Art Essay

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: ARTIST

• Monet → bourgeoisie
• Painted
• Father was academic and wanted his son to be as well.
• Monet was wealthy:
  → lived in France, Paris. Small community of impressionists.
  → catch up at parties, café, Moulin rouge
• Artworks were solid and reflective → Monet interested in reflections. Pushed him further. Eg. water reflections
• Impressionism → heavily influenced by Japanese art. Due to technology he found out about them. Looked at artifacts and loved it because it was different.
• Influenced by Japanese wood cut prints – flat layers sitting on top of each other → new way of looking at art, of valuing it.
  → Japanese valued their landscape (loved the colour) → Monet was interested in landscape.
• Created workshops/studios next to lake or piece if land he was painting.
• Purchases a whole lot of land (at least an acre) so he can create his own landscape to paint.
• Stops just looking at light and looks at atmosphere → meditation & spiritual connections.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: ARTWORK

• Artworks were solid and reflective → Monet interested in reflections. Pushed him further. Eg. water reflections
• Painting → historically → you have to know the context of what the artwork means.
• Impressionism → heavily influenced by Japanese art. Due to technology he found out about them. Looked at artifacts and loved it because it was different.
• Reject the rectangular formation – used squares and circle canvas.
  → Composition in a conventional way. Different to his time as everyone used rectangles.
• Water Lillie’s: looks at paint and qualities of paint, moves, and atmosphere. Interested in how do we look and see things.
• Influenced by Japanese wood cut prints – flat layers sitting on top of each other → new way of looking at art, of valuing it.
  → Japanese valued their landscape (loved the colour) → Monet was interested in landscape.
• Monet was influenced by the Japanese through their technique and subject matter (Japanese Gardens).
• Stops just looking at light and looks at atmosphere → meditation & spiritual connections.

MUSEE DE L’ORANGERIE (ARTWORK)

• Creates the artwork for specific places. Eg. – dome gallery like an installation.
• Donates his work to the government.
• Stops just looking at light and looks at atmosphere → meditation and spiritual connection.
• Sold his work to Americans → they funded him → success overseas but not nationally (sold them to bourgeoisie in America).

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: WORLD

• Impressionism: photo’s came out and questions the role of the artist
  → documenting historical values (painting = one off, camera = many replicas).
• Artists have social values because they could do the things ordinary people couldn’t. They were also wealthy.
• Gallery (Salon) – Authority in art. Tells you whether or not you made it as an artist. → Funded and opened by the Government. Job was to entertain and provide.
  → If you were selected then you made it. People will know who you are. Monet didn’t make it in and people laughed at his work – called it incomplete. The general public doesn’t like it.
• Salon refuse (the rejects of Salon): all impressionist art → still not valued. No one bought it and general public didn’t like it (not pretty).
  → Artworks were solid and reflective → Monet interested in reflections. Pushed him further. Eg. water reflections
• Western Art - Realism

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: AUDIENCE

• Water Lillie’s: looks at paint and qualities of paint, moves, and atmosphere. Interested in how do we look and see things.
• Artworks were solid and reflective → Monet interested in reflections. Pushed him further. Eg. water reflections
• Gallery (Salon) – Authority in art. Tells you whether or not you made it as an artist. → Funded and opened by the Government. Job was to entertain and provide.
  → If you were selected then you made it. People will know who you are. Monet didn’t make it in and people laughed at his work – called it incomplete. The general public doesn’t like it.
• Salon refuse (the rejects of Salon): all impressionist art → still not valued. No one bought it and general public didn’t like it (not pretty).
• Modernity (democracy – people did what they want): Things like the invention of steam, changes to the landscape, people’s way thinking about the world, country people can travel to city to be educated, jobs in the service industry. You didn’t have to stay poor anymore.

           

NIGHT CRIES

___________________________Tracey Moffatt

STRUCTURAL FRAME

• Media – Film, colour (19 minutes)
• Setting – outback farm house
• Aboriginal woman nurses her dying white mother.
• Surreal in presentation and use of colour & props.
• Layout is both internal and external.
• Content deals with real and remembered time. Reflects on and makes use of memories.
• Colour changes with contexts. Eg black and white segments = flashbacks
• No dialogue – images and sounds used to narrate story.
• Sound is heightened element due to lack of dialogue and used to link past, present and the fantasy worlds.

