Wk 12: Sunflowers

Sunflowers 1996 by Anselm Kiefer 435 x 349 cm Guggenheim Bilbao



When you look at this painting, at first you just see a couple of tall sunflowers but after taking a closer look you can see that there are many sunflowers and they seem to all look dead.  The edges of the flower appear old and cruppled like they're about to fall off. Once you see all the dead flowers drooping, you see a white figure at the bottom.  This figure is the form of a body that has been burried.  There is no face or distinct features on the body but it looks like the body of a man.  The body is white and colorless almost like a ghost or a memory burried in the ground after it has dies.  There is a leaf that lays over the body as if it is sheilding him from the world.  All around this grave, sunflowers have grown. 

Any unwanted plant is considered a weed and i think that that is what the artist was trying to show the viewer.  The flowers aren't healthy and they are dying amongst the dead.  They seem to be looking down over the dead body as if he was just burried.  The sky is glooming and the plants are dead, representing sorrow or loss of someone of great meaning to the world.  Much of his work was related to the Holocaust in Germany.  This painting could either represent the Holocaust or just be linked to his ideas like death.  I think this painting is amazing.  The way the sky is drawn makes it look like a vintage a photo and I really enjoy looking at vintage photos.

Wk 11: The Seed of the Areoi

The Seed of Areoi 1892 by Paul Gauguin 36 1/4 x 28 3/8" MOMA

This painting is of a naked woman with a blue bird sitting in her hand.  She appears to be holding something in her hand that the bird would be eating out of because it's head isn't clear.  She is an African American woman sitting on a cloth with several different symbols embroidered along the edges.  In her hair, she has beads that probably can be linked to a tribal tradition.  Her feet and arms are abnormally painted on the canvas and she is sitting straight up and looks very proper.  Her legs are turned but her torso is facing the front although her head is slightly turned and looking off in another direction.  In the backgound, you can see mountains, clouds, blue skies, and green grass.  Gauguin painted the palm trees a sunflower yellow to make the trees more pronounced so that they didn't blend in and to add a little contrast.  In front of her you see a table with different exoctic fruits, which would tell you that she is somewhere exoctic.  Her eyes seem to have a calm and relaxed look to them as if she is more comfortable when she is around nature.

Gauguin was considered a Post-Impressionist.  He would express a spiritual meaning in many pieces of his artwork.  He would paint his pictures about "the disease of civilization" mainly of the islands in the South Pacific.  The Seed of Areoi was painted after Gauguin had been in Tahiti for about a year.  He wasn't painting what he saw in Tahiti, he was painting of what he dreamed it would be and what he wanted to find.  He thought that it had been ruined by missionaries and colonists.  I think that Paul Gauguin was trying to show us that without all the buildings and technology, nature is quite calming and more spiritual.  We forget the beauty of nature when we don't really look at it.

He is the European, who fleeting from it's overdeveloped culture and the complicity and artificiality of its life, sought simplicity by a desperate attempt to identify himself with the life of the Polynesian natives of Tahitit and the Marquesas Islands.

Title:  Paul Gauguin
Author:  Carl O. Schniewind
Source:  Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1907-1951) Vol. 43, No. 3 (Sep. 15, 1949), pp. 43-51

Wk 10: Raku Ware

Raku Ware - late 16th-early 17th century by Hon'ami Koyetsu 3 3/8" tall Smithsonian Instituition

This is a piece of artwork that was made in Japan.  It is made out of clay by hand as it spins millions of times on a potter's wheel.  When the Japanese thought the pot was molded good enough they would put it through the firing process and then it was put directly in cold water or left out to cool.  "Raku" means enjoyment or ease.  These pots were made so that when there was hot food in it, you could still hold the pot and not burn your hands.  These types of pottery were marked in Japanese history for their great developement of ceramics.  The metallic glow is created from a glaze.  The potter puts glaze, which is a mixture of metal and oxygen, so that it gives the pot a metallic glow and makes it appear shiny.

The Raku family worked very hard on their pottery to keep the family tradition alive.  The actual name was diiferent but when the creator came up with "Raku Ware," he changes his name after it.  I think people who can hand craft things like this are truly talented.  It takes a lot of time and patients to create a piece of artwork like this.  You have to be very disciplined to your work and not get frustrated easily.  I tried making a pot in junior high and it was too hard.  This type of artwork is very hard and not everyone can create things like this.  I believe that pots like this will always be remembered for their beauty and special creations.

The most important piece in the Raku group is the bowl attributed to Koyetsu, one of the most famous painters of Japan, who took up pottery making as a hobby.  He apparently never devoted a great deal of time to it, but, because of his artistic genius, the stamp of individuality on the few examples of pottery attributed to him more that compensates for any technical imprefections.

Title:  The Howard Mansfield Collection: Japanese Potteries. The Gift of Mr. Mansfield
Author:  Unknown
Source:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 32, No. 5 (May, 1937), pp. 115-126