ArtMusingToo

Scultpure in the Fine Arts

2009-05-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

Sculpture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacques Lipchitz, "Birth of the Muses", (1944-1950).

"The Dying Gaul", a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late third century BCE Capitoline Museums, Rome.

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard and/or plastic material, sound, and/or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble), metal, glass, or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded, or cast. Sculptures are often painted ^[1]. A person who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.

Because sculpture involves the use of materials that can be moulded or modulated, it is considered one of the plastic arts. The majority of public art is sculpture. Many sculptures together in a garden setting may be referred to as a sculpture garden.

Types of sculpture

Some common forms of sculpture are:

Free-standing sculpture, sculpture that is surrounded on all sides, except the base, by space. It is also known as sculpture "in the round", and is meant to be viewed from any angle.
Sound sculpture
Light sculpture
Jewelery
Relief - the sculpture is still attached to a background; types are bas-relief, alto-relievo, and sunken-relief
Site-specific art
Kinetic sculpture - involves aspects of physical motion
- Fountain - the sculpture is designed with moving water
- Mobile (see also Calder's Stabiles.)
Statue - representationalist sculpture depicting a specific entity, usually a person, event, animal or object
- Bust - representation of a person from the chest up
- Equestrian statue - typically showing a significant person on horseback
Stacked art - a form of sculpture formed by assembling objects and 'stacking' them

Materials of sculpture through history

Sculptors have generally sought to produce works of art that are as permanent as possible, working in durable and frequently expensive materials such as bronze and stone: marble, limestone, porphyry, and granite. More rarely, precious materials such as gold, silver, jade, and ivory were used for chryselephantine works. More common and less expensive materials were used for sculpture for wider consumption, including glass, hardwoods (such as oak, box/boxwood, and lime/linden); terracotta and other ceramics, and cast metals such as pewter and zinc (spelter).

Sculptures are often painted, but commonly lose their paint to time, or restorers. Many different painting techniques have been used in making sculpture, including tempera, [oil painting], gilding, house paint, aerosol, enamel and sandblasting^[2]^[3]^[4].

Many sculptors seek new ways and materials to make art. Jim Gary used stained glass and automobile parts, tools, machine parts, and hardware. One of Pablo Picasso's most famous sculptures included bicycle parts. Alexander Calder and other modernists made spectacular use of painted steel. Since the 1960s, acrylics and other plastics have been used as well. Andy Goldsworthy makes his unusually ephemeral sculptures from almost entirely natural materials in natural settings. Some sculpture, such as ice sculpture, sand sculpture, and gas sculpture, is deliberately short-lived.

Sculptors often build small preliminary works called maquettes of ephemeral materials such as plaster of Paris, wax, clay, or plasticine, as Alfred Gilbert did for 'Eros' at Piccadilly Circus, London. In Retroarchaeology, these materials are generally the end product.

Sculptors sometimes use found objects.

Asian

Sumerian male worshiper, 2750-2600 B.C.

Many different forms of sculpture were used in Asia, with many pieces being religious art based around Hinduism and Buddhism (Buddhist art). A great deal of Cambodian Hindu sculpture is preserved at Angkor, however organized looting has had a heavy impact on many sites around the country. In Thailand, sculpture was almost exclusively of Buddha images. Many Thai sculptures or temples are gilded, and on occasion enriched with inlays. See also Thai art

India

A Nepalese polychrome wooden statue of the Malla Kingdom, 14th century.

The first known sculptures are from the Indus Valley civilization (3300–1700 BC), found in sites at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in modern-day Pakistan. These are among the earliest known instances of sculpture in the world. Later, as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism developed further, India produced bronzes and stone carvings of great intricacy, such as the famous temple carvings which adorn various Hindu, Jain and Buddhist shrines. Some of these, such as the cave temples of Ellora and Ajanta, are examples of Indian rock-cut architecture, perhaps the largest and most ambitious sculptural schemes in the world.

