Art joins poetry on the beach by Charles Donelan - Essay Example

PART I The first photograph in the gallery was taken in the Near East was created before long after photography was invented in 1839. Adventurous photographers from the West and East journeyed to North Africa and Holy Land to make pictures and sell them as book visual aids, stereoscopic views, and collectible personal objects. They went against the grain of local opposition to foreigners photographing sacred building as well as the omnipresent dust, severe temperatures, and inclement light. Most of these early photographers made negatives on glass plates, which were delicate and cumbersome; however, they produced sharp images. Francis Frith (England 1822-1898) documented that the severe heat could boil photosensitive chemicals on his glass plates, and regularly the best accessible darkrooms were tombs and caves. Other photographers made collotypes’, the paper negatives from which positive photos are printed. There were more convenient than glass plates and the paper’s texture produced a positive photo with softer tones. Photographs of the holy locations, archeological places, and ruins authenticated the new field of archeology, liberated historians, and captivated those wanting romantic perceptions of alien lands. Photos offered foster experiences for Americans and Europeans put off by the voyage, even after the Suez Canal opened in 1896. The exhibition installation offers classic images presenting a variety of themes and topics including city views, pictorial of holy places, ancient architectural allure, and assessment of essential artifacts. All images in this installation are derived from Leland Stanford Junior museum. Frith exceedingly explored the Near East during three long voyages, all taken between 1856 and 1860. In 1857 he photographed Cairo’s mosques, a daunting task because non-Muslims were not permitted inside them and he had to find vantage points away from the town’s throngs. Frith collected his photographs of architecture causally so that light and shadow assisted a feeling of spatial profundity and scope. Frith, a Quaker and flourished entrepreneur with a passion for expedition, became the most prominent English photographer of the Near East. He accomplished this aiming chic audience with his elegant photographs, stereo-view cards, and photo-graphics publications featuring archeological and biblical locations. During his expeditions, Frith noted that tourists were the central audience of his photography collections. The most of the Mosque Emeer Akhor was of particular interest to me. Architecture is the art of construction. The art consolidates shapes, building techniques, and constructions of materials to create a building that is alluring to look at. This art as well works the means it requires to, and fits with what is around it. In these photograph we view a mosque with all its beautiful dome and striking patterns. It is shielded by a stonewall. The design of this mosque is an irrefutable Ottoman imperial style, likely as a challenge to the Sultan authority. The architecture of the mosque from the photograph yet has remained mostly faithful to its style accredited to the earlier dynasty. The stonewalls somehow gives one the feeling that the mosque was fortified by the then dynasty, to shield it from the crusaders. PART II Hank Pitcher’s paintings are founded in a certain feeling of place. He was born in Pasadena, California on July 20, 1949. Yet his parents relocated to Isla Vista, next to Santa Barbara. He was two years-old. Then, Isla Vista was a mere colony on the beach. On the other hand, Goleta was a farm town where kids rode their horses gown the street to buy chocolate at the store. At San Marcos High School, he was a coffee star and was hired by big-shot universities. Instead of soccer, he selected to attend the College of Creative Studies, an option program within the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he currently teaches painting. He divides his time between painting and surfing, engaging in each with devotion and enthusiasm of a linebacker. Hank’s paintings denote a forty-year pursuit for genuine words to express life in Southern California. The reductive feature of the compacted and unchanged colors recall the realisms if Edward Hopper (Donelan 1-2). Yet other paintings are gestural as the Bay Area Figurative canvas of David Park. It is undeniable that in his momentous surfboards paintings, one can much less faintly hear the echo of Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. Pitcher’s earliest paintings somewhat struggle to their distinct avant-garde framework. Denotation painting, particularly symbolic painting has been much of a focus of attention to many artists. Evidentially, Hank chief influence as it is evident in his work, is establishing the abstract gesture of Abstract Expressionism, and the remoteness of Pop art. According to Donelan (1-2) in every painting, Hank attempts to create a picture so that it appears easy or even apparent. He can paint shapes hardened by the vibrant light of the Central Coast or soft toned painterly areas that asserts natural transformation or poet trance. For many years, a unique style has taken form. You can distinguish his work with that of the rest from across the room. Hank‘s surfboard paintings are the representation of California beach culture. These paintings are evidently authoritative, strong, positive, ecstatic declarations about life in California. The surfboard’s power like totem is witnessed to carry uniqueness. All are exclusive from this symbolic representation. In most of his painting, Pitcher has composed them of clear, basic, actually easy aspects. For instance, in Dairy Farm canvas, the farm, the fence, the hills, and the clouds are all stylized. This painting without doubt is an irrefutable clear symbolization of a classic California life. Yet the lucidity and asceticism of the canvas yields a delusion of innocence, which is the put up of a painting whose real sophistication can be demystified on many levels. The incoming waves in, and the curve of the beach apparently complete abstract design in Pitcher’s paintings. The coastline paintings are created in a gradual procedure of accrual and erosion. The colors are apparently warm as well as cool shoving and pulling at each other like warm and cool ocean waves. This clearly yields dynamics of attack and retreat over time channel to a more echoing or elegant effect. Pitcher’s procedure and his paintings mirror his lasting and discordant connection with the California Coast as a painter, surfer and tutor. He blends an East Coast symbolic awareness with a West Coast custom that divides as much as with other painter’s ideas. Painter has fostered a vocabulary of structure, stroke and iconography that place him apart in the annals of American art history. In addition, the reductive feature of his compacted outlines and his utilization of un-modulated colors reminisce the meager realism of Edward Hopper. With tidal superficiality, he persists to twist the trajectory of American geography and figure painting. Pitcher’s expertise and receptiveness, creation and the feel of the brush strokes are in elegant balance throughout. Nevertheless, there is as well a greater aesthetic framework, that is worth regarding, particularly as it permits one to make links between poetry and painting that are too frequently left ambiguous and doubtful. Thus far, in Hank’s many coastline paintings, the most significant thing is the distinctiveness between shore and sea, sand and water, isolation and clarity interconnectedness, scrutiny and fusion, a distinctiveness that defines and authenticates their paradoxical connection. Pitcher has come of age. Nearly all his paintings depict the artist’s genius at impulsiveness, figure paintings. The painting of the vistas of slough and marshland shows Hank’s virtuosity at reducing the geography whilst dealing with a big and sophisticated theme (Donelan 1-2). Work Cited Donelan, Charles. “Art Joins Poetry on the Beach.” Santa Barbara Independent. 2 June. 2006. Print. Read More