Claude Monet: "Coin d'atelier"
> What is an "indirect self-portrait"? Click HERE!
Showing posts with label What is art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label What is art. Show all posts
11 April 2016
15 November 2014
What is a portrait?!
> Experts give their answers (video)!
> Wikipedia article
> Portraits of men and women in Ukraine
To do (in pairs):
- Compare and contrast the two portraits above.
- Using the links above, and other sources you can find, plus your own ideas, define what a portrait is!
- Describe what the difference between a "headshot" and a portrait is.
- Describe what the difference between the snapshot of a person is and a portrait.
- > Which is your favourite "portrait of the month"?
- > Do a self-portrait!
- In ten sentences, do a "Chinese portrait" of yourself, starting each sentence with "If I were..." (for example: "If I were a flower, I would be a rose"). Cf. > Chinese portraits... for inspiration.
08 November 2014
‘The Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red’
The field of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London has caught the
public imagination. But does such a beautiful memorial to those killed blind us
to the horror of the First World War?
Contemporary art provokes many responses among the public, but
overwhelming and heartfelt approval is not often among them. However, last week
tens of thousands of people visited an art installation at the Tower of London.
So many, in fact, that buses were diverted and the nearest underground station
closed to avoid dangerous congestion.
The work is made of hundreds of thousands of ceramic poppies planted in
the dry moat of the Tower. Its title is ‘The Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red’
and each poppy commemorates a British or colonial serviceman or woman killed in
the First World War. The first of 888,246 flowers was planted on 5th August,
100 years since the first full day of Britain’s involvement in the war. The
last will be installed on Armistice Day, 11th November.
Each poppy was sold online for £25 and the £15million raised will be
divided between six service charities. (After Armistice Day the artwork will be
dismantled and each poppy delivered to its sponsor.)
Not everyone admires it however. Jonathan Jones, the art critic of the
Guardian newspaper, called it a ‘prettified and toothless war memorial. It is
all dignity and grace. There is a fake nobility to it, and this seems to be
what the crowds have come for – to be raised up into a shared reverence for those
heroes turned frozen flowers. What a lie. The first world war was not noble.
War is not noble. A meaningful mass memorial to this horror would not be
dignified or pretty. It would be gory, vile and terrible to see. The moat of
the Tower should be filled with barbed wire and bones. That would mean
something.’
Many object to this view. A writer in the Daily Mail observed that ‘I
saw the poppies back in the summer and wanted to bring my children before the
whole thing disappears. I could think of no better way to impress upon them the
enormity of the Great War than to show them this crimson moat and explain that
every single one of the 888,246 poppies equals a real person who lived and died
for this country.’
Remembering and forgetting
Some think commemorations like this simply disguise the revolting
brutality of war. Dressing it up as some holy, national sacrifice hides the
ignorance, selfishness and stupidity which brought about the unnecessary death
of millions of young people across the world.
On the other hand, many have been deeply moved by this work and feel
conscious of the link it makes to those members of their families who fought,
and some of whom died, in wars over the last century. To remember them in this
way is not to glorify war, but to appreciate what they did to try to ensure
peace for future generations.
The above article was published in THE DAY.
To do (in pairs!):
- Translate into French the above article and list new words and phrases (LEARN THEM!)
- Research what the Tower of London is.
- Send a short comment to either THE DAILY MAIL or THE GUARDIAN expressing your opinion on the installation in the Tower of London (click on the links below the photo above); keep a copy of your message for your ring binder!
- Describe a war memorial that you know and say why you like or dislike it.
- Give a 60-second oral presentation on ONE of the following topics:
- "War memorials should show the horror of war!"
- "War memorials should show that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country."
24 October 2014
06 September 2014
12 July 2014
24 March 2014
Ten of the best
i don't like art at all... click HERE to read an article from the NYT!
Questions/to do:
- Click on the first link above, and translate the introductory paragraph to the article by Jonathan Jones (entitled "The 10 greatest works of art ever").
- Read the comments Jones makes about his favourite works of art (note useful vocabulary!).
- Rank from 1 to 10 Jones' choice, 1 being your favourite and 10 your least favourite.
- Describe and comment your top choice among Jones' selection (how much do you agree with Jones' assessment?).
- Which are YOUR ten favourite works of art?
- Describe and comment your all-time favourite work of art.
- When was the last time you went to an art museum?
- How often do you go to art museums or galleries in general?
- Why do you think people go to look at works of art?
- What works of art that you’ve never seen in person would you most like to visit (why)?
Assignment:
maro, in the comments page of the article from the NYT (click on the second link above), says "i don't like art at all"... Write a fifty-word paragraph to maro explaining why he should reconsider is position on art!
15 May 2013
01 May 2013
Cocky!
