Van Gogh: The Church at Auvers (1890)

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking) and architecture. These definitions should not be taken too strictly as many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts^[1] are the applied arts^[2] such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art.^[3]

As indicated above, the current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term artist was often restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms.^[4] Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art.

The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture, above other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both regions painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the imagination of the artist, and the furthest removed from manual labour - in Chinese painting the most highly valued styles were those of "scholar-painting", at least in theory practiced by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes.

Education and training[link]

A Magic carpet, was legendary carpet that can be used to transport persons who are on it instantaneously or quickly to their destination in the stories of the One Thousand and One Nights.

Training in the visual arts has generally been through variations of the apprentice and workshop system. In Europe the Renaissance movement to increase the prestige of the artist led to the academy system for training artists, and today most train in art schools at a tertiary level. Visual arts have now become an elective subject in most education systems. (See also art education.)

Drawing[link]

Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface using dry media such as graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers. Digital tools which simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftsman or draughtsman.

Drawing goes back at least 16,000 years to Paleolithic cave representations of animals such as those at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. In ancient Egypt, ink drawings on papyrus, often depicting people, were used as models for painting or sculpture. Drawings on Greek vases, initially geometric, later developed to the human form with black-figure pottery during the 7th century BC.^[5]

With paper becoming common in Europe by the 15th century, drawing was adopted by masters such as Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci who sometimes treated drawing as an art in its own right rather than a preparatory stage for painting or sculpture.^[6]

Painting[link]

Mosaic of Battle of Issus

Nefertari with Isis

Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and, or, other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the human body itself.

Origins and early history[link]

Like drawing, painting has its documented origins in caves and on rock faces. The finest examples, believed by some to be 32,000 years old, are in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern France. In shades of red, brown, yellow and black, the paintings on the walls and ceilings are of bison, cattle, horses and deer.

Raphael: Transfiguration (1520)

Paintings of human figures can be found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. In the great temple of Ramses II, Nefertari, his queen, is depicted being led by Isis.^[7] The Greeks contributed to painting but much of their work has been lost. One of the best remaining representations is the mosaic of the Battle of Issus found at Pompeii which was probably based on a Greek painting. Greek and Roman art contributed to Byzantine art in the 4th century BC which initiated a tradition in icon painting.

The Renaissance[link]

Apart from the illuminated manuscripts produced by monks during the Middle Ages, the next significant contribution to European art was from Italy's renaissance painters. From Giotto in the 13th century to Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael at the beginning of the 16th century, this was the richest period in Italian art as the chiaroscuro technique was used to create the illusion of 3-D space.^[8]

Rembrandt: The Night Watch

Painters in northern Europe too were influenced by the Italian school. Jan van Eyck from Belgium, Pieter Bruegel the Elder from the Netherlands and Hans Holbein the Younger from Germany are among the most successful painters of the times. They used the glazing technique with oils to achieve depth and luminosity.

Claude Monet: Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1866)

Dutch masters[link]

The 17th century saw the emergence of the great Dutch masters such as the versatile Rembrandt who is especially remembered for his portraits and Bible scenes, and Vermeer who specialized in interior scenes of Dutch life.

Impressionism[link]

Impressionism began in France in the 19th century with a loose association of artists including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne who brought a new freely brushed style to painting, often choosing to paint realistic scenes of modern life outside rather than in the studio. They achieved intense colour vibration by using pure, unmixed colours and short brush strokes.^[9]

Paul Gauguin: The Vision After the Sermon (1888)

Post-impressionism[link]

Towards the end of the 19th century, several young painters took impressionism a stage further, using geometric forms and unnatural colour to depict emotions while striving for deeper symbolism. Of particular note are Paul Gauguin, who was strongly influenced by Asian, African and Japanese art, Vincent van Gogh, a Dutchman who moved to France where he drew on the strong sunlight of the south, and Toulouse-Lautrec, remembered for his vivid paintings of night life in the Paris district of Montmartre.^[10]

Symbolism, expressionism and cubism[link]

