Investigative Task- Meaning of Art To be honest, every person asked would define art in his or her own way, and often the definitions made would significantly differ one from another. These differences can be a result of cultural diversities, different trends, or just different time spans. Nevertheless, there should be a definition universally acceptable for any culture and any epoch. Art can be defined as any human creation that contains an idea other than its utilitarian purpose. Anything can fall under this definition, whether it is a painting, a dance, some object, or just an act. The word idea in the mentioned above definition is a key one, for an artwork without an idea cannot be considered as art.
It is important to understand and interpret numerous issues art addresses, its purposes and themes. The origins of early Australian artwork can be characterized by the aboriginal art, dating as much as several thousands years ago. The Dreaming is a term that refers to all that is known and all that is understood by Aboriginal people. It is central to the existence of traditional Aboriginal people and their lifestyle and culture, for it determines their values and beliefs and their relationships with every living creature and every feature of the landscape. It is the way Aboriginal people explain the beginning of life and how everything in their world came into being. It tells of the journeys and the deeds of Spirit Ancestors who made the trees, rocks, waterholes, and rivers, mountains and stars as well as the animals and plants, and whose spirits inhabit these features of the natural world today. Naturally, there are many different kinds of visual art in Aboriginal Australia.
The Essay on Fraser Island Art Aboriginal Foley
Art Assignment Humans have a need to be heard and understood. We have a desire to express ourselves - our opinions, emotions and thoughts. A man named Karl Martino has written some inspiring words about 'living life as an expression' as a personal mission statement. Martino wrote these worlds to be an inspiration for all people. These missions include: "People feel the need to be understood, just ...
Some modern paintings are clearly representational and might depict, for example, totemic ancestors in recognizable forms. Central Australian Aborigines like the Walbiri and Pintupi, however, employ a more abstract style, which to uninformed Europeans appears to be non-representational. Yet the abstract nature of these paintings fits neither into representational categories of art nor into abstract art in the sense that we usually mean it. To understand these paintings, (but not to understand precisely what is being said, what the specific narrative or narratives are, or what each mark might represent, but rather to understand the essence of the works) one has to start from the ways in which Aborigines envision them The Dreaming. Central desert paintings contain the essence of aboriginal thought; by examining them one can begin to gain access to an Aboriginal way of perceiving the world. Upon examination of these drawings one can see revealing, their ritual and ceremonial function; there is no concept of an end-directed creation producing an artistic object for contemplation. The purpose of the designs is to pass on knowledge by re-telling the stories of the ancestors; by visually re-visiting the topographical sights that the ancestors saw or created during the Dreamtime, the initiate reinforces a connection with his totemic ancestor. In this way Aboriginal art is process-oriented rather than product-oriented, and perhaps is more closely associated with Western notions of dance than painting.
And, in fact, for ritual purposes, the drawings are almost always executed in conjunction with dance and song. The designs are not used as display devices once they are finished or, indeed, while they are being created. They are instead ritual re-enactments of the ancestors Dreamtime traveling which, in Aboriginal mythology, are synonymous with the creation of the world. As the ancestor traveled he or she created the sites of the earth through song, dance and ritual. Another area of interest when discussing the art of Australia is the multitude of paintings presented by the medieval painters of Australia. Early painters of Australia included artists who recorded scientific and geographical information which were called topographical paintings. Professional artists on voyages of discovery from Great Britain (also known as the United Kingdom) recorded the coastlines and harbors, plants and animals, and local people of the new colony for official accounts; these painters were Thomas Watling, John Eyre, John Glover Conrad Martens and ST Gill. Most of the early Australian painters were amateur artists.
The Essay on Artists Paint Religious Vinci
No matter the discipline, artists find inspiration in a variety of ways. An artists imagination and emotional state play a vital role in the creative process. Artists also use their environment and religious influences to inspire new creations. Finally, one may be forcibly inspired by artistic patronage. An artists imagination makes an impact on their work. New, unknown images, words, and sounds ...
The traditionally English aspects of these topographical paintings were trees or rocks framing the picture, large exposure of the sky; bright lit up area in the centre and often a road leading into the painting. Thomas Watling was the first trained artist of the colony. He was transported to Australia as a punishment for forgery. His large view of Sydney Cove in 1794 is possibly the oldest surviving Australian painting. The early Australian painters had been trained in Britain, and their response to the landscape was limited by techniques and pictorial formulas acquired there. His painting of Sydney cove portrays the early expansion of the bay of Sydney in detail.
