Crocker Art Museum

My wife and i dont get to spend alot of time together because of work and school, so when i saw on the class syllabus that we had to visit an art museum excitement was far from the emotion that i was feeling. But as the class went on a few weeks i found that i was,to my surprise, actually excited about going. So we decided to make a whole day out of going downtown, and on Sunday June 1st after a nice lunch at Joes Crab shack we went to the museum. I have been downtown many times over the years and had never seen or even heard of the Crocker Art Museum, and i cant say i wasnt surprised when we saw it. It looks to me like an old Victorian mansion right on the outskirts of downtown.

When we went in i noticed that it is bigger inside than it looks from the outside, and that there is plenty of space for the various artwork. This particular exhibit specialized in the language of the nude, so we made that our first stop. What i noticed first off was that the lights were very dim making it very difficult to see. I figured that this was done to keep the different drawings from fading. Of course i didnt put two and two together so when i took a picture of one of my favorite drawings that i saw, i was quickly told to put my camera away while on that level. This picture that i got was a drawing by Francis Boucher called the "Birth of Venus". It was drawn in black and white chalk and charcoal on beige laid paper in the early 1730's, in a series of mythological drawings. In this particular picture Boucher uses broad strokes with the chalk and implied line that focuses the attention on Venus. I used my "vast" knowledge while we were in the exhibit and tried my best to decipher the different uses of line and also the shading, hatching and cross hatching.

After we left the language of the nude exhibit we wondered around the museum looking at the different paintings. There were many that i liked, and that stuck with me. Among them was the three paintings by Edwin Deakin. The first one that i saw was his painting called Mont Blanc. This painting which was done in 1880 and is very similar in its background to his other painting "Dent du midi" {Castle of Chillon, Lake Geneva 1894} in which the artist uses atmospheric perspective and cool colors to surround the mountains. Both of these paintings were approximately three feet by five feet. Another of his paintings that i really liked was his painting of the grapes called "Grapes and Architecture" 1896. This oil painting really stood out to me because of the intensity and saturation of the purple in the grapes. I think that the Deakin used the technique called tenebrism for this.

We went up another level and there were alot more paintings up there. On the third level half of the gallery was dedicated to European artists and half to California artists. One of the paintings that i really liked was actually done by two different artists in a collaboration. Eugene Verboeckhoven and Jean Roffiaen painted together "Evening Shadowns, Lake of the Four Cantons" 1862. Roffiaen was a landscape painter and Verboeckhoven specialized in animal paintings, so the two collaborated on this beautiful painting which is of a sunrise through the valley, which happens to be a lake. Here the artists also used atmospheric perspective in the mountains. I found this painting to be very peaceful. In contrast my favorite painting at the museum was far from peaceful. This small painting by Andreas Achenbach called "Norwegian Coast by Moonlight" 1848 is a very dark painting of an almost stormy ocean. The shades of gray and the highlight of the moon coming through the dark clouds make this painting almost eerie to me. I used to live by the ocean so i guess i have a bias towards those paintings. There were many other paintings that i saw that i liked but i could not take pictures of all of them.

The last section that we visited was my least favorite of the day. This section had some strange things in it. Mirrored walkways,Mildred Howards "Public Eye, Private Me" sculptures of pigs with baskets on it, and a crazy robotic looking thing with eyes that moved around. I'm sure that these exhibits are very nice and artistic, but they are not my type of art. I like more traditional work like paintings and drawings.

All in all, i had a very nice time visiting the museum. I had hoped to see some works by more famous artists, but it is a small gallery so maybe in the future ill be able to go to a bigger gallery.

What i learned

The first couple of weeks in class we pretty much learned what art was and how to visually
look at it. I learned that art isn't just paintings and sculptures and that it can be
something as easy as a pattern in a lake (Robert Smithsons Spiral Jetty) or something
expensive and complex as Christo and Jean Claudes Central Park Gates. I also learned that
art doesnt have to be exact and that artists sometimes paint or draw out of their eyes ala
Albert Bierstadts Rocky Mountains. We also learned that there is a psychological and
physical process involved when you look at art, and that nobody sees the same exact thing
when you look at a piece of art. That held true time and time again when i would analyze a
piece of work and come up with what i thought it was and later learn that the artist had
something else in mind. My visual literacy wasnt and still isnt quite right though im trying
to get better every day! I did however learn about some of the different styles of painting
and decided that the impressionist paintings were my favorite time and time again and that
if i happened to win the lotto i would want to add a Monet to my collection.

