Favorite Smiles in Art

As I was searching the internet, I came across the Guardian's slide show about favorite SMILES in art. The Mona Lisa's smile has been talked about for years.

Edvard Munch's The Scream in NOT a smile. As you review for the AP TEST...notice how expressive faces and one's body language communicate to the viewers of an artwork.

Animals in Art

The Arnolfini Wedding and Las Meninas contain dogs. Scholars believe the Arnolfini Wedding is a marriage portrait while Las Meninas (Ladies in Waiting) is a portrait of the Spanish Princess Margarita.

Dogs have often been viewed as signs of FIDELITY. The dog in The Arnolfini Wedding could symbolize the couple adhering to their marriage vows while the dog in Las Meninas could symbolize the companionship of the ladies in waiting to the princess. The dog is a symbol of their loyalty to her.

Doves are viewed often in religious paintings as a symbol of the Holy Spirit or of peace. Jan van Eyck's closed Ghent Altarpiece displays the dove appearing to Mary and giving her the news that she will bear Jesus.

Cats have been given a mixed reputation in art. In the Egyptian culture cats were viewed as eternal companions of pharaoh's. Cats were embalmed with their masters and taklen with them to the afterlife. In more modern times, Manet's Olympia contains a black cat, a symbol of lewdness in Paris of the late 1800s. Warhol commercialized cats in the mid 1900's with his Pop Art rendition of the felines.

Westminster Abbey...an English Gothic Church

Watching the Royal Wedding today I was in awe of the architecture of Westminster Abbey, an English Gothic Church founded in 960. According to the church's website, the abbey is "a treasure house of paintings, stained glass, pavements, textiles and other artifacts". The beautiful icons, elaborate altarpieces and ornate decorations were constructed with attention to each and every detail.

Romanesque and Gothic architecture has regional variations. English Gothic Architecture is detailed on www.smarthistory.com. Gothic architecture is built TALL to allow for LIGHT to enter. It is a tall and slim church structure with pointed arches, ribbed vaults and stained glass windows. Gothic churches were large enough to allow for the growing number of faithful to be included within the building.

Mosaics, Murals and Tapestries

The Roman Empire was a time for creation of MOSAICS. They lined the floors for decoration as well as for a cleans walkway, as opposed to walking over dirt floors.

Check out NOVA for glimpses of Mosaics from their LOST ROMAN TREASURE episode.
Watch Rome Reborn for a recreation of the city at the time of the creation of the mosaics.

Mosaics were popular forms of decoration in Early Christian Churches as well. Justinian and Theodora were memorialized in mosaics in the church of San Vitale.


MURALS were not only a means to decorate a wall, either interior or exterior. Murals were also a method of communicating with the public. They depicted the city's great accomplishments such as Diego Rivera's the Detroit Industry Mural inside the Detroit Institute of Arts. Visit Diego Rivera's Virtual Web Museum to learn more about this mural as well as others he created in his home country of Mexico.


TAPESTRIES were used as decorative elements in medieval castles. The tapestries were not only decorative but functional; they serves as heating and cooling elements along the cement and stone walls of castles and fortresses. They were generally enormous in size and took years to create. Two well known tapestries of the era include the Bayeux Tapestry and the Unicorn Tapestry.

Medieval Art

Medieval Art...art between the GLORY days of Greece and Rome and before the Renaissance. This era often gets overlooked in our studies. It contains numerous works on paper as well as decorative elements.

Where can you search for a plethora of images of MEDIEVAL ART in the internet? How can one best understand this era of increasing regional identity?

First, look to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Augsburg Display Cabinet is a great interactive display - the cabinet itself acts like a mini art museum in a home.

Smarthistory chronicles the emergence of Christian Art in this era.

Les Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry explained on this university of Chicago site.

Medieval Jewish Art is on display at the MET. Many works of art in this era are Christian in theme as Christianity had been underground until Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the empire in the 300s. The Met's collection of Thematic Essays contains scholarship about ANIMALS used in art at the time, manuscripts, armor, the cult of the Virgin Mary and more.

