Friday in class...

We'll have two presentations & an art project...remember to look through past blog posts...from March 15th to today...one of these artists will inspire us for our project...

Eiffel Tower

Today is the anniversary of the dedication of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. It was the world's tallest building until the Empire State Building was completed in 1931.

BONUS: What building is CURRENTLY the WORLD'S TALLEST?

Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O'Keefe was born in rural Wisconsin in 1887. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago and studied at the Art Students League of New York.

During the 1920s, her large canvasses of lush overpowering flowers filled the still lifes with dynamic energy and erotic tension, while her cityscapes were testaments to subtle beauty within the most industrial circumstances. O'Keefe preferred to depict the calm and natural among the industrialization and chaos her peers were painting and photographing.

In 1985 she received the Medal of the Arts from President Ronald Reagan. In March of the next year, at the age of 98, O’Keeffe passed away at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Santa Fe

Visit the PBS American Masters Site

O'Keefe on SMARTHISTORY

BONUS: Who were the 2010 National Medal of the Arts Winners?

UP NEXT: Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock THEN... Christo and Jeanne-Claude

New Discovery....

Read the story to find out more ...

"British archaeologists are seeking to authenticate what could be a landmark discovery in the documentation of early Christianity: a trove of 70 lead codices that appear to date from the 1st century CE, which may include key clues to the last days of Jesus' life. As UK Daily Mail reporter Fiona Macrae writes, some researchers are suggesting this could be the most significant find in Christian archeology since the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947".

Alfred Stieglitz

Photography emerged as an art form in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Especially significant in this development was the work of Alfred Stieglitz.His critics said that he was one of the first photographers to realize "the vast photographic potential of the energy and rapid growth of a city".

His photography showed a gritty and realistic view of the city: industrialization, urbanization and polarized social classes. His travels through Europe provided him with an opportunity to photograph the newest artwork and bring the images back to the USA>


Read the PBS American Masters Transcript. Look through the timeline and other tabs at the top of the screen.

He is considered a master of THE GILDED AGE in the USA...the era between the Civil War and WWI.

The Gilded Age in America on Smarthistory gives you a background of painters (John Singer Sargent and James Abbott McNeill Whistler) working in this era.

In 1916 he meets Georgia O'Keefe who later becomes his wife. More about HER in the next post.

1907 The Steerage is his most enduring work (LEFT IMAGE).

Key Dates...

Check out the DIPITY I created to keep track of KEY DATES in Art History...

If you encounter one you think I should add...let me know!

http://www.dipity.com/renemacvay/Key-Dates/

Diego Rivera...Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter (1907-1954) known for her self portraits that depict her inner turmoil.

Kahlo's inspiration comes from her life. She claims that she paints herself as she is the subject she knows best. In her youth she contracted and beat polio. She started her higher education with aspirations of becoming a doctor. Her physical pain started as a result of a traffic accident (being hit by a bus) while in med school in Mexico City.

She met Diego Rivera, an artist 20 years older than she was, while recovering. They had a stormy marriage. Kaho was noted as saying, "The streetcar accident left me crippled physically and Rivera crippled me emotionally". She and Diego Rivera were active in the Communist Party in Mexico and their artwork often reflected their political views.

She has been described as: "…one of history's grand divas…a tequila-slamming, dirty joke-telling smoker, bi-sexual that hobbled about her bohemian barrio in lavish indigenous dress and threw festive dinner parties for the likes of Leon Trotsky, poet Pablo Neruda, Nelson Rockefeller, and her on-again, off-again husband, muralist Diego Rivera.

PBS Life and Times of Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo Museum

Up Next: Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz

Another Husband and Wife Artist Duo...

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Diego Rivera is a Mexican Muralist. His murals depict the working class toiling at back breaking work. One mural he created, Detroit Industry 19320-33, is located at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Rivera visited the USA periodically from 1930-1940 creating murals for public locations and galleries. The rest of his work is located in his home country of Mexico.

Rivera is considered one of the greatest Mexican painters of the 20th century. He reintroduced FRESCO painting into the mainstream art world.

A life long Marxist, Rivera saw fresco an antidote to the elite walls of galleries and museums. Throughout the twenties his fame grew with a number of large murals depicting scenes from Mexican history. His work appealed to the people’s interest in the history of technology and progress. The desire to understand progress was visible in the growing industrial societies of the 1930s, and Rivera saw the workers’ struggle as a symbol of the fragile political ground on which that capitalism trod.

Rivera died at the age of 57. His greatest legacy was his impact on America’s conception of public art. In depicting scenes of American life on public buildings, Rivera provided the first inspiration for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s WPA program.

Coming Up next...his wife FRIDA KAHLO.

