M9 Post

Video Reviews 

The Great Wave 

I found Katsushika Hokusai's signatures on Fisherman (1849) and Woodcutter (1849) unique. Hokusai wrote about his desire to live up until he was 110. He created those paintings during the end of his career. Both of his signatures record his age and translate to "old man aged 90." "Mangi" was written below that which was a name that he went by later in life. The reading states he went by many different names. Beneath all of that text is a seal in red. It means 100 and is meant that Hokusai has more years to live since he was 90 when those paintings were completed.

Early Photography: Making Daguerreotypes  

Joseph Nicephore's invention of a light sensitive surface was the foundation for the basic principle of photography. However, his photographs required long exposure times which lasted about eight hours. There was also no way to stop light from further exposing the final image.

The video describes how Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre's invention of the daguerreotype took off across America. Daguerreotypes made it possible for people from various economic backgrounds to have their portraits made. This new process dramatically reduced the exposure time and stoped light from further exposing the final image. An estimated 3 million daguerreotypes were produced in the United States annually by the mid 1850's. 

Death of Marat 

During the French Revolution the revolutionary government asked Jacques-Louis David to produce three images that would glorify a new type of martyr, a political one. Prior to The Death of Marat, David typically pulled his subjects from classical antiquity making his use of a contemporary figure in this painting revolutionary. This painting depicts Marat, a leader of the revolution, propped up in his bathtub after Charlotte Corday, a royalist who believed in the monarchy, murdered him with a knife.

As the reading states, Marat's gash from the stabbing and body position reference the entombment of Christ and a stigmata with no spiritual basis.

Manet

Edouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1882) undermines the notion that a canvas is often used to reflect the world in a true sense. The use of the mirror in the background does just that. Manet knowingly distorted where the viewer actually stands by painting the reflection of the woman's back and the man in the mirror to the side of her assuming that the viewer is the man.  

Delacroix 

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Monet 

Rather than focusing on the technicalities of the trees in his Poplar series, Claude Monet captured the scene of poplars as they appeared to him within a specific moment of time. He truly focused on how lighting affected them and solely painted what the atmosphere contributed to the forms before him. However, the surface of Poplars (1891) is impasto. The built up paint reveals that the painting couldn't have been done in a such a short amount of time due to the constant shift in outdoor lighting.

The reading further describes how impressionists such as Monet captured specific moments in time within their landscapes. Again, he painted what he saw. Colors would blend due to the considerable amount of distance between him and the trees. Monet painted small marks of pure color to depict that.  

Cassatt   

The Child's Bath (1893) by Mary Cassatt depicts a rare subject matter in art history, a mother and daughter. 

Opinion of the Films 

The speakers gave great descriptions in each film. Each of the videos built upon the content within the readings. For example in the Monet video, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker brought up a good point about how Monet focused on painting nature scenes in a short specific time. However, his build up of paint on the canvas of Poplars suggested otherwise. In order to achieve that impasto surface he had to come back to his scene multiple days at the same time in order to have the same lighting conditions.