Artist # 6 Gian Lorenzo Bernini

I'm taking art history 102 and we just learned a little about Bernini's sculptures. We were first shown this picture and asked what it was we were looking at.
People in the class were saying, a thigh, an embrace, a hand, etc. and then someone said a sculpture. When they said that, I was thinking, "no it's not." Then we learned it was in fact a sculpture by Bernini. I was amazed at the detail and realness of it. What amazes me the most is that these artists could make such masterpieces in the 17th century. Back then the artists would study under someone starting when they're young and then develop their own styles. Art is their entire life. It's so different now. We study art, but i'm sure it's nothing like the way they studied it to make what they made. They were so talented and could make these sculptures with what they had. Everything else develops as time goes, but this kind of art hasn't seem to have gotten better. We're still studying art from thousands of years ago, it was so good. Anyways, here is the rest of this sculpture.
The title is The Rape of Proserpina. Bernini is famous for the moments he chose to depict in his sculptures. He chose the moments that were most dramatic. Here you have Proserpina struggling to try and get away from Pluto. Bernini is also famous for his movement in his sculptures. Here you see the twisting and moving in the struggle between the two. Some other sculptures by Bernini are shown here.


This is Bernini's version of David. It's much different than Michelangelo's version. Again Bernini chose the moment that shows the most drama. David is winding up to throw that first rock at Goliath. It gives so much movement that it is not only contained in this small space, but uses the space around it. When I look at it, I just imagine him to throw the rock and picture him releasing it.

Here is Apollo and Daphne

Bernini also did some architecture as well. His architecture incorporated sculpture as well. In St. Peter's cathedral he constructed this giant Baldachin for the main altar. You look at it and can't really tell how big it is, but it's about eight stories high. It's huge. Bernini was so talented and anyone can see when viewing his work. It is argued whether or not he or Michelangelo is the master of sculpture. I haven't learned enough to really have an opinion, but I do like Bernini's work.

Progress

I was excited to get going on my book today in class, but I forgot to bring pictures to look off of to draw. I need certain pictures of a truck, train, house, etc. so I can draw the different things I need for La Grande. I was able to plan out how I want it to look and the order I want everything in. I tested my white pencil and marker on the black paper to see how it will look since i'm drawing it all white. I will add red to the chair of course, and I figured out how I can do that as well. After that I couldn't really do anything so I went and looked at the artwork in the library then went home to look at the pictures. I drew some outlines of everything so I know how to draw it onto the actual paper and as of now I'm ready to start making it. The drawing is what will take the longest I think because i'm trying to use one continuous piece of paper so all I will have to do is attach it to my houses. I think it will turn out how I want and I'm excited to see the finished product.

Japanese Student Work

Some of the Japanese students who are visiting have a display of their work on the second floor of the library. I walked up and was expecting a room or something to display the work, but it's right in the hallway. At first I walked right past it, then noticed there were pictures up on the wall. There was also a weird "sculpture" (i'm not sure what to call it) set up before the hallway. It was what look like some kind of mop sculpted hanging on the wall, then I think there was a chair or a desk with the legs painted pink with a little tv painted pink and a pink cord plugged into the wall. I didn't get it at all.

I really liked the drawings. If I remember right there were two series of faces. Both done by Takeda Hiroki, with no title. It said they were done with watercolor pen. They are drawings of different faces making different expressions, but because of the watercolor, they are done with color. It gave them a really cool effect. They were all very realistic, but colorful. All of them had some kind of nature incorporated into them as well. The first series had vines or something like that with heart shaped leaves I think. That's what I saw anyways. The second series all had a small flower somewhere on the face. I really liked the one with the flower on the tongue. I have never seen drawings like those using the color so I really liked it.

Book

The class got the new assignment last Thursday, (I think). We might have been introduced to it before, but really got into it on Thursday. In lab we were able to look through books and try out the accordion fold with paper. I didn't really know what I was going to do yet, but once I started making lists I started to get ideas. In the handout we got in class, there were ideas of what you could go off of. We were to make three lists from those prompters, or ones of our own. Here are the lists I made:
Creation:
-The World
-Oceans
-Mountains
-Heaven and Earth
-Man
-Woman
-Plants
-Animals

Things That Are Round:
-World
-Clock
-Coins
-Color Wheel
-Ball
-Smiley Face
-Sun
-Moon
-Eye Ball
-Marble
-Hole

After I made those two lists I began to look through the 500 series book of books. I saw some that I liked, but I was drawn to one that opened up and was a city skyline. I tried thinking of a way I could do that. Boise isn't that big and doesn't have much of a skyline, and nothing else would really mean anything to me, so I thought of La Grande, my hometown. The only thing was that La Grande is way smaller than Boise, so it definitely doesn't have a skyline. I couldn't really think of anything in class, but over the weekend i remembered a list about La Grande that was made.

