Jacques Louis David

About a year ago I developed a brief obsession with Jacques Louis David (1748 - 1825). His work is beautiful and moving and the work I tend to enjoy the most.

He was a very important and influencial French painter in the Neocassical style. His use of color and style actualy paved he way for Rococo art (a quite interesting movememt). He studied at the French Academy in Rome and found many artists that would influence him. During this period two of his paintings were displayed in the Salon of 1781. After the Salon, the King granted David lodging in the Louvre, a much desired privilege of great artists. When the contractor of the King's buildings, M. Pécoul, was arranging with David, he asked the artist to marry his daughter, Marguerite Charlotte. This marriage brought him money and eventually four children.

In 1787 David had wanted to become the director of the French Academy in Rome, ut the count in charge thought he was to young and decided against it, but did say he would help support him for the next several years. But David wanted the position quite strongly and them denying him what he so longed for had long-term effets that caused him to lash out againt the Academy for many years to come.

When the French Revolution cam about he became quite involved. In fact, he was good friends with Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794). He stayed while many others fleed the country, he voted in the National Convention for the Execution of Louis XVI. It is sort of uncertain why he did this, as there were many more opportunities for him under the King than the new order; some people suggest David's love for the classical made him embrace everything about that period, including a new govenment.

He eventually attacked the Royal Academy of Painting and Scultpure. The initial reason for the attack most likely had everything to do with the Academy's opposition to his work previously and he seeked to reform it. It was full of royalists and they judged people based on their status instead of their work, a huge flaw. David then began work on something that would later hound him: propaganda for the new republic. David’s painting of Brutus was shown during the play Brutus, by the famous Frenchman, Voltaire. It was recieved very well.

Most of his work throughout the revolution was conidered propaganda and was truly inspired, especially what is now one of his most famous pieces; The Death of Marat (1793).

Jean-Paul Marat, a friend of David's, was a swiss physician, a radical journalist and politician for the French Revolution. Charlotte Corday, appeared at his flat, claiming to have vital information on the activities of the escaped Girondins who had fled to Normandy. Despite Simonne's protests, Marat asked for her to enter and gave her an audience by his bath, over which a board had been laid to serve as a writing desk. Their interview lasted around fifteen minutes. He asked her what was happening in Caen and she explained, reciting a list of the offending deputies. After he had finished writing out the list, Corday claimed that he told her, "Their heads will fall within a fortnight". A statement which she later changed at her trial to, "Soon I shall have them all guillotined in Paris". This was unlikely since Marat did not have the power to have anyone guillotined. At the moment, Corday rose from her chair, drawing out the kitchen knife hidden on her person, and brought it down hard into Marat’s chest. He lost a lot of blood and died within a minute or so.

Marat was immortalized in this painting and became a political martyr. This piece is astounding and blows me away. The comosition, the color and use of light, is gives depth to this. The incredibl lifelike way the body is slumped over the side of the tub, his hands still grasping the pen and paper. Its if he is caught in the moment of death; just as the last ounce of life slips away. His work speaks for itself, you can feel the passion and the pain he must have felt. He gave Marat so much dignity.

Another brillant piece is the Oath of the Horatii (1784). The story behind this one is just as moving as that of Marat's. The painting depicts three members of the Roman Horatii family, who, according to Titus Livius' Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City) had been chosen for a ritual duel against three members of the Curiatii, a family from Alba Longa, in order to settle disputes between the Romans. In the painting we see three brothers showin their loyalty with Rome before going into battle. In the background we see women very close to them, one a wife, another a fiance, and the other a sister. They are cloaked in despair while the men are strong and don't seem to depict much emotion.

I find it interesting that he used duller colors to really emphasize the importance of the piece. Th brushstrokes are very fine and the focus is very clear. And the use of straight lines on the men sort of mirroring both the columns and the swords. It gives them more strength.

His work has always cativated me. It is beautiful, classic, and moving. It shows amazing talent and dedication to something wonderful.

