Wednesday, December 31, 2008

If Dr. Seuss were an architect....

This house is called the "Crooked House" and it is located in the Rezydent shopping center in Sopot, Poland. It is 4,000 square meters. The architect is Szotynscy Zaleski (1,2). He was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer(3). The last picture is from Dr.Seuss' illustrations...try comparing them to the "Crooked House".


Street Level

The sculptures below are from the "Street Level" exhibition at ICA Boston.
These artworks both demonstrate the unique culture of the city and critique the downfalls of an urban setting.


Sunday, December 14, 2008

The da Vinci Code

Leonardo da Vinci defined the term “Renaissance Man.” He is, in fact, the person who comes to mind when one thinks of a “Renaissance Man.” He was charismatic and could easily befriend almost everyone (but not Michelangelo). He was accomplished in the fields of art, science, music, and engineering, but perhaps the most impressive thing about Leonardo is that most of what he knew or learned of the world, he taught himself (he taught himself how to play the lyre and he even built himself one in the shape of a lion’s head.) He discovered the world on his own terms instead of simply settling for the knowledge that his teachers could offer him. He did not simply learn all that he could that was previously discovered by men before him, he challenged himself to become more than what any human thought that a man could be. He realized his own potential and explored the furthest reaches of his mind. He wanted to know everything, and he had the mental capacity to teach himself.

Leonardo did things that other people did not dare to such as going to morgues in the dark of the night to study the anatomy of the human body. People whispered about how abnormal that was, but he continued to do it until people were openly questioning his sanity and his patron was threatening to stop sponsoring him. He gained valuable knowledge through his midnight studies of the human body. He made sketched of muscles and He was the first person to be called a “genius.” He was also the first person to perfect perspective and foreshortening. Leonardo also had the ability to breathe life into his paintings. As Vasari said, “The eyes have the luster and moisture always seen in living people….Anyone who looked very attentively at the hollow of her throat would see her pulse beating.” The painting that he is describing is the “Mona Lisa.” (fig.1) She has a mystery about her smile and it can be related to the Archaic smile that is shown in ancient Greek sculpture. The woman depicted in the painting was once said to be the wife of Francisco del Giocondo, but now historians maintain that she was the wife of a Florentine merchant. The “Mona Lisa” is one of the most celebrated works that came out of the Renaissance era because of the attention to detail and its lifelike qualities. It is arguably the most recognizable portrait ever made.

He had the amazing ability to capture not just the image of a person, but also their essence in his portraits. He has done the same with his self portraits. (fig. 2) He looks as though he is concentrating on something in deep thought, which is fitting because he was painting himself and was probably in both deep concentration and thought. Leonardo was, as most genius’ are, troubled. During the 1480s, he was especially troubled. His emotions were shown through his paintings. His unfinished painting, Jerome in the Wilderness,(fig. 3) has an eerie, dark feeling to it. Jerome looks as though he is troubled by something and the scenery of craggy rocks surrounding him is less than cheery. To further document this unpleasant time in Leonardo’s life, he wrote in his journal, “all this time I thought I was learning to live; I was learning to die.” However, even unfinished, this drawing shows his genius. He drew it from an unusual angle; it appears as though he is below the level of Jerome. The precision of Leonardo’s drawings of Jerome’s musculature and body can be attributed to his studies of the anatomy of the human body.

Leonardo rarely finished his projects, but his notebooks are further testimony to his genius. In those notebooks, he made sketches that provided the basis of information for anatomists and biologists. His sketch known as Embryo in the Womb (fig. 4) not only provided a diagram of an embryo, but also provided notes on his observations and conclusions. Another sketch of his is the heart. The sketches of the embryo and the heart were most likely drawn during Leonardo’s midnight visits to the morgue. He made drawings of the human skeleton and human musculature. He contributed to the study of anatomy over 200 drawings of the human body. With his Vitruvian Man (fig. 5) he shows how movement affects the musculature of a drawing and he demonstrates perfect proportion.

Leonardo also made many contributions to the world of engineering. In his journals he designed many inventions such as musical instruments, hydraulic pumps, reversible crank mechanisms, finned mortar shells and a steam cannon. In 1502, he created a drawing of a bridge that would span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus River that is known as the Golden Horn. He intended the bridge to be 720 feet long. However, the sultan that he would be building it for, the Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul believed that it was impossible to erect such a massive construction. It turns out that Leonardo’s idea was not impossible for in 2001, Norway decided to build a smaller bridge using his idea. Furthermore, on May 17, 2006, the Turkish government decided to build Leonardo’s bridge over the Golden Horn. Leonardo was particularly infatuated with the concept of flight. He studied birds which produced his “Codex on the Flight of Birds” in 1505 which examined the flight behaviors of birds and held his idea’s for flying machines.(fig.6) Some of his ideas included a helicopter and a hang glider. The helicopter was impractical for him, but the hang glider has successfully been built.