The composition is traditionally English because we see a road winding in the centre, the trees on either side framing the picture and look quite like the English elm trees more than Australian Fauna. The lit up area in the centre leads your eye into the painting and the large stretch of sky is conventionally English. The overall picture is very comprehensive and shows a good depiction of the early development at that time, from the buildings to the arrangement of the trees and streets. John Glover settled in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) in 1831 after a successful artistic career in Britain. Such European landscape masters of the late 1700s as Claude Lorraine, Salvator Rosa, and Gaspard Poussin influenced Glover in his work. As a result, his landscapes are rendered in an idealized manner.
Glovers painting The River Nile, Van Diemens land, show aspects, which reflect on his traditional European training. The trees are very spindly, roughly rubbery in shape, in which he has composed the trees to frame the painting. He has also been careful to show the distant landscape through the thin gum trees. He has used very earthy colors, including a goldish yellow, which gives the painting a romantic feel. He has showed the Aboriginals bathing in the semi-transparent blue waters, in a friendly nature by having them standing around in the water almost dancing. Conrad Martens was a topographical artist with the British naturalist Charles Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle. In 1835, Martens settled in Sydney and painted a large number of paintings.
The Essay on Moonlit Landscape With A View Of The New Amstel River And Castle Kostverloren
Moonlit Landscape with a View of the New Amstel River and Castle Kostverloren Introduction The light in the art is omnipresent and ubiquitous. The light was worshiped by all nations; the Sun, the Moon, the stars, fire and the lightning were personified in mythological images of Mitra, Aton, Brachman, Ishtar, Venus, Prometheus, Zeus and many others. Since it came into existence, the nations tried ...
He stressed the romantic grandeur and dramatic effects of atmosphere and light in the landscape around Sydney, particularly Sydney Harbor. His watercolor View of Sydney from Rose bay is a breathtaking depiction of Sydney at sunset. The sky is a wash of crimson and a gold yellow, whilst the foreground exhibits an array of blues and greys. The reflection of spectacular sun on the foliage and rocks is highlighted with the application of spread of white giving a glowing affect. Overlooking is an impressive colonial mansion, presenting the obvious sign that the colony was expanding. In the middle ground the silhouette spearing fish and in the foreground Aboriginal women making a fire.
Many illustrations of colonial life were also produced in the early 1800’s. S. T. Gill became known for his humorous illustrations and lithographs of events in the lives of Australian Bushmen and diggers. He was best known for drawings of life on the goldfields of Victoria during the 1850’s. Paintings by S.T. Gill, however, are hard to find.
John Eyre was a popular convict artist who also did topographical paintings in the 1800s. Eyres choice of median was watercolor and his paintings were not very decretive. His painting View of Sydney from the west side of the cove, painted in 1806 was characteristic of the traditional English technique. This was because of the streets winding of into the distance and the lush green gardens throughout the painting also because in his work of art there is a large exposure of the sky and he also has rocks surrounding the outskirts of the painting as a sort of frame. Topographical artists who have may or may not have been trained painted the early colonial paintings of Australia. Their paintings were in tradition English and they recorded the coastlines and harbors, plants and animals, and local people of the new colony for official accounts.
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Bibliography:
1. Allen, L. 1975, Time Before Morning: Art and Myth of the Australian Aborigines, New York: Thomas Crowell Company. 2. Bernard Smith and Terry Smith. 1995, Australian Painting 1788 – 1990, Oxford University Press, Sydney.
The Essay on Audrey Flack Painting Work Art
Audrey Flack Audrey Flack, born in 1931 in New York City, grew up knowing as a child she wanted to be an artist. Although Flack's family did not share her enthusiasm for her dream, she attended the HighSchool of Music and Art in New York. Here her promising future a san artist was beginning to unfold, and she received the St. Gardens medal. Upon graduating from Cooper Union as the top student, ...
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Megaw., and M. R. Megaw. (eds.), 1992, The Heritage of Namatjira: the Watercolourists of Central Australia, Australia: William Heinemann. 5. Mountford, C.
P. 1956, Art, Myth and Symbolism, Vol 1. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press..
