Response to Monets Water Lillies - Thesis Example

? Response to Monet’s Water Lillies: Art Commentary, Final Assignment, and Presentation Philosophies of Art in Education Summer Art Commentary: An Analysis of Monet’s Water Lilies series in MoMA 2010 Philosophies of Art in Education Fall 2010 An Analysis of Monet’s Water Lilies series in MoMA 2010 Art Commentary: This commentary note is a series of reflections and important aspects of Clark’s experiences as he viewed two works by Poussin and wrote on his insight through these viewings, and on my own art-making, First, I discuss what insight the current body of literature concerning Monet’s Water lilies series can offer to a discussion of the work. Second, I examine the work through the perspectives presented in The Sight of Death and Art and its Objects. Third, I explore future research and lesson developments. Finally, I considered my reflections as they impact my future scholarship and art-making. An Analysis of Monet’s Water Lilies series in MoMA 2010 While there are a host of famed artworks that grace the walls and spaces of the world’s great cultural centers and museums, few have gotten the attention of the public like those of the impressionists, particularly the works of Claude Monet (1840-1926). In fact, one of the highest prices paid for a single work of art was invested in one of his Water Lilies (1920-1926) series, which sold in 2008 for over $70 million. The interest in this series of paintings continues today, as seen by the public and critical response to the Monet’s Water Lilies exhibition held in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art from September 13, 2009 until April 12, 2010. The in-person access to artworks of this stature gives an opportunity for critique and interpretation from many viewpoints. It was in this spirit that Dr. Baldacchino granted permission for me to use my personal notes from several visits during this showing period in order to offer my interpretation of Water Lilies through a novel lens. Water Lilies In-class Presentation November 2010, Monet’s Water Lilies series is astounding in person. Its size is monumental, its colors are overwhelming, and its brushwork is beautiful. Upon my initial viewings, several key aspects of the work became apparent to me. First the monumental perspective of the three paintings seemed interesting to me because it stands in contrast to many of the landscape paintings of the same time period. Second the brush strokes used by Monet in these works seemed expressive and natural, specifically in the water reflections and surroundings areas. Lastly, Monet’s unique style of brush stroke intrigued me. The Water lily triptych has a strong drawing quality about it that is also noticeable in many of Monet’s other artworks. He draws nature’s movement with his brush strokes rather than painting them. As a viewer felt, this technique gave me the effect of feeling closer to nature, as if having been face to face with elements of nature facing back at me. This water lily triptych created a romantic and natural atmosphere that caused me to become aware of the natural environment that I live in and appreciate this further. Considering Monet as naturalistic opens up a larger idea. As Temkin and Lawrence explain, “Artist’s ambition to create a panorama that enveloped the viewer, an environment that in today’s parlance would be called an “installation”’ (Temkin&Lawrence, p.9). As the High Museum states, these installations were sometimes large in size. “Monet created 250 different water lily paintings and 19 were large panels” (High Museum, 2009). The unique way he wanted to view these triptych paintings in the gallery space was interesting to me. As always, there is no indication of the horizon or pond’s edge, but here the viewer is treated to an exceptionally harmonious expanse of painted reverie. Softly flowing passages of cloud reflections, overhanging foliage, lily pads, and water share the space without dramatic incident (Temkin& Lawrence, p.34). The Water lilies panel caused two things to come to my mind. First, the expression of the painting, which was presented like a monument; and second, the location link to the Japanese style pond that he cultivated in Giverny in France (High Museum, 2009). He obsessively painted it in his late years. The expression of nature and the Monet he abstracts the nature both stood out to me. This series from 1910-1920 was regarded as unfinished because it was too “massy” and “unstructured”, but also he left it unfinished in his studio. As Clark (2006) mentions, in Poussin’s painting Landscape of the calm, the boundary between sky and water is blurry and it even becomes one at some point of the brush stroke. Clark expresses this as “clear and distinct ideas”. As sky and water become one substance, we need a language that has these further pictorial effects be extensions: thickenings of a thought process, not reversals or paradoxes (p.54). In response to this painting, I drew on top of it to respond to how calmness of Poussin’s painting can be interpreted in different weather: rain. I wanted to respond to the experience that I was having looking at both Monet’s Water lily and Poussin’s Landscape with a calm. I started to draw ripples, waves and rain on top of Poussin’s painting, maybe giving a realistic sense to the work, a sense of activity to the painting. Monet’s water lilies certainly have a lot of movement and expressive quality. The moment that Monet’s depicts in his painting and the moment that Poussin is trying to depict are different obviously. Poussin is a Baroque painter whose techniques such as using light as dramatic, atmospheric effect in his painting influenced painters such as Caravaggio. Conversely, Monet is an impressionist painter that used light not only to reflect motion, but also to reflect and relay the mood of his piece. My first response was that the water and the reflections on the water in Poussin’s work are so still that it was also unrealistic. I almost wanted to poke the surface of water and make the trees move by the wind. The reflection on water has another sky, other than the real sky painted. This “temporarily” as Clark calls it, is reflecting the fast moving sky rather than the realistic sky because the calm will not last more than a few moments. In my responsive drawings, I depicted what the movement of nature will do in this place in