week nine video blog

Week 9 BLOG Video Review Velazquez I chose this video, although mentioned, did not stand out in the readings. He was a painter who chronicled the lives and times of his friend King Philip the fourth. He had one love his wife and one friend the king and this gave him the freedom to paint what he wanted. He did take trips to Italy and was considered an educated painter. I learned several things about Velazquez. First, he typically painted with a limited palette that consisted of ocres, black, whites, and touches of carmine. He believed in capturing the moment in his paintings to fully capture reality and truth. What I found interesting was when he painted landscapes he used his own feelings. Everything he painted he saw within himself. Some of what are considered his best works and the ones I found most intriguing are of the court jesters. He found beauty concealed in the unnatural. It took sympathy to portray them so naturally. He did not leave out their flaws or attempt to beautify them to make them acceptable, he strove to paint the truth. Through his work Velazquez strove to guide the viewer into what he as the painter had discovered. This definitely added to my understanding of the artist but also how the arts were being developed in Spain. Albrecht Drurer: Image of a Master I chose this video because I knew from the readings that Drurer was a printmaker and I wanted to learn more about the process and gain insight visually. I learned several things that enhanced what I had read and others that I did not know at all. Drurer was actually the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. It was he who introduced Renaissance forms and ideas to Germany which was still in the Gothic era. He was a painter and a draftsman. When painting he was especially fascinated by painting hands. Following a trip to Italy he was so impressed by the Alps, it led him to be considered the first landscape artist in Europe. He learned many of his techniques: how to achieve form with light and shadow, and using layers to achieve an enameled look, from studying in Venice. He relied on printmaking for income but did not ever stop learning and refining his art skills. It was interesting to see prints being made in multiples so art could become more available. I thought this video was well done. The Drawings of Michelangelo I chose this video for several reasons, first I think his work is fascinating, second, I used his drawings and then actual paintings in my project, and lastly growing up in Western New York, David, is hard to miss when driving down the expressway. I found this video to be very informative, complement the reading in the text book, and greatly added to my background knowledge of Michelangelo. I thought his drawings were unbelievable. They exuded power, strength and emotion. I learned how buy the use of grids the small drawings were enlarged to create the figures on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. I also found it very interesting that after repeatedly trying the artist in the video could not even come very close to copying his drawings. I did know that Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor, but I did not know that he was self-taught and that David was the first marble statue to be carved in Italy since antiquity. It was also enlightening to learn that he was fixated on the solar plexus and that he took human figures and added abstractions to achieve perfection. He did indeed set the bar high for future body builders. I liked this video and it saddens me to known Michelangelo himself destroyed many of his own drawings. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance When I read in the text book that Leonardo da Vinci was considered the “ultimate genius and Renaissance Man,” I decided to watch this video. I knew he did many other things besides the Mona Lisa, but I did not realize how many other things he was involved in. I have to say we look at Da Vinci and know that he was a genius but I did not get the impression from the video that he was appreciated at the time. He seemed to flit from place to place and left some unfinished works. He unfortunately did not learn the lesson that a student should never to better that his teacher when he out painted Andrea del Verrocchio. He felt that emotion was made up of the spiritual (power of thought) and the material (the body), He felt that proportion and balance must flow and that beauty and harmony are of the divine nature. He was a master at proportions and applied them to his many endeavors. The most important thing I learned was that Leonardo da Vinci was not just the painter responsible for creating the Mona Lisa, he was a painter, a sculptor, architect, engineer (he helped redesign Milan following the plague),musician, student of anatomy and physiology (he actually did dissections to better understand human form), physiology, botany, hydrodynamics, aeronautics, and other disciplines. Yet he did not perceive himself as an educated man. I think his life was overshadowed by sadness and his genius was not appreciated. Another point of interest he was left handed.