Edvard Munch, a Norwegian artist, developed his symbolistic approach at the end of the 19th century, inspired by the French impressionist Manet. The Scream (1893), his most famous work, is widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Partly as a result of Munch's influence, the German expressionist movement originated in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century as artists such as Ernst Kirschner and Erich Heckel began to distort reality for an emotional effect. In parallel, the style known as cubism developed in France as artists focused on the volume and space of sharp structures within a composition. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the leading proponents of the movement. Objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form. By the 1920s, the style had developed into surrealism with Dali and Magritte.^[11]

Printmaking[link]

Ancient Chinese engraving of female instrumentalists

Printmaking is creating for artistic purposes an image on a matrix which is then transferred to a two-dimensional (flat) surface by means of ink (or another form of pigmentation). Except in the case of a monotype, the same matrix can be used to produce many examples of the print.

Albrecht Dürer: Melancholia I (1541)

Historically, the major techniques (also called media) involved are woodcut, line engraving, etching, lithography, and screenprinting (serigraphy, silkscreening) but there are many others, including modern digital techniques. Normally the surface upon which the print is printed is paper, but there are exceptions, from cloth and vellum to modern materials. Major printmaking traditions include that of Japan (ukiyo-e).

European history[link]

Prints in the Western tradition produced before about 1830 are known as old master prints. In Europe, from around 1400 AD woodcut, was used for master prints on paper by using techniques for printing on cloth which had been developed in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. Michael Wolgemut improved German woodcut from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich, a Dutchman, was the first to use cross-hatching. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that has never been surpassed, increasing the status of the single-leaf woodcut.^[12]

Chinese Origin and Practice[link]

The Chinese Diamond Sutra, the world's oldest printed book (868 CE)

In China, the art of printmaking developed some 1,100 years ago as illustrations alongside text cut in woodblocks for printing on paper. Initially images were mainly religious but in the Song Dynasty, artists began to cut landscapes. During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1616–1911) dynasties, the technique was perfected for both religious and artistic engravings.^[13][14]

Development In Japan 1603-1867[link]

Hokusai: "Red Fuji southern wind clear morning" from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

Woodblock printing in Japan (Japanese: 木版画, moku hanga) is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre; however, it was also used very widely for printing books in the same period. Woodblock printing had been used in China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type, but was only widely adopted in Japan surprisingly late, during the Edo period (1603-1867). Although similar to woodcut in western printmaking in some regards, moku hanga differs greatly in that water-based inks are used (as opposed to western woodcut which uses oil-based inks), allowing for a wide range of vivid color, glazes and color transparency.

Photography[link]

Photography is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects are recorded onto a sensitive medium or storage chip through a timed exposure. The process is done through mechanical, chemical or digital devices known as cameras.

The word comes from the Greek words φως phos ("light"), and γραφις graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφη graphê, together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means of lines" or "drawing." Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph. The term photo is an abbreviation; many people also call them pictures. In digital photography, the term image has begun to replace photograph. (The term image is traditional in geometric optics.)

Filmmaking[link]

Filmmaking is the process of making a motion-picture, from an initial conception and research, through scriptwriting, shooting and recording, animation or other special effects, editing, sound and music work and finally distribution to an audience; it refers broadly to the creation of all types of films, embracing documentary, strains of theatre and literature in film, and poetic or experimental practices, and is often used to refer to video-based processes as well.

Computer art[link]

Visual artists are no longer limited to traditional art media. Computers have been used as an ever more common tool in the visual arts since the 1960s. Uses include the capturing or creating of images and forms, the editing of those images and forms (including exploring multiple compositions) and the final rendering and/or printing (including 3D printing).

Computer art is any in which computers played a role in production or display. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers have been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithmic art and other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can be difficult. Nevertheless, this type of art is beginning to appear in art museum exhibits, though it has yet to prove its legitimacy as a form unto itself and this technology is widely seen in contemporary art more as a tool rather than a form as with painting.

Computer usage has blurred the distinctions between illustrators, photographers, photo editors, 3-D modelers, and handicraft artists. Sophisticated rendering and editing software has led to multi-skilled image developers. Photographers may become digital artists. Illustrators may become animators. Handicraft may be computer-aided or use computer-generated imagery as a template. Computer clip art usage has also made the clear distinction between visual arts and page layout less obvious due to the easy access and editing of clip art in the process of paginating a document, especially to the unskilled observer.

