Lessons From Art History, Part Four of Four

LIFE LESSON FROM MILLAIS: 

Great work inspires great work

I used to stare at this painting as a little girl. It was one of the only color photos in my dad's old edition of Art Throughout the Ages by Gardner. It's a depiction of Ophelia from Hamlet, her drowning, which always broke my heart--not just because she drowns herself, but because the actual act is only described through a gorgeous monologue and I always wished we could actually see it onstage. My dad's book was the seventh edition. I looked at this painting in mine. Mine is the thirteenth edition. That's called ties that bind.
Also, the landscape in this painting? Unbelievable. Millais sat at the Hogsmill River banks, sketching and painting, for eleven hours a day... for five months. The Royal Academy critics tore it to shreds--there was an outcry that Millais had portrayed lovely Ophelia as a dairy maid drowning in a muddy ditch... It wasn't until Salvador Dali in the 1930s saw this painting and championed it as a Romantic classic. It is valued at around $15 million.

LIFE LESSON LEARNED FROM J.M.W. TURNER:
It takes one to know one.

Joseph Turner was a Romantic (not Impressionist) painter who captured the color of scenes with his loose brushstrokes, washes of paint, and ethereal atmospheric effects. This man painted delicately but was a passionate giant. He once tied himself to the mast of a ship to experience the drama of sea storms. He would sketch clouds for three or four days straight before exclaiming, "There it is!" and painting the masterpiece in about six hours' work. He died and left his entire fortune to an almshouse for "decayed artists." His last words, as he died, were, "The sun is God!"
The man's name is not well known, but he inspired the Impressionists and a prize is given in his name to exemplary painters in England each year.

LIFE LESSON LEARNED FROM CAMILLE CLAUDEL:
Sometimes you need a woman's touch

Camille Claudel was the (arguably mildly insane) woman who became Rodin's lover in 19th century France. A sculptor herself, Claudel worked as an apprentice in Rodin's workshop. She quickly became his confident, his model, his friend... and his lover. The affair upset Rodin's family, his wife, his followers, so she left his workshop and set out for a career of her own.
We hear Rodin's name all the time as an almost-equivalent to Michelangelo when it comes to talented sculptors. Claudel's work has the skill of a Rodin with the passion of a Michelangelo. She died in an asylum after living there for thirty years, completing much of her work there. If history students were taught influential female names as well as the male ones, her name would be towards the top of the list.

LIFE LESSON LEARNED FROM MONET:
Capture the fleeting moment

I have already posted about my love for the Impressionist movement, so I'll be brief. We studied the mottos of Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro, which was to paint as quickly as possible so as to capture that moment in time on a canvas. They focused on color, not form. They painted not in studios, but in nature, so as to observe and paint correctly what beauties they saw. They used the broken brushstroke, so they wouldn't have to muddy their paints by mixing them together (each time you mix a color from its tube on your palette, the color becomes duller). They chose to allow colors to mix in the eye. They are the painters who captured the phrase CARPE DIEM. Seize the day. Seize the moment. Make an impression.

LIFE LESSON LEARNED FROM WHISTLER:
If you like it, you should hang it on a wall.

This is Nocturne by Whistler, a rebellious American-born British painter who pushed the idea of "art for art's sake." He was of the opposite opinions than the Impressionists--he believed line was more important than color, and that black (which the Impressionists banned from their paintings) was the most important aspect in creating harmony on a canvas.
I don't know why I love this painting. But I do. It's dark but still luminous. It's hazy but still truthful. Someday I want a print of it to hang in my bedroom. It's something I would want to look at every night.

LIFE LESSON LEARNED FROM DUCHAMP:
Not everyone will get you--as an artist, as a person

Duchamp was a French painter who led the Dada movement (the anti-art movement) in which statements were created in art to challenge our ideas of what makes art art. (Lots of art) This is Nude Descending a Staircase. Can you see it?
I happen to love it. I can see why someone wouldn't. The Academy said, "Nudes do not descend staircases; nudes recline." But the breakthroughs in art are because of this man, Duchamp, who continually pressed the limits with his work. His most controversial (and crazy) work? A urinal, displayed in an art gallery in Paris, entitled Fountain.


LIFE LESSON LEARNED FROM THE FAUVS:
Think outside the box.

The Fauves: the wild beasts. Fauvism was a short-lived movement in the early 20th century where artists chose to use expressive color rather than local color. I never thought I'd fall in love with this, but I did. Hard. Matisse said, "There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so, he has to first forget all the roses that were ever painted."

This class ended. I am sad. But I have already begun to see the applications of this class, popping up in movies, books, and even a walk to the park.