art history | Oil Painting Express

Art News: Caravaggio's Body: So What?

16

May

2010

I was instantly fascinated when I saw the headline yesterday: "Italians say they may have found Caravaggio bones”. The Entombment of Christ, painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio After centuries of mystery, the lost painter may have been located. Researchers in the Italian coastal town of Porto Ercole have studied the remains of a man who was approximately Caravaggio’s age, who died around the same time as Caravaggio, and who had frequent contact with the lead and other metals that were commonly used in 17th century paint. The researchers have begun DNA testing to determine if the bones can be linked genetically to current residents of the town of Caravaggio who are likely relatives of the Baroque portrait painting artist. Within two weeks, we should know if the bones could be those of the painter.

The possibility of making a pilgrimage to visit the remains of the man who was a master of religious paintings, oil painting self portrait painting, and still life oil painted pictures grabbed me immediately. And then, just as quickly, a question hit me: so what?

Those Artists and Their Crazy Codes...

09

January

2010

So my husband and I finally got around to seeing Angels and Demons this week. We'd been a little hesitant to rent it; my husband, a film student, hadn't liked The Da Vinci Code as a movie, and I wasn't crazy about the bad art history it had presented. I had enjoyed the book well enough, though, so I decided we should give it a shot. At the movie's end, we were both fairly unimpressed, but it did prompt some interesting questions.

First of all, which is a better movie about art? On the one hand, The Da Vinci Code should be applauded for showing the actual works on screen. While the real Mona Lisa wasn't shown (the Louvre unsurprisingly wouldn't allow for such bright lights to be shone directly onto the painted canvas), the other works that the characters encounter in the museum are the actual masterpieces, bringing high-quality footage of the pieces to people who might otherwise never see them.

What Story Do Your Pictures Tell?

04

December

2009

When it comes to painting, do you prefer an image that shows an episode in action or one that presents the individual in a still, concentrated pose? Do you prefer an active scene or a portrait? Regardless of which you prefer, both formats convey stories.

Every painting tells a story. Narrative was injected into Western art with the advent of the technique of perspective that emerged during the late middle ages and was perfected with the Renassaiance masters. Prior to that time, most high art was paid for by religious or noble institutions and focused not on drama and story as with presenting the viewer, usually illiterate peasants, with an ordered philosophical view of the world -- dogmatic non-fiction. However, as the mimetic quality of the artist’s technique improved, the realm of visual arts became more experimental, and artists could expand their work’s narrative potential. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, while officially an altarpiece showing the Armageddon, could very well have been a graphic novel or comic book.

Oil Painting Through the Ages: Expressionism

14

October

2009

Enter, the reflection of the human emotional spectrum, the back-lashing antithesis to impressionism: expressionism (taking place mostly in Germany, 1880's-1925.) If you think you don't know expressionism, think again. Envision Edvard Munch's The Scream or or the jazzy colorful compositions of Kandinsky and there you have it. Expressionism took the ideas of impressionism, such as painting by feeling and ignited them into a dreamy fire. The goal of this movement was to capture life, to express the very sensation of being alive.

I truly think this capture of life-essence shines through in the work. The paint on the canvas is distorted to reflect the artist's emotions. One descriptive emotion that is often thrown around simultaneously with this movement is angst. Angst is an emotion that is still often taboo in our society, one that was not really focused on in art before. This movement was covering new ground, depicting life more accurately, bringing in the idea of self awareness.

Where impressionists focused on the visual of the objects they painted, expressionists focused solely on the feeling, tapping into raw emotions and their subconscious, then recording this human experience on the canvas. Expressionists thought that they only way to truly paint something correctly was to paint the way the artist experienced it. The result was often dynamic, vivacious palettes of colors bringing to life extremely bold compositions.