Claude Monet Essays (Examples)

Train in the Countryside" (c. 1872) by Claude Monet and "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte" (1884) by G. Seurat

In their artworks, "Train in the Countryside" (c. 1872) and "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte" (1884), Claude Monet and Georges Seurat, respectively, present two very different views of life in the 19th century. To identify these differences and the techniques and motifs that are offered to the viewer, this paper analyzes these paintings and reviews the relevant literature, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning these two paintings in the conclusion.

How the painting by Claude Monet "Train in the Countryside" is presented and what techniques and motifs it offers to the viewer

As shown in Figure 1 below, the trail of smoke left by the locomotive describes a Golden Section arc that is appealing to the eye even if viewers…

References

Austrum, D. C. (1998, October). Thursday and Friday afternoons on the bank of Tiffany Creek: A re-creation of Seurat's 'La Grande Jatte.' School Arts, 98(2), 38-41.

Floyd, J. (2009, Winter). Art of making art. The Sondheim Review, 16(2), 11-13.

Monet. (2015). Claude Monet 'Train in the Countrside.' Musee d'Orsay. Retrieved from  http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/train-in-the-countryside-18879.html?cHash=323d65af36 .

Strieter, T. W. (1999). Nineteenth-century European art: A topical dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

The black in the male cafe patrons' suits, renders an aura of sophistication. The combination of white and black grabs the eye and creates a sense of movement that corresponds with the lively dancing.

Painted only 12 years later, Van Gogh's "Night Cafe" conveys a completely different cafe ambiance. Whereas Renoir's cafe is full of life and light, Van Gogh's is strikingly lonely, occupied by a few sullen drunks with their heads on their tables and the central figure who stands next to a billiards table. Van Gogh uses muddy hues to parallel the theme of the painting. Renoir's black and white affair conveys a bourgeois ambiance, and Van Gogh's ruddy earth tones clearly impart a working class sensibility. Moreover, Van Gogh's cafe uses indoor lighting, which is less inspirational than the uplifting feeling from the open-air "Le Moulin de la Galette." Correspondingly, Van Gogh uses yellow for lights rather…

Also a landscape scene painted in France, Derain's 1906 "The Turning Road" has a far different feel than Monet's "The River." Like Monet, Derain relies on earthy tones to emphasize nature. However, Derain's palate is more saturated. The hues allow the painting to approach expressionism, especially the predominance of red-orange on the canvas. Using violet periodically such as on the lower part of the tree trunks also makes the painting seem more abstract than Monet's.

In "Le Moulin de la Galette," Renoir creates a remarkably light feeling with his palate. Using white liberally to convey visual light but also emotional lightness, Renoir balances his impressionist masterpiece with black. The black in the male cafe patrons' suits, renders an aura of sophistication. The combination of white and black grabs the eye and creates a sense of movement that corresponds with the lively dancing.

Painted only 12 years later, Van Gogh's "Night Cafe" conveys a completely different cafe ambiance. Whereas Renoir's cafe is full of life and light, Van Gogh's is strikingly lonely, occupied by a few sullen drunks with their heads on their tables and the central figure who stands next to a billiards table. Van Gogh uses muddy hues to parallel the theme of the painting. Renoir's black and white affair conveys a bourgeois ambiance, and Van Gogh's ruddy earth tones clearly impart a working class sensibility. Moreover, Van Gogh's cafe uses indoor lighting, which is less inspirational than the uplifting feeling from the open-air "Le Moulin de la Galette." Correspondingly, Van Gogh uses yellow for lights rather than the pure white of Renoir.

The painter's choice of a pictorial vantage point creates the apparent symmetry of the bridge and the woven flower garlands. The point of the painting is not that such symmetry literally exists in nature, but that in the impression of the painter, such symmetry was evident to his eyes, at a particular moment in time and in his life.

This painting would be especially useful to teach young children how to create meaningful pictures out of common, every day images. The teacher could point out to the students that the painting is of Monet's garden, something that he saw everyday, and painted many times. Monet painted many paintings water lilies, but every picture was different, because the French artist brought a different perspective to the work of art, during different times of his life.

Asking students to name different everyday things that look different at different times of the year,…

Color Me Three

The use of color by artists depends on both personal predilections as well as environmental and social circumstances. This paper will use the works from three well-known artists to illustrate the assumption that the use of color and the style of each artist is combination of these various factors. An important issue that will be dealt with is the artistic climate and the predominant view on art and art theory at the time. Another important aspect is the artist's personal creative aims and views as they relate to color and art in general.

