The boundaries between culture and nature have collapsed and the body has become flexible
The boundaries between culture and nature have collapsed and the body has become flexible: 'Flexibility is an object of desire for nearly everyone's personality, body and organisation' (Martin 1994: xvii). The body has become plastic, a lifestyle accessory, a thing to be sculpted, shaped and 'stylized' (Featherstone 1991a). It has been transformed from a biological fact into a 'project' (Giddens 991) and a 'performance' (Goffman 1971b). Contemporary culture is marked by a quest for physiognomical and physical regimes of embodi-ment that are based on the assumption that the surface and the interior of the body are amenable to reconstruction or re-incorporation. As Anthony Giddens (1991: 7-8) has argued: 'The reflexivity of self in conjunction with abstract systems pervasively affects the body [ . . . ] The body is less and less an extrinsic given functioning outside the intern-ally referential systems of modernity, but becomes itself reflexively mobilised.' These claims, which transform our ideas about the body from obdur-ate matter to flexible performance, have powerful empirical points of reference in popular culture and new technologies. The organ transplant trade raises questions not only about the ownership of the body but also about its boundaries (Elshtian and Cloyd 1995). The notion that nature constitutes an absolute limitation is an idea in
Mexico Peso Crisis
RUNNING HE?D: Mexico Peso Crisis Mexico Peso Crisis [Name of institution] [Name of writer] Mexico Peso Crisis Introduction Nora Lustig, in her article 'The Mexican Peso Crisis: the Foreseeable and the Surprise' has discussed the Mexican crisis of 1994 that raised several queries throughout the world regarding the credibility and worth of reforms implemented not only in Latin America but also in different other parts of the world. Lustig has presented an in-depth analysis of the causes due to which this crisis evolved. Throughout the article she has mainly focused on highlighting main causes of the Mexican peso crisis. Before discussing the causes of the 1994 Mexican crisis, Lustig has developed a background portraying the events of crisis. According to her, the Mexican peso crisis created an air of bewilderment for analysts and investors as most of them were taken by surprise. The economists felt that the peso was trading beyond its real value and, therefore, impeding growth of Mexican economy. The economists opined that this overvaluation could ultimately lead to a speculative attack during a time when Bank of Mexico was maintaining low level of international reserves. The solution offered by some of the economists was that government should try to negotiate devaluation with the labor and business leaders for ensuring that wages as well as prices would be
Did Max Beckmann's experiences of war contribute to his success as a painter?
INTRODUCTION I had heard of Max Beckmann's reputation as one of the most formidable post-war artists of the 20th century. In August 2003 I travelled to New York to see an extremely rare exhibition of a large number of his works, the most notable of which were seven of the nine triptychs that he completed during his lifetime. Although I was already interested in Beckmann I was not prepared for the profound effect his paintings had on me. I had never realised that is was possible to accurately and successfully portray on canvas the extreme torment and pain that an individual may experience, yet it seemed to me that, in some of his works, Beckmann expressed this to perfection. At the outbreak of World War I Beckman enlisted and was trained as a medical orderly. Shortly thereafter he was sent to the East Prussian front where his experience of death and destruction caused him to have a mental breakdown. After being demobilised he was, for a period, associated with a short-lived movement called New Objectivity, which concentrated on the literal portrayal of the brutal discord that followed World War I. Recovery and a desire to put the past behind him caused Beckmann to break away from New Objectivity and gave him the opportunity pursue his art in a more generic direction which gave rise to great material success and access to life in 'high society'. This all changed again
Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier Tracy Chevalier is unusual in having taken a specific painting and created a construction round it. How does she build a convincing impression of the characters and their circumstances in this unusual household on Papists Corner in Delft between 1664-1676? Tracy Chevalier is unusual at having taken a painting, a Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and assembled her story around it. Tracy Chevalier's construction is about a young girl, Griet. Who has to become a maid, due to her family's circumstances, to the painter Johannes Vermeer. Part of her job is to clean the painter's studio without moving anything, as she has been doing for her blind father. But she finds herself falling in love with Vermeer while being courted by the butcher's son, Pieter. Her hard life as a maid then comes to an end when she is painted, by her master for an art tradesman, van Ruijven. In an interview in 2001 Chevalier said, 'I have always loved this painting, I was attracted to the ambiguity of expression.' She uses this ambiguity to create a convincing but unusual novel based on an unusual painting. The attraction of this ambiguity to the novelist is that she has a lot of freedom within which to write her story and to make it attractive to the 21st century reader. Tracy Chevalier uses the other Vermeer paintings and the limited biographical