The Plastic arts[link]

Plastic arts is a term, now largely forgotten, encompassing art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by moulding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. The term has also been applied to all the visual (non-literary, non-musical) arts.^[15][16]

Materials that can be carved or shaped, such as stone or wood, concrete or steel, have also been included in the narrower definition, since, with appropriate tools, such materials are also capable of modulation.^{[citation needed]} This use of the term "plastic" in the arts should not be confused with Piet Mondrian's use, nor with the movement he termed, in French and English, "Neoplasticism."

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Plastic arts

Sculpture[link]

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard and/or plastic material, sound, and/or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble), metal, glass, or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded, or cast. Sculptures are often painted ^[17]. A person who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.

Because sculpture involves the use of materials that can be moulded or modulated, it is considered one of the plastic arts. The majority of public art is sculpture. Many sculptures together in a garden setting may be referred to as a sculpture garden.

United States of America copyright definition of visual art[link]

In the United States, the law protecting the copyright over a piece of visual art gives a more restrictive definition of "visual art". The following quote is from the Copyright Law of the United States of America- Chapter 1:^[18]

A “work of visual art” is —
(1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author; or
(2) a still photographic image produced for exhibition purposes only, existing in a single copy that is signed by the author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author.

A work of visual art does not include —
(A)(i) any poster, map, globe, chart, technical drawing, diagram, model, applied art, motion picture or other audiovisual work, book, magazine, newspaper, periodical, data base, electronic information service, electronic publication, or similar publication;
  (ii) any merchandising item or advertising, promotional, descriptive, covering, or packaging material or container;
  (iii) any portion or part of any item described in clause (i) or (ii);
(B) any work made for hire; or
(C) any work not subject to copyright protection under this title.

See also[link]

Visual arts portal

References[link]

1. ^ An About.com article by art expert, Shelley Esaak: What Is Visual Art?
2. ^ Different Forms of Art- Applied Art. Buzzle.com. Retrieved 11 Dec 2010.
3. ^ "Centre for Arts and Design in Toronto, Canada". Georgebrown.ca. 2011-02-15. http://www.georgebrown.ca/centres/AD/index.aspx. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 
4. ^ Art History: Arts and Crafts Movement: (1861-1900). From World Wide Arts Resources. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
5. ^ History of Drawing. From Dibujos para Pintar. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
6. ^ Drawing. From History.com. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
7. ^ History of Painting. From History World. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
8. ^ History of Renaissance Painting. From ART 340 Painting. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
9. ^ Impressionism. Webmuseum, Paris. Retrieved 24 October 2009
10. ^ Post-Impressionism. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
11. ^ Modern Art Movements. Irish Art Encyclopedia. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
12. ^ The Printed Image in the West: History and Techniques. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
13. ^ Engraving in Chinese Art. From Engraving Review. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
14. ^ The History of Engraving in China. From ChinaVista. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
15. ^ ART TERMINOLOGY at KSU^{[dead link]}
16. ^ "Merriam-Webster Online (entry for "plastic arts")". Merriam-webster.com. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plastic%20arts. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 
17. ^ Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity September 22, 2007 Through January 20, 2008, The Arthur M. Sackler Museum
18. ^ "Copyright Law of the United States of America- Chapter 1 (101. Definitions)". Copyright.gov. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#101. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 

Further reading[link]

• Barnes, A. C., The Art in Painting, 3rd ed., 1937, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., NY.
• Bukumirovic, D. (1998). Maga Magazinovic. Biblioteka Fatalne srpkinje knj. br. 4. Beograd: Narodna knj.
• Fazenda, M. J. (1997). Between the pictorial and the expression of ideas: the plastic arts and literature in the dance of Paula Massano. N.p.
• Gerón, C. (2000). Enciclopedia de las artes plásticas dominicanas: 1844-2000. 4th ed. Dominican Republic s.n.
• Oliver Grau (Ed.): MediaArtHistories. MIT-Press, Cambridge 2007. with Rudolf Arnheim, Barbara Stafford, Sean Cubitt, William Mitchell, Lev Manovich, Christiane Paul, Peter Weibel a.o. Rezensionen
• Laban, R. V. (1976). The language of movement: a guidebook to choreutics. Boston: Plays.
• La Farge, O. (1930). Plastic prayers: dances of the Southwestern Indians. N.p.
• Restany, P. (1974). Plastics in arts. Paris, New York: N.p.
• University of Pennsylvania. (1969). Plastics and new art. Philadelphia: The Falcon Pr.