During the 2nd to 1st century BC in northern India, in what is now southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, sculptures became more anatomically realistic, often representing episodes of the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha. Although India had a long sculptural tradition and a mastery of rich iconography, the Buddha was never represented in human form before this time, but only through symbols such as the stupa. This alteration in style may have occurred because Gandharan Buddhist sculpture in ancient Afghanistan acquired Greek and Persian influence. Artistically, the Gandharan school of sculpture is characterized by wavy hair, drapery covering both shoulders, shoes and sandals, and acanthus leaf decorations, among other things.

The pink sandstone sculptures of Mathura evolved during the Gupta Empire period (4th-6th century AD) to reach a very high fineness of execution and delicacy in the modeling. Gupta period art would later influence Chinese styles during the Sui dynasty, and the artistic styles across the rest of east Asia. Newer sculptures in Afghanistan, in stucco, schist or clay, display very strong blending of Indian post-Gupta mannerism and Classical influence. The celebrated bronzes of the Chola dynasty (c. 850-1250) from south India are of particular note; the iconic figure of Nataraja being the classic example. The traditions of Indian sculpture continue into the 20th and 21st centuries with for instance, the granite carving of Mahabalipuram derived from the Pallava dynasty. Contemporary Indian sculpture is typically polymorphous but includes celebrated figures such as Dhruva Mistry.

China

A Liao Dynasty polychrome wood-carved statue of Guan Yin, Shanxi Province, China, (907-1125 AD)

Artifacts from China date back as early as 10,000 BC and skilled Chinese artisans had been active very early in history, but the bulk of what is displayed as sculpture comes from a few select historical periods. The first period of interest has been the Western Zhou Dynasty (1050-771 BC), from which come a variety of intricate cast bronze vessels. The next period of interest was the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), beginning with the spectacular Terracotta Army assembled for the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the important but short-lived Qin Dynasty that preceded the Han. Tombs excavated from the Han period have revealed many figures found to be vigorous, direct, and appealing 2000 years later.

The first Buddhist sculpture is found dating from the Three Kingdoms period (3rd century), while the sculpture of the Longmen Grottoes near Luoyang, Henan Province (Northern Wei, 5th and 6th century) has been widely recognized for its special elegant qualities.

A wooden Bodhisattva from the Song Dynasty (960-1279)

The period now considered to be China's golden age is the Tang Dynasty, coinciding with what in Europe is sometimes called the Dark Ages). Decorative figures like those shown below became very popular in 20th century Euro-American culture, and were made available in bulk, as warlords in the Chinese civil wars exported them to raise cash. Considered especially desirable, and even profound, was the Buddhist sculpture, often monumental, begun in the Sui Dynasty, inspired by the Indian art of the Gupta period, and many are considered treasures of world art.

Following the Tang, Western interest in Chinese artifacts drops off dramatically, except for what might be considered as ornamental furnishings, and especially objects in jade. Pottery from many periods has been collected, and again the Tang period stands out apart for its free, easy feeling. Chinese sculpture has no nudes --other perhaps than figures made for medical training or practice -- and very little portraiture compared with the European tradition. One place where sculptural portraiture was pursued, however, was in the monasteries.

Almost nothing, other than jewelry, jade, or pottery is collected by art museums after the Ming Dynasty ended in the late 17th century -- and absolutely nothing has yet been recognized as sculpture from the tumultuous 20th century, although there was a school of Soviet-influenced social realist sculpture in the early decades of the Communist regime, and as the century turned, Chinese craftsmen began to dominate commercial sculpture genres (the collector plates, figurines, toys, etc) and avant garde Chinese artists began to participate in the Euro-American enterprise of contemporary art.

Japan

See also: Japanese art and Japanese sculpture

A frog and lizard battle in this contemporary sculpture in Matsumoto, Japan.

Countless paints and sculpture were made, often under governmental sponsorship. Most Japanese sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium' use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism. During the Kofun period of the third century, clay sculptures called haniwa were erected outside tombs. Inside the Kondo at Hōryū-ji is a Shaka Trinity (623), the historical Buddha flanked by two bodhisattvas and also the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions. The wooden image ( 9th c.) of Shakyamuni, the "historic" Buddha, enshrined in a secondary building at the Murō-ji, is typical of the early Heian sculpture, with its ponderous body, covered by thick drapery folds carved in the hompa-shiki (rolling-wave) style, and its austere, withdrawn facial expression. The Kei school of sculptors, particularly Unkei, created a new, more realistic style of sculpture.

