Non Traditional Art - Nimbus Clouds

I was using Stumbleupon the other day, the website that make me procrastinate even more, and I found this artist. I was completely BLOWN away. Berndnaut Smildeas, a dutch artist created something that is only seen in the skies. Clouds. WHAT THE HECK. 

With the right amount of smoke, moisture in the room and a specific temperature he was able to float clouds around empty rooms in a museum. This is something that takes alot of creativity in my opinion. Who sits down one day and just says " Today I will make a cloud". I think is just insane. I also think this takes alot of skill. I mean you are making a cloud. Even though he says that they do not last very long before disappearing altogether, this is something I would  kill to see in person. Just imagine sitting in a room filled with clouds. I would be in heaven... 

My Favorite Artist - Tim Burton

My absolute favorite artist is Tim Burton. He can produce visually stunning movies but his art is something that is so dark and fun ITS JUST AMAZING. Yes, I am going to do my project on him but I thought lets do a short blog post on his works so I can mentally prepare your for the ausomness that is his work.

This is one of my favorites by him called Romeo and Juliet, the colors are stunning and the contemporary take on forbidden love is great. 

His pieces are rich with color and so disturbingly beautiful - if I could be in anyones head for 30 seconds it would be his, I think he is a genius in film and art.

This one reminds me of a take on the classic Mona Lisa but Burton style

Of course when his exhibit was featured in the MoMa I had to go! Every detail in the exhibit was magnificent. From the entry way featured above to the blown up creature inspired by one his paintings below.  It was unbelievable.

I will go more into his works when I feature him in class but I thought I would give you a teaser. Did you see his exhibit in the MoMa?

500 Days of Summer - One of my favorite movies

I am giving you a moment to make fun of one of my favorite movie choices......................................................... and thats it! 

Ok so the reason I love this movie is mainly the story. If you have never seen it I suggest it, its visually striking and the soundtrack behind it is amazing ( ill get into that later on ). Everytime this movie is on I have to watch it no matter what scene it is on. 

A brief synopsis of the movie is about a guy named Tom who falls in love with a girl named Summer and their up and down relationship that follows. It follows back and forth between the great times and turmoil and then the actions he takes to try to move on and get over her. 

The first lines by the narrator completely set the tone for the movie

"This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie 'The Graduate'. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story"


Its such a dark romance that makes me happy and sad at the same time. This time when I watched the movie I wanted to pay more attention the way they use music to really make the scenes. 


Two scenes really stuck out to me. First the obvious one: 

The scene is such a happy up beat singing dancing selection that it makes you all happy go lucky inside. Well it does for me. 


NEXT 


This one is the complete opposite and might be one of my favorite scenes to any movie. Its about Tom going to a party expecting to swoon Summer back only to find that Reality is nothing like you imagines it. Enjoy "Expectaion vs Reality" I call it 3 minutes of heartbreak ( I apologize for the crappy subtitles but the left side is Reality the right is Expectation) 

I just love the style it was shot with the music, and the dialogue. Its seriously one of my favorite favorite scenes to one of my favorite movies. 


Hope you enjoyed your crash course on 500 Days of Summer and how I found music can really make or break a movie. Have you ever seen it? 

Scene without Dialogue - Kill Bill and The Crazy 88

Ok. Before you go and judge me for this CRAZY violent scene and piece, let me defend it first. When I first saw Kill Bill I loved it. I think the way Tarantino was able to master yet another movie was just amazing. This scene always stands out to me not because of the gore and blood behind it but because its a piece of art. If you look past the violence and look at how he transitions the scene to black and white and the way everything is carefully choreographed goes to show how much is put into one scene with little or no dialogue. Its not a silent scene by far but its beautifully done. Tarantino was able to capture an extremely violent scene and turn it into, in my opinion, a work of art. The gore is just an added bonus.  

Art Pieces from 1950-1985

There is just something about Andy Warhol that amazes me. The fact that someone can take a well known picture or a piece of a figure of history and turn it into something amazing just fascinates me. The colors he uses in the picture above "Marilyn Monroe" just pop of the screen. The way he makes the eyeshadow stand out and even the the blonde in her hair just blows me away. He really uses the colors to define her features. This to me shows a lot of skill to know what colors will stand out. 

