Progress on the Research I

As I’ve talk to the supervisor about my research, let me show you the research that I’ve found. This would be the development from the Egyptian research that I’ve done earlier. As the team progress through, I focused on the murals in Singapore context. This is just the first part of my foundings.

First would be the murals found in Thai Buddhist temples in Singapore. From what I’ve found, there are more than six Thai Buddhist temples in Singapore. The two that were known to have mural paintings in the temples would be the Wat Ananda Metyarama and Wat Palelai. In both temples, the murals depict scenes of life of Buddha.

Wat Ananda Metyarama

Wat Palelai

All the paintings were done by commissioned artists from Thailand. The painting and craving done in Wat Palelai was done by Thai artist Khun Teerayoot Daocharat.

http://subwaydharma.blogspot.com/2009/04/wall-murals-in-thai-buddhist-temples-in.html

Continues on Progress on the Research II (as I don’t want to get my research mixed up)…

Siti.

Research on the development of ‘Colour Theory’ from earlier forms

The existence of colours or rather pigments were initially found by the Euro-Africans (Palaeolithic Culture). During the ‘Old Stone Age’ (30,000-10,000 B/C), they implied a technique called finger painting on mud and rock cave walls. Furthermore, these primitive people actually uses native pigments with a mixed of animal’s fat to form colour such as brown, yellow, red clay (fine soil) and charcoal soot. Till now, their communicative work can still be seen in ‘Lascaux’ area (underground caves) of France and Altamira Spain.

Later in 4000 B/C, the Egyptian’s had their first paint on bas-relief (flat sculpture) murals of plasters in gum water/lime water. And since the ordinary people lived mud and clay houses, the external architectural were whitewashed with lime paint, inorganic pigments like blue and green copper sediment(found on rocks) up to yellow and red earth(tropical soil).

In 1200, Theophilus Presbyter, the monk of Paderborn, ‘Westphalia’ (north-eastern Germany) made a new experiment on oil. Through his painting, the colours were extensively taken from eggs or casein, cherry or fig (sweet-tasting fruit).  In order to achieve the hue, he actually mixes them up into one specific element.  So eventually, the main object will be shaded and formed with oil glaze (coat oil painting). The technique on a shiny surface is called “pictura translucita”.

In 1500, Da Vinci came out with an artistic work using paint. He technically works with both, nut oil and rock oil (local crude oil).  Unfortunately, this was seemed to be the biggest mistake made by him. In specific, it directly showed where the colours begin to fade over the years.

1872 – 1934, the French begun to separate colours between primary (red, yellow and blue) and secondary such as black, white and grey.

1995 – Daniel Smith (illustrator and graphic artist) printed a nice color square using the “LAB” colour chart.  This has the opposition colors, Yellow and Blue, on the top and bottom. Magenta and Green are at the sides. A plus and minus number system relates the square with these colors as the primaries, since White and Black are at the poles, this system is for the photo and printing industries.

2003 – NOW, (The period of ‘High Art’)

The color change for current artist. Pure Yellow darkens through Brown Burnt Umber for the warm side and Raw Green Umber for the green side. Yellow darkens with either Phthalo Green’s center dark color or Cadmium Red’s dark color. Twelve colors of a thirty-six color wheel have yellow in them, all of them have been compensated for in the Real Color Wheel, in pigment and light. Cyan has also been corrected to match pigments, it darkens to Ultramarine Blue, like the sky.

-  Taufiq Muzzammil

http://www.realcolorwheel.com/1artists.htm

http://www.artofdanielsmith.com/about_daniel_smith.htm

http://bseifartassoc.com/Webpage%20files/HL-Lab-chart.jpg

http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Leonardo.html

Egyptian Murals

I’m not so sure on how should I place in the research inside. But I’ll place it in informally in my own words.

Initially went I started out looking through the murals, the sites usually talked about Egyptian god and goddess. However, as I progress through I realised that there is more to than just about gods.