Click HERE to read the Guardian article on which the text below is based!
Click HERE to view a BBC News report!
Click HERE to go to the official website on the Fourth Plinth!Click HERE to view a BBC News report!
Another
Fourth Plinth Cock-up?
In its fifteen year history as a site for temporary contemporary sculptures, the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square has been the cause of much fuss and bother. The empty plinth in front of the National Gallery has hosted, among others: the marble sculpture of a disabled woman, a mock equestrian sculpture, and the members of the public themselves who, for an hour each, were able to become living statues.
Katharina Fritsch's sculpture of a big blue cockerel has also ruffled feathers. Some have
said it is nothing but a feeble distraction, totally inappropriate in a square
which honours Britain's greatest naval victory of the Napoleonic wars (the cockerel
is the national symbol of France!). The Düsseldorf-based artist’s unnerving sculptures
seem indeed to arrive from another world. There is no logic about her elephants,
outsized apples, mice, and men in bright suits; her creatures are fanciful and
dramatic and unrelated to their contexts. But is art not also meant to disrupt?
In the end, though, it's just a weird, oversized, royal blue barnyard bird, and it's been cheering us all up!
In the end, though, it's just a weird, oversized, royal blue barnyard bird, and it's been cheering us all up!
Questions/to do:
- Translate the text above.
- Do you agree that art is "meant to disrupt"?
- What should the purpose of a public sculpture be?
- What do you think of Fritsch's art?
- Describe your favourite Fourth Plinth shortlisted sculpture, and say why you like it so much.
- Take part in the vote!
Assignement:
- Get the children from a Primary school to vote on their favourite Fourth Plinth shortlisted sculpture.
- Run a workshop for the Primary school children: they have to imagine their own sculpture for the Fourth Plinth (they have to draw it on an A3 piece of paper).
19 December 2012
14 October 2012
08 August 2012
25 July 2012
09 July 2012
05 February 2012
23 November 2011
20 November 2011
Art, who needs it?! By Laure de Boisgelin
“To
send light into the darkness of men’s hearts, such is the duty of
the artist...” wrote the 19th
century composer Robert Schumann. Indeed, from
cave paintings to digital art, art has held an essential place in our
everyday lives. Art,
in its many forms, has existed in every community and every culture
since time began, but why is it so indispensable to human beings ?
But,
what is art? It is, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary : “the
expression or application of creative skill and imagination,
especially through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture.”
Do we
realise that art is present in your everyday lives? Do we really pay
any attention to it? In my opinion, I would say not. Nevertheless,
art is a part of our lives; we “live” it, all the time and every
day! From the vase in our living room to the song we are listening
to, from the drawing we made on a piece of paper to a museum we
visited, from the essay we did in class to the poem we are reading...
Art is omnipresent. Paul Strand, the 20th
century American photographer, said : “The
artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from
where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.”
Art, then, surrounds us, but we can’t see it if we aren’t aware
that someone, for example, has drawn the lamp we have in our bedroom.
This someone has been careful of every detail of this lamp, and
someone else has created it: it’s design, it’s art.
Although
art is mostly created by one person, it is also a shared experience ;
a painting is made to be admired, a song to be listened to, theatre
and dance to be watched, etc… It then becomes a silent dialogue
between the artist and the spectator ; do
we see the same thing that another person sees ? Do we understand
what message the artist has tried to transmit to us ? We
will take a famous example, “La Gioconda” by Leonardo da Vinci.
People come to the Louvre from the entire world to admire this work
of art. People share thoughts and feelings about the painting, but
they also have their individual experience of its mystery...
In
what ways does art help us ? First of all, art allows people to
express themselves; it's a mean of
expressing what an artist feels and thinks.
For example: the bombing of Guernica in
1937 inspired Picasso to create his famous painting in order to
squeeze out the horror and the anger he felt. This painting denounces
barbarity, violence and war. Art allows people to share a point of
view or a political opinion, to oppose something, to suggest, to
stimulate thought, to provoke, to encourage... During the Second
World War, “Liberté”,
a poem by Paul Eluard, was parachuted to the members of the French
Resistance, who were hiding in the “maquis”, to encourage them in
their fight against Nazism. As Van Gogh said : “How
rich art is; if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never
without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone”.
Art is
also used in a religious way, to glorify a god, or during rituals
like the Egyptians in their funeral ceremonies, to ensure an
afterlife for the dead person.
Art is
used in healing too. The process of
creating art engages both the body and the mind and provides us with
time to look inward and reflect. It is used to make our lives better
and used too in psychological tests.
Art is
present everywhere and all the time, we can’t deny it or reject it.
We all need it. I agree with John Lubbock, the 19th
century British historian and biologist, when he says : “Art
is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human
happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through
the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.”
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