A DELICACY FOR THE EYES

          Christian art, unlike art from the other eras, took a long time to flourish. This is mainly because Christianity simply wasn't accepted during the reign of the Romans. The Romans, who were emperor-centered, saw the Christians as mad cult members who refused to acknowledge their emperor or any other Roman gods. Christians were under a period of persecution for a long time.

Early Christian catacomb artwork

This lead them to worship in secret, using underground burial places called Catacombs. Even though they had difficulty in hiding their religious activities, the Christians were faithful and continued with the knowledge of risking their lives. Catacombs, though underground, have thousands of decorations. Some of these include inscriptions, paintings, statues, ornaments and other items placed in the graves. Most of these decorations were used to identify, immortalize and show respect to the dead.

          Only after emperor Constantine's proclamation (Edict of Milan)were the Christians finally able to be recognized. They did no longer need to hide and worship in secret. They quickly moved above ground level and that's when numerous churches were erected. The construction of churches was based on Basilicas - since Roman architecture was what they already knew. These newly erected

A magnificent view of the former basilica Hagia Sophia.

churches were very intricate in design. The churches included various versions of towers (piers, minarets, twin bell towers, etc.), mihrabs, pendentives, rib vaults, triforiums, flying buttresses and such. The Christian architecture was commonly incorporated with various sculptures, tapestries, mosaics, frescos and stained glass. The sculptures are mostly high/ raised reliefs. The notable artworks of this are the Bernward doors and the Last Judgement tympanum. A famous tapestry is that of the Bayeux tapestry which contains the detail of the Battle of Hastings. The stained glasses are my personal favorite. They seem so brilliant and so full of life, it has that effect of making people see new wonders in the world. Stained glass windows were created to illustrate the teachings of the bible such a nifty idea.

The Bernward doors. Such small sculptures
would require lots of patience and effort.

    

Stained glass window depicting Episcopal baptism.

     

          Christian art, for me, is the most splendid out of all. I never really realized until now but it's something about the delicate shapes and lines, and the light but bold colors. Every single detail, every single effort that the creators exerted are very essential. These made the Christian art of quality workmanship. 








*all photos taken from google

Tall and Mighty

          Classical art is very much related to royalty, in a sense that it's subject were mostly humans. Most of the artworks in this era were either sculptures or architecture. It is said that the most important concepts in classical art are humanity, reason and culture. During this era, the evident styles depicted were humanism, naturalism and idealism. Classical art is divided into 2 parts: the Greek and the Roman art. 

          First off - Greek art. For the Greeks, there was an evident style of idealism, naturalism, realism and humanism. They're common mediums were stones, marble and bronze. The Greek art mainly had humans, Gods, athletes and warriors as their subject matters. Greek art is divided into 4 periods: Geometric, Archaic, Classical & Hellenistic. As early as the geometric period, people already began

The Dipylon Vase

attempts at perspective (but they weren't so successful). An example of this is the horse drawing on the Dipylon vase. They intented to draw the horses using perspective in hopes of letting the viewer see realistic images. Instead, the horses looked like one horse with 12 legs on it, which is freakishly weird if you'd actually see one in real life. 
The archaic period had the so-called 'Archaic smile' which was a trademark in their artworks. An example of this would be 'The Dying Warrior' which, oddly enough, still has a faint smile on his face even though he is suffering. The classical period is notable for the creation of the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena. Hellenistic on the other hand, expressed more emotions.

The Dying (but smiling) Warrior

          Roman art is most known for being imitators of the Greek art. If you would notice, Greek and Roman art are almost similar, except that Roman art is better and was much more exclusively planned and detailed. They focused on realism and idealism, and the common mediums were bronze and terracotta. The Roman empire had 3 periods: The Republican period, The early empire and the Late empire. The Roman art started when Julius Caesar improved Rome under

Pont du Gard

his rule. He adopted the religion and artistic style of the Greeks. The early empire was where the beautiful works of Arch started. The 'Pont du Gard' is a famous example of the Arch built. Another one is the 'Colosseum/ Flavian Ampitheatre'. Later in the empire, they battled over who would rule over the empire. They were divided into the Eastern and Western empire. Constantine tried to reunite the two empires but failed so he divided the empire into his sons.

