Allegorical Images

Frank




The topic this time is about symbolic and allegorical images related to religion. Honestly speaking, this topic did give me a hard time since my knowledge about religion is so limited. I finally came up several images that take place constantly in art works.
No doubt, Christian cross is very common in art works. Through out art history, from our ancient ancestors to Renaissance in 14 century, from flamboyant Baroque style to a variety of modern art styles. The trace of cross is passing through from generation to generation as the faith is heriting. I'm sure that the image of Christian cross will keep passing on is art works. There is a wisdom in those old school painting when the figure of Jesus and cross are always shown together in the painting as the way it should be.




Thinking about next symbol, I was inspired by the painting hanging on the wall. Basically the painting is about the story of Noah's Ark, specifically, the landing moment of Noah's Ark. The focus of the painting is Noah's family which is gathering around in front of their colossus ark from which pairs of animals embarked on the earth. It is kind of incredible that the artist actually paint the figure of Jesus on top of a mountain watching what is happening in the world. The sad thing is I did not find this painting on line.
I found two more paintings related to this story on line. Although both of them are depicting the end of the story, the background setting are just totally different. The one on the top shows the darkness when storm and misery are about to come to its end. In contrast, the one at the bottom is the brightness and clearness shown from the painting. Isn't that amazing?






Another image that you may see in paintings in 14-16 century is a beam of light penetrating the clouds, mist or whatever it is, something really block the way between human and God.
In Giovanni Bellini's Saint Francis, which is the one right below this paragraph, is the picture of Saint Francis welcoming the coming of sun, some call it "a rendezvous with the sun" from the gesture of Saint Francis, it has been a long time since he saw sunlight. But that great amount of amazement can be only felt by Saint Francis because from the color in this painting, the sunlignt already fill this world with color and jubilance. Yellow is basically touching every corner of the world, warming the city far away like a blanket, swirling into the leaves, flashing on the face of rocks.




I'm not really sure whether I should include angels as an allegorical image because angels are not objects which is not belong to the genre I'm talking about. But in another perspective, angels' figures are far beyond their own meaning. Angel is becoming an image that can represent religious direction and meaning of a painting, although I do not try to deny that the presence of angels in some art works is more like a joyful character which has already lost its original meaning. Some artists even pick angel as the theme of a paiting.

My Drawings: Street People

During 4.24-4.26, I went to DC with a group of friends from my church and helped homeless people. We not only sent bags of lunch to them, but also fixed some community facilities. I took my sketch pad with me and drew a great amount of pictures uing markers. The best thing about marker drawing is it shows the strong comparison between black and white. Lines and pieces of shades are the only two elements existed in a marker drawing. I have to be really careful when I draw a line and paint a piece of shade since there is no way fixing my mistakes.
In order to find the subjects that I need to draw, I observed people in the street carefully and read street newspapers and leaflets. I drew people passed me by and photos from those newspapers and leaflets.


Children In The Street

A Homeless Child

An Old Man
He is the only person I drew whose eyes shining with hope and happiness.

A Homeless Man

A Homeless Kid Looking For Food

A Wonderer
This guy passed me by and got my attention. I don't know whether he is homeless or not, but from his way of walking, I can guess he is a wonderer in the street, a stranger who does not have a purpose walking forward.
I took out my sketch pad when I noticed him and did a two minutes sketch for him. After that, I used markers to shade the figure and drew the background.

Soup Kitchen In 2009

My Sculpture: Self-Portrait (Finished)

My Sculpture: Twisting Body

This is one of my favorite sculptures so far. Since the last sculpture I made, the one which depicted a nude woman sleeping peacefully on a piece of stone, cracked and failed eventually. I made this one by using a much better kind of clay, which is mixed with sand. During the process of making this sculpture, I pay much more attention to the woman's uperbody anatomy and the movement of muscles when an arm is stretched forward and the other stretched upward. I love the movement in this sculpture for the twist of waist, contraction of the right side and the stretch of left side.

My Drawing: Edward Cullen (Blackened)

My Sculpture: Smile

My Sculpture: Dream

My Drawing: Death of a Salesman

This is a poster I did for the play: Death of a Salesman.
When I started to think about the drawing. I tried my best to find a way to express the plot and theme of the play.
In the play, Willy, who is the salesman, is the main character. That's why I chose him as the main figure in my drawing. The play also shows the complicated relationship between Willy and his family memebers.
Willy suffers from depression and anxiety as a result of his dissipating career, his estranged relationship with his oldest son, Biff.
In this drawing, Willy's family member's figures were simplified as a hand by myself. Biff's hand is the one on the right side. Unlike other hands, his hand is far away from Willy. Because in the play, Biff resents his father bitterly after discovering his father' affair. The black background not only makes the main figure pop up, but also make a contradiction with Biff's hand which is purly white, showing his cold relationship with his father. The huge black space between his dad and him also somewhat shows the gap.
The hand on Willy's shoulder belongs to Happy, Willy's second son. Compared with Biff who could not hold a steady life over 15 years, Happy works as an assistant and always exaggerates his position in order to impress his dad. That's why I let Happy wear a watch showing that he has salary and his willing to impress his father.
The hand which tenderly touch Willy's right arm is Linda's hand. Linda is the only one in the family who protect Willy and take care of him a lot. The place where her hand touch is more like the place where a wife touches her husband.
In the right corner, their is a vague street scene. In the play, Willy suicides himself by crashing his car on purpose. I put a car in the street and make the road looks wet in order to express a sense of misery and sadness. You can see the reflection of the car and the passengers.
Considering the principles of design. Alll the hands potentially form a circle and the directions of the hands suggest a sort of movement and the opposite direction of Biff's hand adds disturbulence to the drawing and inharmony of the family.