External links[link]

• ArtLex - online dictionary of visual art terms.
• Art History Timeline by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Media related to Visual arts at Wikimedia Commons

Peter Schjeldahl, (born 1942), is an American art critic, poet, and educator.

Schjeldahl was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He grew up in small towns throughout Minnesota, and attended Carleton College and The New School. He began his professional writing career as a reporter in Minnesota, Iowa and New Jersey.

Art critic[link]

In 1964 he traveled to Paris for a year before settling in New York City in 1965. Since coming to New York he has worked as an art critic for ARTnews, The New York Times, The Village Voice (1980 to 1998),^[1] and 7 Days (The Cooper Union). In 1998 he joined The New Yorker where he is currently the head art critic.^[1] His writings have also appeared in Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.^[1] During his career Schjeldahl has written several books of poetry as well as art criticism. He taught at Harvard University in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies for four years as well.

Poet[link]

Schjeldahl’s poetry falls in line with many of the characteristic themes and styles of the New York School. As a contemporary postmodern poet, Schjeldahl believed fervently in the idea that poetry should be enjoyed and understood by all readers. In an interview with the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Blackbird Schjeldahl commented on how “there are no rewards in being obscure or abstruse or overbearing” (Wolgamott). Schjeldahl’s work reflects this attitude and his beliefs against institutionalizing art and poetry.

His poetry succeeds without a great deal of complexity in language usage or style while maintaining a definite seriousness and poignancy in his themes. Schjeldahl’s poetry often addresses common experiences or familiar events in a way which grounds his work and accentuates his messages. This can be seen in poems like “My Generation” where he opens with: “Vietnam/ Drugs/ Civil Rights/ Rock/ Watergate/ (in that order?)/ Are the blows of history/ That have left my generation/ Its peculiar battered silhouette.” As this passage shows, Schjeldahl fuels much of his poetry with historical and biographical contexts which help audiences relate more intimately with his work.

As an art critic and as a poet Schjeldahl’s main ambition has been seeded in his desire to help people enjoy art. In the same interview with Blackbird Schjeldahl stated how “writing things that people want to read is my bread and butter” (Wolgamott). Schjeldahl’s poetry exists as poetry that demands to be read and enjoyed rather than studied in classrooms. The significance of his work comes from the lively nature his poetry manages to maintain while simultaneously delivering very impacting messages. Schjeldahl’s lasting influence comes from his ability to write poetry and criticize art in the late 20th century where most audiences have tended to stray away from the arts in favor of more commercialized entertainment. Schjeldahl’s poetry stands out influentially among the works of the New York School of poets and the current American art communities.

Awards[link]

Schjeldahl was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1995.^[2] In 1980 he received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism by the College Art Association.^[3] The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute named Peter Schjeldahl the winner of the 2008 Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing. The prize was established in 2006 to recognize writers who advance public appreciation of visual art in a way that "is grounded in scholarship yet appeals to a broad range of audiences." It comes with a $25,000 honorarium and an award designed by architect Tadao Ando.^[4]

Personal life[link]

Schjeldahl currently resides in New York. He is married to Donnie Brooke Alderson, a former actress. They have one child, Ada Calhoun Schjeldahl.

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• Let's See: Writings on Art from The New Yorker, Thames & Hudson, New York, NY, 2008
• De Kooning and Dubuffet: The Late Works, Pace Gallery Publications, New York, NY, 1993.
• The Hydrogen Jukebox: Selected Writings of Peter Schjeldahl, 1978-1990. Edited by Malin Wilson, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1991.
• The 7 Days Art Columns,1988-1990, Figures Press, New York, NY, 1990.
• Jean Dubuffet: Recent Paintings, October 31–29 November 1980 The Pace Gallery: Exhibition, The Gallery. New York, NY, 1980.
• Since 1964: New and Selected Poems, SUN, New York, NY, 1978.
• Dreams, Angel Hair Books, New York, NY, 1973.
• An Adventure of the Thought Police, Ferry Press, London, England, 1971.
• White Country, Corinth Books, New York, NY, 1968.

