Katsushika Hokusai & The Great Wave

The Great Wave is considered as one of the most famous print in the far east as no other image than the Great Wave have spread appeal. It's original sketch does no longer exist as the artist/wood cutter used to sketch and after applying the image to wood block it will be destroyed and thrown away. 



Something about wood cutting - Wood block printing technique used to be done first as a sketch on paper, stuck with some kind of paste to several a cherry wood blocks (paste used to make ink release from paper and stamped to the wood) and then with a chisel and mallet the wood engraver starts to eliminate unwanted parts. After all the wood blocks are engraved, starting from the outline, ink will be applied and paper will be put on top of the block and pressed wit a bit of force to let ink penetrate trough the paper and the process goes on and on. After each step, the paper will be let to dry naturally. This is a delicate process, as one mistake will be taken, then the whole print is ruined.

Katsushika Hokusai & The Great Wave - The Great Wave, back in early 19th Century it used to cost about 20 mon (equivalent to 2 servings of noodles in Tokyo . Today where it's about 253 years old it is still being shown in different art today such as; fashion, graffiti, tattoos and even cartoons. The Great Wave is approximately 15x10 inches and was done by the artist Katsushika Hokusai back in Tokyo AD1760
Hokusai used to work as a block cutter and have been working as an apprentist for a well known artist well before his teenage years which resulted that Hokusai ended up as a professional block cutter.
For over 50 years he still made money from engraving on wood blocks, after not working for several years in his 70th year his wife died and problems started to occur as his cousin spent all the money the family had, so there was no other option than Hokusai started to work again.

These woodblock prints were based on Japanese art and all the artists used to do the same art which consisted on which they believed - The Floating World - as a civilisation they used to live for the moment and all the prints used to be based on the flow of the moon, snow, cherry blossoms, people singing and drinking wine. This was an every day life as in Japan those days there was a money boom and people used to work less and spend more time to relax. Their art was even based on caricatures of famous plays, and the artists used to sell prints as post cards at a cheap price.

As I mentioned before, his cousin bankrupt the family so Hokusai had to get back to business, so he made a several woodblocks and named them LANDSCAPE OF MT.FUJI, where it's title shows exactly the theme. This is where the Great Wave was founded. Japanese says that it was produced on Buddhism belief between Men, Nature and god, where the people on the boats shows exactly that they are not fighting the wave but going with the flow.

Hokusai's sketches shows that his art pieces were quickly drawn from start to finish, his drawings may had been modified some positions. Yet, the Great Wave was an actual geographic location. AS I mentioned before it was a best seller (approx. 500 copies) and some of it's prints shows that the blocks were used until they were ruined as different copies shows that lines were worn out and the state of colours may vary.

Four years after producing the great wave a natural disaster (earthquake) was held at Mt.Fuji and the design was re-arranged for a broad sheet to show floods and created number of different ones.

Last years - He was invited to paint the great wave in another place which is situated 240 km north of his village, where he accepted and walked the whole journey. He painted a male and a female wave on the ceiling of a festival float. 

(1/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. 2013. (1/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpXbJGtwE_s.
(2/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. 2013. (2/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LKGo3ePHAs

(3/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. 2013. (3/4) Hokusai - Private life of a Masterpiece - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO6MSBNWNDM

Claude Monet - During his life ...

Claude Monet is the ongoing master of impressionists, He was born in November 14, 1840 in Paris. His father was a grocery man and opened a small bank which made the family quite wealthy, but he didn't like the idea of Claude to become an artist. As a family they moved to Normandy, where Claude met landscape Eugene Boudin, who have thought Monet to paint outdoors. Outdoor artists used to practice before the 1800's as they were only sketches, what was so different in Monet was that he painted an image from start to finish entirely outdoors.


Eugene Bondin - Castles and fortress

Monet have stood in military for 2 years, but his aunt agreed that if he would actually enrol in some kind of art institute she'd buy his way out of the service. He had  joined an academy, but the academy thought art in a traditional way which backed to Renaissance era, as he believed that this kind of art was outdated, in a short period of time Monet resigned and went on his own way. In 1865, Monet won acceptance at the Salon with an annual exhibition in Paris, but Money struggled financially.