The use of color is part of the artist's creative process and forms an important part of the works of the following three artists: Claude Monet, Pierre onnard and Paul Signac. Specific woks by these artists will be referred to in this discussion.

Color, while not the only element that constitutes their works is…

Bibliography

Beetem R.. Discover Master Artist Pierre Bonnard at the Denver Art Museum March 1 - May 25, 2003. Accessed June 1, 2005.

http://www.intradenver.com/events/DenArtMus/articles.asp?artID=1714

Blanshard, F.B. (1949). Retreat from Likeness in the Theory of Painting. New York: Columbia University Press.

BONNARD Pierre. June 2, 2005.  http://www.londonfoodfilmfiesta.co.uk/Artmai~1/Bonnard.htm

Pissarro took a special interest in his attempts at painting, emphasizing that he should 'look for the nature that suits your temperament', and in 1876 Gauguin had a landscape in the style of Pissarro accepted at the Salon. In the meantime Pissarro had introduced him to Cezanne, for whose works he conceived a great respect-so much so that the older man began to fear that he would steal his 'sensations'. All three worked together for some time at Pontoise, where Pissarro and Gauguin drew pencil sketches of each other (Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre).

Gauguin settled for a while in ouen, painting every day after the bank he worked at closed.

Ultimately, he returned to Paris, painting in Pont-Aven, a well-known resort for artists.

X...for pic

Le Christ Jaune (the Yellow Christ) (Pioch, 2002) Still Life with Three Puppies 1888 (Pioch, 2002)

In "Sunny side down; Van Gogh and Gauguin," Martin…

References

Bailey, Martin. (2008). Dating the raindrops: Martin Bailey reviews the final volumes in the catalogues of the two most important collections of Van Gogh's drawings. Apollo Magazine Ltd. Retrieved February 26, 2009 from HighBeam Research:

 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-174598896.html 

Martin. (2005) "Van Gogh the fakes debate. Apollo Magazine Ltd. Retrieved February 26, 2009 from HighBeam Research:

 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-127058183.html . Bell, Judith. (1998). Vincent treasure trove; the van Gogh Museum's van Goghs. Vincent van Gogh's works from the original collection of his brother Theo. World and I. News World Communications, Inc. Retrieved February 26, 2009 from HighBeam Research:

Monet started his creative activity being young by making scratches and cartoons for a local frame-maker. He took classes of art from Eugene Budent, who taught him lessons of work on open air. Later he goes to Paris and enters the circle of Paris painters. Because he had no financial support he enters French army and after military service he continues painting with Pierre-Auguste enoir, Alfred Sisley, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte, Frederic Bazille who were experimenting and searching for a new style different from official canons of art.

Technique developed by Monet and other impressionists was unique and innovative. Monet realized that a painting which was made on the open air, has a unique freshness and liveliness, which is unable to be achieved when working in the workshop, where artist plans the painting beforehand. Monet advised artists to rebuild the impression of image perception substituting routine objects by some naive…

References

Hannoosh, M. Delacroix, E. 1995.Painting and the Journal of Eugene Delacroix. Princeton University Press

Jobert, B. 1998. Delacroix. Princeton University Press

Schapiro, M. 1997.Impressionism: Reflections and Perceptions. George Braziller

Forge, a. 1995.Monet Art Institute of Chicago (Artists in Focus).Harry N

Art Memo

We are a company at the head of the fashion industry. Our image is crucial to our success. The appearance, the environment, the overall decor, and the ambiance of our office space is what sends the first messages to our clients. If we expect consumers to value their appearance, then it is up to us to be role models for fashion sense and sensibility.

Therefore, I propose the installation of six major works of art in our corporate office space. Each of these six works of art is carefully selected because it reflects the vibe and mission of our company. The colors, the tone, and the style of the artwork matches our corporate vision. In this memorandum, I will list and describe the six works of art, telling you why these pieces reflect our image.

Camille Pissarro's "Apple Tree at Eragny"

This richly textured painting conveys a sense…

References

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2011). Impressionism: Art and Modernity. Retrieved online:  http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm 

Pioch, N. (2006). Impressionism. Retrieved online:  http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint /' target='_blank' REL='NOFOLLOW'>

Western Art and Christianity

During the past millennium, Western art has been heavily influenced by Christianity. Art is an extension of the many complex thoughts and images that swim within an artist's mind. Because many Western artists have traditionally been raised in a Christian environment, it is difficult for their religious beliefs to be fully separated from their artwork, and oftentimes it is embraced in the works, or a patron has requested it be the specific subject matter. Although this heavy Christian influence would see a swift departure during the Renaissance, it would remain engrained in Western culture until the present day.