Contributed to[link]

• Cindy Sherman. Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, NY, 1987.
• De Kooning: Drawings, Sculptures: An Exhibition Organized by Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, March 10-April 21, 1974. Dutton. New York, NY, 1974.
• Dean Sobel, Jackie Winsor. Milwaukee Art Museum. Milwaukee, WI, 1991.
• Edward Hopper: Light Years, October 1 to November 12, 1988. Hirschl & Adler Galleries. New York, NY, 1988.
• Elizabeth Prelinger and Michael Parke-Taylor, The Symbolist Prints of Edvard Munch: The Vivian and David Campbell Collection. Yale University Press. New Haven, CT, 1996.
• Eric Fischl. Edited by David Whitney, Art in America: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. New York, NY, 1988.
• Jean Dubuffet. 1943-1963: Paintings, Sculptures, Assemblages: An Exhibition. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, DC, 1993.
• Liza Lou: Essays by Peter Schjeldahl and Marcia Tucker. Smart Art Press. Santa Monica, CA, 1998.
• Louis Carlos Bernal and others, Ten Photographers, Olympic Images. Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies. Los Angeles, CA, 1984.
• Lucas Samaras, Samaras Pastels: Denver Art Museum, October 3-December 27, 1981. edited by Marlene Chambers, The Museum. Denver, CO, 1981.
• Olav Christopher Jenssen: Bilder 1990-1994. Kestner-Gedellschaft. Hannover, Germany, 1995.
• Picasso’s Dora Maar/ De Kooning's Women. C&M Arts. New York, NY, 1998.
• Richard Bosman, Gifts of the Sea: Mandeville Gallery, University of California, San Diego, May 19 through June 25, 1989. The Gallery. San Diego, CA, 1989.
• Richard Deacon. Phaidon. London, England, 1995.
• Salle. Vintage Books. New York, NY, 1987.
• Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art. Art Publishers. New York, NY, 2003.
• The Inward Eye: Transcendence in Contemporary Art. Contemporary Arts Museum. Houston, TX, 2001.
• William Wegman. Museo de Monterrey. Monterrey, Mexico, 1993.

-Compilation of Schjeldahl’s work comes in large part from the list found on Galenet’s Contemporary Authors Online.

Articles[link]

• Schjeldahl, Peter (3 November 2008). "The Art World: Just for Fun". The New Yorker 38 (35): 114–115. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/11/03/081103craw_artworld_schjeldahl. Retrieved 17 April 2009.  Retrospectives of Franz West and Mary Heilmann.
• Schjeldahl, Peter (24 November 2008). "The Art World: Come on Down". The New Yorker 84 (38): 128–129. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/11/24/081124craw_artworld_schjeldahl. Retrieved 16 April 2009.  "The New Orleans Biennial beckons."
• Schjeldahl, Peter (15 March 2010). "The Art World: Big Time". The New Yorker 86 (4): 71–75. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2010/03/15/100315craw_artworld_schjeldahl. Retrieved 16 January 2011.  "Skin Fruit" at the New Museum, New York.
• Schjeldahl, Peter (8 November 2010). "Critic's Notebook: Abstract Exemplar". The New Yorker 86 (35): 14.  Thomas Nozkowski at the Pace Gallery.

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Contributors: Peter Schjeldahl". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/peter_schjeldahl/search?contributorName=peter%20schjeldahl. Retrieved 16 April 2009. 
2. ^ "Peter Schjeldahl". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. http://www.gf.org/fellows/13026-peter-schjeldahl. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
3. ^ "Awards". The College Art Association. http://www.collegeart.org/awards/matherpast. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
4. ^ Peter Schjeldahl Wins Clark Prize for Arts Writing. ARTINFO. April 25, 2008. http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27456/peter-schjeldahl-wins-clark-prize-for-arts-writing/. Retrieved 2008-05-14. 