Poussin’s painting. Artistic Interpretation 1. My response to Poussin’s (1650-51) Landscape with a Calm. The original image of the painting was scanned from Clark (2006, p. 88). Wollheim and Monet’s Water lilies Wollheim’s text gave me insight into how an artist expresses and uses the expressiveness of their materials to depict the subject matter and manipulate it in a pictorial sense to present their artworks. Wollheim explains that expressiveness of the work is evoked through the subjectivity of the spectator. He then discusses how the subjectivity of the art work is reflected in the viewer’s own state of mind in the context of communication with the viewers and the relationship to creators theory: how the work captures the mind of artist. Monet’s Water lily series and the triptych in particular connect to Wollheim because Monet’s tryptich raises questions such as why did the artist want to display his or her painting in such a way? Does it affect the viewer in the same way? How did artist use expressiveness in this artwork? I will further explore these things in the analysis of the water lilies. Analysis of Water Lilies from the literature The MoMA video introduction explains the genius of Monet’s decision to display his work in such large fashion, as well as the art world’s introduction to his style. In 1915, he started painting 20-foot long canvases. It was a scale that nobody imagined to paint on at the time. These paintings were neglected when they were exhibited in 1927 and they were re-discovered in the middle of 20th century. In world war one, his wife and son passed away and his eyesight became poor. In dealing with these difficulties, he concentrated even more on painting the water lily pond that he cultivated. (MoMA, video, introduction) Even though Monet began his work in 1915, it would be almost 40 years until it gained modern popularity. When abstract expressionism became a popular motif in 1950’s, Monet’s water lilies also became very popular. The body of literature concerning these works explains how Monet’s style and choice of subject contributed not only to this popularity, but also to the significance of the work. Many of the things that he was doing in his painting were looking at the surface of the water, his painting surface, and he wants us to do the same: to look at the water in his painting to transfer the view of the experience that he was having as an artist. The unimportant subject becomes almost a form of religiosity in a sense of examination. It’s this idea of paying attention to one’s environment in which the work of the artist can become the work of the viewer in such a way that it gives the same enormous pleasure to the viewer that it gave the artist. (MoMA, Reflections of weeping willows, video, 1914-26) While this attention to the surrounding environment and sense of examination helped give rise to Monet’s style, the influences from the surrounding environment were not static: they changed and grew. Monet’s paintings had to change and grow just as a water garden does. MoMA’s video explains how this evolution and growth of the subject affected Monet’s works. Monet’s Water lilies (single panel) has layers of paint because he did them for many months and even years. The characters of the painting become the time. You have the immediate feeling of the artist this way. His painting slows us down, the water slows us down in some way, and he wanted to slow you down. (MoMA video, Water lilies, single panel ,1914-26) One striking example of this evolution in Monet’s paintings in response to an evolving impression of a subject is in Monet’s Japanese Footbridge. In his first painting, Monet depicts the water and environment in a calm, realistic fashion. As time goes on though, and Monet’s impression of the water evolves, so does his painting. Monet’s second painting of the Japanese footbridge is abstract and full of vibrant colors reflecting Monet’s new attitude towards the footbridge scene. His abstract Japanese Footbridge has an unusual palette, unlike the other blue paintings, and is aggressive and hot. The bridge is almost not possible to find in the abstract version. (Japanese Foot Bridge, 1920-22) Monet began repeating natural elements as a motif when he worked for a month at Fecamp in 1881. The choices, obviating the need to depict the human stamp on landscape, to embrace nature’s shapes and changes, allowed more play of brush, required the handling of the paint in accord with natural rhythms rather than social structure. (Baillo et al,2010, P. 34) Monet developed landscape motifs and expressions in and around Giverny socially embracing the other impressionists. (Baillo et al,2010, P. 35) In relationship to naturalism in and around Monet’s period, Monet expressed naturalism in a different way, a more simplistic approach to reduce the motif and allow a “different texture” and “chromatics” to come into his works. (Baillo et al,2010, P. 39) During this time, his landscape became more aesthetic, emphasizing the orchestration of shape, surface and chromatics; and at the same time, he became appreciative of the Giverny locale. (Baillo et al,2010, P. 39) Through the exhibition Grainstacks in 1891, he realized that once a suitable motif had been found, repeating it was the way forward. Nature’s changes such as light, weather, and season, provided the visual stimulus to sensation, not necessarily the site itself. (Baillo et al,2010, P. 44) However, his engagement of the water lily pond as a repetitive motif that he cultivated on his own in Giverny did have an importance. He carefully planted the species in the water garden creating his own site to paint his painting which meant the “garden was also a work of art” (Claude et al, 2000, p.40) He was always fascinated by Water as a motif of his paintings as he said once “he wanted to be buried in a buoy, presumably to be eternally one with the liquid substance and forever to experience the sea’s swelling. He painted hundreds of pictures in which water, under all conditions and in all of its guises, played a role, beginning with his first signed and dated painting of 1858”( Claude et al, 2000, p.41) He realized that finding a motif and repeating was a way forward in making his painting, responding to light, weather, and season was a visual stimulus to him. “Repetition made each nuanced response more personal.” (Claude et al, 2000, p.41) Repetition made each nuanced response more personal.”