Dunae Hansen...Sculptures

Look at the Saatchi Gallery for works by Duane Hansen (1925-1996). His work is classified as VERISTIC with a commercial/social context twist. His early works dealt with physical violence or social issues, his later work seems to portray passive, isolated figures as victims of society and negative values.

When one encounters his sculptures in a museum they are thrown aback. The people are life size. The only thing that separates the sculptures from museum visitors today is the clothing and hairstyles the sculptures wear. The clothing and hairstyles reflect the era in which they were created, not 2011.

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh came to painting after his attempts at other careers did not work. He explored the idea of following in his father's footsteps as a preacher but was unsuccessful. He created a large body of work during his career but only found success posthumously. During his lifetime he sold only one work of art(pictured here), Red Vineyard in Arles. Art historians classify him as a POST-IMPRESSIONIST artist. His thick application of paint, often with a palette knife, is called IMPASTO technique.

One of Van Gogh's most well known artworks, on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is Starry Night (1889). Watch the Smarthistory discussion of this work.

The Masterpiece Cards Blog explores Vincent Van Gogh and his relationship with other artists of his day.

View his work at the National Gallery of Art
Read more about his life and his mental breakdown on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website

Chuck Close, An American Portraitist

Chuck Close is a painter, photographer, printmaker and builder. He is known to be more interested in the PROCESS of creation than the final product. (Right image is a 1997 Self Portrait)

Close studied art at Yale University and then traveled to Vienna. He is fascinated with the human face and tried to find new and expressive means to represent the face and the person behind the face. Close works from a wheel chair as a result of a spinal cord injury. His attention to detail is remarkable as he finds precision while working with a paintbrush affixed to his arm! Perhaps his physical limitations have enabled him extra perception to capture the true essence of his sitter, albeit through his innovative means. (Left image 2005 Photo of Close working courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)

NPR interview with Close

University of Washington Biography "Close Call"

More Andy Warhol

I overlooked a great resource on Warhol. Check out The Masterpiece Cards Blog about Andy Warhol and the Gold Marilyn we discussed in class this week.

Andy Warhol

This week we'll be reviewing for the AP Test...tomorrow our LAST class test. Check back daily for review information. Check www.turnitin.com discussions daily over break.

Andy Warhol Museum
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Warhol was a creative spirit involved not only in painting but also in printmaking and film making. is a key figure in the POP ART movement. He is well known for his phrase everyone gets their "15 minutes of fame". He turned everyday objects into art. The height of his career was in the 1960s when he produced artwork of ICONS such as Elvis, Campbell's Soup and Marilyn Monroe via the SILKSCREEN method. Warhol's art commented on the consumer culture in America that evolved in his lifetime. He displays famous people as well as popular household products as his artwork, forever engraving the images into people's psyche.



Smarthistory video about Marilyn Monroe

APAH Upcoming Assignments and Harlem Renaissance

Tuesday's Test will cover 28-29-33, the following Tuesday 34 will be included. The Museum Catalog for Chapter 33 and 34 is Due TUESDAY APRIL 19th with the last test.

Our GOAL: Discuss new material this week, review next.

Any LATE Turnitin.com submissions, since grades were posted, need to be told to me so that I know to go back and look at them.

Harlem Renaissance artists and musicians worked in New York in the 1920s. The PBS Series Art & Culture does a great job giving the historical background of this movement. The artists sought to incorporate, and celebrate, their cultural traditions within the frameworks of the mainstream American society. According to Howard University Professor Alain Locke, artists of the Harlem Renaissance rejected "landscapes for the figurative, rural scenes for urban and focused on class, culture and Africa to bring ethnic consciousness into art and create a new black identity".

Main Representatives of this group included:
* Aaron Douglas
* Lois Mailou Jones
* Palmer Hayden
* Sargent Claude Johnson
* William H Johnson
* Jacob Lawrence
* Romare Bearden
* Archibald Motley
* Ernie Barnes
* Charles Sebree
* Beauford Delaney
* John Biggers
* Hale Woodruff

Pablo Picasso

Died in France April 8, 1973 ... 38 years ago today. The revolutionary artist brought CUBISM to the world in 1907 with Les Demoiselles d' Avignon. His 1937 painting entitled Guernica was his reaction to the German attack on Guernica Spain during the Spanish Civil War. His style varied through the the years, often fitting his mood. He went through a monochromatic "Blue Period" where all images were blue in hue, matching his mood. He experienced a "Rose Period" as well as painted Harlequin figures, line drawings and made ceramics.

