POISON

Contextual studies Assessment task III: MAJOR ESSAY

1. Choose one work by each of two modern artists. Describe each work and explain why they are modern. Discuss the content of the images and how they are made.

In 1937  Picasso painted one of his arguably most famous paintings ‘Guernica’ The painting was in fact Ironically the centerpiece for the Spanish pavilion of the worlds fair in Paris.  The theme of the Paris exposition was the celebration of modern technology. Although this seems to show the horrors of modern technology rather than any real benefits.

The painting is based on the events of April 27, 1937, When the German air force in support of the Fascist forces  carried out a bombing raid on the Basque village Guernica in Northern Spain, The village was bombed constantly for three hours, Women and children were cut down as they fled crumbling buildings . The town burned for three days leaving a total of sixteen hundred civilians killed or wounded.

Guernica depicts suffering people, animals, and buildings wrenched by violence and chaos of war, the relevance of the piece is still even relevant today with places such as Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and for me it shows the barbaric nature of suffering that happens from any war. The overall message is Timeless as we only see a few people and no airplanes or bombs. The viewer must interpret much of the painting as it is not a realistic expression but instead is a form of cubism being that  the painting is not a gruesome painting of realism, It forces the viewer to think about the meaning instead.

Picasso is one of the most famous artist to have ever lived his work is timeless throughout his career and shows a path from personal matters with his earlier paintings which show his love and infatuation with different women to deep and personal world matters such as what the Guernica shows. His work will always be relevant and modern and will continue to inspire and influence new and upcoming artist always.

 

Here is one of Rene Magritte’s most profound and one of his most well known pieces ‘The Son of Man’. Magritte intentionally painted it as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in a suit and a hat standing in front of a small wall, beyond this is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man's face is pretty much totally obscured by a hovering green apple. it could be seen as obvious that it is the apple which is of debate here and there have been many explanations for the apple and what it represents, some have said the apple obscuring the face is simply just to show a loss of identity, others have come up with more complicated reasons such as the name of the piece is the son of man which can be said son of Adam, which corresponds to the creation story meaning the apple is there in front of his face as a representative of temptation as the apple was the temptation in the story showing even in the modern world there is still risk of temptation and it being the modern world because of what he is wearing and what he is, a business man.

I choose this piece because I myself have been inspired by it mainly for its sheer daring simplicity and minimalism of what it is. At first one perceives it as not very much but then looking at it in such detail shows the sheer scale of the unknown of this piece which is fascinating. its amazing how Magritte always seems to do this by using such simple and weird scenes but the meaning is too be unknown and the tittles makes you really think about the meaning. Of course they mainly mean different things to different people but this is always an essence which is good in art or photography, When many people have such different outlooks on a piece it must be a truly amazing experience being the artist and your work causing so much debate.

The mood and atmosphere of this piece unlike many of Magritte’s other work as it doesn’t feel as dark but more uplifting compared to the others anyway, which shows verity of the pieces to create different moods and personal atmospheres.

Both pieces and works by the two different modern artists who have created historical pieces of art which remain as a statue of the there time of great ‘modern’ work of there time both depict turning points in the history of art. They are recognizable to even people not in the field of art yet are still known by them. Even essence’s of there ideas and work still feed into modern day art and also patterns and ideas in fashion. Without these key Artists art today could have been very different this is why I picked these two artists who are not just modern artist but key artists in how there ideas fed others around there time and inspire the children of tomorrow.