My Kid Could Paint That

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere is considered Manet's last major work. This painting represents one of the most prominent music halls in Paris at the time. We see through the mirror behind the barmaid that the guests (aka the wealthy white people) are enjoying their time, but the expression of the barmaid tells another story. The painting used the mirror to draw a separation between the bourgeoises with the working class, creating an unsettling composition. As prosperous as the place might seem, the music halls were a common place for elites to pick up prostitutes which spark the question of the barmaid's true occupation. She does not have much expression. In fact, she looks very much dead inside to me. Is she worrying what the rest of the night will be like? If you look closely at her reflection in the mirror, you can see that she is talking to a man. What is he there for? Is he there for some unspeakable business trade with this poor barmaid? Or is he only an innocent guest here a drink and a good time?

A Bar at the Folies-Bergere speaks to me as a frustration of separations between social classes and social injustices.  The mirror is almost like a line between reality and a dream. The barmaid is in a hellhole of reality while the others living beyond the mirror are in fancy attire.

It was somewhat surprising to me to see colonialism and nudity put together in the same category, but in the wonderful realm of art history, such thing happened. I have always had a thing for flat colors so the painting called upon my attention almost the instant I saw it. The many shades of purple cooperate perfectly with the beautiful dark skin tone of the woman in the foreground despite her uncomfortable body language of the woman.

Paul Gauguin, the painter is often criticized for being sexist. The object of his paintings is usually exotic, dark-skinned, young female. He is considered one of the original colonial painters who, because of his inabilities to speak anything other than French, traveled only around French colonies.

"Manau tupapau" means spirits of the dead watching. However, some critics had pointed out that the girl looks afraid not because of the ghosts but because of the painter. This is one of the most famous anti-Olympia painting, as in Olympia where the young prostitute willingly shows off her body comfortably to the audience, the girl in Manau tupapau is suppressed by a white male. There is no other painting that explains Colonialism and the Nude more authentically than the Manau tupapau.

Even though Eugene Delacroix is one of the most renowned painters in the world of art history, Medea (Louvre) would not be considered his best work by most people. However, I am in love with the painting. It might sound twisted, but one of the main reasons why I love this painting is because of its extremely messed up back story.

The women in the painting is Medea, who madly fell in love with a guy named Jason. And by mad, I mean pretty insane. Her father did not approve of their love and therefore decided to chase after the run-away couple using his ship. To slow slow down her father, Medea dismembered her brother and threw his body parts on an island knowing that her father would stop to pick up his son's pieces to give him a proper burial. Now, do you mean what I mean by crazy?

But hold on, there's more.

After getting rid of the father, Medea and Jason ran to an island, but shortly after their arrival, Jason became engaged to the princess of the island. Abandoning the girl who just killed her brother to be with you? Not the best idea Jason, not the best idea. Medea, filled with jealousy and hatred, gave the princess a crown and a gown as "wedding presents," but here's the twist, they were poisoned. The new princess died. To complete her ultimate revenge, Medea killed Jason's twins (also her own) right in front of him. Crazy.

Many of Delacroix's paintings appear chaotic and heroic. Medea (Louvre) at first glance does not seem so chaotic for the fact that there's only three people drawn on the canvas, but that I find interesting is the picture outside of it. I imagine Jason chasing Medea down with an army of troops thinking it was the last of her -- only to witness the brutal death of his own sons. The beauties behind tragic and chaos are unspeakable. Medea (Louvre) depicted a powerful scene of a mother killing her own sons, but at the same time you can also feel her despair, her anger, and her agony as a murderer and a victim of love.

The painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David marked a new era with new authority and peace. Before the conquest of Napoleon, France was in series of terrors and uncertainties followed by the French Revolution. The painting described a story of Napoleon leading his troops across Alps in a military campaign against the Austrians, historically known as the Battle of Marengo. On the bottom left corner of the painting, Napoleon's name alongside with Hannibal and Charlemagne, leading figures of the crossing of the Alps, can be seen craved on the stones. Funny thing, Napoleon did not actually lead the troops during this particular campaign. He departed days after the army had marched and later joined his troops.

Commissioned by Charles IV, the King of Spain, the painting took David only four months to complete. In the making of the painting, Napoleon refused to pose for the painting, therefore David asked one of his sons to dress up in the uniform and stand on top of a ladder which explains the youthful physique of the figure. However, Napoleon was not entirely divorced from the process, he commented one time to David, "calm on a fiery horse," which David nicely obeyed. Napoleon was clearly flattered by the painting and ordered three more versions, which now live in Madrid, two in Paris, and one in Milan. The spread of the paintings also reflected Napoleon's triumph on the European conquest. The painting is commonly criticized of being stiff and propaganda rather than art.

After the Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, David, as a member of those who voted for the death of Louis XVI, was sadly exiled. He moved to Brussels and continued his career as an artist.

BY JENNY ZHU

To Tao

I know it's weird to write a love letter using an example of once great lovers breaking up with each other. I remember looking at her performing art works for the first time with you. I felt something within. I knew at the instance that I would never want that to happen to you and I, but the future is way too long and unpredictable for us to know for sure.

