Saturn devouring his son

Saturn Devouring His Son!!!

This artwork is one of my assignment, 'Saturn devouring his son", how would a father devour his own son? sounds interesting actually. I had done some researches about this artworks. the story is about a Titan named 'Saturn', the father of the Greek Gods, who was foretold he would be overthrown by one of his children, to prevent the prophecy, he decided to devour all of them the moment they were born. The reason why the artist, Francisco Goya choose this mythology as his artwork, i think is because this story has given him some crazy inspiration to express his craziness and thoughts through the artwork. My lecturer, Dr.Ray stated that this artwork actually reflected the insanity and mental state  of the artist, Francisco Goya. 

According to the research, I think that Goya might try to convey a massage about conflict between the old age and youth in that particular period. He is actually insulting a situation in Spain whereas the fatherland was encouraging their own child to be involved in the wars and revolutions at that time. (Licht, Fred (1983). Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art ) 

Francisco Jose De Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, (1819-1823)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Goya,_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_(1819-1823).jpg

KITSCH

WHAT IS KITSCH???
according to my research, kitsch is something that imitate or a pirated copy of an existing artwork or existing style in a very 'tasteless' way. For example, editing Mona Lisa portrait by changing her facial expression and applying different of colors in order to make the artwork looks amusing and hilarious; replacing those politicians or celebrities with some animals in the artwork to insult their characteristics or personality. 


In my own opinion, i  actually think that Kitsch somehow can be very interesting and creative because when we are 'skitching' those famous artworks or styles, we are actually presenting the artwork in a more informal and casual way for peoples to accept it. But, while we are doing those Kitschy works, we definitely have to show some respects to the original artworks or the characters. To make those artworks more easier for people to accept doesn't mean that we can humiliate or make fun of those works. We still need to stick with the true meanings of the artwork.


Here are some of the examples of KITSCH

             Micheal Jackson Kitsch art. 

     (http://m.izismile.com/2011/04/05/michael_jackson_kitsch_art_16_pics-3.html)

Odd Nerdrum, Self-Portrait In Golden Robe

http://webartacademy.com/odd-nerdrum

                                   

                                                 

Cultural influences in Malaysia

Ipoh town hall

KL stock exchange building 

 Doric Columns of Greek Culure

The photo on top shows a town hall in ipoh and KL stock exchange building, Malaysia. i found the middle part of theses building is quite similar to the ancient Greek architectures. Obviously, the doric columns they applied on this hall is almost the same with those ancient temple in Greek. In this case, i believe the doric columns not only uses for display purpose to highlight the buildings but rather in actual way as the columns could support the structures of the building. It didn't really surprise me when i first saw the greek culture was blended into these building, we can found that it's quite common in Malaysia due to the multicultural in our country. I think the buildings actually looks very nice with other culture's elements blended on it. 

  

on the left is the photo of the Putrajaya bridge pillar, from the designs of this structure we can actually recognize some examples of iconic columns, the top part of the columns has been decorated with some stylized ornaments. in addition, i realized that the mixture of different cultures' elements actually can create something 'originally FRESH', something traditional but contain the new issues at the same time. This pillar is quite a good example by topping the Greek columns with some Malay traditional's roof.  

Putrajaya bridge pillar

Kuching Royal golf club

 Pyramid

Pyramid, an example of ancient Egyptian culture we found in this golf club which located in Kuching. Only the top part was built in the pyramid's shape. In the ancient periods, pyramids were built as tomb for pharaohs and their queens. In this case, i pretty sure that the architects of the golf club are definitely not sharing the main purpose with the Egyptian. As i mentioned, the pyramids were built for the pharaohs, in other word, only the royal bloods could enter to the pyramids. I believe the architects are trying to link this point to this their designs in order to make the golf club looks GRAND!! 

          Shah Alam Stadium

Compared to the Greek and Egypt cultures, the stadiums are more similar to Rome culture indeed. i wonder is the Greek theatre looks exactly the same with the Colosseum which located in Rome? Anyway, those architectures are just sharing the same purpose which is entertain people. The only difference is the appearance, the cultures' elements of the buildings.       

