The Art Connoisseur

Task 1a- Historical Art Movements

Pop Art

Pop Art was mainly popular in the 1950s and 60s. Pop Art was young and fun. It included different styles of painting and sculpture from different countries. But they all have a few things in common such as mass media, mass production, and mass culture. It began around the same time as when pop music was in it's prime and in the height of it's popularity around the world such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles. It was very graphic, loud, colourful, and based on images from pop culture. Example of famous artists is Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Pop art was pioneered in London by Richard Hamilton in the 1950s.

Graffiti Art

Graffiti Art is a movement in New York in the 1970s. It is self-expression and very creative. It may have letters, Cryptic words or pictures and is very colourful. It may be found on walls and Buildings. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring are well known artists. It is believed to be started by a High School student who in 1967 drew on city walls to catch a girl's attention. It drew other teenagers to the graffiti movement because it was original, illegal and they write their names on it.

YBA (Young British Artists).

A group of artists who first began in London in 1988. Damien Hirst became the most famous of the group. They were very open, for example, using preserved dead animals and making sculptures from cigarettes. It began around a series of artists led exhibitions. In particular, the freeze Exhibition in 1988.

Stuckism

Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999. It was founded by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson.  They promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. Stuckism was an idea based on Billy Childish's poem as he recited his poem to Charles Thomson. Later that month, it inspired Charles Thomson and he then approached Billy Childish with the idea of 'Stuckism' based on Billy's (''stuck,stuck stuck! with his art, poetry and music'') poem as a co-founding art group. Billy Childish agreed with Charles Thomson. Charles Thomson did the work for the group, as Childish already had a full schedule. In August 1999, Billy Childish and Charles Thomson wrote the stuckists manifesto which had a great importance for the value of painting, as a medium, as well as the use for communication, the expression of emotion and of experience- as what stuckists see as a superficial novelty, nihilism and irony of conceptual art and postmodernism.

Stuckism could also be a controversial form of bullying and a negative outlook on everyday life. It is like "cyber bullying" or "Trolling" online on Twitter and Facebook but on paper and paint (or in graffiti on a wall) as celebrities are not always "pompous''. For example:

 

Futurism

Futurism is a 20th century art movement. Which loves speed, noise, machines, pollution and cities. Futurism was largely Italian and Russian movement and looked at using every type of medium of art such as painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre and music. The movement as it's strongest from 1909 by the italian artist Filippo Marinetti. Futurism paintings were very colourful with lots of shapes and lines to represent how objects move and this is linked to the industrial revolution.

Futurism was an art movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified the theme that associates with concepts (contemporary concepts) of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city. It was largely a phenomenon in Italy, though there were parallel movement in Russia, England and elsewhere in Europe. The "futurist" artists practised from every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design etc. The key members of the movement include the italians Filippo Tomasso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant'Elia, Bruno Munari, Benedetta Cappa and Luigi Russolo, and the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, Igor Severyanin, David Burliuk, Aleksei Kruchenykh and Vladimir  Mayakovsky. as well as the Portuguese Almada Negreiros.  They were the members who aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past and to glorify modernity.

 

Art Movement Timeline

Task 1b- Futurism and Graffiti Art

Graffiti Art

Graffiti Art is a movement in New York in the 1970s. It is self-expression and very creative. 

The most famous art for graffiti is Banksy. His identity remains unkown. He has done work in America, Austrailia, France, England, and Palastine. His messages are symbolic of art, politics, sociology and humor. Banksy is believed to have been born in Bristol, England around 1974. He rose to fame for his stencilised pieces in the late 1990s in a graffiti gang called DryBreadZ Crew. His artwork is known for striking images often with slogans. His work often is political and against war, greed, and capitalism. Common subjects in his drawings include rats, apes, policemen, the Royal family, and children. His worldwide fame transformed his artwork from vandalism to hide art pieces that people demand. In october 2013, he went to New York and sold some of his work on the street for 60 dollars each. One day in New York, he said "The plan is to live here, react to things, see the sights and paint on them. It may even be just a scribble on a toilet wall".

