what is art? With my little own thoughts

Qian Li

Philosophy of Art

Dr. V. Albrecht

03/22/2012

What is Art?

         Art is a masterpiece of creativity or someone’s thoughts. Art is also a language. It's a way of interpreting an image, painting, film, sculpture or photography. One can perceive it as an outlet from our everyday lives to just a form of expression. The story behind the painting makes it a piece of art. Actually, art can be anything and it depends on how you think. If you think this art picture is art, it will be art. Art can be a language also, a lot of artist showed their mood on picture instead of talking with people.

This paragraph came from our group

 Do you know him?—Paul Pollock Jackson

Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his uniquely defined style of drip painting.

During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.Pollock died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related car accident. In December 1956, the year of his death, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London.

What do you think of his famous painting?

This painting was named Lavender Mist. And his quote of this painting was "I can control the flow of the paint. There is no accident." — Jackson Pollock

The materials of painting were Oil on canvas, oil, enamel and aluminum on canvas. The length of this painting is 221 x 300 cm (7 ft 3 in x 9 ft 10 in). And this painting is displayed on National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. now.

The action of his painting is  Action painting

Pollock was the first ``all-over'' painter, pouring paint rather than using brushes and a palette, and abandoning all conventions of a central motif. He danced in semi-ecstasy over canvases spread across the floor, lost in his patternings, dripping and dribbling with total control. He said: ``The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.'' He painted no image, just ``action'', though ``action painting'' seems an inadequate term for the finished result of his creative process. Lavender Mist is 3 m long (nearly 10 ft), a vast expanse on a heroic scale. It is alive with colored scribble, spattered lines moving this way and that, now thickening, now trailing off to a slender skein. The eye is kept continually eager, not allowed to rest on any particular area. Pollock has put his hands into paint and placed them at the top right-- an instinctive gesture eerily reminiscent of cave painters who did the same. The overall tone is a pale lavender, maide airy and active. At the time Pollock was heiled as the greatest American painter, but there are already those who feel his work is not holding up in every respect.

This paragraph came from google

What I think of this painting?

I am not an artist; I don’t know how to enjoy the art. I felt painter was sad when he drew this picture. He used all of the colors to draw the lavenders. I saw a Chinese movie when I was a kid, the man gave the women lavenders to show his love. And the lavenders was light purple, it’s different from this painting.

This paragraph was my own idea

There is the other picture

This title of this picture was called The Key. It was painted by 1946, compared with last one, this one is more colorful. He was an abstract painter. Actually, I didn’t understand this picture. It seems like cartoon.
This paragraph was my own idea as well.