Picasso will forever be known as an innovative artist who had a LONG Career. He changed his style to stay relevant, like Madonna and a few other musical artists are able to to today. He was a ladies man throughout his life and a recluse in his later years.

Visit the National Gallery of Art's website to learn about conservation efforts that show how Picasso RECYCLED canvas...X-RAY technology reveals paintings previously painted on the canvas.

Read more about Picasso on Smarthistory

Lee Krasner...many "FIRSTS" in her life

Lenore Krassner was born October 27, 1908 in New York City to immigrants from Odessa. Lee Krasner's parents were hard working immigrants. As Jewish immigrant small-business owners in NYC,they set an example of hard work and dedication for their children.

Lee was accepted into art school, not an easy task for a woman in the early 1900s in the USA. She attended Cooper Union and and National Academy of Design, a place where she also taught. Graduating in the midst of the Depression, Krasner worked a series of odd jobs before acquiring a job with the Works Projects Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project in 1934. The project employed artists to teach art, illustrate textbooks, and create paintings, sculpture, mosaics, and stained glass decorations for public buildings. Krasner held various positions for the project, from illustrating a marine biology textbook to executing murals for public buildings.

In the 1930s her style moved more toward abstraction. In the 1940's she started exhibiting with American Abstract Artists group. Her first exhibition season culminated in an invitation from John Graham to participate in “American and French Paintings” at the McMillen Gallery in New York. The exhibit proved a watershed for both the art world and for Krasner’s personal world. For the first time in art history, such American “unknowns” as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Lee Krasner hung beside European masters. At this event, she also met her future husband, Jackson Pollock.

The girl born Lonore Krassner became the woman Lee Krasner. The first of her family born in the USA as well as an American Pioneer of Abstract Art.

For more information...visit the Pollock/Krasner House
UP NEXT-Jackson Pollock...her husband...a Kinetic artist who drank a bit too much...

BONUS...What is WPA Art? How did it start? Who was involved?

Two Tahitian Women

by Gaugin was attached at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. on Friday. Why did someone attack this work of art?Read the story and visit the NGA website to learn more about the REST of the traveling exhibition.

BONUS: Watch the videos related to this exhibition. What 5 things did you learn about Gaugin and the Post Impressionists?

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are a married couple and an artistic team. Since the 1950s, they have created site specific, temporary, outdoor installations. They have two works in progress.

According to their website, Over The River is a temporary work of art in which Christo plans to suspend 5.9 miles of silvery, luminous fabric panels high above the Arkansas River along a 42-mile stretch of the river between Salida and Cañon City in south-central Colorado.

Currently work is in progress to obtain the necessary permits so that Christo's team can begin the installation process. He is hoping to exhibit Over The River for two consecutive weeks in August, 2014.

The second work in progress is a project conceived in 1977 but being made into reality currently. The Mastaba will be a work of art made of approximately 410,000 horizontally stacked oil barrels.

April Bonus

Due the last Friday of Easter break (4-29-11) ... email to my yahoo account by NOON:

TOPIC: ARCHITECTURE

Take pictures of churches/homes/buildings in San Diego that relate to ARCHITECTURE in our book.

For example, do you come across a house in San Diego that seems to be inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright? Are there any homes that make you think they were inspired by Le Corbusier? Are there any buildings that have been inspired by the Reliance Building in Chicago?

Include your image (and information about where it is located) and a few sentences connecting your image to one from our book. Send as a WORD document (.doc file).

Limit: 15 images... +2 points each

FREE RICE

log on to freerice.com to answer trivia and give back ... 10 grains of rice for each correct answer...IT ACTUALLY IS A GREAT REVIEW OF FAMOUS PAINTINGS/ARTISTS.

Maybe answer 5-10 questions each day as an AP Review...would take you less than 5 minutes...