration for the classic Alfred Hitchcock move Psycho.

Nighthawks

Painted in 1942, Nighthawks is Edward Hopper’s most famous work. Featuring four distant and absentminded figures, this painting brings the feeling of void and loneliness to the forefront. The diner lights are the only thing illuminating the scene, while the absence of a door into the building connotates an isolated atmosphere. The streets are gloomy and empty, pointing to the frequent blackout drills that occur throughout the city during a time of war. Personally, I was fascinated by the way Hopper’s paintings could encapsulate a sense of hollowness while still feeling wholly complete, especially in a bustling place like New York City (though apparently when people were searching for this diner in the city, they found that Nighthawk was not a real place at all!).

**Nighthawk** The name of this piece was thought up by Hopper’s wife, Josaphine, who was inspired by the hawk-like nose of the man facing the audience in this painting. Even as an introvert who likes to be alone for extended amounts of time, I can still feel the stillness and slight tension in the air of this painting, where all of the subjects seem to be in the same space but mentally adrift.

After Hopper’s death, it was thanks to his many sketches and his wife’s journals that we get to see the laborious process he went through for each of his works. Though abstract expressionists like Pollock and Rothko took centre stage nearing the middle of the century, Edward Hopper’s naturalistic style of painting never wavered and remained universally appealing. With his massive influence on society then and now, it is safe to say that Hopper is one of the most iconic figures of art in the 20th century.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKIbT-4UFaE
https://www.wikiart.org/en/edward-hopper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdi4XXl2kUg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hopper
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/hopper-edward/life-and-legacy/

Camille Pissarro: The Underdog of Impressionism

11/02/202111/04/2021 Samantha YeungLeave a comment

Impressionism is a movement synonymous with names like Monet, Manet, and Cezanne for their daring approaches to this new and evolving generation. Camille Pissarro rarely comes up as one of the first names you think of, but his contribution to this era was essential nonetheless and quickly became a pivotal figure in the world of art.

**Jalais Hill, Pontoise** This may be one of my personal favourite paintings by Pissarro! The flatness of the colours remind me of gouache, which I currently have a love-hate relationship with, and the overall tone is calming and comfortable. Though I am a big fan of the city, this painting makes me want to visit the outskirts of Europe and bathe in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Early Life

Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French impressionist born in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. He would continue to live in his hometown until travelling to Paris for boarding school, where he spent his free time drawing and observing the life around him.

**The Hermitage at Pontoise** Pissarro slowly developed a focus on landscape paintings, which he often puts his signature on by adding at least one person in the midst of the buildings and nature.

Growing up, and even when he made a name for himself in the art world, Pissarro was considered an outsider, usually for reasons relating to his family and ethnic background. Perhaps this unfortunate aspect of his life led him to empathize with new and upcoming artists, as he was kind, respectful, and welcomed many with open arms. He committed to becoming a full-time artist at 21, but when returning home after fleeing from the Franco-Prussian War, he discovered that his house, along with many of his early works, were destroyed.

**Hoarfrost** Pissarro befriended Monet, Renoir, and other contemporaries, who eventually organized a society that would host exhibitions outside of the Paris salon. They would later on be appropriately named the Impressionists. This was one of Pissarro’s paintings shown in the first Impressionist Exhibit.

Boulevarde Montmartre

During his later life, Pissarro suffered from an eye condition that restricted him from working outdoors for long periods. His creative solution was to start painting outdoor scenes through the windows of hotels, which occupied the majority of his time in Paris and London. He went on to create a series of 14 paintings of the same view of Boulevarde Montmartre from the window of the Grand Hôtel de Russie during different times of the day. Collections like these remind me of other artists who have done the same, like Hokusai and his 36 Mount Fuji prints, and make me wonder about the reason behind artists’ fascination with series paintings.

**Boulevard Montmartre: Afternoon, Sunshine** There is a large variety of times of day and weather conditions in his many paintings of Boulevard Montmartre. In this specific painting, his rapid and loose brushwork accurately captures the bustling of the city streets during the peak hours of the day.

**Boulevard Montmartre, Spring** Pissarro was quite proud of this series of paintings: “I am delighted to be able to paint these Paris streets that people have come to call ugly, but which are so silvery, so luminous and vital.”

Pissarro was not only a notable leader in the development of the Impressionistic style, but he also became an important character for future generations that came after him and was an influence on Neo-Impressionism. It is truly a little disappointing to see Pissarro as such an underrated figure of his time, but his dignified life, stunning works, and remarkable impacts on the world of art will never be forgotten.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoEX16Stct0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIE7FME6F8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW8Bwt2ZJwo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5_kkOxKvM&list=PLnqgKdfiHvurTl2sC-8KECu53gYjLHBYs&index=13
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro
https://www.camille-pissarro.org/biography.html
https://impressionistarts.com/first-impressionist-exhibition

Theodore Gericault: The Man Who Came to Define the Dramatic Era of Romaticism

10/20/202110/24/2021 Samantha Yeung1 Comment

Theodore Gericault, the pioneer and embodiment of the romantic movement, had humble beginnings in the city of Rouen, France. Learning from French painter Carle Vernet, Gericault first studied the style of English sporting art, which is the painting of animals in the setting of popular sports of the century. He also gained influences from Peter Paul Rubens and even Michelangelo later on during his time in Florence and Rome.

**Horsewoman** Through Carle Vernet’s teachings, Gericault predominantly focused on painting horses. I admire his loose, yet calculated brushwork on the ground and mountains while giving the horse such detail and structure, clearly exhibiting his plethora of knowledge on the subject.