Africa

Ife head, terracotta, probably 12-14th centuries

[edit] African sculptures

Sculptures are created to symbolize and reflect the regions from which they are made. Right from the materials and techniques used, the pieces have functions that are very different from one region to the other.

In West Africa, the earliest known sculptures are from the Nok culture of Nigeria, which dates around 500 BC. The figures of West African sculptures typically have elongated bodies, angular shapes, and facial features that represent an ideal rather than an individual. These figures are used in religious rituals. They are made to have surfaces that are often coated with materials placed on them for ceremonial offerings. In contrast to these sculptures of West Africa are the ones of Mande-speaking peoples of the same region. The Mande pieces are made of wood and have broad, flat surfaces. Their arms and legs are shaped like cylinders.

In Central Africa, however, the main distinguishing characteristics include heart-shaped faces that are curved inward and display patterns of circles and dots. Although some groups prefer more geometric and angular facial forms, not all pieces are exactly the same, nor are they made of the same material. The primary material is wood, though ivory, bone, stone, clay, and metal are also used. The Central African region has very striking styles that are very easy to identify, making regional identification very easy.

"Berlin Green Head", Egypt, 500BC

Eastern Africans are not known for their sculpture, but, one type that is created in this area is pole sculptures, which are poles carved in human shapes, decorated with geometric forms, while the tops are carved with figures of animals, people, and various objects. These poles are, then, placed next to graves and are associated with death and the ancestral world.

Southern Africa’s oldest known clay figures date from 400 to 600 A.D. and have cylindrical heads. These clay figures have a mixture of human and animal features. Other than clay figures, there are also wooden headrests that were buried with their owners. The headrests had styles ranging from geometric shapes to animal figures. Each region had a unique style and meaning to their sculptures. The type of material and purpose for creating sculpture in Africa reflect the region from which the pieces are created.

Egypt

The Americas

The K'alyaan Totem Pole of the Tlingit Kiks.ádi Clan, erected at Sitka National Historical Park to commemorate the lives lost in the 1804 Battle of Sitka.

Sculpture in what is now Latin America developed in two separate and distinct areas, Mesoamerica in the north and Peru in the south. In both areas, sculpture was initially of stone, and later of terracotta and metal as the civilizations in these areas became more technologically proficient. ^[5] The Mesoamerican region produced more monumental sculpture, from the massive block-like works of the Olmec and Toltec cultures, to the superb low reliefs that characterize the Mayan and Aztec cultures. In the Andean region, sculptures were typically small, but often show superb skill.

In North America, wood was sculpted for totem poles, masks, utensils, War canoes and a variety of other uses, with distinct variation between different cultures and regions. The most developed styles are those of the Pacific Northwest Coast, where a group of elaborate and highly-stylized formal styles developed forming the basis of a vibrant tradition that is in a renaissance today (see Bill Reid) and has moved into other mediums such as silver, gold and modern materials. The introduction of metal tools introduced new carving techniques, including the use of a black type of argillite, also called black slate, which is exclusive for use by artists of the Haida people.

Miniature totem pole in black argillite, carver unknown, UBC Museum of Anthropology collection

In addition to the famous totem poles, painted and carved house fronts were complemented by carved posts inside and out, as well as mortuary figures and other items. Among the Inuit of the far north, traditional carving styles in ivory and soapstone have been expanded through the use of modern power tools into new directions for Inuit culture which, like the art of the Northwest Coast, is highly prized by art collectors for its plastic forms and innovative interpretation of figure and story.

The habitant-carved altar of Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal)

The arrival of European Catholic culture readily adapted local skills to the prevailing Baroque style, producing enormously elaborate retablos and other mostly church sculptures in a variety of hybrid styles.^[6] The most famous of such examples in Canada is the altar area of the Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal, Quebec, which was carved by peasant habitant labourers. Later, artists trained in the Western academic tradition followed European styles until in the late nineteenth century they began to draw again on indigenous influences, notably in the Mexican baroque grotesque style known as Churrigueresque. Aboriginal peoples also adapted church sculpture in variations on Carpenter Gothic; one famous example is the Church of the Holy Cross in Skookumchuck Hot Springs, British Columbia.