The Reformation heralded a swift separation between Christians in Europe, as Roman Catholics and Protestants divided roughly along a North to South split. Protestants seemed to dominate the North while the South remained dominated by Catholic countries. While much of the art in Protestant countries retained a secular…

Advertisement

One of the best examples of one of the world's most respected artists will be on display for all to see at the Art Now Gallery grand opening ceremony in Hometown, USA. Claude Monet, one of the leading figures of the Impressionist art movement that flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century, painted a series of water lilies using stunning colors and brush techniques. One of his water lilies paintings is currently on loan to the Art Now Gallery from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the canvas will be on display to the public for the next two months. This is an opportunity you will not want to miss, as small galleries such as this rarely receive such high-profile works of art. Unless you have the chance to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or the Orsay in Paris, you might not…

art is changed by the changes that occur in political culture. The writer presents examples and contrasts two of the following areas Baroque, ococo, Neoclassicism, and omanticism and argues the point of how the eras drive changes in artwork. In addition the writer devotes two pages to comparing three works of famous artists.

Art has always been influenced by the masses. Political culture, and change have been driving forces behind the changes in art that history has witnessed. When political and cultural changes occur it is generally because of changing attitudes of those who live in the era and drive those changes. This extrapolates to changes in many things including taste in artwork. Two periods in history provide classic examples of such change occurring and being directly related to political and cultural changes that were taking place in society during the time.

The Neoclassical period and the omantic era are…

REFERENCES

Grainstack 1891

http://www.oceansbridge.com/art/customer/product.php?productid=38385& cat=4037& page=19& maincat=M

Pierre Bonnard The Terrace

 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/scpa/hob_68.1.htm

Perhaps one of the best description of the painting is made by the painter himself in a letter to his brother: "I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto . . . And the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too."

With Monet, La Grenouillere seems a simple artistic exercise, an expression of his creative style in a purely rational manner. The combination between a realistic expression of the external environment and his capacity to innovate comes naturally in this case: there are people on a boat on the water, with trees surrounding them and the sky above them. The people are barely sketched, but this is in no way an expression of mental disorder, because it fits wonderfully in the work and…

Bibliography

1. Callow, Philip. Vincent van Gogh: A Life, Ivan R. Dee, 1990

2. Beaujean, Dieter. Vincent van Gogh: Life and Work. Konemann, 1999

3. Bernier, Roland. Monument, Moment, and Memory: Monet's Cathedral in Fin De Siecle France. Bucknell University Press. 2007.

4. Charles Merrill Mount. Monet a biography. Simon and Schuster. 1966

Artwork Piece at a Museum

One of the most impressive pieces showed in the Denver Art Museum is a painting by Claude Monet entitled "Le Bassin des Nympheas," made in 1904. "Among the museum's regular holdings are John DeAndrea's sexy, soothing, life-size polyvinyl painting "Linda" (1983), Claude Monet's dreamy flowerscape "Le Bassin des Nympheas" (1904), and Charles Deas' red-cowboy-on-horseback "Long Jakes, The Rocky Mountain Man "(1844)." This inclusion among the top three most requested pieces of the museum testifies to its grace and technical beauty, things that make it such a memorable painting.

Monet was part of a group of painters who rejected the "approved" way of painting of the day in their search for something else. "The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting " en plein air." They used short, "broken" brush strokes of pure and unmixed colour, not smoothly…

Sources:

Author not available, "Monet, the Seine and Normandy," "Vernon, Giverny... passionately" Copyright vernon-visite.org 2005, May 2005, retrieved July 28th, 2006

http://www.vernon-visite.org/rgb3/monet_seine_normandy.htm

Author not available, "MONET, CLAUDE," The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2006, Copyright 2006 Columbia University Press, retrieved July 28th, 2006  http://www.highbeam.com/ref/doc3.asp?docid=1E1:Monet-Cl&refid=gg_x_01 

Author not available, "Impressionism," Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, July 27, 2006. Retrieved: July 28th, 2006.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism

The figures of people, carriages, etc. are "washed-out," they are as small as ants are. The method of reflecting motion and dynamics of routine life by "washed-out effect" was borrowed "from a new invention of photography" (Schapiro 81). Photographic cameras of that epoch were not sensitive for picturing motion, so all objects in motion were "washed-out."

