week 8/16-8/19

Okay, before I go into the whole beginning of my notes, I just wanted to put the setup of the French Academy, which is how anyone becomes anyone in the 19th century. 

French Academy- 

• you have the school- grandes écoles. In the school you learn drawing, painting and sculpture. You study with masters, and hope to win the Prix de Rome (The grand prize)
• then you have exhibitions. Salons. These are held in huge galleries. They are annual, juried exhibitions. You win medals and state purchases. The goal is to become well known, and to have the state buy many of your paintings/pieces. Through your Salons you win the Prix de Rome and study in Rome with masters for 2 years. 

The French Academy is essential for new artists to get noticed, and begin their career. Basically if Jacques Louis-David never entered the Academy, and never did the Salons, we wouldn't have the "Oath of the Horatii" or my most favourite, "Death of Marat". And without David, we wouldn't have Girodet, Gros, or Ingres! Oh what kind of world would we be in without them?! A terrible one! ...getting off subject a little. But seriously, the way people did things, how they do things now, it would all be completely different. And Ingres actually comes into play with this entry, so I wasn't soo off :) 

So, because I've already mentioned Ingres (Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres to be formal), let me bring you one of his beautiful neoclassical pieces- Large Odalisque(1814). 

seen here. She is a beautiful, exotic woman who is quite possibly in a haraam, owned by men. She's not tacky in the least, note her gorgeous, luxurious fabrics on her bed, and curtains. Her pipe, and jewels. She's also giving the viewer a welcoming look, she's not shy at all. And note her body, the over elongated back, which Ingres loved, he was a total back man :) And her bones seem to be nonexistent. Her arm looks like a 'bendy toy' as my professor says. And her left leg...seems a bit off. It appears to start from the middle of her torso. This is all in the name of Idealism. How we want to look, and how we would look if the world was perfect. Ingres was one of, if not the, names of Neoclassicism. Looking to the work of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the stories and art pieces, and bringing those ideas into his work. 


Now, keeping Odalisque in mind, take a look at Pablo Picasso's 'Demoiselles d'Avignon seen here. One would automatically assume that these are two completely different ideas, and these artists are hundreds of years apart. Wrong. Picasso absolutely adored Ingres, and is often called a decedent of his. Picasso also created this piece only 93 years after Ingres, (1907). The subject matter is even similar, Ingres with a woman in a Haraam, and Picasso with women in a brothel. Both used exotic women, and both nude. Picasso however chose to do it in a radically different way. He chose to use this idea of no space, completely transformed figures, absolutely unnatural, and did I mention space?! Everything is to the front, the fabric seems to float in and out of the foreground and figures. The woman on the bottom right corner is doing some odd 'Exorcism-esque' move with her head. 


Ingres is looking into the past for his inspiration, and Picasso is looking into the future, he is completely Modern, and radical. And a little tid-bit : Picasso showed this piece to a few people, and even his best friend. None of them liked it. His best friend(who's name escapes me) said it was horrible. So Picasso hid it for years and years. Scared to bring it out. And when he did, it was shocking, both good and bad. 

This comparison was really just to get you to see how fast the world of art changed in the late 19th and early 20th century. Previous movements such as the Renaissance, which took hundreds of years, to the baroque, they took many many years to move on. It was like a leisurely stroll in the park. But during the Industrial Revolution it took maybe 5 years for the movements to change. It was like a war zone! Everywhere you looked something newer and more different was coming out. With the inventions such as the camera and electricity. It all changed art forever. People who bought art changed. It wasn't the nobility anymore like it was with David, and other 19th century artists. It wasn't the church. It was the working middle class. The self made men. One of the best examples is Ingres' portrait of Louis-Francois Bertin, the head of a newspaper. This man gives off total impatience. He doesn't have time to sit and pose for a painting! He's got a news paper to run. But this is the kind of person that's commissioning art these days. Not a duke who has all the time in the world to sit there in his beautifully crafted suit and perfect posture, who might ride his horse that afternoon after posing.  

(Bertin)

That's basically the intro, and my first day in class. Just a bit of beginning information, and foundation to what'll be happening. Tomorrow(Friday) I'll post some about Modern Sculpture, I didn't want to keep going, as this entry is dreadfully long, and I don't really know my style of putting all this information out there yet. So bare with me for these first few entries, and we'll try to combine the two classes together.