Monthly Archives: September 2018

Emil Nolde’s “Winter,” 1907.

Nolde uses visual elements to their full potential in his 1907 oil piece, Winter. It is through color, stroke, and line that he establishes an expressive struggle between man and nature.

Stroke and Line

The power of nature is emphasized through the contrasting strokes and directional lines. The choppy, chaotic brushstrokes lend depth, power, and weight to the snow that breaks it up from the typical, flat placidity of a freshly fallen blanket and imbue it with energy. Note, also, the slanted strokes dominating the sky. Mimicking precipitation, as if snow or sleet were falling, the strokes encourage other senses: wet precipitation, cold wind, slippery roads, all effects of the planet’s natural cycles. Directional lines ensure that this scene is one of action. The horizon slants up to the right, creating a hill and a journey for this man to face. Most striking, however, is the inclusion of contrasting lines and strokes to really send this piece spiraling. Evergreens made of horizontal strokes contrast the tall, vertices branches of dead trees; the road wanders up from the bottom right, bisecting the horizon and blending into the mass of trees. These contrasts indicate that nature is not easily categorized or tamed; it is full of  elements that will move their own way regardless of the rigidity of man, for he is but a small, vertical mark with smoother strokes than the world around him.

Color

Color is used to indicate the contrast between man and nature and the impact of them upon one another in Nolde’s Winter. The blatant contrast between a man dressed in black and the snow he trudges through is quite jarring; this man becomes the focal point, quickly drawing the eye from the lighter and more muddled background. I say muddled because it is important to note this additional contrast–the man’s colors are simple, having just a slight highlight on one side, whereas the landscape is composed of a myriad of blues, whites, greens, browns, pinks, purples, reds, and blacks. The road is largely a muddied brown that contaminates the snowbanks around it; it is an unpleasant stain that divides, but disappears into the landscape that it dirties. Yet, the sheer amount of landscape colors, however multicolored, dwarf the man and his path. The impact of the man and road’s presence is strong, but it cannot compare to the power of the landscape.

I started working my first job in the summer of 2017. Kind of a late start, right? I felt guilty about the blank space on my resumé before then, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I was completely mortified when we peer reviewed them in class. But things have gotten better! I feel much more confident about the path that I’m on, the skills I’ve gained, and the steps I have left to take. I would categorize my future career process in two ways: the products and the process. 

The “products” are the goals I have that are almost visible, tangible, and could potentially be measured in a pass/fail sense. The first step, for example, is updating my networking sites and my resumé. Though they need to be edited and added to over time, they can be finished. Next, I really need to focus on filling out a portfolio of work that I can show to potential employers. Third is getting a spring or summer (hopefully paid!) graphic design internship, which is a requirement for my major and a step into the workforce of my field. Finally, before I graduate, I desperately want to have a job lined up that I would start, at most, a season after graduation. All of the previous steps lead to this one, and I would consider it my current biggest concern career-wise. 

A process must exist behind a product, and in my mind, a lot of that process involves improving my character and keeping it consistent. I call these “character points.” The whole point of them is to ensure that people want to hire me and that I’m a good worker, allowing me to climb higher in my field and open up my opportunities. There are six character points. The simplest step is to show up on time! Next is being reliable. Like Dr. Ambrose said, it’s very important to do what you say you’ll do. After that I need to make sure to offer extra help when I can. Forth, I am going to do work that I’m proud of, meaning no slacking or procrastinating; it’s important that I be the kind of employee I would want to hire. Most daunting is to take on challenges–how else am I suppose to grow and improve? Finally, throughout all of this, I will be keeping an eye out that I’m being supportive, social, and sensible, because to get hired, I need to be someone people want to work with.

Andrew Wyeth “Christina’s World,” 1948 Egg tempera on panel 32.25″x47.75″

Using color, line, and space, Andrew Wyeth paints a piece that captures the nostalgic dullness of rural life, yet imbues it with event and intrigue. The tension between the two themes adds narrative to what could have otherwise been a simple landscape. 