Frederic Remington, The Bronco Buster, limited edition #17 of 20, 1909.

The history of sculpture in the United States after Europeans' arrival reflects the country's 18th-century foundation in Roman republican civic values and Protestant Christianity. Compared to areas colonized by the Spanish, sculpture got off to an extremely slow start in the British colonies, with next to no place in churches, and was only given impetus by the need to assert nationality after independence. American sculpture of the mid- to late-19th century was often classical, often romantic, but showed a bent for a dramatic, narrative, almost journalistic realism. Public buildings of the first half of the 20th century often provided an architectural setting for sculpture, especially in relief. By the 1950s, traditional sculpture education would almost be completely replaced by a Bauhaus-influenced concern for abstract design. Minimalist sculpture often replaced the figure in public settings. Modern sculptors use both classical and abstract inspired designs. Beginning in the 1980s, there was a swing back toward figurative public sculpture; by 2000, many of the new public pieces in the United States were figurative in design.

Europe

The earliest European sculpture to date portrays a female form, and has been estimated at dating from 35,000 years ago. The discovery in 2008 has caused experts to revise the history of the development of art.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture

* To be continued in the next blog posting...

Swine Flu News Link

2009-05-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

PlanetAzure: Swine Flu Link

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

Albert Einstein

PhotoFunia Fun

2009-05-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

From Drop Box

I just found this site called Photofunia.com where you can have fun adding special effects to your photographs. I took a picture and altered it on the site. You can see the results above.

ArtMusing: The Top Arts Sites on Alexa

2009-04-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

ArtMusing: The Top Arts Sites on Alexa

Ad-O-Rama: Top Commentator Links

2009-04-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

Ad-O-Rama: Top Commentator Links

Thank you for your comment!

Recent Artworks

2009-04-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent artworks from Gina Nicole:

From GiFi

GiFi 2

GiFi 3

GiFi 4

Blogger Connect

2009-04-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Please go to the following link to learn how to use the Blogger Connect widget located in my sidebar. Perhaps you have, or would like to have the widget on your blog.

http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2009/02/blogger-followers-now-integrated-with.html

Tim and Jim's Awesome Blog: Free Write

2009-04-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Tim and Jim's Awesome Blog: Free Write

Thank you for your comment!

Tribal Artery: Tribal Art - Investing in beauty and life enrichment

2009-04-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

Tribal Artery: Tribal Art - Investing in beauty and life enrichment

Thank you for your comment!

#links

2009-04-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

#links

My Top Ten Entrecard Droppers for March

2009-04-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my top ten Entrecard droppers. I am going to send them free credits that equal their number of visits to my site.

Youniquely Chic
30
Art Joolree
22
Autumnal Confessions & SexyAdvice
21
Personal Finance Management Guide
19
Sexy Old Broad
18
Lap Band Progress
15
Nursing Endeavors
5
Diabetes Destroys
4
Upgrade Your Life!
3
Harvesting Dollars
3

An Original Pencil Drawing of a Golden Lab

2009-02-19T13:26:00.000-08:00

From My Online Art

This is a pencil drawing of a dog friend of mine. His name is Coach. He is very good at posing. In fact, for a treat, he will learn a variety of tricks. I did a digital painting from my drawing titled, "Good Boy, Coach!" I like my pencil drawing the best, though, because it captures his happy and pleasant personality.

I also have an online store, Gail Alexander's, whose merchandise features my original artwork, and that of my daughter, Gina Nicole.