Task 1c

Graffiti Art Mood Board

Futurism

Umberto Boccioni-Italian painter and Sculptor, 1882-1916

Umberto Boccioni was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He was born on 19th October 1882 in Reggio Calabria, the southernmost tip of mainland Italy. His father was a minor government employee, originally from the Romagna region in the north. Umberto's family soon relocated further north and Umberto and his older sister Amelia grew up largely in Forli (Emilia-Romagna), Genoa and finally Padua. At the age of 15, in 1897, Umberto and his father moved to Catania, Sicily, where he would finish school. Some time after 1898, he moved to Rome and studied art at the Scuola Libera del Nudo of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. After many years in Rome, he had a meeting in 1901 with his longtime friend Gino Severini. They had a mutual interest in Nietzsche, rebellion, life experiences and socialism. Boccioni's writings at this time already express the combination of outrage and irony that would become a lifelong characteristic. Umberto's critical, rebellious nature and his overall intellectual ability would contribute substantially to the development of the Futurism movement.

From 1902 to 1910, Boccioni had made a portrait of his mother as a frequent model. He also painted the landscapes- often including the arrival of industrailization, trains, and factories for example. During this period, he weaves between pointillism and impressionism, and the influence of Giacomo Balla, and Divisionism techniques are evident in early paintings (although later largely abandoned). The morning (1909) was noted for "the bold and youthful violence of hues'' and as a "daring exercise in luminosity''. His 1910 Three Women, which portrays his mother and sister, and longtime lover Ines at center, was citied as expressing great emotion- strength, melancholy and love. Umberto died after falling off a horse and he was only 33 years old.

Futurism was also a controversial art movement. Filippo Marinetti, the author of Futurist Manifesto, wrote a book known as ''The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism'' and said that Art could be in fact nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice.

  

Task 2- Technical Research

If I make a CG animated film, the equipment I need to use would be a computer, and a software to make an animation. The rendering of the animation would take a lot of time on a home computer. A powerful workstation computer would be needed to create this animated film. 

To add background sound and special effects, I would use a voice recorder or a digital sound recorder to record sound and search on Google for other background sounds, special effects and music. I would also use a green screen. I may also add some of my own drawings into the film to make it more interesting and have more types of media in it. For example, I would draw more characters into the film such as Super Mario aka Gino Severini.

The Camera

I would use this digital camera if the camera wasn't too cheap or too expensive. I would this camera for stop motion. I would also use the digital for filming and start film-editing on Photoshop or on Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 if possible. I will then upload the video to YouTube so people would see my final product.

The Tripod

The Tripod will be an essential equipment if I need to use camera angles while moving the camera.

Green Screen

A Green Screen provides a virtual background as special effects. I can put my characters against a selected virtual background and change the image throughout the film.

Sound Effects

I would use a Voice Recorder or a Digital Sound Recorder if I needed background noises (for example, a builder drilling, Lorries moving with siren sounds, Cars moving with engines, Trains and Planes moving etc).

Making an animation for Channel 4

Today, I am drawing a storyboard based on the story of Umberto Boccioni. I have recently drawn the characters of the story that would basically tell the audience what 'futurism' is. The artist, Umberto, will be the main character of the story as 'The SuperHuman' Sculpture. The other characters are inspired by existing characters in forms of technology. The characters are, the Talking Train, Cars transforming into Robotics and Umberto's Italian friend and fellow artist Gino Severini.

Here are the screenshots of my storyboards:

 

Evaluation

When I first researched Historical Art Movements I looked at Futurism because I was interested in the artists' point of view and why artists like Umberto Boccioni was so angry at the society he lived in and why he wanted to express it with art. I had conducted more research into Umberto's life and why he dedicated his life to self-expression. He had a vision on a far foreseeable future and believed he could send a message across. I enjoyed researching the art movement of futurism and gave me an idea to create a story that would have an opposite feel to the classic 'A Christmas Carol' except Umberto had never done anything wrong.

I then did a technical research on which equipment I should use if I make an animated film as a film maker. I looked at the camera, the Tripod, the green screen, and the sound effects. I then did the Half Term Task at home where I must produce a presentation. The presentation made me think about the aims of my film and what message I want to get across. It also made me think about the characters, the storyline, and it helped me to produce the script. It then lead me on to create a storyboard. Although I have done the Pitch, I still did not know how I will produce my animation. I was nervous to present it and I find it difficult.

One of the difficulties I found when making a storyboard was how to get the message across to the audience. I thought of a few ideas which I talked with my tutor and chose the best idea. I had talked to my tutor and came to the decision I would scan my storyboards and use them for the animation.

I had created a number of video animation clips from the images of the storyboard and I had difficulty merging into one video animation clip. After a few attempts and help from my tutor, I managed to work on them and produce one animated film.

If I had more time I would not have used the storyboard for the animation and create more drawings specific for the animation.