Papier Collé Archives – Daily Art Fixx

1. Postminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 and is used to describe artistic fields which are influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism (a style that uses pared-down design elements). In visual art, postminimalism art uses minimalism either as an aesthetic or conceptual reference point. More an artistic tendency than a particular movement, postminimalist artworks are typically created with everyday objects, using simple materials, and sometimes take on a formalist aesthetic (emphasizing compositional elements such as color, line, shape, texture, and other perceptual aspects rather than iconography or historical and social context). Noted post-minimal artists include Eva Hesse and Richard Serra. Contemporary metal artist Richard Sturgeon uses the everyday materials of steel and rock to play with the concepts of balance and tension. Wikipedia

2. Louise Bourgeois Sunday Salons: Louise Bourgeois moved from Paris to New York in 1938 after marrying art historian Robert Goldwater. In 1962, the couple moved to a brownstone Chelsea apartment at 347 West 20th Street, where Louise lived for the rest of her life. Beginning in the 1970s, Bourgeois hosted Sunday salons at home where, for the next thirty years, students and young artists would come and talk about their work. Entry was open to all, with Bourgeois’ number publicly listed. Bourgeois held these salons, which she dryly referred to as “Sunday, bloody Sunday”, on a weekly basis until her death in 2010, at the age of 98. AnOther Mag

3. The Brighton Cats: LOLCAT photography is nothing new. During the 1870s, Brighton photographer Harry Pointer (1822-1889) became well known for a series of carte-de-visite photographs which featured his pet cats. Pointer began by taking conventional photographs of cats resting, drinking milk or sleeping in a basket, but from around 1870 he specialised in photographing cats in a variety of poses, placing them in settings that would create a humorous image. Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities – a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph with a camera. He soon realised that even a relatively straight-forward cat photograph could be turned into an amusing or appealing image by adding a written caption and he began selling the photos. Purchasers sent the small cartes-de-visite as tiny greetings cards and the popularity of Pointer’s distinctive cat photographs increased. By 1872, Pointer had created over one hundred captioned images of cats that were collectively known as “The Brighton Cats”. Photo History Sussex

4. Papier Collé: Georges Braque’s Fruit Dish and Glass is the most famous and possibly the first Cubist papier collé, a collage made of pasted papers. In the summer of 1912, Braque and Picasso were working in Sorgues in the south of France. Braque later recalled that one day, while wandering around the nearby city of Avignon, he noticed a roll of faux bois wallpaper displayed in a shop window. Braque waited until Picasso departed for Paris before incorporating pieces of the mechanically printed, fake wood grain paper into a series of charcoal drawings. These fragments from the real world add significant meaning to the fictive world of the picture: they can be interpreted as the front drawer of the table (onto which Braque drew a circular knob), the floor, or the wall of the bar. This collage marked a turning point in Cubism. Braque later said “After having made the papier collé, I felt a great shock and it was an even greater shock to Picasso when I showed it to him.” Met Museum

5. Aerial Perspective or atmospheric perspective refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance. As the distance between an object and a viewer increases, the contrast between the object and its background decreases, and the contrast of any markings or details within the object also decreases. The colours of the object also become less saturated and shift towards the background color, which is usually blue, but under some conditions may be some other color (for example, at sunrise or sunset distant colors may shift towards red). Aerial perspective was used in paintings from the Netherlands in the 15th Century, and explanations of its effects were written about by polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci who used aerial perspective in many of his paintings including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Atmospheric perspective was used in Pompeian Second Style paintings, one of the Pompeian Styles, dating as early as 30 BCE. Wikipedia

1. Cloisonnism is a style of post-Impressionist painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark contours. The term was coined by critic Edouard Dujardin on occasion of the Salon des Indépendants, in March 1888. The name describes the technique of cloisonné, where wires (cloisons or “compartments”) are soldered to the body of the piece, filled with powdered glass, and then fired. Many of the same painters also described their works as Synthetism a closely related movement. The Yellow Christ by Paul Gauguin is often cited as a quintessential cloisonnist work. Gauguin reduced the image to areas of single colors separated by heavy black outlines. In such works he paid little attention to classical perspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of color — two of the most characteristic principles of post-Renaissance painting. (Wikipedia)

2. Les Automatistes were a group of Québécois artistic dissidents from Montreal, Canada. The movement was founded in the early 1940s by painter Paul-Émile Borduas. “Les Automatistes” were so called because they were influenced by Surrealism and its theory of automatism. Members included Marcel Barbeau, Roger Fauteux, Claude Gauvreau, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Pierre Gauvreau, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, and others. The group gained recognition and were exhibited in Paris and New York. Though it began as a visual arts group, it also spread to other forms of expression, such as drama, poetry and dance. (Wikipedia)

3. On December 8, 1980, famed American photographer Annie Leibovitz was sent to photograph John Lennon and Yoko Ono and created the now famous Lennon nude curled around a fully clothed Ono. Several hours after the photo shoot, Lennon was shot and killed. The photograph ran on the cover of Rolling Stone Lennon commemorative issue in January, 1981 and in 2005 was named best magazine cover from the past 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

4. Papier Collé (pasted paper) is a specific form of collage that is closer to drawing than painting. The Cubist painter Georges Braque first used it when he drew on imitation wood-grain paper that had been pasted onto white paper. Both Braque and Pablo Picasso made a number of papiers collés in the last three months of 1912 and in early 1913, with Picasso substituting the wood-grain paper favoured by Braque with pages from the newspaper Le Journal in an attempt to introduce the reality of everyday life into the pictures. (Tate)

5. Revolutionary Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was infamous for his unruly life. He was known for brawling and was arrested and imprisoned numerous times. In May of 1606, Caravaggio killed (possibly by accident) a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Wanted for murder, he fled Rome for Naples. In 1610, believing he would be pardoned for his crime, he began his journey back to Rome but never made it. Carvaggio’s death is the subject of much debate. No body was found and there were several accounts of his death including a religious assassination and malaria.

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts – XXII

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts XVI