Some impressionists, for example Edgar Degas (1834-1917), were influenced by ethnic painting techniques such as Chinese and Japanese graphics, characterized by striking representation of shape and figures. Degas continued Monet's experiments with light and reflection of motion. Many of his paintings were influenced by other methods similar to photography: uncommon visual angles and asymmetric perspectives, which can be observed in such paintings as a Carriage at the aces (1872), Ballet ehearsal (1876) characterized by unusual visual solution and geometric interpretation.

Auguste enoir (1841-19191), father of Impressionism, became famous for his mass portraits. enoir's Impressionism…

References

Sayre, Henry M.A world of art Prentice Hall; 4 thedition 2004

Schapiro, M. 1997.Impressionism: Reflections and Perceptions. George Braziller

The Impressionists, Article from web resource:  http://www.biography.com /impressionists/artists_morisot.html' target='_blank' REL='NOFOLLOW'>

ealism, Impressionism, and Nineteenth-Century Photography

The Village Maidens

Artist

Gustave Courbet

Date the Piece was Created

Art Movement and/or Style Media

ealism / Oil Paint

Description and Analysis

This 1852 painting, which sparked the creation of a collection of pictures dedicated to women's lives, depicts the artist's three sisters -- Juliette, Zoe and Zelie -- taking a stroll along the Communal-- a little valley close to Ornans (their native village) (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016). Despite nothing of significance being depicted in this painting, it tells a story. Courbet uses a dark and dull color tone and the overall painting is neither overly dark nor overly bright. The weather may be taken to be pleasant and warm, considering the clear sky Courbet portrays in the painting's background. His brush strokes and paint choice impart a realistic texture and tone to the picture. As no activity is shown in the…

References

Galbreat, D. (2014, July 26). Style Guide. Retrieved March 12, 2016, from Prezi:  https://prezi.com/oumm1aqj4lmq/style-guide/ 

Pioch, N. (2002, September 19). Monet, Claude: Image Bathing at La Grenouillere. Retrieved March 12, 2016, from  https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/early/bathing/ 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2016). Young Ladies of the Village. Retrieved March 12, 2016, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art:  https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/40.175/ 

The National Gallery. (2016). Bathers at La Grenouillere. Retrieved March 2016, 2016, from The National Gallery:  http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/claude-monet-bathers-at-la-grenouillere

He began with very fuzzy looking works of light and sun, then began to paint more sharply drawn works, especially of women. His earliest works have urban subjects. They are typical "Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light," but by "the mid-1880s," Renior "had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women" such as his "Bathers," painted slowly over the course of the years of 1884-87. (Picoch, 2002)

Edgar Degas -- representing movement and the working class

Of all the Impressionists, Edgar Degas is acknowledged as the master of drawing the human figure in motion. Degas worked in many mediums, preferring pastels to oils. He is perhaps best known for his paintings, drawings, and bronzes of ballerinas and of race horses. Movement's ability to engage in the expressive aims of impressionism is what is important.…

Works Cited

Burns, Sarah. "Cassatt, Mary." World Book Online Reference Center. 2005. World Book, Inc. .[12 Aug 2005]

'Camille Pissarro." Encyclopedia Britannica. 1994. Web Museum Paris.  http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint /' target='_blank' REL='NOFOLLOW'>

And yet, it is also important to understand that not everyone criticized Manet, for it was also Dejeuner which set the stage for the advent of Impressionism.

Indeed, Manet emerged as something of an enfant terrible in the Parisian art scene of this era. In the same year, he would also produce Olympia, another painting featuring a female nude that would become the centre of much controversy. Olympia caused a major uproar when it was first exhibited in 1865 at the Salon in Paris. Despite the fact that it calls to mind the classical images of Giorgione (Venus Sleeping), Titian (Venus of Urbino), and Ingres (Odalisque with a Slave), the public was outraged by Manet's depiction of a common prostitute laying nude on a bed. A black female servant stares at her as she fixes the Madame's bed, while a black cat stands on edge at the end of the…

Bibliography

Hughes, R. 1990, Nothing if Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists, Penguin

Books, New York.

