Art is Cool

Trying to reform art.

[mariomoralesastudillo-deactivat]

Acrilico sobre Lienzo 80x60cms - Silhouette

[sapphic-melodies]

Absolutely beautiful!

[artiscool1-blog]

Portrait of a King

In light of the coronation of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, I wanted to tell you a bit about portrait painting, focusing on its history and development and standing still at portraits of Dutch royalty made over the years.

  Hardly any paintings survive from ancient times and we mostly have to make do with sculptures, coins and in the case of the Egyptians, hieroglyphics. We don’t know of any ancient Greek portrait paintings but we do have the sculpted heads of Alexander the Great, Socrates and many more to give us an insight into how people were represented. According to the writers of the time they were highly accurate, but we can’t be sure of that. The Egyptians have left us a little more, namely funeral portraits. Many survived the dry climate and date back to as early as the 2nd century AD. These were not made of the rich and mighty alone: commoners received these portraits as well. In ancient Rome sculpted portraits gained popularity while painted portraits became less common.

  In the Middle Ages religious figures were often the subjects of paintings, but there was an increase in the amount of portraits of kings. The earliest English king to be portrayed (and whose portrait survived) was Richard II. “Dutch” artists were among the first to explore this genre, Jan van Eyck perhaps being the most famous.

  The Renaissance brought a change in portraiture because of the shifts in interests that are typical to the time period. Portraits became symbols of status and success. In Italy, the Florentine nobility wanted to be portrayed realistically and the leading artists of that time accommodated their wishes. Profile was left behind, and they went on to three-quarter views of the subjects.

This is a portrait of Prince William II of Orange and his bride Mary Stuart. It’s actually my personal favorite. I like the way Mary looks at William; to me it just says ‘love’.

  In the Baroque and Rococo periods portraits became even more important as symbols of status. Popes had themselves immortalized, but an increasing number of non-clerical subjects were also being portrayed. During this time, Dutch painter Rembrandt experimented with different human expressions, mainly through his many self-portraits.

  We’re going to fast-forward to the end of the 19th century, to the time when Queen Emma became regent of the Netherlands, after the death of King William III. Her daughter, Wilhelmina, was still too young to become queen. This is an interesting time for portraiture, since photography made its entrance. It was a huge advance in technology of course, but in my opinion portrait painting is something that is part of being a monarch. 

A photograph of Emma and Wilhelmina. In the early days of photography, the results weren’t as clear as painted portraits could be.

  As time went on, portraits of the Dutch royal family became less frequent, but we have many pictures at our disposal, such as the state-portraits of Queen Beatrix and prince Claus and king Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. There are clear differences but they’re also similar in many ways. For example, it might seem as a difference that Beatrix is standing on the left and Maxima on the right, but in reality, it’s a similarity because the head of state is in both cases standing on the left. I like the portrait of Beatrix and Claus more, because they look more approachable. This is quite ironic when you think of the fact that Willem-Alexander has stated he doesn’t need people to call him “your Majesty”.

King Willem-Alexander & Queen Maxima

Queen Beatrix & Prince Claus

The three daughters of Willem-Alexander and Maxima, Amalia, Alexia and Ariane, have each posed for their own portraits:

Princess Amalia

Princess Alexia

Princess Ariane

The background is reportedly a chair that belonged to Queen Emma, giving the portraits a royal feeling and the girls are seen wearing the same dress. What I like most about the paintings is that each gives you a sense of each girl’s individual personality. Amalia looks serious, Alexia looks mischievous and Ariane is almost nonchalant. 

[artiscool1-blog]

The Art of Hip Hop

I actually wrote a paper about this subject when I was still in middle school. The art of Hip Hop. Don’t frown your face, even though Hip Hop is relatively young, it has a very rich history, that is probably also the reason why this article will be a bit longer than the ones we have written before.  Bare with me as I will bring you back to where this sub-culture has started and the first stop is The Bronx, New York (I highly advice you to play Rapper’s Delight by Sugar Hill Gang while reading this).

  Hip Hop 101:

It’s the 1970’s and people are doing something that they never actually did before, they were writing catchy rhymes and amazing word play, and while the DJ was playing an instrumental the MC would rap what he wrote on that beat. DJ Cool Herc is mainly accredited as laying down the blueprint for what would be known a few years later as “Hip Hop”. This is when DJ’s such as Grandmaster Flash and Grandwizard Theodore came in and refined this rough diamond and it soon spread out from New York to L.A, and from L.A to the rest of the world.  Hip Hop soon developed into a way that African Americans found a way to express their self through a modern way. Before this African Americans primarily used Blues music to let out all their emotions, but things changed, this was a new generation with different struggles.  Hip Hop became a gateway for the youth to hold on to their dream that one day they will leave their neighborhood in pursuit of a better life. Hip Hop became a way of life for many people. It was the way they ate, dressed, I mean they even had their own dialect.

