Claude Monet...

Octomber 9th 2012

     We learned about the Group of Seven in class today, they were ok information. I didn't mind to study about them I guess. Since I am studying fine art in Canada, I should respect and learn their art history.  However, Claude Monet did get motioned in class today. He was one of the most important artists to me.

     I think he is one of the few artists who could make real life looks like a dream. I could not separate reality and dream when I sit in front of his huge water lily paint. Looking at his work is like drinking very fine wine all by yourself. I tried very hard to follow his brush strokes when I stand in front of his piece. It always made me dizzy,I got lost in there.

      His art make time stops, I enjoy his work a lot and I wish one day I could make paintings that give same effect to viewers. 

      Therefore, Group of Seven is good, because I do enjoy impressionism. 


       Here are pictures that I took of Monet's painting in MOMA art museum in New York. I will try go see them every time when I in New York. So far I had only been there two times, but every time I will be in that room for more then half an hour.

 

 

Why do we paint?

November 20th 2012

     Today in class was Chris Down's lecture. Since he's my fourth year adviser I am quite comfortable to listen what he had to offer. There is only one question that really caught my attention and I couldn't stop think about it. 

      WHY DO WE PAINT?

      I guess my quick answer to that would be, maybe if I really do know why then probably I will stop doing it.  It is like to ask me why I love you, I just do.

      To me or to nowadays society we don't really use painting to document image anymore. There are tons of technologies to do it. Painting becomes a higher documentation tool - for our emotions.  It's like the moment of truth; sometimes our painting could capture a moment that the artist who was painting didn't even realize. 

     I love painting, and I think I could never really know why I paint. I am only certain for one thing is that I will not stop to paint. 

Night time is not always silent

September 20th 2012

     Finally! There are some painting I could truly enjoy from the lecture. We had studied a Canadian artist named Joseph Légaré who is a master of night time painting and also an art collector.

     I love art works that are about the night, not only for their dramatic and mysterious effects, but also for their simplicity.  One of my professors once told me that in my art I need to leave some empty space for the viewer's eye to rest. I think in these night paintings there is plenty of this kind of space for our eyes and mind to rest. So, because they are mostly dark, I feel that they are simple in that there is a lot of space to look at.

     I think the reason I enjoy night more than day time is because my parents often returned home very late when I was a child, so I always fell asleep when the moon was very high in the sky. I pulled my bed next to the window so the moonlight could reach me. I was always able to build a little world in my head when I saw a very beautiful, starry night. In my world, I could fly, but only at night when the moonlight was very bright. Here is the painting I did four years ago to show others what my world looks like on a full moon night.

     Also, I often hung out with my father, who was a very important friend during the nights (he worked until 8pm, so that was the only time we could hang out). He always put me on his shoulders and told me stories about the moon. I always thought that there were rabbits on the moon, and I had discovered a bunny riding a bicycle on it. I made a piece especially for my father with the bike-riding-rabbit in it, to remember the good times we had together.

    Therefore, I always feel very safe and secure at night. I think that is why animals in the tropical rainforest, jungle, and prairie are most active at night time. That might be why some artists can only work at night, because we are hunting - hunting for inspiration.

     Night is so wonderful. It's when the most beautiful ball room dancing starts, when people dress fancy to go to music halls, when delicious banquets are being hosted, and when the craziest parties happen. We have the freedom to either be ourselves or to be someone else at night. There are so many stories that have their most exciting moments at midnight or on a full moon. I don't think the moon is just a little ball running around the earth - instead, the moon and stars define the night. Without them, it can't be complete. But at the same time, without the night, we can't see them.

     Somehow, I am glad that I got to stay up all night so often. Even though it isn't good for my health, I love to be awake in the dark.

祝大家中秋快乐！Happy Mid-Moon Festival

     First of all, Happy Mid-Moon Festival.  If you are not Chinese please look up to the beautiful story behind this festival. 

     I believe today is the hardest time for all the Chinese who are not with their family and who are not in China. 

     It is the day that we are allow to be homesick. I wish the Canadian government could allow Moon Cake to be shipped here in the future again.  I 
really want to have Moon Cake for this festival.

     I wish the best for all of us and I hope everyone could see the beautiful moon.  

     I don't think I am able to tonight since it's raining here. Therefore, I will present some of the moon I create here.

Art history, art comes first.

September 18th 2012

     In today's class we talked about New Land paintings done by European military soldiers who were severed in Canada. These paintings are not only treated as art but also sold for fairly high price. Their history value played bigger role then it is own artistic value. In my opinion, in art history, art should come first.


     Those paintings we saw in the lecture today were barely art to me. They are more like advertisements that these soldiers used to present to their families back in Europe. These paintings are formulated in certain ways. There were always churches, an open space, detailed and unnaturally arranged trees, well dressed immigrants, and Natives in their elaborate clothing in the corner. 

