FINAL EXAM

Selection #1 Jacob Lawrence: American, 1917 - 2000

Daybreak - A Time to Rest, 1967 Tempera on Hardboard
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Selection #2 Jasper Johns: American, 1930 -
Perilous Night, 1982, Encaustic On Canvas With Objects

National Gallery of Art, Washington

This paper will evaluate the similarities and differences of a selected art work of twentieth century American artists, Jacob Lawrence and Jasper Johns. The selected piece from Lawrence is Daybreak – A Time to Rest; it was created in 1967 on a tempura medium, which is an aqueous medium like watercolor. Perilous Night is the piece selected from Jasper Johns collection. Perilous Night was created in 1982 and is an encaustic on canvas with objects. Both artists, Lawrence and Johns are from the postmodernism period. “Postmodernism is used to describe art that emerged after modernism, and contradicts the purity and form of modernism. Postmodernism is characterized by clean lines, geometric shapes, futuristic design, and the placement of items and objects in unusual areas”, (Getlein, p. 552). For example, Johns places objects in the shape of human arms in the right side of the painting Perilous Night that creates intrigue and hunger in the viewer for elucidation. On the contrary, Lawrence’s Daybreak takes on a form of expressionism. “Expressionism is when the artist’s subjective feelings take over the objective observation” (Getlein, p. 522). “The art piece Daybreak is representative of work produced during the Harlem Renaissance movement where the experiences and tragedies of African Americans in the United States was mixed with the heritage of Africa to produce vibrant pieces filled with geometric symbolism” (Getlein, pp. 534-535).

I found that all of Lawrence works focus on African American life and he often times creates pieces in series. Daybreak - A Time to Rest is one in a series of works that tell the story of Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was a slave who formed the Underground Railroad, an escape path for African American slaves to escape from the captivity of slavery in the South to free states in the North and Canada. Although, this art work is about a time of struggle and sadness in the history of African Americans in the United States, Lawrence use of intense primary and secondary colors removes the sadness from the art work. Jasper Johns brings fantasy to his art work. John’s works begin with a simple object, such as a number, a flag, or a rectangular and utilizes the one object over and over to give flight to the viewer imagination. In Perilous Night, Johns uses rectangles in different angles of the painting and divides the piece into a right and left panel. Unlike Lawrence, John palette selections vary from portrait to portrait and John does not use a high saturation of color. In Perilous Nights, John employs only tertiary colors.

Both of the selected pieces, Daybreak and Perilous Nights are asymmetrical. The foliage and the angle for which the shore is recessing into the night creates more weight to the right of the piece in Daybreak. Likewise, with Perilous Nights the arms, organic shape, and additional squares, puts the visual weight to the right side of the piece. John also uses a combination of tertiary colors to the right of the piece as oppose to monochromatic tertiary color on the left. The colors and shapes that Lawrence makes use of gives a visual unity to his work (Getlein, p. 123). There is a rhythm created by the repeated geometric shape of the triangles (Getlein, p.141). There are three triangular shapes, two implied and one in the foreground. The first implied triangle is the slant of the foliage, and the second implied triangle is the vanishing point of the parallel lines of the shore. The complementary color relationship of the purple and orange colors brings oneness to the piece.

Lawrence’s form, that is, the visual aspects such as shapes, lines and colors used in this composition are consistent with several art movements of the 20th Century. The movements are fauvism, expressionism, and cubism. Perilous Night exhibits influences from cubism, dadaism, and surrealism. Cubism, which was made popular by Pablo Picasso and George Braque is detected in both pieces, however there is much more cubism inspiration in Perilous Night than in Daybreak. In Perilous Night, the color palette is restricted to basically three colors and the patterns in which the portrait is created is characteristic of cubism, in that the paint strokes appear short and blended in some areas. Thus, Perilous Night is representational of the cubism movement with its palette, technique, and its utilization of geometric shapes. Whereas, only slight influences of cubism can be detected in Lawrence work with the representation of the visible world that Lawrence creates with the geometric shapes that are drawn together to make a whole image with its’ own logic”, (Getlein, pp. 522-524). “Typical of dadaism, Perilous Night reveals the creativity, spontaneity and relentless of the artist not to be categorized. Surrealism which combines touches of collages, cubism, and dadaism, all precursors, allows the artist to release all inhibitions, and create from the subconscious, which is definitely what Jasper Johns does in his works” (Getlein, pp. 527-529).