**The Charging Chasseur** *The colourful influences of the Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens are prominent in Gericault’s earlier works. This was also shown in the Paris salon of 1812, being one of his first major paintings.*

The Epitome of Romanticism

Gericault’s most defining work, The Raft of Medusa, captures a shameful and dark history of the French in the 19th century. This painting depicts the aftermath of an unqualified sailor who ran the Méduse, a French naval ship, aground. Escaping on lifeboats, the captain and the upper class left 147 people abandoned on a makeshift raft to drift in the open sea for 13 days. The desperate fight for survival resulted in violence, murder, and even cannibalism, with only 15 people remaining when the raft was found and rescued.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is JEAN_LOUIS_THÉODORE_GÉRICAULT_-_La_Balsa_de_la_Medusa_Museo_del_Louvre_1818-19-1024x699.jpeg — **The Raft of Medusa** The countless studies, sketches, and interviews Gericault conducted explain the striking authenticity and realness of this painting. Gericault observed dead and rotting body parts in morgues, hospitals, and lunatic asylums to emote the atmosphere of the painting through the accuracy of the lifeless survivors.

There are so many fascinating things to point out about this painting, but what stood out to me the most was the portrayal of the only black survivor, Jean Charles, as the saviour of the raft. This message of the unseen and overlooked becoming the hero was an extremely brave choice, as the French would not abolish slavery for another 30 years.

**Head of a Guillotined Man** *An example of one of Gericault’s many studies of corpses, rotting flesh, and in this case, a severed head.*

**Inspiration and Comparison** Although he may not have seen it, Gericault’s influences in the coming era were evident. Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix was directly inspired by The Raft of Medusa, most significantly in its pyramidical composition and heavy underlying message.

Later Life and Legacy

Despite the current success of the painting, The Raft of Medusa was heavily criticized and did not sell during its display at the Paris salon of 1819. His confusing love life, reoccurring mental illness, and dissatisfaction with his achievements led to an unfortunate death at the early age of 32. One can only wonder if Gericault would finally be content with his accomplishments if he had only seen his painting bought and displayed by the Louvre, eventually becoming the painting only second in popularity to the Mona Lisa.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Theodore-Gericault
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Théodore_Géricault
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charging_Chasseur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUq9qMm9NtI&t=251s
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438113
https://eclecticlight.co/2016/03/14/the-story-in-paintings-gericaults-raft-of-the-medusa/

The Alluring Mysteries of Hieronymous Bosch

10/05/202110/11/2021 Samantha Yeung2 Comments

A Little Bit About Bosch (Literally)

Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch painter in the Renaissance era who made quite an impression despite not having much of his works or personal life recorded. Little information about him is confirmed, including his exact age and birth year, but it is generally agreed upon that he came from a family of relatively established painters and spent the bulk of his life living comfortably in the town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

**Infernal Landscape** This drawing was part of a private collection that was only recently attributed to Bosch. His limitless imagination shines through, featuring a dystopian narrative filled with his famous beasts and fearful creatures, possibly with the purpose to warn the public about the consequences of sin.

Influences and Style

Often taking inspiration from the Bible, Bosch displays rather disturbing visuals of hell and the forces of evil in his paintings, something he became well known for. He put his own spin on these well-known stories and disregarded the general trend of the time.

**The Adoration of the Magi** The Adoration of the Magi is a triptych commissioned by Peeter Scheyfve and Agnes de Gramme for the El Escorial monastery. The central panel depicts three Magis presenting their various gifts to Christ and Virgin Mary. Upon closer examination, many symbols represent some of Bosch’s underlying messages, like the toads and the magi’s crown in the foreground.

The exact number of paintings attributed to him is also heavily debated, as Bosch did not sign nor date his paintings. Though, in the works that are confirmed to be his, the repeated appearance of owls serves as his unique seal of identity, which can be argued to symbolize wisdom, ignorance, or sin.

**The Owl’s Nest** This drawing is perhaps a nod to Bosch’s interest in owls, which he scatters across his many attributed paintings. Now located in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, The Owl’s Nest sits with a few of his other drawings, the only location in the Netherlands with a collection of his works.

His works were already being collected by many during his lifetime and his style was often imitated, even by Peter Bruegel the Elder, who was particularly influenced by his landscapes.

**The Table of the Seven Deadly Sins** The Table of the Seven Deadly Sins depicts a central wheel with the seven deadly sins, with four smaller wheels surrounding it that represent Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell. It is still speculated whether or not this painting is an authentic work of Bosch; it has been thought to be the work of one of his close followers multiple times. In the centre of the large wheel lies Jesus rising from his tomb, with the placement of this image being significant, as it symbolizes the pupil of an eye, saying that God sees all.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

I appreciate the intricacy of his larger works, with my favourite being The Garden of Earthly Delights. I stumbled on a very extensive video analysis of this painting and thoroughly enjoyed the journey of hunting for the easter eggs and explanations for almost every aspect of the painting.

Bosch intrigues me because of the mystery and ambiguity around his works and him as an artist. He leaves many things up to our imaginations and never fails to leave me admiring with curiosity and awe. It is no wonder why he was such a notable character of the Northern Renaissance.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/bosch-hieronymus/life-and-legacy/
https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/table-of-the-seven-deadly-sins/3fc0a84e-d77d-4217-b960-8a34b8873b70
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-owl-s-nest/WgFB3K2ai7G5lg?hl=en
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/newly-discovered-hieronymus-bosch-drawing-surfaces-private-collection-180957220/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoration_of_the_Magi_(Bosch,_Madrid)
https://www.museodelprado.es/en