M.C. Escher occupies a unique spot among the most popular artists of the past century. While his contemporaries focused on breaking from traditional art and its emphasis on realism and beauty, Escher found his muse in symmetry and infinity. His attachment to geometric forms made him one of modernism’s most recognizable artists and his work remains as relevant as ever.
Escher’s early works are an odd mix of cubism and traditional woodcut. From these beginnings, one could already note Escher’s fondness for repetition and clean shapes. While simple and exploratory, these works were the signs of a nascent art career.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Escher’s work turned very pointedly to the style we associate with him today. Some of his most
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Something that recurs references itself. The reflection in a mirror of a mirror is recursive: the reflected mirror is reflecting its own image and doing so indefinitely. You’ve also likely seen the Droste effect when using camcorders hooked up to a TV or a computer: when the camcorder is looking at the screen, you can see an infinite series of screens generate themselves, since the camcorder is recording the same image that it’s sending to the screen. The game Portal is a great example of recursion, when two portals could be opened side by side in a narrow space and looking in either one produced an infinite series of the same image.
Escher combined recursion and pattern repetition in a unique way. Some of the works featuring this combination exhibits some complex mathematical and physical ideas, but to the casual viewer the works are sublime. The swans image above features this sort of combination. Note that the swans are tiled very precisely, with the same distance from adjacent swans and swans in the next row. Note also that they are in a closed loop, which is one construct made possible with recursion.
The above image is an example of the Mandelbrot set. The Mandelbrot set, along with other sets, is an example of a fractal. Fractals are fundamentally based on the idea of infinite recursion. If you zoom in to a particular spot in the fractal, you’ll perhaps see a different arrangement of patterns, but you would still be able to
There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of these child soldiers , Ishmael Beah is a child who lived most of his childhood in the war . He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words according to http://www.alongwaygone.com/index.html and his memoir “A Long Way Gone”. The war had made ishmael have perseverance in the long run , inference that he was brainwashed by the war and that ishmael was a very hopeful child always wishing for better days.
The sculptress Louise Nevelson was a towering figure of American modernism. Born in 1899, she came to prominence in the late ‘50s, gaining renown for monochromatic structures built out of discarded wood. Critic Arthur C. Danto wrote, “There could be no better word for how Nevelson composed her work than bricolage—a French term that means making do with what is at hand.” (Danto 2007) Her pieces evolved and expanded in size across the latter 20th century, moving from smaller pieces to wall-sized ones, and the plays of volume therein, between light and mass, generated comparisons to numerous different movements.
Then as I made my way around the gallery I noticed a myriad of her works contained radically simplified or abstracted figures. Segments of a hand or a pair of legs are incorporated into the composition delicately like puzzle pieces. Seapker’s painting named ‘Cradle’ demonstrates these figurative elements. A massive hand-like form dominates the center of the composition. The calligraphic brushstrokes in this form create a powerful sense of movement. Therefore, I found this painting quite intriguing. In the bottom left portion of ‘Cradle’ there appears to be two beige colored legs. To the right of them, a contrasting turquoise, gray pair of legs support the beige pair in a similar manner that a chair would hold one’s body. Most notably, the turquoise legs disintegrate into a pastel pink field; on the far right. Bits of gray paint are splattered in an upward motion on top of the pastel pink area; they are barely noticeable but enhance the impression of movement nonetheless. The ambiguity of the figures allows the viewer to gather a more subjective perspective on the content. Seapker’s visual language suggests something unsettling within the paintings, but I could not draw any
Dana Schutz’s work has been describe as teetering on the edge of tradition and innovation as a very good painter .
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a romantic ideal and its ultimate destruction by the inexorable rot and decay of modern life. The story is related by Nick Carraway, who has taken a modest rental house next door to Jay Gatsby's mansion. Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire who achieves fabulous wealth for the sole purpose of recapturing the love of his former sweetheart, Daisy Fay Buchanan. Five years prior to the principal events of the story, Daisy broke off with Gatsby and married the vulgar and arrogant Tom Buchanan because he was rich and came from a respectable family. In the years since, Gatsby turns his memory of Daisy into a near-religious
Cathrin Klingsöhr-Leroy's Surrealism introduces us to dozens of creative visual artists who transformed the art world (and the world at large) with their mesmerizing paintings and sculptures. Along the way Klingsöhr-Leroy treats us to a veritable mini-history of Surrealism with a critical introduction that situates the movement with regard to Art History and History in general. Using Klingsöhr-Leroy's writings as my point of departure, I will, in these pages, seek to draw a connection between the work of the surrealists and the writing of Junichiro Tanizaki in The Key. One of Klingsöhr-Leroy's key theses is that surrealist artists sought to incorporate Sigmund Freud's theories on their splendid canvases; similarly, Tanizaki can be seen to reveal
The use of geometric shapes in this painting allows the subject to be viewed in both a recognizable and unrecognizable state at the same time. Overall, geometric shapes and patterns play an essential role in what the viewer sees, which is further supported by a powerful color palate.