To maintain the clarity and radiance of the bright, vibrant colors that are characteristic of Lawrence pieces, Lawrence medium of choice is a tempura, which is similar to watercolor. Tempura however dries to a tough and insoluble firm surface, similar to oil paintings. The advantage of tempura is the preservation of its original brilliance and lucidity” (Getlein, p 171-172). Jasper Johns, medium of choice is an “encaustic canvas in which powered color (pigment) is mixed with wax and resin. The wax when heated eases the tasks of spreading the pigments for the Artist. This technique originated in Ancient Greece and is not a popular method for contemporary artists. The advantage of using an encaustic canvas is that the wax overtime is more durable than oil paintings,” (Getlein, p 169). The encaustic canvas gives the painting more visual texture, that is, the paint appears to be thick, but the thickness of the paint provides a totally different affect than the thickness of the paint in a Tempura piece, in which the thickness provides vibrancy. In an encaustic the thickness almost gives off a roughness to the piece, it provides a visual texture.

The content of Daybreak – A Time to Rest is representational in that it is capturing life in “the visible world, in a likeness in which we recognize” (Getlein, p. 29), Jacobs however, represents these moments in life in an abstract manner. Jacob approaches abstract in a recognizable manner. That is a viewer of his pieces for the most part can look at Jacobs work and decipher the artist intent. With Daybreak, it obvious that this is a human figure taking a nap, a “break” possibly concealing himself/herself within the surrounding foliage. Perilous Nights by Jasper Johns is also abstract in style. However, Johns piece is at the other end of the spectrum for abstractness, in that the artist starting point in unrecognizable. The piece is so nonrepresentational that it gives the viewer no definite point for which to begin interpretation. This art form “nonrepresentational or nonobjective takes abstraction to another level, that almost removes it from the visible world”, (Getlein, p. 33).

Although the pieces are from the same period, are balanced similarly, and share abstract characteristics their style, technique and mood are totally independent. If art truly imitates life, then the independence may quite possibly be explained by the difference experiences encountered in the life of the artists. Jacob Lawrence was born in the New Jersey and Jasper Johns born and reared in the south, South Carolina. In addition Jacob Lawrence is thirteen years the senior of Jasper Johns. Other factors of possible influence on the artists works is race and the political atmosphere during their years of creativity. The single factor that drew my attention to both artists was the mystery in their pieces, with Jacob Lawrence, the faceless characters and the uncertainty of the intent in Jasper Johns works. I like the fact that with John the interpretation is open to the viewer, which stimulates creativity and inner reflection. I am also intrigued by the cultural aspects and vibrancy of Lawrence pieces.

REFERENCES:
Getlein, Mark. Living With Art. 8th. Ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2008.

Activity #13 Moods and Styles

LATE ASSIGNMENT:

The content of Daybreak – A Time to Rest is representational in that it is capturing life in “the visible world, in a likeness in which we recognize” (Getlein, p. 29), Jacobs however, represents these moments in life in an abstract manner. Jacob approaches abstract in a recognizable manner. That is a viewer of his pieces for the most part can look at Jacobs work and decipher the artist intent. With Daybreak, it obvious that this is a human figure taking a nap, a “break” possibly concealing himself/herself within the surrounding foliage. Jacob’s form, the visual aspects such as shapes, lines and colors used in this composition are consistent with several art movements of the 20th Century. The movements are fauvism, expressionism, and cubism. “Fauvism lasted for only three years, however it impacted modern art tremendously by removing the constraint from artists to use colors that replicates the real colors of the natural world”, (Getlein, p. 520). The Fauvism influence can be seen in Lawrence Daybreak, by the deep orange-yellowish hue of the sand. “Expressionism, which the emotion and inner vision of the artist is expressed rather than the exact representation of nature”, (Getlein, pp. 518-519) is also prevalent in Lawrence’s pieces. Although Daybreak is the artist homage to a not so favorable time in African American history, slavery and struggle for freedom, the distorted lines, shapes, and colors that are used illicit emotions of happiness. Lastly, slight influences of cubism can be detected in Lawrence work. “Cubism introduced by Pablo Picasso and George Braque takes forms of the visible world and fragmented them into geometric shapes that are drawn together to make a whole and presents an image with its’ own logic”, (Getlein, pp. 522-524). In Daybreak triangles and circles dominates the piece. There are implied triangle created by the foliage and the large feet in the foreground, that directs the viewer eye to the focal point, the human body. A combination of circles are used to create the massive feet, possibly swollen to imply the tiredness of the human body, hence the subtitle of the piece, A Time to Rest.

