Ink is not only for writing poetry….

I would like to dedicate this post to traditional Chinese art, specifically ink paintings. This style is very unique and represents its country of origin in motive, style and impression. Typical themes are based on flora, fauna, and general landscapes of China. What I greatly appreciate about this art is that ink is being used as a medium. This is not a very common phenomenon in western art and therefore a refreshing change. There is a bit of a similarity between ink and watercolors in terms of color intensity, shading and fluidity of lines and forms.

This specific piece by Li Jun shows several main characteristics of the traditional Chinese art style. There is little variation in color, whereby clear distinctions are made utilizing the color intensity to create shading which moreover lends structure and lots of detail to the depicted plum tree branches and birds.

Another notable feature of traditional Chinese ink painting is that there is a definite subject that is being portrayed and little to no additional details in the background. This is especially noticeable in the above painting Xu Beihong’s Galloping Horses gallery. There is an explicit focus on the depicted horse, which is painted with defined details, however there are no additional surroundings such as landscape or other features to set a scene. This can also be observed in the first painting of the Plum Blossom, where the branches and birds are created with great detail, yet there are no additional features in the background. This allows the viewer to focus solely on the subject matter at hand, which I believe to be the intent of this particular characteristic.

This last piece provides some more intricate details, however the aforementioned characteristic of only portraying the defined subject matter is yet embedded in this piece, seeing as the specific image that is being portrayed is in fact the entire landscape. The other features that I mentioned earlier can quite clearly be observed, such as the use of only a single color and the obvious nature theme.

I find the balanced combination of simplicity and elaborate detail very aesthetically pleasing and love the focus on nature themes. These pieces of art portray important aspects and values of everyday traditional Chinese life and, in my opinion, express an appreciation for nature and its beauty, thus incorporating its importance.

Sources: “Ink Plum Blossom”. Paintingscinese.com, http://www.paintingschinese.com/chinese-flower-paintings/br-0689-chinese-paintings.htm

“Xu Beihong’s Horses”. Chinaonlinemuseum.com, http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-xu-beihong-horse-galloping.php

“Water Village (1)”. Paintingschinese.com, http://www.paintingschinese.com/chinese-landscape-paintings/br-0685-chinese-paintings.htm

All the quirky buildings….

Thinking of quirky architecture the first thing that pops into my mind is The Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic. During a visit to Prague I was walking down the street with a friend, headed towards one of the many bridges crossing the Vltava River, when we stumbled upon Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić’s Dancing House. It was an unexpected yet pleasant surprise which left us standing in awe and amusement for a few moments.

What I appreciate about this piece of postmodern architecture is how this building mixes up the entire view. Walking along the road you can see similarly structured, traditional building in the same style one after the other, mainly varying in color and then you reach the corner and see this structure that seems to be in the midst of a dynamic movement. It’s loose and fun and breaks the concept of look-alike buildings in a row.

Another architectural masterpiece by Frank Gehry is the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Its reflective metal exterior of flowing, rounded shapes is representative of what the interior is made to hold.

Now this second architectural construct looks very different from The Dancing House, however the same principles are incorporated: breaking the traditional form, creating something new and free, making architecture a fun piece of true art. The Inntel Hotel’s facade is a compilation of various cottages in the historical style of the Zaan region stack upon one another. This creation is a collage to resemble, maintain, and interpret historical features in an ever changing modern world. Therefore it represents more than just a landmark, it is an eye-catcher, a piece of art in a long lasting and functional form.

The Sydney Opera house by Jørn Utzon is well known for its distinctive form. The white body of the building reminds me of ship sails inflated by the wind. This harmonizes well with the surrounding landscape of water. This piece of architectural art was the inspiration for the Wave building in Vejle, Denmark.

This building quite obviously derived its name form the form it represents: waves. This shows a similar principle as seen in the Sydney Opera House, nicely combined with a body of water, completing the overall theme.

The last piece postmodern architecture that I would like to share with you is the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. Its shape was intended to resemble features of Alaska’s nature and history.

I greatly appreciate the diversity and playful style as well as the creative freedom embodied in postmodern architecture. A significant feature that can be detected in each of the presented buildings is that they were not designed for mere functional intent. The greater valued aspect is to create something that represents either the purpose of the building or establish a harmony between the surroundings and the structure itself to create an overall setting that is a piece of art. All of these constructions are fun to view, and provide an eye-catching alternation to an otherwise rather traditionally structured skyline. The individual uniqueness of every structure fascinates me and makes me wish there was more of that creative quirkiness in each place we travel to.

