Identity 2: Real & Beauty

Today, we talked about the difference between real and fake.  What is real?  I found a few definitions about real and fake. Real is the quality or fact of representing a person, thing, or situation accurately or in a way that is true to life. What is fake? Fake describes or implies that something is not real or that it is false. Real diamonds and fake diamonds are a good example for real and fake.  Real diamonds are found in mines and are rated on the Mohs Scale of Hardness. Fake diamonds are man-made. They are typically synthetics, glass and cubic zirconia and can come in a variety of colors. Real diamonds are greater in value than are fake diamonds.

We will be talking about beauty on Wednesday. What is beauty? I looked up a few definitions about beauty. Beauty is the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. "Ideal beauty" is the good example for beauty. It means an entity which is admired, or possesses features widely appreciated. For example, the painting below by Jacob Jordeans, is admired by many people and artists for its flowing lines, voluptuous female bodies, ability to engage the senses, and raw power. 

Identity 1

Today, Mr. Zucman talked about Identity. Identity is about who we are or think we are.  He showed many pictures of painters, photographers, sculptors, poets, artists, etc.  As I viewed the many pictures, I thought about each of them and how they defined each artist.
For example, Gary Locke was not an artist. He was the first Chinese-American governor in US history.  I was so affected when I saw what he wrote: "It took our family one-hundred years to travel that mile —
it was a voyage we could only make in America."  I was so moved by his gratitude. Another example is Lela Lee, an American actress and cartoonist. She is known for her "Angry Little Asian Girl" cartoons. When I saw her artwork, I thought she wanted to show us a little kid for who is angry at life and is trying to express her negative feelings in a humorous way.

I thought that self-identity is a kind of art form where the artists can express who they are and how they feel in a creative and acceptable way. Identity can be very creative. This art form is becoming quite socially acceptable.

My 4th drawing picture

Hi everyone, this is my 4th drawing picture that I want to share with all of you.

My 3rd drawing

              Hi everyone, this is my third drawing that I want to share with all of you. I drew this picture when I was 10 years old.  When I was young, I liked drawing cartoon pictures from the story. I drew many pictures when I was around 15 or 16 years old.

My 2nd drawing: Doraemon

Hi, this is my second drawing that I want to share with all of you. This is Doraemon. Doraemon is my second favorite cartoon characters. Does anyone know about Doraemon?
Doraemon (ドラえもん^?)^[3] is a Japanese manga series created by Fujiko F. Fujio (the pen name of Hiroshi Fujimoto) which later became an anime series and an Asian franchise. The series is about an earless robotic cat named Doraemon, who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a schoolboy, Nobita. Doraemon is a famous cartoon character in South East Asia and East Asia.

My 1st drawing: Care Bears

Hi, I drew many cartoon characters. This is my first one that I want to share with all of you. Care Bears is my favorite cartoon character. Anyone like Care Bears?

Thousand-Hand Guan Yin

As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart A thousand hands will naturally come to your aid As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart You will reach out with a thousand hands to help others .Guan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion, revered by Buddhists as the Godde

Venice Art Wall Project

    On February 6, 2011, Sunday, I went to the Venice Art Wall.  I decided to bring three colors of paint. When I went there, I saw many ideas of graffiti art on the wall. It was interesting to look at the many beautiful graffiti writings at Venice Beach.  I immediately thought the word "peace," and then I wrote it on the wall.  I have always wanted the world is peaceful.  I hope that we don't have a war in the future.  We want to live peacefully.  Another word I wrote on the wall was CAO.  CAO is my last name. I want to let people know about my last name. After I finished, I liked what I had done. It was interesting.

     Graffiti was difficult, but it was fun.  I could draw and write anything on the wall. At the first, I didn't recognize that graffiti was.  After I watched the "Bomb It" documentary and then went to the Venice Beach of Art Wall to look at other people's work, I recognized that graffiti was the type of art.  I thought that all of these people were artists because they drew many beautiful pictures'. 

       After I visited to the Venice Beach, I thought the Venice Beach of Art Wall was a good place where people could come and use the opportunity to do graffiti on the wall instead of on the public wall. Graffiti is illegal when you do it on public walls.

