I saw the True Cross Cycle in Arezzo at, I think, the San Francesco church. It is in very dim light, and one puts a coin in for x number of minutes to illuminate the space.
This link positions Piero in time -
http://www.eyeconart.net/history/Renaissance/early_ren.htm
and reminds me of Donatello, like him too. I think it was he who went with Brunelleschi down to Rome to study old forum remnants; they were early birds in research..
Do you love Italy for the art, or enjoy the art while in Italy? Which is the draw for you?
The draw is visceral - I hadn't been anywhere much before I went there just before I turned fifty. So I was avid, like a duck to water. There are so many layers of history, much of it quite horrifying, and there is so much beauty. It was a place I liked and just kept reading and reading about, and through that reading, saw more connections to other history. I am no scholar, and certain quite an infant re art history. I guess I am fascinated by visual and temporal connections. (Plus, hey, I like the food...)
Oh, yeah, art... that too! Again, I am mostly just amazed. I liked things like seeing a Cimabue crucifix in the old church instead of at the Uffizi museum.. (well, both, actually). Art in context...
I don't think the scholars have arrived yet.
I've always wanted to go.
The movie with Diane Lane is special to me.
Woman sells everything--buys villa in Italy--begins to live--
Elaine DeKooning's portrait of Kennedy. She was categorized as an Abstract Expressionist--like her husband--but if I can tell this is Kennedy, it must be just Expressionist, eh? Or maybe influenced by Abstract Expressionism....
Where is LW these days?
I was looking further into Surrealism, and thought I'd bring some info and examples back here.
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Surrealism: (1924 - 1955)
A literary and art movement inspired by Freudianism, Andre Breton founded Surrealism in Paris in 1924. Breton authored the Manifesto (Manifeste du surrealisme), which advocated the expression of imagination revealed in dreams. He later wrote two other manifestoes, published in 1930 and 1934. Surrealism was the successor the Dadaist movement and attracted many Dadaist artists. Other Surrealist origins came from painters such as Paolo Uccello, William Blake, and Odilon Redon. Its origins in literature were traced to French poets Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Apollinaire and the literary side of the movement remained primarily in France. In the visual realm, Surrealism became popular in the 1920's and 30's with the help of internationally renowned painter, Salvador Dali.
Also similar to the 19th century Symbolist movement, Surrealism was based on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, emphasizing imagination and subconscious imagery. Work usually contained realist imagery arranged in a nonsensical style in order to create a dreamlike state. Surrealist painting incorporated a lot of content and technique. Surrealism incorporated and celebrated the art of children and primitive art. They appreciated the innocent eye in that the untrained artist was more liberated to depict their actual imaginative ideas
Artists used spontaneous techniques based on the "free association" concept, also called automatism, in which conscious control was surrendered to the unconscious mind. . The Surrealist movement can be divided into two groups of differing expressive methods, Automatism or "Absolute" Surrealism and Veristic Surrealism. While Automatism was focused on expressing subconscious ideas, Veristic Surrealists wanted to represent a connection between abstract and real material forms. In other words, Verists transformed objects from the real world in their paintings, while Automatists derived their imagery purely from spontaneous thought.
Surrealism paved the way for later movements such as Abstract Expressionism and the Magic Realism. Surrealism offered an alternative to geometric abstraction and kept expressive content alive in the 20th century.
Went to a couple of the Doors Open events with the hamburgers this afternoon.
The goose that the trip to New York gave to my eye really paid off. I'll have to try something about one of the places we visited. A 'famous' Toronto retail landmark - with the store built in stages from 1896 to about 1980. 90 years of architectural style and design in one block - fascinating. We took the guided tour of the outside of the building. Learned so much. Hopefully some of my pix from the afternoon will be interesting in the context of art and design.
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Thanks for the interesting pieces of information and thought-goosing you're dropping in here, Lash.
Strange and wonderful, ehBeth, I almost linked to that Doors Open event this morning on the Landuse/design & architecture thread... but I didn't because there wasn't a photo in the article (if I remember the right article).
For those who might be interested, here's a link to that thread -
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=49823&highlight=
and while I'm at it, here's a link to the ever changing galleries and museums thread, which hasn't picked up many viewers/posters yet -
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47918&highlight=
On that thread, on the most recent page, I added some info on a website with a lot of primo galleries that I could spend days looking at the hundreds of artists' work.. days..
Stijl, de [du stīl]
Pronunciation Key
Stijl, de [Du.,=the style], Dutch nonfigurative art movement, also called neoplasticism. In 1917 a group of artists, architects, and poets was organized under the name de Stijl, and a journal of the same name was initiated. The leaders of the movement were the artists Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. They advocated a purification of art, eliminating subject matter in favor of vertical and horizontal elements, and the use of primary colors and noncolors. Their austerity of expression influenced architects, principally J. J. P. Oud and Gerrit Rietveld. The movement lasted until 1931; in architecture a few de Stijl principles are still applied.
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This is what ehBeth introduced earlier as Purism. I'll bring some. I don't know if most of them are like Piet Mondrian's stark geometrics. They were trying to create some universal harmony--find a style no one could object to.
We'll see if we object!
I noticed your Land Use thread osso. I need to spend a little time there reading. Going to check out the revolving galleries and museums thread.
And I don't give much of a hoot about de Stilj, er, sorry, but I use Mondrian every day of the week, re a dividing of canvas (or a backyard) that happened (or I dunno, maybe didn't just happen) to reflect a da Vinci proportionality. (Trust me, I don't know what I am talking about, except that to me the eye is more pleased by a certain division of space, at least sometimes, and bilateral symmetry in others.
I am guessing now re Mondrian's sometimes-division, something like 60/40 or 63/37. or 58/42. Cuts stasis and doesn't fully disturb, to me.
Thus if you are siting a house in a landscape painting, you'd put it about two thirds the way across the canvas, not plunk in the middle.
Thus diagonals impinge and also empower with thrust of direction.
Alright osso. You're not getting away with that.
<puzzled...dizzy..does not compute...LOL!!!>
How does dividing things a la Mondrian reflect a daVinci proportionality?
You mean you use the Mondrian squares to blueprint your art? Creating separate sections of interest on the canvas?
(Boy, I hope I was somewhere near what you were talking about.)
I think it would be really interesting to see how you work.
"When this girl at the art museum asked me whom I liked better, Monet or Manet, I said, 'I like mayonnaise.' She just stared at me, so I said it again, louder. Then she left. I guess she went to try to find some mayonnaise for me."
Jack Handey, contemporary American comedian. Deep Thoughts
I picked up a little book of comments of people in art museums recently at the albuquerque art museum... so reminiscent of stuff we hear, and hey, say ourselves when no potential buyers are lurking...
back on mondrian and da Vinci... it relates to the golden mean, which is probably from pre da Vinci, but he's the one I think of.
I was snap-happy today.
Down/up-loaded some stuff - and actually spotted some intereresting (to me) stuff.
a lil bit
The Golden Mean. We've discusssed that here. Came about in relation to the design of drawers, or something.
<mulling>
And further, Mondrian reminds me of Diebenkorn.
Hey, I'm here to riff. I haven't even gotten through the first level of your long list.... I haven't even mentioned Turner.
So, .... Lightwizard and others will, I hope, show up and give intelligible posts.
In the meantime, you get to have my spasmodic joyful riffs...
YAY!!
I do hope they will slink up, but for now joy is best.
