A Furry of Information

Last class, we went to the library for a Fine Art and Art History research information session. I don't have much to say about the actual research skills we were shown, because although very useful, it was all fairly cut and dry: mainly using JSTOR, Art Index and Pro Quest.

However, it got me thinking about our current information networks... in other words, about the wonders of the internet! What could be interesting, for art history journal bloggers, would be to be given each other's blog adresses. After all, creations in general are just different amalgamations of things that already exist! And in all classes, I keep wishing I could read my classmate's writings.

It was stumbling onto Bonny's blog that made me think of it (although I think she has switched classes now). Every now and then Bonny and I will have conversations about life and art in Eastern Asia and through her latest post, I've just found out about the mid-moon festival, and overall, about the Moon Festival.

Snow skin mooncakes, also known as ice skin mooncakes.

The Moon Festival (also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Lantern Festival, the Mooncake Festival or the Zhongqiu Festival) is a harvest festival like the North American Thanksgiving.

Without the internet, this vast network of information (whether true or false), how would I know this? Sure, by asking Bonny more questions, but would I really have left my appartement before Salsa class on this rainy Sunday afternoon? Probably not. It is no question or debate how information is more accessible now than ever (like on Pro Quest, JSTOR and Art Info), I'm just thinking about it a whole lot. That and mooncakes.

Also, check out some awesome music on The Silk Road Project.

Photography, Painting and the Landscape

In Tuesday's class, we saw Canadian landscape painters and how they influenced and were influenced by photography as soon as the late 19th century. Two of these were painter John Fraser and Lucius O'Brien.

A (1873) painted view of Ashbridge's Marsh looking back at Toronto by O'Brien.

At the Rogers Pass by John Fraser (1886)

The third image you will see below is a photograph I took of the waterfowl park here in Sackville, and then altered digitally.

 It has a couple of things in comon with the two paintings. First, the subject and symbolism: They are all landscapes heavily representing not only place but also identity, the first two specifically Canadian, while the photograph I took is a typical Sackville landmark. Second, the first two are paintings influenced by photography while the third image is a photograph inspired by paintings, looping the loop. Third, I tried (and more or less succeeded) to imitate the yellowish palate chosen by the painters to parallel the works more formally and technically.

Lastly I have to say that I am not a huge fan of these paintings (and maybe it comes out in the "more or less" of my imitation photograph), but mostly on a formal and physical level; What I mean is that it's the way the artists decided to communicate their message that leaves me "ho-hum", not the message itself, one of national pride and of strong association with the land as a people. I find this still very relevant today and worthy to be explored in a new way, put in context with globalization, continued industrialization, and our relatively new discourse on sustainability.

Portraiture Now and Then

Today in Canadian Art History, we talked about portraiture, ending the class with this painting:

The Woolsey Family by William Berczy (1813)

This portrait, like many others at the time, was painted to demonstrate the wealth of this well-to-do family. The virginal daughter, baby and mother, the family patriarch at the top of the compositional triangle, the well educated sons and the pure bread dog... Oh, and the mother in law. All these figures elegantly posed in a controlled british setting (oh and look there's a mirror on the wall!) emulate near perfect neo-classicism that would make Jacques-Louis David himself oh so proud.

And then we saw this awesome Art Thoughtz video by Hennessy Youngman in fourth year seminar class today:

Both of these combined (and contrasted!) called back from the deep dark crevases of my mind the forbidden love baby of these two unlikely bedmates: painter Kehinde Wiley. This guy makes highly naturalistic portraits of contemporary urban African, African-American, Afro-Brazilian, Indian and Ethiopian-Jewish men in heroic poses, to borrow the succinct words of Wikipedia. What they have in common with Berczy's painting is that both put an emphasis on creating and upholding a person's status and societal value. They praise the people featured, wether by posing them in the latest hip hop fashions or by making sure that mirror I mentioned earlier was present. Hey, those were tha' shit in 1813.

Images clockwise from top-left:

Wiley, Kehinde. (2009). Abiel McIntosh and Mark Shavers (After Pontormo’s Two Men with a Passage from Cicero’s “On Friendship”).

Wiley, Kehinde. (2009). Kofi Graham (After El Greco’s The Annunciation).

Wiley, Kehinde. (2009). Keshawn Warren (After Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert).

Wiley, Kehinde. (2009). Sharrod Hosten (After Sir Anthony van Dyck’s Le Roi a la Chasse).

Along the same wildly romantic notes

These songs from Ryan MacGrath came to mind as I went to bed last night, reading Retrofitting Suburbia by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson.

First That Woods by Ryan MacGrath, and then Cooper Hatch Paris. I just love him and his eerie voice, not to mention what he talks about when he sings. Very sweet.

 

 

For Tuesday September 18th

I know this only starts tomorrow, but I've thought of a tasty parallel already. Plus I'm curious to try out blogspot, since my brainstorming blog is a wordpress.

Thomas Davies, Chateau Richer Church

Yesterday we say this painting in class and spoke of the english settlers after the Traité de Paris. The romanticism makes me think alot of, well, cabin porn.

Have you heard of it? It's either not what you think it is, or for the simpler or more architecturally-minded, it's exactly what it sounds like. Personnally, I'm of the later. I've only been slightly obsessed by condensed living such as that put forward by the Tiny House movement, New Urbanism and artists like Andrea Zittel. But back to the cabin porn.

Both cabin porn enthusiasts and the english immigrant artists such as Thomas Davies idealize the landscape, romanticize it even. People (if present) are secondary to the images and dropped in as mere accessories at the most. Both seem to praise a time that is meant to be or to have been but that never quite was and as such, become timeless. It is the idea of the place that is praised, not the place itself. And perhaps more than anything else, nature, in all its greatness, takes the front seat. I hope you enjoy.