The Colosseum (Flavian Ampitheatre)

          I think Greece and Rome are truly gifted, considering that there are a lot of breathtaking sites to explore. Classical art is everywhere. The power it emits is enough to make it stand out among the rest. Bold lines, poses and angles all make up for the lack of color (for some artworks). 

THE ORIGIN OF OUR PASSION

          I'm sure everyone's asking the same thing about everything: "How did it start?". This question applies to EVERYTHING! May it be dancing, singing, the latest trends or even how we were created. EVERY POSSIBLE THING - YOU NAME IT! This too goes for the art enthusiasts. How exactly did art start? What happened for such beauty to exist? Let me tell you, it all began way back (more than you can imagine) during the ancient era. I'm gonna have to apologize in advance because my brain has somehow reached full capacity and I am literally crying internally for having to deal with this blog entry. Please do bear with this messy thread. 

          Bold outlines, bland colors, recording, rituals, deities,  depiction - that's what ancient art is all about! Ancient art mostly depicted living things. Animal subjects were dominant during the prehistoric era. The ancient art started around 2,500,000 BCE ago. I suppose everyone's familiar with the popular film 'Ice Age'. As freezing as the words seem, that's how it actually was during the ice age era, maybe even worse. Due to the cold weather, people retreated to the warmth of caves and that's where the first attempt at art occurred. The great wall paintings were said to be "accidentally" discovered when two men followed their dog who chased a ball all the way down a hole. 

The famous "Hall of Bulls" in Lascaux, France.

They saw various paintings of animals that seem to be stampeding in different directions. The first and main unproven reason as to why their subjects were animals (mostly) and humans is to record. The cave paintings served as a form of recording their daily lives and some believed that "capturing" the animals in the painting would help them catch animals in real life. 

          Humans, however, were the more common subjects in the succeeding eras such as the art of near east cities (Sumer, Babylon, Akkad, etc.), Egyptian art, Aegean art.

An artwork dedicated to King "Tut" Tutankhamun

They were mostly deities or the people that they praised and the artworks were created mostly in their favor to appease them. These artworks' face profiles are exclusively detailed. If not based on humans, the artworks were architectural but still served as a vessel to pray to their gods (temples, etc.) Art in Jerusalem was more profound of buildings/ architectural art - referring to mosques and churches. These were often barricaded with walls to separate people of different religion. 

Mosque of Omar, Jerusalem

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

These are the primary things that has helped art to reach where it is now. Without the discovery of these, art would never had existed. There would be no splash of colors, a hint of lines, and a dash of beauty in our lives.




(All photos taken from google. Credits to the owners.)

WHAT'S YOUR COLOR?

          No style, no art. I could almost faintly imagine how I'd be able start an artwork if I didn't have my own style. I'm guessing it'd be horrible, an awful lot of misconception would go on. It would be rotten food for the eyes. Having your own style is important, as much as having skills and passion. As long as we're talking about artworks, we wouldn't wanna miss counting styles in. Everybody likes to add a little spice to everything. From shoes to clothes, hairs to accessories, even in mugs and furniture. We even like to decorate food! Finding out what our signature style is can help us mix beautifully our personalities into our artworks and can help people tell our works apart from the rest.

          I'd like to think of my own style as a mixture of quirky, semi-realistic-semi-surrealistic (as if such a word exists), colorful, mystical and grim. I'm most interested in having people as the subject of my artwork. I know, it's such a weird combination, I mean like, how can colorful and grim be combined? I don't even know myself, I just know that that's what my style's all about. I like creating artworks that give off an enchanting or mystical feeling. The reason behind this is because I'm in love with fantasy and I treasure every dream I get if it's fantasy related (which I rarely get anyways). I also like my artworks giving off a weird feeling as how surrealism does, but I don't linger in it too much hence the mixture between surrealism and realism. I'm kind of more into pop surrealism rather than the classical ones. The last element that I prefer my artworks having is the essence of grim. It would be something along the paper graphics (sorry I don't even know what you call them) in the video game Alice: Madness Returns.