When you look at Rococo art you can definetly see the influence from the Neoclassical era. But the Rococo era will be another blog post.

One thing I have always found interesting and heartwarming about David was his burial. Even though he was exiled from France and buried in Brussels, his heart was buried in Pere Lachaise, Paris; with his wife.

German Expressionism

As an art history major I should probably learn to fully appreciate each movement, but I have difficulty with a few...
Maybe I'm a bit of a classicist. I've once been called an art snob.
I've been reading up on German Expressionism and as both an artist and art historian I find the movement, as a whole, somewhat repugnant. They learned the rule and them broke them in ways that are displeasing. German Expressionism developed out of the expressionist tendencies of artists such as Edvard Munch and Gustave Klimt, the Fauves, and Gauguin and van Gogh. However, the nature of the expressionism of early-20th-century German artists also developed in response to the unique historical situation in Germany.
I will use Wassily Kandinsky as an example through this movement. is work, while popular, is not what I consider a great artist despite what many people might say. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Key characteristics in Kandinsky's work:
- non-objective works
- spiritual and emotional power of line and color
- Abstract
- bright juxtapositions of color
- squiggily, energetic lines
- meant to be experienced over time, to evoke empathy


Wassily Kandinsky began his career painting recognizable subjects in an expressive manner similar to that of the Fauvists. However, he eventually eliminated recognizable objects from his work to create non-objective paintings. He was one of the first Western artists to do this.
He used a lot of bright colors and energetic lines to evoke a strong emotional response. He wanted his work to be like music, he wanted it to be "enjoyed purely for its expressive value and not for its ability to imitate nature." But visual art isn't music. While I am all for music influencing a painting or sculpture, I don't think one should think they can imitate it. They are completely different ideas.
This is his Improvisation No. 8. It' mostly non-objective, but you can see some hints of natural elements. There are images in the top, left corner that suggest mountains. It has brigh colors, energetic lines, and I suppose it can evoke some emotions; chaotic-like feelings. Large sweeping lines may suggest dramatic, even loud moments. Smaller, linear elements suggest more quiet, intimate feelings. Areas of red may seem aggressive and intense. Areas of blue counterbalance that energy with a sort of tranquil calm. Its all color theory.
But, in my mind, when I compare something like this to the works of Jacques Louis David or Eugene Delacroix I am simply dissappointed. While his work might be successful with what he wanted to accomplish, I just think back to fingerpainting in kindergarten. He had a plan and basic composition, but to me this reads sheer laziness.
Maybe I am an art snob, but paintings like this floor me. We think this is great? This moves us like Bernini? Like David? Like Corbet?
No. He was the precursor to Pollock. It is what me and Joshua call "Hack Art". Maybe I'm too harsh...

How did we go from museums full of beautiful and moving pieces like this to Kandinsky?
Artists like Jacques Louis David created some of the most beautiful works I've ever seen yet modern artists (who even have the audactity to call their movememt the "modern" movement) want to break away from it. What is the compulsion?

I realize this blog was a bit more of a rant than I had wanted, but thats the mood I get in with art like that at times. I promise an entry on David next time around. A truly inspired one.

Gustav Klimt

In my efforts to produce a halfway decent piece for my 20th Century Art class I have been doing quite a study on Gustav Klimt.

Sadly, my piece; though unfinished, is lackluster and sophmoric. His style is quite difficult to replicate. While I wasn't trying to produce a copy, I was hoping to capture some of him in my work.

Death and Life (1908-1911, revised in 1915) is where I took my idea for composition and color choice. We see a tangled mess of bodies being wached over by a dark figure, obviously death. These men and women are at various stages in life, blanketed in lively colors, which are then surrounded in a deep blue color. This blue-green color is very symbolic for Klimt. He very associated blue closely with death. Then you see death sort of leering, always nearby. He is elongated...and his skull even has this expression, a twisted sort of smile. While unnerving I think he wanted death to seem malicious. But that is a common missconception mot people carry - death does not attack, it does not pick and choose, it just happens and whether you believe in fate or not it still applies. But Klimt lost a both his father and youner sister in a very short time and never really came to terms with it. He became a nervous man. What he wanted to accomplish with this piece was to make the viewer realized that death engulfs life.