JSS Gallery 2005, Edouard Manet's Olympia, Available at http://www.jssgallery.org/other_artists/Manet/Olympia.htm#Top

Kapos, M. 1995, the Impressionists and Their Legacy, Barnes & Noble Books

Everything influences its surroundings, and is influenced by them. In short, it all shimmers together in the light, glowing softly from within and without. It was Renoir's challenge to freeze the changing light and varying tones in pigment, an altogether bold step toward observing ordinary things under certain spell.

his pair, Monet and Renoir, continued to work together and learn from one another, painting popular river resorts and views of a bustling Paris from outdoors. While Monet attended to the changing patterns of nature, Renoir soon sought out friends and lovers as new subjects in a whole new style of portraiture. More than any of the Impressionists, he was entranced by Paris. He managed to avoid the copyist treatment of what he saw but focused instead upon appearance, allowing the viewer to respond with immediate pleasure. "Pleasure" may be described as Renoir's artistic goal, a far cry from Realism's toiling…

The Impressionists considered themselves realists because they remained true to their senses, even though they disregarded many of the traditional techniques for representing whatever was "out there." They had no use for the "exact" reproduction of an object for its own sake, and decried any demands that they capture "objective" reality. The importance of rendering objects declined, while attempts to represent the subjective grew. Through Impressionism, the definition of realism was transformed into subjective realism, and the ultimate subjectivity of modem art was born.

Impressionism is classified as a movement of Fine Arts, but it also influenced other forms of artistic expression, as literature and music also evolved under this movement. Under the influence of Impressionism, recreation of objective reality was frowned upon and replaced by the response of a piece to actual experience. The Fine Arts School found this theory more suitable for blurred and often vague objects; through a flurry of short strokes of pure and bright colors. Sculpture also soon reflected this style with partially modeled volumes, and roughened surfaces to create uneven displays of light.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) and his early work "Impression: Sunrise" is identified as the source of the name for the new vivid hues and fluent brush strokes, while Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Camille Pissaro (1830-1903), Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) followed with their own unforgettable Impressions. The world of man-created images was never the same!

Monet used brushstrokes and many shades of vivid greens and pinks to portray the garden as if it were viewed through a mist.

In 1910, English writer oger Fry coined the phrase "post impressionism" as he organized an exhibition in London (Shone, 1979, p. 9). Just as the paintings of the impressionists caused a scandal in the art world some forty years earlier, the post impressionist work of artists such as Gaugin and Van Gogh "outraged all notions of what good painting should be" (Shone, p. 9).

The post-impression movement included, in addition to Gaugin and Van Gogh, artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, and the later work of Cezanne. Like the Impressionists, these artists used real-life subjects, portraying them with distinct brushstrokes, thick paint, and bright colors. Times were changing, and the post-Impressionists responded by modernizing what the Impressionists had done, imposing more form and structure to show greater depth…

References

Brettell, R.R. (1995). Modern French painting and the art museum. Art Bulletin 77 (2).

Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Hill, I.B. (1980). Paintings of the western world: impressionism. New York: Galley Press.

Shone, R. (1979). The post-impressionists. New York: Galley Press.

UAN LUDVIGON[footnoteRef:1] [1: usan Ludvigson was born in Rice Lake, Wisconsin on February 13, 1942 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin, River Falls in 1965 with majors in English and psychology. he taught English in various Junior high schools before finishing a master's degree in English at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. he began the PhD program in English at the University of outh Carolina, taking classes with James Dickey, but was offered a job at Winthrop University. Ludvigson lives in outh Carolina. And was inducted into the outh Carolina Academy of Authors in 2009.]

The Lilies of Landsford Canal[footnoteRef:2] [2: Landsford Canal is the farthest upstream of a series of canals built on the Catawba and Wateree Rivers to provide a direct water route between the upstate settlements and the towns on the fall line.It is located along the Catawba River in Chester County and Lancaster County…

Sweet Confluence: New and Selected Poems

Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2000

pages 3-4

Nostalgia for the Past

Nostalgia can take many forms, but can perhaps be summarized by the phrase 'appropriating selected aspects of the past for the use of the present'. It tends to involve an emotional or spiritual response to the past rather than a rationalizing one, and as a result is associated with the art of sentiment rather than of intellect. As we shall see, however, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists who made use of nostalgia were prepared to shape its appeal in intellectual as well as purely sentimental or aesthetic forms.

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) was a passionately political artist, a proponent of history painting in its most elevated form and of the neoclassicist aesthetic. His 'The Oath of the Horatii' of 1784 (Louvre, Paris) depicts a scene from the Roman historian Livy: the three Horatii brothers pledge to fight the three Curiatii brothers in order to settle a dispute between…

Luncheon of the Boating Party

Pierre Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir saw an abundance of beautiful things in the world and his paintings expressed a never-ending sense of joy and discovery. ith his brilliant use of natural light and color, he shows the extraordinary splendor of everyday life. A prime example of the artist's ability to capture the joy of a single moment on canvas can be seen in The Luncheon of the Boating Party. This painting depicts the carefree gathering of French revelers, having just concluded a convivial meal. Renoir recreates the beauty of the river scene with the posing of models, all friends of the artist; his use of vibrant color applied in small brush strokes to recreate natural light and a richness in texture, and his use of contrasting white with black. All these elements come together to show one of life's greatest pleasures; the joy of eating…

