Art History Nerd

Just a blog for art appreciation and maybe my own work if I'm feeling saucy Avatar: Vincent van Gogh, The Sower, 1888 Header: J.E.H. MacDonald, The Tangled Garden, 1916

[fineartfool]

It's #printmakingmonday ! Today we're going to take a general, introduction look at lithography.

Lithography is a planographic printmaking process, meaning that the surface is flat; not in relief like a wood/lino cut, or cut into like intaglio.

The basic principle that lithography is based on is that oil and water don't mix. Lithography can be done on a number of surfaces (stay tuned for those techniques!) but traditionally is done on a smooth, even limestone slab. The stone is drawn on with a variety of different greasy materials. There are lots of different materials available for this process, in upcoming #printmakingmondays we'll see some in detail.

After the stone has been drawn on, it is etched. This is a multi step process which involves mixing different strengths of nitric acid into gum Arabic, which etches the imagery into the stone creating a layer bonded to the stone that will reject water. The non-image areas will not reject water.

After this process is finished, the stone is ready to print. To ink the stone, a large roller is rolled up with greasy ink. Before rolling this onto the stone, the stone is sponged with water; it must stay damp. The water is repelled from the image areas and the oily ink sticks there; in the non-image areas, the water stays and repells the ink.

After the stone is inked, it is ran through a lithographic press with paper. The pressure from the press transfers the ink onto the paper.

The print above is Electrocution, by artist George Bellows, of 1917. It is a great example of the wide range of values that can be created in lithography.

Lithography is a very expressive medium, but stone lithography can be very intensive. The next few weeks of #printmakingmondays will be devoted to this subject. Stay tuned!

[fineartfool]

Another #arthistoryfriday ! Today's painting is Untitled (Alabama), of 1967 by our February artist Norman Lewis.

While Lewis turned away from figurative work around the 1940's, his abstract work often still had representational elements. That is the case for this painting, among others we will look at.

In this painting, we see the extremely exaggerated shape of the state of Alabama, turned into a threatening and sharp looking object, much like a large knife. The abstracted white shapes within this outline imply the white hoods of the KKK.

This work is the culmination of his "black paintings" series, which also includes other paintings of his such as American Totem of 1960, Ku Klux of 1963, and Processional of 1964. These paintings are all in black and white, and are abstracted forms that symbolize the many confrontations of the Civil Rights era.

Source: https://www.nga.gov

[fineartfool]

It's #printmakingmonday ! Last week we took an overview look at screen printing, today we'll talk about a more specific screen printing process, photo emulsion screen printing.

In this method, the whole screen is coated with emulsion and left to dry. Then, an image is secured at full scale to the screen and exposed to UV light. Where the dark values of the image were will block the light and the emulsion will wash out with water, leaving the mesh open for ink to go through. Where the image was light or clear, the light will harden the emulsion and it won't wash out without thorough cleaning, blocking the ink from getting through the screen.

While this is commonly done with photographic imagery, it can also be done with a drawing on a clear or semi-clear material, such as acetate, or drawing film to name a couple materials. The benefit to this process is it's an easy way to allow a range of value in a screen print.

An example of a photographic screen print is Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portrait of 1967. In this print, you can see the more subtle variation in tone in the black, it is not a flat color like the colorful layers under it.

[girldaddy-deactivated20251016]

grief, terror, horror.

[unicorn-meat-is-too-mainstream]

[soyonscruels]

X-Ray and Anatomical Stained Glass Windows by Wim Delvoye

[fineartfool]

It's the first #arthistoryfriday of February, yay! This month we will be looking at Norman Lewis, an artist who blended Social Realism and Abstract Expressionism in many pieces to create very unique, often political art. Today's painting is his Self Portrait of 1939.

Norman Lewis was born in Harlem NYC in 1909. While interested in art all his life, he was unable to pursue it in his childhood due to a lack of resources, as well as feeling overshadowed by a musically gifted older brother. As a young man he became a mostly self taught artist.

Lewis started his career in the 1930's as a strong Social Realist, working in a figurative style. His work dealt with themes of depicting breadlines, evictions, and police brutality.

Later in his career, in the post WWII era, he turned increasingly to abstraction as he became disillusioned with political Social Realism. This was due to his belief in the hypocrisy of the US fighting "against an enemy whose master race ideology was echoed at home by the fact of a segregated armed forces." He felt that art couldn't change society, and instead focused on the aesthetic elements.

He became involved in the Abstract Expressionist movement, but did not embrace it as he saw it as "it did not favor all artists equally," which was accurate considering he was the only Black artist in the first generation of Abstract Expressionist painters, and his art was overlooked by dealers.

Lewis was a founding member of the Spiral Artist Group in the 1960's. This group banded together to "discuss the potential of Black artists to engage with issues of racial equality and struggle in the 1960s through their work." The group was short lived but very influential in bringing attention to racism to the arts sphere.