Some friends made a list on Facebook titled: You Know You Lived in La Grande When... I thought that I could use pieces of this list into making my "skyline" of La Grande. Here is the list:
1. You hang out at Denny's and know your waiter personally
2. You watch ads for churches before the movie at the movie theater
3.You can hear the train from your house
4.You've wondered what it would be like to sit in the Red Rocking Chair
5.You've walked from one side of town to the other without much difficulty
6. You've gone swimming in the river
7.You went or have taken classes from EOU
8.You've been to more than 1 church service in a day
9.You've seen random parades downtown
10.Half of your friends own a truck
11.The stoplights start blinking after 11
12. You've driven to Cove, Elgin, Or Imbler because you have nothing better to do
13. Your wardrobe consists of JC Penny's or Maurices?

...there were a few more, but ones I knew wouldn't work for the assignment. I decided that I was going to take certain things from this list and make it into an accordion fold like the skyline book I saw. I decided on doing Denny's, Ads of churches (or just churches in general because there are a lot of them for how small La Grande is), hearing the trains, trucks, and stoplights. In between I might at trees (because there are also a lot of them) and houses, (because La Grande is so small there are houses in the middle of everything).

Today I went to the dollar store to try and find supplies. I wanted to use black paper as my pages of the book, then use white pencil or something to outline these things. I want to do it that way because that is sometimes how skylines are portrayed, and I want this to portray La Grande. I know that no one else in the class will really get it because they're not from La Grande. It's more personal to me and my background. Anyways, I couldn't find any regular black paper, but there were big black poster boards. They were really thin, almost like card stock, so I thought they would work. I'll just cut them to whatever size and shape. I was walking through and isle with picture frames and came across ones that would work perfect for my cover and end of my book. They're picture frames in the shape of a house. I thought it was perfect for making a book about a town. I can put the title, or picture, whichever I choose in the picture frame also. The trick part is going to be attaching the paper to it and having it stay and not look messy. I still need to try out using white pencil on the black to see how well that will look. I think the only color I want for it is the yellow in the stoplight, the red rocking char, and the green in the trees. I'm not sure if the green in the trees is necessary or not though.

One thing that i've been debating is whether I should add the words or not. Just looking at it you won't get the exact words out of it if you don't know La Grande. At the same time, if you were from La Grande and saw this book, you would think, oh exactly! That's La Grande. I need to decide exactly what I want the book to say. If I do add the words I think i'll add them on one side. (I'm planning on having this book double sided. So you see the same thing on both sides). With the words on one side, you would read exactly what came from the list. On the other side, you would have just the image. I kind of like that idea, it will just depend on how much I can do in the time we have. This project is due on Tuesday, which doesn't give us much time. I hope it turns out how I pictured it and everything works.

Critique # 2

Going into this critique I was a little more nervous than the first. I was more confidant in my first structure than I was with my pillow. I was scared that everyone was going to have these really great projects and I was going to have this pillow made of marshmallows. The thing I didn't like about it was that it sounds so easy and simple, but the work that went into it was a lot more than you would think.

For this critique we were split in small groups and assigned three other projects to look at and critique first. I liked the projects that my group had and so it made me even more nervous to hear what others had to say about mine. We looked at the camera taken apart, the soap, and the clock globe. I really liked how the camera looked taken apart with each piece hanging like a mobile. The idea behind it was pretty cool too. The camera was put on display, instead of it displaying something else. The soap was really good as well. The detail of it was well done and the overall picture was really recognizable. I didn't quite understand how all the different religions were connected with washing your hands, but I still liked it. The clock globe was good too. I thought it was put together well, and gave a pretty clear understanding of the idea.

When we came together as a class and actually started the critique, the artist wasn't allowed to really talk about their piece until after the class talked about it. Usually the people who critiqued the piece would talk, then others would if they had something to say. I felt like it was a lot harder to say something about the projects that you didn't critique. It was harder, because without the artist talking about it first, and without reading the artist statement, you really didn't know what to say about it. Especially with this project, the transformations, it was hard to tell what some of the projects were supposed to be. I didn't like the format of this critique because of that. I also feel it's a little unfair that we're graded on how much we speak during the critique when it was formatted this way. I'm also unhappy with my grade from the last critique. I spoke about at least five other student's work and still got a lower grade. I don't see how we can comment on everyone's piece, or what we're expected to say. I would honestly have to make stuff up to say because there's not that much to say about everyone's work and I hate making up fake things to say. I feel like it's stupid to have to do that and defeats the purpose if you don't really mean it. I say something when I mean it, and if I don't have anything to say, I don't say anything, and so I feel like we shouldn't be graded so much on how much we say.

Okay now that I got that out i'll finish this. When my turn came around, not too many people had anything to say about it, which was okay. The group that critiqued it told me what they thought, but I didn't get much out of it. I don't know what I would do different, or change. I was just happy after it was over, but I don't think that my grade is going to be too good on this one.