External links[link]

• Watch Peter Schjeldahl lecture at Boston University's School of Visual Arts on BUniverse.
• Peter Schjeldahl
• Wolgamott, Kent. Interview with Peter Schjeldahl. Blackbird Archive

William Kentridge at exhibition opening at ACMI in Melbourne, Australia

William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds' screen time. A single drawing will be altered and filmed this way until the end of a scene. These palimpsest-like drawings are later displayed along with the films as finished pieces of art.^[1]

Early life and career[link]

Kentridge was born in Johannesburg,^[2] and educated at King Edward VII School in Houghton, Johannesburg. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and then a diploma in Fine Arts from the Johannesburg Art Foundation. In the early 1980s, he studied mime and theatre at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He originally hoped to become an actor, but he reflected later: "I was fortunate to discover at a theatre school that I was so bad an actor [... that] I was reduced to an artist, and I made my peace with it.".^[3] Between 1975 and 1991, he was acting and directing in Johannesburg's Junction Avenue Theatre Company. In the 1980s, he worked on television films and series as art director. His father, Sydney Kentridge, is a prominent lawyer who took on civil rights cases against apartheid.^[4]

Work[link]

William Kentridge's work is heavily context-dependent given he hails from South Africa, where until only recently second-class native citizens still existed under apartheid. Kentridge himself is of European descent, and as such has a unique position as a third-party observer. His parents were lawyers, famous for their defence of victims of the apartheid, giving Kentridge the ability to remove himself somewhat from the atrocities committed. The basics of South Africa's socio-political condition and history must be known to grasp his work fully, much the same as in the cases of such artists as Francisco Goya and Käthe Kollwitz.^[5]

Kentridge is of expressionist lineage: form often alludes to content and vice versa. The feeling that is manipulated by the use of palette, composition and media, among others, often plays an equally vital role in the overall meaning as the subject and narrative of a given work. One must use one's gut reactions as well as one's interpretive skills to find meaning in Kentridge's work, much of which reveals very little actual content. Due to the sparse, rough and expressive qualities of Kentridge's handwriting, however, the viewer sees a sombre picture upon first glance, an impression that is perpetuated as the image illustrates a vulnerable and uncomfortable situation.^[6]

Aspects of social injustice that have transpired over the years in South Africa have often acted as fodder for Kentridge's pieces. "Casspirs Full of Love", viewable at the Met Museum, appears to be nothing more than heads in boxes to the average American viewer, but South Africans know that a casspir is a vehicle used to put down riots, a kind of a crowd-control tank. The box, then, is the casspir and the heads are those of people who have been killed in riots and demonstrations, people who have been "put down".

The title itself, "Casspirs Full of Love", written along the side of the print, is suggestive of the narrative and is oxymoronic. A casspir full of love is much like a bomb that bursts with happiness - it is an intangible improbability. The purpose of a machine such as this is to instil "peace" by force, but Kentridge here is pointing to the fact that it was used as a tool to keep lower-class natives from taking colonial power and money.^[7]

Prints and drawings[link]

By the mid-1970s Kentridge was making prints and drawings. In 1979, he created 20 to 30 monotypes, which soon became known as the "Pit" series. In 1980, he executed about 50 small-format etchings which he called the "Domestic Scenes". These two extraordinary groups of prints served to establish Kentridge's artistic identity, an identity he has continued to develop in various media. Despite his ongoing exploration of non-traditional media, the foundation of his art has always been drawing and printmaking.

In 1987, he began a group of charcoal and pastel drawings based, very tenuously, on Watteau's Embarkation for Cythera. These extremely important works, the best of which reflect a blasted, dystopic urban landscape, demonstrate the artist's growing consciousness of the flexibility of space and movement.

"My drawings don't start with a 'beautiful mark'," writes Kentridge, thinking about the activity of printmaking as being about getting the hand to lead the brain, rather than letting the brain lead the hand. "It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn't have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not something that is abstract, like an emotion."

Animated films[link]

Between 1989 and 2003 Kentridge made a series of nine short films that he eventually gathered under the title 9 Drawings for Projection.^[8] In 1989, he began the first of those animated movies, Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris. The series runs through Monument (1990), Mine (1991), Sobriety, Obesity & Growing Old (1991), Felix in Exile (1994), History of the Main Complaint (1996), Weighing and Wanting (1998), and Stereoscope (1999), up to Tide Table (2003).^[9] For the series, he used a technique that would become a feature of his work - successive charcoal drawings, always on the same sheet of paper, contrary to the traditional animation technique in which each movement is drawn on a separate sheet. In this way, Kentridge's videos and films came to keep the traces of the previous drawings. His animations deal with political and social themes from a personal and, at times, autobiographical point of view, since the author includes his self-portrait in many of his works.