I prefer having people or their faces as my subject because I see beauty in them, I rarely develop the want to use other elements as my subject. 

         Though I'm still an amateur when it comes to art, I have the will and passion to improve and create many artworks that would greatly satisfy me and impress other people. The artworks I've created are countable with one hand (talk about embarrassing). Of course it really isn't my forte, but what lead me to having this passion for the arts is crafting. I started off from crafting (because I like assembling) and realized that I wanted to try and do actual art. For me, the best part of it is getting to color your own work - traditionally of course. I still have a long way to go though. I'm still working on improving my skills and techniques. I'm getting tired and lazy from erasing every second and having to choose for hours just to pick a suitable color for whatever I'm coloring. I must say I'm quite looking forward to what kind of artwork I'll be able to produce someday. I'm happy because I can already feel small changes and improvement as early as now.  

          Here are my favorite artists and some of their artworks. I get my motivation from them.

Ilya Kuvshinov

http://kr0npr1nz.deviantart.com/

psylett

http://audstin.deviantart.com/

                 

ZombieSandwich

http://zombiesandwich.deviantart.com/

Sabelle Rena
http://sabellerena.tumblr.com/

   









Tati Ferrigno
http://www.tatiferrigno.com/

Dawnmemories

http://dawnmemories.tumblr.com/

THE DEAL WITH ILLUSIONAL SMILES AND TURBULENT SWIRLS

          There's something about smiles and swirls that makes them classic. The elegance they ooze out is just oh, so fantastic! No wonder these are the distinctive features of Mona Lisa and The Starry Night by Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh, respectively. But what about them? What's the big deal and what about their fame? These brilliant paintings have been both admired and questioned since then. They have been garnering attention for their mysteriousness and real origins. Speculations have arisen as well over the years of their existence. It's no surprise that such things have occurred since the two paintings are among the famous artworks in history, if not, the most. So, what IS the real deal with all the issues surrounding it and what not? Among the fishes in sea, what makes them unique? What sets them apart from the others?

That's one creepy smile don't 'ya think?

First stop, Mona Lisa. Leonardo's ever-so-mysterious lady in a panel is just one of the things that makes the world go crazy. The most famous smile in the whole world, literally, belongs to the painting of Lisa Gherardini created by the one and only Leonardo da Vinci. This smile is the same reason for the painting's fame. This prominent feature wasn't clearly detailed but was made so that an illusion existed. At first glance we perceive what seems to be a smile, but then it gradually disappears the longer you look at it. The eyes were also painted in such a way that the mouth was captured within the vision. For this painting he used the "Sfumato" technique he invented, meaning 'without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke', which also explains the mystery of Mona Lisa's facial expression. There were many other unique characteristics in the Mona Lisa that intrigued the art community and the viewers like the landscape in the background, considering that portraits were commonly drawn with the background being an open sky, monotone-colored or a room. This proves what brilliant skills Leonardo has.

Such a dreamy place, isn't it?

Up next is Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. This is personally my favorite artwork in all of history for one simple reason: It is surreal and makes me feel like I'm in a utopia whenever I look at it. Vincent was believed to have suffered from some sort of seizures or crises and one particular incident had himself cut his own ear and be sent to a mental health asylum where his room only had a small window to peek at. The view from his window is the said origin of the Starry night. The Starry night is a post-impressionist art, like all of his other works, which consists of vivid colors, thick application of paint, real-life subject matter, emphasis of geometric forms and the use of unusual or arbitrary colors. Van Gogh suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy and was thought to have been treated by Dr. Gachet with a drug called digitalis which can cause one to see in yellow or see yellow spots which explain his consistent use of it. It is also thought that Van Gogh suffered from lead poisoning from all of the lead-based paints that he used and one of the symptoms was swelling of the retinas which can cause one to see light in circles like halos around objects. These factors may have influenced the painter's vision, and proceeded with painting what he actually saw, hence the stars in the painting looking like they were actually shining. The night sky depicted in the painting is brimming with whirling clouds, shining stars, and a bright crescent moon. These features were painted in such a way that the viewer's eye around the painting. Van Gogh's use of color, light, mood, tone, emotion and brush strokes add up to the amazing existence of the brilliant painting. 