Christina’s World states, instantly, that it is an image depicting rural life. Tawny grass, mostly uncut and growing tall, dominates the image. A single property, consisting only of gray, weather-beaten buildings, identifies itself with a pale mowed lawn. Combining the open and empty space with the dusty, muted colors communicates clearly that this is a landscape removed from the hustle and bustle of city life; it sits, waits, and ages like the yellowed edges of paper. Nostalgia seeps into the painting through its colors, the audience associating them with the simplicity of older times. The directional lines of the piece are largely flat. By splitting the sky and the land so drastically, the horizon dominates the painting. It is mimicked by the edge of the lawn. The verticals of the buildings are minimized and the diagonal tire tracks blend almost seamlessly with the grass. Because horizontals dominate the landscape, it becomes organized, placid, and serene. Uneventful, one might even say.

In contrast to this empty world, the woman—assumed to be Christina—is a force of energy. While she clearly belongs in this setting, wearing simple and a faintly colored dress, she consists of both the darkest and the lightest colors within the work. This draws the viewer’s eye to her, confirming that this scene revolves around her. Furthermore, she is the largest element. The space between her and the houses is vast, but she fills a good portion of it. To balance her weight in the bottom left of the piece, Wyeth places the buildings on the top right. This isn’t the only diagonal alignment of Christina’s World. Contrasting the horizontals and simple lines of the buildings, Christina also follows a diagonal line. Not only does she face diagonally, but her body twists; she is not flat, rather contorted. Her linear elements provide her with a sense of movement and tension. The reader must now ask why she is saturated with such importance and how that contributes to the vague aura of mystery. 

I would say that I’ve been pretty lucky in regards to my art history education. My grandmother raised me on trips to museums, my AP Art History teacher in high school taught me concise ways to organize my thinking, and my first college professor emphasized the importance of context and connection. All of these factors put me on a path to understanding that art history is about so much more than memorizing names, dates, and mediums. Those things are important, sure, but a piece removed from context, given no critical thinking, and hidden from view? The meaning is lost. These lessons I have learned have shaped my goals for my future understanding of and fluency in art history.

My high school teacher taught us to organize our observational thinking, and that is something I would like to continue with—organizing my communication. It matters a lot to me that I keep track of my own thought processes. Because art is such a subjective and interpretive field, there are many, many opinions being thrown around. My own ones often get lost in the mix. Not only that, but I find some difficulty in stopping my train of thought. While sometimes effective in discussion, a stream of consciousness is often unappreciated in academic papers. Flow is not always good. Learning to take a step back, examine, separate, and organize my ideas in my papers and how they affect my argument as a whole is probably one of my biggest goals this semester. While I am proud of a lot of my ideas, they often shove themselves awkwardly where they do not belong. Being organized would make my papers more effective.

Dr. Galliera’s focus on context and connection leads to the second critique I received: the “so what” factor. Explaining, in a paper, why that paper is important and worth the reader’s time is something I tend to think I do. My theory is that because the importance is obvious to me,  I allude to it throughout my paper without directly stating it. It sneaks into my examples and peeks out from my references like some little monster lurking in the shadows. But, it never steps out into the spotlight. I already know it, so I forget to state it. I suppose that I assume I already have.

Stated frankly and concisely, my goals for my academic writing are to be frank and concise. My thinking and my writing must be organized for clarity and it must communicate with impact. I would really like to keep the ball rolling on my art history luck.

Finally, I have a long-standing issue to sort out this semester. When I feel confident in a paper, it rarely fares as well as I expected it to. Granted—I have never failed a paper. I do not mean to give the impression that I am being drastically disappointed by these grades, when the truth is that I usually fall to, perhaps, a B when expecting a A+. And when I have given up all hope, embarrassed of the paper I am submitting, those assignments fair even better than the ones I was confident in. I don’t understand how this happens! I just cannot wrap my head around it. Is it my own self-criticism? Is it just a coincidence? This is something I desperately want to get to the bottom of.

At the end of the day, I’m sure the two correspond. If I can master structure and impact then maybe everything else will fall in place. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.