FYI: A Controversial Post about Social Networking

2009-02-19T10:53:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this post about Facebook and social networking in general.

http://gosmelltheflowers.com/archives/8629

Ad-O-Rama: Feline Heights: Alternatives to Declawing, Nail Caps for Cats

2009-02-16T23:28:00.000-08:00

Ad-O-Rama: Feline Heights: Alternatives to Declawing, Nail Caps for Cats

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

Albert Einstein

Good boy, Coach! by Gail Alexander

2009-02-16T19:44:00.000-08:00

I created this digital painting from a pencil drawing that I had made of a dog that I was petsitting. It is titled "Good boy, Coach!" He posed very nicely for me. It is very hard to get animals to stay still for even 10 seconds!

Anyway I am using this image on my new Cafepress store's merchandise. My store is called Gail Alexander's. It's URL is http://www.cafepress.com/gailalexander

Feline Heights: We've Gone Green!

2009-02-16T15:32:00.000-08:00

Feline Heights: We've Gone Green!

ArtMusing: Feline Heights: Metamorphoses

2009-02-15T02:56:00.000-08:00

ArtMusing: Feline Heights: Metamorphoses

Thank you for your comment!

Quality Art Supplies on Sale Now!

2009-02-14T02:23:00.000-08:00

Blick Art Materials

The Goodnight Kiss

2009-02-14T00:13:00.001-08:00

The Goodnight Kiss

Posted using ShareThis

The Fragances of Love featured on ArtMusing

2009-02-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

Please visit our "sister" blog, ArtMusing, which is featuring special offers from Nature's Inventory, a company that specializes in beautiful, organic fragrances - just in time for Valentine's Day and Beyond!

A New Blog Carnival: Art and Travel Coming to Art Musing

2009-02-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

My companion blog, ArtMusing, will be hosting a new Blog Carnival: Art and Travel on Valentines's Day. The link to ArtMusing is http://artmusingbyalexander.blogspot.com. The Blog Carnival features a wealth of art and travel postings from adventurous bloggers from around the world.

Postcard Inspired Photography

2009-02-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

Please visit this link for a valuable review of a well-known photographer whose work was inspired by his passion for collecting postcards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/arts/design/06evan.html?ex=1391662800&en=15cc36563ff8e985&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg

Please leave your comments! I would love hearing your feedback.

Happy Groundhog Day

2009-02-02T19:24:00.000-08:00

Clip art copyrighted by Bobbie Peachey, Webclipart.about.com.

Groundhog Day is a fun holiday. I'm an art teacher and I usually have an art activity to celebrate with the kids. Of course the art lesson includes content about mammals, hibernation, weather, and the seasons.

Cats in Art

2009-01-17T21:48:00.000-08:00

I have often noticed that people who are artists, or have the soul of an artist, have cats in their lives.

With that said, I am going to publish art about cats periodically on this blog. I also started a new blog called Feline Heights, http://felineheights.blogspot.com. Please, stop by for a visit. Comments are always welcome!

Image(s) courtesy of Cat-Tea Clips© www.catteacorner.com. Used by permission.

ArtMusing's Blog Carnival

2009-01-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

ArtMusingToo's sister blog, ArtMusing, will present its newest edition of the Blog Carnival: Art and Travel, January 19, 2009.

http://artmusingbyalexander.blogspot.com/2008/12/blog-carnival-art-and-travel-christmas.html

History of Art

2009-01-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

History of Art

Author: Hamid Ahmed

"So I am to become a nonentity, am I?" These words, attributed to the seventy-six year old Joseph Mallord William Turner on his deathbed, offer a revelatory insight into the vaulting ambition that fueled his long and controversial career. For over six decades this painter born to humble circumstances worked furiously to establish and sustain his reputation as the greatest painter in Britain. As one walks through the twelve rooms of the National Gallery's stupendous Turner exhibit, the largest of its kind ever presented in North America, one recognizes an artist whose imaginative vision and innovative techniques expanded the artistic possibilities of light and color in the nineteenth century. Turner also had a remarkable "second life" in the mid twentieth century when his late unfinished works were rediscovered by both the Abstract Expressionists and experimental filmmakers.