Source: Wikipedia

[fineartfool]

#printmakingmonday again! This week we're looking at a popular and widely used printmaking process: screen printing!

Also known as serigraphy, screen printing is a planar surface process. This means that the surface stays flat and level; unlike relief where parts are carved out, and intaglio, where lines are incised. It is also different from those other processes in that the image is not reversed in the final product with screen printing.

Screen printing works by utilizing a mesh screen inside a frame. Where the printmaker wants the image, the mesh is left open; where there is no image the mesh is blocked, often with screen filler (which fills the mesh and blocks ink) or a stencil. When the image is ready to print, ink is placed off the image area and a squeegee pulls it evenly across the screen, forcing the ink through the mesh and onto the surface being printed on.

Multiple colors can be printed by using multiple screens, or with a reductive method. The reductive method is similar to a reductive relief print, here one color is printed, then the screen is stopped out with filler stopping the next color from covering only where the previous color is to remain.

The above print is titled Bicycles, by Harry Gottlieb, from 1960. While screen printing had been around for a long time, with the first recognizable version dating to the Song Dynasty in China (960–1279 AD), it was greatly popularized in the West by artists such as Andy Warhol (Source: Wikipedia).

This is an extremely versatile process, being used in a wide range of industries from clothing and textiles, advertising, and to electronics production.

[fineartfool]

Happy #arthistoryfriday ! Today is our last day looking at Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and we're ending it with my absolute favorite winter scene, The Hunters in the Snow.

This is one of a series of paintings meant to illustrate different months and seasons, this on in particular represents December/January. This is in the Medieval and early Renaissance tradition of the Labours of the Months, which depicts rural activities done at different times of the year. At the time it was painted, the Netherlands was experiencing religious revolution, and this painting may be done in the spirit of longing for a simpler time.

The actual scene itself is a little slice of life of this town. It is likely a fictional village as the mountain peaks in the background do not exist in the Netherlands. We see hunters returning empty-handed, people cooking outside, and ice skaters and people playing hockey in the distance.

The piece is compositionally beautiful; effectively leading the viewers eye smoothly from foreground with the hunters, bringing us down to the mid ground with the skaters, finally ending in the distant peaks.

Source: Wikipedia

[fineartfool]

Another #printmakingmonday ! The past two weeks we've taken a quick look at relief printmaking, specifically woodcut and linocut overviews. Today, we will look at how multiple colors are printed in relief printmaking; the multiple block method and the reduction method.

The traditional way that color relief prints were made was through carving a separate block for each color. This is labor intensive if many colors are to be printed as everything must be carved away on each block except for where that color is to appear. Some small work arounds to this are to have more than one color per block which works if the colors are further away from each other, or stencils can be made to cover certain parts when inking. One struggle with this method is registration; lining the paper up with each block so that it prints without overlapping or leaving gaps, referred to as misregistration. This is also an issue with lining up each block relative to each other before carving, so that they match up for the final printing.

The first piece above is an example of this multiple block process, The Plum Garden in Kameido by Hiroshige. This is a woodcut example, but the multiple block method works with linocut as well.

The other method of color relief printing is the reduction method. Here there is only one block, which makes registration easier. In the first layer of color, only the areas where the paper is shown are carved out. Then on the next and subsequent layers; only the areas where the preceding color are to remain in the final print are carved out each time. The colors are done from lightest being on the first layers, progressing to the darker colors.

This method was popularized by Picasso, but he was probably not the first to invent it. The second piece is one of his reductive linocuts, Bust of a Woman with a Hat. Like the previous method, reductive relief prints can be woodcut or linocut.

Both methods work well, with each having advantages and disadvantages. The multiple block method is more time and resource consuming, and registration is a bit more difficult. However, with a reductive print, the printmaker can only make the original set of prints as by the end of the process, only the last layer remains on the block; with multiple blocks the print can be reeditioned endlessly as long as the blocks hold up.

[fineartfool]

It's #arthistoryfriday and today we're looking at The Fall of the Rebel Angels, by our January artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder!

This painting was long attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, until in 1900 a signature was found reading "Bruegel." At that time, it was then attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Younger, before a date on the frame was discovered, the debate finally affirming it was in fact by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The scene is biblical, illustrating the story of Lucifer and his rebel angels battling the archangel Michael and other angels. In the aftermath of the battle, Lucifer and his forces are cast out of heaven and into hell.

Though it is not a Bosch, it is deeply indebted to him in it's writhing mass of figures, making Bruegel's nickname, a "Second Bosch" fitting. The scene is divided into heaven at the top, with hell on the bottom half of the panel. The bottom half is comparable to the inner side panel on Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights that depicts hell; with both showing grotesque and bizarre creatures representative of demons. Not only are the two halves separate in their figures, with these demons in the hell half, and angels in the sky; the separation is reinforced with a color contrast. The heavenly side is much brighter and with a light blue sky and pale sun in the background; while the bottom is of more earthy dark tones.

