Artist 5: Michelangelo!

I do enjoy Michelangelo so much. Not only was he a good sculpture but a great painter as well. Although when the question of "Michelangelo or Leonardo?" comes up, which it does a lot with my friends and myself, I see it this way: Leonardo is the better painter, Michelangelo is the king of sculptures. I'll talk about Leonardo in my next post, today is about Michelangelo!

I did my paper on him last semester, or more specifically his "Rebellious Slave" pictured here. I got to choose this one myself out of all of the choices of different artists and their works, lucky lucky me! Unfortunately for this awesome piece of work, it was never finished, as the tomb it was meant for had to be scaled down. Finished or not, this piece gives an example of the incredible detail that Michelangelo would put into his works. All of his figures have intense emotion, such as the famous "David" and also like the "Moses" figure that ended up being apart of the Tomb for the Pope which this piece never made it into.

Even tho one could argue that his sculptures/paintings were a bit too muscular to be realistic, as not everyone in the world is a body builder, they still are realistic...if everyone in the world WAS a body builder. His knowledge of hte human form is obvious and apparently vast and well studied.

Another of my favorites by him, "The Pieta," a sculpture of the Virgin Mary with Christ dead in her lap. This piece just screams details and emotion and I can only imagine what it must be like to actually see it. I mean, look at the folds in the Virgin's clothing. So much clothing, so many folds, it's so pretty. Anyway, the actual figure of the Virgin is larger than that, proportionally, than of Christ. Yes, it's not proportionally correct, but neither are the David's hands or head and that's for a reason. It's so it can get your attention and/or relay a message. This piece would not have looked as good if the Virgin was smaller, it would looked awkward. This piece makes me wanna jump in the tub in a dress and then draw a self portrait!

Artist4 Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt is yet another artist with a very distinctive and of course interesting style. Does it remind you a bit of Eigon Shiele? Well, theres a reason for that. I don't believe I mentioned it in my last post but Shiele was a student of Klimt's. Klimt was very fond of Shiele's art and encouraged him to keep up the good work.

An Austrian painter, like Shiele, or should I say Shiele was like Klimt. Born in 1862, his subject of choice was the female body. I recall a kind of golden sense in many of his paintings, at least that is what I got from them, which wouldn't be surprising if that is what he attempted to do, for his father was a gold engraver. He grew up in a poor household, and recieved a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. He was trained as an architectual painter, and I agree many of his works have a sort of architectual appearance, even when they are of the human figure.


"The Kiss" I believe one of his more famous paintings. It looks as if he dipped his paintbrush in pure liquid gold and proceeded to use that as his paint. Here it is quite obvious of the influence of his father's work as a gold engraver. In fact he went through a phase that included gold as a huge part of his works. There isn't much...ok there isn't ANY shading in this picture, but the colors he uses and the patterns give this a very interesting feeling. It's obviously 2D and yet the patterns almost give a sense of shadow. The two figures melt together in their passionate embrace, though I'll admit, it looks awkward and I'd be shocked if their necks wouldn't be killing them.

Similar to Shiele, well the other way around again, there is a strong sense of a contour drawing, at least to me. I'd like to add that was the phrase I was thinking of to describe Shiele's work, yet I was brain dead and that word contour would not come into my mind for days. Their styles seem...I think rough is a good word for them, in my eyes, at the very least. But that roughness and gruge feeling is almost refreshing. "The Kiss" for example reminds me of a piece of jewelry, yet not one that you buy at the store but one that is artfully crafted, maybe a little gaudy. Not that that's a bad thing, some people look good in that stuff. Perhaps another way to phrase my idea of this painting in particular is it looks even adorned with jewels, especially on the structure the two figures are resting on. I suppose "gaudy" comes back to me, but also, I'm not a gold person. My favorite part of this painting, gaudy may it be yet still beautiful, is the pattern on the man's cloak. The pattern reminds me of something from the 1960's, not necessarily something that would be seen when this was done, at least I think it wouldn't. Anyway it gives a very "mod" look to something that is, well, not.

Artist3 Egon Shiele

Egon Shiele was an Austrian artist, born 1890. At 15 he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. In 1912, he was put in jail because of immorality charges (not too surprising, looking at his artwork) and he died from the Spanish flu in 1918. If my pathetic math skills are correct, he was only 28, so young!

Many of his models were young girls, and he also had an incestuous relationship with his little sister, so pretty much, he was a pedophile. Ew, but I still love his art style.

Right. I'm going to concentrate on talking about his art style so I don't get creeped out.

His pieces all look very sketchy, and I mean that in line quality, not content (tho one could argue both!) Many of his drawings, especially the ones that are not incredibly colored/detailed, appear to be a single line, as he uses the outline as a prominant part of his works. Some of his paintings seem not only sketchy, but appear to have some scribble characteristics, as if he took his pen, or pencil, or his tool of drawing, and quickly scribbled some circles or whatnot in the specific place like over an eye, as I believe he did in a self portrait. Also, many of his figures are elongated, and one could say not very pretty. I would describe his pictures to have a "grunge" quality to them, which is something that I am drawn to, as he is not making his figures idealized or pretty.

"Self Portrait"

"Girl in Underclothes" 1917