In the middle weeks of class we started to get really technical about the works of art, and
we started to analyze the line and space and the light and color. There were many technical
terms that i will probably never use or remember but i still did learn alot from it. I will
always remember and will always look at the hues and shades on paintings and try to decipher
how or why the artist used the color wheel to achieve his desired results, or how
effectively Van Gogh used complimentary colors in his paintings. And though i am not very
good at defining the correct way of using lines i try every time to advance my vision or
knowledge of the linear perspective and see that the work is balanced.

The last two weeks of the class showed me a different side of art. We looked at camera art,
printing and sculptures. I was really interested in camera art and how they can manipulate
the pictures to make them look more desirable or if they want less desirable, and didnt
realize how many of the pictures that we look at have been altered. Even the big magazines
did it! When we got into the sculpture chapter i learned that i am only a fan of traditional
sculpture and not into some of the more thoughtful crazy pieces. I like Michelangelos works
but not alot of the strange stuff.I will take with me alot of knowledge that i did not think would happen in this class.

I look at art differently than before and want to add some of the paintings to my wall that
ive seen because of this class. Replicas of course. I found that after i read a chapter i
would go back and research one of the artists that i liked and look at their other work.
Before this class i didnt have a care in the world when it came to art and now i do. Ill
never be an artist myself, but at least i can appreciate and see what somebody else meant
for me to see; even if its only sometimes.

Conceptual Art

The best definition to me of conceptual art is that it is just somebodies thought or idea turned into what they think is art. This can be any idea that there is, crazy or sane. It is just somebodies version of what art is to them. In fact, i think that the idea is more important than the actual piece of work.
I chose to write about Janine Antonis work called "Lick and Lather" because it intrigued me the most. In this project she made a couple of molds of her head. The first one she used a common dental mold to make the head steady and then used 35 pounds of chocolate to mold her head, including her hair. The artistic part, or conceptual was that she licked the chocolate partly off her own mold to resculpture her own looks. The second mold that was used in the project was a mold of her head made out of soap. In this conceptual piece, she took a bath with her own molded head until the soap began to wear down and change the look of the head. In this piece she describes it as "This piece is very much is about trying to be on the outside of myself and have a relationship with my image". She also describes the project as a way to slowly erase herself, as in a love hate relationship.
I find that conceptual art is very strange. If Janine Antonis did not provide a definition of her work i would not have the slightest idea what it was about. After reading it though it makes alot of sense to me. Its just not the norm for somebody like me who is not really into art, or is just learning about it. I cannot grasp the meaning of some of the works, nor do i find them really interesting. I just dont appreciate conceptual art like i do a beautiful painting or sculpture. Im sure that there are great pieces out there, but its just not my thing.

Two Worlds Collide

I think that Keith Cottinghams work "Fictitious Portraits" really relates to the lecture, "Two worlds Collide", in that the work is a manipulation of the real thing. Cottingham manipulates the photos by including drawings, wax sculptures and pictures of real people and mixes in himself to make the pictures. These also include different gendars of people and people of different ages. So in actuallality, none of his pictures are even real. They are just digital manipulations. Of course he does this in an artistic way to show his views and to challenge the modernist notions of personhood. He also wants to show us with his artwork that the core of personhood is dependent upon the body.I personally am not a big fan of the works of either Cottingham or Aziz and Cucher but i can relate to why they are doing their art that way. Its just not something that i really like. Just like the pictures arent actually real, the lecture shows us that not all pictures are real either. Photographic manipulation has gone on for over a hundred years. Starting with the iconic picture of Abraham Lincoln, who just happens to have borrowed the body of John Calhoun in his famous 1860 picture, to almost every picture that you and i see in certain magazines. Even National Geographic digitally manipulated their picture of the pyramids on the cover of their 1982 magazine.
Of course when manipulation is done to make people look better it can have a poor effect on those who think its real.When i watched the Dove video on self esteem it was really weird to see the girl, who could have been any jane doe, turn into an almost perfect 10 on the billboard with the manipulation of the photograph.It made it seem as if anyone could walk off the street and sit in that chair and be transformed into a perfect specimen. Its almost sad to see how our young ones are brought up to think that all of these models are real people. These girls not only receive outlandish pampering with their hair, makeup and even overall body color, but then they are digitally airbrushed and altered to make them look even better. I dont understand why a girl cannot model in these magazines as is. I mean even a gorgeous model isnt really good enough for these covers. Imagine how a growing teen girl is going to feel, because she cannot live up to what we have manipulated in her favorite teen magazine. Shes going to have no self worth or self esteem.
I think that digital technology is great if used in the right way. When it is altered to change the look of someone to conform to what a perfect specimen is i think it is wrong. In that sense i like what Keith Cottingham says about his work, "In effect we are race, gender and age, yet, because the self is fluid and able to change we cannot be reduced to these exterior attributes". Hopefully when i raise my children they will not have to self esteem issues because magazines and photographers.

