Your Daily Art

  • What is Art?

    Cosmic Thing, 2003 by Damian Ortega,

    Answering the question “What is Art?” is a big job.

    I believe that it cannot be answered definitively and must be left up up to the individual.

    Let me tell you about a personal experience of mine that related to this subject. I was in graduate school working on my masters degree in art history and working at my father’s law office. He had occasion to need a definition of art, as a citizen of the town he represented, had taken it upon himself to hoist an old VW bug up on a stump in his yard. When asked to remove it by the local government, the citizen refused saying it was art and he had a right to display it. This caused my father to have to take the man to court to try and compel him to remove the car from the stump. The city was claiming it was not only and eyesore, but a danger.

    My father’s thought he could get his art historically educated daughter to define art for him, and surely this old car on a stump would not fall within that definition. Well, I told him I could not give him one definitive definition of what art was and that I was sorry, but in some people’s eyes, a VW was art. He does not often become angry with me, but this time he did. I wanted to be able to solve his problem, but I knew I could not, as I feel it is an individual interpretation when it comes deciding what is and is not art.

    In the end, it turned out the stump was on someone else’s property and it was removed, but the question of whether or not it was art, is still not resolved.

  • Blocks of Color

    Composition by Piet Mondrian, Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York.

    Working to build his paintings from the simplest elements of lines and basic colors, Mondrian believed that he could control the line and color and control the art. He was the leader of the De Stijl movement in art.

  • Blue Heaven

    IKB 79,c.1959 by Yves Klein, Tate Gallery, London.

    Klein created his own color called IKB (International Klein Blue) and he devotes the entire canvas to the color. He wrote the Chelsea Hotel Manifesto about his art. He died at age 34.

  • Down the Drain

    What the Water Gave Me, 1938 by Frida Kahlo.

    Kahlo’s work is always very personal. This one exposes the thoughts and dreams of the artist whose feet stick out of the water at the end of the tub. She was married to Diego Rivera whose career eclipsed her own, however there has been a revival of her work in the last 15 years which has made her very popular.

  • Dapples of Sunlight

    Sunlight and Shadow, 1884 by William Merrit Chase, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE

    This work by another American artist who studied and had great success in Europe as well as in the US, was originally entitled The Tiff by the artist. That title gives us a little more insight into what is going on between the man and the woman peeking over the edge of the hammock.

  • Black Figure Pottery

    Amphora and Lid by Exekias.

    Exekias was active in the second half of the 6th century BCE. He is well known for his depictions of battle scenes, but also for another of his amphorae which shows Ajax and Achilles playing a board game.

  • Buried Treasure

    Container with Lion on Lid, 18th Dynasty Tomb of Tutankhamen,

    The treasures of the “boy-king” are something to behold. Especially when you consider that we really only have them because he was such an unremarkable Pharaoh at the time, that his grave was overlooked by grave robbers for millennia.

  • Drama

    An Experiment on a Bird in the Airpump, 1768 by Joseph Wright of Derby.

    Wright of Derby studied under Sir Joshua Reynolds however his work is more experimental as he was fascinated with light and painting the effects of light and darkness. This work even features the moonlight so it is a combination of artificial and natural light.

  • Controlled Chaos

    Upward (Empor), 1929 by Vasily Kandinsky.

    This is one of the more controlled of Kandinsky’s work. He used lines and shapes to create an abstract form. There are two shapes that resemble the letter “E” they could refer to the German title of the piece Empor.

  • Fantastic Paradise

    Garden of Earthly Delights, c.1504 by Hieronymus Bosch.

    This painting has fascinated art and art history students for years. There is so much going on here and in his depiction of Hell, that one can study it for years and never totally understand it. He is so popular there is even a line of figurines.