contouring a quick look for reference (ptat)

Topographic Map Colors

The color brown is used to denote most contour lines on a map, which are relief features and elevations. Topographic maps use green to denote vegetation such as woods, while blue is used to denote water features like lakes, swamps, rivers, and drainage.

At higher elevations, mountains may be snow-capped year around, or the terrain may actually be a glacier. In each of these cases, contour lines are also drawn in blue. It is therefore possible to quickly discern that a particular route from A to B might be more treacherous than operating at a high altitude—the trek might require crampons, an ice axe, and other materials that might not be readily available once in the backcountry.

Finally, black is used to represent man-made objects, including trails. Red is used for man-made features, like main roads or political boundaries, and purple for new changes or updates on the map that weren’t previously represented.

Ive looked a little into the different styles etc... But I've not got time to fine the actual maps for the areas I walked... or my body contours and heights....is more of a guess.

Rene magritte and other artists - surrealism

Surrealism and symbolism  - Is it connected?

Time - Lines - http://www.surrealismart.org/history/branches-surrealism.html 

As much as I can tell these two movement have indeed similarities.  The Surrealist artist's are said to have been inspired by the rules of Symbolism and the spontaneous abstract style of Max Ernst.


The first style of the surrealist artist were more known as illusionists and wanted to create realistic representations of a sleep state; in their work. The artist's like Dali and Ernst incorporated elements of nature, animals and even human figures.


The artists bypass reason and rationality by accessing their unconscious mind. In practice, these techniques became known as automatism or automatic writing, which allowed artists to forget conscious thought and embrace chance when creating art.

Salvador Dali

automatism by André Masson

Max Ernst - worked around 1909- 1976.... A soldier in World War I, Ernst emerged deeply traumatized and highly critical of western culture. many artist have taken inspiration from Ernst (Pollock -abstract expressionism) and the artist also told the ideas and inspiration of  Sigmund Freuds dream theories  ....... discovering the possibilities of autonomism and dreams;  his artistic investigations were aided by hypnosis and hallucinogenics. For me all these artists and theories play a massive part in the time of all ism's.

'Men Shall Know Nothing of This' 1923

Above the moment of calm reminds me of the work by Anselm Kiefer. While done later on in the 1939, another one of Ernst many styles.

photo-montage

Magritte was a painting philosopher

Magritte spent many years working as a commercial artist, producing advertising and book designs, and this most likely shaped his fine art.

Words and images - la trahison des images, illustrates this setting words against representations, he accompanies a picture of a pipe with the word this is not a pipe!

This was to throw our thoughts up and aback by a true fact that indeed it is not a pipe it is a painting of a pipe, but our response could argue against the imagery and the fact it is a pipe..... however, what Magritte is signifying is the distinction between, which part of the pipe makes it a pipe.... is it the pipe in General, the mouthpiece, the object of such a thing in a gentleman's pocket, a class of an object? In English is it a pipe but in maybe in Italian the image will be matched with a different word... ..... a child maybe won't have seen a pipe but can read the word.... what does this do to their knowledge of they world?

Words are arbitrary, unreliable things, yet we tend to put more trust in them than in images even though we agree that images can approximate to visual facts...



    

 

I think Magritte's style is very obvious in the style of colour palette and flatness, and imagery. But the thought and theories are not so clear.  I feel the artist comes across as blunt in these works.

The men in bowler hats that often appear in Magritte's pictures can be interpreted as self-portraits. Portrayals of the artist's wife, Georgette, are also common in his work, as are glimpses of the couple's modest Brussels apartment. Although this might suggest autobiographical content in Magritte's pictures, it more likely points to the commonplace sources of his inspiration. It is as if he believed that we need not look far for the mysterious, since it lurks everywhere in the most conventional of lives. Nothing as queer as folk....

magritte and wife

I do think that many different qualities have gone into these ism's and I think each one could be characterised into lots of styles. It's really down to the time period and conventions in the artist time and life at that moment. Maybe this is just what happens when creative minds get together and influence each other to create big better works.