Vasari talks about Leonardo’s attention to detail in the horses in his cartoon in the Hall of the Pope. (fig.7) The cartoon tells the story Niccolo Piccinino, who was a commander of the Duke Filippo of Milan. Leonardo drew a group of horsemen fighting for a standard. He studied the anatomy of horses and drew them in his notebooks (fig.8) This cartoon shows Leonardo’s ability to portray emotion in a piece of art. The horses are just as violent and engaged in the battle as the horsemen are. Vasari says in the painting “anger, disdain, and vindictiveness are displayed no less by the horsemen than by their horses, two of which forelegs intertwined are battling with their teeth no less fiercely than their riders are fighting for the standard, which one of the soldiers has seized.”

Leonardo was more than just a “Renaissance Man.” He possessed all the qualities of one such man because he was learned on the subjects of art, athletics, science, mathematics, engineering, music and architecture. He was also charismatic. He was a friend of kings and popes as well as common people. He made invaluable discoveries that impact the worlds of the subjects that he mastered. He was the champion of his time and he, as well as his art, was well-known and it is even more well-known today, but even that was not enough for Leonardo. He believed that he never achieved perfection in his art and that he said on his death bed to the king that he “had offended God and the men of the world by not having worked at his art as he should have.” He may not have given the world the caliber of art that he wanted to, but what he did achieve still warrants the work of a true genius. As Vasari says, “The loss of Leonardo saddened beyond all measure everyone who had known him, for no one ever lived who had brought such honour to painting.”

















fig. 1


















fig. 2














fig. 3














fig. 4















fig. 5






fig. 6
fig. 7
fig. 8

Friday, December 12, 2008

High Renaissance Test

1. Alfino and the maiden
Flanders 15th century
Van Eyck

2. Raphael
15th century
Florence
Madonna and the Child

3. School of Athens
Michelangelo
15th century
Florence

4. David
Michelangelo
15th century
Florence

5. Pieta
Michelangelo
15th century
Florence

6. Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo
15th century
Vatican

7. Michelangelo
Judgment Day
in the Sistine Chapel
15th century

8. Michelangelo
Dying Slave
14th century
Florence

9. Moses
Michelangelo
15th century
Florence

10. Michelangelo
Pieta giovanni
14th century
Florence

11. St. Peters Dome
Rome
Michelangelo
15th century

12. Laurentian Stairs
Michelangelo
15th century
Florence

13. Vestution Man
Leonardo da Vinci
Florence
14th century

14. Leonardo da Vinci Self Portrait
Florence
15th century

15. Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci
15th century
Florence

16. Lady of the Rocks
Leonardo da Vinci
14th century
Florence

17. Assumption
Titian
15th century
Florence

18. Venus of Urbina
Titian
15th century
Florence

19. The Last Supper
Tintoretto
15th century
Florence

2o. Palladio
San Giullani
15th century
Venice

21. Madonna with the long neck
Titian
15th century
Florence

22. Bronzino
15th century
Florence
Madonna

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

"Why did you turn off the jazz music?"

One night Jean Girard walked into a popular NASCAR bar. He decided to put his favorite type of music, jazz, on the juke box. Chaos ensued. The jazz music on the juke box was there for "profiling" purposes only."

African Americans during the early 20th century would have received that kind of reaction if they decided to play jazz music in a bar. However they would most likely have not been in a bar with White people due to segregation and the jazz music would not have been on the juke box. I don't even know if they had juke boxes. Nevertheless, in the early 20th century African Americans in the communities of the southern United States developed jazz music from a blend of African and American music traditions. This blend occurred with African slaves being brought to America. They had their own types of musics and developed spirituals after coming to America. They also learned how to play the European instruments that their owners had such as violins, banjos and other percussion instruments. Some characteristics of jazz music would be its use of blues notes and improvisation. There are many branches of jazz such as ragtime or swing. Jazz artists such as Buddy Bolden or Bunk Johnson started the jazz revolution that led to the mainstream music today. They stepped away from the rigid music that existed and created something individual and organic.


Monday, December 1, 2008

Why don't you come with me little girl, on a magic carpet ride

The art of carpet making is very essential to the Persian people. The art dates back to ancient times. Persian carpets are divided into three different groups: Farsh (anything bigger than 6 by 4 ft), Qualicheh ( 6 by 4 ft and smaller), and nomadic carpets known as Kilim (rough carpets). The first picture is a Qualicheh rug and the second one is a Kilim carpet.