Jules De Balincourt

Julie Mehretu’s paintings are loosely termed history paintings by Douglas Fogle and called psychogeographies by the artist herself. A viewer is supposed to find something in themselves much like exploring a city and figuring things out for one’s own self-interest. Mehretu is quoted as saying “my aim is to have a picture that appears one way from a distance-almost like a cosmology, city, or universe from afar- but then when you approach the work, the overall image shatters into numerous other pictures, stories, and events. Historically drawing is seen as inferior to painting which makes it interesting that Julie Mehretu would employ so much drawing into her canvases because drawing is important to architectural drawings. How does the mapping nature of Julie Mehretu’s paintings convey a sense of identity in a very political nature and how is it a representation of the post colonialist world in which we inhabit? Scholars all seem to agree that Mehretu’s canvases are maps, but what do they seek to accomplish? My analysis of Mehretu’s Stadia III will use a biographical and post colonialist methodology to explore the ways in which Mehretu’s own upbringing and how the very nature of her map making, though very artificial, can be seen as a way of both bringing us together and giving those groups that have previously been neglected throughout history a voice.

Gordon Bennet’s 1998 painting “Outsider” is a work heavily influenced by the artist’s sense of alienation as an aboriginal artist in a Eurocentric society, whilst referencing imagery and themes found in Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” (1889) and “Vincent’s Bedroom in Arles” (1888). “Outsider” presents the image of “a decapitated Aboriginal figure standing over Vincent van Gogh’s bed, with red paint streaming skywards to join with the vortex of Vincent’s starry night” . Though created 100 years after Van Gogh’s works, Bennett was able to successfully draw on similar themes to elements of the original paintings, whilst also presenting his own stance on contemporary issues and struggles with identity.

Daniel Ridgway Knight was an odd American artist who loved to paint relaxed French peasants in luscious landscapes. Ironically, he lived during a stressful time when the Industrial Revolution displaced numerous farmers and polluted the environment. He seemed to ignore the harsh truth and shut himself in his imaginary serene world. For instance, In the Premier Chagrin, translated as The First Grief, Knight paints two healthy girls conversing on a stone wall in front of gorgeous fields. At first, it appears as merely a pretty painting that is nicely contrasted to show depth and realism. Yet, with a closer look, this contrast in the colors and lines of the landscape and the figures creates tension to suggest the painter’s conflict between longing for serene freedom and feeling trapped within the stiff society.

At age nineteen, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Motier, commonly known as Marquis de Lafayette, abandoned his high social class in France and became a major General in the United States continental army. Lafayette had developed a strong relationship with George Washington, creating a friendship that would last a lifetime. He undeniably was a key component in securing the victory of the American Revolution. Marquis de Lafayette was one of the most successful leaders during the American Revolutionary War.

In this selection of the book, Gitlin discusses a seventeenth-century Dutch painter by the name of Vermeer. Vermeer was known for being able to”fr[ee]ze instants, but instants that spoke of the relative constancy of the world in which his subjects lived” (Gitlin 558). People collected Vermeer’s paintings for display throughout their homes. Gitlin sees Vermeer as the seventeenth-century version of the media. In that time, the images painted were relative to the people’s era and private world. In today’s world Vermeer would be the equivalent to a celebrity photographer or movie director. If Vermeer, or any other artist of his time, were to see today’s households, they would find that the once private space inside the home is now much more dominated by images of the outside world than what would have been possible in the 1600’s.

“There are no ghosts in the paintings of Van Gogh, no visions, no hallucinations. This is the torrid truth of the sun at two o’clock in the afternoon.” This quote that Antonin Artraud, stated from, Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society, explains the way in which Van Gogh approached his artwork. He believed in the dry truth and as a result his work was remarkably straightforward in the messages that he portrayed. While visiting Paris, France this past April, I was fortunate enough to have visited Musée d’Orsay, a museum that contains mostly French art from 1848-1914 and houses a large collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces and 19th century works from the Louvre [The Oxford Companion to Western Art]. I was also

The engulfing size of the painting (250.5 x 159.5 cm) drives the audiences mind into a hypnotic frenzy as they are overwhelmed by bright and sensual colours, which, have the ability to evoke deep emotions and realisations. Kandinsky has portrayed this through the disorientation of his own personal visions of society during the industrial revolution. The rough yet expressive outline of buildings, a rainbow and the sun gives reference to realism as it allows viewers to connect and understand underlying motifs and shapes yet is painted abstractly to move away from the oppressive and consumerist society. Thus, Kandinsky breaks boundaries through his innovative approach to his art-making practise concluded from his personal belief of ‘art for arts sake’. He believed that art should mainly convey the artist’s personal views and self-expressionism that translated a constant individuality throughout his work from an inner intentional emotive drive. This broke traditional boundaries as art in the renaissance period was meant to be a ‘narration’ or an artwork where an audience could learn and benefit from. This is evidently shown in Composition IV as it exemplifies Kandinsky’s inner feelings towards the industrialised society

Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette was born in 1757. At a very young age Mr. Lafayette became a very wealthy orphan after his parents passing; his father at two years old and mother at twelve. When the young wealthy orphan turned fourteen years of age he decided he would join the Royal Army and at the age of 16 married into one of the wealthiest families in France marrying Marie Adrienne Francoise de Noailles.