Sources: “The Dancing House”. Architecuul.com http://architectuul.com/architecture/the-dancing-house

“Monday Exposure: Dancing House in Prague”. Coloringwithoutborders.com http://www.coloringwithoutborders.com/2015/08/monday-exposure-dancing-house-in-prague.html

https://www.travelcaffeine.com/free-tour-walt-disney-concert-hall/

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/01/23/10-buildings-that-represent-new-age-postmodernism-roundups-architecture/

https://ecodomus.com/press-releases/ecodomus-to-participate-in-sydney-opera-house-lifecycle-bim-project/

https://www.archdaily.com/120948/the-wave-henning-larsen-architects

https://www.uaf.edu/museum/plan-your-visit/museum-operations/

“Less is more” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: Welcome to the Bauhaus style

Growing up in Germany, I attended high school in Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt, the town which is famous for being the home of the Bauhaus. The building itself is the perfect representation of what the Bauhaus style characterizes: rationality, functionality, and aesthetic.

The building structures consist of functional, geometric forms, creating a cool aesthetic embodying the modern style. Everything serves a purpose and there are no additional knick-knacks just for decoration. The exterior is constructed of hard, gray cement, with large areas of glass windows, providing the opportunity for plenty of daylight to illuminate the interior. The interior is full of blank white surfaces, lots of light streaming in from the before mentioned windows and again geometric shapes in everything from walls to stairs to ceiling and lights. There is a unique air of practicality: everything is kept to its simplest, minimalistic form to fulfill a certain function and yet it seems like so much more. The Bauhaus is a great example of technology and science combined to create an aesthetic building. I can only recommend visiting it and experiencing the sensation of exploring this architectural masterpiece.

Moving on to Bauhaus style paintings, it is important to say that there was no defined technique or style. However the same principles as mentioned before were integrated and applied in all areas of the art: functionality, rationality, and aesthetic. Paintings contained geometric forms, tying back to science and technology. Everything was constructed with the character of calculated precision. Wassily Kandinsky was an artist and teacher at the Bauhaus and created the following painting, which in my opinion represents the Bauhaus art fairly well.

This Painting contains many details, however it is still kept rather minimalistic and not overloaded with content. Nonetheless Kandinsky managed to create a certain dynamic within the painting in the way he utilized certain shapes, lines and colors.

The last feature of Bauhaus art that I would like to discuss is furniture. In particular chairs are often associated with the Bauhaus style.

In this example the chair is clearly constructed of the mere basics needed for the chair to funtion as a seat. Every bit of material used supports the weight of the person sitting on it in such a balanced and reduced way, that if one component were to be stripped away, the chair would no longer fullfil its intended function. There truly is aesthetic in the combination of science and technology than enables the creation of such minimalistic furniture and tools that are reduced to the bare minimum. This is why I admire the influence and especially the creations that the world has derived from the Bauhaus.

Sources: “Bauhaus Building by Walter Gropius (1925-26)”. Bauhaus-dessau.com, https://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/architecture/bauhaus-building/bauhaus-building.html

“Wassily Kandinsky”. Bauhaus100.de, https://www.bauhaus100.de/das-bauhaus/koepfe/meister-und-lehrende/wassily-kandinsky/

“10 of the most iconic peces of Bauhaus furniture”. Dezeen.com, https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/08/bauhaus-furniture-designs-chair-tables-chess-set-baby-cradle/

"Capturing the moment" vs "Get real" - Explorations of Impressionism and Realism

A print of Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise has hung in my parents living room for as long as I can remember. It is a piece of art that I have come to love from an early age but could not quite pinpoint why until I grew older: Monet managed to capture and convey the peaceful feeling you get when watching a sunrise in this painting. That is true art to me.

This work of art captures the essence of the moment with hazy blue and yellow hues creating the soothing, misty setting of the breaking day, accented by the vibrant orange of the rising sun and its reflection on the water. I find it fascinating that although it is visible that this work was done fast in a fleeting moment, using simple lines and brushstrokes along with variations in color tones rather than defined structural details, it still manages to express an immense amount of detail on an emotional level, which seems to be the true purpose of impressionism: creating art that captures an impression rather than simply depicting a scene. This principle is furthermore supported by the fact that Monet started completing his artwork outdoors while actually viewing the specific light and feeling of the moment he was capturing as opposed to finishing his work in a studio with more time and resources. This however was not quite appreciated during Monet’s time, and what is now renowned and has given an entire style its name, was then used as negative critique stating that the compositions were “mere impressions” rather than true works of art.

Similar characteristics in style can be detected in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s masterpieces such as his painting of Moulin Huet Bay.

Renoir makes more use of bright, vibrant colors to capture the impression, creating an even stronger contrast to reality than seen in Monet’s Impression Sunrise. Both have in common that quick, set brushstrokes are used, creating the impression of waves, structure and shapes, even though a closer look brings out more and more discrepancy to real shapes. A unique feature of this art style is that not only are fleeting moments captured, but it also only takes one fleeting moment for the spectator of the painting to recognize the motive. Every closer inspection of these paintings make the artwork more unclear rather than providing awareness of more in depth detail. This is a stark contrast to previous art styles and enhances the uniqueness of the Impressionism.