Works Cited

Expo-Renoir.com (Website)

Rathbone, Elizabeth. "Renoir's Celebration of Luncheon of the Boating Party:" Tradition and New." Impressionist on the Seine. Washington: Counterpoint, 1996.(Monograph)

Renoir, Jean. Renoir, My Father. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1962. (Biography)

Genevoix, Maurice. "Why I Love Renoir." Reprinted in Daulte, Francois. Renoir, The Great

Symbolism first developed in poetry, where it spawned free verse. Forefathers included the poets Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud; practitioners included Laforgue, Moreas, and Regnier. The Swiss artist Arnold Becklin is perhaps the most well-known Symbolist painter; his pictures are like allegories without keys, drenched in melancholy and mystery. Other artists working in this vein include Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau. The Surrealists drew heavily on the Symbolists later on.

Catalan Artists

Catalan masters played a major role in the development of 20th Century modern art in many fields. For example, modernism expressed by Gaudi, Rusinol, Gimeno, Camarasa, Picasso, Nonell or Miro epitomized the efforts of the Catalan people. Still, most of them expressed their talents outside Spain in Paris where many of them lived and worked before going home to continue their expression. Like anyone honing a craft, they needed a foundation of knowledge for their art and Paris offered…

Works Cited

2000. Catalan Masters. Available at http://www.artcult.com/na125.html" http://www.artcult.com/na125.html. Accessed on 9 January 2005.

2002. Notes on Picasso: Important Terms, People, and Events. Available at  http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/archives/2002/opparch02-281.html . Accessed January 2005.

Art Nouveau in Catalonia. Available at http://www.gaudialigaudi.com/A0003.htm;. Accessed 9 January 2005.

Catalan Painting. Available at  http://www.mnac.es/eng/dinou/s6.htm . Accessed January 2005.

Impressionism vs. Post-Impressionism

Impressionism vs. Post

This paper will explore impressionism vs. post-impressionism including the influences of each on each other and society, and the effects of each other on the 19th century. The paper will ascertain how one period revived or continued the style and characteristics of the other, or how one period originated in reaction to the other. Impressionist paintings tended to focus less on detail and more on making impressions of form and figure, as the name implies. The brush strokes were less inclined to add detail and structure or order. Post-impressionists considered this trivial, and created artistic work that was decidedly more expressive according to some; more organized and structured, the Post-Impressionist movement could be best described as a response to the Impressionist movement. Some focused on methods including Pointillism, or the use of dots of color, whereas others used bright fresh colors used by Impressionists…

References:

Brettell, R. 2000. Impression: Painting quickly in France, 1860-1890. New Haven and London: Yale

Denvir, B. 1990. The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of Impressionism. London: Thames and Hudson.

Sweeny, J.J. 1996. Post-Impressionism. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, Microsoft Corp.

Tinterow, G. And Henri Loyrette. 1994. Origins of Impressionism. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

American Splendor

How does an artist communicate? In the paintings of the great classical artists, the colors, expressions of their subject's faces, and the surrounding activities all contributed to a mood and content of the times in which they wrote, as well as their own emotional connection to their painting. During the time of Michelangelo, when the human body was considered an art form his paintings and sculptured were created in fine detail, of beauty and specific realism. At the turn of the 20th century, Artists had a new idea, a new flavor to express in their work. The European art world had been dominated by the Michelangelo, his contemporaries, and his imitators for so long that public sentiment in the art world moved in new directions. In response to, or more aptly in reaction against, Claude Monet shoes a unique style, which communicated the beauty of the content, but…

Resources

Pekar, H. Off the Streets of Cleveland comes American Splendor: The life and times of Harvey Pekar. New York: Doubleday and co. 1986.

