THE WORD. of god. truth -ology not just study of subject, truth of subject.
true meaning of a word, look at its derivation.
etymology, true sense
-( unknown artist ) not about beauty but authority of god. church propaganda
-not symmetrical, can’t read commandments. (Ribera, influenced by Caravaggio, mysterious gloomy school of art) 1638
-Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s feast. Power of the word. stolen sacred goblets. serving wine at a feast. ghostly hand writes on wall. Saying Committed a great sin and will be killed for it.
eschatology (death, final destiny, end-times)
-Carracci, the deluge (died at 35), fantastic composition, like a nike swoop, mankind center of universe. deluge means flood
-anton koch, after the great flood, Noah giving thanks to god by slaughtering some animals. curiously bad painting, invented landscape, sentimental rainbow, local colour. technically wrong, makes dream like / hallucination. died in poverty.
-John Martin, very successful. belshazzar’s feast. divided critics. wasn’t very good at painting figures, but good at biblical scenes. incredibly popular with the masses. very influential on cinema. very much a believer in Christianity (when he punted these he believed them) figures much less important than nature itself. Manfred and the Alpine witch (watercolour) uses mastery of language and spell casting, seeks forgetfulness in the woman he loved. story ends with him contemplating suicide. Landscape and state of mind
-William westall. end of first year of RA, asked to go Australia, then later critized of being invented. wanted accurate records.
the deluge of the sublime.
-the great wave off kanagwa, woodblock print, way ahead of its time, hugely influential on western painters, were not value in japan, was used to wrap porcelain. French particularly bought a lot of porcelain. wonderful line, made from carved food. Manet, zola (wrote the book called the masterpiece)
-brughel the elder, storm at sea, / with shipwrecks. paint on copper, lasts amazing, doesn’t need restoring. barrel and whale, reference to Dutch saying. Don’t be distracted by small things. ship and sailing vital to Dutch life, economy trading.
-turner, absolute nature, swoop of paint, relying on our minds to create the scene he’s painting, not too bothered about giving technical detail. clearly pine, not much to go on but we still get the whole scene, it’s an impression, father of Impressionism. paint takes importance more than subject itself, unlike John Martin who gives the whole recipe. so cinematic.
-William Bradford, studied under maritime painter. giving dizzy sense of scale and power of the sea, destruction. hudson river school of painters,
-Theodore gericault, raft of medusa (actual event) resort to cannibalism, 20-25 survivors.. era before cinema, similar role to film, very large painting to be seen to paying public, almost like a newsreel of a recent event. died at 32, visited morgues to study dead bodies. a lot of homework before painting it, painted in three months, presented in Paris and London, composition, classic dynamic diagonal.
the deluge of the subconscious
-once Freud revealed the subconscious had a huge impact. whole groups of people could be understood. massive response in surrealism. Rene Magritte (the interpretation of dreams), mother’s death, pick up a briefcase walked, and come back to paint. deliberately badly painted.
-max Ernst (early mid career) moon in a bright summer sky. process, unsticking. big sheet of glass, throw paint down on glass and spray with turpentine, primed canvas and push down. let it dry. Solitary and Conjugal Trees 1940. Loplop (childhood parrot),
-dorothea tanning, birthday. open doors. fate.
-Reuben mednikoff, psychorealism, trained artist, met grace palithorpe (trained surgeon), both became influenced by Freud (surrealism celebrated absurdity) they believed that their process of working was scientific / rational, (Breton recognised them but) (they were cold shouldered) she was happiest as a foetus, angry that she was given birth to. PSYCHOREALISM. Camden art centre.
-within deluge of subconscious: deluge of subliminal marketing. selling freuds ideas to the market. psychoanalytical theory to sell products ‘the hidden persuaders’ (1957) surrealism is dead when it becomes an advert ?
the deluge of war, terrorism
-Goya, the third of May 1808
-turner, fighting temeraire, tragedy of industrialisation, sun and moon same sky.
-Richard eurich,
-anselm kiefer (not directly in war, but based his entire life addressing issues in nazi Germany..) railway, reference to death camps,
-gerhard richter,
-Andy warhol atomic bomb (how terrifying it was in Cold War, any time now we could just be annihilated. many people it’s a recurring dream..) very difficult subject to take on. kind of gives some poetry
-Roy lichenstejn
-Robert longo,
-gerhard richter, September, directly 911.
-the digital deluge (massive information, invisible commerce, artificial intelligence, social media)digital technology affects way we see, New Ways of Seeing, so much change, not aware
-Ada Lovelace (legitimate child) mathematical genius. first person to ever write a computer program, could solve algorithms, died 35 ish,
-Katie pratt, ningoon, systems, layers of communication, using chaos, throws paint on, then composes order.
-Joanne greenbaum,
-homo deus, How close we are, Harari. huge numbers of
-data of European painting, created by GAN.
-CAN, abstract
-deluge of climate change.