When observing Elizabeth Murray and M.C. Escher their styles were similar. Once viewing Murray’s art noticeably, she creates layers on flat planes or canvases by painting and drawing. “The Beer Glass 1986” displays a flat surface with four caves layers to create abstract description of bar scene. Escher typically drew his work without color displaying some reflections portraits. “Hand with Reflecting Sphere,1935” exemplifies his work were Escher draws a self-patriate, creating the illusion of reflection through a glass ball. In addition, both artist typically utilized Fine art with Two dimensional elements. However, Elizabeth Murry exploits more shapes compared to Escher using realistic objects. Nevertheless, both artists created abstracts
His work can take on many mediums, but the bar I chose is a fine example showcasing his education in architecture and industrial design. Heavily influenced by Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dali, his strange, dreamlike and atmospheric creatures in eerie landscapes, realized his desire to combine man, creature and machine (Williamson, 2014). The H.R. Giger Museum opened in June 1998 and the bar was a 2003 addition, which complimented the gothic architecture already in the Château, creating a cathedral effect (Giger,
The driving force behind life is the constant process of change. We see the process of metamorphosis on all levels. We see days turn into nights, babies grow into adults, caterpillars morph into butterflies, and on an even grander scale, the biological evolution of species. The process of metamorphosis connects two completely diverse entities, serving as a bridge between the two. Day and night are connected by evening, the slow sinking of the sun in the sky. In a typical life cycle, birth and death are bridged by various life stages, including infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and finally old age. Black can be morph into white through a series of graduations of shades of gray. The
On Sept 23, I will be walking with my brother-in-law, Tim's team to End Alzheimer's. In addition to losing my mother to this disease, on Dec 26, 2016 I lost my lifelong friend from the day I was born, Marlene Hecht Richards, while she was fighting Alzheimer's. Sept 23, the day of the walk would have been her 74th birthday. Please join me in supporting the fight to End Alzheimer’s by donating to Team
On September 4, 2016, I visited the Matisse in His Time exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. This exhibit is home to a plethora of pieces by many different European artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. While it is focused on Matisse and his extensive works, containing more than 50 of his pieces, there are many portraits and sculptures by other influential artists from that time period including Renoir, Picasso, and Georges Braque. Three of the most appealing works that I encountered in this exhibit are Maurice de Vlaminck’s Portrait of Père Bouju, Pablo Picasso’s Reclining Woman on a Blue Divan, and Henri Matisse’s sculpture series Henriette I, Henriette II, and Henriette III.
In the video, NOVA describes fractal odd looking shape people have seen before. Therefore, fractal is a never ending pattern. Fractals are infinite complex patterns that are similar to different scales like shown in the video. These fractals are created by repeating a simple process over and over again in a feedback loop.
In The Handmaid's tale, Margaret Atwood uses repetition in her writing to emphasize meaning. For example, on page 72, it says, "Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison." This event occurs when the handmaids are in
Art is created and enjoyed by various individuals across the world for different reasons. An Artwork expands and extends our shared visual language and helps in developing new ways of seeing familiar things (Tomaž 29-32). It also assists in interpreting events and new situations through different perspectives. The values and focus of artwork in the new world are finding their footing and taking completely new directions. In the new world, there are echoes of artistic movement and postmodern tradition that is mainly considering originality over a technicality when it comes to artwork (Sooful 2). Today, especially with improved technology, artists have designed new artistic skills that facilitate them to develop an artwork that is highly skillful and unique at the same time. The field of artistic has greatly expounded and has accommodated individuals with varying skills that have significantly improved the artwork (Sooful 5). Here are the top 3