Pekar, H. American Splendor #2, Harvey Pekar. 1977

Pekar, H. American Splendor #17, Oregon: Dark Horse Comics. 1993

Art History ime ravel

Our first stop will be the eighteenth century, where we will investigate Neoclassical painting. We will be visiting Sir Joshua Reynolds, as he works on his 1770 oil on canvas "Portrait of a Black Man" -- and we will be asking if the heroic structure of the painting is meant to contain some sort of ideological message, for example asserting the humanity of his subject against the evils of slavery (which was then still common). We should also find out if indeed the portrait is of Dr. Samuel Johnson's servant Francis Barber, as Johnson's progressive attitude in opposing slavery (and his generous treatment of Barber, to whom he left his estate) might explain why this figure is treated heroically in the painting. hen we will visit Jacques-Louis David, as he works on his stark 1793 Neoclassical oil on canvas depiction of "he Death of Marat." We…

The time machine will stop next in the later nineteenth century, when we will investigate some Impressionist painting. Our first stop will be in London in 1875, to interrogate the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler about his oil on canvas study "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket." We will want to interrogate him about the lawsuit that he filed against the art critic John Ruskin, who accused him of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face" with this daring painting. We will also interrogate Whistler as to whether he would consider the painting to be Impressionist or not -- it seems like he may have considered it to be straightforward realism (fading fireworks in the night sky do look like this painting) but chose the obscure subject to illustrate a Wildean idea of art for art's sake. We will then move to Claude Monet's garden at Giverny, where we will attempt to catch him completing his 1897-8 "Nympheas" (one of his famous paintings of water lilies, now in the LA County Museum of Art). Monet is a textbook Impressionist painter, but we will interrogate him as to whether his problems with his own eyesight (he developed cataracts) had any influence on his signature style.

In the first half of the twentieth century, we will investigate Surrealism. We will locate Meret Oppenheim in 1936, as she completes her notorious "Object" -- frequently known as "the fur teacup" or "the furry breakfast." Oppenheim's work is perhaps the most memorable example of Surrealism in sculpture -- but we can ask her if the dream-like associations of the piece (is it intended to be strongly vaginal? does it relate to her status as a woman artist?) were intentional on her part, or whether she was merely giving free rein to her subconscious as Surrealists frequently attempted. Then we will find Salvador Dali in 1954, as he completes his large and disturbing oil on canvas painting "Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized By The Horns Of Her Own Chastity." We can interrogate Dali as to the meaning of the symbolism of the painting: why would the chastity of a virgin take the form of a rhinoceros horn about to penetrate her own anus? Is Dali suggesting that sexual repression is self-destructive?

Finally in the latter half of the

The same thing can be said of painting and other forms of aesthetic art. Art allows us to feel. For example, when we look at DaVinci's Last Supper, we feel something. Claude Monet's ater Lilies provides us with another example of how art can make us feel something. It is important to note that these feelings can be almost anything. They do not have to be positive or negative - it all depends on the artist and the audience.

Art allows us to feel. Tom Anderson maintains that we make art to "make sense of things, to give meaning to our existence" (Anderson). Anderson also states that another reason why we make art is to "communicate something that counts to someone else" (Anderson). "Making art is an attempt to bring order into being, to create something meaningful where nothing existed before" (Anderson). He contends that the "artist's goal is to…

Works Cited

Anderson, Tom. "Why and How We Make Art, with Implications for Art Education." EBSCO Resource Database. Site Accessed February 14, 2008. http://www.searchepnet.com

Anthony Hughes: "Buonarroti, Michelangelo." Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press. Site Accessed February 14, 2008.  http://www.groveart.com.ezproxy.harford.edu/ 

Galef, David. "The Art of Art. Southwest Review. EBSCO Resource Database. Site Accessed February 14, 2008. http://www.searchepnet.com

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It would seem that the artists and the press of the era both recognized a hot commodity when they saw one, and in this pre-Internet/Cable/Hustler era, beautiful women portrayed in a lascivious fashion would naturally appeal to the prurient interests of the men of the day who might well have been personally fed up with the Victorian morals that controlled and dominated their lives otherwise. In this regard, Pyne (2006) reports that, "hen scandalized critics attacked Rodin's nudes, Camera ork defended the drawings by a strategy of veiling the body with the soul, praising them as 'the perception of the mystery of surfaces.... The adventure of the mind in matter... The divinizing of the sensual and the materializing of the sensuous.' Stieglitz thus used a histlerian gloss of shadows and music to mystify the eroticism of Rodin's 'pagan' figures" (44).

The portrayal of women was even regarded as a…

Works Cited

Banta, Martha. Imaging American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.

Clements, Candace. (1992) "The Academy and the Other: Les Graces and Le Genre Galant." Eighteenth-Century Studies 25(4):469-94 in Lathers at 23.

Danto, Arthur C. (1986, December 13). "John Singer Sargent." The Nation 243:679.

Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown, 1925.

