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INSPIRATIONAL ARTIST!
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Van Gogh was born to religious upper middle class parents. He was driven as an adult by a strong sense of purpose, but was also thoughtful and intellectual; he was equally aware of modernist currents in art, music and literature. He was well travelled and spent several years in his 20s working for a firm of art dealers in The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught in England at Isleworth and Ramsgate. He drew as a child, but spent years drifting in ill health and solitude, and did not paint until his late twenties. Most of his best-known works were completed during the last two years of his life. Deeply religious as a younger man, he worked from 1879 as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium where he sketched people from the local community. His first major work was 1885's The Potato Eaters, from a time when his palette mainly consisted of sombre earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid colouration that distinguished his later paintings. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later, he moved to the south of France and was inspired by the region's strong sunlight. His paintings grew brighter in colour, and he developed the unique and highly recognisable style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in 1888. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings. After years of anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness he died aged 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been widely debated. ~Wikipedia
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Monet was a French artist and a leading member of the Impressionist group of painters.
Claude-Oscar Monet was born in Paris, but spent his childhood in Le Havre where his father was a merchant. There he met a local artist, Eugène Boudin, who encouraged him to become a landscape painter.
In 1859, Monet went to Paris to study at the Académie Suisse, where he became close friends with a fellow student, Camille Pissarro. Between 1860 and 1862 Monet served in Algeria as a conscript. He returned to Paris where he met most of the major artists of the era including Renoir, Cézanne, Whistler and Manet.
In 1870, Monet married Camille Doncieux, who had already borne his son. To escape the Franco-Prussian war, the family moved to London. After their return to France they settled at Argenteuil, a boating centre on the Seine which drew many other Impressionist painters. Working from nature was a particular hallmark of the Impressionist movement, and one that Monet embraced, reflecting in his paintings the ever-changing impact of light and weather conditions.
In 1872, he visited Le Havre where he painted 'An Impression, Sunrise'. When exhibited in 1874 part of its title was used derisively by a critic to label the whole movement 'Impressionism'. This exhibition is now known as the First Impressionist Exhibition.
Monet's wife died in 1879, and he set up home with Alice Hoschedé, the wife of one of his most important patrons, and their respective children. During the 1880s, Monet travelled through France painting a variety of landscapes. He gradually became better known and for the last 30 years of his life he was regarded as the greatest of the Impressionists.
From about 1890 he began to paint series of pictures of one subject, including 'Haystacks', 'Rouen Cathedral' and 'Waterlilies'. The latter were painted in the elaborate garden Monet created at his house at Giverny, a property north-west of Paris where he lived from 1883. He painted them over and over again, most significantly in a series commissioned for the Orangerie des Tuileries, a museum in Paris. Monet died at Giverny on 5 December 1926. (BBC © 2014)
Claude-Oscar Monet was born in Paris, but spent his childhood in Le Havre where his father was a merchant. There he met a local artist, Eugène Boudin, who encouraged him to become a landscape painter.
In 1859, Monet went to Paris to study at the Académie Suisse, where he became close friends with a fellow student, Camille Pissarro. Between 1860 and 1862 Monet served in Algeria as a conscript. He returned to Paris where he met most of the major artists of the era including Renoir, Cézanne, Whistler and Manet.
In 1870, Monet married Camille Doncieux, who had already borne his son. To escape the Franco-Prussian war, the family moved to London. After their return to France they settled at Argenteuil, a boating centre on the Seine which drew many other Impressionist painters. Working from nature was a particular hallmark of the Impressionist movement, and one that Monet embraced, reflecting in his paintings the ever-changing impact of light and weather conditions.
In 1872, he visited Le Havre where he painted 'An Impression, Sunrise'. When exhibited in 1874 part of its title was used derisively by a critic to label the whole movement 'Impressionism'. This exhibition is now known as the First Impressionist Exhibition.
Monet's wife died in 1879, and he set up home with Alice Hoschedé, the wife of one of his most important patrons, and their respective children. During the 1880s, Monet travelled through France painting a variety of landscapes. He gradually became better known and for the last 30 years of his life he was regarded as the greatest of the Impressionists.
