Museum Vist! :)

Saturday, May 23rd- I went to the Cantor Arts Center at Standford. (it's FREE) & i must say, it was a wonderful experience...I highly recommend it :)
2nd time I've been there (1st in January) but it's not all the same art pieces, they revamp it!
went pretty crazy w/ the camera so it's a pretty long photographic entry. Hope you like it =]

door entrance
Greek Ionic order column! Doric order columns are the ones we see at the Washington D.C. White House. Classic , clean, & streamlined yes, but quite boring. My favorite would have to be Corithian...it's the most intricate & dramatic.

Venus statue...about life size, not too big nor too small.
Contrast to most Renaissance paintings, Greek statues usually portrayed males in the nude while the female are clothed. reminds me of comics I used to read- Blondie

Japanese print! Ironic that the blonde guy is dressed in a Japanese kimono while the guy w/ black hair is dressed in a western business suit attire. S2 cherry blossoms

Rodin statue I found in a Rodin book @ the bookstore
not viewable in this museum (i believe it's in Paris, Musee d' Orsay?) but I found this to be so beautiful & romantic. He's kissing her tummy :) This reminds me of both The Hand from Adams Family & a scene from Harry Potter when he enters a magic store & ends up wrestling to get his own hand out of the hand-statue's like gripsuch a great black & whtie photograph backdrop for Rodin's miniature black statues African art!

there were a lot of masks. Some might view these pieces as Barbaric, others view them as art. Reminds me a bit of Cultural Anthropology class
I S2 this piece! It has such history & life to it. A bit like a scrapbook/journal with a story to it reminiscening through the past generations. The artist could possibly be inspired by his/her own family heritage. Reminds me of history documentaries.

I thought the black room (4got what it was called) was beautiful & striking. The black butterflies above added an ethereal feel to the very glam/posh all around seating. This would be a great for a funeral or gothic wedding. Or change the colors (pink/orange monarchs/vivid blue butterflies, white seating) & it would be gorgeous for a wedding! or any kind of fete. (party in french) the golden frame is a great contrast to the baby blues & black of the art piece. the warm/cool tones have a good balance


There was a Passage about the Gates of Paradise in our txtbk (golden doors w/ black framing) but Rodin is more famous for the Gates of Hell. There is a black version right outside the museum framed by Adam & Eve statues. Below is a photograph of a white version (I know! looks real & 3D but it's really a flat surface) which I thinnkk is in Paris.






I found this to be uber interesting. It relates to our class. The artists would take a new twist on classic Greek mythology pieces just by naming their own piece after the same name. But the actual subject matter could be interpreted soo differntly (espescially if given a differnt title)

Picasso! S2 his brushstrokes & this piece. It's a dreamy, thoughtful piece where you escape reality into this frenetic, surreal, light-spirited world.


I S2ed these drawing pieces! (3 total) I think the artist was highly influenced by the use of photography. All the lighting & reflections. You can kind of tell we are in the cafe (if that's the location) for the words are read backwards. We are on the inside looking out through the glass windows. It has a symmetry to it & is kind of surreal. It has a glamourous 1930's? vibe kind of like the board game Clue. There's a fashionalble Coco Chanel touch & a dark, mysterious aura that emnates from the drawing.
& finally the Gates of Hell.
It was a great semester guys! hope you enjoyed this blog & art history class, I defintely did. :)
Learned a lot & hope to continue learning more. Now when there's an art reference to a piece from our txtbk, i'll know a lil something something about it :) pretttyy awesomee

blog #8: 19th Century Art in Europe & the United States

assignment 9: pgs. 1009-1038

Phantom of the Opera scene

Grand Staircase, The Opera -Charles Garnier in Paris (1861-1874) pg. 1013-1014 The idea of two staircases meeting in the middle & intertwining into one is so grand & luxurious! & quite metaphorical. (also there's the main point of functionality so one wouldn't have to walk all the way around to get to their destinatin)

You see this kind of elaborate architecture in numerous movies (Beauty & the Beast, Marie Antoniette, Princess Diaries, Phantom of the Opera, Harry Potter, Cinderella Rogers & Hamerstein version? & of course many more.- espescially in films portraying classial music, Amadeus?) Operas have this so their Opera singers' voices can echo through the halls.

Just to make fashion even more glamourous, over-the-top, & stunning, Vogue will throw festive parties in locations w/ grand staircases- all the more better to make an entrance of course! Victoria's Secret's Holiday commercial advertisement had their well-known supermodels run about in a very lipstick shade of rouge bra & over-the-top poofy, airy skirt passing around a small gift box, of course w/ the label V.S.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4482WHCdJDw

Rich, decadent architecture doesn't really correlate w/ lingerie, but adding art- w/ the baroque style ornamented door passageways & black gated staircases makes lingerie seem all the more glamourous. When it comes down to it, the actual items aren't so very different from any other lingerie set found in a different store. But buyers will associate baroque style doorcases, elegant, dramatic staircases, a grand castle, & most importantly the oh-so gorgeous supermodels w/ V.S.'s items thanks to this commercial

This works for music videos too. Which producers should incorporate... they are immortializing art of the past into the future & into our exposure of the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIqcg_2AgBQ

S2s! Gwen Stefani includes amazing fashion, architecture, dance & music in this video- all which I lovve :)

Architecture w/ all it's grandness, strong, detailed lines are a huge contrast to her flowy, sheer, white dress & vunerability. It makes her seem even smaller & more lost. It's ethereal! The rose petals swirling about add deep romance.

& then the director switches it up & shows shots of her clad in a black turtle-neck, hair in an up-do & major black eyeliner. Verryy hardcore Rock 'n Roll!

"Degas arranged his own visual choreography. The Rehearsal on Stage is not a factual record of something seen but a careful contrivance, intended to delight the eye.....His work shows two important influences: The angular viewpoint in this and many other works shows his knowledge of Japanese prints, & the seemingly arbitrary cropping of figures shows the influence of photography which he practiced." pg. 1033

I love this piece for it has a sense of light, airy gracefulness yet there's a dramatic tension to it. (effects of the black & grayish colors-which also ground the airyness) You feel like you're there watching the ballerinas from backstage (thanks to it's peculiar angling) & by the positions of the ballerinas & choreographer & the soft brushstrokes, you can almost hear the high-tempo classical music. There's a frenetic energy going on

This semester I had taken ballet & because of this, I have a newfound appriciation for the art form. I have always appriciated the dance but didn't know too much about it...I loved the visual aspect of it but didn't pay too much attention to the actual physicality.
Hopefully, by taking ballet I turned out to be more graceful & elegant. When performing the dance moves, I feel this way- which God knows I'm not, I'm such a klutz. Throughout the day, w/ our busy lives (of mostly sitting- at a desk, table to eat, sofa watching tv) we forget that our bodies can actually be swift & light on air. I hope to continue ballet, improve posture & become somewhat coordinated...someday