(Baillo et al,2010, P. 44) More over his response to the natural elements can be seen as a socio-cultural perspective because the process of his response was not purely “aesthetic or sensation-based method” but his “seriality” Baillo et al,2010, P. 44 The tension between ‘decoration’ and ‘decor’ was fundamental to late impressionism. ‘Decor’ had only a superficial relation to nature and amounted simply to pleasurable ornamentation, significant only so far as any cultivated sense-experience was significant. Decoration derived from what Pissarro called an “intensely felt” enquiry into nature. It was pleasurable because it accorded with the essential harmonies of nature, but by the same token, it was intensely demanding and could be profound. (Spate,2001, p.236) As Pissaro mentioned that “decoration’ must be done in an ‘architectural ensemble’ Monet’s monumental paintings such as Water lilies and the way he wanted to display fits into the decoration of an architectural settings. (Spate,2001, 237) Steinberg’s point of departure was the absence of a horizon line in Monet’s murals and disorienting positioning of spectator that resulted. His response was extreme in imagining release of gravity, the body and all mental moorings, but some nature fantasy was implicit. (Claude et al, 2000, p.108) Emotive naturalism Monet also uses emotive naturalism, the emotion and observation of his motif, to further relay his personal response to nature and its associated sensations (Baillo et al, 2010 p.45) Baillo further explains that, “his emotive naturalism of 1880s was found moments of personal response to nature and their associated sensation” “his difficulties to manage expressing the light changes and weather was balanced “fixing motif treated serially made this complex” (Baillo et al,2010, P. 44) Time Monet’s Water lilies has a timeless quality. (Baillo et al,2010, p.64) Monet expresses the “moment of the landscape” through “light penetrating the depth of the water”, the species’ stillness and the breeze. His pond paintings are timeless in a sense that it has no weather or season. He paints them from his memories, his motif as the pond and lilies: “an area of water with no earth, no solids, no limits-and the notion of decoration led to a form of painting which embodied continuity: Monet multiplied phase of light which seem paradoxically to last forever; and he embarked on a project which could have gone on indefinitely, and was indeed terminated only by his death.” Maybe creating an atmosphere between the viewer and the painting is the similarities between landscape of Poussin and water lilies by Monet? The idea of the “Spectator wanting to re-experiencing the painting…(Clark, p.134) is what snake does with its down and darkness, and calm with its coolness and lingering warmth….The pictures’ ethical temper is their atmosphere, most powerfully, and the viewing distance this atmosphere seems to dictate. Distance and proximity are ethically charged.” (Clark, p.136) Similarly, Monet tries to bring out most distinctive characteristic from the sight of his lilies (Claude et al, 2000, p.5) As Claude explains, an “emphasis on personal experience of nature,” is central to impressionistic visual culture as a whole. “Impressionist aesthetic was an insistence on the fundamental subjectivity of each Indivisual’s sensation” (Claude et al, 2000, p.2) Applying Clark’s Landscape Lens to Water Lilies Upon my initial visit to MoMA’s exhibit of Monet’s Water lilies, one of the most striking aspects of the work was its size. Monet’s paintings are so large that the viewer can see Monet’s individual brush strokes. Seeing these small, seemingly unimportant strokes stand in contrast to the grandiose nature of Monet’s work caused me to reflect on Clark’s comments on the nature of Poussin’s attention to small details. Clark explains that, “the most gripping small figures in Poussin are those placed at this threshold between seeing and remembering.” (Clark, p.48) In this quote, Clark is explaining Poussin’s attention to detail as necessary because it contributes not just to the viewer’s experience of the painting by drawing on his or her memory, but also because these small pieces add up to form the larger work. The same is true for Monet. While individual brush strokes can at first appear unimportant, these small details are necessary because they contribute to the viewer’s personal experience of the paining and they add up to form the grandiose work. Just as Clark describes Poussin’s most gripping small figures as being placed at the “threshold between seeing and remembering”, Monet’s most gripping brushstrokes lie in the same threshold. Monet uses small brush strokes to create the effect of light shimmering on the water. Each of these strokes are not exact, but are Monet’s individual expressions of his impression of his water garden. As Monet said, “I know only that I do what I think best to express what I experience in front of nature…I allow plenty of faults to show in order to fix my sensations.” (Claude et al, 2000, p.4) For Monet, though, simply expressing his impression of his water lilies was not enough; he wanted to influence his viewer’s individual, subjective perspective of the world around him or her. As House says, “central to the whole Impressionist aesthetic was an insistence on the fundamental subjectivity of each individual’s sensation- of his or her experiences in the world.” (Claude et al, 2000, p.4) In order to achieve this effect in his work and have this effect on his viewer, Monet adopted the style of blending each of these individual, small brushstroke expressions into a larger overall idea. House explains “he began to adopt a smaller and more fragmented touch, introducing more complex nuances of color. The tonal contrasts that helped to differentiate between objects in earlier paintings now gave way to a concentration on colour relationships. Separate elements increasingly became absorbed into an overall effect.” (Claude et al, 2000, p.4) This technique stands in contrast to Clark’s style of making the small figures individual and unique, yet still relies on these small strokes lying in the threshold between “seeing and remembering.” (Clark p. 48) Wollheim In his work, Art and its Objects, Wollheim begs that timeless question of wherein lies the true beauty of art. Does this beauty, this quality that stirs those