Source: Wikipedia

[itsforexposure]

So, you're paying 66 cents per drawing...

[changan-moon]

双面三异绣 shuāng miàn sān yì xiù  is a new genre of suzhou double-sided embroidery. It is done on both sides, but the patterns, stitches and colors are different, hence the name 双面三异绣( literally double-sided triple difference embroidery). It enables the viewer to appreciate the image of traditional chinese embroidery art with different patterns, stitches and colors on one embroidery. 

cr 花锦城手工

[fineartfool]

It's #printmakingmonday again! Today we're going to look at a technique related to the woodcut process of last week, linocut!

Like woodcut, linocut is a relief printmaking technique; meaning that the flat surface of the block is carved into and wherever the printmaker did NOT carve will print. However, instead of using a wood block going with the grain, this process uses linoleum.

The benefit of linoleum over wood is the lack of grain. It can also be carved easier, generally, and is not prone to splitting as wood is. In terms of technique, the same effects discussed with woodcut can be applied with this medium; such as finely carved lines to create tonal effects similar to hatching.

After carving out the negative space, the block is printed the same way as a woodcut. First the brayer, a roller, is coated with ink that is rolled into the linoleum evenly. Then, printing can be done with or without a press as with a woodcut.

The example piece above is a very complex linocut titled Born in the Soviet Union, by Estonian artist Peeter Allik. It makes great use of the tonal variety that varying density of line can create.

[moroccanmanga]

I do appreciate what Cathy Hay has been doing of late. Her last video made me really emotional.

She has been trying to recreate the Peacock dress, designed by Worth and worn by Mary Curzon in 1903. It's a 10 pound chiffon dress of woven silver and gold thread.

Frankly, the embroidery is far more beautiful than its design.

But she's found it difficult to recreate, to say the least. The embroidery was done in colonised India, when The British Empire controlled and took credit for everything. And let me tell you, some of these Indian ateliers had a lot of people working on a single piece, because the designs are so intricate and elaborate.

And so, recently she's been more outspoken of the fact that British colonisation really enables these wealthy western Europeans to wear gowns that almost look impossibly beautiful, but rightful credit was of course never given to the people who made it. Cathy started talking about this during the height of media coverage of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protest. She said she was reflecting on her position in the world and the lens through which she saw the Peacock dress.

So Cathy Hay has been researching it's history. And she eventually found out the name of the man who owned the work shop that made it. Kishan Shand from Delhi. It was a firm owned by Manick Chand. And more importantly, she found a sketch of the men that worked there, around the period the embroidery probably would have been done. It was most likely those very same men.

And I just felt this lump in my throat. I always wonder about the craftsmen behind so much of history's most beautiful art. They're never named because the one who commissions the work, the patron, is usually given all the undue credit. We still don't know the individual names, but we have a sketch of their faces.

[fineartfool]

Happy #arthistoryfriday ! Today's piece is The Wedding Dance by our January artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder!

This painting, along with 2 later paintings, The Peasant Wedding and The Peasant Dance, make up a trilogy on the same motif. All three share common features, such as themes of gluttony, pride, and vanity, and all feature pipers playing pijpzak, a kind of bagpipe.

More specific to this work, it is Bruegel's way of caricaturization of the actions of these peasants. It could be read as condemning them for their dancing (which was considered evil by the church), through the exaggeration of their goofy movements. Or, alternatively, it could be read as approving of these actions by presenting this caricature in a joyful and pleasant manner. Overall, the characters are over sexualized, and another theme of voyeurism can be detected as we look into their world.

Source: Wikipedia

[artist-schiele]

Sailing Ship with Dinghy, 1908, Egon Schiele

Medium: oil,cardboard

[fineartfool]

It's #printmakingmonday ! Today we're looking at woodcut printmaking!

Woodcut is a form of relief printmaking, where some material (in this case, wood, in the direction of the grain) is cut into and wherever the printmaker did NOT carve will print when inked.

Naturally, it's easy to create broad areas of flat tone, but to add a variety of shading, the printmaker can carve out lines to create a hatching effect. This is shown in great detail in the piece above, a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen, from his series, The Apocalypse.

After carving out the negative space, the printmaker rolls out ink on a roller, called a brayer. This evenly coats only the flat surface of wood block, not touching the carved areas. After inking, the block can then be printed. This process takes less pressure than intaglio printmaking (see previous posts), and can even be done by hand in various ways, such as; using it as a stamp, using a baren, which is a flat handheld item that is used to press firmly on the paper and block, or the back of a spoon in the same way as a baren.

Because it can be done without a press, woodcuts (and their relative, linocuts, which we'll talk about next week) is a very versatile and practical medium that is accessable to more people than certain other printmaking processes, such as etching (see previous posts).