Anthropology and Art (Tribal Art) and Moderism/Primitivism

Anthropology of art is a sub-field in social anthropology dedicated to the study of art in different cultural contexts. The anthropology of art focuses on historical, economic and aesthetic dimensions in non-Western art forms, including what is known as 'tribal art'.

The materials studied include sculpture, masks, paintings, textiles, baskets, pots, weapons, and the human body itself. Anthropologists are interested in the symbolic meanings encoded in such objects, as well as in the materials and techniques used to produce them.

 Anthropologists of art are more concerned with the role and status of the artist in the wider community.

 Primitivism -   this artistic primitivism dates from the 1890s when it appeared in the Tahitian paintings of Paul Gauguin, and quickly led to a trend among French and German artists of the Expressionist avant-garde.

   Artists employed tribal techniques and experimented with new shapes and lines. Cubism is associated with the movement.(picasso) Artists often strove to abandon formality and embrace, instead, a more human sincerity. Getting back to basics was an underlying theme for artists aligned with the movement.  Since many of the tribal societies featured in works of Primitivism lived closely within the context of their natural world, art works of the movement typically feature elements of the natural work–the sea, jungle, and natural materials used in the construction of home–thatched roofs, for example.

Henri Rousseau -  began teaching himself how to paint from the age of 40. Within two years he was a regular exhibitor at the annual Salon des Independants in Paris, and at the age of 49 he took early retirement to become a full-time painter. Unburdened by any knowledge of perspective or anatomy, Rousseau's primitivism was characterized nonetheless by vivid colour, great attention to detail, a wonderful imagination

the sleeping gypsy

 

I do like the way the objects in a work seem to be painted side by side, each feature hand picked for its own individual importance. Very child like in some ways.



Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun

UNCEDED TERRITORIES - a critical and impassioned melding of modernism, history, and Indigenous perspectives that records what the artist feels are the major issues facing Indigenous people today.

During the early 1900s, the aesthetics of traditional African sculpture became a powerful influence among European artists who formed an avant-garde in the development of modern art. Picasso himself was influenced by the artist's Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. I've found that many of the artists seem to be part of a cultural avant-garde, in which young artists were encouraged to express themselves.

Picasso - Guernica

 A powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War.
This work shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. The monochromantic style is said to be a photographic memory depiction and give a intense importance and meaning to the work.   Guernica is blue, black and white.







 Tribal art is most evident in the faces of three of the women on the artwork Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) , which are rendered as mask-like, suggesting that their sexuality is not just aggressive, but also primitive.

 a radically flattened picture plane that is broken up into geometric shards, which is said to be something Picasso borrowed in part from Paul Cezanne's brushwork.

head of a man

Herni Matisse

Matisse, Portrait of Madame Matisse (detail), 1913 and a Gabon Mask placed side by side, “Primitivism” Catalog

 “Young Men from Papua” by Emil Nolde

Paul Gauguin

"I am trying to put into these desolate figures the savagery that I see in them and which is in me too... Dammit, I want to consult nature as well but I don't want to leave out what I see there and what comes into my mind." Gauguin.


In 1890s, Gauguin developed a new style that married everyday observation with mystical symbolism, a style strongly influenced by the popular, so-called "primitive" arts of Africa, Asia, and French Polynesia.

I do feel that at this time in art history you can really start to see a new way of working. The works seem very child-like with vivid colour palettes. Unlike the more traditional styles of the past. Funny how they did get influences from the past also, but dragging into a new modern world. For me I do find it hard to decide what ism the works all fall under because of the similarity between that and things like surrealism and expressionism etc.

Edvard Munch Symbolism, Poets and other artist

For one of my studies I decided to look at symbolism... Mainly because I feel somewhat connected to the ideals and ideas of the work.

Symbolism followed Impressionism chronologically, but it was the antithesis of it, as the emphasis was on the meaning behind the shapes and colors.  Symbolism artist's showed greater concern for the interior life rather than external reality.

