Archive for May, 2008
There are quite a number of beautiful buildings and structures found all over the world. They have their own way of making people notice of their arresting presence and highlighting their surroundings to another level. And to see that these are man-made structures borne out of man’s creative imagination is really something to marvel at.Just one of the many beautiful buildings that one can find all over the world is the unique St. Basil’s Cathedral. There are quite several cathedrals found all over the world that are beautiful works of art in their own right. But in a unique sort of way, St. Basil’s Cathedral seems to stand out quite differently above the rest.
St. Basil’s Cathedral is located in the famous Red Square in Moscow. It stands distinct from its surroundings due to its colorfully designed “onion domes”. The domes themselves with their mix of architectural influences, seem to be symbolic of Russia standing in its unique position between Europe and Asia. The unique cathedral is not particularly large but it consists of nine chapels all in all built upon a single foundation.
The primary design of the cathedral follows that of contemporary tented churches that were predominantly popular in Russia. Such designs are usually found only in Russia and are characterized by their high conical-shaped roofs instead of the usual pointed ones. The primary reason for this design is said to be a means to prevent snow from piling up on roofs especially during long winters.
St. Basil’s Cathedral is also known as the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat. It was commissioned by Ivan IV, also more popularly known in history as Ivan the Terrible. The cathedral was commissioned in order to commemorate Ivan IV’s successful campaign fighting the Tartar Mongols highlighted with the capture of the Khanate of Kazan in 1552. The cathedral was built between 1555 to 1561. Its main architect was Postnik Yakolev.
The initial idea for the said cathedral was to build up a cluster of different chapels with each one dedicated to each of the saints on whose feast day the tsar had won a battle. But the eventual construction of a single central tower has unified the different chapels into a single cathedral with magnificent effect. And because of it, a popular legend tells of the Tsar ordering architect Postnik Yakolev to be blinded in order to prevent the construction of other structures that may rival its magnificence.
St. Basil’s Cathedral is a striking mix of swirling bright colors surrounding its towers made of red bricks. The onion domes add a unique touch to the cathedral. Its strikingly beautiful exterior is a contrast to its modestly decorated interiors. Maze-like corridors connect the dimly lit chapel interiors with walls dressed up with delicate floral designs in softer pastel colors. The church interior is so small that it cannot accommodate all the churchgoers inside during special services on feast days. Masses during this special occasions had to be held outside in the Red Square just to accommodate all the people.
May 29th, 2008
By 1880, Van Gogh started taking an earnest interest in art upon the suggestion of his brother Theo. This led him to attend the Royal Academy of Art where he learned the basics of anatomy as well as the standard rules of modeling and perspective. By 1881, Van Gogh went back living with his parents in Etten while continuing on his new craft in drawing. He initially used neighbors as his frequent drawing subjects.But the year did not go by without the tension also coming between Van Gogh and his father. A quarrel that Van Gogh had with an uncle caused by his insistent but futile pursuit of marrying an older widowed cousin led to renewed tensions with his father. It became so serious and violent that Van Gogh immediately left for The Hague.
While at The Hague during 1882, Van Gogh was encouraged by his cousin in law Anton Mauve to pursue painting. An art dealer uncle commissioned Van Gogh to do 20 ink drawings of the city after which he began to dabble in oil painting. Out of loneliness, Van Gogh went back to living with his parents who were by then situated in Nuenen, North Brabant in 1883.
While in Nuenen, Van Gogh devoted himself to drawing. In March of 1885, Van Gogh’s father died of a stroke and the artist grieved deeply. It was also during this time that his works began to be noticed in Paris. This led him to do what is considered his first major work, The Potato Eaters. His artwork during his stay at Nuenen did not yet display the vivid coloration that is distinct of his best known works later on. His stay at Nuenen produced 200 oil paintings as well as numerous drawings and watercolors.
From 1885 to 1886, Van Gogh found himself in Antwerp where he continued to develop and improve his painting technique. Van Gogh lived poorly and spent what money he had on painting materials. This led him to suffer from poor health. During his stay at Antwerp, Van Gogh was able to look at the works of Peter Paul Rubens, influencing him to broaden his use of color from earthly tones to incorporating carmine, cobalt and emerald green.
Sometime in 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris where he studied at Fernand Cormon’s studio. It was during this time that Van Gogh was able to study more about the Impressionist works of artists such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. In 1887, Van Gogh began to paint using some elements of pointillism. Over the course of his stay in Paris, which lasted until 1887, Van Gogh was able to create over 200 paintings and staged an exhibition of his work along with other artist friends at the Restaurant du Chalet in Montmarte.
Tired of the fast paced life in Paris, Van Gogh decided to move to Arles, France on February of 1888 where he stayed ad a nearby hotel and then transferred to the Yellow House Which became his studio. It was here that Van Gogh painted sunflowers as subjects. It was here that Van Gogh also increasingly displayed serious mental problems that led him to cut his own left ear lobe over the growing tension he had with fellow artist and friend Paul Gauguin. This event led Gauguin to separate himself from Van Gogh and never saw him again. Van Gogh was hospitalized due to his critical mental state during this time. It was also during this time that Van Gogh began having hallucinations and become paranoid that he was being poisoned.