Like, Lawrence’s Daybreak – A Time to Rest, Perilous Nights by Jasper Johns is also abstract in style. However, Johns piece is at the other end of the spectrum for abstractness, in that the artist starting point in unrecognizable. The piece is so nonrepresentational that it gives the viewer no definite point for which to begin interpretation. This art form “nonrepresentational or nonobjective takes abstraction to another level, that almost removes it from the visible world”, (Getlein, p. 33). Perilous Night exhibits influences from cubism, dadaism, and surrealism. There is much more cubism inspiration in Perilous Night than in Daybreak, in that Perilous Night color palette is restricted to basically three colors and the patterns in which the portrait is created. The paint strokes appear short and blended in some areas. Thus, Perilous Night is representational of the cubism movement with its palette, technique, and its utilization of geometric shapes. “Characteristic of dadaism, Perilous Night reveals the creativity, spontaneity and relentless of the artist not to be categorized”, (Getlein, p. 528). Johns use of objects on this encaustic piece and the organic shape, that resembles a handkerchief in the lower right side of the piece gives the work additional dimension to what would have been just an dull portrait of squares and rectangular. And finally, Jasper John piece is definitely surrealism in that he combines touches of collages, cubism, and dadaism, all precursors of surrealism, which allows the artist to release all inhibitions, and create from the subconscious (Getlein, p. 529).

Activity #11 Periods and Culture

Perilous Night by Jasper Johns was created in 1982 during the Postmodernism period. Postmodernism is used to describe art that have emerged after modernism, and contradicts the purity and form of the modernism. “Initially a tern used to reference architect, postmodernism is characterized by clean lines, geometric shapes, futuristic design, and the placement of items and objects in unusual areas. The Pompidou National Center of Art in which the scaffolds, pipes and tubes are outside of the building, making it appear to be a building under design or turn inside out is representative of this era “ (Getlein, p. 552). Similarly, Johns places objects in the shape of human arms in the right side of the painting Perilous Night that creates intrigue and opens the piece to further interpretation. Downward motion of the arms that are surrounded by multiple square and rectangular shapes makes the viewer wonder what the artist was trying to express.

Jacob Lawrence, Daybreak – A Time to Rest was also produced in the Post-Modern period, however takes on a different form of expressionism. “Expressionism is when the artist’s subjective feelings take over the objective observation” (Getlein, p. 522). “The art piece Daybreak is representative of work produced during the Harlem Renaissance movement where the experiences and tragedies of African Americans in the United States was mixed with the heritage of Africa to produce vibrant pieces filled with geometric symbolism” (Getlein, pp. 534- 535). Whereas, Perilous Night have attributes of surrealism, symbolism, and neo-expressionists.

Activity #10 Medium and Technique

Bright, vibrant colors that maintain their clarity and radiance for years, is typical o of the pieces by American artist Jacob Lawrence. To achieve this affect Lawrence chooses a “tempura medium, which is an aqueous medium like watercolor. Tempura, however dries to a tough and insoluble firm surface, similar to oil paintings. The advantage of tempura is the preservation of its original brilliance and lucidity” (Getlein, p 171-172 ). In Lawrence’s’ Daybreak - A Time to Rest primary and secondary colors are employed so intensely that it gives an impasto affect, where it appears the colors were applied in multiple layers to magnify their value. For example in the background of the piece a blue hue is used in varying value to give an illusion of a sky that is slowly fading from the darkness of a night sky to the brightness of a blue daytime sky. There are small lines of a very thin strokes of blue that almost allows the whiteness of the canvass thru that further suggest the dawning of a new day. This blue is contrast against a much intense value of blue that may be perceived as either the darkness of a night ocean or the darkness of a very far away night time sky.

Jasper Johns, also an American artist medium of choice is an “encaustic canvas in which powered color (pigment) is mixed with wax and resin. The wax when heated eases the tasks of spreading the pigments for the Artist. This technique originated in Ancient Greece and is not a popular method for contemporary artists. The advantage of using an encaustic canvas is that the wax overtime is more durable than oil paintings” (Getlein, p 169). The encaustic canvas gives the painting more visual texture, that is the paint appears to be thick, but the thickness of the paint provides a totally different affect than the thickness of the paint in a Tempura piece, in which the thickness gives a vibrancy. In an encaustic the thickness almost gives off a roughness to the piece, it provides a visual texture. In Perilous Nights, John employs all tertiary colors and the piece is divided in two halves. The right half of the portrait, there are differing values of black, the paint is spread so thickly in some spots that it is true black whereas in other spots the strokes are so light that they are vary from gray to small spots that appears void of color. There are very faint lines of violet that runs thru the right side as well, that has no apparent pattern. On the left side of the piece, John uses vertical and horizontal lines to create rectangular and square geometric shapes each with their own varying color pattern and texture. In addition to the multiple patterns and texture, John also make use of objects that definitely opens the piece to more interpretations. The arms extending downward in the upper right hand corner of the piece are objects. The objects are not obvious to the eye when viewing the piece as an image, however in the Gallery the objects are detectable and gives the piece an additional dimension.

