Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach

Chapter 3Media

Media

INTRODUCTIONMedia can be defined as the material substances used to create an artworkDisciplines are the various branches of art making activity, like painting or video

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007Platinum life-size cast of human skkull, human teeth and diamonds.

Skulls often symbolize mortality as well as vanitas (ultimate emptiness/impermanence of earthly things).

Media in Two-Dimensional ArtDrawing

Supports and groundsDry MediaWet Media

PrintmakingReliefIntaglioLithographySerigraphyMonotype

PaintingEncausticFrescoTempera, Gouache, and WatercolorOil, Acrylic and Sprayed paint

Dry Media

Willem De Kooning. Seated Woman, 1966-1967. Charcoal on paper, 18 3/4” X 23 1/4”. Collection of the Newark Museum, New Jersey.

Edgar Degas. At the Milliner, 1883. Pastel, 29.9” X 33.5”. Fundacion Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Dry media include pencils, chalk, pastel and silverpoint.

Wet Media

Wet media commonly uses ink, pen, and brush.

MI WANZHONG. Tree, Bamboo and Rock. Calligraphy by Chen Meng. Ink, 43 1/3” X 14 1/4”. Musee National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris.

Relief Printmaking

Woodcut and linocut are two relief printmaking methods.

Left The Printmakers Workshop, color woodblock print, Japanese Edo period, School of Yokohama, 19th century

Right Woman in a Hat, linocut print, Pablo Picasso, 1962.

Kitagawa Utamaro, Artist, Block Carver, Applying Sizing, from the series “The Cultivation of Brocade Prints, A Famous Product of Edo, c.1893 AICThe most common of the Ukiyo-e prints was the oban…15x10” often in pairs or triptych. Read from right to left.

Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753–1806)Edo period (1615–1868)

Utamaro, Artist, Block Carver, Applying SizingRight…the artist is creating a preparatory drawingCenter…drawing placed face done on flat wooden block and workers are creating the blockLeft…three figures apply glue-based ‘sizing’ to mulberry paper and hang up the sheets to dry, prior to their use for printing

Intaglio Printmaking

Etching and engraving are intaglio printmaking processes.

Pablo Picasso,

The Weeping Woman, 1937, is an etching.

Kiki Smith, Born, 2002Lithograph 68x56”

Victorian children’s book.

Interested in taking images out of the context…rebirth

Wassily Kandinsky. Cover of the journal Der Blaue Reiter, 1912. Color lithograph

Serigraph…screen print…Warhol used repetition to allude to mass production and commercialism

Gauguin, Two Marquesans, 1902 monotype

Monotype

Jasper Johns. Flag, 1954-1955. Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, 41 1/4” X 60 5/8”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Painting

Glass Bowl with Fruit. Wallpainting, Roman, 1st Century, found in the Mt. Vesuvius region, Italy. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy.

Two ancient paint media, still used today, are encaustic (pigment mixed with hot wax) and fresco (pigment applied to wet or dry plaster).

Oil paint, like in the Venus of Urbino, allows intense colors with lustrous surfaces. Acrylic paint, while faster drying than oils and more versatile, is suitable to flat broad areas of color.

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio). Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil on canvas, 4’ X 5’6”. Uffizi, Florence, Italy. David Hockney. A Bigger Splash, 1967. Acrylic

on canvas, 8’ X 8’. Tate Gallery, London.

Fabrics, needlework, weaving

Bitter Nest #2: Harlem Renaissance Party 1988 Acrylic on canvas, dyed, painted and pieced fabric 94 x 82"

Methods and Media in Three-Dimensional Art

Carving

Modeling

Assembling

Ready-mades, Assemblage, and Fabrication

Installation

Performance

Technology based media

Crafts

Carving and Modeling

Stone and wood, and some contemporary materials, are suitable for carving, a subtractive process.

Easter Island Monumental Heads15th c., volcanic tufaFreestanding meant to be seen from all sides

Olmec Pectoral, 900400 BC4” jadeRelief sculpture meant to be seen from the front

Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, 1981, raw steel 120’x12’Site-specific sculpture…Tilted Arc was a sculpture commissioned by the United States General Services Administration's Arts-in-Architecture program for the Federal Plaza in New York. It was dismantled, after much debate, in 1989.

“site specific sculpture”

Carving and Modeling

Clay and wax are soft materials, suitable for modeling, an additive process, like the Aztec Eagle Knight here.

Eagle Knight, c. 15th century. Earthenware and plaster, 66 7/8” X 46 1/2” X 21 5/8”. Aztec, Museo Templo Mayor,

Mexico.

Marathon Boy, 330 BC, bronze, 51” Greek

Assemblages are often of natural or ready-made components and are assembled, combined, and fabricated in a variety of ways. Installations are usually mixed media and are designed for specific interior or exterior spaces.

Assembling and Installation

Marcel Duchamp. Bicycle Wheel, 1963. Ready-made, found objects. Henley-on-Thames, UK.

Robert Rauschenberg. First Landing Jump, 1961. Combine painting, 7’51/8” X 6’ X 8 7/8”. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-1976. Height, 18’. Length: 24 1/2 miles. Nylon fabric, steel poles and steel cables. Photo: Jeanne-Claude.

The Gates

Performance and Technology-based Media

Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Liebowitz. In Mourning and In Rage. Photo by Maria Karras.

Lorna Simpson. Easy to Remember, 2001. Still from 16 mm film transferred to DVD, sound; 2 1/2 minutes. Courtesy of the Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

Performance art is a live action event that is staged as an artwork.

Technology based media as art uses photography, film, video, and digital imaging.

Photomontage

Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife, 1919

Craft

CeramicsGlassWoodMetalwork and JewelryFiber

Crafts are finely skilled handwork in various media. They can be functional or non-functional and decorative in nature. Typical craft materials are:

Maria Martinez’ pottery raised the craft of ceramic pottery to a fine art. Faith Ringgold uses the craft art of quilting to create fine art.

Fig. 3.41 Maria Martinez. Bowl, Undated. Blackware, 6 3/4 X 9 1/2”. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Fig.3.48 Faith Ringgold. The Bitter Nest, Part II: The Harlem Renaissance Party, 1988. Acrylic on canvas with printed, dyed, and pieced fabric, 94” X 83”. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Faith Ringgold is an African American artist who is well known for her painted story quilts. One of her most famous quilts is called Tar Beach. The quilt was made into a book about how Cassie Lightfoot dreamed about flying over her city. "I will always remember when the stars fell down around me and lifted me up above the George Washington Bridge..."