deep emotions familiar to every member of humanity, lie specifically in the subject of the work? This would seem to make sense when viewing Monet’s Water Lilies, since Monet placed such importance on his subject for this work: the water garden that he personally cultivated. Monet carefully planted the flower species in the water garden creating not just his own subject to paint in his work, but an entirely separate piece of art. As Claude says, “[the] garden was also a work of art” (Claude et al, 2000, p.40), but is this pond where the beauty of Monet’s work lies? Wollheim (1980) argues that the true beauty of art does not lie in the physical subject of the artist because if the physical object is the work of art was lost, the painting would still have its beauty. (p.208) To demonstrate this point, Wollheim cites the manuscript of a play as an example. If the original manuscript of the play is lost, individual copies of the play still exist and the work of art survives, even though its physical subject has been lost. (p.210) Wollheim goes on to argue that that the representational characteristics of art make it present challenges to the hypothesis that the true beauty of art lies in the artist’s physical subject (p. 214). So if the true beauty of art does not lie in the physical subject, wherein does it lie? Wollheim’s second hypothesis is that the true beauty of art does not lie in the physical subject, but in the expression of the painting. This hypothesis can be divided into two possible sub-hypotheses: first, that this expression conveys the artist’s state of mind. (p. 213) Wollheim says that the expressive properties of artwork are really the inner state of the artist. If that were true, then the expressiveness belongs to the biography of the artist, not the work. Wollheim argues this is not true, and the work of art cannot be expressive because it conveys the original mental status of the artist. (p. 214) Wollheim’s second sub-hypothesis is that the expressiveness of the work is evoked through the subjectivity of the viewer. Wollheim says that an artist’s state of temperament can be identified through connecting the work to “the condition it’s supposed to express,” (p. 215) and because we cannot bring back the exact past way of experience, this expressiveness is acquired through subjective viewing. If an object is presented with a certain theme such as grief or death, we ought to believe that it is a piece of art that spectators can correspond to the artwork’s expressiveness. (Wollheim, 1980, p.215) To make the point that the true beauty of art cannot lie solely in the viewer, Wollheim cites works of “extreme emotional intensity” such as Bernini’s St. Theresa and Goya’s black paintings. (p. 215) Wollheim says that even in the face of these powerfully emotional works, it is possible, and sometimes expected, of the viewer to refrain from experiencing the emotion depicted in the painting, showing that the true beauty of art cannot lie exclusively in the viewer. (p. 215) So if the philosophical hypotheses that the true beauty of art lies in the physical subject, or the subjective experience of the painter or the viewer, have been shown to be false, wherein does this true beauty lie? As Wollheim (1980) points out, “I shall argue that concept of expression, at any rate as this applies to the arts, is indeed complex, in that it lies at the intersection of two constituent notions of expression.” (p. 217) Finally, Wollheim has arrived at a conclusion he views to be true concerning where he believes the true beauty of art to lie. Wollheim argues that the true beauty of art does not lie in the physical subject of the artist or the subjective experience of the artist or the viewer, but in the interaction of these elements through the work of art (p. 217) Expression comes from our emotion directly squeezing out all of our emotion to the artwork of the "inner state" (p.217) Expression responds to the environment that we are in at the time of experience and it connects to how we make art, but this expression as an example of art that confirms the viewer's feeling (Wollheim, 1980, p.217). It is through this lens that Monet’s Water lilies can be examined more deeply. As I previously stated, one of the first emotional reactions I had to the Water lilies exhibition was that of overwhelming awe. Wollheim argues that this reaction, as is true for every emotional reaction to any work of art, does not stem from the individual flowers or the physical water garden. This emotional reaction does not come solely from within me, nor does it solely come from Monet’s technique or expression. Rather, this emotional response is a product of the interaction between each of these elements: Monet’s technique, his expression, his impression of his water garden, and my own subjective experience all interact, according to Wollheim, to elicit this unique, subjective emotional response to this unique work. (Wollheim, 1980, p. 217). Discussion & Conclusion toward Lesson Development & Future Research Many art-related books used as texts present wonderful paintings or other works, often in chronological or theoretical series, and discuss the lives of artists and their domains in the field, including critical views of the artists and art. Different from many other works, The Sight of Death (Clark, 2006) is an extremely personal, unique, personal work about “how the kind of writing on art exemplified” (p. vii) therein by the journal style of writing based on Clark’s experience in Poussin’s paintings Landscape with a Calm and Landscape with a Man killed by a Snake. He writes his experience and the stories that come to him as he repeatedly reflects on individual works of art, as well as how he uses other works too. Clark describes Poussin’s Landscape with calm with various dimensions, including the brush strokes of the painting and the size of the components in the painting. The components are the parts that can be said to comprise work, while the attributes are dimensions of those components. Nature/environment is defined as the surrounding environment that supports and informs the artwork; and the Response is defined as what Clark describes in his journal with his response and points of views. In Poussin’s painting Landscape with a calm, Clark describes the water as being so still and quiet. He writes, “The fast moving sky, light contrasts and the light-dark polarity