     Landscape art could be more than that. If we look at historical landscape paintings from China, they were able to capture the emotion when the artist was making the pieces. Compare these paintings to Western art at the time, they were highly abstract. However, viewers' eyes are able to travel through the space, like they were in the painting. 
They could also feel the movement of their heart, the movement of the animals, even the smell of flowers. 

     In both military art and Chinese art, they contain realistic details. The landscape represents no specific place. In its forms, the artist expresses the ideal forms behind appearance. Quoting from my art history text book:

The ability of Chinese landscape painters to take us out of ourselves and to let us wander freely through their sites in closely linked to the avoidance of perspective as it is understood in the West. European painters, searching for fidelity to appearance, developed a "scientific" system for recording exactly the view that could be seen from a single, fixed vantage point. The goal of Chinese painting is precisely to get away from such limits and show a totality beyond what we are normally given to see. If we can imagine the ideal for centuries of Western painters as a photography, which shows only what can be seen from a fixed view point, we can imagine the ideal from Chinese artists as a film camera aloft in a balloon; distant, all-seeing, and mobile.

      

Intrinsically indifferent

 September 13th 2012

     In today's lecture what made me remembered the most is the two different pictures of the same native woman. Pictures were taken by Edward S Curtis, an American photographer of American West and of Native American.

     Guess which picture of this woman got picked to his book The North American Indian?

    

     To my surprise, our Eddie had picked the picture on the right. His goal was not just to photograph, but to document, as much the Native traditional life as possible before that way of life disappeared. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume in 1907:"the information that is not to be gathered...respecting the mode of life of one of the great race of mankind must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost." 

     Our professor Kelly who teaches Canadian Art history explained to us the picture that got picked would meet the expectations of the audience at that time, who were of the European society.

     In the European society, the audiences seek differences instead of similarities. In this case, the picture on the right was picked because it has very strong native symbolism such as the decoration on her neck and waist. The other one which has a beautiful smile could just be any woman who lives in this world. It surprises me that the picture on the right appeals to the European society more than the other picture. To me, the right picture is almost a document of a dead object, but the other one is a photograph of a real woman, any woman and who was also native.

      Why do people rather differentiate than relate when they look at a culture that is not their own? Why couldn't we treat others like ourselves first? Don't we all need to eat, need to sleep, need to work, need to be loved? Don't we always seek for excuses of big celebrations because we love them? 

     I would feel more comfortable to get to know a different culture through similarities. Not only it helps for easier understanding but also motivate me to learn more. For instance, when I was taking social studies back in high school, I was forced to memories what is Thanksgiving Day to North Americans.  If my teacher had told us the nowadays' purpose of that festival it is similar to our Chinese' Mid-Moon Festival, I would feel it is easier to related than just a question which would poop out in quiz. 

     Going back to the discussion, what I see from Edward S Curtis's photography of the Natives were not what he thought he was doing. By selecting that specific photograph he has killed the culture himself. The culture was not dead before he has done so. That woman in the photography was excluded from her own culture. She was more likely presented as an object than a subject. 

     Here are some pictures from my perspective had documented the traditional lives of some cultures.  

Why in the future the history become more important then the art itself?

September 11th  2012

       After the class discussion about the reading - what is Huron art?: native American Art and the new art history, I feel more interested in the history of art. It is a tricky thing. It is the art itself  is more valuable or the history of it? 

      When we look at a contemporary art piece, the piece itself is more important than the artist's rationale. We usually would focus on the emotions and the information that are presented by the piece its self. The experiences of the artist, the story of how this piece came to be etc are rarely noticed by audience before this art becomes famous. 

       The key to attraction is usually what the piece itself presents.  This piece would eventually become history in the future. The piece itself will become something more then itself.  What happened?!

Why the dominates is kicking other's ass?

                                                                                                 September 6th 2012 

   

     

We start talking about first nation art in class. Everything they said always draws me back to my own culture - Chinese. The western people were saying that native art & culture were dying. In my opinion, the natives are marginalized and native art & culture has never even existed to the western world and it is just not part of their dominate culture.  

      In some sense, first nation art & culture is almost like a foreign culture to them. I could compare the native culture to my own which is Chinese. To those people in the dominate society today, when they think of native culture, "Moccasins shoes" would probably be the first thing to come up, like fortune cookies for Chinese, UGG for Australian, Queen for English and Tacos for Mexican. Their interest of foreign cultures was selective due to their limited accessibility.

      I could truly relate to the dominate society's view. To keep a culture alive, population plays a big role. This is why the general Chinese culture is still alive and well known over the world. From Silk Road to today's globalization, Chinese culture is relatively more accessible then some native cultures. However, some of our own natives’ cultures in China are dying as well. China have 56 ethnic groups and 55 of them only constitute 8% of the Chinese population. Han which is the dominate in China, constitute 92% in Mainland China and 98% in Taiwan. Therefore, it is hard to keep tracking of what others have been doing when you don't have the accessibility to the ethnic cultures.

      I think the government of all the countries which has natives should put in more effort to save and promote them.