"Girl With a Pearl Earring" - Tracy Chevalier
"Girl With a Pearl Earring" - Tracy Chevalier Tracy Chevalier is unusual in having taken a specific painting and created a construction around it. How does she build a convincing impression of the characters and their circumstances in this unusual household on Papists Corner in Delft between 1664 - 1676? The novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is based around Vermeer's painting of the same name. Griet is a young girl sent to be a maid when her father, a tile painter, is put out of work. The novel follows her for two years while she works at the house and when she returns to her place of work ten years later. The novel is written from her viewpoint. The novel is set in Delft in 1664.The setting of a novel is very important. If a novel is set in a real place and the details are not correct, then anyone who has been there will notice the faults and the read will not be as satisfying as it might be. A lot of real places in Delft are mentioned in the novel such as the Oude LangenDjick, Molenport, Sciedam Gates, Rietveld Canal and Koe Gate. Chevalier does this mainly to give a realistic setting for the novel. She has evidently visited Delft to be able to give such detail on the layout of the streets, and also she might have looked at maps of the town. The main meeting place in the town was the market place. The market gossip was the way most news got around Delft and was
On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around in it, work from the four sides and be literally `in' the painting
On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around in it, work from the four sides and be literally `in' the painting. -- Jackson Pollock, 1947. Pollock, Jackson (1912-56). American painter, the commanding figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement. He began to study painting in 1929 at the Art Students' League, New York, under the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. During the 1930s he worked in the manner of the Regionalists, being influenced also by the Mexican muralist painters (Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros) and by certain aspects of Surrealism. From 1938 to 1942 he worked for the Federal Art Project. By the mid 1940s he was painting in a completely abstract manner, and the `drip and splash' style for which he is best known emerged with some abruptness in 1947. Instead of using the traditional easel he affixed his canvas to the floor or the wall and poured and dripped his paint from a can; instead of using brushes he manipulated it with `sticks, trowels or knives' (to use his own words), sometimes obtaining a heavy impasto by an admixture of `sand, broken glass or other foreign matter'. This manner of Action painting had in common with Surrealist theories of automatism that it was supposed by artists and critics alike to result in a direct expression or revelation of the unconscious moods of the artist.
Since my first encounter with Kandinsky's art I was amazed by their complexity and always wondered about the creative and intellectual mind, which was responsible for them.
Abstract Since my first encounter with Kandinsky's art I was amazed by their complexity and always wondered about the creative and intellectual mind, which was responsible for them. The few books I managed to find on Kandinsky were extremely useful as they outlined his entire career and had a substantial amount of illustrations. There were also a number of websites available on the Internet, which contained critiques from other art historians, critics and fellow artists from around the world. But there is not a large number of his paintings available in Britain therefore could only experience his art at first hand on three occasions. If I were to attempt this coursework again I would perhaps try to widen my research by travelling outside of the U.K. and experiencing at first hand some of Kandinsky's more grand pieces, in order to fully feel their effects. Introduction Upon my first encounter with Kandinsky's painting, my eyes and indeed my mind were overcome with a sense of puzzlement, as it seemed impossible to decipher what lay beneath his passionate use of colour and distorted forms. Kandinsky hoped by freeing colour from its representational restrictions, it, like music could conjure up a series of emotions in the soul of viewer, reinforced by corresponding forms. Throughout this essay, I will follow Kandinsky's quest for a pure, abstract art and attempt to determine
Using explorative strategies to help understand the 'Coca-Cola Advert' lyrics and Picasso's Guernica.