Favorite Painting

I chose Vincent Van Gogh's painting, A Starry Night for this assignment because it has always been my favorite painting.
Van Gogh's Starry Night is one of the most replicated and well know images in modern culture. It was painted in 1889 while Van Gogh was in an asylum at Saint Remy for mental illness. While in the asylum he converted a cell into a makeshift studio and painted about 150 images including most of his famous ones, including Irises, Cypresses and the Starry Night.
In his younger years Van Gogh wanted to dedicate his life to evangelization of those in poverty. He spent time as a teacher and then became a missionary worker in a very poor region. His early works produced paintings with only sombre colors to them. It was not until he encountered impressionism in Paris that he began to add brighter colors and become the unique painter that he was. It is believed that the 11 stars in Starry Night and other similar works were based on his religious beliefs. In Genesis 39:9 "And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethen, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and , behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars make obeisance to me".
In his life Van Gogh produced more than 2000 works in which 900 were paintings. While he was alive he sold one painting only.
What i like most about Starry Night is the object on the left of the town. To me i have always thought of the image as a dark castle overlooking the town at night. Of course after doing research on the painting and the artist i learned that the image was not a castle but a cypress tree. This tree/castle image is huge in scale compared to the rest of objects and add depth to the painting. Most of the colors are dark and cool and add a complement to Van Gogh's favorite color yellow, which he uses in most of his works. In the center of the painting there is a church which adds a peaceful tone to a somewhat erratic painting. When i look at this image as a whole there is no clear cut focus point. There is almost a focal point everywhere in the painting. Of course the uniqueness of his brush strokes is what makes Van Gogh so famous. In this painting particularly the swirls that he uses to make the clouds and the different colors and hues around the stars and moon make this painting so spectacular.
The only thing that i found out about the type of paint in this painting was that it was an oil painting. And because Van Gogh had tried to commit suicide a few months earlier by drinking his paint i know that it was a lead oil paint. Other than that it was all i could find.

Thomas Kincade. . . . . . . Artist?

Wow this blog takes me back about 14 years in my life. I remember my mom and step dad had just taken a trip from our home in San Jose to Placerville, and when she returned she had come home with some "art" for investing....When i looked at the "paintings" i will admit, i did think that they were kind of neat looking. But art was not something that i grew up with so you could have drawn me your own version of the starry night by Picasso and colored it with crayons and i wouldnt have known the difference. When she told me how much she paid for the "paintings" i kind of cringed, because we werent the richest kids in the neighborhood and a couple of thousand dollars for three paintings was alot; but what did i know. Over the next few years and a couple of more trips to Placerville i would soon learn about "The Painter of Light".

This is my personal opinion of Thomas Kincade. I believe whole heartedly that he is a hell of a businessman. He has turned his version of art into a multi million dollar business. His artwork is almost everywhere you look. He has puzzles at Walgreens, cards at Hallmark, calenders at every mall you go to, not to mention the Thomas Kincade stores in Placerville, Carmel and even here in Roseville. His marketing skills and stragedy are second to none, and in my non artist eyes his "paintings" are not bad. But is he an artist? Before i knew anything about reprints and what the numbers meant on the "paintings" i thought that the "Painter of Light" was indeed a great artist. Like i said i never paid attention to art before so i had never seen a piece of art with such great lighting.

