Archive for September, 2007
The Hearst Tower can be seen towering over the New York skyline if you ever find yourself near Columbus Circle. The building itself is located at 300 West 57th Street on Eighth Avenue and is quite a beauty to behold. It first started as a six-story building that was completed in 1928 and was designed by architect Joseph Urban.
The original building had a cast limestone facade. Its main design consists of columns and sculpted figures said to represent music, art, commerce and industry. The building was originally designed to be a base for a proposed skyscraper that was to be built over it. But the Great Depression postponed the construction of the skyscraper and the building remained as it is until after nearly 80 years when the proposed tower addition was finally completed. The original building itself has been considered an important monument in New York and has been designated a Landmark Site in 1988.
The additional tower only got to be constructed sometime in 2001 and was one of the first skyscrapers to break ground after the fateful September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. The new tower was designed by the architectural firm Foster and Partners and stood at 182 meters with 46 stories of office space all in all. It was designed in a unique triangular framing pattern known as a diagrid that was made out of structural steel and contained 20 percent less steel that would have been used employing a conventional perimeter frame. Each triangle in the diagrid is said to be four stories tall.
The Hearst Tower is also considered as the very first “green” building completed in New York City. The building was made with 80 percent of it constructed out of recycled steel. The building was also designed to use 25 percent less energy than the minimum requirements for buildings built in New York City. The building makes use of daylight sensors to control lighting and to help lessen energy use. The floor of the building’s atrium is made out of heat conducting limestone. Polyethylene tubing is housed under the building’s flooring that is filled with circulating water in order to provide a cooling effect in the summer and heat in winter.
The atrium also has its escalators running through a 3-story water sculpture known as Icefall. It consists of a waterfall that is built with thousands of glass panels that not only provide some aesthetic value but also to cool and humidify the air at the lobby. There is also an impressive 70-foot long fresco painting by Richard Long entitled Riverlines that complement the beautiful water sculpture. In 2006, the Hearst Tower received the Emporis Skyscraper Award, a recognition given to the best skyscraper completed during that year, besting other buildings all over the world. The Hearst Tower displays both the beauty of good architectural design as well as the efficiency of modern buildings in terms of energy conservation and use of space.
September 26th, 2007
Painting may not be all dependent on creativeness and great vision. Beauty in art can also be created by the use of quality equipment. And in the art of oil painting, quality paints and brushes can help in creating the most beautiful masterpieces. Paintbrushes, for instance become a valuable painting tool since it helps put the artist’s ideas and vision onto the canvas. Poor quality paintbrushes may contribute to a bad quality painting. A good understanding of paintbrushes and their proper use is therefore important for the budding artist.
Paintbrushes used in painting come in different types, sizes and shapes. The different brushes allow painters to create a variety of strokes required for their masterpieces. The different brushes also come in their different names. Although names and their styles may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, such brushes may still have certain similarities. In the traditional sense, short handled brushes are usually used for painting in watercolor and in ink while the long handled ones are used for acrylic and oil paintings. The different brushes are usually distinguished by the style of brush tips that they have-
Angle- a versatile type of brush that can be applied in both general painting applications as well as in applying some detail work
Bright- type of flat brushes that come with short stiff bristles. This type of brush can be useful in driving paint into the weave of a canvas in thinner paint applications. It can also be used in some thicker painting styles.
Fan- used for blending broad areas of paint on the canvas.
Filbert- another term for flat brushes with domed ends. They provide the artist with good coverage and able to perform some detail work.
Flat- a type of brush that is mostly used for spreading paint quickly and more evenly over a canvas.
Mop- a brush with a larger than usual head with bristles having a rounded edge. It is mostly used for broad soft paint applications as well as for putting thinner glazes over existing drying layers of paint without trying to damage the lower layers.
Rigger- a type of round brush with typically longish, thin hairs. It was so named because such a brush was traditionally used for painting the rigging of ships in artworks. This type of brush are useful for painting fine lines and can be both used for oils and watercolors.
Round- a type of brush with a long and pointed tip and closely arranged bristles that is useful for detail work.
Although there might be different types of brushes available that can do a variety of functions, an artist may not have a need for all of them. Some may use only two types of brushes while others may find use for quite the other different types. Such brushes may also come in different sizes and it is up to the artist to choose which brush types and sizes serve the best purpose for his own style and technique of artwork.
