My Kid Could Paint That

As an enthusiast of the nude, Egon Schiele isn't afraid to show us his valuables. By valuables, I mean what artistic styles he values the most...duh. Looking at auto-portrait dans des draps, I notice the smolder Schiele gives me as I gaze upon his distorted body and the clothes that barely dress him. I feel his unwavering confidence in the piercing stare that follows his clothes as they drape over his shoulder, bringing attention to the patterns. After being in a mentor-mentee relationship with artist Gustav Klimt, Schiele's artistic development was heavily based upon Klimt's influence. I see that influence make its way into the thin, circling lines that meekly cover the artist's modesty. 

With purity out the window, I'm left looking at an figural distortion of what's supposed to be a sexually suggestive stance. Even if it's a 2D painting, I feel uncomfortable, as if I'm intruding upon the artist's privacy. Things get even more personal as I make my way down the painting, where I really get to know the artist. Exposing his nudity and therefore vulnerability, I can see that Schiele defies conventional beauty norms. Not only does he accomplish this by baring all, but also in the way his stomach looks deformed.

There is a level of emotional and sexual directness in this self-portrait, and I don't know how to feel about it. I understand Schiele's desire to create revealing and unsettling images, but I still feel like it's one of those things that you know you should look away from, but you can't. Schiele may not be considered a conventional Art History Hottie, but I think with his unique style and sexy mustache, he should make the list.

Iconic. Eccentric. Symbolic. Mechanical. All words to describe the unique being that is Andy Warhol. His obsession with mass-produced consumer goods spurred from years as a commercial artist. He combined his experience with advertising and his love for art to create some of the most iconic pop-art paintings of the twentieth century. He had a devotion to exposing the values of society in a mechanical style. His focus on mass-produced culture became almost an obsession of his. 

32 Campbell Soup Cans is 32 individual canvases (20" x 16") lined in rows and columns. Each canvas depicts a different soup flavor, in order of the year it was produced. Warhol picked an item that's heavily manufactured and that most Americans recognize, so it's easily relatable to the viewer. The production process of this piece started with Warhol practicing the tracing of these soup cans. It's also different from most of Warhol's work because it is a combination of hand-painting work as well as stamped and printed parts. The mimicked repetition of the soup has a sort of mechanical style. The accuracy is visually pleasing which is why most people think of this specific piece when they think of Andy Warhol. After completion, Warhol discovered a new way to make his art. Transferring a photograph or picture from a source, typically a literary source, to a canvas or silkscreen is known as screen-printing. At first, the style was meant for commercial use because it was easy to mass produce, but it became an art form, and Warhol's signature process. 

With this new process, Warhol started to use the help of assistants to make his art. His reliance on others can be seen as lazy or genius. Personally, I think it takes away from Warhol's influence because you know that parts of the work weren't made by him. Knowing that an artist put his blood, sweat, and tears into a piece adds to the work's uniqueness. If others help with making a piece, I think it's important to recognize their dedication in addition to the main artist. 32 Campbell Soup Cans triggered the possibility of making works in a series. He would pick an object or a celebrity (he was obsessed with the glamour of Hollywood) and would slightly change and repeat the artwork. This piece sparked Warhol's recognition in the art world. It solidified his focus on manufactured culture and was the beginning to the pop-art culture he created.

Hans Hofmann's most famous work is an abstraction of vibrant colors and shapes that distorts the viewer's idea of dimension. His work takes bold gestures, and Hofmann often uses his past pieces to inspire and perfect his new ones. He says that "a strong picture constantly suggests new ideas; shows up the weakness of others." This idea of constant reconstruction suggests years of trial and error, and his development into a dedicated artist. He was devoted to  teaching and moved his life from Germany to the United States, where he taught at universities and studios. His students learned about Hofmann's opinion on the elasticity of art, and how you shouldn't strive to be known as a naturalist or an expressionist because concepts and techniques change. Instead, he said, simply be known for memorable artwork. 

Derive inspiration from nature. Don't be minimized by an objective. Work directly from life. Hofmann paints with feeling, and not with knowing. In The Golden Wall, he uses the simplicity of shapes to create a collage of emotion. He often expresses the beauty of joining color and structure, playing with dimension. There is a purity in his use of aesthetic elements like color, luminosity, composition, and balance. His theory of push and pull creates this illusion of space, depth, and movement with abstractly using color and shape. I appreciate his opinion on how art shouldn't be created from simply an objective, but rather be created from individual inspiration.

I like The Golden Wall, along with most of Hofmann's later abstract work, because of its challenge for the eye. As a viewer, I appreciate being able to recognize the shapes within the painting, but also have my own interpretation of the undefined strokes of the orange and red. I don't feel overwhelmed by his work, but rather calmed by the combination of color and shape.