In my opinion the perfect counterpart to Impressionism is Realism. This particular style of art attributes a lot of importance to detail and depicting the unmasked reality of everyday things. While Impressionism provided us with flitting, breezy pictures of sunrises and bright colored beach days, Realism shows us the harsh truth of hard labor and everyday hardships in strong contrasting, dark and natural colors.

A great example of realistic art is The Stonebreakers by Goustave Courbet. You can see how he utilizes s stark contrast between light and dark, limiting his choice of color to natural tones rather than bright and colorful ones. Clearly a lot of effort went into each detail of this painting, showing detailed shapes depicting the strain of the hard work and the laborer’s withered features. This creates a more lifelike image, though still capturing the moment mid movement, the main focus is on the detailed depiction of reality. Thus coming back to this style’s name: Realism. The point of this art was to display the working classes everyday reality for everyone to see, instead of showing happy, pretty scenes.

Haystacks: Autumn by Jean- François Millet is a different example of Realism. It differs somewhat from the previous example, seeing as its main focus is not on showing laborers at work. Nonetheless the same thematic is implied, even though it may not be clearly depicted. The large haystacks and the herd of sheep are evidence of hard manual labor and a shepherd leaning on a stick is shown watching his herd. Again mainly natural colors are used, keeping the painting fairly monotone in coloring. This lets the observer focus on the depicted content rather than getting distracted by bright varying colors.

Overall I have a great appreciation for the thought processes and intentions behind each art style, however I clearly prefer Impressionism over Realism. Not only for the more delightful scenes, but mainly for the special sensation that one gets observing these pieces of art. There is just something captivating about it that won’t let me go.

Sources: “Claude Monet: 100 Famous Paintings Analysis, Complete Works & Bio”. Claude-monet.com, https://www.claude-monet.com/biography.jsp

“Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey”. Nationalgallery.org, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/pierre-auguste-renoir-moulin-huet-bay-guernsey

“Goustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers”. Smarthistory.org, https://smarthistory.org/courbet-the-stonebreakers/

“Haystacks: Autumn”. Metmuseum.org, www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/60.71.12/

I must admit that throughout my educational career I have never been a great fan of history. However, there is a portrait of Louis XIV that I have encountered time and time again, and though I fought falling asleep during the lecture, I could not help but be impressed and awestruck by this piece of art. The particular painting which I am am talking about is the portrait of the Sun King Louis XIV of France by Hyacinthe Rigaud.

This painting has truly imprinted itself in my memory. It is the go-to image that pops into my head when I think of history class and always evokes the sensation of awe and best put into the words “Wow – that guy, though. Just wow.”

Many baroque features are utilized in this work of art, lending it the impressive effect it has on the spectator. For one, Rigaud used very vibrant colors which are very stimulation to the visual sense. Furthermore, a stark contrast in said colors, as seen in the dark hair distinctly set off from the white of the robe, as well as the contrast between the outer blue and gold of the robe and the white underside. One can also observe the use of intense warn colors, such as orange, red, and gold, next to vivid cold colors, featured as blues and greens.

Moving on to a different aspect of the portrait, I would like to focus on the dynamics of the picture, expressed in the stance of Louis XIV, as well as the form of the clothing, tapestry and overall surroundings. Painting his pictures it was a main characteristic of Rigaud’s to show his clients in grand stances, gestures and situations, representing their status. This is quite recognizable in the portrait of Louis XIV: His attire in which he is portrayed boasts of wealth and power, the stance is shifted forward, striking a pose with his left hand on his hip and his other resting on his scepter, clearly displaying confidence and superiority. In addition to the overall perspective being from slightly below the subject, giving the impression of gazing up at the featured royalty, all provides evidence and representation of Louis’ powerful position and influence as absolute monarch.

Sources: “Hyacinthe Rigaud (French, 1659 – 1743) (Getty Museum).” The Photography of Ray K. Metzker and the Institute of Design (Getty Center Exhibitions), J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/410/hyacinthe-rigaud-french-1659-1743/.

“Portrait of Louis XIV of France, by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1701”. Columbia College. http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/portrait-louis-xvi-france-hyacinthe-rigaud-1701

When living in Germany I encountered Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation on a regular basis. Living in Saxony-Anhalt I was in the close vicinity of many places where Luther was of big influence, such as Wittenberg, Eisenach, and Erfurt. I even had the opportunity to visit the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, where Luther hung his famous 95 Theses in 1517. Furthermore, being a protestant Christian myself, I participated in Reformation Day events, and discussed the topic in religious circles on various occasions.