Fast forward ten years and i was searching the internet one day and found out the truth about the "Painter of Light". After all these years of these paintings hanging on my moms wall i found the exact paintings for sale online. Little did i know that there were hundreds of the same "paintings" for sale, and that they were actually reprints of the original. Then i researched it alittle bit more and found out that these were not even touched by the artist, and in fact they were made using a revolutionary process and were numbered for collectors. If you had a low number your print was worth more than the others. The same print with a higher number was worth much less. I told my mom how her "painting" was actually a print and how stupid and unoriginal it was, and how it was no different then collecting posters or baseball cards. She agreed and decided to sell her precious artwork, which by then had festered up to 9 prints. It hadn't gone up in value because the scam was up by then, and people werent going to pay thousands of dollars for a poster.

In conclusion i will say that Thomas Kincade is a great business man and a good painter. If he would sell his original paintings then i would consider that to be art. Does he, nope. Is it good art? I guess that would only matter to those who bought it. Does he trick people into buying his prints, I would say that he is a really good scam artist and that he does cheat people along the way. As far as the fbi investigation and his rudeness when he drinks, that has nothing to do with his work. Picasso shot himself and Van Gogh cut off his own ear. Theyre social behavior has nothing to do with their work. I can see how if you sell to a certain crowd, like the Christian crowd how it might anger some but nobodys perfect. I personally would never buy anything from Thomas Kincade as a collectible. If i liked one of his prints and it was cheap i might buy it, but not as art. Every artist i know hates his guts, some because they consider him a sellout and others because they think he's a scam artist. I think he's all of the above.

Analyze That

monet-irises-monets-garden.jpg
My analysis was chosen from Kimberly Evans blog. She had an image from my favorite painter, Claude Monet. I have always been a big fan of his and currently have two of his paintings in my home. (replicas obviously). I like the way that his paintings look so much different when you are up close compared to when you are far away. This particular image is of a garden, which i am assuming was his big garden that he kept and made many paintings of.
In this painting there doesnt appear to be alot of line use in the sense that nothing seems really straight. But he does use expressive line, similar to Van Gogh, in that it is loose and free. The garden path and his row of flowers seem to fade away in a slight curve and from our point of view even though there are no visible lines, they are perceptually there. This use of line in the painting is through contour lines.
The space in the image is of the two point linear perspective with a diagonal recession. The image seems to fade to the right at an angle but it does not recede to a single point. And because the vantage point fades to the right and is not a straight focus to the viewer it is considered a diagonal and not frontal recession.
The color in this and all Claude Monet paintings is what really sets them apart from other works of art. As an impressionist painter his use of different shades and colors really attract the eyes at different angles and distances. His paintings and this one particularly are abstract when you are up close. Monet painted his paintings outdoors so that he would be true to all colors in natural light. This use is called perceptual reality. This image has a cool feel to it almost like the garden is completely shaded. The flowers in front are a little bit darker whereas the value and tint of the flowers gets lighter towards the center and right end of the painting. I believe that the color scheme in this painting is an analogous scheme because the temperature stays consistent and the hues seem to neighbor each other on the color wheel.
This painting appears to be full of visual texture because of the way he paints. Up close it appears to be very think in stature. If you get close to one of his paintings you can see the thickness in areas where he has shaded.
When you look at this painting there is no main focal point. Its like you are smack dab in the middle of his garden at any time. The only thing that tells a story of time is the age of his garden.

Creative Pictures

I had to get a little bit more creative this weekend when i did my pictures because we were in Carmel. So i ended up not placing an object(because i did not have one) but instead took a picture of this tree from our deck at two different times. I think that it actually turned out better because the light and color could not be any more different. The first picture that we took was at eleven am and it was a beautiful morning in Carmel. The sun was really shining, which brought out all the color in the tree. The sky was clear and the hue and saturation were perfect with the blue sky and dark green leaves. The colors of the tree and background were very intense. But as most people who have lived on the coast know the weather is something that constantly changes, and by seven o clock the fog had run its course and the tree took on a whole new look. By this time the tree was dark and the value of color was very dull. Especially with the grey background. There was no more sunlight shining on the tree so it almost looks black in the second picture. The hue and saturation are very dark and its obviously almost a complete shade. I thought both of these pictures represented what we learned in this chapter and i actually favor the dark one because its a more realistic image of the central California coast and to me has more of a feel to it. Of course in an artistic way it probably isnt but im not an artist anyways.

Analyze This

Line and Space

One of the ways that i am applying linear concepts is in my work. When we get together with engineers at work and do drawings for each new neighborhood the actual drawings use all of the linear concepts that we learned in these chapters. Each new drawing is actually now a work of art to me. But since I've taken this class i have realized that there is art all around us in our daily lives. We see linear perspectives everywhere in the simplest things, like houses, parks and even businesses. And we see contour lines on clothing and signs and pictures everywhere. It has definitely made my everyday life more appealing in an artistic way. This class has opened up my eyes to all sorts of new things and its still the beginning of class!

