This is a course offered by CalArts that I took up on Coursera aaages ago and didn't quite follow through at the time. Right now, I'm scurrying to complete this as the course will be taken offline in order to make changes and get online their revised edition that is due next year. The teacher Jeannene Przyblyski proposes we maintain an archive of sorts to record all the learning and the transformative thoughts we encounter while doing this course. Well that and a repository of all the assignments et al. that we need to get through.
Right. So here goes.
Week no 1: The lessons in the first week carry an outline of the course. In addition, she gives us an introduction as to the participation of the artists in communities and networks to move ahead in their work. We learn to look at art as a collaborative process.
We observe works by William Claesz Heda (Still life with oysters) and understand how a lot of his work was influenced by the socio-cultural-economical context at the time. Since most people found his work resonant, that gave him the affirmation that an artist desires to continue doing his work.
We look at couple artists, Diego Riviera and Frida Kahlo, who, despite their different styles of art owing to their circumstances, supported each other in the artistic sense and stayed motivated through their social circle that was rich with travelling artists and creatives from across the world. So, in a sense it provided Frida Kahlo, especially, the window into the outside world, although she was immobilised due to her physical ability.
We look at another professional couple that was cracking in terms of the repercussions it bore on the art world, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They struck up a chord while staying in the same apartment complex in Paris and pushed the boundaries of representation through their identical styles. They served as critics and appreciators and students and teachers for each other as they explored cubism and made inroads for the style. The validation for the language of cubism was mutually supplied by the two of them and they are sometimes described as two hikers climbing up the mountain with the rope tied to both their hips. The similarity of their style and mutual influence on their work is noticeable in The Poet by Pablo Picasso and The Man with the Guitar by Georges Braque.
On the contrary though we see a great artist such as Vincent Van Gogh, who probably was not as lucky in meeting another person that understood his way of looking at the world. Although people began to appreciate the rich emotional content of his work, much after his death, he was known to be terribly depressed and lonely during his time which is evident from his work such as The Bedroom (in Arles) and the many letters he wrote out describing his state of mind during those years to his brother. Although Van Gogh did not fit in and never wished to fit in, he looked for that one other person to share with his vision of the world and the validation that brings.
We arrive at an understanding that communities are essential for creative growth and motivation, as they make us observe and question our own styles, absorb the ideas and critique from others, thereby giving us motivation to create better work and also giving us the essential validation we sometimes crave for as artists.
The next video addresses the subject of 'Critique and why artists need it': Critique, for an artist is a crucial indicator of how the art is perceived by the world at large. Therefore it helps one reflect and improve the work or stand true to the original intention with which it was created. Critique can serve as a means of discovering the areas of research not previously touched upon and as a creative discourse. Often than not, one is met with vague critique which are more of opinions. These can be used as a generative than a foreclosing means by asking the reviewer to state the finer details of the like and dislike and by directing it towards a more constructive creative process.
We explore questions such as these:
What would I look at from the audience in terms of emotional flows and narratives? Am I trying to evoke a response, project a problem, convey a message?
Is is good to share work as it is in progress or developed work?
What would trouble me, if I heard it about my work?
These questions help us understand our motivation to create, a little better and the biases that we should address in order to be more free, creatively.
Developing the Sketchbook habit. :) The sketchbook holds the creative ideas (images, words, clippings ,quotes, objects) that go into each project. A box will serve as an archive of stuff that you cannot put into the sketchbook. A blog can be a digital scrapbook of art links and inspirations for your work. We understand that it is important to journal our process and ideas that help reach the final developed pieces of work.
Sketch book Optional Assignment no. 1: The assignment recommends that we pick up two pieces of art, one that represents what you, as an individual, perceive art to be in an ideal world and two that represents what you think the world perceives art to be. Both the pieces could be re-creations of the work or links to them and then you are asked to reflect on the differences between these two and open up the discussion on your view of art and the world's view of it. In the process, we get to recognize, our own pre-conceived notions and biases about what qualifies as art and our misunderstanding of the way art is perceived by the world at large.
I have chosen the piece The Loneliness of Autumn by Leonard Afremov for what I consider to be beautiful art in this world.
