CONTEXTUAL STUDIES ESSAY 3

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES ASSESSMENT TASK 3: MAJOR ESSAY                 Anne Welsh       823 words.

The works selected for discussion are Rouen Cathedral: The facade at Sunrise by Claude Monet and Irises by Vincent Van Gogh.

Monet’s painting is one of a series of paintings of the cathedral made over a period of time to show the effects of light on the building during different hours of the day.  The painting is oil on canvas and 39.5 by 25.75 inches in size. 

The colours in the painting are vivid and predominantly blue, gold and orange. The work shows part of the facade of the cathedral and a small area of blue sky. There is little attempt to place the cathedral in a landscape setting. Indeed the facade fills and is cropped by the canvas. There is only a narrow strip of foreground upon which the facade rests. The canvas crops the facade to both sides. The blue sky is confined to the upper centre of the architecture between two towers on either side whose height is cropped by the canvas. Limiting the subject in this way shows that Monet intended the painting to be all about the facade, its architecture, and the light on the architecture and not about the surroundings. This would have been very different from classical landscape paintings of buildings. This sense of something different is one of the hallmarks of the  modern canon. New paints readily available made strong vivid colours readily available and are evidenced in this work.

The painting is truly impressionistic. On inspection from a distance one can “see” the architecture of the cathedral facade. Draw closer, and there are only many small rough marks to be seen.  This painting belongs firmly in the modern tradition in that it does not present a smooth finished effect but rather is composed of many rough, thick paint marks. Seitz [4] quotes a criticism of the painting made by the Irish novelist George Moore who compared the paint surface to stone and mortar and suggested that Monet was trying not only to suggest the material quality of the stonework but to emulate it in his painting. Indeed the painting received much criticism in its day - again a feature of modern art which broke from classical tradition and offered instead something new. Seitz [4] explains that the composition was also the subject of criticism, having not enough foreground or sky. Seitz [4] says that Monet demonstrated,  in his cathedral series, the contention that “nature’s colour lies in atmosphere and constantly changing light rather than inert materials; that during a short time the appearance of a single substance can modulate through the entire spectral and tonal range”.

In depicting Rouen cathedral in this way, Monet has given the pictorial image a magical quality in keeping with the spiritual nature of the subject.

Van Gogh’s painting is one of a number of different paintings which he made of irises. It is oil on canvas and 71cm by 93cm in size.

His painting is all about shape, pattern and vibrant colour rather than perspective, 3-D and light and shade. It is said that he was familiar with Japanese woodcuts and that this was an influence for this and other works [2]. He acknowledged in 1887 in a letter to his brother Theo that “Here my life becomes more and more like that of a Japanese painter”.  

The painting is of the modern canon: The brushwork is clearly visible and rough. He is painting an everyday subject. The irises are depicted in part of a flower-bed. Van Gogh  is not here concerned with 3-D. The flowers and leaves are outlined by dark lines which emphasises the patterns in the work yet, somehow, enhances rather than detracts from the representation of the irises.

His vibrant style is individual and, for the time when the painting was made, very new and different. The work could almost be an abstract in blue, green and orange colours. The deep blue of the irises intermingle in interesting irregular shapes with the green and light blue leaves making a visually rich and captivating area for the eye to roam over and explore.  There is no information about the setting other than the irises, the rough pink, brown and orange brushwork depicting the soil in which the irises grow and a few background flowers. The painting is all about the irises and the canvas crops them on all four sides to emphasize this. It is a highly patterned and decorative painting with the bold, vibrant style of pattern, brushwork and colour which can be seen in Van Gogh’s other work and which is uniquely his own.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1    Bumpus, J.                Van Gogh’s Flowers.    Phaidon Press              Oxford 1989.              

2    Fahr-Becker  G.        Art Nouveau.                 Konemann                   Koln      1997.

3    Francina F. & Harrison C. Modernity  and Modernism: French painting in the 19^th Century

                                                                                  Yale University Press 1993.

4    Seitz, WC.                  Monet                            Thames and Hudson  London 1989.

Contextual Studies Art Project 2

A reflection on the details of Blumengarten by Gustav Klimt.    506 words.

I very much admire the work of the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) including the landscapes which he painted in his later years. I have lived with a poster of Blumengarten for many years and feel that this reflects my taste in art and has influenced my own ideas and work.

Gustav Klimt founded the Vienna Secession together with a group of artists who wished to break away from the mainstream art of the time in Austria and look, instead, towards Europe’s artistic trends. They formed an Art Nouveau movement in Austria.

Klimt was originally involved in the creation of decorative murals and ceilings together with his brother. He was influenced by his study of art collections in the Vienna museum – collections from Ancient Egypt to Renaissance Florence. Another influence was his study of Byzantine  mosaics  in Ravenna which he is known to have visited. This resulted in Klimt having a very distinctive individual style of highly decorative work in both his sensuous figure paintings and his detailed semi-abstract landscapes.