From about 1890 he began to paint series of pictures of one subject, including 'Haystacks', 'Rouen Cathedral' and 'Waterlilies'. The latter were painted in the elaborate garden Monet created at his house at Giverny, a property north-west of Paris where he lived from 1883. He painted them over and over again, most significantly in a series commissioned for the Orangerie des Tuileries, a museum in Paris. Monet died at Giverny on 5 December 1926. (BBC © 2014)
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Jim Dine
Jim Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied at night at the Art Academy of Cincinnati during his senior year of high school and then attended the University of Cincinnati, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Ohio University, Athens, from which he received his BFA in 1957. Dine moved to New York in 1959 and soon became a pioneer of the "Happenings" movement together with Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, and
Robert Whitman. He exhibited at the Judson Gallery, New York, in 1958 and 1959, and his first solo show took place at the Reuben Gallery, New York, in 1960. The heart is a favorite figure for Dine. He's created an enormous body of work using the shape for works that aren't as simple as the well-known shape. Dine uses the heart form as a landscape to explore emotion. When asked about his fascination with hearts and how many he's made, Dine replied, "Millions. . . . I have no idea but it’s mine and I use it as a template for all my emotions. It’s a landscape for everything. It’s like Indian classical music -- based on something very simple but building to a complicated structure. Within that you can do anything in the world. And that’s how I feel about my hearts." Another favorite subject for Dine is Pinocchio! His response to a question about his fascination with this figure was, "Pinocchio has been working on me for a long time. I saw the Walt Disney movie when I was six, and I was very frightened by it, enchanted by it. And I identify with it. I was a liar, little boys are liars. And then in the ‘60s I found a Pinocchio doll in a junk store, and I bought it, it was a beautiful thing, it was papier-mâché with real clothes sewn by hand, probably made in Japan. And I kept it for years until, in the ‘90s I had to do something with it. All the time I was identifying with the boy, but now, you know it is a great story because it’s a metaphor for art, this old man brings the puppet to consciousness through his craft, and in the end I am Geppetto, I am no longer Pinocchio!" |
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ANNA MARY ROBERTSON MOSES (GRANDMA MOSES)
WHAT IS FOLK ART?
FOLK ART is the art of the everyday. FOLK ART is rooted in traditions that come from community and culture. FOLK ART expresses cultural identity by conveying shared community values and aesthetics. FOLK ART encompasses a range of utilitarian and decorative media, including cloth, wood, paper, clay, metal and more.
WHAT IS FOLK ART?
FOLK ART is the art of the everyday. FOLK ART is rooted in traditions that come from community and culture. FOLK ART expresses cultural identity by conveying shared community values and aesthetics. FOLK ART encompasses a range of utilitarian and decorative media, including cloth, wood, paper, clay, metal and more.
Grandma Moses beautiful paintings
Over the River to Grandma’s House (c. 1944), Grandma Moses
Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey (1943), Grandma Moses
Sugaring-Off in the Maple Orchard (1940), Grandma Moses
Apple Pickers (c. 1940) - Grandma Moses
PAUL KLEE
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Cat and Bird by Paul Klee
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Paul Klee was born in Switzerland and as a child loved to play violin and paint. When he was a teenager he decided to study art instead of music but still played the violin everyday.
Color was very important to Klee and each color he placed in his painting was significant to him. He once said, "Color has possessed me . . . color and I are one." Even though Klee used black strokes to dominate his paintings, color remained his truest inspiration.
Paul Klee loved cats. And just like the cat in his painting, he found himself imagining what a cat would say in his daily life. Klee owned many cats and they sat beside him as he painted. The bird in Klee's painting "Cat and Bird" is inside the cat's dream and Klee expressed that by painting the bird inside the cat's head. Do you think the cat wanted to eat the bird?
Did you know . . .
* that Paul Klee could paint with both his right and left hand?