In 1867 he had  his first child named Jean with his model in use named Camille. During his time in Paris, Monet made friendship with other young painters just like him who were Alfred Sisley and Paul Cezanne where they called them selves as 'Unanimous society of painters, sculptures ecc'. Suddenly a young generation of painters was formed who wanted to paint their everyday life. In 1874, as a group they have put up their first exhibition where it featured Monet's impression painting the 'sunrise' where critics and public were just lost as it was a revolutionary change of subject but then it went beyond that where it started the revolutionary change in the actual technique in painting. One of the most things that were shocking in Monet's painting was that it had these individual brush strokes where it didn't look finished, where one critic said that they were just giving an impression, and that's were Impressionism was born.

  
Claude Monet - Sunrise                           Claude Monet - The bridge, Amsterdam

In 1878 Camille became ill during her second pregnancy, as Monet was in her bedroom with her on the day of her death, as when she passed away Monet closed the door and locked the door and painter a portrait of her dead body.


Claude Monet - Camille Monet on her deathbed

Monet's fortune continued to change for better as his dealer had increasing success in selling his paintings, where he always wanted to be the artist who charged and received the most money for his work. As time passed by many of his collogues passed away from impressionism but Monet emerged himself into it as he produced series of several steadies of the same motifs such as the 'hay stacks'. He used to paint them under different weather conditions and lighting conditions where it showed that it was a new way to look at art instead of showing new subject every time.

 
Claude Monet - Church series 

in 1893, in his home garden Monet created his water lilly pond that inspired his most celebrated works. This is where he got crowned for his achievement where he presented one of the most famous paintings he produced which were his large water lilies painting measuring about 16 ft high and 20-25 ft wide where he exhibited in an oval shaped room  so as a viewer walked in he'd be surrounded


Claude Monet - Water lilies painting

He still painted till his late 80s where Monet died in December 5th 1926 at the age of 86.

What people should know about Monet, that during his entirely life was focused on his work, nothing else in his life came closer. Everything was dedicated to his work, that's why I have chose to write a small article about Claude Monet as he is a great inspiration for an artist and any one who loves to dedicate his time for something he'd love. I really admire him as he did what he really wanted to do and did not let anyone stop him from doing it.

Claude Monet Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography.com . 2013.Claude Monet Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography.com . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/claude-monet-

Impressionism

Impressionism was a French major movement during the late 19th and 20th century. Artists have been producing artworks between 1867 and 1886 where a group of seven people joined together and worked/shared their related approaches and techniques.

The seven men that joined together and formed this group were; Claude Monet, Camille Pisarro, Pierre Aususte Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin and Frederic Bazille. They influenced each other and exhibited together in the same place but as separate artists, later on Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne also were painting as impressionist in early 1970’s.

This movement took its main look at the characteristics of light and colour, where their art were not accepted back to their days as the painting wasn't full of detail but an impression of the image. Thats where the name of this movement got it's name, as people were drawing an Impression of something.

With their techniques of thin brush strokes and a bright explosion of colours, Monet, Mary Cassatt and Alfred Sisley confounded critics and obviously they sparked a scandal. Just because the Salon had refused to exhibit their work they did not give up and as a group they exhibited in Nadar's place for the first time in 15th April till 15 May 1874 where now a days about century and a half later, they have ended up among the most revered and influential artists of all time.

Claude Monet         Camille Pisarro        














Berthe Morisot

WebMuseum: Impressionism. 2013. WebMuseum: Impressionism. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/impressionism/

Impressionism: Art and Modernity | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2013. Impressionism: Art and Modernity | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm.

Tattoos .. Brief history.

Tattoo .. This word comes from Tahitian word 'tatau' which is a translation to 'mark something'. The history of tattoos goes back about 5,000 years ago. A tattoo is something that is scared for life, which is actually ink which goes inside the skin (a few layers beneath the surface of the skin). 

Some research was done a long time ago and the result was that the first tattoo was created after someone had a wound and this wound was rubbed over by a pair of dirty hands which probably were dirty with sooth and ashed from a fire, and .. once the would had been healed, the skin was marked permanently. 

