Essay: American Illustration

Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington is called the “Lansdowne” painted in the 1800, it is located in the American Wing; room Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Galleries of Eighteen–century American Art. It is an oil canvas painting displayed upright against the wall near the corridor, dimension are 48 x 37 in. This painting was lent to the museum by Mr. and Mrs. Michael Stienhardt in 2008. Alongside the George Washington portrait there are other portraits by Gilbert Stuart’s, such as “Matilda Stoughton de Jaudenes” and “Jaudenes y Nebot.” From a curator’s point of view, I felt like the artwork around the “George Washington” portrait was ideal because they all represented people in politics. The painting “Matilda Stoughton de Jaudenes”

You are required to discuss a work by a 20th or 21st century artist, photographer, designer, architect, film-maker, philosopher or writer and show how this work reflects, contradicts or extends theories of and attitudes to visual culture current at the time of its making.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe they are worth far more than that. Pictures, although seemingly simple in nature, are extremely complex. Far too often, people overlook what a picture truly is. When a person looks at an image, they most likely see only the image, nothing else. Many people do not look deep enough into an image to fully comprehend the true meaning of it. However, when an individual begins to truly study an image in an attempt to understand the true complexity of it, they will be surprised at what they overlooked before. As stated by French Realist Painter, Gustave Courbet, “Fine art is knowledge made visible.”

John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s epic picture book, “The Rabbits”, is an allegorical fable about colonisation, told from the perspective of the natives. An unseen narrator describes the coming of ‘rabbits’ in the most minimal detail, an encounter that is at first friendly and curious, but later darkens as it becomes apparent that the visitors are actually invaders. My chosen image (above), embodies the overall style of the book which is deliberately sparse and strange. Both text and image conveys an overall sense of bewilderment and anxiety as native numbat-like creatures witness the environmental devastation under the wheels of a strange new culture, represented by the rabbits.

The Chicano art movement rose during the civil rights era was based on three goals that included restoral of land, education reforms rights for farm workers. The three goals followed by the Chicano Art artists had long been coming. One of the first goals included rights for farm workers. Arguably, the Mexicans Americans fight to secure unionization for the farm workers was one of the key goals of the Chicano art. In order to Sway the grape farmers, Cesar Chavez launched a national boycott that aimed at the American Farm

One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.

In 1967, Leon Gorman was made president of the well known Maine retail company known as L.L. Bean. Gorman was elected president by the board of directors just eight months after the death of his grandfather and company founder L.L. Bean. After working only six years for the company before being promoted, Gorman had an immense task to take the company to the next level and begin planning for the future. Through calculated leadership, Leon Gorman was able to accomplish that task and take L.L. Bean from $4.75 million to $1.5 billion in sales before stepping down in 2013. Leon Gorman reached far beyond his grandfather’s expectations and made L.L. Bean one of the most recognized brands in the United States and abroad. What makes Leon Gorman a great leader was not not only what he did for sales and profits, but what he did for his employees and community. Mr Gorman “was a boss, mentor, coach, community leader, dear friend, and inspiration,” Chris McCormick, president and CEO of L.L. Bean Inc., said in a statement on his death. “Most importantly, he was the most decent human being you would ever want to meet. We will all miss him greatly” (Marquard, 2015).

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.

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 the late 19th and 20th centuries Blacks in America were debating on the proper way to define and present the Negro to America. Leaders such as Alain Lock, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, and Tuskegee University founder Booker T. Washington all had ideas of a New Negros who was intellectually smart, politically astute, and contributors to society in trade work. All four influential leaders wrote essays to this point of the new Negro and their representations in art and life. In “Art or Propaganda”, Locke pleas not for corrupt or overly cultured art but for art free to serve its own ends, free to choose either "group expression" or "individualistic expression.” (National Humanities Center) In W.E.B. Du Bois speech "Criteria for Negro

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.

Art is a very realistic aspect among the Native Americans. In fact, what we call primitive art is actually symbolic objects from the process of a sacred ceremony. This concept is one not easily understood. Furthermore, this concept by Sam Gill is explained in Native American Religions. Sam Gill shows that Native American Art is different in meaning because of its contents then what modern societies consider art. Nonliterate people produce objects of beauty through ceremonial performances and rituals that keeps the cosmos in order, while modern societies over look these factors.

time. The subject is a real female courtesan lying nude on a bed in a

Everyone has been created unique and there is no other that is the like anyone else. People think different, dress different and like and dislike certain things. This is similar to the artists of the nineteenth century including Pierre Etienne Theodore Rousseau and Joseph Mallord William Turner. They are both artists during the nineteenth century and were painted at the same time; however, there is a difference between their styles, their point of view, and the scenery. However there are similarities between the two paintings. The paintings that will be compared and contrasted are “Under the Birches, Evening” and “The Campo Santo, Venice.”

Illustration is a unique art form that is not defined by the media , but by its context. Illustrations bring life into concepts and stories.