In the picture above, you can see a Luther Rose or Luther Seal. I personally find the imagery very pleasing to the eye with its curved lines, along with the overall enclosing circle and the balance of warm (red and gold) and cold (blue and white) colors. Inspite of each viewer’s personal interpretation, the colors and shapes have designated religious meanings, which are best described in Luther’s own words in his letter to Lazarus Spengler in 1530:

First, there is a black cross in a heart that remains its natural color. This is to remind me that it is faith in the Crucified One that saves us. Anyone who believes from the heart will be justified (Romans 10:10). It is a black cross, which mortifies and causes pain, but it leaves the heart its natural color. It doesn’t destroy nature, that is to say, it does not kill us but keeps us alive, for the just shall live by faith in the Crucified One (Romans 1:17). The heart should stand in the middle of a white rose. This is to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace—it puts the believer into a white, joyous rose. Faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives (John 14:27). This is why the rose must be white, not red. White is the color of the spirits and angels (cf. Matthew 28:3; John 20:12). This rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that a joyful spirit and faith is a beginning of heavenly, future joy, which begins now, but is grasped in hope, not yet fully revealed. Around the field of blue is a golden ring to symbolize that blessedness in heaven lasts forever and has no end. Heavenly blessedness is exquisite, beyond all joy and better than any possessions, just as gold is the most valuable and precious metal.

The Luther Seal can be seen as a summary of what Martin Luther believed to be the essence of the Christian belief. With his open critique of the Catholic Church, Luther played a main role in the Protestant Reformation, which resulted in the division of Christianity into the catholic and protestant denomination. Thus, accompanied by Luther’s translation of the bible, he revolutionized religious ideas and biblical interpretations forever.

Sources: “The Luther Seal: Summary of the Gospel.” Lutheran Reformation, lutheranreformation.org/history/the-luther-seal-summary-of-the-gospel/.

The first piece of art I will be discussing is a wonderful photograph captured by Paul Nicklen called Polar Impressions. It was taken on an assignment in Salvard, Norway and has been published in his book Born to Ice (Paul Nicklen 2018).

The image captured is of polar bear paw prints in the snow leading away from the observer. The wind seems to be blowing, carrying some of the snow away with it, giving the footprints a fleeting impression. The sun provides a light source from the upper left corner outside of the image’s boundaries, which balances the cold blue colors of the snow and ice with a touch of warm yellow and orange, highlighting the outlines of the tracks and snow mounds.

There are several noticeable variations in texture within the picture. The most obvious is that the paw prints interrupt the consistent surface of the snow. The body weight’s shifting pressure on the impressionable underground created different surface structures in the snow: the smaller pads smoothed out small circular dents, while the larger pad created a deeper crater. Furthermore, some snow was pushed backwards with each of the polar bear’s strides, leaving little streaking snow mounds in its wake. In addition to this the texture visibly changes towards the top of the picture. The once smooth and level ground transitions to more uneven and rocky terrain, ascending to jagged snowbanks and perhaps even mountains in the distance. Lastly, the sky, which makes up only a small stripe at the top of the picture, is mostly a hazy mass of clouds which depict a contrast to the clear cut structure and details of the frozen landscape.

My favorite element of this piece is probably the alluring mystic created by the fact that the imprints are evidence of the polar bear’s presence captured in the landscape, however the animal itself is nowhere to be seen. The wind is slowly removing the traces that in turn vanish into the distance to an unknown destination. The combination of colors and surface textures create a soothing and peaceful demeanor, which if only one element were different, could be changed completely. The unique detail in the simplicity of this landscape fascinates me and wakes the desire to explore the vast secrets of this frozen land.

Image Source: Nicklen, Paul. “Polar Impressions.” Paul Nicklen, 2018, paulnicklen.com/fineart/polar-impressions/.

Welcome to my art blog! To start off I would like to introduce myself…

My name is Sophia and I am a freshman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, majoring in Wildlife Biology and Conservation. Some of my favorite activities include traveling, exploring the great outdoors, working with animals, spending time with my friends and reading. Best case scenario: I can combine most or all of these things in one experience!

I moved to Fairbanks just shy of a year ago, so now I’m all set and eager to get the full Alaskan experience after spending the past ten years in Germany. Most importantly, I would like to go out and get up close with Alaska’s unique nature and scenic landscape.

 

 

In this blog I would like to focus on my interests in art and have my readers accompany me on my more in depth explorations of the artistic world. I myself dabble in different sorts of arts and crafts – mainly just for fun. These include sketching and drawing, scrapbooking, origami, crafting dreamcatchers, and especially photography. Most of my own art, as well as the art I am primarily interested in, is inspired by nature. Thus the circle closes bringing us back to my interests and my major. To sum up my introduction, one can say that I am indeed a nature-freak which furthermore is the source of my creative work and the inspiration for various aspects of my life.

If I have caught your interest at all, feel free to stick around and see what else I have in store to share with you!

– Let art be the light of inspiration. –