Using explorative strategies to help understand the 'Coca-Cola Advert' lyrics and Picasso's Guernica. To me, the texts from the coke advert and from Guernica mean a great deal. As we read into them and, through drama, begin to find ways to understand them, we can discover many serious morals and lessons to be learnt. These cover powerful and highly important issues such as the future of humanity, the essence of hope and optimism inbred into each of us, and the manifestation of evil in the world. In Guernica, Picasso embraces universal truths. It confronts us with the bitter facts of what has been happening in Iraq while at the same time documents what happened at Guernica. Picasso had told the truth about Guernica but with a slant. Because he hadn't totally immersed himself in Historical time, he had spoken across the boundaries of all time with a message that rings true now, then, and sadly, in the future. For me, Guernica is a vivid reflection of the violence imposed on the town. But beyond that, I believe it represents a loud warning against the disasters caused by war and man's destruction. So much of the artist's feelings and emotions are evident in the painting: the way it is presented, segments seemingly 'flung' together in an incoherent confused horror and panic. This demonstrates the distortion of Picasso's outlook on the scene. Hitler's assault on
Picasso's Guernica
Contents Introduction Section 1 : History of the Spanish Civil war Section 2 : Why Picasso painted Guernica and how he painted it Section 3 : Contemporary feelings to Guernica Conclusion Illustrations Bibliography Introduction Picasso's Guernica is one of the most powerful and disturbing anti-war paintings ever produced. I have always admired Picasso's works and wanted to write a dissertation on some aspects of his work. I first saw his Guernica as a poster in my History of Art room. I was fascinated by it and wanted to find out more about its background. I then went to Madrid and saw this vast painting in the Rene Sofia Museum. Its scale and disruptiveness intrigued me to study this painting in depth. I will look at a short background to the Spanish Civil War and why it happened and how it destroyed the Basque town Guernica and everyone living in it. Then I will look at and study Picasso's reaction to the bombing and how his famous anti-war painting came about. Then I will look at the contemporary reactions to Guernica and how it still affects people alive today. Section 1: The Spanish Civil War This is the background, the context, which informed Picasso, a Catalan in voluntary exile in Paris, and led to the painting of Guernica, which will be discussed in the following sections. Between 1936 and 1939 over 500,000 people were killed in the Spanish Civil War.
William Powell-Frith - Derby Day (1852).
William Powell-Frith: Derby Day Sarah Naomi Lewisohn Centre number: 10148 Candidate number: List of Illustrations . William Powell-Frith 2. William Powell-Frith Derby Day 1852 Oil on canvas Tate Britain, London 3. William Powell-Frith Derby Day 1852 (Detail: Child Acrobat Looking at Footman laying Out Food) Oil on canvas Tate Britain, London 4. William Powell-Frith Derby Day 1852 (Detail: Thimble Rigging) Oil on canvas Tate Britain, London 5. William Powell-Frith Derby Day 1852 Oil on canvas Tate Britain, London 6. William Powell-Frith Derby Day 1852 (Detail: Young City Gent) Oil on canvas Tate Britain, London 7. William Powell-Frith Derby Day 1852 (Detail: Woman Sitting in Carriage with Fortune Teller) Oil on Canvas Tate Britain, London 8. William Powell-Frith Derby day 1852 (Detail: Flower Seller) Oil on canvas Tate Britain, London 9. John Leech Punch Introduction The morally and socially degrading activity of gambling was most likely to be William Powell Frith's (Ill. 1) main motivation for painting Derby Day (1858). (Ill. 2). In Victorian Britain, gambling was regarded as an activity that financially and morally ruined the person to participate. Jacob Bell (1819-1859), a socialite and a pharmaceutical chemist, commissioned the painting. Even before Frith started the painting, the copyright for the engraving was