Art History Grade 8 sketch book assignment

Renaissance – 1300 – 1600 approx  Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci, and possibly as late as 1517 Key Features of the Renaissance time period: Art and Science working together to make images appear more realistic Discoveries of Linear Perspective and Atmospheric Perspective Painted very carefully to hide any evidence images were hand made. Wanted images to appear as if looking into a mirror Most artists working for Church and Wealthier families

Crisis in Representation  Invention of Photography in 1820’s changed the role of the artist forever.  Artists no longer the only way to record visual information  Many different styles of art develop in a short period towards the end of the 1800’s into the early 1900’s as artist struggle to find a new identity and reason to continue painting

Impressionism and beyond Claude Monet – “Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and her son” Working quickly to capture the impression of a moment in time Brush strokes are visible and part of the style The speed the artist works is captured in the brush strokes which gives the image an emotional energy Very concerned with the colour of light of a scene and how we see colour. Colour can be a powerful memory trigger and helps give the image a time and place What time of year or day do you think this image is?

Impressionism Claude Monet would experiment with colour by painting scenes at different times of the day or year, trying to capture the subtle changes in the colour of sunlight at these different times. Photographs of the time could not be taken quickly, needed bulky equipment and were black and white. Monet was essentially pioneering the art of the modern photographer, using colour and light to set a mood in a scene, doing what photographers of the day could not yet do.

Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series, made during different times of day, year and weather conditions

Post Impressionism – Vincent Van Gogh – Starry Night Inspired by the work of Claude Monet and the other Impressionist painters. Using colour to show emotion more than to simply show the colour of light that he saw. More expressive style, not as concerned with showing exactly what things looked like. More interested in the mood or emotion of the colours and the way he applied the paint in sweeping patterns

Expressionism –  Paintings that ‘express’ an emotion  Meant to create an emotional reaction in the viewer  What reaction do you get when you look at “ The Scream” by Edvard Munch from 1893, how does the image make you feel?

Pointillism – 1880’s-1890’s Georges Seurat – “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” – High detail scan of “La Grande Jatte” made available by the Art Institute of Chicago:

Painted in a style very similar to modern colour printing, the CMYK colour process This technology was being developed around the same time as the above image was painted. Detail of a modern magazine photo. Notice the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow dots

A painting photographed with black and white film through colour filters and reproduced with separate Cyan, Magenta and Yellow colour plates, c.1893 The first widely reproduced colour photograph created in the same way, created in 1893 with four separate black and white photos taken through 3 different colour ‘halftone’ filters

Realism  Although the invention of Photography changed art forever, there have always been artists who have continued to explore the potential and limits of human ability to perfectly recreate a realistic image with paint Andrew Wyeth – “Christina’s World” – 1948, Maine. Chuck Close – “Mark”

Non Objective art (Abstract) c.1910  The complete opposite of realism, Abstract art attempts to simplify art down to it’s most basic function, making art that does not rely on a subject to be appreciated as beautiful.  Appreciated only for their use of colour and shape, texture, line, and the other elements of art.  Enjoyed in the same way one might enjoy a song, or a sunset, not for what it is as much as for how it makes you feel.  First popularized as art by Wassily Kandinsky around 1910, who was also a poet and musician.

Surrealism c.1920  Partially inspired by the work of early psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the surrealists set out to search the subconscious mind and bring the world of dream imagery into reality, painting convincingly real images of seemingly impossible things gathered through methods meant to create a visual pathway into the deepest parts of the mind.  i.e. they painted dream like pictures in a photo real way Rene Magritte – “The Treachery of Images” Rene Magritte – “The Return” 1940