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Post by Fairweather on May 31, 2009 12:46:19 GMT -5
As far as art goes--the visual arts, like painting, sculpture etc.--I come, frankly, of the "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" school. At my HS--and indeed at both the junior college I first attended and the four year school where I took my degree--art, art appreciation, and art history were not offered as part of the curriculum. (Now--twenty-five years later--Miss A tells me that all those subjects are offered at my alma mater, which she now attends.)  So what I know about art I've either learned on my own or, more properly, from watching TV series about art. Most of these have books related to the series, and I have, in addition to two vast and scholarly books that intimidate by their very size, several of these series books. Of the series books, I admit, totally unashamedly, my ABSOLUTE favorites are those by Sister Wendy Beckett. That little Carmelite nun knows her stuff, but she doesn't talk in the exalted, condescending way that many "real" art historians talk when addressing the less learned--and like me she's sometimes content just to stand and stare at the works of art. My favorites of her books are Sister Wendy's The Story of Painting and 1000 Masterpieces. My other favorites are also by Brits, both male and one a Cambridge professor. Michael Wood's Art of the Western World and Nigel Spivey's How Art Made the World are both informative, readable and at times irreverent. I only just found the book that accompanies the Wood series on Thursday, on a shelf at my local used bookstore for 25 cents; the series itself, which I've seen on PBS, predates both Sister Wendy's and Dr. Spivey's series. As you know, Dr. Spivey has been a favorite presenter and scholar of mine ever since I first saw his BBC series Kings and Queens of England. His art series had better production values, and little touches that made me frankly envious--like being allowed to handle the 29,000 year old ivory carving of a faceless woman known as the Venus of Willendorf and being allowed, only briefly, into some of the painted caves in France. In future, this thread is not intended to be strictly about art books--feel free to post about particular favorite paintings, artists, and others of the visual arts, like sculpture, mobiles, etc. This rambling piece is just to get us started. |
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Post by Harriet Vane on May 31, 2009 16:52:47 GMT -5
Like Fairweather, my appreciation for art is mostly self-taught, although unlike Fair, I did take a semester of art appreciation in college, which included a trip to Chicago to visit the Art Institute and various private galleries. But my love of art began long before that. My parents were of extremely modest means, and neither of them attended college. But my mother was very sharp and had quite an artistic eye. My first recollections of my mother and art are of watching her make paint-by-numbers paintings. That was quite a sensation in those days, and she had the sort of patience that paint-by-number required. The paintings always turned out perfectly. I would have taken a different approach, as I used to do when embroidering or doing cross-stitch, completely changing the pallette and personalizing the piece to suit myself. But our house was, for a time, decorated with paint-by-numbers masterpieces, which was the first "art" I ever really knew. When I was a little older, it became the fashion for grocery stores to give things away after you had shopped at the store often enough to earn the required number of coupons. For some period of time, our local grocery chain was offering cheap reproductions of famous paintings as part of this program. Bless my mother's heart, opting to take the art instead of some other inexpensive bauble, or dishtowels. For it was in this way that I first became acquainted with Vincent Van Gogh.  The very first painiting my mother brought home was this famous one of sunflowers. I'm quite sure that we also had a reproduction of Starry Night.  These two paintings opened up my eyes beyond everything my experience had ever shown me before. This was clearly NOT paint-by-number. From that point forward, I was hooked on art, and especially hooked on Van Gogh. The first cheap little art book I ever bought, which I still have, was paintings by Van Gogh. The only other grocery-store painting that I can clearly recall is The Lacemaker by Vermeer.  I remember being fascinated by Vermeer's use of light and the delicacy with which the details of the subject's hands and her work were painted. Later, I fell in love with the drawings of DaVinci and the paintings of other Renaissance artists for those same reasons. At some point in grade school, we must have learned more about art, although tellingly, I don't really remember it. I didn't take any art classes after eighth grade because my mother insisted I take a secretarial track in addition to a college-prep track, just in case this intellectual thing didn't work out. As it turns out, it's a good thing I didn't apply that same stricture to Moonbeam. Anyway, my next experience in art education was my art appreciation class in college, which was WONDERFUL, and was taught by two highly enlightened gentlemen with a passion for art after 1850. From this course, I received my first education in sculpture, and I'll never forget how much I was influenced by this simple, and yet not, piece called "Bird in Space" by Constantin Brancusi.  