September 20th, 2007
It is one way to paint a masterpiece and another way of to evaluate it. Judging and evaluating a painting can both be technical as well as an art itself. Judges in art shows not only look for technical brilliance in artistic works but also on it aesthetic value. But how do most art judges do it? What do they really look for when evaluating different artworks?
Judging artworks may differ depending on certain situations. It may depend on certain preferences that the judges as a whole may have in mind in a collective sense. It may also depend on the level of competition perhaps as well as on the regulations that may have been established beforehand. But all in all there are some general points that art judges usually look for when evaluating different paintings.
1.Originality- quite important on the list of most judges. This implies to artworks that bore any semblance to any previous artwork made. It usually takes an experienced judge to identify original works from those that are not.
2.Innovation- this shows not only of departure from but also quite a novel use of the usual characteristics accepted in a certain genre and making full use of it on a painting.
3.Quality- characteristic of a painting that show certain authority and elegance in its design and execution.
4.Depth- a certain characteristic of a work that can induce more than just a second look from an onlooker or judge.
5.Completeness- a quality that shows a painting having integrated all the aspects in the painting to come up with a thorough and coherent statement.
6.Integrity- a quality of a painting that evokes the sincere expression and spirit of its author.
7.Intrigue- a characteristic of a certain artwork that has something left to a viewer’s imagination. That “absent quality” in a canvas that makes an onlooker wonder and think.
8.Significance- quality of an artwork that makes an impression or some worthy statement that broadens a viewer’s understanding of the world.
9.Vitality- the emotional quality of the artwork and the feelings it evokes.
The above may be considered as evaluating artworks aesthetically or it may also be viewed in some ways from a technical point of view. There are other ways that judges may also consider in trying to evaluate artworks. Judges may look at the lines of the painting. Lines may show how the subject and the figures surrounding it are being articulated. How these lines are used may have an effect on how the artwork may come out.
Form is another point that art judges consider. How the subject is being depicted, the coherence of the different bits in the painting to the whole as well as the individual characters of the different elements in the painting are also some things that judges try to consider. Color and tone in a painting and how they are creatively used also are also points that judges consider in evaluating paintings.
September 12th, 2007
Edgar Degas is a well known French artist who was regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism. Aside form his paintings, Degas was also known for his sculptures, prints as well as drawings. He was especially identified with depicting dancers as his subjects which cover over half of his works. He has also done quite a number of female nudes as well as a number of works depicting happenings on the racecourse.
Edgar Degas was born on July 19, 1834 in Paris France. He was the eldest of the five children born to Celestine Musson De Gas and a wealthy banker father, Augustin De Gas. Degas found his love for art early in life. At the age of eighteen, he had already taken painting seriously by turning a room in his home as an artist’s studio. From there, he started learning from the masters by making copies of masterpieces at the Louvre. As his father wanted him to take Law in college, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law in the University of Paris in 1853. But because his love for the law was non-existent, his lack of interest in the subject made him do poorly on his subjects.
Degas eventually concentrated more on drawing and painting and by 1855, received admission into the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he flourished and began to excel in the arts. In 1856, he went to Italy where he would remain for three years to further study and learn from the early artists of the Renaissance by drawing and making copies of well known masterpieces. Degas fervently studied the arts and learned the various techniques of high, academic as well as classical art. From then on he began his career as an artist.
During his artistic career, public reception for Degas’ works ranged from admiration and praise and sometimes contempt. His conventional works was regarded as very promising by some critics who were then more rigid in defining art in the classical style. But when Degas began to join forces with the Impressionists creating artworks that rejected the rigid rules and elitism of the classical style, the general public not open to experimentalism of the Impressionist began to put the artist’s works in low regard.
But although some of Degas’ works were controversial during their time, some critics admired some of them for their draftsmanship. Eventually more and more of the art loving public began to see the beauty of the Impressionist paintings and started to see some of Degas’ works in a more positive light. By the time he reached the end of his career as an artist, Degas was, by then, regarded as an important artist of his time. His contributions to the Impressionist movement were numerous as he was later on regarded as one of its early founders. Edgar Degas died at the age of 83 on September 27, 1917.
September 5th, 2007