SUBJECTIVE FRAME

• Sound is important. It vividly links the issues/concepts of the film.
• Lack of dialogue relies on images to tell the story and the audience to experience the work on a personal interpretative level.
• Sounds are surreal and haunting.
• Only dialogue is the cry of the old woman from her sleep “Where are you?” The younger woman is lost in her own internal space.
• The work as whole impacts the audiences’ emotions, leaving them uncomfortable and on edge – highly emotionally charged.
• Sounds make the atmosphere; both internally and externally, feel empty – like the emptiness of the young woman’s life.
• Lack of emotional connection between the two characters.
• Younger woman’s indigenous roots appear foreign to her.
• Christian singer is unable to be heard – bad reception. The illusive struggle for peace and the emptiness of the messages to the younger woman.
• Heightened frustrations of the younger woman are obvious.
• The film leaves audience guessing as to the interpretation of the work. It raises questions rather than answering them.
• Heart wrenching in its impact on the audience’s emotions.
• Challenges audience’s expectations of film/story/plot. It is not clichéd – does not use typical American film formula.

POST MODERN FRAME

• Title “Rural” links to Australia’s past and all the cultural connections contained within. Eg. The country’s economy heavily reliant on agriculture and the ecology’s demise as a direct result.
• Obvious links to the 1950’s film “Jedda” where an Aboriginal girl is raised within a white context and the struggle she wrestles with as a direct result of her upbringing.
• The work itself is a film (not a traditional art medium) and the impact of the audience of this medium is far more elaborate and sophisticated in reference to emotion.
• The racial references inform the audiences of the artist’s subjective experiences as well as a generation’s experience by making sub minimal references to political issues of the black and white debate/related issues.
• The work reflects a loss of innocence, a sense of isolation and dysfunction.
• The memories of the younger woman share her struggles to escape her life’s situation, her lack of identity or relationship to her indigenous culture.
• In the beach scene we see her being strangled by seaweed come film – possibly symbolizing her memories constantly being returned and how technology is used to record history.
• Introduces the Post Modern concept of history being a subjective rather than objective record of events.

CULTURAL FRAME

• Aboriginality – lack of connection.
• White Australia – its political persuasions, values and baggage.
• Religious beliefs – in particular Christianity.
• Deals with time and history.
• Symbolic use of Christian issues.
  → Washing of feet (like Jesus wiping feet of disciples)
  → “Onward Christian Soldiers” hymn. The impacts of Christianity on indigenous cultures but more specifically on the individual.
  → The value of the individual – compassion
• Cultural icons – the squeaky farmhouse door.
  → The corrugated iron outdoor toilet
• Lack of intimacy between the two characters – possibly reflects same in racial black and white relationships on political front.
• Emptiness of religion – broken promises of the Church.
• Empty life echoed in the setting.
• Guilt and condemnation for feeling of resentment to mother – issues of caring for the elderly → burden.
• Deals with ideas on death
  → Physical, spiritual, mental etc.

ARTIST PRACTICE

• Media – Film, colour (19 minutes)
• Setting – outback farm house
• Surreal in presentation and use of colour & props.
• Layout is both internal and external.
• Content deals with real and remembered time. Reflects on and makes use of memories.
• No dialogue – images and sounds used to narrate story.
• Sound is heightened element due to lack of dialogue and used to link past, present and the fantasy worlds.
• Sound is important. It vividly links the issues/concepts of the film.
• Challenges audience’s expectations of film/story/plot. It is not clichéd – does not use typical American film formula.
• Heart wrenching in its impact on the audience’s emotions.
• The work as whole impacts the audiences’ emotions, leaving them uncomfortable and on edge – highly emotionally charged.
• The racial references inform the audiences of the artist’s subjective experiences as well as a generation’s experience by making sub minimal references to political issues of the black and white debate/related issues.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: ARTIST

• Contemporary Australian film making
• Relates to Tracey Moffatt’s Aboriginal background.
• Personal experiences
• Semi Autobiographic
• Personal and interpretative.
• About her life, how these two people relate to each other.
• Explores emotions of frustration and loneliness.
• Mother and daughter relationship.
• Shows the loss of her brothers.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: ARTWORK