Having formed my early understanding of what art was, this class naturally had an influence on how my interests have evolved since then. But beyond that class, I am completely self-schooled, and I now belong to the same school that Fair does. I like what I like. In my case, that's pretty much everything. I am something of a peripatetic art junkie. As for influential art books, I have many, but they are mostly books of illustrations, rather than scholarly works. Some of my favorites are catalogs for exhibits I have seen. Indeed, the most influential (on me) art book I have is probably the catalog from the Tut exhibition, which I saw in Chicago in 1977. Never before or since have I been impressed so much with any art object ... painting, drawing, or sculpture ... as I was with the graceful and naturalistic statue of the goddess Selket that was included among the treasures I saw there. For many years, I kept a poster of this image hanging above my bed.  |
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Post by parkerskid on Jun 1, 2009 1:09:35 GMT -5
The walls of my apartment are covered with 90+ reproductions. It started as a way to enliven the plain beige of the walls. Because funds were tight, I'd buy things like greeting cards, wrapping paper and the like and frame them. As my finances improved so did the quality of the art work and the framing thereof.
My favorite artist is L.S. Lowry who is from my hometown. His paintings represent working-class life in 1930s-1950s England. Some who have seen them think they are depressing but to me, they represent life as it was. In fact, my favorite is his "The Wheelbarrow'" which shows a young boy pulling his two younger brothers in a wheelbarrow. Each of the boys have ghostly white faces and their clothing is dark.
Another favorite is that of a sunflower which my grandson painted when he was about 9 years old. That is treasured along with the thumbpots and ashtrays that he and his brother made from clay.
I think art is as much in the heart as in the eye.
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Post by puhlease on Jun 3, 2009 16:36:16 GMT -5
No wonder this is such a tight group. We have a lot in common. For one, we all subscribe to the "I know what I like" school. Even if the art doesn't appeal to me, the antiquity of a thing will. I love Van Gogh, too. I have a watercolor/finger painting that my youngest did at 6 or 7 that looks remarkably like a Monet, with the pond and Japanese-type bridge (Water Lilies?) but it is like seeing it through a foggy glass. He hasn't done anything artistic since. My favorite piece from my eldest, at about age 4 or 5, is 2 stick figures representing me and him. He is giving me a flower that he picked from the yard and I am saying "Thank you, Doug"
But as for "real" art, I am kind of like Linda. I have an old Ansel Adams calendar, and whenever I find 12 matching black frames of the right size, they are going on the wall. I frame postcards and greeting card fronts that I like, as well, or decoupage them onto cardboard boxes. I also like to pick up flea market treasures. My only rule is they have to be cheap, and they have to pass the regret test. Will I forever regret it if I leave it here? Their real value is all in the eye of the beholder, me!
My oldest son went to a Renaissance exhibit in Memphis when he was in the 7th or 8th grade. I still regret not going on that trip with him. He still has his program. I really wasn't interested in the Tut exhibit at the time it went through Memphis. That was during my "stupid" period, I guess.
Always on the lookout for a bargain, we like to scour the clearance racks at the bookstore for coffee table books. I don't think we have any art books yet, 1 on architecture, but I would have to double check. I have books in places I haven't seen for years.
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 9, 2009 18:00:55 GMT -5
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 19, 2009 12:38:17 GMT -5
Article from the NY TIMES about an exhibit of medieval drawings at the Met: www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/arts/design/19drawing.html?_r=1&th&emc=thI'm fairly familiar with the work of Matthew Paris, whose working life partly overlapped the Angevin kings of England (from Henry II up through John; thereafter the same family ruled as the Plantagenets until 1399, when the last Plantagenet was dethroned by the first Lancastrian king), but the others mentioned by name I never heard of. I love the anonymous illuminated Gospels, too. Fascinating. |
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