Controversial Art

I chose to reflect on the controversy that Maya Ying Lins work caused with her design of the Vietnam Memorial. Unfortunately her design came at a time when there was still a fresh bit of anger and frustration from the war. Add to that, that the artist herself was of asian decent and you had a memorial that was going to cause lots of controversy regardless of the design.
Maya Ying Lins design for the Vietnam Memorial was just one of 1441 entries that came from all races and all ages. They came from Vietnam veterans and people who protested what they believed was an unjust war. What was so special about the process was that everyone accentually had a say so in the design. But when the design was chosen it sparked massive protests and lots of anger because it was such an unconventional memorial. Groups were upset that it was sunken beneath the earth. Others were upset that an asian girl designed it, or that they had to look up the names of the deceased in books to find out where they were carved because it wasnt in order by name but of chronological order by death. All of this mass protest and controversy was of a huge benefit to the project because it brought attention to the memorial and gave veterans a voice to be heard after such a tough war. It also brought veterans together and allowed some to have a sense of pride for the first time after coming home from a war that they couldnt or werent allowed to win.
I have been to the Vietnam Memorial and felt a special presence when i was there that ive only felt one other time, which happened to be at Pearl Harbor. I thought that the design reflected the war almost perfectly and was probably the greatest art project that i have ever seen. I think that the reflection and feeling that Maya was trying to portray in her memorial was dead on to those that fought, those that didnt and to those that knew of someone who died in the war. It was and is a very powerful experience.
I think that a world of conformed art would be an absolute dull world. Art to me is all about vision and design. We are all individuals and see and feel things differently. If we had a set of predetermined standards it would only be seen and appreciated through one pair of eyes, whereas artists who design things in their way open up the creative eyes of all of us and allow us to see things through them. So to me it would be impossible to have a set standard in art. We will always have controversy in all aspects of art and need to have them. Without them we would be living in a world without freedom, of speech and of expression.
From this weeks content i learned that i am a strong supporter of the freedom of expression. I think that minus illegal expression like child pornagraphy all art should be allowed. I was not surprised by anyones responses because we are all individuals and nobody thinks the same. If we did then we would be in a world of dullness.

Visual Literacy Reflections

The thing that i most took from this learning unit was the ability to decipher between form and content. Looking at pictures and different art sculptures in the past, reminded me of music that i would hear. I would get into little arguments with my wife about the supposed meaning of the song. After reading the chapter and listening to the lecture it just shows you that each song, or work of art can be interpreted in so many different ways. Two or more people can look at something and get something totally different out of it. To me that makes art alot more interesting.
So far the Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson has been the most relevant to me. I like that it is made out of earth and that it is changing everyday, even in the smallest manner. What really struck me most about this one is that it disappeared under the lake for a few years and reemerged as a totally different sculpture. It had gone from a man made looking creation to something that had become part of the earth.

The Gates, New York City, Central Park

When I look at Christo and Jean-Claude’s the Gates, New York City, Central park(1979-2005) I have mixed feelings. On one hand it was a beautiful addition to a city whos only artistic draw (besides galleries) is the design of the many skyscrapers. The project helped revitalize the cities economy and brought an estimated 4 million visitors to the area to walk the many paths. I also like how all the material in the project was recycled and donated. What I didn’t like about the project, besides the $21 million spent on a temporary project, was that it was a blatant copy of the Torii gates in Kyoto Japan. I am by no means an expert in art, but I feel that the Gates, New York, Central park was unoriginal and thus an almost total waste. If Christo and Jean-Claude would have given credit to the original creators of the Torii gates I would have found it more appealing and I would have appreciated it more. I have been to central park, and I would have liked to walk the paths of the Gates, but it would have appealed to me more thinking that it was an original work of art

About Me

My name is Mike McLaughlin. I am 31 years old and recently decided to return to school to get my degree in something more fulfilling to me than telecommunications. I presently work for AT&T but decided to change things up so that i can one day go to work with a smile( or at least a partial one). I have four classes remaining to get my transfer to Sac State, one of which is Art 10, and i look forward to moving on after the Fall semester so that i can get my degree in Psychology.