Another piece of his I love is Danae (1907-1908). She was a subject of longing and desire in greek mthology. She was strikingly bautiful and imprisoned in a tower by her father to protect her virginity and to evade the fullfillment of a prophecy. But Zeus was not to be outdone and visited her in the form of a golden shower (hold the giggling) and impregnating her, releasing her to her tragic destiny.
In this work Klimt makes her he embodiment of lust and sexual desire. She seems locked in a moment of pleasure. Her right hand is tensed; griped around something, her face in a sort of "swoon", she is temporarily ruled by her exuding sexuality.

I do enjoy that Klimt makes a point to hide her reproductive organs, to put them in the foreground and make us focus more on her face, though her breasts are exposed.

Something else I notice is that she appears to exist within a liquid, womb-like ambient.

She is the product and victim of her own sexual nature. This piece is not the first of Klimt's that has a potent sexual attitude. Water Serpents I is a good example. And most of these sorts of pieces were well-received in the Viennese public and were exponentially less challenged than his University paintings. Though today, attitudes are somewhat reversed and people much refer his allegories to his pieces that exude sexuality.

Water Serpents I (1904 - 1907) is the first of many images he paints depicting lesbian relationships. This subject became quite popular among the fin-de-siecle art connoisseurs, who tend to enjoy the notion of women awash in a sea of sexual impulses.

Water is a perilous - man can drown but also needs it to sustain life. And women in happiness without men is just the same, though I do not think that as his intent. The women here aren't so much homosexual as they are presexual. To explain I will use what Klimt did in many of his earlier works where form is function. In this piece he uses an ambiguous figure-ground relationship set up by the women's stylized bodies. He almost makes them two-dimensional mirrors of each other. I like how he avoided the more conventional renderings of this sexual theme. He lays them one on to of the other making them a condensed, tight column of abstract forms.

This piece sort of bridges the span between his pseudo-impressionistic style and his harsher, geometric "gold" period. Of course gold wasn't a new development as he used is previously in the 19th century.

Another reason I love this piece is my personal fascination wth the ocean, water. Upon my first viewing I focused more of the element of water, the movement. I can see how this would be associated with things of a sexual nature. The ebb and low of the tide is a good idea to use a symbolism for sex.

Perhaps his most famous piece is The Kiss (1907 - 1908). It has been is most popular painting since and even before it's completion as it was purchased by the Austrian state shortly before he finished it. It is also arguably one of his best paintings. It is not weighed down by philosophical ponderings or tied to any allegorical symbolism, nor is it the subject of anything mythological. It is simply an embrace, a kiss, something beautiful and understood by all. It is one of the most

transcendent images. His towering of bodies is a reoccuring style for Klimt. He makes them a single unit, the union between man and woman that is a monument to love. Careful studies of the preliminary drawings for this painting led many to believe that Klimt himself posed for this painting with his fiend Emilie Floge, though the faces are stylized.

Despite all his pieces ful of explicit scenes of raw sexuality and eroticism this piece might be an ironic icon to chastity. It is innocent, it is love in its purest form.

Gustav Klimt is thoroughly fascinating and truly an inspiration to me.

fin-de-siecle: pertaining to, or characterized by concepts of art, society, etc., associated with the end of the 19th century.

stretching and history books

Ballet went wonderfully this morning. I'll be back in pointe shoes soon enough. I am pushing myself stretching too much though, I fear I might strain something and I should just be patient.

I got a 90% on my last 20th Century Art quiz.

An 80% on my photography quiz.