• Repetitive actions and movements.
• No answers to questions.
• Colour tones of purple, red.
• Setting – house, rural area.
• Artwork is confronting.
• Annoying sounds, repetitive creaking.
• Sounds intrude on the silence.
• Artificial setting – studio set.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: WORLD 

• Racial history – Aboriginal vs. White Australia.
• Stolen generation – adopted into white family.
• Desert location – isolation, dryness.
• Christianity – singing songs
• Conflicts on culture – Jimmy Little.
• Washing of mother’s feet – like disciples washing Jesus’ feet.
• Assimilation policy.
• Issues of contemporary history.
• Does not fit into normal film genre.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: AUDIENCE

• Leaves audience wondering.
• Movie is viewed on personal level.
• Personal experience on life Eg. Bad childhood
• Read movie on different level.
• Creates more questions than answers.
• Sounds make audience think about answers.
• No dialogue makes it hard to understand story.
• Experienced individually.

_______________________________Bill Viola

STRUCTURAL FRAME

• Architectural space = man made space + negative space in a building.
  → Interested in filling space.
• Experiments with combining the effects of electronic sound with architectural space in order to combine the video’s properties with his own emotions and personal experiences. → Explore show integral sound is to the perception of space.
• The submergence of water in several of Viola’s works → linking to his personal experience when he was 10 and nearly drowned in a lake.
• Video artist
• Scale
• He uses universal symbols used in beliefs → water, fire and wind.
• Silhouette – alien like form → scary
• Turns body into a landscape → the human experience using the landscape to explore the human experience.
• Simplicity in the presentation but a very complex thinking process – deep meaning → putting too much on the artwork restricts the meaning.
• Works very gradual:
  - distorting sense of space
  - you don’t realize how big things are until the end
  - manipulating, consumes the audience into his works then overwhelming them → (The Messenger)
• Works done in a loop – life and cycle.
• Water – cleanse → is the person stuck in a better place?
  

SUBJECTIVE FRAME

• His works unfold the layers of human consciousness and self knowledge.
  - image starts revealing itself slowly
  - works the reverse of conscience → reveals more deeper perspective
  - may trigger own memories because of its scale
• In his multimedia works he explores the phenomena of sense perception → integrating a range of philosophies, both Western and Eastern. 
• His approach to life and his work has been greatly influenced by Eastern philosophy. → Places humanity in the context of nature’s ongoing cycle and recognizes the whole as being represented in parts.
• His works are metaphors for birth, reincarnation, renewal, emergence of an individual and personal journey.
  → Viewer is left to contemplate the meaning of life, as well as to dwell on the memories and fears.
• Concept of renewal, life etc is associated with the submergence of water in several of Viola’s works → linking to his personal experience when he was 10 and nearly drowned in a lake.
  → His memories of the experience are of mystery and peace below the surface.
• Works deals with life, with survival, with the will to live and also with death.
• Emotions and reactions
• Scared – dealing with the unknown → appearing and disappearing like supernatural/abnormal → looking for our reaction.
• Audience submerged in the artwork, like drowning
  → reality you can hear a heartbeat → plays with idea of Nasa.
• Work relies on the individual → where we are in life (at that stage), their understanding of life and the world and how they interpret their work.
• Who am I? What is my purpose in life? → Questioning ideas of what we accept as life for the individual with the different stages of life.
• Confrontational → human figures, reality.
• Silhouette – alien like form → scary
• Looking for universal truths in the world.
• Shared experiences of the landscape.
• As an audience you have no sense of space where the video is projected → distorts sense of space.
• Being happy in their own misery → What decision are people making? What idea should I be making?

POST MODERN FRAME

• In his multimedia works he explores the phenomena of sense perception → integrating a range of philosophies, both Western and Eastern. 
• Turns body into a landscape.
• Like reinventing the human expressionism in Caravaggio’s works → the greeting: Mary + Elizabeth. Last 3 colour works.
• Mediator of nature.

CULTURAL FRAME 

• He sees nature’s power as composed of interacting opposites (Chinese Yin and Yang) – light and dark, fire and water, spiritual and physical, life and death.
  → The illusions created suggest a feeling of grandeur / hint of Romanticism (about human being small in comparison to Mother Nature).
• In his multimedia works he explores the phenomena of sense perception → integrating a range of philosophies, both Western and Eastern. 
• Uses innovative state of art electronic technology to investigate life and being itself.
• Influence by religion – he uses universal symbols used in beliefs → water, fire and wind.
• Interested in the Earth and its elements and how we use Earthly elements in our beliefs.
• Universal – not limited to a certain culture.