Transformation Project

For this project I had to go with the only idea I had because the others wouldn't work out. I tried to melt marshmallows in the microwave and then form them into something, but that really didn't work. The marshmallows dried way to fast and were just too sticky to work with. I only had a limited amount of time to finish the project and so I had to get going on it. My only other idea was to make the pillow out of marshmallows. I had an idea of what it would look like, but the end product ending up being different than I imagined.

I did a little trial with mini marshmallows to see how I could connect them. I tried gluing them together with super glue and that didn't work. I was surprised that the glue wouldn't keep them together. I'm pretty sure it's because of the powder on the marshmallows. Then I tried getting them wet and rubbing them until they were bonded together. This worked with the mini marshmallows, so I figured it would work for the large ones too. I thought I could use toothpicks as a last resort if the water wouldn't work. I wanted the marshmallows to still be soft on Tuesday, the day the project was due, so I didn't want to start making it until a few days before that.

The first day I started on the pillow, I tried to connect the marshmallows just with water. Because I was using large ones for the pillow, it was much more difficult. They would not stay together with just the water. It would have taken forever if I wanted to do the whole pillow this way because I would have to sit and rub two marshmallows at a time, then let them dry (which took hours for the small ones) and then add one on at a time at that rate. There was no way I would be able to construct it this way, so I decided to just connect them with toothpicks.

I would dip a toothpick in water, then slide it in the middle of a marshmallow, then stick another on the other side. This process went by much faster than the water. I stuck together a row of marshmallows at the length I wanted first, then added another row next to it and so on until it was the width I wanted. Then I made the second layer on top of the first, connecting the two as I went with the toothpicks. I was amazed at how many marshmallows and toothpicks it took to finish the pillow. I ended up using five bags of marshmallows, and over 500 toothpicks.

The pillow didn't exactly turn out how I hoped. I didn't really like using the toothpicks to connect them because they showed through in some parts. I couldn't really avoid them showing because they would be deep down and connecting the marshmallows together, making it almost impossible to go in and redo it. I also didn't like how the marshmallows had spaces between them. Because they're round, they won't fit perfectly together, therefore leaving spaces between them. There wasn't really anything I could do about that either. I was surprised at how heavy the pillow ended up being as well. When I think of marshmallows I think of something light and fluffy, but this pillow was not that. With the amount of marshmallows I used, it made it much heavier.

I ended up liking the fact that the weight was something that you wouldn't expect from a pillow made of marshmallows. I also kind of liked that there were hundreds of toothpicks within the "fluffy" marshmallows. If I could have somehow made the craft better, I think it would have been more successful, but I don't see how I could. Over all i'm pretty happy with it, but there's just some things about it that turned out different than I pictured.

Conceptual Art Article

1. Why is the "viewer" an important element in conceptual art?

-The article states that, "conceptual art is not about forms or materials, but about ideas and meanings." I think this statement is saying that the ideas and meanings come from the viewer, therefore making the viewer an important element of conceptual art. It's meant to be thought about when looking at it.

2. Why was it so difficult for people to accept the "Fountain" by Duchamp, as art?

-It said that before the Fountain, people were rarely required to really question what art was. Art was either paintings or sculptures, so there wasn't much interpretation or variation in art. After the "Fountain" was put out there, it was a lot different and people had to question, "is this art?" and if that can be art. The urinal was not a statement, but a question for it's viewers and I think that's why it was difficult to accept it.

3. What question did Duchamp pose with his "readymades"? Explain with examples.

-I think the main questions he posed were, is this art? Can this be art? What does this mean? With his urinal, the article says that people had to question it with those questions. It was hard to see what that urinal meant. His picture of Mona Lisa with the beard was the same way. Can that be art? Is it just a copy of someone else's work?

4. Why is it difficult to categorize Conceptual art in the context of traditional art? Explain using examples.

-Conceptual art is just hard to categorize because it seems to be different for every artist. The article talked about how many definitions of conceptual art there is, and that there's probably as many definitions as there are artists. With traditional art you pretty much have three categories: paintings, sculptures, and drawings. Conceptual art can pretty much be anything, so it's hard to put it into categories. Also because it's more about the idea and meaning behind it.

5. Choose a quote from the article that you find interesting and explain. Be sure to cite page number.

-"A work of art normally behaves as if it is a statement: 'This is a sculpture of the Old Testament hero David by Michelangelo'; or 'This is a portrait of the Mona Lisa'. " (p. 6) I thought this quote was interesting because i've never thought of it this way, but it makes a lot of sense. It's saying that with non conceptual art you can look at it and say oh that is __________ (fill in the blank). It's not really a question if it is art. With conceptual art, it is not as much as a statement as it is a question. We have to question the meaning of it and how it is art.