 Looking at the effects of light of the outside/exterior world, concentrating instead looking inward to explore themes of love and jealousy, loneliness and anxiety, sickness and death.

Also other statements regarding the movement state Symbolism is an artistic and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas, emotions and states of mind... It originated in late 19th century France and Belgium.


Edvard Munch

Norwegian artist Edvard Munch created a work or works relating to this style called Frieze of Life. He spend over 30 years of this career on this work and for me gives a sense of the truth and torment an artist can create for working from emption and life.... Real vs an ideal.

Munch suffer with mental health issues and ill health, with this came disappointment in life, love and depression. This influenced the artist's emotional state. Many of these works are frozen in a moment and this is like a memory of the artist.. Some come across as different in the ways the figures are joined together almost merged as one..... This was to indicate the unity of man and woman and the sense of belongingness and togetherness.

For me this seems sad in many ways but the idea behind them for me helps to empower the work..they emotional and honest and yet portray desire, grief and despair. embraced as a need of love and wonderment like, once they let go all will be lost.

An art critic said "The couple represent a threatening loss either of togetherness. or individual loss.... a loss of ones own existence and identity. Which hints at death!" This for me sings with my interests at the moment. For me I enjoy the hidden meaning behind the figures and how each person will take away different things.

For me I decided to look at the preliminary works he did with the lithograph. I know from doing prints of my hand the more you work and sketch something the easier the lines and work becomes. His marks seem confident but I think the landscape and figures seem to be mixing areas... I think he was identifying what marks were strongest for the idea of his emotion. This for me this is a strong and intense image than lets you feel the connection between the two. Like you shouldn't be there.... its special and needed like they have no control.... a must and desire, intense and hurried..... I like the movement you feel from it , like the mans arm lifting and grabbing her, she looks empowered by him.... feeding him her breast, making him want her......

I decided I would copy this as an etching to see if I get the same senses... and style......It wasn't until I looked at the plate that I came to realise the artist must of gave movement really studying what marks were needed and where. For the artist to give the sense of lifting and grabbing the women takes skill. It's not flat and the contours are light giving a sense of desire and innocence.




The Scream

Munch was out walking with friends one night when, he wrote, "Suddenly the sky turned blood-red [and] I stood there trembling with anxiety and I felt a great, infinite scream through nature."

Munch was influenced by Van Gogh and Gauguin, and went on to inspire the Expressionists.



Poetry was also greatly represented with symbolism, the poet and one of the three leading poets of the movement, Stephane Mallarme said that Symbolism is to be used "to depict not the thing but the effect it produces".

Les Fenetres - The Windows

"les fenêtres, tells of an old man longingly looking out from a death and sickness ridden hospital at the youthful world outside that he cannot forget, but from which he is forever separated by the closed window
This is the torturing vision of such an ideal world, which he knows must be an illusion. This speaks to me on so many levels. Emotional levels of the sense of death looming and not being able to do anything about it, a young man in mind stuck in an old body.  Hope and realisation, truth and loss.

The window is said to suggest memory and separation as a metaphor to art, the window represents the hope or even the assurance that a better world exists elsewhere, beyond reality. On the other-hand it also an obstacle that keeps us separated from the ideal world.

Art can produce both things, the truth being that art can create an illusion of presence in the moment but its also in the past and is false no matter how close you are of seem to know it.

In the poem the man seals this moment of separation and longing at the window with a kiss on the glass.... momentarily finding himself in a sea of memories of gratitude and appreciation, greedy for emotion and the bitter truth of the connection of the lips and the glass.... bringing reality against a youthfulness gone.

How powerful are these words, conjuring up feeling, emotion and our own memories and rational yet sobering thoughts.

In other words art produces a dream which acts as a refuge from the real life and death.... covering the subject in a warm hug (artist, consumer) in a timeless space.


What unites the various artists and styles associated with Symbolism is the emphasis on emotions, feelings, ideas, and subjectivity rather than realism. Their works are personal and express their own ideologies, particularly the belief in the artist's power to reveal truth.



