My Kid Could Paint That

Absinthe became popular in late 19th Century Paris, especially in bohemian artist circles. Colloquially called the "Green Fairy," absinthe became a symbol of social defiance and gained opposition from politicians and social conservatives. The alleged hallucinatory substance was eventually banned in many countries.

The sheer scale of Manet's The Absinthe Drinker forces viewers to see a mundane subject in a heroic pose at a size often reserved for portraits of royalty. The man, who is supposedly modeled after a man named Collardet, wears a dark cloak and top hat. Framed by an empty liquor bottle and a half-filled glass of absinthe, he seems to retreat into the shadows. The crumbling wall and dimly lit scene seems to hint at disorder, immorality, chaos, all of which lie in stark contrast to the period's fascination with order. This painting, with its muted and dusty colors, is the epitome of realism. It offers a glimpse of the disorder that balanced out the suffocating regulation and rote nature of factory life.

The flat, vibrant colors covering the canvas in On the Bank of the Seine at Bennecourt render it one of the first truly impressionistic landscapes. Monet's painting depicts a mundane scene on the Seine River, which became a popular subject of impressionist landscapes. In this painting, Monet makes the subject nearly irrelevant and indistinguishable. 

Turner's mid-career painting provides an excellent example of the artist's fixation on both natural and human phenomena. Many consider Turner the first artist to legitimize landscape painting as a serious genre. Turner creates a stunning landscape with the Bay of Baiae in the background, framed by gently rolling mountains. A pair of intricately detailed trees rise up dramatically in the foreground and draw attention away from the two figures in the bottom right corner. The rolling peaks of the mountains align with the dramatic shadowing. The shadows create a triangular shape leading the eye to the bay in the background.

This painting portrays a Roman myth in which Sibyl asks the Roman god Apollo to grant her a longer life. He promises to give her many years as the number of grains of sand she can hold in her hands. Unfortunately, Sibyl forgets to add any stipulation for eternal youth and quickly regrets her request for an extended life when her youth fades rapidly.

The colors used by Turner, along with the crumbling cityscape in the background, create the sense of decay and aging. The golden light cast over the entire scene evokes a sense of the impending sunset and nighttime. Turner's commentary on aging and decay comes as a response to the futile effort made by Romantic art to preserve and idolize political and cultural figures and ideals. Many political figures sought to immortalize themselves in stone and on canvas. These attempts to last forever often proved as ineffective and disastrous as Sibyl's deal with Apollo.

Beasts Bounding Through Time
By CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints

Hemingway testing his shotgun

Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine

the impossibility of being human

Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief

Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town

the impossibility of being human

Burroughs killing his wife with a gun

Mailer stabbing his

the impossibility of being human

Maupassant going mad in a rowboat

Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot

Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller

the impossibility

Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato

Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun

Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops

the impossibility

Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench

Chatterton drinking rat poison

Shakespeare a plagiarist

Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness

the impossibility the impossibility

Nietzsche gone totally mad

the impossibility of being human

all too human

this breathing

in and out

out and in

these punks

these cowards

these champions

these mad dogs of glory

moving this little bit of light toward us

impossibly. 

Editor's Note: Students were asked to pair a poem and painting with no explanation of the connection. 

By FRANCESCA MAURO

According to Greek mythology, King Minos attacked Athens periodically out of nothing more than boredom. The King of Athens proposed a deal to ward off attacks for a while. If King Minos would agree to cease his brutal attacks for nine year, Athens would send seven young boys and seven young girls to be fed to King Minos' Minotaur. 

Theseus, son of the King of Athens, implored his father to let him bring Minos' reign of terror to an end. He accompanied the 13 other unlucky youths chosen as Minotaur chow to Minos' island of Crete. Upon his arrival, Princess Ariadne, daughter of Minos, slipped Theseus a note. She offered to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur if he would bring her with him back to Athens. 

Ariadne gave Theseus a sword, for obvious reasons, and a ball of string to tie to the door and trace back to the exit. Theseus entered the labyrinth and heroically defeated the Minotaur. He began his return to Athens with Ariadne. When the group stopped at a small island en route, Ariadne fell asleep and Theseus promptly abandoned her on the island.

In this sculpture, Canova disregards the dramatic battle between Theseus and the Minotaur and instead focuses on the aftermath. The resulting position of both Theseus and the slain Minotaur invoke a sense of homoeroticism not as obvious in Canova's other works. Instead of being intent on defeating his opponent, Theseus reclines, and his torso forms a diagonal with that of the Minotaur. The two figures create a balance and a seemingly even distribution of visual weight.

Canova, who is often considered among the best sculptors in history, followed a simple rule for his work: "sketch with fire, execute with phlegm." Canova rigorously made and revised sketches and prototypes of his sculptures before making his first cut. He allowed assistants to make the rough form of his sculpture, then the artist himself carved the finishing touches.

By FRANCESCA MAURO

William Hogarth's satirical artwork criticizing the 18th century's societal and political flaws became a precursor to today's political cartoons. Magazines like The New Yorker take the same stance of wry humor that Hogarth used to critique social practices and events in his time.