 

back to the bronze age ...
Back in 1991, a frozen body was found and after studies it showed that he was 5,000 year old man. He have hit the headlines of newspapers all over the world, as the found frozen body who was found between Italy and Austria, had his body tattoos with a cross on his left knee and a couple of straight lines above his kidney and few lines on his ankle.

And something interesting in the Egyptian lands history of tattooing ...

Some written posts shows that some bodies were been discovered with tattoos. Back in 1891 there where archaeologists who discovered mummies who lived between 2160 & 1994 BC. A female body was discovered with dots all around her body, which were an abstract of geometric forms.
Some researches found out that Egyptians have spread tattooing around the world. This only took them till 2,000 BC till tattooing was spread trough SE Asia.

  

Today's tattoos are considered as art to some people and dirt to others, yet in my opinion tattoos have improves in artistic ways. Some are coloured and some are in black and grey shading. Today's tattoos vary even in their subject, not only in lines just like the first tattoos as in shapes but in something a person's thought in image to be inked trough. In these modern days there are even health and safety due to tattooing where the artist have to have his licence and a graduation, and every client have to be inked with new ink and a new needle as for health and safety, the hair/bench have even to be wrapped in cling film so blood will not mix with other people's. As one can notice, the artistic values in tattoos these days .. one can appreciate more the artistic works on one's body

  

history of tattoos. 2013. history of tattoos. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.designboom.com/history/tattoo_history.html

Chadwic.Grey & Laura.Spector

I think this is quite interesting art as its not commonly seen, you might not believe but these two persons are not both artists, but Laura is the artist and Chadwic is the canvas and the model. 

These two people lives in Huston (Texax, USA) after lived for 10 years in Thailand. They both do good works as one can see after been protagonists in the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2001)and they have been included as finalists for the Sovereign Asian Art Awarding both 2006 and 2008. Their work was even published in 'The Harvard Review'. 

Well, I guess I've said enough about the artists .. so let's skip to their art ...

So as I have said earlier, Laura is the artist and Chadwick is the model and the canvas. The artwork is actually a long process where Chadwic is positioned where sometimes he wont even be recognisable and when he's positioned perfectly, Laura starts painting. Her art is usually re-creating paintings from historic portraits done by famous people covering some portion of Chadwic's body. After the art is done, photographs are taken and then revealed for people.

 

Chadwic & Laura's Art in a Museum 

   
Chadwic posing and painted by Laura


About | Chadwick & Spector. 2013. About | Chadwick & Spector. [ONLINE] Available at: http://chadwickandspector.wordpress.com/about/. [

PuNk.ArT!!

This type of art is a little bit different from the rest .. Why ?

Punk art is based on album covers, flyers, posters and anything that has to do with music and and gigs. This type of art is based on 'violent' look where lettering are generally used as cut outs from newspapers and magazines which one can see in letters/notes left to anyone in violent/kidnapping movies.Punk art was/is generally done in black and white as they were cheaper product where bands had to do it from it's pocket, but .. when they used to print it in colour, fluorescent (highlighter) colours such as bright pink, sky blue, yellow and green

Sex Pistols album cover - 1977         Gig Poster - Dead kennedys & The Bags

One can notice that punk art is quite unique. It was back then a shock for the eyes and considered as ugly where it was only used by punks in posters and covers only. this art came to 'fashion' when England was going trough political changes and teens back then were being rebellious and a big percentage of them went against the government and anarchy was being practised and punk music and fashion were getting famous.

Punk art sometimes includes cruel scribbles and shocking figures which were drawn in sharp outlines and as I said before they were cut and pasted from magazines so they used to create contrasting scenes with 2 tone colours yet their posters used to create sense for those days and the revolution that was happening and their themes were usually; fun of politics, sex, violence, social facts and sarcasm.

     

Modern punk is still on the same style in music, even in posters etc. but yet technology have done a great step and so did the posters. The difference is that now a days more colours are being used, some cut outs are being used, photos are modernised and different styles are being used .. yet still based on the traditional punk design as their themes are still considered as rude.

  

 
Reference: Punk visual art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Punk visual art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_visual_art.