of the lean-to washhouse in contrast to the wall it lean on- are still there in the millor-image.the light and dark polarity is pushed even further than in the reality above. But neither passage seems to be ‘lit’, exactly. It is as if in the water effects of light become local colors, fixed characters to the things shown. The calm gives the architecture another sky, and therefore another temporarily. Again, how long will the calm last? In a moment will ripple spread out from the line of cattle?” (p19) Here the reality is unclear in the painting; is it a dream? Like all of Poussin’s paintings, this one also has a romantic feeling that causes a lucid effect in the viewing. It raises a question: what is reality in a painting? Is it a narrative of a painting that needs to be understood by the viewer or the artists? There are a couple of strange things about this painting. One is that the building behind the water looks as if it has been pushed too far back. It’s almost unrealistic, and it makes me think that it feels like a dream. Also the natural surroundings are very still, especially the water, which looks frozen but the people in this painting are very active. In contrast to this still, almost frozen water, Monet’s Water lilies series’ water is seemingly constantly in motion, yet Monet achieves the same lucid effect as the one Clark describes concerning Poussin’s paintings. The short, quick brush strokes, the vibrant pallet, and the ripples on the water all conjure the lucid feeling of a dreamlike state. In response to Poussin’s painting, I felt like drawing on top of it, and then I made a little moving image out of it. I started to draw ripples, waves and rain on top of Poussin’s painting. My first response was that Poussin’s water and the reflections on the water are so still that it was also unrealistic. I almost wanted to poke the surface of water and make the trees move by the wind. The reflection on water has another sky, other than the real sky painted. This “temporarily” as Clark calls it, is reflecting the fast moving sky rather than the realistic sky because the calm will not last more than a few moments. In my responsive drawings, I depicted what the movement of nature will do in this place of Poussin’s painting. Reflections toward Art and Scholarship Upon reflection, I considered many concepts over this term. This process was ultimately valuable in that it helped me to better understand my past studio art teaching experiences. Further, I found that in reassessing my past syllabi, there were dramatic improvements that I can make when teaching my students, such as how to reflect motion in their works, and how to express the quality of an object without necessarily expressing the physicality of that object. The greatest finding that I derived from this project was the insight I gained from comparing Clark’s experience with Poussin’s paintings to my experience with Monet’s. Clark’s deep reading into the painting, his over evaluation of every minute detail, caused me to reevaluate the way I view an exhibition and shifted my focus to smaller, seemingly unimportant details. Be they individual brush strokes in Monet’s Water lilies, tiny figures on the hillside in Pousin’s Landscape with a calm, or individual drops of water in my own work, because of Clark’s influence, I now have a greater appreciation of the small details artist’s put into their work in order to achieve their desired effect. Final Assignment: Studio-based Lessons Informed by An Analysis of Monet’s Water Lilies series in MOMA 2010 Philosophies of Art in Education Final Assignment: Studio-based Lessons Informed by An Analysis of Monet’s Water Lilies series in MOMA 2010 Introduction Before students begin to create meaningful art, they must first understand what is art, what is it purpose, and what are the techniques artists have used to achieve this purpose. While these questions seem fundamental, overlooking them can cause an art student to miss the entire purpose of creation, and can cause a viewer to miss the entire purpose of a piece of art. The purpose of these lesson plans is to encourage students to ask these questions for themselves and seek the answers to these questions in art they create. These lesson plans have been inspired by Monet’s Water Lilies series, as seen in MOMA’s 2010 exhibit. Furthermore, the answers to these questions have been influenced by Wollheim and Clark. Through these lessons, future art students should be able to develop not only deeper insight into their work and better technique, but a deeper insight into themselves through their art. Development of lesson plans In the first lesson, I want to raise question ‘what is art?’ In order to start stimulating the students who are beginners in the art world and to engage them in the thought process of what is making art. This first lesson will be divided into three lessons, with each lesson lasting one week. The second lesson plan will focus on the expressiveness of making art. It will inform students of a series of artists in painting and drawing to inform them of specific styles and emotional qualities incorporated by artists in order to create their artworks. The third lesson can be an individual workshop given to undergraduate level students or it could also be a studio class. It is designed to leave students with questions such as how should an artist engage in making art? What are the conditions of being an artist? In his book Art and its Objects, Wollheim explores the hypothesis that the expressiveness of art is evoked through the subjectivity of the spectator. He goes on to cite Goya’s dark paintings as an example of why this hypothesis is false. If expressiveness of art is evoked through the subjectivity of the spectator, Goya’s dark paintings certainly would make me angry, scared, or depressed. According to Wollheim though, it is often required of the viewer to remove his or her self and subsequent emotions from the work. Viewers are often called upon to be impartial and to deny the accompanying emotions that come with viewing art. According to Wollheim, if the expressiveness of art is evoked through the subjectivity of the spectator, this detachment would not be possible. (Wollheim, 1980, p. 214) If Wollheim is correct and the expressiveness of art is not evoked through the subjectivity of the spectator, how is Monet’s Water lilies such an emotionally evocative piece? The