Floods

My heart is going out to everyone in Queensland.

I am sharing a photo of my husband's family.  They were farmer's around Leongatha in Victoria in the 40's 50's and 60's.  Bill is the little grub sandwiched between his mother - Jess and his grandmother Myrtle on the front seat, with two spinster aunts hovering on the backseat for good measure. I think you can just see his brother poking out from amongst the bountifulness of the aunts while their father Ron was no doubt taking the photo. (circa 1962)
I love this photo especially as we only came across when clearing out the family home after
Ron passed away 3 years ago. There were hundreds of slides and Bill painstakingly went through every one and scanned the ones he loved the most. It has so many wonderful aspects to it:  Myrtle's profile - such a wonderful pose, Jess's generous, relaxed smile and her army coat but particularly Bill's cheeky grin escaping from between mum and nanna. Not to mention the WWII jeep and the profile of the cows on the hill in the background, wondering what on earth is going on. 
It always makes me smile and I hope it brings a little bit a smile to you right now.
Take care everyone!

Classicism/Neo classicism

So far the most confusing (not that the other two have been straight forward). It has been very difficult to get a list of facts that don’t refer to an alliance with or reaction to some other ‘ism’, for example, the general consensus is that romanticism  was a reaction classicism (19th century) and mannerism was a reaction to classicism (16th century).

So instead of worrying about it too much I am just going to do classicism very quickly .....here goes



10 pieces of information

1)From classical antiquity – Ancient Greek and Roman Art – architecture (remember Ionic, doric Corinthian columns from Ancient History) . Adopted the idea of the golden section/triangle from the Egyptians.

2)Predominately associated with the Renaissance – 16th and 17th Century – (technically this should be 'neo classicism' but alas is often considered the 'height of classicism')

3)Orderliness/Predictability

4)Harmony/Clarity/Restraint

5)Form/simplicity

6)Geometry/grids (golden triangle)

7) The pre Raphaelites were Neo Classicists.

8) Therefore Raphael highlights the type of Art know as Classicism/Neo Classicism during the Renaissance that rekindled the appreciation of draftsman ship, composition and restraint.

Raphael's - the crucifixtion (c 15010)

highlighting 'classic' composition based on golden triangle and pentagrams

9) The European ‘Academies’ highly valued Raphael as an example of the classical ideal. In fact he was even valued over Michelangelo who was considered too emotional.

10)Popular use of the term ‘classic’ or ‘classical’ has interesting connotations. The implication is that there is some inherently good/better value attributed to art described as classical.

Artists include –Raphael, Nicolas Poussin, Charles Le Brun

Poussin - Midas and Bacchus

Le brun - Alexander in Babylon

So what is next?........CUBISM.

Aestheticism

10 pieces of information:


1) Valued aesthetic elements of art over moral or social themes (no conceptual art here folks)

2) A reaction to British morality, Victorian ideals and Industrialisation

3) Art for Art’s Sake – iconic phrase first used by Walter Pater (1867)

4) Blue and White dinner ware(decorative arts)

5) Nature – flowers and birds (decorative arts )

6 )Whistler /Ruskin trial http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/rpower/archives/001951.html

The guilty painting

(interesting in relation to Ronnie’s comment on the last post regarding the weight of Greenberg’s influence in the American scene of the 1950’s.)

7)Here is another interesting account of the Whistler/Ruskin trial http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/Landry.htm

– particularly interesting because it gives four ‘tenets’ of the movement which basically states that artists and their visions are superior to everyone else in society and therefore their only duty is to create art and therefore they can distort what they are representing if they want to.

8) Oscar Wilde was a promoter of the aesthetic movement

9) The Aesthetic dress movement grew out of the artists desire to paint medieval knights and ladies. The artists models and wives started wearing the less restricting clothes. This was part of what was known as the “dress reform”of the 1870’s which was trying to get woman out of corsets and into bloomers.

Now they couldn't of done that in their Victorian finery! c 1880's

10)The pre Raphaelites are probable the best know group associated with aestheticism and the ideas discussed above.  Whistler was not a member of the pre Raphaelites but was linked to the same ideas of art for art's sake.  Whereas the P R's focused on ymbolism and religious and medieval scenes, Whistler was concerned primarily with colour. 



Artists include Rossetti, Burne Jones, Whistler, Beardsley, Millais,

Millais

Bearsdley

Burne Jones

Rossetti

So that is Aestheticism in 300 words or less. 

I must admit I do love the images no matter how cliched some of them have become.

Please feel free to add anything. 



Abstract Expressionism

What a place to start? I am already having doubts about doing this in alphabetical order. Obviously any movement is influenced by what has gone before it and starting with an ‘ism’ from the the 1940s/50s is somewhat putting the proverbial cart before the easel.

BUT....where do you start?

I am reminded of a friend who always reads the last pages of a novel first.....don’t ask me why....so I will plough on with list...I must admit getting to “stuckism” near the bottom is very motivating. Stuckism is definitely going to be my new saying for 2011....I just have to find out what it means.


Because I have so many ‘isms’ and such a short amount of time to get it done (I’m not kidding myself that I will have much time when I get back to work) I have worked out a loose sort of scaffold to work to:

1) 10 pieces of information (note: I am avoiding the word ‘fact’ here)

2) Prominent artists and their art

3) Creation of a timeline with all the ‘isms’ in place


Yippee! This is just like the projects I did in fourth grade – deep down I’m a primary school project sort of girl.



Abstract Expressionism

1) 10 pieces of information

• 1940’s and 1950’s – New York

• First ‘American’ art movement – called the “American Style”

• 2 types – a) action painting , b) colour field painting

• Term ‘abstract expressionism was first used by Alfred Barr in 1929 (or 1919?) for works by Wassily Kandinsky

• Robert Coates first used the term to apply to American Art in 1946

• Not so much a style as an attitude ie a revolt against conventions and a desire for spontaneous expression (how often do you think I am going to use this phrase over the next couple of weeks?)

