Video Review

I did this week’s video listing’s a bit different because this week I used bullets instead of writing in paragraph form. I did this because just because I was getting a little tired of writing about them the same way every week. I’m glad I changed it up because it seemed less repetitive this week as compared to the past weeks. There was no reason to the videos this week I just looked at the list a picked four.

The key concepts of the video Matisse and Picasso are:

·         Picasso and Matisse were artists that both steered away from tradition.

·         Gertrude Stein was one of the first to recognize and speak about how great these two artists were. 

·         Matisse was an artist who was deliberate and organized when it came to organizing his thoughts, while Picasso was the opposite he was impulsive and the type of man who would completely submit himself into his work.

·         Paris was the city of up’s and down’s for both artists

·         Picasso’s work didn’t exist outside his paintings and his inspirations would come from real life women.

·         Matisse’s inspirations were also women but they would model for him.

·         Both artists have completely different working styles and they both worked off of the others art.

·         WWll was considered a jumping off point for Picasso’s work.

·         Picasso was an artist who loved to be the public while Matisse was rarely seen in the public

·         After many years they finally met at Matisse’s home and they talked about the many differences in their choices of art.

·         It took Matisse four years to create and complete “The Vence Chapel” and he used the element of light to “introduce immensity into a small space”.

The key concepts of the video Dance at the Moulin de la Galette are:

·         The first showing of this art work was in 1887 and Gustave Cailebotte bought it and then donated it.

·         The art work’s meaning is pleasure and it allowed people to see the past times of Paris.

·         Renoir created two separate copies of this painting and he used local people as models to help show two different worlds the Bohemian and the Fashionable men and women of lower class.

·         This painting was created during a time when political oppression and Montmartre were at the forefront of the troubles.

·         Renoir’s version of this painting was created more towards the romanticism theme while many other artist’s show the dance hall with a more Realistic aspect.

·         Renoir captured the changes of light, color, and immediacy of the moment which were all characteristic of a true impressionistic style.

·         There is a lot of controversy over which of the two painting’s were created first.

·         In 1990 this painting sold for 78.1 million dollars to a Japanese tycoon and he kept it in a vault for seven years until it had to be auctioned.

The key concepts in the video The Mystical North: Spanish Art from the 19^th Century are:

·         Goya was thought of as the father of modern art and he was 100% deaf.

·         Much of his art focused on death, the wrath of God, and man’s inhumanity to man.

·         The walls of his home were covered with his “infamous black paintings” which depicted watches, violence, and devil worship.

·         When he died Spanish art came to a stop for about fifty years, around the 20^th century is when Spain became what is called “the power house” of modern art.

·         Gaudi was an architect who broke out during this time and was thought of as the inventor of art for the future.

·         When Picasso was 14 years old he had his first sexual experience which was the first of many that would lie at the heart of some of his paintings, while others depicted a religious theme.

·         Picasso was very superstitious of the Catholic religion.

·         Surrealism and the unconscious emerged out of the decline of religion and Salvador Dali was one of the many painters to emerge during this movement.

·         “The Persistence of Memory” showed that all that lived was going to die and decay.

·         Salvador’s painting “The Specter of Sex Appeal” and “Premonition of a Civil War” are both examples of his dreams and unconscious both are filled with images of sex, death, the future, and food.

·         Picasso’s “Guernica” is a image of one of the worst times in Spain the Spanish Civil war and while Franco’s ruled over Spain many artist were forced into exile.

·         Santiago Calatrava was an artist who was at the front of the new wave of architects in Spain

 The key concepts in the video A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884 are:

·         Georges Seurat’s image of “La Grande Jatte” can be found in the Art Institute of Chicago and he is described as unfathomable.

·         He had a classical art education and his teachers had placed the focus on his drawing.

·         There are many questions about this painting and the Island its self, such as the meaning of the monkey, and the lady with the fishing pole.

·         One of Seurat’s painting techniques is pointillism which he didn’t start doing until Ascension Day 1884 where he tried different characters, character placements, and light.

·         He spent ten months on “La Grande Jatte” and others say the dots next to each other help bring the colors alive.

·         Egyptian art had an influence on Seurat’s art work as well as classical sculptures such as “Parthenon frieze”.

·         In 1886 when this painting was set to be displayed many other impressionists didn’t want their art next to his.

·         1958 the painting was almost destroyed by a fire.

·         Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” is a musical aspect of the painting “La Grande Jatte”.

All of these videos relate to our readings this week because they help reinforce different art movements and themes that occurred during those times. They also helped back up the different artists and their work of the specific times.