Creative Process Analysis - Research Paper Example

Creative Process Analysis Pablo Ruiz Picasso Pablo Picasso, as he was popularly known, was a 20th century Spanish painter, sculptor and draughtsman who lived between October 2881 and 1973. Picasso is credited with championing the cubist style of art. He trained under his painter-teacher father. As a teenager, he was regarded by many as a rebel and this is well evidenced in his later works. Before he settled on cubism, Picasso had tried other styles such as caricature, realism, the Rose period as well as the Blue Period (Cirlot, 1972). Some of his most famous Blue period paintings are the La Vie and Woman with a Crow. Picasso showed the world through his paintings that he was not afraid to share his thoughts, however provocative they were. He may not have as well known as he was, were it not for the media publicity that he attracted everywhere he went. However, he did manage to create some of the greatest works of art such as the Crucifixion, Girl Before a Mirror, Weeping Woman with Handkerchief and Les Demiselles d’Avignon (Wertenbaker, 1967). Raphael Sanzio (Santini) Raphael Santini was a High renaissance architect and painter from Italy who lived from 1483 – 1520. He is celebrated as one of the greatest masters of his time, together with the likes of Leornardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Although he died at an early age (37), he left behind a large collection of his architectural and painting work which is still acclaimed to this day. He worked for a small circle of elites, including 2 popes, in Florence and Rome (Gowing, 1987). Raphael trained under Perugino, who influenced his (Raphael’s) work in a big way. Most of his portraits and paintings are well preserved in the Vatican Museums and churches. Although he was in constant competition with his rival Michelangelo, Raphael was greatly admired by his contemporaries. While Michelangelo completely embraced Mannerism, Raphael decided to stick to the traditional standards of painting, and this is what made him stand out (Roettgen, 1996). His work normally depicts some form of balance and grace that were missing from some of his famous contemporaries, Michelangelo included. Raphael’s work was so much admired that it was used for a number of centuries as the benchmark for training in the academies of work. It seems that although many critics prefer Michelangelo’s and Leonardo’s High renaissance stile of art, the genius of Raphael is apparent in its simple and harmonious, and yet complex style. Raphael’s creations have survived to this day maybe to the fact that he was able to bring in fresh creativity to simple works of art (Gowing, 1987). Maya Angelou Maya Angelou is an African American poet and autobiographer born in 1928. She is a writer who writes for the black voice and anyone else who can here it. This may be true because she has been acclaimed as the greatest African American writer of her generation (Lupton, 1998). Much of her work is filled with themes of identity, racism and family. Her first autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she highlights her life up to when she was seventeen. In this work, she illuminates the life lived by many African Americans during her childhood years. However, she writes in a way that she does not alienate any of her readers, whether black or white. Her subsequent autobiographies highlight her family life after the age of seventeen. Motherhood is an important theme covered in her works, and it probably drawn from her experiences as a single mother (Egan, 2009). Angelou’s poems have not received as much critical acclaim as her biographies, but they have received considerable praise for being direct and simple. Her poem Phenomenal Woman, in particular, took the feminine world by storm because of the way it underscores the inside and outside beauty of the woman. In 1971 she published a volume of poetry known as Just Give Me a Cool drink of Water ‘Fore I Diie which earned her a Pulitzer nomination. Angelou recited her poem A Pulse of Morning during the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. She became the first poet to make such a recitation since Robert Frost in 1961 (Lupton, 1998). For all her effort Angelou has been awarded several awards and been nominated for high profile literary awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and Tony Awards. She has earned three Grammys from her Spoken Words albums. In 2000, she received the National Medal of Arts Award. She is also the recipient of more than thirty honorary degrees awarded for her contribution to the literary world (Egan, 2009). Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt was 17th Century Dutch painter and etcher born in 1606, in Leiden, Dutch Republic. He was the eighth of nine children and he was the only of his parents’ sons whom they sent to school to study Latin. After schooling for seven years (1613 – 1620) Rembrandt joined Leiden University’s Philosophical Faculty where he studied the Classics. He trained under Jacob Isaacszoon and Pieter Lastman, who was to influence his later works (Schama, 1999). Rembrandt used the themes of Portraiture, narrative painting and landscape painting in most of his works. Some of the most common of his works are his self portraits which he did with masterful accuracy. He has often been praised by painters and other critics as an excellent interpreter of the scenes he painted, and especially biblical stories. Many of his paintings were later reproduced by his students and other painters. This is what to the present raging debate as to which of Rembrandt’s paintings is originally his (Schama, 35). Although there might be confusion as to which of the remaining paints actually belong to Rembrandt, there is no denying the fact that the painter was immensely talented. He is not considered one of the greatest painters in Dutch for nothing. His almost real life depictions of biblical stories and other narratives can only be said to be the work of a genius. He was a painter who was able to seamlessly convert his emotions into a believable painting. His greatest painting The Night Watch attests to this (Schama, 76). References Cirlot, J. (1972). Picasso: Birth of a Genius. New York, NY: Praeger. Egan, J. (2009). Maya Angelou: A Creative and Courageous Voice. New York, NY: Gareth Stevens. Gowing, L. (1987). Paintings in the Louvre. New York, NY: Stewart, Tabor and Chang. Lupton, M.J. (1998). Maya Angelou: A Critical Companion. California, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group. Roettgen, S. (1996). Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance. New York, NY: Abbeyville Press. Schama, S. (1999). Rembrandt’s Eyes. London: Penguin Books. Wertenbaker, L. (1967). The world of Picasso. Virginia: Time Life Books. Read More