• There were some conventions that could typify an ab ex painting though ie:

o Huge canvases

o Flatness of space

o Importance of process

o Individuality of artist is important

• New York came to be known as the centre of the art world after this movement (replacing Paris). Wow! Is this true?

• Indebted to the European Abstract painters who fled to New York during WWII – but probably most indebted to the surrealists.

• Suggestion of role in American cultural imperialism – ‘cocacolonisation’

2) Artists:

Pollock , Krasner, de Kooning (willem and Elaine), Kline, Guston, Rothko, Gorky

Bourgeois, Still, Frankenthaler etc etc

pollock

Rothko

 

Gorky

Frankenthaler

Bourgeois

A couple of interesting quotes attributed to artists:

Elaine de Kooning - "A painting to me is primarily a  verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily  an image."

Still - "It's intolerable to be stopped by a frame's edge."

 would these ideas have been new in the 1940's? (time will tell)

project

I am not a person for new year resolutions.  I always break them.  Pretty much like everyone else I guess. But this year I'm determinined to do a couple of things. 1) I really want to improve my vocabulary and 2) I really want to improve what I know about  art history.
So i guess these are  new year resolutions as such.  Imust admit they are pretty pathetic   after all  I only have to learn one new word or one new 'ism' and i have succeeded.  That's gotta be good.
But I'm not going to be that soft.
During the last week of term I was asking the headteacher of art at school about the pre raphaelite brotherhood (i can't remember why - just one of those random things) and she couldn't give me a clear answer as to who they were or what they stood for but she said she had a little book on "isms" and she would look it up. She did so and showed me the book (i didn't catch the author or publisher) but just a quick  look through showed me just how ignorant i am about all these so called movements.
Anyway....
A couple of days ago the 'ism' idea jumped at me again while i was researching some stuff for my extension class (the nsw curriculum has an element that is quite focused on post modernism/post structuralism/post colonialism/feminism etc) and while i feel fairly confident in this narrow use of the terms I would really like to see how it all fits together. I don't know if that is even possible. I suspect it is not.
Anyway.....
not taking it too seriously...
I have decided to undertake a random look at the 'isms'
knowing it has been done before but much more capable/knowledgable/articulate people than myself
but not for any other purpose than to learn something new.
So.....
i put together a list of isms (from a number of web pages and my own knowledge):

• abstract expressionism


• aestheticism

• classicism

• neoclassicism

• cubism

• cloisonnism

• dadism

• deformalism

• existentialism

• expressionism

• formalism

• fauvism

• futurism

• humanism

• impressionism

• neo-impressionism,

• post-impressionism

• luminism

• mannerism

• maximalism

• minimalism

• ophism

• post-minimalism

• modernism,

• postmodernism

• multiculturalism

• naturalism,

• realism,

• photorealism,

• spatalism

• social realism,

• socialist realism

• stuckism

• suprematism

• romanticism

• structuralism

• post-structuralism

• surrealism

• synthetism

• vorticism

and I am going to randomly investigate each one of them! (Random in that I am going to work down the list, which is alphabetical, apart from the 'post' isms) 
Please feel free to add to the list. ...just leave me a comment and i'll be happy to include any you think need to be included.  (please don't make them up! although i'm sure that is very tempting).

So.....first cab of the rank is.....

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM...
will report back soon
cheers jane
ps Should feminism be included in a list of artist's 'isms'.   eek, i problem before I even start (but it's ok 'f' is a long, long way off). Could you more knowledgable arty folk please tell me, what you think?

happy new year

oh what a neglected little blog. .......have lots to tell everyone and now christmas is over and holidays are in full swing i make a commitment (in writing) to post more regularly ....

hoping you all have a fabulous,wonderful 2011!

love from jane

spring

It has been soooo long since i have been here i thought i just better put fingers to keyboard and get something new up before my blog becomes totally redundant.

Life is a frantic flow of work with a little trickle of art at the moment.....That is not always a bad thing as long as there are times when life is a frantic flow of art with a little trickle of work.....And we do have our big five week (Christmas Holiday) approaching......full of promise.

It dawned on me how lucky i am to enjoy my job so much....even as difficult and challenging as it is....with my office sandwiched between the two deputies and across the hall from the head teacher welfare  and being the only woman of the four i am often called in to interview some of our more difficult female students and this week has been a real doosey (spelling anyone?).........With one student telling me and the deputy to do sexual acts to ourselves... another calling us racists......another telling us to suck on her "you know what" (go figure)....and last but not least being called a "*******" old B.I.T.C.H.'

The last one really hit home....'old'....'old'... !!!!at 46, I was more than mortified.

Anyway it was still a good week....and i do love my job....To put the above outbursts in perspective this week had some really great moments...... a student who i have been mentoring for a long time actually passed everything required to get her school certificate  (18 months ago it didn't look like she would even come close) ..............my unstreamed year 8 English class made it to the hall to do their yearly examination and not one of them got kicked our of the exam (yipee)..............my year 12 students have been wandering in to get their leaving forms signed and to tell me how 'easy' the exam was (which in fact it wasn't....but ...confidance has to be a good thing right????probably not) but lovely just seeing their relieved faces............finally on top of all this i have just  heard i 've been given the  allocation to teach extension english for the hsc in 2011, (a coveted and somewhat closeted position at our school)...SCARRY ...and lots of work....

but TODAY i am off to the studio today to make some very youthfull looking art.
 ........just after i  do 30 minutes on the exercise bike and apply some makeup!!!