Turner was an unlikely candidate for the title of the greatest British painter of his age. His father was a barber and wigmaker who showed his precocious son's drawings in the window of his shop in Convent Garden. Soon after enrolling as a student at the Royal Academy in 1790, Turner recognized that garnering attention at the Academy's annual exhibition was a necessity if he was to rise from the ranks. From then on his ruling passion was inextricably bound up with the Academy's professed aim of developing a uniquely British school of painting. By 1802, at the age of twenty-six, he was elected a full Royal Academician -- the youngest member ever so admitted. Five years after this honor Turner sought out another. He became professor of perspective in which capacity he delivered a course of lectures in most years from 1811-1828. The uneducated but intellectually curious Turner took pains in his lectures to present his innovative ideas visually in diagrams. He retained a lifelong devotion to the Royal Academy describing it at one point as the "institution to which I owe everything."

Although Turner first attained distinction with his precise architectural watercolors which depicting the melancholy and picturesque ruins of grand Gothic abbeys in all their variety, he knew that he must master the more traditional art of oil painting if he was to be taken seriously. This meant accepting the Academy's hierarchy of genres in which history painting with its compelling stories derived from the Bible or ancient writers as Homer and Virgil was considered the most demanding form of art. It required both great technical skill as well as the capacity to render visually the morally edifying lessons of these books.

As we can see in the early rooms of the exhibit, Turner was amazingly quick to assimilate the techniques of the old masters such as Claude and the Dutch marine painters. He also learnt from and managed to outshine his contemporaries like John Constable. Nevertheless, he bristled at the Academy's denigration of landscape as a "mere" reproduction of appearances. His strategy was to imbue his canvases with heroic literary references and atmospheric effects that created their own sense of drama. An early example, Dolbadern Castle, North Wales (1800), reveals a theatrically back-lit castle set high up on a dark rocky terrain. In the bottom foreground two soldiers guard a bound and kneeling prisoner who represents a 13th century Welsh prince imprisoned in the castle by his brother. This scene of captivity is dwarfed by the mountain gloom and castle scene looming in the background. In order to highlight his theme of liberty and servitude Turner inserted several lines of verse (possibly authored by himself) in the original catalogue description.

Turner was not only interested in bringing his painting closer to poetry; he was also determined to invest it with the most modish ideas of contemporary philosophy. During the first decade of the nineteenth century Turner attained his status as a leading member of the British school by painting thrilling and even terrifying scenes of nature's overwhelming force and grandeur. Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1755) had popularized the notion that when viewed from a safe distance such awesome and exhilarating scenes can lead to reflections on man's insignificance in the face of a vast and indifferent universe. The churning seas and thunderous skies of his watercolors and oils gave thrilling visual form to the Sublime as Burke interpreted it.

The grand rhetorical language of the Sublime in turn became a key aspect of Turner's effort to heighten the scope of his art by allowing him to approach the kinds of universal, instructive themes that were crucial to history painting's elevated status. In Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps (1812) the tail end of the Carthaginian army in the foreground is being picked off by local tribesmen while in the far distance a tiny figure (Hannibal?) on an elephant heads for the sunlit lowlands of Italy. All the human figures in the painting are dwarfed by the awe-inspiring setting and the overwhelming power of the snowstorm's vortex of destructive energy. We observe here for the first time the anticlassical compositional motif of the vortex to which the artist would return throughout his career. By this time, Turner was writing his own poem: "The Fallacies of Hope." From this never to be completed epic he extracted verses which pointed to the roots of Hannibal's defeat in the decline in his army's moral fiber and martial virtue resulting from their extended sojourn in the central Italian countryside.

During the first two decades of Turner's adult life Britain was constantly at war with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The deeply patriotic painter was preoccupied with this conflict that threatened his island nation. One of the decisive battles of the Napoleonic Wars was the naval victory at Trafalgar on the coast of Spain where the British defeated the combined French and Spanish fleet. Turner's two paintings celebrating the victory dominate one of the largest rooms of the exhibit. In The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory (1806) he focuses on the moment when the victorious hero of the battle, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson is felled by a sniper's bullet. Nelson lies on the deck of the ship left of center. A bold compositional diagonal leads toward the right top of the canvas where the smoking gun of the French marksman, positioned high in the riggings of the French ship can be seen. The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 (1823-1824), Turner's only royal commission, is a huge work akin to a scene from a spectacular Hollywood epic. Turner celebrates the victory but also shows the confusion that attends such victory in a battle at sea. Moving closer to the painting one notices in the foreground the devastating toll of the war through the desperation of the scores of men who are struggling for their lives in the waters churned by the battle action. They seem to be reaching out from the canvas in our direction as if hoping there was some chance we can come to their assistance in their terrible plight.