  The Art of Hip Hop:

The reason why Hip Hop is so diverse is because it does not only include art in the form of music (scratching,rapping), but also in the form of paintings (primarily graffiti) and physical activities (breakdancing, street basketball). I remember my first encounter with Hip Hop, I was about twelve and started to listen to rap music when I came home from school, that is when I actually had time to listen to rap music. I grew up in a some what strict Christian family so there was’t a lot of “hip hop, the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you don't stop” going on in the house. I heard rap music before, but when I heard Jay Z’s “Dirt of Your Shoulder” I was amazed by his flow during his verses and the clothes he was wearing. As I started to listen to rap music more often I started to see what Hip Hop was all about, I saw that it wasn’t only a music genre for people, but that it was a lifestyle and it was something they lived by. As I got older the art of Hip Hop became clear to me. It was not about a couple of rappers talking about how many girls they had and how much money they spend on their last watch, for them it was the culture they lived by that gave them a dream and a chance to get out of the ghetto. It was a platform for a lot of people to show the world the abilities that they had as that guy that came from that place that nobody cares about and they expressed their true feelings while being on that platform. Hip Hop produced some of the greatest icons known to the music industry (2pac, Notorious B.I.G, Lauren Hill, Run DMC, Jay Z) and one of the greatest modern painters of all time (Jean-Michael Basquiat). If I should define “The art of Hip Hop” it would be something a long the lines of: The art of Hip Hop is in the hope it gave to millions of people. That hope people got gave them the courage to write down their thoughts and turn them into poetry and raps, or it gave them the courage to go and do graffiti or pursue a career as a breakdancer. 

There will be a follow up article where there will be explained a bit more and an interview with a rapper!

[artiscool1-blog]

Back To Classics: Romanticism

Back To Classics: Romanticism

  Romanticism defines a period in art, music, architecture, literature and intellectual movement in the late 18th century till the mid 19th century. It was a time where it was partially a reaction towards the political and social movements that were going on at that time, keeping in mind that the Industrial Revolution had started and also what is known as The Age of Enlightenment (maybe we’ll write a blog about the real Illuminati as follow up). You also had the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars during that time.  As we have seen through out history that the state in which society occurs has had a major influence on art, and that can be either a positive or a negative influence. That is why this movement portrayed strong emotions such as terror and awe.

  A couple of famous artists to have come from this period were Francisco Goya (Tapestry Cartoons), William Blake (A Vision Of The Last Judgement), Richard Wilson (Lake Avernus) and JMW Turner (Fishermen at Sea). Most paintings from this time period where landscape paintings, and portrayed heavy storms.

   My favorite artist from this period is Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) who was a Swiss painter but spend most of his time in England. His art could be described as dark and gothic. Fuseli wanted to drift away from drawing war and war related paintings to drawing the human mind. He is well known for painting the supernatural, with one of the most famous paintings being ‘The Nightmare”. Another famous painting was “The Head of a Damned Soul” which appeared in Dante’s Inferno (a must read book I must add)

.

I do not only love him for his paintings, but also just for what is known about his career and personal life.

   This painting (The Nightmare) has a lot of going on, there is woman who appears to be sleeping, and then there is an incubus on her somewhat lifeless body and a horse head in the background.  The horse head and the incubus represent nightmares in contemporary believes and folkore. Also the colors that he used and the techniques do really give you the feeling that something sinister and dark is going on. There is also an interesting story about him proposing to the love of his life, but her dad refused to give his blessings. That is why critics believe that there are sexual themes found in the painting, which at that time was scandalous. Nonetheless this is a marvelous piece and I would really advice you to check out the work itself and see what you can interpret from it.

[artiscool1-blog]

The Renaissance in Italy: Back to Classics

  When we think about the Renaissance we picture a beautiful era focused on the rediscovery of things that had been forgotten for over a millennium. Leaving behind the ways of the Middle Ages, Renaissance philosophers, writers and artists looked to their Ancient Roman and Greek ancestors for inspiration. Not only is the artwork we know from painters such as Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) and Michelangelo (1475-1564) a product of the Renaissance, the revival of Latin and Greek and the rediscovery of the values of Antiquity also belong to this time period. For the first time, the individual man gained some importance as the focus of society switched from the family to the individual.  And finally, although the Church remained a very important part of life, there was room for ideas outside of Christianity. It was an era full of renewal and revival.

  Perhaps the most well known work that came from the period reaching from the late 14th to early 16th century is Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Who doesn’t know of the beautiful women with the peculiar smile? Even today there is speculation about who the subject of painting was, and the room where it is displayed in the Louvre is always the busiest. Yet there are so many more artists who created work equally (if not more) beautiful.

  Take Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), for example. He worked under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence and his work is an example of the Classical values that were popular at the time, as the subjects of the paintings are figures of Roman Mythology.

This painting, Primavera, depicts Mercury, the three Graces, Venus, Flora, Zephyrus and Chloris. I especially like the bright red colors and the lighter colors of the three Graces, and the way the dark background makes them stand out. Opinions vary about the meaning behind the painting but it is generally agreed that Chloris kidnaps Zephyrus and marries her and transforms her into the goddess of Spring.

  Another artist with beautiful work is Raphael (1483-1520). His work was very much focused on Christian scenes, although his perhaps most famous work, The School of Athens depicts the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. My favorite work of his, however, is the Madonna del Prato. It shows the Virgin Mary with Christ and John the Baptist, in a pyramid composition, a style also used by Da Vinci to display holy figures.

Again, the colors of this piece are just beautiful. Also, the serene, motherly look on the Virgin’s face makes you really believe that what Raphael is displaying here is really just a family. Finally, this piece shows that even though the Church made room for the values of Ancient Rome and Greece, it was still very much present and still a really important part of society. 

[artiscool1-blog]

Definition of A R T

[artiscool1-blog]

Art work done by Rajiv Kamperveen