The explanation behind the turbulent swirls:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMerSm2ToFY    

Here are some renditions of the artworks:

*Images and videos respectively taken from Google and Youtube. 

A peek into the small world of Art and History

          Art and history both play very well-known roles to the society. One does not grow up to be ignorant of these two things. While one simply portrays beauty in the world, the other yields important information as to what has happened over the years. Art goes way back with history. They share a deep connection with each
other. This connection lets us understand what made Rome great, how
Islamic mosaics evolved, why the Renaissance occurred and about the

art being produced today around the world. We also understand the history of humanity through art. An example of this is the early cave paintings from around 40,000 years ago, some of which portray how the early people hunted down animals for food. Art reflects its time period. It has evolved in accordance to time, which is also one of the factors connecting art to history. In addition to this, earlier art may reflect the influence of war, famine and the like.

      "Life imitates art more than art imitates life" - Oscar Wilde

          From the famous notation of Oscar Wilde, we could say that culture is also one of the products between the cross of arts and history. From this we can understand art from different times and places. A very specific example of this is that of the Philippines. Filipinos are known to be very hardworking, hospitable, helpful, generous and lively. Here are a few paintings that depict the mentioned common traits of Filipinos 

These paintings all have something in 
common, they're all filled with much 
color just like the lively Filipinos.

Some more examples of art in the Philippines are dancing and architecture. The Philippine folk dances are often accentuated with graceful and gentle moves. Some of these are Carinosa, which portrays courtship; and Tinikling, which is well-known for the use of two Bamboo poles. Philippine architecture on the other hand, is notable because of the Nipa Huts. It is characterized by the use of simple materials such as Bamboo and Coconut. 

          History and art are also linked in terms of form and genre. Technological developments, for instance, can lead to changes or evolution in the art world. Film is a modern example of this. It started out as a form of technological curiosity and soon developed into an art form. Over the course, televisions had changed formats (old to modern). Due to this change, films had to adapt in order to cope up with the audience. From old film strips, film forms became

DVDs and the latest, which are files which can be transferred

to flash drives. You could say that evolution won't be at bay, at least. This goes too for art and history; and how they're connected. Who knows? Maybe the constant changes of the society may soon present us new art forms beyond comprehension.I hope not.

Silent Living

          Wouldn't it be interesting if one day we woke up, thinking that we lost our sense of hearing, but in actuality sound was never born? What would it be like? Would it be beautiful, horrific, despicable, peaceful, chaotic or maybe even normal? Would the world be the same as it is now? I don't want to see it coming. That one day, in the future, all sound will be lost and the world will be one less of a beauty.

          Having the ability to hear is a great gift, it really is. Actually, the 5 human senses are. The ability to hear draws a great part of our lives. There is a beauty in it. We were given this gift to live amazingly, to feel alive. The essence of beauty in being able to hear what the world has to offer is truly amazing. Of course, while some of us see it as a beauty, others don't. Those people are probably the ones who have to deal with noise in their everyday lives. From scoldings, to shouting, car honks and sirens, screaming and whining and all the other sounds we would consider irritable. It would be nice if all of us could just come to appreciate everything that we hear. Take the sound away from the world and what do we get? It varies. The results are endless. It may be peaceful - the world minus the noise would be pretty cool, but I wouldn't opt for it; or it could be dull, which I definitely vote for because I really appreciate the existence of sound. Either way, I would never wish for sound to vanish.

   
     
     The sole idea of sound not existing is horrifying. I don't think I could ever continue with life if that ever happened. Sound is one of the things that make my life much better with it. It makes my day bright, knowing that different things are going on. Let us learn to appreciate it while we can.