Summary
Summary Themes - Nature
- Module
- Visual Analysis and Themes
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
Summary notes on the different artworks studied in Nature
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Nature in Art and ArchitectureEl Greco, View of Analysis/Subject ● Storm = God’s wrath
Toledo, 1600 Matter ● Perspective = down below, so looking up towards the city
● City not accurately painted, from memory and first hand
Europe – Landscape 2D ● Apocalyptic atmosphere
● Belongs to a traditional emblematic city view rather than
landscape painting to document a particular time in a
particular space
Context ● Mannerism - exaggerated forms
● Spanish Counter-Reformation
Quotes Jonathan Jones - “Drawn to complexity, to obscurity, to
sophistication’
Van Gogh, Starry Night, Analysis/Subject ● Cypress tree dominating the forefront of the painting and
1888 Matter also a bridge connecting the heaven and earth
● Linked to Giotto’s ‘Lamentation’, the stars looking like
Europe – Landscape 2D angels and the trees being bridges
● The village = earth
● Able to explain turbulent flow through his painting = the
swirls in the sky
Context ● Painted during one of his episodes – was in
● Japanism - with strong defined lines
● Post-impressionism - more on emotions and psychological
experience rather realism
Quotes Letters to his brother Theo - wanting to paint starry night or cypresses
“At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to
me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues
of the most intense violets, blues and greens.
Durer, The Rhino, 1515 Analysis/Subject ● Scales look like armour and decoration at the same time
Matter ● The extra horn adds character to the rhino
Animals in 2D ● The description above the rhino makes it look more
scientific
● Woodcut
Context ● A second-hand drawing from a first-hand description
● Northern Renaissance
● Many editions, making use of printmaking
● Commercially successful
● The travel of the rhino represented global expansion +
trade
● Embodied the spirit of the Renaissance
Quotes Wolfflin - “No lines in nature
Damien Hirst, 1000 Analysis/Subject ● Glass framed box - with one side with a dead cow head,
Years, 1991 Matter fly-o-cutter and sugar water whilst the other side of the box
has a white box with one hole on each side and side there
are maggots breeding flies
Animals in 3D ● Cycle of life ‘anguish of life’
● A sequence of events idea of time + narrative from
one box to another
● Based on proportions of the human body – imperial –
inches
Context ● Minimalism Donald Judd + Sol Lewitt – foused on
geometry, shapes colour + simplicity
● Finished, polished look was influenced by Jeff Koons
● Francis Bacon - with simple background and a frame
framing a fleshy art piece strong visual relations to his
triptych – narrative
● YBA promoted by Charles Saatchi – confrontational
Quotes 'you can frighten people with the idea of death, or an idea of their
own mortality, or it can give them vigor' - Damien Hirst
Durer, Great Piece of Analysis/Subject ● Arranged wildflowers and grass dandelion and greater
, Turf, 1503 Matter plantain
● Accurate painting of a patch of turf however looks
Plants in 2D constructed because placements are never like that and
there is no background
● A snapshot of a randomly wild group of plants
● Works transcends art into science
● ‘Unconventional beauty’
Context ● Northern Renaissance - overtook some of the best
woodcutters and painters in Germany
● Used scientific research for botanist - exceeds art and goes
into science
● Curiosity was very important in the Renaissance
Quotes “Curiosity became a virtue” – Birth of the Artist, BBC
Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Analysis/Subject ● Ceramic painted flowers
Seeds, 2010 Matter ● Handmade – against China’s mass production units
● Sunflower represents the individual in relation to the
Plants in 3D collective whole
Context ● Sun = Chairman Mao, Sunflowers = the people
● Communism
● Destroying old ceramics, people have forgotten their
history
● People from the city it was created in were involved in the
creation
Quotes ● “I really think art is a tool to set up new questions” - Ai
Weiwei, Tate Shots
● “The clash between reverence for the past and the
irrepressible drive for the future.”
Hepworth, Pelagos Analysis/Subject ● Circular, wave, like form
Matter ● White paint inside but can see the wood marks
The Elements in 3D ● Strings representing the tension between nature and
force
Context ● Moved to St Ives in the 1920s/30s
● Modernism – simple and pure look e.g. Brancusi
● Would place them back into environment, therefore
holes in her sculpture were important as they would
frame the landscape
Quotes
Turner, Speed, Steam Analysis/Subject ● Steam blends into atmosphere
and Rain Matter ● Split – meaning that the left side is the past, the train is the
present, but it is moving forward in the future
The relationship ● Classical maidens in white
between man and/or ● Two bridges – road and train visual impact on the
woman and nature landscapes of the railways
● Two men in a boat on the river
● A man and horse ploughing the fields
● Impasto
● Nature vs man
● There isn’t a single perspective yet there isa very strong
line of perspective = line of railway
Context ● Edmund Burke – the sublime
● Romanticism
● Claude Lorrain arcadian landscapes
● Different to other landscape paintings
● Would paint was directly in front
● Believed in the industrial sublime and progress
Quotes “My job is to paint what I see, not what I know.”
Long, Box Hill, 2012 Analysis/Subject ● Site-specific
Matter ● A poured mixture of chalk and water
The relationship ● Alongside of the road in a continual squiggly line for 100
meters
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