'Ways of Seeing'- John Burgess

For homework we have been asked to do research into the book 'Ways of Seeing' by John Burgess. As this was a simple research task I did a small amount of internet based research as seen below, and my response is displayed in my book.

Ways of Seeing is a 1972 BBC four-part television series of 30 minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. Berger's scripts were adapted into a book of the same name. The series and book criticize traditional Western cultural aesthetics by raising questions about hidden ideologies in visual images. The series is partially a response to Kenneth Clark's Civilisation series, which represents a more traditionalist view of the Western artistic and cultural canon.
The book Ways of Seeing was made by Berger and Dibb, along with Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, and Richard Hollis. ^[1] The book consists of seven numbered essays: four using words and images; and three essays using only images.^[1] The book has contributed to feminist readings of popular culture, through essays that focus particularly on depictions of women in advertisements and oil paintings.^[2] Ways of Seeing is considered a seminal text for current studies of visual culture and art history.- Wikipedia

Blind Drawings

As one of our exercises today at school we did blind drawings. I felt that my blind drawing was quite sucessful; this has encouraged me to use the internet to find other examples of blind drawings that I could compare to.

Jellyfish

After visiting a aquariam to collect photographs for my project I have decided to do some research into jellyfish, as they were both the creature that related most to my project and I found the most beautiful.





The last image pays the most likeness to the jellyfish I saw, below I have done some research into this type...

'Moon Jelly (Aurelia Aurita): This is perhaps the most common and recognizable jellyfish in the world. If  Moon jellyfish are semi-transparent and have a shallow saucer-like bell shape. Their gonads are visible through their body and they look like four pink horseshoe markings. The moon jellyfish varies in size usually between 6 to 8 inches and 20 inches in diameter. Moon Jellyfish stings are mild and non-fatal.'- http://www.jellyfishfacts.mew/

Christo Exhibition

During my holidays I visited a small gallery in America that had work by the artist 'Christo'....

Christo (born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, Bulgarian: Христо Явашев, June 13, 1935) and Jeanne-Claude (born Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, June 13, 1935 – November 18, 2009) were a married couple who created environmental works of art. Their works include the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, the 24-mile (39 km)-long artwork called Running Fence in Sonoma and Marin counties in California, and The Gates in New York City's Central Park.- Wikipedia

As I was already familiar with their work I decided that Christo would be an interesting artist to develop on from, as due to my brainstorming I started to see associations between the sagging face of the old lady I photographed and the cloth they drapped over buildings and bridges.

Holiday Homework

Before the start of this project we have been asked to complete a gallery sheet, photographic response and practical piece. During my family holiday I was lucky enough to visit the National Gallery of Art in Washington and saw a selection of 'The Scream' prints by Edvard Munch.

The image at the top shows the most famous painting version, while the one below shows the print version that I saw. What I found was that looking at these pictures really made me feel anxious, so I responded with a selection of photos which portrayed deep human anxiety and sorrow in portraiture.

Final Piece

I am coming to the end of my project so am developing ideas for my final piece. I have already decided that I would like to place the words to Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market' in the background of my picture, and am wanting to place a figure in the foreground. I have practiced this use of words by drawing into an etching I did of one of my photographs, were I then transformed the male character into a goblin in accordance to the poem in the background. However I am yet to decide if I want to paint a female or male character in the foreground.

Extract from 'Goblin Market'

Here is an extract from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, a pre-Raphaelite poem I looked at when doing a response to my 'Importance of Words' and 'Ed Ruscha' pages.

MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries-
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries--
All ripe together
In summer weather--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy;
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
"O! cried Lizzie, Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men."
Lizzie covered up her eyes
Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,
And whispered like the restless brook:
"Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds' weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes."
"No," said Lizzie, "no, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us."
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.
Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

Life Drawing

As something offered in art AS level I am currently taking part in life drawing classes after school. I took part in one life drawing class in lower school and in a previous project compared my images to life drawings seen in the Hermitage art gallery in Russia. Although we have the option of presenting our life drawing at the end of the project, I have decided to incorporate some of my drawings into my pre-Raphaelite project. As part of their aim to present the beauty of nature, pre-Raphealite artists often presented their woman in the nude. I felt that this therefore gave me a lucky opportunity to experience something the pre-Raphaelites themselves would have often been drawing. The three drawings I put in as part of my project were all selected to show poses which I had seen in my own research.

Colour Development

As a form of development with my photos and flower photographs, I did an exercise placing flowers onto a page and photocopying them, to make the petals looks like key areas of the face. This then encouraged me to practice my painting technique, however moving away from my usual style, I tried painting simply with large areas of block colour- similarly to how colour is shown in my photocopies. This exercise reminded me of work by Giuseppe Arcimboldo who painted faces made out of fruit.

On top of my interest in art, I also have a similar interest in fashion and follow many fashion blogs. Today I saw the following photos from a fashion editorial, and similarly to the Arcimboldo work I was reminded of my own experimentation.

Flower Images

Sorry I have not blogged for a while, however it is by coincidence that this post and my last will play an interesting contrast. As it is now spring the flowers are out in my garden! In my book I collected some detailed drawings of flowers and have responded by taking my own photos and attempting to present them in a similar way to the collected images. I have also done a painting of one of my photos, interestingly, on a piece of paper used for when laying carpet. The paper was interesting as it was highly water absorbent which meant that you had to be careful in that paint left little markings but when watered down the colors appeared quite strongly. Here are a few of the flower photos now in my book.

More Images of Nature

Today I took photos of some plants in my garden- as it is Winter there is a lot of greenery, and very few flowers. However I find the way that the roots twist and entwine beautiful. These images directly correlate with the natural backgrounds in all the image research I have done.

Pre-Raphaelite Photos

Here are a few photos from my pre-Raphaelite themed photo shoot. I used quite dim lighting as a lot of the pre-Raphaelite photos that I have researched are painted in this way, in order to represent the natural, nature based environment of the images. Pre-Raphaerlites loved to work with nature, as they aimed to present the natural beauty of the world, as done before the new art movement following Raphael.

What is Art?

Today in art we wrote Manifestos and a page entitled 'What is Art?'. I felt both of this were difficult tasks as it it very difficult to verbalize my feelings about art. Personally, I enjoy art as a form of relaxation. In a busy, modern world I feel it is important for me to have a subject which gives me the freedom to express my emotions and ideas in any form I want to, not just in a structured essay. In relation to the 'What is Art?' page, I also feel this is an extremely difficult question to answer. As I could not fully verbalize my feelings, I put many images on this page. I felt that this correlated with my opinion that art is down to interpretation, and that there are many different types of art. Although all the images I presented were paintings, they were all done in a variety of different techniques, showing the variety of skill that art can present.

On a school trip to Russia last February, I visited the Hermitage museum of art. I remember very clearly looking at two images presented together: Matisse's 'Dance' and Othon Friesz' 'Roof and Cathedral in Rouen'. I find both these images fascinating as although both use quite simplistic techniques, they are still extremely famous pieces of art. This may be down to their historical context, they may have been innovative techniques at the time of their creation. This furthermore supports my idea that all art is down to interpretation.

Mystery and Imagination

My first blog entry! So today we were given the theme for our second art project; mystery and imagination. After reading the exam book my initial inspiration bubble came in the form of mythology, and artistic rendering of mythological stories. However having been studying the pre-Raphaelites in my English lessons I was then drawn to this idea, as I thought the pre-Raphaelite artists similarly liked to present classic English stories such as Ophelia into their paintings.

Ophelia is the fictional character from the play 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare who tragically commits suicide by drowning herself in a river. This is the most famous artistic rendering, by John Everett Millais.