ART F200X

 Public Art is an important part of any community. This art can be in the form of sculptures, paintings, or even performances. The best public art enhance the beauty of the area and helps define the region. This can be done by memorializing an important figure to the community, or by giving the soul or history of an area a physical representation. This doesn't necessarily have to be the case however. Sometimes a piece can simply be eye catching, eventually making the art synonymous with the community. In this blog I won't be talking about public performances, but I do believe that they are just as crucial to a community as other forms of art. I especially like when parks have public amphitheaters, as I believe this helps open up a community to more artistic expression. Sculptures The Mustangs of Las Colinas by Robert Glen is a bronze sculpture of wild mustangs running through water. The sculpture was installed in 1984, and commemorates the wild mustangs that used to run throug

WW1 was a brutal war that affected the lives of people all over the world. After the horrors of the "first modern war," many people were looking to rebuild not only the societies that were affected by the war, but also the perceptions of art and traditions. This led to many artists building on the Avant-garde art style, by both mocking and rejecting what would be deemed traditional.     Composition A  was painted by Piet Mondrian in 1920 in Paris. The strait lines and block colors are meant to to be an aesthetic for the modern era. It is moving past the war and into the modern age evolving using mathematical theories to design the painting.  I don't know exactly how to feel about this piece. I appreciate the way that lines are used. It is rigid and structured. I am also a fan of the colors. The primary red, yellow, and blue, mixed with the greys and blacks simplify the work. I find that part to be very appealing. However, I find the painting to be lacking in the emotional

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau was defined by the artist's rejection of "academic" art, the use of muted colors and swirling lines. I find this art style to a little lack luster as a whole. Many of the pieces I have viewed tend to be incredibly simplistic, sometimes to a fault. I really enjoy the use of some of the more muted color pallets, but sometimes They would appear drab and boring.   The Kiss  by Gustav Klimt is an Austrian painting done between 1907 and 1908. This painting interestingly used gold and silver leaf as well as oil on the canvas. I think it gives the painting an interesting texture on the canvas. The painting was done to represent love and sexuality. I enjoy the details of the woman's face in this painting, the way her eyes are closed and the way her head is caressed, portrays the emotion that Klimt was striving to show. However, I find that the color of this painting makes it hard to follow the painting. I can't quite make out where their bodies begi

The American Revolution was a hard fought war on both sides. It was a defining moment for enlightenment not just in America but around the world. Art was less about showing new styles an innovation, and more about what the art can mean to the people that see it. That's not to say other eras were not also trying to mean something to people, it definitely was. Much of the art that deals with the American Revolution was commissioned by governments or officials, to spark some type of feeling in the people. There were also personal commissions, usually meant to commemorate something important to a smaller group of people, such as an army battalion or family. The first painting displayed is  George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait) by Gilbert Stuart. It was painted in America in 1796, and commissioned by Senator William Binghamas as a gift for William Petty, Lord Shelburne, the first Marquess of Lansdowne. It is a life sized portrait of George Washington painted on canvas. This painting se

  History Lady Elizabeth Delmé and her Children , was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in Titchfield Abbey, Hampshire between 1777 and 1780. It is a portrait painted for the sitter's husband, Peter Delmé. It is currently held in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Aesthetic I personally am not incredibly drawn to this piece as a whole. What pulls my attention to this painting is how visually appealing the art is in some places, and how bland it is in others. First let's focus on the appealing parts. First I really enjoy the texture of the sitter and the dog. The way that the dogs hair curls the detail of some hairs being a lighter gray than those around it, give the dog a shaggy yet soft feel. I know, just by looking at the dog, exactly how it felt in real life. The sitters face also has this pail color to it, compared to her neck, and shows that she has a powdered face. My favorite part of this painting is the  drapery laying on the sitter. It has a beautiful silk text

  History The Triumph of the Virtues , also known as  Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue , was painted by Andrea Mantegna in 1502 and is currently located in the Musée du Louvre of Paris. It was the second painting Isabella d'Este's studiolo, the first painting being  Parnassus.  Aesthetic This painting shows the scene of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, chasing off the Vices out of a marsh. The Vices are depicted as deformed beings with medieval scrolls identifying which Vice they are. Among the named Vices are also mythical beings such as the centaur, commonly used as symbolism for lust or sexual violence, that is kidnapping goddess Diana. In the sky are the three virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, watching from above in a cloud, and to the left of Minerva is an olive tree that resembles a human woman. I believe that this piece is quite appealing, mostly due to the amount of story telling that is present in the painting. In this one painting we see a Greek godde