Category: 131 R

Women in Art

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter and artist who is most well known for her vibrant self portraits. At Age 5 Kahlo was diagnosed with polio and struggled with the after effects consistently throughout her career as a painter. During her time of sickness she was encouraged by her father to play sports and stay active to help her heal which was highly unusual for a young girl of the time.

During high school Kahlo joined a political club of students that shred her same views. On a trip with her club there was a bus accident that left her impaired for the rest of her life. After the accident she was left on bed rest and to pass the time she started painting. Later in her painter career he started more surrealist, realistic and traditional Mexican elements to her work. 

Many of her paintings are self reflections, self discoveries, and exploring who she is as an artist. After her bus accident she was unable to bear children which emotionally left a toll on her and is sometimes reflected in her imagery. She is often described as a surrealist but Kahlo always denied that statement. In her lifetime she created over 200 paintings, which were mainly self portraits, family members and still lifes.

Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud is an american “pop” artist whose best known for his thickly painted canvases which often depict classic american treats and everyday objects. I chose Thiebaud as a subject for this blog post because I admire his skills as a painter and his somewhat unique choice of  subject matter. I really love the way he is able to capture light and create a consistent mood throughout his work and how it makes me think of simpler times.

During highschool he apprenticed at Walt Disney Studios and continued to work as an illustrator after high school. During the late 50’s he started to paint a small series of works based on food displayed in storefront windows but mainly focused on the colour and “basic shapes” of the subject. Wayne Thiebaud is often mislabeled as a pop artist because of his choice of subject, consumer goods and mass culture, which was usually claimed by the pop art movement.

Unlike most other pop artists of the time Thiebaud worked strictly from life which is what separates him from the pop movement, he truly belongs with the abstract expressionists and the Bay Area figurative movement. In addition to painting baked goods he was also known to paint landscapes, diner food scenes, and occasionally people he knew. His work also reminds me of Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks. 

Cubism, Dadaism & Surrealsim

I chose to write this blog post on the French cubist painter Fernand Leger, because of his unique cubist style, depiction of the female subject and his influence in early pop art.

Early in Legers life he was a draftsman living in france to support himself as a young adult but was also taking art classes on the side at a local influential art school in france called the École des Beaux-Arts. Most of his earliest works were influenced by impressionist painter Paul Cezanne but,  you can also start to see the impact early cubism and artists like Pablo Picasso had on his late work. 

Leger served in the French army from 1914-1917. During the period his work became more mechanical where more strong shapes came to play.

After his time in the war, there was a distinct style change, he was reflecting on his experiences from the trenches.  The term “Machine Art” was later coined in his name to describe his mechanic-like style. 

Sources:

Corinne Michelle West (Michael West)

Corinne was an american expressionist and early cubist painter during the late 20th century. She graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1925 before continuing her schooling at the Art Student’s League and commercial art in New York.  She was said to be the lover and muse of artist  Arshile Gorky while she studied under russian painter Raphael Soyer in the early 30’s.

In the male dominated art world of Pollock and Hoffman West was independent, bold and one of the few female expressionists of her time. and bold. Her works varied from small paintings to canvases the size of herself. As she progressed she experimented with larger brushes, brushstrokes and painting with large eccentric movements. Many of her later pieces feature dark and sombre colours but have an energetic feel because of the large brushstrokes that almost appear to be moving. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Michelle_West

http://www.artnet.com/artists/michael-corinne-west/

Romaticism & Rococo

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassicism painter of the 18th century. His first early mentor in the arts was his father Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres. His early education was at the Brothers of Christian Doctrine but due to the French Revolution was ended promptly, but was later continued at the fine arts academy in Toulouse, France. In 1806 Ingres  left for Italy where he followed his own artistic decisions.

Within the next 5 years Ingres became a painter for Napoleon’s subjects and officials. He did medieval genre paintings as well as portraiture. Ingres also painted few nudes but often received harsh criticism due to the odd bodily proportions. I really admire Ingres’s work, he is able to capture so much beauty in the subjects he paints and is a master portrait painter. 

Sources:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/459106

https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-A-D-Ingres

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Auguste-Dominique_Ingres

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/artist/jean-auguste-dominique-ingres/

Sir Anthony Van Dyck

Flemish painter anthony Van Dyck was greatly inspired by old master Titian. He specialized in portraiture, european aristocratic portraiture, and paintings with italian religious and mythological themes. He was also an accomplished etcher but is more commonly known for his paintings during the Baroque movement. His talent was noticed early on in his life, at the age of 17 he was already finishing full paintings. He worked mostly in Genoa but traveled extensively for work and doing portraits for King James I of England and other royal families.

Van Dyck liked to work with models in fabrics that reflected light rather than absorb it like different types of silk. Most of his models were known to wear the Van Dyck beard, a popular style of the time that was later named after the facial hair most of Van Dyck’s portrait subjects were known to have.

– Hans Holbein –

Hans Holbein was born in Augsburg Germany in 1497 and is one of the more accomplishes painters of the 16th century. His artistic talents were passed on from his father at a young age. Early in his career he mainly painted religious subjects, designed stained glass and was know to do some metalwork and jewelry. Holbein travelled often to Italy or France for work and produced many frescos during this time in his life. He followed his career in London in 1532 and in 1535 he was the painter for King Henry VIII and painted one of his more notable pieces Portrait of Henry VIII later in his life. He died in London of the Great Plauge. 

-Fra Fillippo-

Born in 1406, Fra Fillippo was an Italian painter known for his paintings and fresco’s as apart of the Early Renaissance movement. He took heavy influence after painter Masaccio in his early work. Later his work had created interest from the Medici family and later was commissioned by the Medici family to do The Annunciation and the Seven Saints. Fillippo mainly specialized in religious paintings (e.g. Madonna and child ) but also was a skilled illustrator and created many larger scale paintings in his time.