The father of modern art

In another synchronistic event, I learned of a current exhibit on Paul Cezanne and his influence on other artists in the same week that Dick talked about him in art history class (week 7). The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a major show going on through May 31, “Cezanne and Beyond.” Apparently, he was very…

Week 6 assignment

For class on April 9, Dick has asked us to prepare some comments on the work above: Please take five or ten minutes to view the attached image of Turner’s painting and pen a couple of comments regarding how his painting reflects his interpretation of the event. Having some quiet time to contemplate this work…

Warm-up assignment, take 2

And now, a second viewpoint comparing these two works. This one was written by artist JoëlleC. (See the first here.) Although the theme of both paintings revolves around music, Harnett’s [on the left] is a detailed, almost photographic rendering of all the elements depicted, creating an illusion of reality. It appears as a careful set-up…

Lost edges

In our fourth class, Dick pointed out “lost edges”, where the artist invites the viewer to participate by filling in missing information, such as the Mona Lisa’s hairline on the right side of the painting, where the area is shadowed, leaving the dividing line indistinct. Coincidentally, he got one of his “Twice-weekly letters” from Robert…

Art History Gameboard

The art history game

We got an introduction to the classification of periods in art history by playing a game. We worked in pairs with a game board, where a chronology of representative works was arranged around a square. Dick showed works of art on a screen, and each pair had to agree on what period the work was…

Warm-up assignment

Prior to the first meeting of the art history group, Dick asked us to write a brief comparison of the two works above. Here is how Curtis Cost responded: Two definitions of art… On the left, as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, art defined as a skill set developed over the course of 10,000 hours.…

Art history presentations

Art History 2009 Class 2 Lecture from Richard Nelson Dick’s presentations from the last two meetings of the art history group are available now on Slideshare.net. You can view the first one above. Notice that you can also expand it to full screen. The others are also available to view or download (for a limited…