Art
Frans Hals: the Everlasting Avant-Gardist
Frans Hals, a painter who met a humble end in the late 17th century, only to be rediscovered in the 19th century, now draws almost half a million tickets in advance sales at Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam. With his nearly 200 works, Hals is a portrait maestro. That’s it. Van Gogh thought so too. His technique is simple, but with playful brushstrokes on a palette of a few colors – art on a modest scale. But what sets him apart from other artists of his time, is his deep understanding of the specific Dutch environment he portrayed. His success lies in the warmth he depicted in various ways. It’s a warmth that resonates with the realities of the modern world. His signature expressions are smiles and laughter. People in his paintings smile, some subtly, while others burst into hearty laughter. Yet, these simple gestures are vibrant, radiating instant energy. Even the wealthy characters, those thirsty for glory, weighed down by their powerful clothing, crack a smile. Frans Hals: A Modern Figure of his time But who exactly was Frans Hals, really? Do we even know what he looked like? Apparently, throughout his work, he was found […]
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African Art
It would not be an exaggeration to label as “pretentious” the attempt to write all that is African art in a single article, especially if we understand that Africa is an immense continent, whose extension is three times that of Europe. There are more than 1,300 languages and more than 5,000 indigenous groups spread over 10 ethnic groups and 90 countries. Each of these has its peculiarities and its authentic way of expressing itself in art. That is why, in this space, where we respect and admire artistic diversity, we will make it clear that the present is an approach to some generalities of visual art from Africa. With this, we hope to motivate the avid reader and genuine art lover to continue delving into African Art. The encomienda becomes even more cumbersome because, under Western methodology and theory, which is ultimately the hegemonic, African art has been less explored than that of other regions. Explaining this phenomenon under Eurocentric thought and its concept of “fine arts” has led many writings to limit themselves to talking only about some elements. These elements are the popular masks, figurative sculptures, and the colors and shades that repeatedly appear in African art. We […]
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A year in review: Art in the Time of Covid-19
In a way, it is impossible to deny that for some time, art had always been a somewhat underrated medium: science, politics, and other matters seemed to be more relevant. Fortunately, times have changed a lot since then. Also, there is a before and after of art in the time of Covid-19. The pandemic showed us the importance of art on health, economic, social, and politics. People discussed the possibility of the government using COVID-19 as a weapon to control and manage the population. For this reason, we now hear words like “art will save us all,” alluding to the rebelliousness of artists who are not silent about it. Always defiant to tragedies of all kinds, like the Spaniards with flamenco when they defied Francoism; art in the time of Covid-19 has its way of transcending into history. Noted; most people who commented are not artists. Today, more than ever, art became a medium more respected, sought after, and consumed by the masses. Many have even decided to dabble in art as a means of unburdening themselves amid the COVID-19 quarantine. Mural by Austin Zucchini-Fowler Art reflects the concerns and worries of a generation and those of the personal and […]
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Minimal Art
When we think of Minimalism, a concept emerges attached to the term itself: simplicity. We are talking about a philosophy of life, style and artistic movement transversal to several disciplines. Despite their differences, these have in common the desire to get rid of everything “bombastic”. Like all ideology, minimalism is also subject to human subjectivity, which in this article leaves us faced with the challenge of interpreting an art without contradicting its own principles, that is, explaining Minimal Art in a simple way. Exploring the context, we will begin to understand that for many of the artists of the 20th century, the traditional art and technique of Western painting and sculpture were over-exploited. This led contemporary artists to search for new languages, many of them totally isolated from the paradigms of classical beauty and harmony, even from the purpose of art itself. Then, the Historical Artistic Avant-Garde arose, within which historians consider Minimalism the last movement of modernity. Directly imbued with the Dutch neoplasticism of the twenties, Russian constructivism, geometric abstraction and modern reductivism, Minimalism consolidated itself as a movement, theoretically based on their respective manifestos, in the sixties of the twentieth century. New York City was the scene where […]
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Photography as an artistic form
There have been two visions of photography: on the one hand, technical skill and on the other, the ability to create an image that gives us a different perspective on the world. When the two come together, we are creating an artistic graphic work, thus, seeing photography as an artistic form.
