painting and drawing printmaking sculpture alternative media

EdexcelArt and Design

Unit 2

Fine ArtOptional disciplines:

• Painting and drawing

• Printmaking• Sculpture

• Alternative media

OPTIONAL STARTING POINTS

The Turbine Hall is a meeting space for visitors at the Tate Modern. It

has been exploited by many contemporary sculptors who utilise the space as part of the work itself. Some of the artists who have taken

full advantage of the unique characteristics of the Turbine hall

are Louise Bourgeois, Olafur Eliasson, Doris Salcedo and

Miroslaw Balka.

Turbine Hall, Tate

Louise Bourgeois

Olafur Eliasson‘The Weather Project’

In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the Turbine Hall has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.

Doris Salcedo‘Shibboleth’

Miroslaw Balka'How It Is'

Beyond the bridge in Tate modern’s Turbine hall stands a huge steel chamber, raised above the floor on steel legs. You can wander among the supports. This is unnerving. Your walk is curtailed by the underside of a ramp that leads into the open end of Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is, the 10th Unilever Turbine Hall commission.

Large meeting areas such as school/college reception areas have similar qualities.

Artists have often respondedto and reinterpreted previous works of art. The Meeting (Bonjour Monsieur Courbet) 1854, records the encounter between the artist Gustave Courbet

and his patron Alfred Bruyas, with his servant, on the road outside Montpellier.

The meeting (Bonjour Monsieur Courbet) 1854

Nearly 130 years later, Peter Blake’s painting of the same name, depicting himself and Howard Hodgkin meeting David Hockney

in California, makes a wry comment on the generational and geographical shifts that had since taken place in fine art.

The meeting, Peter Blake

Plein air painters try to record directly their encounters with the

visible world and nature. Most well known are the Impressionists such as

Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot.

Claude Monet

Water Lily Pond

Berthe Morisot

Summer Day

They were preceded by the painters of the Barbizon school (e.g. Francois Millet, Charles Daubigny) and the

tradition has continued, as seen in the work of Jules Bastien-Lepage and, in the present day, Ken

Howard.

These artists are suggestions; to gain higher grades you should investigate artists of your own choice and analyse them in-depth.

Francois Millet

The washerwomen

Charles Daubigny

The River Seine at Mantes

Jules Bastien-lepage

All Souls Day

Ken HowardThis approach is well suited to getting primary sources to work from. You could make studies and take photographs from where you live to use as the starting point for your work

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) is well known for having painted a number of scenes depicting race meetings. Horses, jockeys,

trainers and spectators mingle and populate visual compositions.

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

Around the same time, the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) created a number of works showing gatherings

(e.g. The Burghers of Calais and The Gates of Hell).

The Burghers of Calais

If you visually analyse work remember you should focus on the parts that will help you develop your own work. You do not have to sketch the entire work in detail. It is more important to use art to help you develop your own ideas

The Gates of Hell

The Painter and designer Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) produced drawings, lithographs and canvases showing the bustle of Paris nightclubs.

You could compare Parisian social life of the 19th Century with that of contemporary society.

Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

The visual problems and excitements of representing crowds continue to fascinate fine

artists such as Bill Jacklin.

When you study the exam paper look at the other endorsements for inspiration, photographers in particular would help inform your own work.

Bill Jacklin

Broadway Encounter III

Bill Jacklin

Rink 3, 1990

Make sure you analyse artists work using formal elements and key words to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding