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Showing posts from May, 2017

De Stijl

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De Stijl This an abstract art movement that began on the year 1917. It was started by a group of artists and architects, they were influenced by some of the Dada ideas (De Stijl. 2017). Piet Mondrain, Composition A, 1920. (Artnet News. 2017) De Stijl artists and the movement itself put forward the idea of the ultimate simplicity and abstraction through which they could express a utopian idea of harmony and order. From the above image by Mondrain we can see that the harmony was established through minimalism and the use of geometric shapes and primary colors (Design Is History. 2017). Kadi Sabi, klr. 2017 Similar to the De Stijl artworks the above artwork is simple, Sabi utilizes rectangular shapes along with primary colours. The difference is that Sabi does his work digitally and also adds more colours to the primary colours, Sabi also utilizes typography; when looking at the type one can see that Sabi uses simplicity by removing the vowels f

Surrealism

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Surrealism Surrealism began as a literature and philosophical movement established by Andre Breton, it later became an art movement (The Message of Surrealist Art. 2009). Max Ernst, The Elephant Celebes. 1921 Surrealism intended express the unconscious and subconscious, they c ombined the unconscious and conscious mind to achieve until now what is considered  an impossible artistic creation.  The juxtaposing of unrelated visuals became the way of achieving surrealism art.  Ernst had served in World War I and had been deeply affected by it, one can tell from looking at the above image; t he elephant has been interpreted to represent the fear-inducing British tanks being seen for the first time, the headless woman likely represents Ernst’s sister, whose death traumatized him.  In reality, a tank and Ernst’s dead sister would never appear side by side in his life, but inside Ernst’s mind during the war, these thoughts were mixed together  (

Dada

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DADA The Dada movement began during the First World War in Zurich, Swtizerland. This movement was influenced by the following movements:  Cubism Futurism Constructivism Expressionism (The Art Story. 2017). Hans Arp, Untitled (Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance), 1917. (The Art Story. 2017) The Dada movement represented the opposite of everything art stood for, it was basically an anti-art movement. Which is quite ironic, Dada was an anti-art movement that was considered an art movement (Art Term, Tate. 2017).  In the above image the artwork came about by chance, as the title suggests "Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance", What Arp did was drop the coloured squares on the large sheet and wherever the coloured squares fell is where he glued them. What is ironic about this is that one may say that the above piece leaks concept, but the "Laws of Chance" itself could be considered as a concept (The Art Story.