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Industrial Revolution: The Influence on art
With the industrial revolution, important inventions were born, and with them important changes that profoundly marked the history of humanity, thus was its beginning, understood as a period of major and significant technological, socio-economic and social changes collectively. With the advances obtained from the creation of the multi-bovine spinning machine, which greatly optimized textile production, added to the great leap in commerce with the invention of the steam engine, which promoted the improvement of transportation routes, the technology of mass production and distribution began, almost completely replacing manual labor. Many paths were opened to art and architecture, but all of them can be summarized in one: the freedom of creation. The influence of the industrial revolution in art had its continuity in artistic expression. Since then, and even today, art continues in the same direction. Now, how does art and architecture behave in the face of such a drastic change? How does the demand for technology and mass production affect the handcrafted creation of unique pieces? What is the collective perception towards the individually produced in comparison to mass production? These are some of the many questions that arise in the face of such a radical transformation; which are developed […]
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Color Psychology
Color can induce moods and dictate powerful sensations. Since some centuries back, as early as the 15th century, the artists in the quest of expressing their emotions while looking to provoke their audience’s, used different pigments in their artworks. Notwithstanding, it wasn’t until the 18th century that a compendious and extensive color theory (which are the rules for the use of colors in arts) was introduced, with Isaac Newton’s color wheel. With the arrival of Goethe, sometime later, a theory that explained the color linked to human emotional experienced was presented. Until the mid-17th century, scientists believed that colors were a combination of light and dark. They experimented by projecting sunlight onto a surface through a prism and claimed that the crystals colored the white light from the sun, resulting in some of the colors of the rainbow. It was Isaac Newton who, in 1665, confirmed that what the prism did was to separate the colors that make up white light rather than to color it. He did this by refracting the light onto a surface at a much greater distance. In 1666, Newton created a circular scheme with the 7 colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, green, […]
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Van Gogh and Japan
Japonisme is a concept used to describe the study of Japanese art and its influence on European artists. It was present in several currents, including art nouveau and post-impressionism. But this phenomenon is more closely related to Impressionism, as artists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas were inspired by the themes, perspective and composition of Japanese prints. Objects such as lanterns, screens and lacquerware were popular with the city’s designers. Artists such as Monet, Degas and others collected Japanese prints, to later incorporate the Japonisme into their own artworks. By the hand of Samuel Bing (1838-1905) a great collector and dealer who possessed a great culture (which led him to become very passionate about Japanese art) this ‘Japonisme’ had arrived in Paris. Bing, born in Hamburg, moved to Paris in 1871, and in 1895, together with his Japanese partner Hayashi Tadamasa, founded the gallery L’Art Nouveau, which was to become one of the great centers of Parisian intellectual life. He also founded a club where members wore kimonos and ate with chopsticks, known as the Jing-lar. In 1875 Bing himself had travelled to Japan, where he bought numerous prints and other valuable objects which, on his arrival in Paris, […]
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Contemporary Art
“Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age that we’re living in.” Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) Here is a controversial issue par excellence: what is contemporary art? If we analyze the literal meaning of the nomenclature we can understand that the qualifier is inherent to the art of all times. That is, any artistic production, of any period, will always be “contemporary” for those who coincide in the same time period. In keeping with Pollock’s thinking, contemporary art is one that responds to the cultural consciousness of the moment, to its society, to joint needs, to the spirit of the time. In this quasi-arrogant claim that invades theorists to explain and recreate formulas for social behavior, we find ourselves with a contemporaneity that increasingly expands its capacities for expression and analysis tools. That is why the concept of “contemporary art” itself has the fascinating quality of emerging over and over again as a topic of discussion, it is immortalized in the face of its constant demand for updating, and it will always appear new. Before starting to speculate on “what is art in our contemporary world”, first let us make the pertinent caveats […]
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Cubism
Cubism is the innovative artistic movement that emerged in France in the 20th century, between 1907 and 1908. Its creators were the famous Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It includes the visual arts, design and literature. The year 1907 is taken as the starting date with Picasso’s painting Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon). It was an extremely novel style of art for its time It seemed that the masses were not yet ready to leave behind the admiration for the trends of the Impressionist movement to which many artists remained attached, while Picasso and Braque were working hard to develop their philosophy through Cubism. Those works were at first confusing. The identifying mark of this artistic trend is the use of geometric figures, breaking with the scheme of aesthetic models that preferred perfection in figures and forms. It is an essential trend from which the rest of the European avant-garde movements of the 20th century emerged. It is the definitive separation from traditional painting. Girl with a Mandolin 1910, by Pablo Picasso, source Wikipedia Still, Both Picasso and Braque decided to ignore the opinions of their many detractors, resulting in subsequent art movements that took many aspects of […]
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Art Activism
In the ever changing social and political landscape, art remains the constant. Art has always been a way of responding to one’s surroundings, which has often led to societal critique and commentary. This is because ultimately, art reflects life. We all know someone who says “I’m not political,” it’s a phrase one hears often, but it’s a rare truth. There are very few people who do not express themselves through some form of creativity. We all have at least once tried our hands in the kitchen, gone out dancing on the weekends (pre-corona of course), posted a photograph on social media, hummed a tune on our way to work, or even written a love letter. While most of us associate politics with law, government officials and even celebrity status, what we don’t realise is that the creativity we already express is a form of political speech. Infact, one might argue that each and every one of us is actively shaping the political landscape and we just don’t realise it. The artist has a very special role in the political realm of society. Art’s ability to appear in unexpected situations is a benefit in societies where protest is commonplace. The Center […]
Art Lifestyle
How To Start Collecting Art: A Beginners Guide
There are plenty of reasons why people decide to start collecting art. Individuals may go from the desire of managing a precious piece of history to a way of merely supporting the arts.