Blumengarten is painted on a square canvas and is composed of a highly decorative profusion of blooms, leaves and blades of grass. The subject matter appears to be chopped off by the edges of the canvas which gives the impression of the canvas as a viewing window onto a landscape. There are no other landscape elements or indications of light and shadow. This gives the work a 2-D abstract effect rather than 3-D effect. The overall effect is of a highly decorative semi-abstract work  that still, because of the level of detail, is semi-realistic and suggests a flower border. The subject matter is clearly landscape based – these are not flowers in a vase – and therefore Klimt is calling attention to the beauty of nature and the richness and detail of patterns and colours found there. The irregular clumps of colour of the blooms – reds, pinks and oranges – make the eye roam over the painting again and again.

However there is also an other-worldliness about Blumengarten and Klimt’s art which owes itself to Klimt’s unique style and internal vision of beauty. Blumengarten has a luminous quality due to the patterns of dark and light areas juxtaposed with the vibrant intense colours used for the blooms. Klimt originally used gold paint in his early figure paintings – a legacy perhaps from his original work in ceiling and mural decoration.  In his later work and later landscapes this has been replaced with the use of coloured paint – reds, oranges and pinks abound in Blumengarten with a luminous effect.

Included below is a picture of Blumengarten and also an example of my own work. The latter is an abstract collage in square format with use of 2-D effect and pattern and colour to depict an abstract flower garden.

Information about Gustav Klimt has been sourced from the book “Klimt” by Catherine Dean.

analysis of Frankenthaler's Untitled 1982 and O'Keefe's Red Hills 1927

An analysis of Helen Frankenthaler’s Untitled 1982 and Georgia O’Keefe’s Red Hills 1927.

Anne Welsh                                  Tutor: Andrew Vass                  Word Count: 584 words.

Helen Frankenthaler’s Untitled 1982 is an abstract painting consisting of an irregular blue shape resting on a larger almost-rectangular lighter-blue area. The upper irregular shape has areas of different tone which gives it a 3-D effect. This 3-D effect is further enhanced by a continuation of the darker shape into the lighter rectangle below suggesting colour seepage, reflection or shadow. Although acrylic on canvas, the paint has been applied as for a loose watercolour wash lending the larger rectangular area a fluid quality. Further runs of paint in the lower part of the painting might suggest ink-runs or waves breaking on a blue shoreline.

Frankenthaler does not afford us a single interpretation. If one were to interpret the top of the larger blue area as horizon then there is no sky above it – only white canvas which immediately negates the interpretation. The darker shape might suggest a stone or a rock but the dark blue colour may make us question this interpretation. Perhaps one may fancy that it resembles a roughly hewn bottle leaking ink into water. There are no doubt other interpretations should one care to make them but nothing is confirmed. There are no others objects as clues to context. There is no linear or aerial perspective to inform about distance. The painting is a beautiful abstract with dark blue bleeding into a lighter blue wash with all the beauty and light of a traditional watercolour. Light dances on the lower rectangular shape via areas of dilute wash. Irregular speckles of paint add further interest but do not detract from the painting’s essential untitled, undefined existence.

Georgia O’Keefe’s landscape Red Hills 1927 has an essential abstract quality. There is an enormous ringed sun dominating the sky above undulating dusky-reddish hills. There is a yellow glow in the valley areas between the hills providing a “path” through the hills to the sun and hence providing the 3-D effect. Like Frankenthaler’s painting, there are no other objects to provide context not any linear or aerial perspective to suggest distance. Indeed there is little variation in the colour of the hills which seems to bring them forward and it is only the path of light which suggests distance and horizon. Both paintings are all about colour - Frankenthaler’s using blue to suggest flow and dilution, O’Keefe using earthy warm colours to suggest the strong heat of a desert sunset and huge yellow sun radiating warmth. Both paintings use dark and light areas to suggest light playing on surface. O’Keefe does not give us any other context for her painting which could be a Mexican desert or a Martian landscape.

Both paintings use strong edges of contrasting tone to emphasize shape. In Frankenthaler’s painting the darker blue object is surrounded by white canvas. In O’Keefe’s painting the dark red horizon of the hills is set against the bright white and yellow of the sun or the dusky pinks and mauves of the surrounding rings.

O’Keefe’s painting suggests isolation and intense dusky, dusty warmth. One wonders what will be left when the sun goes down and the deep, dark brown outer edge of the sky closes in.

Frankenthaler’s painting is also of a lonely place. It is a beautiful image but could be disturbing too – there is no certainty or meaning.

Both paintings use powerful but minimal techniques to provide images with considerable impact.