Friday March 25th

ROBERT MOTHERWELL...1915-1991
Wednesday we investigated his wife...today we look at Motherwell, the youngest member of the group of artists who founded the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York in the 1940s. He was also an active writer and editor of writings on art. Poetry, philosophy and politics gave him inspiration for his abstract art.

From the 1949 painting, AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, until the end of his life, Motherwell continued his search for a personal and political voice in abstraction. This search produced a body of work that remains a testament to the human soul and its persistence, and to the genre of abstract painting out of which it came. Read the full article about him at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/robert-motherwell/about-robert-motherwell/665/.


Other famous art couples include Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz. We'll look at these couples next.

Wednesday March 23rd

Helen Frankenthaler is an AMERICAN Abstract Expressionist artist who was born in NYC and worked in the 1950's. She married another Abstract Expressionist painter Robert Motherwell.

Frankenthaler's style is called stain painting or drip painting by some. She uses fields of color and allows them to merge into other colors. Often she painted with the canvas on the floor and then applied a diluted oil-based paint directly to the canvas. The color "regions" were meant to imply images. The viewer read into the painting based on their personality and previous experiences. Frankenthaler imagined each time someone viewed her work they would have a different experience.

Abstract Expressionism

Tuesday March 22, 2011

Pieter Cornelis Mondrian was born on March 7th 1872 in Amersvoort in central Holland. His Uncle Fritz was a self-taught painter. Piet's abstract style was NOT similar to his uncle's but, to avoid confusion, Piet signed his paintings with his full name, rather than merely his surname as was the custom.

In 1914 World War I began. Mondrian had returned to Holland to visit his father who was mortally ill. Trapped in Holland, Mondrian would not see Paris for four years because of the war, his equipment and paintings still in Paris. During the war he moved to Laren, an artist's community. Mondrian started to write a few articles for a magazine called "De Stijl" AKA The Style.

The De Stijl community was a group of artists, architects and sculptors that worked together to create a new society that would be in tune with "the laws of the universe". They believed their art should be clear in form and spiritual, as opposed to earthly. Natural forms were earthly, straight lines and angles spiritual. Thus "it would not be impossible to create a paradise on Earth", they said.

Now De Stijl is known as an art movement, almost synonymous with the red, yellow and blue neo-plasticism paintings of Piet Mondrian.

Watch the Smarthistory Video about Mondrian.

Monday March 21st

Today we continued to watch Engineering an Empire Paris. We concluded with a review from our workbook (Chapters 19-24).

Tomorrow:
Quiz on 19-24. MC's are due as well. Format: Slide Based, Short Answer Questions.

Continued discussion of 21-24 and start of presentations.

Wednesday and Friday
We'll transition into chapters 28 and 29 as well with lecture and student presentations. Bernini video as well.

Workbook assignments are due to turnitin.com on Wednesday and Saturday. Discussions on turinitin.com by Sundays.

Check the blog post daily for profiles of artists or art movements. We'll do come class activities based upon the posts.

BONUS: Image above is The Village Bride by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. From what art historical period would you categorize this? Explain your answer.

Monday March 14th

Tomorrow we'll have our first assessment on Chapters 21 and 22. Bring in your Chapter 21/22 MC as well. Tomorrow ALL multiple choice. Next week...weighted more on short answer, times responses.

The Artist Wanted project is due WEDNESDAY ...unclear language was changed today...UPDATED?REVISED document attached to the website.

Each Tuesday till break we'll have an assessment.

The MC for 23 and 24 are posted under key documents

For your planning the assignments for the last 4 chapters are being uploaded to turnitin.com. As always, they are due by 11:59 PM that night.
Don't forget about the weekly turnitin.com discussion forum.

Reading and Workbook Assignments:

Chapter 28
Answer the following (imagine your reader knows nothing...you must TEACH your reader) Discussion Questions:
UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS
Page 132#'s 2,3 (By Saturday 3-19) 4,6 (By Wednesday 3-23 at 11:59 PM)

Chapter 29
Answer the following (imagine your reader knows nothing...you must TEACH your reader) Discussion Questions:
UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS
For Saturday 3-26-11 #'s 4,5, and 7
For Wednesday 3-30-11 #'s 9 and 10

Chapter 33
Answer the following (imagine your reader knows nothing...you must TEACH your reader) Discussion Questions:
UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS
For Saturday 4-2-11 #'s 1 and 5
For Wednesday 4-6-11 #8 and page 192 Emigres and Exiles (turn in in class the Emigres and Exiles, Upload #8 to turnitin.com by 11:59 PM)

Chapter 34
Answer the following (imagine your reader knows nothing...you must TEACH your reader) Discussion Questions:
UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS
For Saturday 4-9-11 #'s 3,6,8
For Wednesday 4-15-11 #11 and Looking Carefully