Dadaism!!

Possibly one of the most unique types of art you will come across in history. You'll find most of it done in the 1910s to 1920s and started in Switzerland. It gave a very different meaning to art, and it's that is all phrased up into a question, "Who said it has to have meaning?" and that's what Tristan Tzara said and it's what went. He believed art should be whatever you make it, although the form the dadist made their art was did not take to well with the public. Many found the art offensive due to it's so-called mockery of "real" art. Not only was it an anti-meaning type deal, but it also had an anti-war aspect to it that really shot them up to fame.

Dada Artists include:
Tzara
Duchamp
Hoch
Schuuitters
Ernst
Arp

For more information on Dadaism and the artists visit this website: http://wwar.com/masters/movements/dadaism.html

Interwar Art Movements

Getting back into the "real" art, when we look into the interwar art era what do we see? Numerous art movements that have affected todays society. Lets start with the innovator of them all, Modernism:

1916-1940
The principles of Modernism were to keep the artist's right to freedom of choice in style. Artists also complained that paintings should not always have to be a literal representation but give actual meaning. In a sense, it was revolting against the present society.

The ideas of Modernism soon led to various other movements for example; Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Precisionism, Surrealism, Bauhaus and Art Deco.

In following posts, I will be going in depth on each one of these.

Art Form?

How would you describe art?

Would art include music? how about poetry? Recently, I have not only been keeping to the epitomy of art: paintings. I have also been working on poetry and how art can be incorporated into that, perhaps it initially is. Here is a poem that I made back in 2007 called Sonnet Hymn:

Music comes in many shapes and sizes

from Beethoven, Mozart to 50-Cent

and in every song there are surprises

and you'll find yourself saying time well spent

Not only do they spark your emotions

They will alter your personality

They can even calm the raging oceans

and save you from sentimentality

some people say music taints the soul

well I say its revolutionary

Something that's definitely worth the toll

So music is evolutionary

Listen to it, eat it, sleep it, dream it

Now leave me to my music and split

Now you probably noticed that this was a sonnet, spite the name of the song, and the main message was about just enjoying music. I went ahead and proved myself wrong that there is no vise-versa to the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" because words can also create a plethora of pictures. With that, I present you my digital art piece, interpreted from my poem

Liberty Leading the People

Look at this painting and ask yourself, what do you see?

Delacroix painted this at the age of 42 for a political poster for the 1830 Revolution. It was inspired by good friend, Theodore Gericault's Raft of Medusa (connections unidentafiable).
This is known to be one of the few to purely exemplify Romantic art by Delacroix. The message behind the piece is all about liberty for the people hence the name "Liberty Leading the People". Delacroix was not afraid to put color straight in the foreground or nudity or himself, he did all these things because he was leading Romanticism to fame. Shame, the government was so taken aback, they had planned to buy the painting but after seeing it they wanted it burned! It was only viewed to the public 18 years later in the Revolution. Delacroix did not forget to put detail in every last spot, whether it the corpses sprawled around the foreground or the crowd and town in the background. As I said before it was also made very apparent that he added a variety of color in the painting, for instance Liberty’s yellow dress, the country’s flags, and blue clothing in foreground.

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“If I haven’t fought for my country at least I’ll paint for her" - Eugene Delacroix

19th Century Artist: Delacroix

How much do you know about the famous Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix? Well, you'll be learning alot because I'm going to be doing research into his art work and life. First, I'd like to give a brief description of him so you get a better understanding of him.

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix was born in a town near Paris, France called Charenton Saint-Maurice on 1789. He started art early in life doing small drawings but later in his education at Lycee Louis-le-Grande, he had found his first professional art trainer named Pierre Guerin. In those
teachings he laerned a Neo-Classical style of the highly influencial Jacques-Louis David. In his art studies Delacroix had found wonder in a particulary new art style emerging at the time called Romanticism. Two artists that he admired specifically were French painter Peter Paul Reubins and Italian painter Paolo Veronese whos styles were unique beyond compare using colors to give their painting a new and warmer feel to them. Then he sought after his friend, Theodore Gericault's path whose work was the epitomy what Romanticism stands for. That's where ideas started flying in Delacroix's head and he was able to paint his first professional art piece accepted by Paris Salon called "The Barque of Dante". It's content was very controversial but the style was not new to the people, because the story of the painting had taken place way back in Ancient Greek times.

But that's only the start, in my next post, I will be analyzing Delacroix's paintings!

Painting Pigments

So have you ever wondered what's used to create tempura paint?

It’s pigments! Pigments are dry coloring matter, usually an insoluble powder, which can be mixed with water, oil or another base to generate paint or similar products. When pigments were first discovered in ground clay and plants it was pulverized then liquid was added turning it into useable paint. Today it’s not so easy, they are currently produced through advanced chemical engineering.

So what do most paintings all have in common? Simple, the paint consists of ground up pigment in some sort of liquid. Historical proof shows that mankind has been utilizing this ever since the prehistoric era. Prehistoric dwellers discovered that iron oxide (a mineral pigment) being red, the most durable color, was an ideal pigment to use because of its durability and long lasting ability. This caused men to travel long distances to encounter hermatite deposits, which are the source of iron ore pigments, and this actually started some popularity in mining activity. Then many years later iron oxide was still popular among ancient artisans from Egypt all the way into Asia. Still remaining firm in the Middle Ages, iron oxide pigments were used in experimental ways, for example in the Renaissance artists would use these mineral pigments to create chalk. The chalk was made fresh after the pigment was dug, then knives were used to carve to perfection. This art method was used all the way to the 20th century and used by famous artists, one of which was Michaelangelo.

Today there are different types of pigments, for instance organic and inorganic. Inorganic as explained before is naturally mined, synthetically manufactured or a combination of those two process, an example of an inorganic pigment would be iron oxide. Synthetic organic pigments are carbon based molecules manufactured from petroleum compounds, acids, and other chemicals, generally under concentrated heat or pressure. These methods were invented in the mid 19th century and the technology has only progressed from there.

Pigments aren’t always as useful as they sound. Depending on the manufacturing process, some pigments are not right for the job. One attribute that artists or paint-makers might want to look out for is toxicity. Older paint pigments contain materials that are highly toxic, some of those toxins include lead, arsenite, chromates, zinc sulfide and antimony. Although some are still sold in stores, many were banned because of the current legality on the health hazards. Most artists tend to stay away from paint like this, some also say that it affects their paintings and the texture of the paint.

What have we learned? All paint consists of three important materials: colored particles, a medium to bind the pigment and most importantly the pigment itself. Without the pigment what would you have? A colorless world.

Art! My experiences

I have taken a couple art classes where I have picked up different skills from each one. I have taken two general art classes and one marine biology art class and they were partially essential to my success in art today. Why I say partially is because most of my experience comes from art done in my free time, and in my opinion that's when you get the most out of art, when you do it just for fun.