Contemporary Artist : Walton Ford Essay

Henry Ossawa Tanner is an African-American artist. His works often subvert racial stereotypes and display his experiences as an African-American. The Annunciation (1898) depicts a traditional biblical scene in a modern manner; the painting portrays the well-known scene of Gabriel appearing before Mary to deliver news that she is to be the mother of Christ, however instead of merely accepting this fate she seems to be reluctant. Tanner takes a common biblical subject matter and attempts to paint the scene in a historically and “archaeologically accurate” way. His work features Mary as a young Palestinian rather than the usual idealized Anglo-Saxon woman. Tanner humanizes Mary and adds a touch of realism through his style and subject, subverting the allegorical qualities of the familiar biblical scene. He works to highlight realistic human aspects and expressions and modernizes well-known and frequently depicted biblical scenes. His disposition to do so stems from his experiences as an African American and as an African American artist.

Charles Demouth painted "I Saw the Figure Five in Gold" about this same topic, but expressed it in a much different way. He challenges the viewer to place himself inside the mind of a person watching that speeding truck, showing what image would be left imprinted in the viewer's mind. Similarly, a Modernist approach to art does not focus on large, over-used emotions, but rather reinvents ways to see the world. This shocks the viewer into reexamining how he sees the world. This shocks the viewer into reexamining the world.

As mentioned before, Henri Rousseau painted many jungle themed pieces. Rousseau worked to portray contemporaries between the home life and wildlife. Although Henri never travelled outside of France, the jungle theme expressed in his paintings came from experience through common visits to the city’s natural history museums and Paris zoos (Henri Rousseau Paintings). Henri Rousseau painted with such detail, symbolism, and colors, as well as making an everlasting impression on the post-impressionist movement, modern art, and artists of that period.

The 1920s were a time of great prosperity and revitalization. This decade gave way to many great social milestones for every class of people. From the limits for immigration to the boom of the auto industry American society was drastically altered. Issues such as foreign immigration,prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan ,evolution, women’s roles, and race were the focus of the populus and drove politics within the nation. Art played a major role in how the black community expressed their new found sense of culture. Painting has always been a way for someone to portrait their ideas.

Have you ever been to Iowa State University and seen all of the magnificent art that is located on campus? Iowa State is home to one of the largest campus public art collections in the United States. There are over 2,000 works of public art (George Washington Carver). The foundation of the contemporary Art on Campus Collection and Program began during the Depression in the 1930s, when Iowa State's President Hughes envisioned that, "The arts would

The website archdaily provides information on the architecture of the Munson- Williams-Proctor Art Institute. In Denim Pascucci’s article AD Classics: Munson- Williams- Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson it is stated that the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute was designed by architect Philip Johnson. This was Philip Johnson’s first ever museum. In the late 1950’s he would design two other free-standing museums. The other two are the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art (now American Art), and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (now Museum of Art) at the University of Nebraska. The Munson-Williams-Proctor Museum of Art, was completed in 1960. The building has a windowless perfect-square design with gallery rooms situated around a central

The building at 111 South Michigan Avenue, home of the Art Institute of Chicago, was opened in 1893 as the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition. The building was passed on to the Art Institute after the end of the exposition. Designed in the Beax-Arts style by Boston firm Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, building has become an icon for chicagoans an tourists alike. The Modern Wing, the Art Institute’s latest and largest addition to date, opened on May 16, 2009, and was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. The 264,000 square foot addition now houses the museum’s collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography. The new

During this period, Humphrey did a series of remarkably natural portraits of children. He worked in many media including “oils on canvas, on board, on masonite; charcoal, chalk, pastel, and pencil drawings; watercolours; gouache; ink and watercolour; and acrylic gouache.” The interpretation of his subject matter of “sombre children and deserted Saint John streets, as a constructed chronicle of life in the Maritimes informed by the tenets of social realism” Gemey Kelly states that “Humphrey denied any overt interest in the social-realist agenda, arguing that his work had to do with formal and not political or social concerns.” Humphrey was “self-actualized not as a regionalist or social realist painter, but as an artist associated with the advanced art of his time as he understood it: the modernism of the School of Paris, of Czanne and Matisse.” He continually referred to his work as "universal" and to himself as a "modern," using the word as a noun as was common at the time. As we can see in figure 4, 5 and 6, He mainly draws people and landscape of Saint John where he lives. Although he did not intend to be a regionalist, people assume him as regionalist because a lot of his painting is from Saint

The Whitney Museum of American Art has often been referred to a citadel of American Art, partially due to the museums façade, a striking granite building (Figure 1), designed by Bauhaus trained architect Marcel Breuer. The museum perpetuates this reference through its biennial review of contemporary American Art, which the Whitney has become most famous for. The biennial has become since its inception a measure of the state of contemporary art in America today.

According to Tree frog, “Graphic design is art with a purpose, and it involves a creative and systematic plan to solve a problem or achieve certain objectives, with the use of images, symbols or even words.” Aaron Douglas was an African American man who used graphic designs to help “by emphasizing the black culture and black aesthetic”(Blackpast.org). Aaron Douglas graphic designs allowed others to see from a different point of view through art rather than seeing things in words. His graphic designs gave an indirect message of the African American life through the use of art.

John Audubon is arguably the greatest American artist-naturalist that has lived. (Pg.17 of source #4) He was intrigued by the natural world and at the same time enjoyed the elegant feeling painting brought him. Although he is not the first artist to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America, “he was the young countries dominant wildlife artist for over half a century. Audubon used his artistic skills to portray American birds in their natural habitat. His knowledge on birds, the environment and artistic practices made his work extremely different from others. Through his art he dismays an intense affection for birds by using a scientific and objective approach. His passion for exploring the beauty of birds and the nature that

Art is meant to make someone feel something. Artists can convey emotions through their art. However, what happens when the emotion that is conveyed in anger, sadness, or grief. This creates controversy in art. I believe that the painting Myra, by Marcus Harvey creates a feeling of anger and sadness within its viewers that creates controversy. This controversy comes from the events behind this painting but also the way the artist, Marcus Harvey, painted it.

The most important trait in defining art is its beauty. As complex as the term “art” can be, the term “beauty” is nearly just as complicated. In order to understand art more clearly it is important to understand beauty. “We label an object beautiful because it promotes an internal harmony or ‘free play’ of our mental faculties; we call something ‘beautiful’ when it elicits this pleasure.” (Freeland 8). As defined above, beauty is not a direct message. It is something that subconsciously allows man to feel good and pleasurable. There is “an internal harmony” when we observe something beautiful that allows us to take away a deeper understanding of a work of art regardless of it being “nice looking” or “ugly”.

Named after American industrialist Henry Ford, Fordism is essentially a modern socio-economic system designed on the bases of industrial mass production in the 20th century. There are many aspects of Fordism in terms of its social and economic organisation, such as the relation to production line techniques, the nature and pattern of consumption, and overall state regulation. This essay will firstly outline the three major characteristics of Fordism; the standardisation of goods produced, the synchronisation of assembly line workers, and the concept of how higher waged workers are able to afford the goods they produce. Moreover, the 21st century patterns of production,

Beauty and ugliness play different roles in aesthetics, despite their relationship to one another. Aesthetics can be described as the science of beauty and ugliness (Langfeld, 1920). Historically, ugliness has been seen as an aesthetic predicate, the contradictory of the beautiful. This essay will discuss the meaning of ugliness in visual art, by using various psychological views, to truly understand what it means to aesthetically experience ugliness.