Developing Your Vision. Developing your Vision by Alain Briot This essay is the third of a four parts series titled as follows: 1- Finding Inspiration 2 - Exercising your Creativity 3 - Developing your Vision 4 - Achieving your Personal Style Together these four essays represent, first, an exploration of the too-rarely discussed subject of inspiration and creativity, and second a road map towards the development of a vision and the achievement of a personal style unique to you. Each essay features a set of Skill Enhancement Exercises that allow you to practice and develop your skills on your own. 1 - Introduction Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. Inspiration lights the spark of creativity. This is a four-part process. Vision is a subject that is rarely discussed in photography. 2 - What is vision? It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision. Vision is the art of seeing the invisible. A vision is something abstract: an idea or a concept.
Vision is inspiration made reality. 5 - Going back. Vermeer draws us into a secret world | Art and design. 'Invisible passions and secret selves' ... Detail of Vermeer's Woman Reading a Letter. Photograph: Carola Van Wijk/Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam How do you portray someone's interior life? It is one thing to depict outer beauty or ugliness, to capture appearances. That is what painting, and photography, are pre-set to do. But how does an artist see beyond the distractions of faces and clothes to hint at the hidden world of thoughts and emotions? In his painting Woman Reading a Letter, the 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer achieves this by depicting the most private of all cultural acts: reading. Vermeer is a very objective artist. The letter reader in his masterpiece in the Rijksmuseum may be studying a love letter – that's what we feel from her deep absorption in its contents. This painting stops time.
Dutch art in the 17th-century abounds in visual information. Vermeer does not reach for the grandeur that is natural to Rembrandt. David Katz, M.D.: Medicine, Museums and Spoons Full of Sugar. I don't think Mary Poppins had this in mind at all. Kids these days -- and adults, for that matter -- are consuming far too many spoons full of sugar. This sugar excess contributes importantly to the epidemic of obesity, and all of its consequences -- diabetes in particular. Diabetes and other complications of obesity require pharmacotherapy much of the time. And there we have it: spoons full of sugar, helping medicine go down. We have known this for some time.
It is not, however, the whole problem -- nor even half of it. The abundance of sugar in food does not, of course, exonerate soda. How concerned we should be about sugar, per se, is subject to some debate. We need to know because we are unlikely to fix problems to which we are oblivious. There is a wonderful exhibition at Yale University's iconic Peabody Museum, entitled "Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating. " "Big Food" can teach you things you never knew, and maybe some you never knew you never knew.
-fin Dr. Fear Helps You Appreciate Abstract Art, Study Finds. The next time you're having trouble appreciating Jackson Pollock, try seeing a horror movie first. According to a new study, feeling fear may actually help people to better engage with abstract art. In the study, which used 85 Brooklyn College students as a sample, participants were assigned randomly to one of five conditions: fear, happiness, high physiological arousal, low physiological arousal or a control group. Fear was induced with a video of a screaming, zombie-like face, happiness with a clip of a baby and dog interacting, and high and low physiological arousal by having participants complete 30 or 15 jumping jacks, respectively. Participants were then shown four paintings by abstract artist El Lissitzky. When results were tabulated, fear was the only factor shown to significantly increase the strength of viewers' reactions to the art.
"I wanted to focus on how our body literally shapes the way we think. "When you're in a fear state, it promotes fight or flight," he said. How To Write an Art History Paper - Art History 101: Writing an Art History Paper. You have been assigned an art history paper to write. You would like to finish your assignment on time with a minimum of stress, and your instructor fervently hopes to read an engaging, well-written paper.
Here are some dos and don'ts to guide you, written by an art history professor who has graded thousands of these papers ranging from the superlative to the good, the bad and the phenomenally ugly. Preparation: 1. Choose a Topic You Love Look through an art history book, slowly and leisurely. Look through our list of art history topics for ideas. 2. Remember: a car works on gas, a brain works on info. 3. Ask yourself questions while you read and look up what you can't find or don't understand on the page. Writing Your Essay: Introduction, Body and Conclusion 1. Compose a thesis statement. 2. If you are going to include the artist's/architect's biography, begin with a short summary. 3. Reiterate the thesis. Editing: Above All: Do not wait until the last minute to begin your essay. How to Critique and Write about Art.
The following steps— description, analysis, interpretation and evaluation — are the steps in a formal critique. It is called the Feldman method. It is an established critique method that has been used by students and professionals alike for over 50 years. Please respond to the following sections in paragraph form, using complete sentences. Use the questions provided as a guide to provide you with information for your paragraphs. Describe This stage is like taking inventory. You want to come up with a list of everything you see in the work. List Name of artist, title of work, and gallery or location of artwork.
If this is an in-class critique of your own or another student’s work, simply list your own or their name. Note First Impression Make a note of your first spontaneous reaction to the artwork. Analyze Try to figure out what the artist has done to achieve certain effects. Q. Q. Q. Q. Q. Interpret Try to figure out what the artwork is about. Q. Q. Q. Q. Evaluate Q. Q. Q. Interview with Alex Kanevsky : Painting Perceptions. Alex Kanevsky Interview with Neil Plotkin Alex Kanevsky J.F.H. 48″ x 48″, oil on board, 2011 click here for a larger view Many readers are familiar with Alex Kanevsky’s work but perhaps not all of his details. The internet offers a great deal of information about Mr. Kanevsky but unfortunately much of it is, if not false, not exactly accurate either.
