Modern Movements; Art After 1945; Kiki Smith

     Born to a German Catholic family raised in New Jersey, Kiki Smith uses her history of formalist art, learned from her father, to create beautiful figurative sculptures, drawings, and pieces with different and mixed mediums. Her themes are usually focused around sexuality, birth, and regeneration.

Harbor, 2015 for Woven Tales

Her upbringing in the Catholic church encouraged a recurring theme and fascination with the human form. This coupled with her brief time studying to become an emergency technician further expanded her knowledge of human anatomy. After the death of her sister from AIDS in 1980, she became enamored with death and mortality. This death probed her to make many pieces featuring bodily fluids including blood (relating to the AIDS epidemic), and urine, menstrual blood, and feces (relating to women's rights).
     The picture on the right is a tapestry done by Smith in 2015 for her 2016 exhibition, Woven Tales. The tapestries are 10 feet tall and translate into a story. The pieces are made by first creating large collages from paper drawings, cutouts, photolithographs, and other textured elements. The collages are then photographed, at real size and sent to a third party studio, printed again, and returned to Smith where she continues to layer media. Then, usually after months, when the piece is finished, it is then scanned and translated into a digital weave, and translated into a tapestry by an electronic loom. So cool, I didn't even know such a thing existed!

Impressionism and Post Impressionism late 1800's-1900

Water Lilies, Claude Monet, Impressionism

      Impressionism, coined by a critic in the 19th century, was introduced by a group of artists based out of Paris. This style was used to capture an image as someone would see if they had just glimpsed at the scene. The characteristics include visible brush strokes and bright colors, usually depicting movement and the passing of time with light. The bold and unblended strokes produce a feeling of vibration.
     Artists were now bringing their easel outside. The artists believed that they could capture moods and lighting correctly by "en plein air", or, by painting in open air. Most impressionism paintings are of landscapes and common human subjects. Many artists used candid poses and scenes changing the way many viewed art. This painting to the left, part of a series of paintings, Water Lilies by Claude Monet, uses very large brush strokes and very little natural detail of the subject matter. These paintings, which are enormous in size this one 78"x79", and one mural is measured at 78"x502", are a long shot from what we looked at during the Renaissance and Baroque period. Interestingly, Monet was said to have been suffering from cataracts during the creation of this series. The blurriness of the painting could have very well been all of the detail Monet was capable of copying at the time.

Still Life With Profile, Paul Gauguin, Post-Impressionism

     Post-impressionism, impressionism evolved, uses different techniques and rejects the usual limitations in impressionism. Instead, there was a focus on geometric shapes, unnatural colors, and distortion to create an emotional response. During this period, pointillism, and other painting methods that reduced subjects down to simple shapes and colors was popular. The painting on the right, Still Life With Profile, by Paul Gauguin, uses pure colors, red and green with very little shading. You can also see the strong line of the mangoes. Heavy brush strokes can be seen on the wall behind the set and on the face. The table cloth has very minimal detail to capture the folds and shadows.
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Visiting the MET

This week, on September 30th (my birthday, yay!) our class visited the Metropolitan Museum. This is my third visit, but I feel like it's the first time every time. We were asked to focus on Renaissance and Baroque works and sketch one from each period.

For the Baroque painting I chose "The Feast of Achelous" circa 1615 by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel. The two collaborated for a series of mythological paintings. This piece was most likely commissioned for an elaborate collector.

This Baroque piece is identifiable due to the action and the asymmetry of the painting.



For the Renaissance piece I selected "Virgin and Child" by Jan Provost. Painted between 1495-1500, this painting is an excellent example of Renaissance work. Channeling religion, we can see the virgin Mary, Christ, and five angels above them presenting a crown. The nearly perfect symmetry and religious connotations are essential to Renaissance works.