* that he was considered a very famous painter while he was alive and that the public called him the "magical painter"?
* that Paul Klee wrote poetry?
(DEEP SPACE SPARKLE/PATTY PALMER 2014)
Color was very important to Klee and each color he placed in his painting was significant to him. He once said, "Color has possessed me . . . color and I are one." Even though Klee used black strokes to dominate his paintings, color remained his truest inspiration.
Paul Klee loved cats. And just like the cat in his painting, he found himself imagining what a cat would say in his daily life. Klee owned many cats and they sat beside him as he painted. The bird in Klee's painting "Cat and Bird" is inside the cat's dream and Klee expressed that by painting the bird inside the cat's head. Do you think the cat wanted to eat the bird?
Did you know . . .
* that Paul Klee could paint with both his right and left hand?
* that he was considered a very famous painter while he was alive and that the public called him the "magical painter"?
* that Paul Klee wrote poetry?
(DEEP SPACE SPARKLE/PATTY PALMER 2014)
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NOVEMBER ARTIST
GEORGES SEURAT
Georges Seurat was born into a very rich family in Paris. His father, Antoine Chrysostom Seurat, was a legal official and a native of Champagne; his mother, Ernestine Faivre, was Parisian. Georges Seurat first studied art with Justin Lequiene, a sculptor. Seurat attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879. After a year of service at Brest military academy, he returned to Paris in 1880. He shared a small studio on the Left Bank with two student friends before moving to a studio of his own. For the next two years he devoted himself to mastering the art of black and white drawing. He spent 1883 on his first major painting - a huge canvas titled Bathers at Asnieres.
After his painting was rejected by the Paris Salon, Seurat turned away from such establishments, instead allying himself with the independent artists of Paris. In 1884 he and other artists (including Maximilien Luce) formed the Societe des Artistes Independants. There he met and befriended fellow artist Paul Signac. Seurat shared his new ideas about pointillism with Signac, who subsequently painted in the same idiom. In the summer of 1884 Seurat began work on his masterpiece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which took him two years to complete. His last ambitious work, The Circus, was left unfinished at the time of his death. (From Wikipedia)
Visit: http://www.georgesseurat.org/biography.html
After his painting was rejected by the Paris Salon, Seurat turned away from such establishments, instead allying himself with the independent artists of Paris. In 1884 he and other artists (including Maximilien Luce) formed the Societe des Artistes Independants. There he met and befriended fellow artist Paul Signac. Seurat shared his new ideas about pointillism with Signac, who subsequently painted in the same idiom. In the summer of 1884 Seurat began work on his masterpiece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which took him two years to complete. His last ambitious work, The Circus, was left unfinished at the time of his death. (From Wikipedia)
Visit: http://www.georgesseurat.org/biography.html
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GRANT WOOD!
Grant Wood (1891-1942)
Wood’s American Gothic painting of two Iowa farmers is one of the most recognized masterpieces of American art. This month, Panthers will learn about the distinctive portraits and landscapes of Regionalist Grant Wood. Wood's landscapes inspired students to create their own farm landscapes using textures and patterns. |
Texture Landscapes
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More about Grant Wood!
Grant Wood's Ice Wagon!
PIET MONDRIAN
Mondrain Roads!
Piet Mondrian, is recognized for the purity of his abstract art. He simplified the elements of his paintings creating clear aesthetics on his canvases. In his best known paintings from the 1920s, Mondrian reduced his shapes to lines and rectangles and his palette to fundamental basics. His use of balance and a simplicity contributed to modern art, and his abstract work remains influential in design even today.
For more info about Piet Mondrian visit: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm. |
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Did Piet Mondrian create "abstract" art? Let's find out!
AUGUST ARTIST
Wassily KandinskY
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Kandinsky Circles in the Office! A combined effort from 2014-2015 Kindergarten and First-Graders produced some beautiful artwork for the office. Aren't these beautiful!
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We launched the school year with a quick refresher about Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinsky is the father of what type of art? Let's find out in the below video.
Kandinsky is the father of what type of art? Let's find out in the below video.