Fine Art Critique

Bernard Boutet de Monvel "Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore in Western Dress" 1929

During our field trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario I had the opportunity to visit the Maharaja Exhibit.  When walking through the Maharaja exhibit, a lot of artwork caught my eye. Yet, the one that stood out the most was the painting above: Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore in Western Dress by Bernard Boutet de Monvel.  My initial reaction was how real the painting looked, I thought it was a photograph! I also noticed how sophisticated the artwork looked. I believe that the portrait is showing the luxury during that time period. You can notice the man's pose, which demonstrates elegance. His outfit looks extremely sophisticated as well as the furniture in the household. 

The label mentioned that the painting was portraying the increase of European influence towards the Indian. One of the major influences was luxury, which is very well displayed in this portrait. Looking at this painting you can immediately say its portraying luxury.  Knowing the history behind the portrait you begin to see more things from the painting, such as the man and his body language demonstrating superiority and the expensive furniture.

While looking at this painting I noticed that it does not have much COLOR. Most of the portrait was painted in BLACK or WHITE, which according to Schirrmacher and Fox (2009) that would be called neutral! “NEUTRAL refers to pigments that do not have a particular color. Black and white are considered neutrals” (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 137). I also noticed how clean the painting looks and the artists' use of lines when drawing the outfit of the man as well as the furniture. According to Schirrmacher and Fox (2009), a line "is a visible mark made by an artistic tool, artists produce lines to represent edges" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 135). 

When reading about the artist, Bernard Boutet de Monvel was a French artist who was known creating portraits of pale colors and his use of lines, which shows in this portrait. 


I really enjoyed going to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I saw amazing artwork and learned a lot about the history behind them! For my future teachings, I would definitely consider bringing my class to an art gallery to hear their thoughts towards a painting. This could benefit children in many ways. They can express their thoughts towards the painting, enhancing communication or see if they can identify the emotion of the painting, which also helps us as teachers to see their emotional intelligence. Also the fact that children can get a historical background of the painting and simply learning about art in general. 

My trip to the AGO. 

Reference:

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children (6^th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar. 

Instant Sculpture

 For my instant sculpture using household items, I decided to use aluminum foil! At first I wasn't too sure on what I could do with aluminum foil, until I came up with the idea of making a face mask! I began by placing the aluminum foil over my face and really making sure the nose, eyes, and mouth were molded onto the aluminum foil. I also decided to create little people out of aluminum foil to really show the artistic elements. When using the foil, I noticed a few artistic elements such as shape and texture. 
The texture of the foil is what really gives the mask and the tin men its shape. The rough texture that the aluminum foil contains makes it simple for the image to really stand out. To demonstrate the simplicity of molding things using aluminum foil, I decided to make people. As mentioned, the rough texture allowed for the shape to come out faster. In addition to texture, another artistic element is balance. Even though it may not seem like this face mask contains balance. According to Schirrmacher and Fox (2009), there are two types: Symmetrical and Asymmetrical. Symmetrical being equally balance and asymmetrical being objects that are not equally balanced (p.144). To me, this face mask seems to be symmetrical since the nose and the eyes are equally balanced. 
In relation to the aluminum tin men, the artistic element found in this sculpture is a line. The lines of the foil have the arms, legs and body of the tin men to really stick out and forming the overall shape. 

Having done this assignment made me realize that anything or maybe even everything out there has some sort of artistic element. In this case, something as simple as aluminum foil and face masks! Also, the use of open-ended materials allowed me to create anything  I wanted and therefore it can be give to children as well. Children can use open-ended materials to explore and create whatever they are feeling, therefore for my future teachings, open-ended materials will most certainly will be included in my creative arts center. I wonder what children will create with aluminum foil? 

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children (6^th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar. 

My Creative Inspiration!

What is Creativity?

Creativity is a word that you can’t really find an exact definition for.  In my view, everyone is creative in their own way. Whether it’s through painting, photography, dancing, or even baking! Baking may not seem something that you can be creative with since a cake is a cake and cupcakes are cupcakes they all look the same. But what if you were to go extreme and change the shape and size of the cake!  For example, Chef Buddy Valastro creating a fire station with just edible ingredients, now that’s creative!

http://www.carlosbakery.com/

http://www.carlosbakery.com/

Anecdote! 

When I was younger, my sisters and I always enjoyed playing with our dolls after school.  We wouldn’t ever play with one of those real dollhouses instead we would just pretend. Until one day we came up with the idea of using legos and whatever was around us to make this extreme dollhouse for our dolls. We used legos to build the shape and walls of the house and used paper towels as blankets and cotton balls as pillows! As we played, each day we would add new things we would find around the house that we felt could be used in our “mansion”.  We would glue tissue paper on the walls so that the walls would look nice and painted. Our bathtub was the bottom of a big bottle of water that was simply cut and painted blue in the inside! The dollhouse consisted of pretty much recyclable items that were used at refrigerators, blankets, rugs etc.  My sisters and I got into building this house that we then wanted to build one for ourselves! Instead of paper towels and cotton balls, we used big blankets that we would place over a tall pole and underneath the blanket we would place chairs as dividers for rooms. Simply being creative with the materials that were surrounding us and using them to building our very own fort! 

Anyone can be creative! Grabbing something so simple as a rubber band and making it the shape of an animal has become something so big! Being creative, in my opinion, is expressing yourself in what you're passionate for. Creating something different by simply trying new things and problem solving your way through. It can be the way you structure an essay, or write a poem. You can even be creative through sports! In many sports you come up with a creative plays (that the opposing team doesn’t know of) to have your team win the game!