Art 220, Egon Schiele

Image 1: Male nude 2

Image 2: Seated Female Nude With Titled Head and Raised Arms

Image 3: Standing Woman in a Green Skirt

At first when I started looking up Schiele's work I was really caught off guard. Some of his images are so disturbing that it takes a few seconds to fully process them and understand what is going on. The three images I chose are actually not his most shocking, but I thought they displayed his style nicely. I think his style alone is dramatic and catches your attention regardless of the subject matter and that is what I liked the most about his work. In the female nude, Schiele's use of mostly line and minimal color work really well together. Some of his images are painful and it is very obvious from the expressions he puts on his models. His awkward poses and hard lined faces do such a great job at conveying emotion. The figures may be awkward but you can see a sense of body and form in them that makes it hard to deny that it is a human figure. Schiele's work is interesting because it provokes questions and leaves you with an immediate opinion, whether it be good or bad.

Art 220, Steve Hanks

1st image: Time Standing Still, Giclee on canvas
2nd image: Centered, Lithograph
3rd image: View From the Balcony, Lithograph

 Steve Hanks has an amazing touch to his works that is very intriguing to the viewer. His use of lightness with strong dark contrasts that shape the human body are what I like most about all three of the works above. His pieces show amazing attention to detail and intricate brushwork that is obvious when looking at the work as a whole. The way he portrays human flesh is so realistic and convincing that his pieces look like photographs. On his website he talks about how he purposely leaves the faces of his subjects out to convey the emotion of the subject. I think it is a very effective strategy because it draws the viewer in and keeps us guessing as to what emotion Hanks is trying to convey. His figures are not necessarily energetic, but their flesh is still conveyed with warmth and life. I am definitely blown away by the accuracy of the rendering of the figures in each of his works.

Art 220, Eugene Delacroix

1st image: Female Nude, Killed From Behind, 1827
2nd image: Mlle Rose, 1817-20
3rd image: Soldat Se Reposant

I really liked these three images because they show the three things Delacroix was very good at: depicting the human body, movement, and emotion. In most of his paintings he used strong contrasting colors to make the figures pop and stand out. His rendering of the flesh is very delicate and so realistic, like in Mlle Rose. Not only are his anatomical proportions correct but he shades them in a way that makes them look like soft, rounded flesh. I also liked his figure drawing, Soldat Se Reposant, because it relates to what we do in class every day. His ability to render the figure accurately with charcoal is something to take note of. It is obvious that Delacroix imagines the figure in sections rather than an outline surrounding the form. Although Delacroix uses strong contrasts with lights and darks throughout the pieces he also uses gradual shading when it comes to the human form. I think we can take what he has done with his paintings and reference it when shading our charcoal drawings of the models in class.

Art 220, Kehinde Wiley

1st image: On Top of the World, 2008, oil on canvas

2nd image: St. Andrew, 2006, oil on canvas
3rd image: The Capture of Juilers, 2006, oil and enamel on canvas

You cannot look at Kehinde Wiley's work without being intrigued. The shock value of each of her paintings and prints locks you in for at least 30 seconds. The complexity of her work shines through her use of intense detail and imagery, but also in the powerful opinions her work displays. Most of her work is portraiture of black men, all in various settings. The overall theme is realistically rendered portraits laid on top of a graphic background, many of which appeal to the standard appearance of wall paper designs. After looking over her pieces I especially like the way she integrates the background with the foreground, always having them overlap in some way or on some part of the painting. Wiley attacks strong political and societal issues head on, as depicted in all three of these works. The power of her images correlates very closely to the passion she has about these issues. Rather than making the paintings come off in a purely serious manner, they capture a humor that is also very evident. The figures strongly juxtapose their backgrounds which is the initial thought provoking part of the pieces. These works portray a lot of what modern portraiture is: branching out from the work of past artists but also using their skill in rendering and referencing the figure.

Justin Mortimer, Art 220

I've never seen the work of Justin Mortimer before, but after looking at his paintings I felt very inspired. The last painting above was the most startling, but like a lot of his other work it is very graphic and moving. You can tell he is definitely trying to get a point across in every single painting. I was also very intrigued by his work because he has such a graphic style while depicting the figure. His use of strong black and white contrasts draws the viewer in, especially in the second work. I love the portrait of the boy and girl because there is a definite attitude coming through the work. I had to look twice at each of the portraits because the figures are so realistic they look like photographs. It is obvious that he does a lot of studies in pencil before he applies to paint to finish the piece. The poses of the figures aren't ordinary, but rather challenging, just like the concepts that Mortimer is bringing up through his work.