His mental state became all the more serious that the townspeople in Arles began to call him the “Redheaded Madman” (fou roux). In 1889, due to his deteriorating mental state, Van Gogh was accompanied by a carer to Saint Remy where he committed himself to a mental institution. Saint Remy was over a mile away from the town and is an area covered by cornfield, vineyards and trees. The garden and the clinic became Van Gogh’s subjects for his subsequent painting. It was also in Saint Remy that Van Gogh did one of his best known paintings, The Starry Night, which was characterized by swirls. Limited access to the outside world led Van Gogh to remake works from the memory of his past.
In May 1990, Van Gogh left the clinic and went instead to make visits to Dr. Paul Gatchet, a physician who treated other artists previously. Van Gogh was able to do two oil paintings of the doctor and an etching. But during this time, Van Gogh’s bout with depression severely deepened. On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh walked into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. Not knowing that he was fatally wounded, he still made it back into his rented room at the Ravoux inn where he died in his bed two days later due to complications of the self-inflicted gunshot wound.
May 22nd, 2008
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a famous Dutch Post-impressionist artist whose paintings and drawings have become some of the most popular and most expensive works of art in the world today. His use of color as the chief mode of expression has led him to create some of the most beautiful paintings, the mix of color and dramatic content of his works display his genius as an artist. Van Gogh’s posthumous success despite the tragic life he led seems to be in line with the lives of other great artists that achieved renown only after their death.
Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. His father, Theodorus van Gogh was a minister of the Dutch Reformed |Church. His mother was Anna Cornelia Carbentus. As a child, Van Gogh was serious and silent. But generations of the Van Gogh’s have been associated with either art or religion. Early relatives seem to either lean on a life of art or religion. So it can be safely said that art runs in Van Gogh’s blood.
Van Gogh learned about drawing and the arts while attending middle school. He was taught by Constantijn C. Huysmans, a teacher at Willem II College in Tilburgand an artist who have achieved a certain success in France. But this did not motivate Van Gogh to lead a life of an artist.
In 1869, at the age of fifteen, Van Gogh decided to find work after deciding to leave school abruptly the year earlier. He was able to find work as an art dealer in The Hague with the help of an uncle. Van Gogh was later on transferred to London in 1873 where he started to become successful. This was considered as one of Van Gogh’s happy life periods.
But unfortunately, Van Gogh’s behavior began to change after being rejected by a woman he fell in love with. From that point on, Van Gogh became increasingly isolated and seem to become fervent in religion. Van Gogh also began to notice and became dismayed at how art was being treated as a commodity rather than as an admirable body of work. He began to express his sentiments to his customers. This later on led to his termination as an art dealer in 1876.
After stints of becoming a minister’s assistant at a Methodist church, Van Gogh decided to study theology but failed a three month course at a Protestant missionary course. But this did not hamper him from having a brief and temporary stint as a missionary in Belgium. His erratic behavior slowly began to come out, baffling some of the people who came to meet him.
Afterwards, Van Gogh went home after having a bad experience with the church authorities as a missionary in Belgium and in part to the insistence of his family to go back home. But then, his strange behavior began to show increasingly at home which even led his father to make inquiries of committing Van Gogh in a lunatic asylum, mostly due to the growing tension happening between them. Van Gogh decided to go someplace else and found himself going back to Belgium. There he began to harbor a growing interest of the everyday scenes around him and began to capture them in his drawings. (to be continued)
May 14th, 2008
Some drawings may require the artist to achieve a higher level of accuracy. This is true when one tries to copy a photograph with a pencil drawing. For the pencil drawing to look great, there is no room for errors. A small error may not give the artist the same result in closely getting the exact replica of the photograph on paper.
Artists make use of different way in order to increase the accuracy they have with copying a certain photograph in their pencil drawings. The easiest would be tracing the outlines of the photograph. This is especially ideal for beginners in drawing by tracing some key points of the photograph to achieve better accuracy. Professionals do it by using a projected image of the photograph over the drawing surface and tracing the key points and elements for better accuracy.
A less direct way of achieving accuracy in drawing a photograph would be using a grid. The grid is a series of vertical and horizontal lines drawn initially on the drawing surface as well as the photograph to give the artist a sense of relative proportion and shape of the image within each grid square. In essence, the artist is given a means of drawing the image a square at a time. The lines of the grid gives the artist a reference from how each part of the image can be outlined.
Having a grid for reference of the outlines of the image on a smaller scale can achieve better accuracy than doing the drawing free hand. This would be an easy way for beginners at drawing to learn how to train their hand and eye coordination. Little by little,
beginners may have a better feel of how lines can be copied from the grid on the photograph to the corresponding grid on the drawing surface.
The important thing about grid drawing is to discern the relative proportion of the image. This is especially important if one is to scale up or scale down a drawing of a certain photograph and yet acquiring the same accuracy. It is not important that the distances of the lines on each grid square is measured to achieve accuracy. It is more of the proportion of the lines between each grid square that is to be achieved. When scaling up, the grid drawn over the photograph to be copied become bigger squares on the drawing surface. When scaling down, smaller grid squares are used on the drawing surface than on the photograph being copied.
May 7th, 2008