Gero's Cross

The Crucifix commissioned by Arch Bishop Gero is one of the first life-sized wooden crucifixion's and has remained in considerably good condition noting it's location and medium. Many of the crucifix's prior to the Ottonian period did not show such a severe emotion of Christ. The Gero Cross was the first to show the distress in Christ's face, as well as his body language.
The distress in Christ's is complemented by the sad, stretched muscles in the rest of his body. In some crucifix before this one, Christ's body didn't seem to hang as much off the cross as it in Gero's cross. The weight is pulled from between his nailed hands and throughout his core, where it is resting on the pedestal at his feet. Where there once was a throned crown, there is now dripping blood. Different from "happy crosses" in earlier Ottonian crucifixes, Christ does not look joyful or youthful; Gero's cross is the more realistic representation of the Crucifixion.
Today's image of Christ is a lot like the one from Gero's Cross; Gero's cross laid the foundation for the image of Christ. Christ today is pictured more Middle Eastern with a sad expression when he is on the cross. Come to think of it, there isn't a representation in art when Christ is happy. Does this have something to do with his death? We know now that Christian story tells us Jesus died for all of our sins. Did artists depict him as unhappy because they interpreted his fate as something for him to be unhappy about? Christ's sad expression in other works of art may be unexplainable, but because his feet and hands are nailed to a cross, his sad expression in Gero's Cross is the most realistic of its time.

Moon

Dale Chihuly’s Moon is made from glass. Currently on display at Cheekwood museum in Nashville, the Moon is the centerpiece in a planetary display. Since I saw the Moon at night I was able to visually compare it to the real moon. Of course, the real moon is grey but still shares the same varying shadows that Chihuly’s Moon does.

Van Gogh’s The Starry Night also depicts a surreal night sky with varying shades of blue. The mystical mystery of the night is portrayed in his varying ‘plates’ of blues and whites that are welded together to form a sphere. At Cheekwood, the Moon is placed behind a foreground filled with different color basketball-sized glass globes representing different planets. The swirls on the ‘plates’ reminded me immediately of The Starry Night and the swirls Van Gogh used in his paintings to depict the wind during the night and the movement of the night’s sky.

I haven’t seen many glass arts but Chihuly used the random bends and twists of glass to his advantage to make beautiful sculptures. Chihuly has a variety of subjects of astronomy to vegetables. I was impressed the most by Chihuly’s Moon because of its lighting display and the other glass globes that were places around it. 

September 17, 2010

Classwork analysis over thirty minutes.

Clare Coyle Taylor- January 2, 2007
Color pencil on bristol board
Taylor's abstract drawing depicts a smudged pastel background of green, purple and pink colors. The drawing is a small square, approximately 8X8 inches. In the vertical center of the drawing there are top boxes. A top with a black center and the bottom with a red center. The boxes are both surrounded by black blurred outlines that encompass the shapes in the chaotic background. Both squares seem to sitting in a birds nest safely nestled in their black boarders. The top box, a bluish blackish color, could represent the blueness of the moon, while the red box represents the sun.
The emotions tied in with the colors boarding the boxes show chaos and wild color. The background displays bright colors that contrast with the two black boxes. The red could also represent a passion and love for something, but the bluish blackish is darker and more menacing. The two boxes could also represent life and death. Red, the color of blood could represent life, while black, the color of decaying flesh, can represent death. Life and death are both encompassed by boarders. I now notice the boarder surrounding the "death" box is somewhat distant to the box, while the red boarder closely encompasses the red box. The boarder's could be protectors for the beings in the chaos of the real world. I see the red box as a representation of life and life being closely connected to its conscious (the black) boarder and its ability to shield itself from the outside world. The "death" box's black boarder is farther from the black box. Death cannot shield itself from the outside world and has to face natural decomposition without a close shield; thus it's shield is more distant from the box and more precise because death does not have to incorporate itself in the real world, but it is still there.

The Kiss

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss 1907

Romantic depictions in Art at the time of Gustav Klimt were at the first stages of being more “realistic” emotional than they had previously been.  For the first time, the Impressionist Movement captured the emotions of the movement rather than a snapshot. Klimt captures a young couple in an embrace.

The woman is not only knelling, but has her toes and necked curved at an uncomfortable angle. Klimt’s lifestyle reflected his view of women as objects by hiring them as nude models. The women in The Kiss is uncomfortable and has a position manipulated by the man, but sticking too his lifestyle, Klimt paints her face with a peaceful expression. Although each of the subjects clothing is embellished with gold, the male’s clothing has more rigid shapes while the women’s drapery is covered in circles—almost mirroring the flowers below her. The man holds the women in a very rigid position and does not show his face.

The couple seems to be on the edge of a cliff as they embrace. Love is an uncertain emotion because it must be shared between two people. There is a ecstatic feeling associated with love and that it can end very quickly. The edge of the cliff represents how closely to the edge a couple can be.

The landscape of The Kiss is very limited. The couple is knelling in a bed of flowers while their background is a mess of black flecked heavily with gold. The haziness of the gold along with the flowers gives the scenery of the kiss an almost dreamlike state.

The ratio of the width of the couple to the ratio of their height from the ground represents the golden mean. The mass of the couple, in addition to the platform they are knelling on takes up almost the entire height of the painting. The lightening at the scene of The Kiss is at a dark time of the day, most likely dusk. A bright background would bring attention to the couple, when they are clearly sharing a private moment. 

Breakfast in Bed

Mother child relationships can normally be described in a few sentences. The mother having full responsibility for the child loves them unconditionally but sometimes need a break. The child is completely dependent on the other and therefore wants to be with her ever moment they get. The impressionist style of Cassatt captures casual moments, as this one does here and shows the emotions of that moment. Cassatt captures the tired emotions of the mother with her exasperated look at the child. The mother is clearly tired- she is still in bed and her head is relaxed against the pillows. The child is expressing comfort. She is near her mother and therefore content and at the same time completely oblivious to the needs of her mother. Her ignorance of her mothers needs could be due to her age but also her selfishness in wanting to be with her mother. The lightening of this painting clearly shows it was not at nighttime or even at dawn. The lightening is late in the afternoon, which could contribute to the idea the mother is depressed (she is still in bed at noon).  The mother, although not very focused on the child is still restraining her with her arm showing that she wants the child to be there but her thoughts aren’t completely focused on the child. There is a sharp contrast with the whites of the sheets and the flesh tones of the mother and daughter. Cassatt has the subjects framed in a dark green, which draws the eye to the center pink, surrounded by white and then framed with green.