communicative theory of art explains this contradiction. This theory states that the mind of the creator is conveyed to the mind of the spectator through the work. In this sense, Monet’s Water lily triptych is communicative: it causes the evocation of emotion in the viewer. Clearly, art serves different functions in different contexts, and any artist must select the function and context that allows the creation of embodied expressiveness. It is this integral idea that I hope to teach to my students through these lesson plans, and it is this freedom of the creation of embodied expressiveness that I hope to give to my students upon completion of this course. Lesson Plan #1: What is Art? Lesson 1 Discussion: Think of an example from the visual artist about the argument that art is a physical object? Give reasons to each claim you are making. Project: Do a project about making an artwork and present it with the themes aroused from this lesson. Give students three weeks to develop individual project until the critique and presentation. This lesson plan will center on Wollheim’s questioning of where the true beauty of art lies. (Wollheim, 1980, p. 217) Students will discuss their opinion on whether art is a physical object or not. Wollheim argues that art is not a physical object (p. 209), and that it lies at the interface between object and subject (p. 214), but all student views will be accepted. Students will be encouraged to think critically and take these questions seriously. At the end of this class, students will be asked to develop a project in which they create a piece of art. Students will have three weeks to create the piece of art before they will be required to present it to the class presenting it with themes and ideas drawn from the lesson. Students will be asked if they think the painting or drawing they have created is considered a piece of art; if they consider the object they painted a piece of art, and where they think the art truly lies. Lesson 2 Discussion: Think of an example from the visual artist about the argument that art is an expression? Do you think art is an expression of the artist’s impression or of the viewer’s? Does the communicative theory, creators theory, or the spectators theory best capture your view of where art lies? Give reasons to each claim you are making. Project: Do a project about making an artwork and present it with the themes aroused from this lesson. Give students three weeks to develop individual project until the critique and presentation. In this lesson, students will be asked if they believe art is an expression, and if so, what perspective is it relaying? Students will be exposed to the communicative theory, the creator’s theory, and the spectators theory to explain various perspectives on where art’s expressiveness comes from. Furthermore, Wollheim’s explanations and descriptions of these theories will be explored in class. Wollheim argues that the hypothesis that expression within the work of art is where the true beauty of art lies can be divided into two sub-hypotheses: first, that the true beauty of this expression lies with the artist, or second, that the true beauty of this expression lies with the viewer. (Wollheim, 1980, p. 214) Students in this lesson will be asked if they agree with Wollheim’s main hypothesis that the true beauty of art comes from its expression. Students will then be asked which sub-hypothesis they believe to be true, that this expression comes from the artist or that it comes from the viewer. Students will be encouraged to think about the works of art they are currently painting or drawing, and how those works elicit unique, subjective emotions in themselves and their viewers. Lesson 3 why is this 3, lesson 2is below? because you asked me to divide this lesson into three parts, it’s part of lesson plan 1 not lesson plan 3. The final lesson in this series will be a peer and instructor evaluation and discussion of works of art the students will complete for their projects. Students will present their works to the class, and will discuss if they feel the work is a piece of art, where that quality of art lies in their work, and who is being expressed by this piece of art. Furthermore, students will be encouraged to engage in discussion with their classmates about their responses to these questions, and debates should occur concerning student’s perspectives on these questions. Lesson Set 2: Creating Art to a Theme Lesson 1 Discussion: Students will be asked to view several works by Monet on their own time, specifically his Water lilies series. Students will then be asked to look at Monet’s use of water throughout his life: nature, reflection, flower, wind, smell, fragmentation, and time at last creating an environment for the viewer. Class discussion will revolve around the question of what techniques and expressive qualities define the themes of Monet’s selected works, and how do students feel they can incorporate these techniques and qualities into their own works to achieve their desired style. Project: Pick an expressive quality such as from Monet’s water lilies and use it as your method to create an artwork. This lesson will introduce students to the utilization of techniques and emotional qualities to achieve a specific desired style and theme to their works. Monet’s Water lilies utilize several emotional qualities and techniques to achieve his desired themes. In an essay to be shared during the in-class discussion, Johnson describes Monet’s changing techniques in response to his evolving desired style. “By the mid-1870s, Monet’s treatment of his subjects began to change. In place of the crisp painterly shorthand that stressed the diversity of the objects in the scene, he began to adopt a smaller and more fragmented touch, introducing more complex nuances of color.” (House, p.4) In addition to the project described above, students will also be asked to go to a garden/botanical garden to find inspirations associated with their chosen theme. Students will then to be asked to repeat drawing or painting with the same motif from nature and see where it takes them. Students will be required to do at least three drawings or paintings from the subject matter drawing, and will be asked to keep the sketch book for this course in order to keep drawing. Materials and methods to be used for this project include texture of paint/handling of paint, layering