I still don't know what I got on my last Medical Ethics test.

In Film our first test isn't until the 30th at least, I'm fairly prepared. And I have that directors project to work on. Me and Bailey really need to get on that. We are creating a power point on director Tarsem Singh. He directed movies like The Fall and The Cell and he was also assistant director on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think he is brillant and The Fall is a perfect example of that. I am in love with that movie, I simply cannot get enough. The cinematography, the story, the characters...it is the complete package.

I digress.

I decided on using watercolor as a medium for my piece in 20th Century Art. So far so good. I did not finish last night but I made a lot of progress. Usng Gustave Klimt as inspiration as an excellent idea. But the more I study Art Nouveau the more I bein to like Edvard Munch. Though I very much dislike The Screamer. His Madonna is beautiful, and Starry Night is moving. I love the way he uses color. (I've posted images of both).

He is the most wel known symbolist painter, at east the most well-known norwegian one. I have some trouble seeing the appeal of paintings like The Screamer and Evening on Karl Johan Street, but to each his own I suppose. I understand him and the he chose to represent society's reaction to industrialization - which was this turning in on oneself. Crowds became soulless and materialisti and many individuals felt completely alone and out of touch with themselve and nature.

I just don't like some of the syle he used for some of his paintings.

I do enjoy the detail in Vampire; her hair and the ways the bodies fold in on eachother is beautiful, at least to me.

Well, I must be off to Sammie's house for a dinner party.

paint or charcoal

today started off unpleasently.
I awoke at 5:00am from the most dreadful nightmare, it is sort of hard to explain. The best break down I can give is this: I lacked control over my body and was forced to kill myself several times in various ways.
But after falling back to another restless sleep for a few hours I tried to restart my day, but to no avail.

I'm working on a piece for my 20th Century Art class. We are to either create a "moon board" using images or ideas from Art Nouveau or create our own piece of art done in an Art Nouveau style.
I have opted to create my own piece, using Gustave Klimt as a model or inspiration of sorts. I do find him fascinating and think his work is briliant and wonderful. I will be using The Virgin, Danae, and Death and Life as reference pieces. I started the prilminary sketches yesterday.
I plan on using scenes and the storyline from The Fall (a movie, and a wonderful one at that).
I'm still sort of muling it all over.
I cannot decide what medium I should use. I am torn between paint (either water color or acrylic) or charcoal (nupastels). I might use both to be honest, I've been toying with using watercolor and nupastels together because I get this wonderful texture and it as been good for me stylistically.
Work 3:00pm - 7:00pm today. I will finish my paper tonight.
Tomorrow I have Ballet 9:00am - 12:00pm, then the dinner party at 5:00pm with Sammie.
Sunday will be my get-all-my-work-done day.


Gustave Klimt has quickly become a favorite of mine. Several months ago when I went to Barnes & Noble with Christine and purchased a book on his 25 masterworks. I am enamoured. Being an Art History major with a minor in Studio Arts I tend to soak up things like this. He is almost bewitching.
I do fear Joshua grows bored when I prattle on and on about the various artists I become seduced by. I personally love when he talks about the authors he loves; Dickens, Chesterton, MacDonald, Lewis, Austen, Hardy, Eliot, etc.
I love that I am in love with a writer.

whispers

Today was one of those days where I awoke wanting silence,
as a result I hardly spoke more than 10 words until the late afternoon.
And as I began all I could muster up as the tiniest whisper, just mumbles. I even seemed to tip-toe.
Everything soft, everything light.
I listened to low music, the sounds of leaves crunching beneath my feet sounds like crashing waves.
Today I just feel like listening.

After work I went out to dinner with Joshua Berardi and I just wanted to listen. Even now I feel like being silent. I'm on the phone with my beloved Joshua Beachy, my fiance, and I could listen to him forever. Tonight, like most nights, Im going to all aleep listening to him.
There are days where his voice is the most beautiful sound.

shh...