The political content and unique techniques of Kentridge's work have propelled him into the realm of South Africa's top artists. Working with what is in essence a very restrictive media, using only charcoal and a touch of blue or red pastel, he has created animations of astounding depth. A theme running through all of his work is his peculiar way of representing his birthplace. While he does not portray it as the militant or oppressive place that it was for black people, he does not emphasize the picturesque state of living that white people enjoyed during apartheid either; he presents instead a city in which the duality of man is exposed. In a series of nine short films, he introduces two characters - Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitlebaum. These characters depict an emotional and political struggle that ultimately reflects the lives of many South Africans in the pre-democracy era.

In an introductory note to Felix In Exile, Kentridge writes, "In the same way that there is a human act of dismembering the past there is a natural process in the terrain through erosion, growth, dilapidation that also seeks to blot out events. In South Africa this process has other dimensions. The very term 'new South Africa' has within it the idea of a painting over the old, the natural process of dismembering, the naturalization of things new."

Not only in Felix In Exile but in all of his animated works do the concepts of time and change comprise a major theme. He conveys it through his erasure technique, which contrasts with conventional cel-shaded animation, whose seamlessness de-emphasizes the fact that it is actually a succession of hand-drawn images. This he implements by drawing a key frame, erasing certain areas of it, re-drawing them and thus creating the next frame. He is able in this way to create as many frames as he wants based on the original key frame simply by erasing small sections. Traces of what has been erased are still visible to the viewer; as the films unfold, a sense of fading memory or the passing of time and the traces it leaves behind are portrayed. Kentridge's technique grapples with what is not said, what remains suppressed or forgotten but can easily be felt.

In the nine films that follow Soho Eckstein's life, an increasing vehemency is placed on the evanescing health of the individual and contemporary South African society. Conflicts between anarchic and bourgeois individualistic beliefs, again a reference to the duality of man, indicate the idea of social revolution by poetically disfiguring surrounding buildings and landscapes. Kentridge states that, although his work does not focus on apartheid in a direct and overt manner, but rather on the contemporary state of Johannesburg, his drawings and films are certainly spawned by, and feed off of, the brutalised society that it left in its wake. As for more direct political issues, Kentridge says his art presents ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted movements and uncertain endings,^[10] all of which seem like insignificant subtleties but can be attributed to most of the calamity presented in his work. In a mixed-media triptych entitled "The Boating Party" (1985), based on Renoir's painting of a similar name, the havoc caused by a seemingly-uninterested aristocracy is perhaps his most severe comment on the state of South Africa during apartheid. The languid diners sit at ease while the surrounding area is ravaged, torn and burned, an interesting contrast that is reflected in his style and choice of colours.

In 1985, Kentridge co-founded Free Film-makers Co-Operative in Johannesburg. In 1999, he was appointed a film-maker by Stereoscope. "Purely in the context of my own work," he wrote in a published playscript of his celebrated Ubu and the Truth Commission, "I would repeat my trust in the contingent, the inauthentic, the whim, the practical, as strategies for finding meaning. I would repeat my mistrust in the worth of Good Ideas. And state a belief that somewhere between relying on pure chance on the one hand, and the execution of a programme on the other, lies the most uncertain but the most fertile ground for the work we do [...]. I think I have shown that it is not the clear light or reason or even aesthetic sensibility which determines how one works, but a constellation of factors only some of which we can change at will."^[11] In 2001, Creative Time aired his film Shadow Procession on the NBC Astrovision Panasonic screen in Times Square.^[12]

Opera[link]

His political perspective is also present in his opera directions, which involves different layers: stage direction, animation movies, influences of the puppet world. He staged Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Monteverdi), Die Zauberflöte (Mozart) and The Nose (Shostakovich). He also collaborated with the French composer François Sarhan on a short show called Telegrams from the Nose, for which he made the stage and set design for the performance.^[13]

Tapestries[link]

Kentridge's protean artistic investigation continues in his series of tapestries begun in 2001. The tapestries stem from a series of drawings in which he conjured shadowy figures from ripped construction paper and collaged them onto the web-like background of nineteenth-century atlas maps. To reincarnate these figures into tapestry, Kentridge worked in close collaboration with the Johannesburg-based Stephens Tapestry Studio, mapping out cartoons from enlarged photographs of the drawings and hand-picking dyes to color the locally spun mohair (goat hair).^[14]

Sculpture[link]

In 2009, Kentridge, in partnership with Gerhard Marx, created a 10m-tall sculpture for his home city of Johannesburg entitled Fire Walker.