What I like about it: It instantly captures the eye of the viewer because of it's vivid colours. The audience is attracted to the image by it's cleverness of composition (such smart use of single point perspective to draw you in to the picture) while staying true to the intent with which it was created, i.e. conveying the loneliness of the beautiful season that is autumn. The lonesome bench causes a pang of loneliness while you admire the beauty of the scene with it's striking and diverse colour choices, the lights and reflection that are portrayed. To me, art is technically perfect when the intent of the piece, artistic technique and emotional content are all in alignment alongside engaging the viewer's curiosity by making them think about the image. To me this image successfully does all of the above. But most important of all, the image 'makes you feel alive'![Borrowed from a friend who quoted this so perfectly a few days back.(Thanks Rashmi!) She said 'Anything which makes you come alive is art'] And this piece delivers that.
I have done the recreation using oil pastels shown here.
I have chosen Waterliles by Claude Monet for what I consider the world's version of beautiful art.
Claude Monet is known to have been a prolific creator of pieces in this theme, waterlilies. It is said to be a beautiful example of artistic impressionism, describing light and nature through transparency and colour. The colours are very soft on the eye and not too jarring and the strokes are very prominent. I believe the world considers this to be great art as it belongs to a movement of art that was quite famous, alongside the conceptual continuity through creation of multiple works tied through a single idea and artistic technique. Also perhaps, the admiration is because of the subtle variations in the colour palette from one piece to another, yet maintaining the theme across he 250 works that were created by Monet.
I have done a recreation using watercolours shown here.
The difference between the two pieces, as I see?
Well, perhaps I tend to dwell more on the 'feel' of the painting which is largely subjective in nature. In the traditional art world, I think people emphasize the history and the knowledge that goes into the making of a painting and it's conceptual background through information in other forms before forming a judgement about the painting. This may encourage us to explore works that we hear of through word of mouth and knowledge based evaluation or fame. For me though, I am rather old fashioned in this sense - for me, a picture at first should be appealing and have a very strong emotional response from within. It does not matter so much, the renown of the artist, his/her past works or background so long as he/she can create works which can 'move' you from within. The curiosity about the title, the story behind the art and the artist comes next to the initially visual and visceral response that colours sometimes have on us.
That's the end of Week 1 for this course. Until the next post then! Keep learning and keep creating. :)
Right. So here goes.
Week no 1: The lessons in the first week carry an outline of the course. In addition, she gives us an introduction as to the participation of the artists in communities and networks to move ahead in their work. We learn to look at art as a collaborative process.
We observe works by William Claesz Heda (Still life with oysters) and understand how a lot of his work was influenced by the socio-cultural-economical context at the time. Since most people found his work resonant, that gave him the affirmation that an artist desires to continue doing his work.
We look at couple artists, Diego Riviera and Frida Kahlo, who, despite their different styles of art owing to their circumstances, supported each other in the artistic sense and stayed motivated through their social circle that was rich with travelling artists and creatives from across the world. So, in a sense it provided Frida Kahlo, especially, the window into the outside world, although she was immobilised due to her physical ability.
We look at another professional couple that was cracking in terms of the repercussions it bore on the art world, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They struck up a chord while staying in the same apartment complex in Paris and pushed the boundaries of representation through their identical styles. They served as critics and appreciators and students and teachers for each other as they explored cubism and made inroads for the style. The validation for the language of cubism was mutually supplied by the two of them and they are sometimes described as two hikers climbing up the mountain with the rope tied to both their hips. The similarity of their style and mutual influence on their work is noticeable in The Poet by Pablo Picasso and The Man with the Guitar by Georges Braque.
On the contrary though we see a great artist such as Vincent Van Gogh, who probably was not as lucky in meeting another person that understood his way of looking at the world. Although people began to appreciate the rich emotional content of his work, much after his death, he was known to be terribly depressed and lonely during his time which is evident from his work such as The Bedroom (in Arles) and the many letters he wrote out describing his state of mind during those years to his brother. Although Van Gogh did not fit in and never wished to fit in, he looked for that one other person to share with his vision of the world and the validation that brings.