       This experience was wonderful!  I hope that I will have an opportunity to come back here. Venice Beach was a beautiful beach which I never seen before. If I have an opportunity to return to Venice Beach again, I will bring more colors of paint. I will draw a beautiful picture to express myself on the wall.

Norton Simon Museum

On February 5, 2011, Saturday, I went to the Norton Simon museum for the paper. The museum was incredibly packed with students on tours. As I walked in to the 14^th-20^th century section of the museum, two paintings caught my attention right away. The first painting is called “The Artist’s Garden at Vetheuil” by a French artist, Claude Monet (1840-1926). The second painting is called “Farmhouse and Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan” by another French artist, Paul Cezanne (1839-1906). Interestingly, these two paintings were placed right next to each other, so there was an obvious contrast in colors, as well as in compositions between these two paintings.

“The Artist’s Garden at Vetheuil” by Claude Monet (1840-1926) was an oil painting on canvas. This magnificent painting was completed after the artist was recovering from a series of terrible things that had happened to his personal life. The painting was extremely realistic. It caught my attention right away. When I was looking at this painting, I felt like I was actually walking into the garden. The composition was so carefully thought out and placed right in the center of the canvas. The painting, in my opinion was full of enthusiasm. The palette that the artist used for this painting was very colorful and full of life, which was what the painting needed. Broad strokes of blues, violets, creams and whites portrayed the large areas of sky, house and garden path. In addition to that, with the energetic dapples of greens, yellows and reds really helped to define the magnificence of the garden as well as the sunflowers in full bloom. I think the artist Claude Monet did an amazing job with this painting as well as bringing this painting into life.

The second painting is called “Farmhouse and Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan” by a French artist called Paul Cezanne (1839-1906). This incredible piece was done in one year (1884-1885) and it was oil on canvas. The house depicted in this painting was a country estate in the south of France owned by the artist’s father and it plays as an important subject matter for the artist’s paintings in the 1870s and 1880s. In this painting, if you look closely, you can see the underlying pencil sketch is still visible. This piece is more of an impressionism piece. The artist employed quick strokes of paint to portray the foliage of the farmhouse and its garden. This painting was a lot more simplified than the other painting by Monet, because the simple geometric shapes that the artist used in this painting such as the sturdy rectangles of the building or the flattened cylinders of the trunks of the trees. In addition to that, the palette also was not as colorful and enthusiastic as the other painting. The composition of this painting was a bit strange to me as the chestnut trees were the main focus of the painting and the house itself was more far back.

It was a great experience for me to be able to see these two amazing painting up close in person. The contrasts of these two paintings were very obvious as one was more colorful than the other, but they still looked incredible individually. Each has its own uniqueness in the use of colors as well as in composition.

Lecture 3.2: Chartres Cathedral and video of Jackson Pollock

  

Today, Mr. Zucman showed me many pictures of historical art and discussed how art changed throughout the many centuries.  At first, he showed me a picture of Australopithecus. Australopithecus was a water worn stone. It was dated back more than 3 million years ago. The water worn stone came from 20 miles away in South Africa. When I saw it, I thought how that water worn stone resembled a human face from 3 million years ago. I thought that the water worn stone was a historical art of 3 million years ago. This was the first water worn stone that resembled a human face that I had ever seen before.

Secondly, I also looked at many diffferent artists and their works from the 11th through 20th centuries.  I began to understand how art is connected from the past to the present. It was interesting when I saw the beautiful Chartres Cathedral. I think Chartres Cathedral is special from a historical viewpoint. The artists created many beautitful stained glass windows. This is a beautiful Cathedral! I had never seen anything like it before. Today artists create beautiful jewelry fashioned after the gothic designs of early gothic style cathedrals.

Lastly, he showed me a video about Jackson Pollock. When I saw this video, I didn't understand why Pollock used dripping paint in a painting instead of drawing lines on a paper. I think dripping paint was his own style of art. I think dripping paint is a type of art that can express emotion. I feel Pollock's type of art looks like graffiti writing. Graffiti writing is a type of art where you can express yourself while drawing and writing on a wall. When I saw all of this, I thought these pieces were representative of creative art. I thought they created all of this not only by using their hands, but also their feelings and passions .