paint, mixing other media to layer, and use of scale. Lesson 2 Discussion: Students will be asked to discuss what influences they found in nature during the previous week, and what motifs they are working on. Students will then be asked how these motifs compare to the ones chosen by Monet, and how they think these differences will affect their work. Furthermore, students will be asked what American abstract expression artists and contemporary artists use their subjects or nature as a motif and an inspiration to create their work. Artists like Fontana, Monet, Van Gogh, Brian, Kim, and Masking will be brought up as part of the discussion. Project: Students will continue to work on their projects from the previous week. Last class or a single workshop Discussion: Is student artwork an expression of the student’s creativity or a vehicle for creative interpretation on the part of the viewer? Students will be asked to consider recent work they have completed, and will be asked if they feel these works are an expression of their own creative passions or a medium upon which the viewer can critically interpret a subjective meaning of their own? Once student views have been given and sufficient debate has transpired, students will be asked if they feel one of the answers is correct and one is incorrect, or if they feel both answers can be correct under some circumstances. Students will be reminded that Wollheim argues for the latter, saying, ““I shall argue that concept of expression, at any rate as this applies to the arts, is indeed complex, in that it lies at the intersection of two constituent notions of expression.” (Wollheim, 1980, p. 217) Project: After discussion, students will be encouraged to work on projects they have brought to the studio. While completing these projects with instructor supervision, students will be asked to consider the root of the expressive nature of their works. My aim is to create and hold a workshop and studio art for three hours for the last class or a single workshop. Some students will naturally come to the workshop inclined to see art as an expression of their own creativity, others may come to the workshop seeing their artwork as a vehicle for creative interpretation on the part of viewer. What should the teacher do when confronted this diverse perspectives. Is one or the other of these “correct”? Three points will be made to students during this workshop to show that, while students will hopefully have defined and clarified their theoretical perspectives by this point in the course, these perspectives are subjective and there is not one correct idea. 1. The artist is guided by a vision of natural expressiveness. 2. The artist is attempting to embody the expressiveness that corresponds to the subjectivity of the spectator. 3. The artist is guided by a vision of successful communication. Appendix A Model lesson plan—Fine Art Foundations This course is an introductory art-making practice (informed by philosophical theory) foundations course for undergraduates and occasional qualifying second-year students who are firmly engaged in their artistic ideas. The course will give them insights and guidelines regarding what art is and how they should go forward as art-making students given philosophical, theoretical, and practical background supports. This course concentrates not only on creating paintings, but on making sculpture and installation art forms. Week 1 What is Art 1? First assignment--based on Wollheim text. Week 2 Painting/Expressionism: What is Art 2? Personal tutorial meetings for individual projects. Week 3 What is Art 3? View completed individual projects; feedback session. Week 4 Facilitator & Peer Art-Making Critiques I. Week 5 Expressiveness in Art Making 1 Week 6 Expressiveness in Art Making 2 Week 7 Expressiveness in Art Making 3 Week 8 Facilitator & Peer Art-Making Critiques II. Week 9 Creating Art to a theme: Week 10 Creating Art to a theme2 Week 11 Creating Art to a Theme 3 Individual Tutorial Sessions. Week 12 Facilitator & Peer Art-Making Critiques I. Week 13 Art-making to engage your audience …? Week 14 Art-making to engage your audience ? Week 15 Art-making to engage your audience ? Week 16 Facilitator & Peer Art-Making Critiques IV. Week 17 Studio or Final Class Level: For undergrad in fine art department Class presentation : reflections of Monet’s Water lily series, Sight of death, and my response to those materials (2-3 pages) For this class, I viewed Monet’s water lily paintings at MOMA. After a few weeks of visits to the exhibition, and after the exhibition had ended, I felt I wanted to create a work of art that evokes the feelings and emotion that correspond to Monet’s lilies. I had various reflections to both works by Monet and Poussin. The environment of the artist’s activity and the kind of the work that both create to communicate with their own artwork was an interesting point to me. Monet created art about water and its environment in a specific place, trying to capture the momentary calmness of the pond and trying to share the momentary look with the viewer. As an artist, I strive to create the same effect. I want to capture not only the object I am painting, but also the inherent quality I experience and interpret through my work. This is a skill Monet thrived in, and this technique is present in his lilies.. As Temkin and Lawrence explain, “…even when the paintings are encountered one at a time, the artist’s environmental vision is apparent in their size, and, more important, in their scale vis-a-vis an individual’s perception. Focusing tightly on the surface of the water, Monet succeeded to immersion. Thus the Water lilies claim on the viewer differs from that of easel-size painting to be looked at in the contemporary of others. From the outset, the artist envisaged them as all-encompassing. (Temkin&Lawrence, p.12) I have been making art works about nature and water in particular these days. My art is an intersection among the art work, the environment, and the viewer. The components are the parts that can be said to comprise my work, while the attributes are dimensions of those components. These components include: Atmosphere(s), Nature/environment, and the response. For purposed of this presentation, atmosphere is defined as installations that engender a romantic ambience within the viewer’s perception; nature/environment is defined as the surrounding