Industrialisation in the late 1800s, and today.

Industrial revolution started during the late 1700s, were mechanization was beginning to become huge in helping to manufacture things like textile and agriculture. The industrial revolution started in Great Britain and quickly spread across the world. During the industrial revolution, workers were coming to cities in search for employment in the new factories. There were no experienced workers because the industrial system was new so everyone had a good chance of finding employment.

The  City Rises by Umberto Boccioni is a painting about the construction of a new modern building. The colours in this painting are quite bright which really caught my eye and I like the balance between the detail in the building on the top right and the movement of the straining men in the bottom left. To me this painting celebrates urbanism.

Dynamism of a dog on a Leash by Giacomo Balla is a painting of a woman walking her dog. This painting shows a lot of movement with the multiple limps drawn, to show fast movement. I like how the background is plain because it makes me focus on the woman and her dog.

RMB City by Cao Fei shows the rapid urbanization  of China because of the clutter of the urban buildings. I think that Fei is concerned about the rate at which China is developing because there is a building on fire in the image and some strange objects around the buildings. Utopia means a imagined place where everything is perfect and dystopia is the complete opposite were the imagined place everything is unpleasant, this shows in her work because there are some lovely urban buildings but at the same time it’s crowded with strange objects around the island.

The paintings and the digital work are similar because they all show movement , in a way to celebrate machinery and urbanization.

  www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/cafeintopia.asp

http://futuravanguardie.blogspot.co.nz

http://suite101.com/article/futurism-and-umberto-boccionis-the-city-rises-a280519

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/industrial-revolution.asp#axzz1w8Y5tKcF

Landscape And the Sublime

Enlightenment means to have or have received either spiritual or intellectual insight

The sublime is something that is beautiful, impressive, inspiring or breath taking.

During the 1700s artists used to imitate nature but in doing so, they would filter out any physical flaws and after filtering it was then seen as beautiful. The enlightenment artists and critics were beginning to demand more natural and real art. Artists were beginning to be enlightened and after that artists began to show more respect to nature and slowly started to use their imagination. Their art started to look more and more sublime.

Misrach often photographs dramatic sunsets and unspoilt landscapes (showing our planet’s beauty) but he also captures the negative impact people have on the environment. Misrach started his career with the epic series “Desert Candos” in which he was photographing the American Southwest. It included 18 related groups of pictures that show the relationship between nature and culture. He primarily shoots photos in the southwest when he isn’t traveling.

The High says, "Misrach’s work signals not just the environmental challenges facing the South but also the larger costs of our modern world at the dawn of the twenty first century."

Misrach shows different kinds of visions in his work but at the same time you just don’t know what vision he will show next. For example he might deliver beautiful colour in a landscape or find “stunning composition” in crowded seashore, or even a post-apocalyptic world.

battleground point-Richard Misrach 

The two images on the bottom are more of Misrach’s work    

untitled-Richard Misarch  

                                                                                                                 

This painting  is by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, a artists from the enlightenment era.

This is work from  Jennifer Bartlett (a contemporary artist)  who works around the sublime.

This is an image of the sublime. Not one of Misarch’s works.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/enlightenment

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk

http://southphotography.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/richard-misrach-photographs-in-american.html

http://www.pacemacgill.com/biography.php?artist=Richard%20Misrach

                                                                                                                                              

Ron Mueck's work

Mueck’s work is very hyper-real meaning distorting or exaggerating reality. This shows in his work because his sculptures look like actual people because of the detail , but are made either too big or too small for example pregnant woman, one of Mueck’s sculputers is 2.5m high or dead dad one of his most popular sculptures only 3 feet long. Mueck doesn’t like making life sized sculptures because he doesn’t find it interesting.

Renaissance Humanism is the spirit of learning that developed at the end of the middle ages with the revival of classical letters and a renewed confidence in the ability of human beings to determine for themselves truth and falsehood, humanism is shown in mueck’s work because of the detail on th sculptures which make them look so real also the emotions they express.

Now this sculpture  titled boy would be interesting to see in an art gallery mainly because of it’s size . as you can see the sculpture is of a boy who is crouching while staring at something with his arms resting on his knees and hands resting on his head. Looks pretty cool because you expect it to be human size or a tiny sculpture right?.... 

1. Describe the work, giving details of the form and materials.
   
 The Damien Hirst  piece "For the love of God" is a  human skull recreated in platinum, diamond studded (with 8,601 diamonds) including a pink pear shaped diamond on the forehead. The teeth are the only thing left untouched. The skull is believed to be from a European who lived between 1720 and 1810. The piece was made by royal jewellers ( Bently and Skinner) with flawless pave-laid diamonds weighing 1,106.18 carats on a platinum cast covering the whole skull excluding the teeth.

2. What does the work mean? What is Damien Hirst communicating in the work?

 Hirst said the piece was supposed to convey “the ultimate victory over death,” or the “maximum celebration you could make against death.” He wanted the piece to represent “wealth over death” nothing to do with immortality but more of the disdain of the wealthy on humanity.
  

3. How does Hirst's diamond encrusted skull relate to Mercantilism and to conspicuous consumption?
Mercantilism is wealth measured by how much gold, silver etc. one had during the Renaissance period, wealthy people during this time spent money on art to show off their wealth also because they didn’t have much else to spend their wealth on. Art for them was today’s latest technology e.g. ipad, flat screen TV etc. Hirst’s piece “for the love of God” is the most expensive piece of art to date. This boosted his status as well as his diamond encrusted skull, this is how the diamond skull relates to mercantilism. The investors that bought this piece were displaying conspicuous consumption.

4. How much did the work cost, and how much was it sold for, and who bought it?

It cost $20 million to make and $99 million to buy; it was purchased by a group of investors including the artist himself.