We arrive at an understanding that communities are essential for creative growth and motivation, as they make us observe and question our own styles, absorb the ideas and critique from others, thereby giving us motivation to create better work and also giving us the essential validation we sometimes crave for as artists.
The next video addresses the subject of 'Critique and why artists need it': Critique, for an artist is a crucial indicator of how the art is perceived by the world at large. Therefore it helps one reflect and improve the work or stand true to the original intention with which it was created. Critique can serve as a means of discovering the areas of research not previously touched upon and as a creative discourse. Often than not, one is met with vague critique which are more of opinions. These can be used as a generative than a foreclosing means by asking the reviewer to state the finer details of the like and dislike and by directing it towards a more constructive creative process.
We explore questions such as these:
What would I look at from the audience in terms of emotional flows and narratives? Am I trying to evoke a response, project a problem, convey a message?
Is is good to share work as it is in progress or developed work?
What would trouble me, if I heard it about my work?
These questions help us understand our motivation to create, a little better and the biases that we should address in order to be more free, creatively.
Developing the Sketchbook habit. :) The sketchbook holds the creative ideas (images, words, clippings ,quotes, objects) that go into each project. A box will serve as an archive of stuff that you cannot put into the sketchbook. A blog can be a digital scrapbook of art links and inspirations for your work. We understand that it is important to journal our process and ideas that help reach the final developed pieces of work.
Sketch book Optional Assignment no. 1: The assignment recommends that we pick up two pieces of art, one that represents what you, as an individual, perceive art to be in an ideal world and two that represents what you think the world perceives art to be. Both the pieces could be re-creations of the work or links to them and then you are asked to reflect on the differences between these two and open up the discussion on your view of art and the world's view of it. In the process, we get to recognize, our own pre-conceived notions and biases about what qualifies as art and our misunderstanding of the way art is perceived by the world at large.
I have chosen the piece The Loneliness of Autumn by Leonard Afremov for what I consider to be beautiful art in this world.
What I like about it: It instantly captures the eye of the viewer because of it's vivid colours. The audience is attracted to the image by it's cleverness of composition (such smart use of single point perspective to draw you in to the picture) while staying true to the intent with which it was created, i.e. conveying the loneliness of the beautiful season that is autumn. The lonesome bench causes a pang of loneliness while you admire the beauty of the scene with it's striking and diverse colour choices, the lights and reflection that are portrayed. To me, art is technically perfect when the intent of the piece, artistic technique and emotional content are all in alignment alongside engaging the viewer's curiosity by making them think about the image. To me this image successfully does all of the above. But most important of all, the image 'makes you feel alive'![Borrowed from a friend who quoted this so perfectly a few days back.(Thanks Rashmi!) She said 'Anything which makes you come alive is art'] And this piece delivers that.I have done the recreation using oil pastels shown here.
I have chosen Waterliles by Claude Monet for what I consider the world's version of beautiful art.Claude Monet is known to have been a prolific creator of pieces in this theme, waterlilies. It is said to be a beautiful example of artistic impressionism, describing light and nature through transparency and colour. The colours are very soft on the eye and not too jarring and the strokes are very prominent. I believe the world considers this to be great art as it belongs to a movement of art that was quite famous, alongside the conceptual continuity through creation of multiple works tied through a single idea and artistic technique. Also perhaps, the admiration is because of the subtle variations in the colour palette from one piece to another, yet maintaining the theme across he 250 works that were created by Monet.
I have done a recreation using watercolours shown here.
The difference between the two pieces, as I see?
Well, perhaps I tend to dwell more on the 'feel' of the painting which is largely subjective in nature. In the traditional art world, I think people emphasize the history and the knowledge that goes into the making of a painting and it's conceptual background through information in other forms before forming a judgement about the painting. This may encourage us to explore works that we hear of through word of mouth and knowledge based evaluation or fame. For me though, I am rather old fashioned in this sense - for me, a picture at first should be appealing and have a very strong emotional response from within. It does not matter so much, the renown of the artist, his/her past works or background so long as he/she can create works which can 'move' you from within. The curiosity about the title, the story behind the art and the artist comes next to the initially visual and visceral response that colours sometimes have on us.
That's the end of Week 1 for this course. Until the next post then! Keep learning and keep creating. :)
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