NCLB

A Great Idea Gone Astray

No one who cares about the future of our nation can dispute that education is important. And no one should dispute the fact that each child has as a birthright a good education that will allow each child to find a path through life that is meaningful and productive. But how to provide, implement, sustain, and assess such an educational system has proven to be extremely difficult. In part, of course, this difficulty arises from the fact that different individuals, communities, and generations have often very different ideas about what constitutes a sound education. Should public schools seek to educate citizens or train workers? Instill creativity or a work ethic? Urge conformity or individuality? And, even when schools and their stakeholders can determine exactly what it is that they are trying to do, how are they going to be able to assess whether or…

References

Arts education. Retrieved from  http://www.artsusa.org/networks/arts_education/arts_education_015.asp 

No Child Left Behind Leaves Unintended Consequences. (2011). Retreived from http://askprincipaldonna.com/resources/no-child-left-behind-leaves-unintended-aftermath.html

Gustave Courbet, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet 1854.

Works of Art

The world of art includes a picture in a location, someplace in either fictional or real universe. It is usually a view framing a section of space, and occupies an elaborate ground. It forms a vicinity; a scene with entrance and exit. Pictures formed here tend to be a bit precise. The place of the picture is attached to a particular site within the world. Some fixed landmarks and scheduled stop in the art identifies the reasons as to why the picture settled at a given place of the surface earth.

Some other pictures pitch their tents at any place. They have no particular place; it is jut someplace where somebody is. For example, Gustave Courbet's The Meeting reveals three men on a country way doffing their hats. The artist himself is the man with staff and backpack, while the man…

References

Courbet, Gustave, (1992) Letters of Gustave Courbet, University of Chicago Press,

Clark, Timothy J., (1999) Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Danto, Arthur C. (1989) "Courbet," The Nation.

Gustave Courbet (1819). The Meeting, or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, 1854. Oil on canvas.

People often confuse the Expressionists with the Impressionists. Provide a guideline that helps differentiate them. Use technique, artists, and paintings to help state your positions.

As explained by the Economist, an art gallery decided to put the two different art forms side by side so as to show the clear difference between the two. Impressionism happened during the 19th century. The art was typified by brush strokes that were small and narrow. However, the strokes were clearly visible to the naked eye. Light was shown in accurate forms and in the ways it changed depending on the sources of light, what those light sources were and where they were coming from. Artists that typified the Impressionist movement included Claude Monet, Frederick Bazille, Pierre-August enoir and Alfred Sisley. Another big name from the Impressionist movement was Charles Gleyre. The backgrounds for Impressionst paintings were almost always on white or at least…

References

Economist. (2015). Side by side at last. The Economist. Retrieved 19 March 2016, from  http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/05/impressionism-and-expressionism 

HTA. (2016). History, Trade and Art: Art and Artistic Reactions to the Industrial Revolution. Historytradeart.blogspot.com. Retrieved 19 March 2016, from  http://historytradeart.blogspot.com/2010/05/art-and-artistic-reactions-to.html

And the goal of Impressionist painting is always just that -- to given an impression, rather than to suggest a coherent, linear picture of experience. Impressionists depicted emotions and subjective concepts, rather than attempted to convey a singular view. There is no 'point' to Monet's paintings of water lilies; there is merely the artist's reflection on color. The story goes nowhere in "Prelude to the afternoon of a faun," but the atmospheric canvas of light, shade, and sound creates a scene. Backdrops rather than plot; emotions and desires and dreams rather than clear movements characterize this Impressionistic work of art.

The original inspiration of the work was a poem by the French poet Mallmarme. However, the poem's uncertainty and daydream-like quality is not a literal 'synthesis' of the poem (Lloyd 154). Instead, Debussy created something entirely new in his work. The music allows for a greater ambiguity in its composition…

Fern Hill (Dylan Thomas)

The "Poetry Explications" handout from UNC states that a poetry explication is a "relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationship of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem."

The speaker in "Fern Hill" dramatically embraces memories from his childhood days at his uncle's farm, when the world was innocent; the second part brings out the speaker's loss of innocence and transition into manhood. This explication will identify and critique Thomas' tone, imagery (including metaphors) and expressive language (as it contributes to the power of the poem). ("Fern Hill" uses 6 verse paragraphs; there are 9 lines in each paragraph.)

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs / About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green / the night above the dingle starry / time let me hail and climb / golden…

Works Cited

Bible Meanings. (2011). Lamb. Retrieved December 9, 2012, from http://www.biblemeanings.info/words/animal/lamb.htm.

Cox, C.B. (1959). Dylan Thomas's 'Fern Hill.' The Critical Quarterly, 1(2), 134-138.

Thomas, Dylan. (2012). Fern Hill. Academy of American Poets. Retrieved December 9, 2012,

from  http://www.poets.org .