painting and drawing printmaking sculpture alternative media
TRANSCRIPT
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
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