But first of all, I want to make sure that I understand something. From Wikipedia, the term Mural refers to the “any piece of artwork painted directly on a wall, ceiling, or other large permanent surface”. [1] It’s similar to what I found, where Mural means wall in French. [2]

At the beginning, I started researching for Egyptian murals. Below here is a photo of a group of guards (or bowmen) carrying a chair where Djehutyhotep was sitting. Djehutyhotep was the ruling governor during the 12th dynasty of Amenemhet II. [3]

Now, when it comes to gods and goddesses, they were very particular about it. They believed that the gods and goddesses “controlled the forces of nature and all things”. They believed that gods and goddesses have similarities with humans. That they have wants and needs too. [4]

Not forgetting, Egyptians painted their murals in bright colours to represent the different meanings. For example, the colour RED which is used to represent victory and life, as well as associating with their god Isis and her blood. [5] In this part of the research, I realised that colours play an important role to differentiate the level of importance, not only among the gods and goddesses, but also the kings, queens, and their helpers (i.e. guards, civiliants, servants, etc.). It also shows the different characteristics that the different gods and kings and queens were.

As I have mentioned earlier, there were more than just about gods and goddesses. The Egyptians too shared their stories about their civilisation. It’s not really much about the kings and queens, however it’s more to the locals. It is pausible that they were one of the early starters, in that era, when it comes to creating a living, which means working. During the ancient times, the locals had to go through hardship to survive. It may sound desprate, but it’s not. There are a lot of similarities between the past and the modern world. Only difference is that there were no such things as technologies and the internet. It’s probably the reason why the past moved too slow and now it’s too fast. If things were to be as fast as today, the first thing that would probably go into their minds would be MAGIC. [6][7]

Jewellers at work

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural
[2] http://edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_42_171.html
[3] http://wysinger.homestead.com/tombpaintings.html
[4] http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/theme/egypt04.htm
[5] http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/artisans/painting.htm
[6] http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/egypt/life/trade/index.shtml
[7] http://starr.pausd.org/~lgoldman/mmart/Monika/Egyptian.html

Siti.

Cave Painting

The first cave paintings were found in 1870 in Altimira, Spain by Don Marcelino and his daughter. They were painted by the Magdalenian people between 16,000-9,000 BC. This would have been 11,000-19,000 years ago. These paintings at Altimira are mainly of the bison. Many of the bison are drawn and then painted using the boulders for the animal’s shoulders. This made them look three-dimensional. These paintings are sometimes called “The Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art”.

Prehistoric people would have used natural objects to paint the walls of the caves. To etch into the rock, they could have used sharp tools or a spear. The paint or color that they probably used was from berries, clay, soot, or charcoal. The tools used to apply the paint could have been made by attaching straw, leaves, moss, or hair to sticks. They might have used hollow bones or reeds to spray the color on, similar to an airbrush technique.

In short Cave painting is

• by and large Animals
• Rarely humans/human hands
• for communication/religious/ceremonical/hunting/magical purposes¹
• paintings can be destroyed by large people emitting carbon dioxide

¹Not authoritative enough as conclusions are dependent upon implication or theories.

Source

http://www.donsmaps.com/cavepaintings.html

http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/documents/1137_01.pdf

Next time: Rock art/painting

belated and Regards,
Sam

Renaissance

Peace

I don’t know how I should post my research; so perhaps an informal one will do.

Ok, as you all Renaissance period lasted between the 14^th and 16^th century, marking the end of the Middle Ages and during that era, there were several movements or developments in several aspects e.g. art, humanism, science and etc.

According to Wikipedia.com“one of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear perspective” and Giotto di Bondone “is credited with first treating a painting as a window into space”. Another resource credits him for his work, stating “his paintings show real emotion”. In fact in the same resource, an article from http://www.mrdowling.com/704-art.html, explains that Renaissance art has more realism than its predecessor, which is the art of the Middle Ages, due to the studies made by Renaissance artists themselves. An example of one of the studies includes perspective, in a nutshell the depth in the painting e.g. the differences in the way objects look when they are either close to something or far away. Others may be included as the development of other (artistic) techniques, studying of light and shadow and perhaps human anatomy for the case of Leonardo da Vinci.

To study how the Renaissance paintings were influenced or what drove the artists to produce these fine artworks, it is essential enough if some of the works of the artists are studied so as to understand what drove them into creating such paintings. Yet upon reading an article Renaissance and a Humanist Approach to Fine Arts: The Shift towards Human-centered Focus in Architecture and Paintingby Arash Farzaneh in suite101.com (where the authors/writers do have specializations), it could have been said that Renaissance artists moved into providing paintings (or any other forms of art especially in sculpting) with naturalistic details so as to make these works more defined and realistic, which was opposed to the “otherworldly point of view” of the Middle Ages; the era (Middle Ages) which regarded religious symbolism and spiritual aspects as “the predominant force and inspiration of medieval painting and art” while seeing natural accuracy as irrelevant.