The Judgement of OSIRIS

This painting is one of my assignment, The Judgement of Osiris, the story of this work is taken from one of the chapters of Book of the dead. The ancient egyptian believe they will leads to meet Osiris after they died, so they come out with this book which consists numbers of spells, stories about the journey to the afterlife in order to guide the deceased. 

There are vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey to the afterlife. The top part show there are 14 of  the major gods sitting in the judgement to assist Osiris; Bottom left; the weighing of the heart, deceased leads by Anubis to the scales in hall of Maat, the goddess of justice, who perform weighing the balance of the heart of deceased; Ammut, devourer of the dead, is ready to destroy the deceased if they are full of sins and the heart consequently too heavy ; Bottom right, The hall of Judgement, Horus, son of Osiris, leads the way, deceased follow him to meet Osiris, whose assume power to the deceased to become one of their follower. 

i found something interesting in the painting, In ancient egyptian period, i believe those artists doesn't have so much option of the elements or tools to complete their artworks, besides, i don't think the artists in those days are able to create some facial expression for their objects. So colors is quite a essential tool to express their work, example, apply red color to convey anger of the object, white to show the purity and power, man skin was painted as darker yellow whereas woman was painted as lighter. In the judgement of Osiris, we can see black color was applied on the skin of Anubis, it's simply because black is represented death in those days, they wanna shows Anubis is one of the Guardians of afterlife.

Symbols is also one of the important elements they used in their artworks, they often used symbols to represent certain things in order to make the meanings clearer. example, the gods are holding an 'ankh', actually the 'ankh' is the key of life, represented the holy status, new life and truth, 'no one could hold the key of life but gods', i think this is the massage the artist trying to convey by painted those symbols. 

i realized actually there are many things we can learn from these ancient artworks, example like the ways they created their artworks,i think somehow it's connected or related with our works in modern days.  

5 QUESTIONS~

1. Why am I doing this course?
2. What do I want from this course?
3. What do I want to be doing in 5, 10, 20 years?
4. What do I want to get from this class?5. Is History of Art & Design necessary for your large goals. 

these are the questions that given by my lecturer. the first question's asking me why 

am i doing this course? Simply because i wanna be a designer, i love to design. I 

believe everything we seen in this earth had been designed. Nothing can be form 

without shapes. As a designer, we're giving 'life' to every object by designing and 

shaping them into something new, usable and special, this is also a way to express our thoughts.

2.i wanna know what are the proper ways to convey our thoughts through our designs.

Most importantly, is the skills of design, not necessary in technically but in abstract way  

to present our messages. 

3.i wanna be a designer.  

4.hmm..basically, history is quite a important part for every single thing in this world, 

even a pencil have it's own history; who invented the pencil? what materials are used to produce a pencil? what is the purpose of inventing a pencil? besides,we can't get things 

done without knowing it's history first. right?? so, i believe by learning this subject, the history could  helps me understand better about the cultures, techniques, processes, meanings, pasts of ART. I want a better understanding of art. 

i wanna know what are these artists trying to express and present their massages through their artworks. It's amazing when you found something interesting in their artworks due to the differences of the cultures, those massages create culture shocks sometimes, no doubt!! By applying their thoughts to our artworks, i believe we definitely can produce something good in future.

5.as i mentioned, definitely yes !!  

  

Pyramid

A pyramid is one of the earliest form of massive architecture built by humans. Pyramids are shaped like big three-dimensional triangles, with larger bases narrowing towards the top. This architectural design is extremely durable, as can be seen by those pyramids still preserved after thousands of years.

The pyramid is the logical form of architecture if you want to build something to last, and so you can find examples of pyramids in Egyptian, Mayan, and Incan civilizations and possibly China.

hey~ This is my 1st post!!!

This blog is created for a subject of my degree~ "History Of Art". You may share your ideas with me, don't be shy~ just "SHARE"!!!~ =)