Discovering Art History (pg22-73)

1. Acrylic paints has become a very popular media because of its versatility. It's able to adhere to different types of surfaces such as wood, glass, paper, masonite, cardboard etcetera. It can be thinned with water, its easy to clean up and it drys fast. Acrylic can be applied both thick and thin. I haven't used too many painting and drawing medias but the ones I have used are mostly basic ones. Those include, paper and pencils. However, I have also used charcoal, paint and canvases before. 

2. In sculpting, additive means to put a piece together and subtractive is when you take something away from your piece. A medium that is often additive is steel, bronze is casted, mosaics and furniture are modeling but furniture is also subtractive.  

3. Duane Hanson's Football Player is a sculpture made from liquid silicone rubber. He uses real life models to help create an exact likeness of his model. 

4. Vermeer emphasizes light in his Officer and Laughing Girl by adding the open class window and showing contrast in this piece. He shows the different reflected lights and the different shades of shadow.

5. In Tiepolo's Adoration of the Magi, contrast is really used well to create the viewer's eyes to follow the direction that the artist wants them to. There are so many details and things going on in this one piece but you can truly see where the artist wants you to focus. That specific part that the artist wants you to focus is very clear and colored in light colors for the viewer to see all the details.

Interpretation:

1.    I select Romare Bearden's Eastern Barn to analyze. This piece really intrigues me because of the amount of interpretation that the viewer is left with. Its very unique because its not created through the regular process of getting something on the canvas. There are so many parts to it. The piece involves color, pasting paper, abstract, contrast and probably many more. In the end, the whole piece looks very different from other drawings and paintings. It looks different in a good way, leaving the viewer in curiosity and excitement. I would interoperate this as two men having a conversation and a little girl listening to it. All of this happening in a barn. I say that because of the title its given. 
2. In Nicholas de Stael, Landscape in Vaucluse, colors are mainly used to bring out the theme of the art. The intensity of the colors create the value in the art. Theres both light and dark value. Its also interesting how the artist decided to make it right next to each other, allowing us to really see the difference/ contrast in the painting. 
3. Edgar Degas' The Star, or Dancer on Stage uses cool colors. (pg65/49) In Joseph Mallord William Turner, Burning of the House of Parliament uses warm colors. This warm color comes form the fire. (pg66/50) 
4. The Raven sun clan mast with beak is symmetrical. William H. Johnson, Li'l Sis painting is asymmetrical. 
5. Mary Cassatt's Sleeping Baby is both a painting and a drawing but if I had to choose one, I would say its a painting. I say this because of the way the colors are presented on the canvas. How the colors mixes at the bottom of her dress. I feel like with drawing there would be more details. But I'm not saying that there are not lots of details in this picture of that, there is a good amount of detail in this picture. I say its a painting because when you look at the over all, it just seems like a painting.