Marina Abramović, the grandmother of performing art, once said that "an artist should avoid falling in love with another artist," and I think that's what happened to Marina and Ulay, her ex. To complete their breakup, the former couples started from the opposite sides of the Great Wall of China wearing complementary colors, red and blue, in an extend of 90 days, and met in the middle to make the final farewell. I keep wondering what they were thinking about when they were walking alone on those walls. What led them to that position? Why did they breakup? After all, it seemed quite peaceful between the two? Did they just decide they were not the one for each other? During the course of walking, did they ever regret the decision of splitting apart? I keep thinking, but I don't think I can ever get near what they were thinking unless I walk those walls.

And Tao, I think we are on our own walls right now, but we are side by side walking together. I'm a senior, and like most of the high school couples, we are about to face the first biggest step of our lives, college. Things will change. Maybe one day one of us will turn around and walk the opposite directions, Even though we might not be able to walk together much longer, for the time left, I wanna make the best out of it. I have so many things planned out for us to do.

By the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanna thank you for everything you've done, especially the late night phone calls when I'm feeling down. Sometimes we just have a special connection where simple eye contact alone is enough for all I have to say. You get me like no one else does. Nothing can express how grateful I am to have you.

Jenny

Editor's Note: Students were asked to give a painting to someone they cared for. These are their moving responses.

The painting Embarkment to Cythera was Watteau's masterpiece, one of the most well-known paintings during the Rococo era. The painting tells a wondrous story about love and the lifestyle of young aristocracies.

Cythera is a beautiful Greek island of love that is believed to be the birth place of Aphrodite. One of the most frequent questions asked about this painting is whether the young couples are heading or returning to the island of Cythera. We see the a vague outline of a city lurking in the very back, which could suggest maybe that is Cythera. But we also see a statue of Aphrodite on the top right corner saying that maybe this is indeed the island of love.

I believe that they are already at Cythera because we see this progression of love throughout the painting. The lighting of the painting makes the couple under the tree the focus point, and then further the to the left the more blurred the couples are. Let's name the couple under the tree couple 1, and then the one next to them couple 2 and then 3, etc.. We see the girl in couple 1 a lot less engaging than let's say couple 6 where the girl is grabbing on the guy's arm. Girl 1 is looking downwards looking even a little irritated, while the guy is clearly lingering on to her. By the end of it, we see pid's hovering above the boat which might be a symbolization of the love finally being complete.

The painting, Danae, tells an erotic mythical story by the Greeks. The woman in the painting, Danae, and the ultimate playboy, the mighty Zeus, fell in love, but their affair was stopped by her father because of a prophecy saying a son born of his daughter would in the end be led to kill him. To foil the prophesy, her father locked Danae in a brass chamber. However, Zeus with all his mighty powers transformed himself into golden rain and impregnated Danae with Perseus. This painting captured that moment of intimacy.

If we look closer to the painting, we see Danae in the center of the painting curled up with her eyes shut and lips parted, her hand grabbing her own breast, and the golden rain falling down from above.  In a way, the amount of private sensation in this painting is almost disturbing to the viewers; we see a woman completely exposed, but meanwhile Danae is only paying attention to her pleasure. 

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian artist who mostly painted large scale painting of female bodies. Klimt was highly influenced by Japanese prints, which was fairly popular during his time. We can see the resemblance from the flat color and his use of patterns. In Danae, we can also see his distinctive style of painting: the orange patterns on the black voile hint at the Japanese prints. This painting was created during his "golden period," because of his often use of gold leaf; this technique is also used in Danae in the form of golden rain.

To be very honest with you, I did not like the artist Sol LeWitt very much. I do think some of his ideas of Conceptual Art are very insightful -- such as how the idea itself could be art itself and the content could be entirely interpreted by the audiences -- but not enough for me to appreciate his paintings and drawings.

The only work of his that I found somewhat interesting is a photography piece called Cube Containing an Object of Importance but Little Value. I like that piece for the reason that it is easier for me to dig out the meaning behind the photography. The piece contains nine pictures of a progress of Lewitt digging a hole on the ground, and then buried a little squared box. I found it profoundly interesting, but due to LeWitt's idea of personal interpretation, I think it's up to you to figure out what he's trying to convey through this piece of art. Most of his works are visually pleasing but lack to deeper meaning, or very hard to get a grasp of, for me at least.

When I was doing research on Sol LeWitt, the most interesting piece I found is actually not done by him. It's not even done when he's alive (LeWitt died in 2007, RIP). The Sol LeWitt chair is done by a student called Harry Wei at Waterloo University in 2010. Wei got inspired by a drawing of LeWitt of a chair containing only simple vertical and horizontal lines. The chairs were built without any mechanical fasteners and can also be combined and transformed into a bench.

I personally think that if LeWitt is alive to see this, he would be very pleasef to see that people are converting his ideas into actions. Like he once said, "A blind man can make art if what is in his mind can be passed to another mind in some tangible form."