ARTIST PRACTICE 

• Architectural space = man made space + negative space in a building.
  → Interested in filling space.
• Experiments with combining the effects of electronic sound with architectural space in order to combine the video’s properties with his own emotions and personal experiences. → Explore show integral sound is to the perception of space.
• Uses innovative state of art electronic technology to investigate life and being itself.
• His approach to life and his work has been greatly influenced by Eastern philosophy. → Places humanity in the context of nature’s ongoing cycle and recognizes the whole as being represented in parts.
• He sees nature’s power as composed of interacting opposites (Chinese Yin and Yang) – light and dark, fire and water, spiritual and physical, life and death.
  → The illusions created suggest a feeling of grandeur / hint of Romanticism (about human being small in comparison to Mother Nature).
• Concept of renewal, life etc is associated with the submergence of water in several of Viola’s works → linking to his personal experience when he was 10 and nearly drowned in a lake.
  → His memories of the experience are of mystery and peace below the surface.
• Works deals with life, with survival, with the will to live and also with death.
• Viola keeps a collection of notebooks in which he has recorded and developed his ideas and observations in.
• Auto bibliographical: fell off a boat in childhood
  → repeated image of water.
• Video artist
• Uses scale
• Work relies on the individual → where we are in life (at that stage), their understanding of life and the world and how they interpret their work.
• Influence by religion – he uses universal symbols used in beliefs → water, fire.
• Turns body into a landscape → the human experience using the landscape to explore the human experience.
• Works done in a loop – life and cycle.
  

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: ARTIST

• American Artist, New York.
• Video artist
• Emotions and reactions
• Auto bibliographical: fell off a boat in childhood
  → repeated image of water.
• Constant use of resurrection – rebirth that can be revived.
• Looking for universal truths in the world.
• Works done in a loop – life and cycle.
• Not egotistical: not about him it’s about his surroundings.
• Mediator of nature.
• Architectural space = man made space + negative space in a building.
  → Interested in filling space.
• Uses innovative state of art electronic technology to investigate life and being itself.
• He sees nature’s power as composed of interacting opposites (Chinese Yin and Yang) – light and dark, fire and water, spiritual and physical, life and death.
• Works deals with life, with survival, with the will to live and also with death.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: ARTWORK

• The submergence of water in several of Viola’s works → linking to his personal experience when he was 10 and nearly drowned in a lake.
• Experiments with combining the effects of electronic sound with architectural space in order to combine the video’s properties with his own emotions and personal experiences. → Explore show integral sound is to the perception of space.
• He uses universal symbols used in beliefs → water, fire and wind.
• Simplicity in the presentation but a very complex thinking process – deep meaning → putting too much on the artwork restricts the meaning.
• Works very gradual:
  - distorting sense of space
  - you don’t realize how big things are until the end
  - manipulating, consumes the audience into his works then overwhelming them → (The Messenger)
• Works done in a loop – life and cycle.
• Water – cleanse → is the person stuck in a better place?

THE MESSENGER (ARTWORK)

• Distorted image in dark atmosphere with little spotlight → looks like its floating.
• Windy and strong gustily, whispery noises.
• Human figure (recognisable but distorted still)
• Image becomes clearer and body moves closer to focus → a make head bopping up and down the surface of the water.
• Darkness consumes background and focus is centered yet smaller scale than the darkness which surrounds it.
• Slowly zooms into top half of body’s figure → image distorts and face emerges from water still floating – eyes open, mouth open, a gasp of air? → Music helps give a sense of relief is consumed and human flesh colour emerges.
• Music becomes soft and a little hollow and face floats on surface
  - sounds like heavy breathing being breathed under water.
• After two minutes body floats under water again. Colours turn blue, cyan, green and flesh colour disappears. → life disappears. Eyes are closed.
• Body starts zooming out showing more of the whole body again.
• Bubbles emerge from under the water to surface → drowning assumption?
• As body zooms away from focus, image distorts but area with face is filled with bubbles → music becomes softer and almost silent.
• Darkness