We had the last session of art history today. Curtis took a couple photos with his iPhone. Dick had asked us each to sum up what we’d gotten out of the class. I’ll be posting several summaries, but thought it would be nice to start with this one from MJ, which I think speaks for…
Dick asked us to prepare comments on this painting for our April 9th class (see assignment). Here’s what Bonnie, Joëlle, and I had to say. (Wanda’s comments added April 28.) Bonnie I see the cycle of life eternally moving slowly forward. Death is proudly giving way to new life. The Temeraire, ghostly white, appears already…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…