In parallel of the Five Themes exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (2010), the artist is featured at the Louvre. The Louvre show, Carnets d'Egypte, includes drawings of the artist, presented next to works from the museum collections, and videos shown in Louis XIVth’s bed.

An article about Kentridge by Calvin Tomkins appears in the 18 Jan 2010 issue of The New Yorker.

Family[link]

William Kentridge is married to Anne Stanwix, an immunologist, and they have three children. A third-generation South African of Lithuanian-Jewish heritage^[15], he is the son of the prominent South African lawyer Sydney Kentridge.

Films[link]

Kentridge's films were shown at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.^[16]

Exhibitions[link]

Awards[link]

Kentridge's Five Themes exhibit was included in the 2009 Time 100, an annual list of the one hundred top people and events in the world.^[17]. That same year, the exhibition was awarded First Place in the 2009 AICA (International Association of Art Critics Awards) Best Monographic Museum Show Nationally category.

Art market[link]

Kentridge's artworks are among the most sought-after and expensive works in South Africa: "a major charcoal drawing by world-renowned South African artist William Kentridge could set you back some R250 000".^[18] Kentridge is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery in New York.

References[link]

• Cameron, Dan; Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn; Coetzee, JM. William Kentridge. New York: Phaidon Press, 1999.
• Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn. William Kentridge. Societé des Expositions du Palais de Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, 1998.
• Cole, William. "On Some Early Prints by William Kentridge", Print Quarterly vol. XXVI no. 3 (2009), 268-273.
• Coumans, Sandra. "Geschichte und Identität. Black Box / Chambre noire von William Kentridge", Regiospectra Verlag Berlin, 2012.
• Edmunds, Paul. "William Kentridge's SANG Retrospective", Artthrob: Contemporary Art in South Africa 65 (2003).
• Greg Kucera Gallery. "William Kentridge". 2007. <http://www.gregkucera.com/kentridge.htm>
• Kasfir, Sydney. Contemporary African Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999.
• Kentridge, William. "Director's Note". In Ubu and the Truth Commission, by Jane Taylor, viii-xv. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2007.
• Taylor, Jane. Ubu and the Truth Commission. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2007.

Notes[link]

1. ^ Greg Kucera Gallery 2007.
2. ^ Who's Who Southern Africa
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/william_kentridge/index.html
5. ^ Cameron, Christov-Bakargiev, Coetzee 1999.
6. ^ Christov-Bakargiev 1998.
7. ^ Edmunds 2003.
8. ^ Roberta Smith (February 25, 2010), Anger and Angst, Explored With Animation New York Times.
9. ^ William Kentridge: Other Faces, May 6 - June 18, 2011 Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.
10. ^ Kasfir 1999.
11. ^ Kentridge 2007.
12. ^ Notations/William Kentridge: Tapestries, December 12, 2007 - April 6, 2008 Philadelphia Museum of Art.
13. ^ William Kentridge: Breathe, Dissolve, Return, September 11 - October 16, 2010 Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris.
14. ^ Notations/William Kentridge: Tapestries, December 12, 2007 - April 6, 2008 Philadelphia Museum of Art.
15. ^ William Kentridge New York Times.
16. ^ [2]
17. ^ [3]
18. ^ [4]

External links[link]

• Artworks by William Kentridge
• William Kentridge Prints, a book detailing his extensive printmaking oeuvre
• Book launch (photograph of William Kentridge and discussion by Jane Taylor)
• Interview with William Kentridge, by Lilian Tone
• William Kentridge at Who's Who
• Wits honours top artist
• Get ready for Grahamstown
• SA artists in Barcelona
• SA artists at Havana Biennale
• William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible PBS, Art-21, October 21, 2010