I just couldn't help myself

I found a couple of images of Claude Monet's Rouen Cathedral Facade series, and they are just so lovely next to each other in color that I decided to post them on my blog for all to see. When we discussed the time of day that we were to do this assignment (a.m. or p.m.), I immediately thought of Claude Monet because I knew he had painted a series of a cathedral facade at different times of the day. I think it's very interesting that he chose to paint an impression of the cathedral's facade about 12 different times on one day, just to study how the time of day would change the lighting and shadows of the paintings. Here are two of them (I didn't check to see what time of day these two are):

Guess Who's Back? - Back Again.

Susan Rothenberg- According to Michael Auping, the Chief Curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and longtime associate of Rothenberg, the art world began to embrace "figurative painting" anew via the New Image Painting movement, "a movement that would explore ways of re-engaging figuration"(11). Rothenberg's opportunity can be interpreted as the result of Georgia O' Keefe's innovations decades earlier, although their ideas are not related, writes Barbara Buhler Lynes, Director of the O' Keefe Research Center and Curator at the O' Keefe Museum (9). What these two artists do have in common is that they both work with "the opposing forces of abstraction and figuration" (8). That's just a little context for you: here's the nitty-gritty:

Susan Rothenberg, Cabin Fever, 1976

I guess this is oil on canvas. I like the resemblance it bares to cave paintings. Actually, the cave paintings in Lascaux are among her influences. The gestural quality, to me, is most evident in the brushstrokes. In Art History, we call this a "painterly" technique. Even though this painting is on a mostly monochromatic color-scale, the browns range from a light greenish-brown to a medium reddish-brown. The black, shadowy outline, stroked on the underbelly, under the legs and on the horses head and neck, give the horse a position in space, while intimating a sense of movement. And the shapes stroked behind the legs nearer us indicate the legs on the horse's other side as being in shadow.

I like to practice MLA-style citations, but I guess I should start trying to practice Chicago documentation.

Work Cited

Auping, Michael. Susan Rothenberg: Moving in Place. Ed. Stefanie Ball Piwetz. 2009. New York:     Delmonico Books/Prestel. Print. 8-11.

By the way...

I ran into Professor Fred Burton in the library today, and asked him for some research advice pertaining to sketchbooks (particularly in IPC).  Toward the end of his good advice, he advised me to look up an artist called Peter Beard for good examples of dedicated sketchbook-keeping.  After a bust on ARTstor, I "Googled" him, and the first link was to his website, www.peterbeard.com.  I clicked on the link to some of his 'selected works,' and they were spectacular.  I don't know what is meant by "gelatin" as a medium because I'm sure he doesn't mean he used the gelatin we eat, but I don't know.  Any way, he actually smeared some blood on parts of the pages as part of the composition.  I'm assuming it's real blood, but I wonder if it's his own... Each page was occupied by a black-and-white photograph of an African animal in its native surroundings, blood smears applied like soft pastels, and extensive notes written in ink, surrounding the photograph as a frame.  This covered the whole page.  I didn't look at but a handful, so I'm sure all the rest don't have all the same materials because on of the last ones I looked at didn't.  But the theme among the ones I viewed was unified.  Beard currently lives in Kenya, but he's originally an American citizen.  The site also mentioned him as living in New York, so I assume that means he stays in New York for a time and goes back to Kenya as his main residence.  If you get a moment, check the site out.