Getlein, Mark. Living With Art 8th. Ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2008.

Activity #09 The Camera

REWRITE:

The challenges presented by the camera and photography contributed to the development of nonrepresentational or nonobjective art. These art movements originated “from the search of the true essence of art”, (Getlein, p 40). Prior to the camera, visual art was more representational of the current time. The focal point of many artists was humans, human events, and landscapes. With the introduction and later advancements of the camera what was at one time capture on canvas, could be capture on paper in a fraction of time. In the early days of the camera and still photos, the subject had to stand still for as long as twenty minutes for the photographer to obtain a shot, this was still an improvement over a subject sitting for hours for a portrait to be painted. Hence, photography, allowed artist to explore with content and focal points that were not objective. The introduction of compact cameras in 1888, by American George Eastman made the camera portable and the artist was able to capture life in the natural, in all forms and places. Photography was practiced as an art, and techniques such as gauzing was used to remove the objectivity of the camera. The camera change visual art from representational to more expressive and abstract.

____________________________

Is it live or is it Memorex, was a popular slogan for a manufacturer of audio tape, with the technological advances in photography, there should now be a similar slogan for digital photography; is it real or retouched. Digital photography that is prominent in print, magazines and advertising has capitalized on techniques such as airbrushing to manipulate a photo into the perfect portrait. The axiom, “the camera does not lie”, is no longer true for photography. In today’s world it is questionable if any “photography is “pure” or “straight” photography as championed by Aldred Stieglitz. Pure photography is free from any type of manipulation, airbrushing, cropping, or re-coloring” (Getelien, p220).

Photography has advance tremendously since the days of still photos, where the subject had to stand still for as long as twenty minutes for the photographer to obtain a shot. High-speed cameras are now capable of capturing a photo in as little as thirty seconds. In addition to the improvements in speed, the medium for which photography can be printed or published has advance from metal, to glass, to paper, film or computers.

The two most significant advancements in photography was the introduction of compact cameras and color. “In 1888, American George Eastman, developed the Kodak camera, it was compact and portable and the slogan you press the button, we do the rest was used to market the Kodak. In the 1960’s and 1970’s the introduction of color to photography was introduced” (Getelien, p215 - 217).

No doubt photography has a significant impact on history and art. Photography has help to record time, giving us history. Photography has provided us with optical illusions and creativity to bring us art. The only question that we are left with today, is it real or retouched?

Getlein, Mark. Living With Art 8th. Ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2008.

Activity #08 Photo Collage

Activity #07 Mid-Term

Throughout history, art has been valuable means to gain insight into cultural aspects of past and current societies. From the cave-paintings of early civilizations to the murals of today art has been used to record time, document rituals or communicate stories. There was art prior to any type of formal writing system was formed. This exhibit, History and Culture in Art includes works of arts from various societies from 1570 BCE until 1859 and each piece speaks to an cultural or historic event of that time.

Selection number one is the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is depicting a funeral ritual to ensure the dead will have a smooth transition to heaven. The colors are triadic, brown, black and white. Multiple hues of brown are employed. Horizontal lines are dominant within the piece and direct the eye to the focal point of the piece, the Egyptian God at the right of the portrait. This is an asymmetrical piece, that utilizes lines for movement. The horizontal lines represents the calmness in which the Egyptians are bringing the dead to pray to the God. Interesting the most prevalent vertical lines in the portrait are the paintings on the wall, which are prayers. The prayers are going up to heaven.

Selection number two, Sennacherib II is history as recorded on a slab of stone, of tablet around 700 BCE. This piece tells the story of a siege of ancient city in Palestine. The movement of the army coming in the siege the city is illustrated in by the diagonal lines that are prevalent on both the right and left side of the piece and forms an implied geometric shape, a triangle. There are multiple implied triangles in this piece. Right at the tip of the highest triangle, the contour line of the city dips downwards as to indicate seizure by the forces marching upward. To the right of the downward dip, there is more movement upward and a gradual rebuild of the city lines, indicating victory. Like selection one, this is an asymmetric piece, most of the battle occurs to the right. There color scheme is monochromatic and hatching is used through out the portrait, specifically in the fall left and for the weapons.