Ahhhh, one of my favorite artists was working during this time. Jackson Pollock a god among art (in my opinion). Autumn Rythm shown above is a classic example of his typical work. The way he lays out his "careless" strokes is so calculated that it creates a beautiful mess. Seeing his work in person is something that just takes your breath away. I know that sounds so weird but I actually stood in awe and in admiration at the detail and the splatter behind every Pollock.

   Chuck Close really changes things in my mind. Photorealism is something that I wish I could do. The detail and skill behind is portraits is actually disturbingly real. Every shadow on the skin and crease in his facial features just goes to show the amount of skill the man had. His self portrait above is one of his many works that you could hold it up to a picture and have trouble spotting the differences.

Trip to the Met - Two Posts in one?

            So, I decided to go to the Met because a lot of the works I wanted to see and artists were on display there, and I had been to the MoMa before to see the Tim Burton exhibit (which was AMAZING) and since I went on a Tuesday to the city the MoMa was also closed.

 I was stunned at first at how big the museum was, I had not expected it to be so massive. There was no way I was going to finish a fraction of it in the time I hade to walk around.

            

Of course we got lost 100000 times before we even found the modern art section. Every guard just telling us to straight and we walked through so many exhibits before we were finally in Modern Art. I wanted to focus on that section because most of my favorite pieces fall under it and the artists were amazing.

           I saw Georgia O’Keefe. I was never a fan of hers when we saw some of her pictures in class but in person the paintings were beautiful. The colors were so deep and dark and the strokes and shape of the design was just so appealing to me.

           

 I saw was The Figure 5 In Gold by Demuth. In person it was so much fun to sit back and look for the 5’s and walk forward and back to see the different perspectives of the painting. I really enjoyed it.

           

 Saw some Picasso paintings and my favorite Abstract that I saw was one called The Dreamer. The colors in it were so light and I could make out the women just lying down and daydreaming. Being so close to a Picasso was so exciting itself I was in glee.

After strolling through most of the modern art I started to go crazy because I was dying to see a Jackson Pollock in person. When we finally stumbled upon it I was almost doing back flips! In person its just stunning, I have to disagree with anyone that says it does not take skill to create this. Because its not just a bunch of splatters of paint. The way they are laid out and the colors make you go into a haze. I was just so fixed in this painting it was amazing to see it in person.

            

We then stumbled on one of my favorite favorite favorite Picasso works. Woman Ironing. I almost walked right past it because I did not recognize it. The colors in person are completely different then any picture I have ever seen of it. It was beautiful and dark and dreary in person and I never wanted to move from it. I wish I could have taken it right off the wall there and gone home with it. I still cant figure out why I love it so much, the story I see behind it just makes me want to hug her and learn more about her.

I then saw Seurats A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. This in person is just remarkable. The detail in each dot and placement is insane. I never appreciated it in class but seeing it in person I almost gasped. The detail is just brilliant and skill behind it is wonderful.

            I later went on a manhunt looking for the few Monet water lilies they had. I was disappointed because they only had two very small ones and need to take a trip to the MoMa to see more.

           

            Overall I loved my trip to the Met and would love to go back and spend a few days there. Seeing the art in person is necessary because no picture of a panting could ever do it justice.

           

Modern Art - My Favorite Pieces

This week really opened up my eye into Modern art since I really never studied or looked at it.

In my last blog post most of my works I choose were so dark and grim, while this weeks are full of color and meaning.

That why I especially love the first piece Woman with a Parasol by Henri Matisse. We briefly looked at in class but out of all the Matisse slides this is the one that stuck with me. I love the negative space and the colors and how these small colorful brush strokes create this beautiful elaborate painting. I am dying to see this in person. I really cant get over the style in which he wanted it.

My next favorite was Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror. I think how radical the picture is with they style of cubism but at the same time its so traditional since it is a girls portrait. The colors are so striking and so is the depth through the mirror. The many faces of the women two are just amazing, almost catching different personalties of her.

My all time favorite artist that we covered this week was Salvador Dali. I have seen his work before and I am so intrigued at how surreal it is. Nothing makes sense, yet it does. The imagery and scenes he create can cause you to get completely lost in the work and have no idea what you are looking at. I love the sense of confusion I get from it. I can stare at the same painting multiple times and get a different perspective and emotion from it. There is something about how I connect with his work that just drives me mad. Its beautiful and striking at the same time. My favorite is Shades of Night Coming Down. Its an amazing oil piece that just shows how deep the picture is and how you can put so little on it and it could mean so much.