environment that supports and informs the art work; and response is defined as ways of knowing how the audience reacts to my work. People find things romantic when they feel love or long for a dream. These romantic feelings can arouse nostalgia of things ranging from a beautiful landscape to a TV program. I am not trying to summon the romantic periods since the renaissance, but rather am trying to create a sensational view, from this nostalgia, of everyday life with my installations. I have been filming water sources in New York for the whole summer and made several video works. And when I was reading Clark’s book, something came to my mind. In Poussin’s painting Landscape with a calm, the water is so still and quiet. In response to this painting I felt like drawing on top of it, and then I made a little moving image out of it. I started to draw ripples, waves and rain on top of Poussin’s painting. My first response was that the water and the reflections on the water are so still that it was also unrealistic. I almost wanted to poke the surface of water and make the trees move by the wind. The reflection on water has another sky, other than the real sky painted. This “temporarily” as Clark calls it, is reflecting the fast moving sky rather than the realistic sky because the calm will not last more than a few moments. In my responsive drawings, I depicted what the movement of nature will do in this place of Poussin’s painting. Artistic Interpretation 1. My response to Poussin’s (1650-51) Landscape with a Calm. The original image of the painting was scanned from Clark (2006, p. 88). Response 2 and 3 I then created series of pond videos with the inspiration and the essence of the two paintings Landscape with a Calm and Water Lilies. This was a more of narrative response to the Landscape with a Calm and Water Lilies. Artistic Interpretation 2. Reflecting Nature: Elavated Romanticism, 2 minutes, My response to Water Lilies (1920-1926) Artistic Interpretation 3. My response to Water Lilies (1920-1926) Beyond Monet, I also looked at couple of other artists who make art about nature and water. Fabio Plessi is a video artist who knows a lot about water and makes art about water. He connects water to life and the universe and naturally the subject nature arises in his work. His work has depth to the meaning of water and renders water as a theme to capture the moment of its life. When compared to bill viola’s Reflecting Pool, the contrast between the artists’ respective life stories amazed me. Bill Viola is an artist that I have always looked at as my mentor for my work. His work called Reflecting Pool is a work that I admire. In this work he uses a pool as a mirror to reflect things but also uses it as a narrative to his life journey. A man stands by the pool and walks around but suddenly he freezes in the air for a few seconds and disappears. Then he appears in on the reflection in the pool but not in actual place. It is a journey he tries to depict, a journey that is needed in life to explore, despair, and desire for a dream. It might be a few seconds in his work but often it is a long journey to people. Fabrizio Plessi Bill Viola In both works, water is a fundamental symbol of the respective artists’ artistic and personal careers, being a metaphor of decontamination, life, death, and resurrection. Water is not simply a quotation with an end in itself, but it is an element filled of meanings just for the reason that it can symbolize diverse aspects of the human being conditions. As a matter of fact, the themes which have been faced all conjure images to some extent of liquid: thirst, maternity, thought, femininity, oblivion, transformation, purification, voyage and rebirth. I use water to depict movement and it’s dynamic. I use this dynamic rhythm to narrate nature’s life, needs of human life, and its sustainability. I think everyone is entitled to think about nature’s contra positional relationship to the urban landscape and human nature. Like these artists, I hope to offer a complete idea of the evocative nature with which water represents humanity in its universal and distinctive aspects. In my other works that I explore the nature, human and environmental, that people live in. I try to depict the nature in my art which then is placed in a particular place as an installation. Reflecting Nature: Elevated Romanticism is a project that I have worked on for several months now. I devote myself to create a local based artwork that needs participation of people. By this I mean I invite people to experience my work in a circular and huge audience. Clark (2006) explains the motivation of artists to do such grandiose exhibits by saying, “Let us presume that the subject of landscape with a snake is the nature of nature, and the place of the human within it; in particular, the powers and the place of the human ability to make sense, to make signs. Poussin’s thought about these matters does not take the form of a set of propositions. His thought is a certain balance, and interpretation, of light and shade; a range of sizes of figure; a spatial interval between two hands; a pose and a look; and so on” (p.184). References MoMA presents focused exhibition of Claude Monet's late paintings of Water Lilies at Giverny (2009), Art business new, 36 (11), p.13 Basalla, G. (1982). Transformed Utilitarian Objects, Winterthur portfolio, 17(4), 183-201. Baillo, J., House, J., Laurence Bertrand Dorleac, Madeline, L., & Patin, S., (2010). Claude Monet:1840-1926, exhibition catalog, Paris, Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais, Sep 22, 2010-JAN 24, 2011, Musee dorssay Clark, T. J. (2006). The sight of death: An experiment in art writing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Claude, M., Tucker, P. H., Shackelford, G.T. , Stevens, M.A. ?????(2000). Monet in the 20th Century, The Renaissance in Europe Series, Yale University Press Francis, H. S. (1960). Claude Monet Water Lilies, The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 47 (8), p.192 Lind, R. (1992). The aesthetic essence of art. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 50(2), 117-129. Meagher, M. (2003). Jenny Saville and a feminist aesthetics of disgust. Women, Art, and Aesthetics, 18(4), 23-41. Miller, W. I. (1997). The anatomy of disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Spate, V. (2001). 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