My Drawing: Portrait of Inga Feldi

Frank





Unexpectly, this drawing took me three hours. It is my first time trying to draw a figure in a different perspective instead of drawing a figure who straightly faces in front of me.

My Article: Seeking Everlasting Halo In The Mist of Controversy

Frank




After spending hours and hours studying one of the most welknown artist in the world: Auguste Rodin, it took me so long to start an essay about my feelings and thoughts about his dramatically and legendary life.
At the very beginning, I thought the process of studying a famous artist's life would be really easy and smooth. All I should do is reading the biography of the artist and analysing his or her major art works, just like what I did when I study a piece of painting.






From the period between 12 November 1840 to 17 November 1917, Auguste Rodin started from the beginning as an normal art student and later became a notable sculptor in his years. His achievement in the field of sculpture is so illustrious that his other forms of art, including drawing, painting and prints were shadowed into blackness.
In the far-flung river of art history, Auguste Rodin is not only seen as a preeminent French sculptor of his time, but also considered as the progenitor of modern sculpture, in another word, the transmitter from traditional sculpture to modern art. "His one foot has already stepped into the door of modern art while the other foot was leaving in the room of traditional school of art."





Rodin's early life is so normal that he mostly gained his reputation in his later years. Just like a lot of artists, he depended on self-education when he was a little child. Then he went to a school specializing in art and the place where he learned the importance of the independence of thought and gained his appreciation of truth and reality through his eyes.
In the first twenty years, Rodin is hard working and willing to be an artist in the future. He was once depressed by the death of his sister and the rejection of the best art school within France. But he never gives up studying art and exploring the world of sculpture.
As a maniac of art and a "pencil artist" who value technical skill a lot, I was atracted by Rodin's craftsmanship(although I realized his other side of his artworks later on), I was greatly surprised that many of Rodin's most notable sculptures were roundly criticized during his lifetime.

"They clashed with the predominant figure sculpture tradition, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality." Although Rodin was sensitive to the controversy about his work, he did not change his style. He just simply keep on working and finally his successive works brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community.
Greatly influenced by Michelangelo, his early works, including his famous Age of Bronze, are so realistic and emotional."Michelangelo freed him from traditional style of sculpture."
Later on, his masterpiece, Gate of Hell marked his life and increased his reputation at the same time. His The Thinker and The Kiss were shown in the Gate of Hell as reduced figures.




In 1883, Rodin stared to supervise a course where he met the Camille Claudel who is only 18 years old. Surprisingly, Rodin fell in love with Camille, and Camille loved him back, they formed a passionate relationship and influenced each other artistically. Claudel inspired Rodin as a model for many of his figures, and she was a talented sculptor, assisting him on commissions. But Rodin and Claudel could never combine together for the reason that Rodin already has a kid with Rose Beuret, Rodin's former lover.
In the passion of his love, Rodin finished some of his masterpiece, like The Eternal Spring and The Eternal Idol.



I've read a lot of comments on Rodin's "eternal" works. Some people consider those two sculptures are inapprociate and even think they are erotic. In the sculptures, the skin to skin depiction of the couples and their passionate action become so controversy among the society. Boldly speaking, in my own opinion, I consider those two works are irrational and honest. What Rodin want to depict in The Eternal Idol is how a young man in love with a girl tries to show his frantic love to her. He admired her and shows his respect by tenderly kissing the girls stomach. Some may think Rodin was struggling in the balance between human's purity of love and the evil ideas. What I see is the best way to express this idea and his sculptures actually did the best job ever.








I do not try to deny that

during his later creative years, Rodin's work turned increasingly toward the female form. He concentrated on and produced numerous erotic drawings "without taking his pencil from the paper or his eyes from the model."
Anyway, I still think Rodin is a great artist and one of the best sculptors in this world. He interpretates human's love in a more honest and realistic way and did not avoid the depiction of human's deep thoughts.

Sources:
http://bbs.duote.com/viewthread.php?tid=131640&page=1&authorid=393801
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin
http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2004-10/25/content_2135436.htm
http://baike.baidu.com/view/17018.htm
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=%E7%BD%97%E4%B8%B9&rlz=1W1BJYT_zh-cnUS317&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=wWjUSbWgGseIkAWTmemGDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=5&ct=title
http://images.google.cn/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sj33.cn/ys/UploadFiles/200712/20071210235056296.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sj33.cn/ys/hhys/200712/13129.html&usg=__KtSc5mxnT81GKtTHPJOabRdoQrM=&h=1200&w=740&sz=129&hl=zh-CN&start=1&um=1&tbnid=N-Wkbok4bd12bM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%25E7%25BD%2597%25E4%25B8%25B9%26hl%3Dzh-CN%26rlz%3D1W1BJYT_zh-cnUS317%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1%26newwindow%3D1
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A5%A5%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%AF%E7%89%B9%C2%B7%E7%BD%97%E4%B8%B9
http://www.bbtpress.com/homepagebook/775/b01.htm