I was recently fortunate enough to visit Mr. I asked him about being from Lithuania and his studies there. The details that I know to be true are the following: Alex Kanevsky is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based painter who teaches at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I want to thank Mr. Neil Plotkin: You grew up in Russia and have lived as an adult in the US; you studied art in both Lithuania and Philadelphia in – by your own description – quite different educational environments: do you feel that you are more tied to the traditions and lineages of Philadelphia than Russia/Lithuania/Europe? R.W. 24″ x 24″, oil on wood, 2011 AK: I do. Asian art turns from plaything of Hong Kong's young rich into moneyspinner | Art and design. The 30 Harshest Artist-on-Artist Insults In History.
PORT - Portland art + news + reviews. Erik Nitsche. Erik Nitsche Erik Nitsche left an unmistakable mark on the world of design in his approximately 60 year career. Leaving almost no field untouched, he worked as an art director, book designer, illustrator, typographer, graphic designer, photographer, advertiser, and packaging designer. His graphic design work included magazine covers, signage, film, exhibitions, posters and many other advertising mediums. Before emigrating to the United States in 1934 Nitsche studied at the Collège Classique in Switzerland and the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. His work has a distinctly modernist aesthetic and although he never had the opportunity to attend the Bauhaus Laszlo Moholy-Nagy has been quoted as saying, “Who is this guy that is doing the Bauhaus in New York?” He designed promotional and advertising campaigns for a host of different clients including department stores, feature films, record companies and the New York Transit Authority.
Las Vegas: exploring the neon boneyard - video | Travel. How Chinese activist Ai Weiwei became an Internet master. Ai Weiwei is an artist and Internet activist in ChinaCNN talks with the maker of the upcoming documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry"Filmmaker: Ai didn't type or use computers until 2005He has managed to become a social media sensation (CNN) -- His fans are literally throwing money at him. The Chinese artist, activist and Internet sensation Ai Weiwei has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from fans who want to help him pay back taxes of $2.3 million. Many are simply throwing the money into his Beijing compound. "His supporters have folded 100 yuan notes -- the equivalent of $15.75 -- into paper airplanes that glided into the compound. Others wrapped the money around pieces of fruit and hurled it over the wall," the LA Times wrote on its World Now blog.
Ai Weiwei pays $1.3M tax bond over jail fears If you're not one of his 110,000 Twitter followers, you may never have heard of Ai. Chinese donate money to Ai Weiwei Al Weiwei's $2.3B bill for back taxes "His answer to me was the Internet. Soren Petersen: Art That Inspires. For almost two decades, Kenton Nelson has charmed art lovers with optimistic and subtly provocative oil paintings from his native Pasadena. Capturing and sharing details from ordinary Southern California life in a distinct "advertising age"-inspired style has propelled his life from one graphic artist among many to that of a world-renowned artist. Having just shipped his latest work off to an exhibit in Salzburg, Austria, Kenton shared some passionate and practical views on art and life while eating sandwiches together in his studio. His latest and favorite work is an impressive seven by eleven foot painting that showcases a pair of ordinary brown shoes, situated in a room and depicted from the perspective of an ant.
A message you can only enjoy by observing the painting from an angle is imbedded, the text: "Shoes I am not worthy to polish. " As with many of his pieces, the painting invites the celebration of the ordinary. Giant painting of Indian mosque to be sold in NY. Anthony Papa: Curate NYC Juried Exhibition and Online Showcase 2011. Curate NYC is back for round two. A citywide juried exhibition and online showcase, the project offers free curatorial reviews, public exposure and exhibition opportunities to New York City visual artists.
Curate NYC is developed by Full Spectrum Experience, Inc., a nonprofit arts organization led by painter/gallery owner Danny Simmons and musician/marketing strategist Brian Tate, and produced in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). Last year Curate NYC attracted 1,200 artists in three short weeks. The top 150 entries were exhibited as museum-quality postcards at Rush Arts Gallery in Chelsea. "Curate NYC is a key component of our efforts to expand New York City's economy by supporting industries like the arts, and providing a venue for less established artists to showcase and sell their works," said NYCEDC President Seth W. Tate said, "We expect many more artists to participate in the 2011 showcase. Artists File Suit Against Sotheby’s, Christie’s and eBay. The uproar that followed in part inspired the California Resale Royalties Act, requiring anyone reselling a piece of fine art who lives in the state, or who sells the art there for $1,000 or more, to pay the artist 5 percent of the resale price.
That law is now at the center of three class-action suits brought this month by artists who include and Laddie John Dill and the estate of the sculptor Robert Graham. They have filed suit against the auction powerhouses and and the online auction site for failure to pay royalties. “It’s a question of basic fairness,” Mr. Close said recently in an interview. The suits do not specify damages, nor do they list particular sales of art by California residents. “What’s so perverse,” Mr. Sotheby’s responded to the suit with a terse statement: “We believe the claim is meritless, and it will be vigorously defended.” The larger issue of whether visual artists should receive a cut of future sales remains a subject of vigorous debate. Some artists agree.
MutualArt Investigates The Top Selling Female Artists Of 2011. Via MutualArt Lot results and fiscal reports from the leading auction houses in the first half of 2011 showed a promising continuation of art market recovery and renewed investor confidence. Yet given the recent upheaval in global markets, speculation is mounting as to how this tumultuous August will affect the auction block. Recently, to gear up for the highly anticipated upcoming sale season, MutualArt reviewed the top highlights from the auction floor so far this year.
Unfortunately, in gathering the auction data there was one factor that was unintentionally overlooked; one sector of artists that somehow evaded all our top 10 lists - Females! This total lack of women's names was realized thanks to MutualArt users who commented on our auction round-up article, bringing this uncanny occurrence to our attention. Continue reading after the slideshow. Les arbres en fleurs (Pommiers en fleurs) (pictured above left) by Natalia Goncharova Arab Priest (above right) by Irma Stern loading...