Odilon Redon -


Guardian Spirit of the Waters (1878)

A large head held aloft by wings floats above a tranquil sea, gazing upon a small sailboat with enormously expressive eyes. Seagulls flit through the air and skim the water's surface, while the water stretches out toward the distant horizon.

One of the main themes in Redon's oeuvre is the decapitated or disembodied head. Often shown free-floating, and sometimes reduced to a mere eyeball, the severed head encapsulates the Symbolist desire to free oneself from the shackles of the ordinary, mundane world, and achieve a higher state of consciousness through the exploration of dreams and subjective vision.

Gustav Klimt

Death and Life -  Death stares across the negative space as Life reveals itself in the figures who come into being, exist, and pass out of existence; they are born, live, and die as part of the great stream of life.

 It has been pointed out that Klimt offers a note of hope; instead of feeling threatened by the figure of death, his human beings seem to disregard it. Klimt himself was approaching death, and perhaps the passive quality of this work is suggestive of him being resigned to that fact.



The painting also reflects the time and ideas of Sigmund Freud and the work and ideas from the Greek mythology of Eros the Primordial God and God of Sexual Attraction.
See - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros

Painting to a theme continued again

 Another layer of medium... So far I've done 

• mud and paint mix
• acrylic
• glitter and chalk
• pva/painted 
• household paint
• oil paint
• mosses and tree bark
• handmade green paper with plant incorporated
• spit

From the beginning I've wanted to bring together my journey and walks in nature together with the texture and patterns I see in the everyday. For me I've never wanted to paint a landscape, Ive just wanted to create the feel and the life of the places.

While I doing this I've realised that as quickly as my thoughts and feeling changes so does my work... 

For me, I think having a break in between work stops me achieving what I started out doing.   I think of this as a weakness because I drift for different thoughts and feeling.  I sometimes lose my energy and find it hard to recreate the same enthusiasm I had started out with.  

My work isn't what I had started out envisioning. 

I did love the hands on rubbing of the mud and moss

I like all the textures here. A mix of everything thrown intogether

my eyes are bringing together memory of a satellite images of cloud and sea here. The darker blue against the lighter looks like areas of depth. see below

satellite image of dead sea area

Another satellite image for reference. I don't really look at these till afterwards. I just make in the moment.. I've no planning which is a downfall maybe.. 

Starting to build up the higher area. I feel if I could do it again, I would map the areas I'd walked  and recreated them. This would be of more arty thinking and a selling point. Instead I've been two steps forward and one step back. 

The human part I feel is gonna be lost and hidden of the mapping but in a way I do like the idea. Mother earth me and nature all mixed together as one, like the energy I feel when I'm outside

snowy mountain tops

Next I added my paper, why not I've actually added everything else so what harm can it do? I do think I've needded to do this because I'm learning. Its to much I think but also a very important part of my study. How else can I create and feel what I'm doing.

Oh god look at it !! haha its a bit erm    wobbly

I'm gonna let the paint and paper dry and hope fot the best.  I think next time i'd of done things differently. First I'd of not built up the areas of filler so much... I'd of created more of an illusion with paint and shadow. I had wanted to rip the breast area off. Instead I've let it stay... The thigh area I think could of been more curvy like that of my own body. The gap and coutours of the areas my body makes. It seems top heavy and somewhat uneven. 

I do however like parts of the texture from the first mosses I had placed in... The green and brown is painted with the mix of colours I see outside and this I guess it the theme. 

I always feel that when the time comes to hand in I'm always at the point of knowledge that, ok I know now what to do and should start again. It is what is it, I enjoyed singing and painting while I work and I realise that while doing it, it seems to take me into a happy place mentally. I strong and confident in my unsure making. I've learn more about the happy side of me that I think I have forgotten about in the busy everyday life. I look forward to my next year with the idea of bringing my learning to another level. Artist and art history and well as the psychology behind art is definitely somewhere I wanted go to.