On an October evening in his sixtieth year, Turner witnessed the devastating fire that destroyed the Houses of Parliament -- the symbol of Britain's historical and political legacy of representative government. In dozens of sketches and watercolors some of which were surely composed on site, Turner depicted the mighty power of nature's destructive forces, a theme over which he had brooded all his life. At the same time the combination of elements involved in a great conflagration such as this where fire, water and air swirled in a maelstrom of heat and light reflected on the river appealed to Turner's deepest aesthetic sensibilities. The studies resulted in two oil paintings of the same name, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834 (1835), which presented the scene from different vantage points along the banks of the Thames. This particular exhibition marks the first time these astounding works oil and watercolor have ever been exhibited together. For this reason alone a visit is a once in a lifetime experience.

Over the decades, as Turner's work became increasingly experimental; it left more of his viewers provoked, surprised and bewildered. There was continuous controversy in the press about the rough handling of his paints, the high-keyed use of color and the obscurity of his subjects and style. Among his detractors was the essayist William Hazlitt who observed that Turner's later work consisted of "tinted steam" and were at the end of the day "paintings of nothing and very like."

But Turner was fortunate in his champions. No less an expert judge of poetry than Alfred Lord Tennyson called Turner "the Shakespeare of painting." The artist clearly encouraged such a comparison, going so far as to claim he was born on the same day as the bard of Avon. One of his most controversial late works is Juliet and her Nurse (1836), which rather than being set in Shakespeare's Verona is rather set in Turner's Venice, with its panoramic view of St. Marks. Of course anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the play and its story will recall that the whole tragedy begins with the words: "In fair Verona where we lay our scene..." The geographical error was duly noted by hostile critics, one of whom suggested this was evidence of the aging Turner's senility. This in turn aroused a young John Ruskin to write a letter in defense of Turner and his freedom to play with the locations of Shakespeare's plays in the service of his final artistic vision. The letter was in the end never sent but its contents pointed in the direction of the first volume of Ruskin's Modern Painters (1845). Here Ruskin provided a brilliant defense of the inner truthfulness of Turner's landscapes which defense when elaborated over the remaining four volumes had the effect of transforming the way in which readers in Victorian England and America approached the appreciation of fine art

Joseph Phelan, the features editor of Artcyclopedia, has a Ph.D from the University of Toronto, where he studied with Allan Bloom, the author of The Closing of the American Mind. He has worked as a summer intern for political philosopher and social critic Sydney Hook, as an archivist at the New York Public Library, and as Senior Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Phelan currently teaches at the University of Maryland. He previously taught at the University of Toron

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/art-articles/history-of-art-712258.html

About the Author:

As early as the 1820's, Turner began to look ahead to his posthumous reputation by making a will in which he deeded to the nation all his unsold works. He also left instructions that several of his works were to be hung next to those of the Old Masters by which his own pieces had been inspired.

Keywords:

Fame and the Founding Father

http://www.articlesbase.com/art-articles/history-of-art-712258.html

For more information about Turner and his art:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner

My New Blog for a New Year!

2009-01-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

A friend was just telling me that he was bored and I advised him to start a blog. I have decided to follow my own advice, but not because I'm bored. Really I try NEVER to be bored. I cannot handle boredom.

I will return to that subject in another post - it is getting late, and I have things to do!

Anyway this is the very first posting for my new blog, ArtMusingToo. My first blog, related to this one, is ArtMusing by Alexander. So, as in the original blog, I will be posting about art, culture, travel, and life in general...OR if blogs do have a life of their own, it may lead me to different "musings."

I hope that I will continue to make new friends as I journey through the blogosphere.

Oh! and I almost forgot, I have another blog called Ad-O-Rama. Please visit! Thanks!!! and please comment!