Leonardo da Vinci’s study of human anatomy is possibly one of the best examples where the artist studied the structure of a human body (and possibly movements) through the evidences we have today –sketches and drawings of such. During the exhibition of his artworks in the Singapore Science Centre during August 2009, it is revealed that (most likely) the purpose of painting Mona Lisa was to create a “perfect artwork” or “perfect drawing”. Hence that is a fine example in which Renaissance artists attempted to give “life” into their artworks.

Below are basically the techniques used during that time;

• The use of perspective
  • Ever since the work of painting as a window into space of Giotto di Bondone, developments seemed to have stemmed from such work that true linear perspective was “formalized latter” by Leon Battista Alberti and Filippo Brunelleschi. It is perhaps due to the study of perspective do we have e.g. one, two and three-point perspective today
• Foreshortening
  • It can be agreed that it is “the artistic effect of shortening lines in a drawing so as to create an illusion of depth”. Descriptively, it is to produce a three-dimensional effect on the basis of the laws of perspective by making the object appear shorter than it actually is
• Sfumato
  • Gradual blending of one area of colour into another without a sharp outline
  • Below is basically a brief description of sfumato from http://www.reviewpainting.com/sfumato.htm;
    • Sfumato is a term coined by Leonardo da Vinci to refer to a painting technique which overlays translucent layers of color to create perceptions of depth, volume and form. In particular, it refers to the blending of colors or tones, so subtly that there is no perceptible transition
    • In Italian sfumato means “blended” with connotations of “smoky” and is derived from the Italian word fumo meaning ‘smoke’. Leonardo described sfumato as ‘without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke’.
• Chiaroscuro
  • Simply described by Encarta Dictionary as, “the use of light and shade in paintings and drawings, or the effect produced by this”
  • While Sfumato is assumed to have used to create or emphasise on the depth, form and volume, Chiaroscuro however refers to “the fine art painting modeling effect of using a strong contrast between light and dark to give the illusion of depth or three-dimensionality”
• Balance and Proportion
•             It is described as “proper sizes and the use of airy, bright colors”. During that time when this technique was used, the human anatomy was said not to be as idealized or perfect during the ancient times

That’s all folks!

Izuddin (Just a stranger; just a wanderer)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance#Art
http://www.mrdowling.com/704-art.html
http://weuropeanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/renassiancebeginnings
http://weuropeanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/renaissance_and_a_humanist_approach_to_fine_arts
Encarta Dictionary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_painting
http://www.reviewpainting.com/sfumato.htm

Street Art

One of the first few questions in my mind was,” Whats the difference between graffiti and street art?”

It turns out that graffiti is more of a subculture with tradition and history, most importantly, signing out with your name. It is like creating a label that most would be able to recognise or define. It is usually more confusing if you are an outsider to the community, its not easily understandable.

Street art is what I would say another level up from graffiti, which includes stenciling and stickers. Easily relatable and people can understand.

Now, lets go to the brief history of it.

The resources say it originates from caveman drawings, it started more as a mode for communication, or expression, something more basic. These works can be found in Greece,  Africa and Europe, mostly.

Dating back from 1st century BC to 4th century AD,  the modern Syria, Jordan and Iraq had structures with graffiti. It went on more talking about religion, politics and science, which was can be offered in a variety of perspective in terms of lust, human and rival. It is like watching how a human mind evolved through the years.

Other civilisations like  the Mayans in Guatemala to the Vikings of Scandanavia used it to mark accomplishments and lifestyle for the world to see.

Modern day graffiti was influenced by the hip-hop culture from late 1960s to 1970s in US, different styles and brands came out.

There was a lot of choosing of names in New York, known as tags, soon people were competing with each other to fill up a wall. slowly, the trend moved to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome and Oslo. In New York, things got rough and many illegal activies occured.

Now, with stricter laws and effective cleaning methods, its under control. Many famous deceased personalities was shown and graffiti became an important part of pop art.

Check these links out, they are great!

Cheers,

Jo

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2009/07/i_heart_street_art_san_francis.php, http://weburbanist.com/2009/04/22/roots-and-history-of-modern-street-art-and-graffiti/, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/507055/graffiti_and_street_art_a_brief_history.html?cat=16