A great artist once wrote, “If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”. This artist was Vincent van Gogh, soon to be an appraised artist known all around the world for his works, such as Starry Night. He is one of the very first artists of the post-impressionist style than is now adored in every continent. However, there is much more to the man than one painting. Creating a full timeline that stretches beyond Gogh’s life, this paper will discuss the life of Vincent van Gogh and the impression he made on the world.

"Tropon est l’alimet le plus concentre"(translation: Tropon, the most concentrated food supplement) printed in 1898. It is the only poster designed by Henri van de Velde(1863-1957), who is considered not only a founder but also an innovator of Art Nouveau. The poster is a lithograph 44x30 1/2 inches and is printed on wove paper by Hollerbaum&Schmidt in Germany. It was made for Tropon Werke Company. In 1898, Tropon requested Van de Velde to design a commercial poster for their manufactured product, which was a protein made from egg whites. Instead of making a traditional poster, he implemented an abstract and sophisticated composition of bold forms, lines and colors. He designed egg whites in a daring composition separating them from the yolks

Francois Marie Arouet, also known by his pen name Voltaire, was a writer philosopher and poet during the French Enlightenment period. He said the phrase “No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.” On the surface, this phrase could be rather simple but it could also go much deeper with some background on Voltaire and the time period he lived in.

Rare and beautiful paintings, sculptures, and notebooks from the artist Jean Michel Basquiat keeps me mesmerized by his talent to portray thousands of ideas. However, the concepts maintain a complex way of analyzing the work. In addition, I previously visited a museum in Biscayne, FL where I viewed his paintings in the special exhibition. The tone of his work varied from enjoyment to somber addressing issues he faced. Basquiat a Haitian-American artist raised in Brooklyn, New York, his mother came from Puerto Rico while his father born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Unfortunately, he got hit by a car in his early childhood, causing a broken arm and internal injuries. Obviously, it required time to heal the damage, during this time his mother gave

In February 1950, Fujita left Japan and travelled to Paris. After acquiring the French citizenship, he discarded his Japanese citizenship 5 years later. In 1959, he was baptized after converting to Catholicism and changed his name to Léonard-Foujita in respect to Leonardo da Vinci. Years later, Foujita began to passionately draw paintings of children, women and paintings related to religion. However, he was not drawing nude portraits, which were known to be his trademark paintings. While Hayashi argues that Foujita did not draw nude

Francis Alÿs has startled and dumbfounded our contemporary art world time and again. As a Belgian architect turned artist, now residing in Mexico city, Alÿs is able to offer a multi-cultural approach to the problems and fallacies of today. Although Alÿs is clearly interested in themes of informal manual labor and homelessness in Mexico, failed promises to assist in the modernizing of Latin America, and society constructed limits in immigration and movement, his work tends to lend itself more towards poetic attitudes and moods of ephemera, instead of adopting a loud and violent feel. His projects rotate around ideas of magical absurdity, which leaves them open to interpretation and moves political and economic crises into landscapes of lyric, where they can be re-examined. “The most significant question he poses is whether such poetic acts, while underlining the ‘senselessness’ of particular real situations, can also create a space for new ways of thinking” (1). The way that Alÿs works reflects the fluidity of his ideas, he begins with a concept. He has spoken about being influenced by everything from fairy tales and children’s book to Belgian Surrealism and early Italian Renaissance painting, and Alÿs has even begun projects based entirely on an anecdote he has happened upon. Then come the projects themselves, which are mostly actions and events. Some of these actions require months of developing and financing, and others are modest and abrupt. Francis will

The Large Bathers, 1898-1905 is the largest of Paul Cezanne's pictures and has been cited as an example of his ideal of composition and his restoration of classic monumentality after its lapse during the nineteenth century. Cézanne’s great achievement forced the young Picasso, Matisse, and many other artists to contend with the implications of Cézanne’s art. This essay will discuss how both Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life) and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon are considered as inspired by and breaking free of The Large Bathers.