Among Hogarth's most famous works is his six-painting series entitled Marriage à-la-mode. The chronological series follows a marriage based on economic gain rather than love. Hogarth illustrates the scandal and tragedy that can result from this skewed concept of matrimony.

A tête à tête is a private conversation or occurence between two people. However, this scene hardly seems private. The couple sits exposed, with a glowing light illuminating their debauchery in all its glory. Two figures detract from the privacy of this moment as well. On the left, the couple's accountant stands, bills in hand, behind a toppled chair with a face that portrays equal parts shock, disgust, and resignation. A startled butler stands further back, jaw-dropped.

The  saints and cupids hanging on the walls seem to look down judgmentally at the couple, and with good reason. The young woman, reclined on a chair with her bodice noticeably loosened, boasts a smug expression. She holds a mirror in her outstretched hand, perhaps signaling at her lover. Though this lover does not appear in the painting, his implied existence detracts from the intimacy of this "husband-wife" scene. The husband, meanwhile, also boasts several signs of infidelity. A large black syphilis patch on his neck contrasts with his pale skin. The young man also displays a slightly more insidious sign of debauchery dangling from his pocket. A small dog sniffs the woman's bonnet that the husband seems to have hastily stowed in his pocket to hide any evidence of his extramarital activities.

Hogarth's work is filled with snarky and subtle commentary on "modern marriage." He suggests that a marriage based on financial gain cannot lead to a pure, happy life. Alongside several portraits of saints, a mostly covered canvas displays a single nude foot. This suggestion of a distasteful nude portrait, added to the array of tacky figurines on the mantle, imply that the marriage as a whole may be in bad taste and doomed. Additionally, a broken sword in the bottom right corner suggests impotence. Hogarth's inclusion of hidden symbols and details helps his series of moral paintings to convey their purpose.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze's laundress glances up at us mischievously in the midst of this sultry scene of domesticity. She bends over a basin of water and washes linens. The background of The Laundress consists of dreary grey and brown tones. Everyday items such as a pitcher, baskets, and wooden cabinets mirror the sentiments of the Sensibility movement, which sought to challenge the Rococo portrayal of aristocratic life.

This painting illustrates an ordinary chore, laundry. However, the young, rosy-faced laundress assumes a cheeky pose. She presents a red-slippered foot, a scandalous act of exposure for her time. The muted tones of the laundress's clothes and background make the scarlet slipper, positioned in the bottom center of the canvas, a focal point. Our subject looks directly at the viewer, almost as if she has been interrupted in a private moment.

Although Greuze aims to portray daily life, he seems to glamorize the act of laundry with this Art History Hottie. The laundry room gets a bit more steamy with the addition of an oh-so-subtle ankle reveal and a charming glance.

David Hockney captures the fleeting nature of a splash in this vibrant painting.  The piece represents one of Hockney's signature painting subjects: water. Hockney, enamored by the the perpetual motion of water, centers a splash in the center of an eerily empty California home scene. Hockney studied the movement, transparency, and depiction of water almost obsessively.

As an artist, Hockney relished the preservation of a single moment, like a splash. Hockney once noted the satisfaction he found in spending weeks to preserve a split-second event. His observation of water's qualities played into Hockney's affinity for representation. Hockney's interest in the two-dimensional portray of three dimensions plays out in the water splashing up from the pool's surface.

In this piece, a splash emerges from the surface of the swimming pool, but the source of it cannot be seen. This creates a sense of mystery and an overall eerie tone as this residential scene appears inhabited yet empty. The person (or persons) that must be beneath the surface of the water add an element of intrigue that extends beyond the canvas.

The splash depicts a temporary disruption in the calm evoked by the rest of the painting. Its dynamic shape contrasts with the rigid lines and crisp colors the Hockney employs to depict the house. This California home's stark pool deck illustrates Hockney's view of America's wide open spaces in comparison to his life in London. As a gay man in an English society hostile to the notion of homosexuality, Hockney found solace in the more liberated culture of America in the 1960s.

By FRANCESCA MAURO

Jackson Pollock's most recognized paintings, the "poured paintings," feature deliberately thrown and dripped paint. However, Pollock, like many abstract expressionists, began with representational painting and evolved to works of complete abstraction. Stenographic Figure marks a milestone in Pollock's career. Made five years before Pollock began his "poured paintings," this piece strikes a balance between representational and abstract painting. 

The painting features two figures, though its title suggests just one. Both, while identifiable as humans, are highly distorted and drawn as stick figures. The calligraphic markings that overlay the painting are reminiscent of a stenographer's hurried yet intentional shorthand. The cryptic markings appear to be the forerunners to the choreographed splashes that covered Pollock's later canvasses. 

Pollock gravitated towards dark and somber tones throughout his career. However, Stenographic Figure, painted by Pollock in 1942, features an uncharacteristically bright palette. Many attribute this airiness to the beginning of Pollock's relationship with painter Lee Krasner and a newfound contentment with life. Additionally, this piece lacks the sense of chaos reflected in much of Pollock's work. Though the calligraphic marks clutter the surface, Stenographic Figure's relatively simple composition brings a heightened feeling of serenity in comparison to much of Pollock's other work.