Baroque Art & Caravaggio

Baroque art was prominent in the 17th Century between Mannerism and Rococo and it is associated with the Catholic Counter-Reformation.  This style represents both a continuation and a radical transformation of the ideals of the Renaissance.  According to Marcelo Lima PhD (Introduction to the History of Art)  the Baroque period "forms the basis of modern culture, and constitutes the soil or foundation of some of the central aspects of modern experience".

I see Baroque art as dramatic and full of detail and usually has an emotional subject matter which makes viewing this art quite intense  and visually powerful.  Caravaggio is a great Baroque painter.  He created works with intensely expressive subjects with very realistic characteristics and used light and dark very effectively.

This is Caravaggio's "The Taking of the Christ"

The next two images would probably be my favourites from Caravaggio.

"Doubting Thomas"

"Judith and Holofemes"

These paintings are almost like photographs.  In fact he actually used modern darkroom techniques in creating his masterpieces, despite the fact that he painted over 200 years before the camera existed.  He may have treated his canvases with a light-sensitive substance as a way of fixing an image to the canvas.  The substance may have been a luminescent powder that was made from crushed fireflies.  He then used white lead mixed with chemicals like mercury, to outline the image (Lapucci in Squires, 2009).  

Caravaggio.com has some fascinating reading about this incredible artist.

Next Stop....Reinterpretation

Our second assessment piece for Intro Studio is a reinterpretation piece, where we choose a work of art from another artist and re-work it into a new style.  So to begin with I need to take a closer look at the periods and styles of art to get a feel for what I would like to do.

My first stop was at Art History Timeline - For Dummies
(http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/art-history-timeline.html)

and then WebMuseum, Paris: Glossary which you can view here.

Some periods or styles of art are:

Abstract Expressionism, Baroque, Classicism, Cubism, Dada, Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism, Impressionism, Neoclassical, Post-Impressionism, Post-Modernism, Realism, Renaissance, Romanticism, Surrealism and of course Contemporary.

I will spend some time looking at the styles and the artists who relate to the period.

Ready to Install

I had my work printed at Officeworks and it is a glossy poster AO size.  I am thrilled with the results and think it is big enough to not be lost on the wall.  I have decided to make sound the second element to my installation and will play Darth Vader breathing sounds on an ipod.  I found this video of Darth Vader breathing sounds on You Tube.  It is just Darth breathing for three minutes, which is all I need for my installation.

Now to the printers

Although Cornelius told me that probably the most boring thing I could do with this work would be to print it out, I have decided that this is exactly what I want to do, but I will print it out in a large format and look at adding another element to it like sound or lighting.

This is my final image with added prison bars.  I don't want the bars to be the focus however, so I have played around with the opacity to make them blend in a bit more by making them see through.  Now I'm off to get it printed!

Almost there!

I think I am almost there now but I now need to think about how to install this work.

Here is what I have now:

I still think that it needs something more but I'm just not sure what yet....

Oh how I envy you

Photoshop is very, very time consuming when you have had no experience with it whatsoever.  It has taken a great deal of time to get my image to this:

How I envy those with Photoshop experience right now.  Of course, the more I am using it the better I am getting at remembering short cuts etc.  It took a while to work out how to inverse the picture so that I could delete the background and not the focus of the image but I will never forget how to do this now!

Digital Artists

Looking at digital artists has been very interesting and a little mind blowing in the process too.  Besides Sonia Falcone, whom I have taken a very strong liking to, I have also been a little besotted by the work of Italian artist Daniel Gay and Aussie Justin Maller and found a fascinating piece by Frederik Pietschmann.

This work by Daniel Gay is titled "Positronic Self Portrait".

I think this work is incredibly life like and perhaps a reflection of where life is taking us?  Will we one day be part man, part machine?  Our lives are so full of electronic devices and computerised equipment that it will probably make sense to integrate them into our own bodies in the future.

Daniel Gay trained as an illustrator and now specialises in computer graphics with a great deal of works focusing on a sci-fi or fantasy theme.








This work by Frederik Pietschmann is titled "Why so happy meal?"

I just love this work.  Taking the famous Ronald character from the world's beloved fast food chain and turning it into something dark is a great idea.  We all know that too much junk food is bad for you and using the Joker with the tag line "Why so happy meal?" makes you question why kids are so happy with their little happy meal of fat!









Finally, Justin Maller's work is incredible.
Visit his website here : http://justinmaller.com/
He was asked what art provides him and what it is about looking at, making and experiencing art that he loves.  He said that he prefers not to over think it and appreciates work from a technical point of view.  He likes art that takes a lot of skill to create and art that has a part of the artist in it.  He believes that you can see and feel an artists soul in visual work.
He was also asked what he hopes to achieve and express with his own work.  Justin describes his work as stuff that makes him happy and gives him a sense of satisfaction.

                         "I want to play on my computer for a few days, give my subconscious
                         a chance to run around, my conscious mind some time to concentrate
                         and play the solitary, shallow craft I have spent a decade honing and at
                         the end of the day have something cool to show for it.  If it challenges
                         me, goes somewhere unexpected, and it looks good and when I'm done
                         with it, then I feel good about it."