Key Features of Famous Artists - Coursework Example

Visual Arts Salvador Dali Salvador Dali used his arts in revolutionizing the 21st century art works. All the efforts used by this artist in improving the techniques that had been mastered did not make him famous. Salvador tried to improve various art styles, like the Pointillism, Cubism, Futurism, Neo-Cubism and Impressionism. However, he wanted to accomplish the requirements of his social and mental life by using a new form of art (Abouzaki, 2014). This new art style used was Surrealism, which enabled Salvador Dali to express all of his erogenous desires. At the same time, it enabled him to change the way the universe viewed art. In 1928, Salvador sought to change his life after he met with the Surrealists in Paris (Secrest, 1986). Furthermore, he had knowledge that this change could not take place in Catalonia. Moreover, the Surrealists saw that Salvador had a good future in changing the movement, as he was well creative and had a rich imaginary baggage. This baggage was due to the erogenous desires Salvador had for women and his never-ending interest in the unconsciousness concept created by Sigmund Freud. The precise style used by Salvador improved the nightmare effects of the paintings done by him (Kachur, 2003). This made him to become the Surrealism leader by 1929. One of Salvador’s prominent art works was the Great Masturbator. This art work was influenced by the strong attraction of Salvador to Paul Eduard’s wife, Gala. The main subject in The Great Masturbator was a large female figure that had a fractured head even though it was clam and taken to deep emotions. The existence of the cracks seen on the face could be a sign of physical exhaustion. Moreover, the picture may be studied from various aspects as Salvador had the capabilities of incorporating a lot of odd objects to the picture (Abouzaki, 2014). An example is what is seen to be a grasshopper on the belly of the woman. This art work somewhat shows the emotions of Salvador to Gala. Gala’s appearance was a surprise for him. Salvador saw in Gala the imaginary female figure that he had been waiting for long. To Salvador, Gala was a tool of worship. This is because Gala represented the childhood reveries of Salvador. As Salvador’s style developed, he was affected mostly by the psychoanalysis concept that Freud devised (Abouzaki, 2014). Many works done by Salvador shaped into dreamlike illustrations. This was seen clearly in his most prominent work The Persistence of Memory, whereby he portrayed some clocks as melted in a desert setting and an ocean appearing below the horizon. In his life, dreams were made up of large segments. This is because Salvador liked to take midday rests or siestas whereby he encountered many dreams (Etherington-Smith, 1992). Moreover, his dreamlike style was combined with the erogenous desires in giving a variety of works with various dreams. Kara Walker Kara Walker came across a piece of story in the 19th century Atlanta newspaper referred to the Daily Constitution which described the lynching and excruciating detail of a black woman in 1878. During that period, the mob had pulled down a blackjack’s tree branch and tied the black woman’s neck to the branch, hurling her body up to the air. This dreadful fragment of the past years has made its way in a big graphite drawing that currently hangs in the Camden Arts Centre, London. Like many of Walker’s work, the drawing is both disturbing and beautiful. In cartoonish and the grotesque monochrome is the lynched black woman spilling blood, blackjack tree and her assaulters laughing as the woman dies (McKeon, 2013). This is completely strange, extreme and a vicious situation that needs a lot of perverse ingenuity. The arts done by Walker are quality as they have good drawings and silhouettes. It also engages with what a lot of individuals cannot forget: the dreadful violence meted out to the black individuals before and after the abolition of slavery and the American civil war, and the racism legacy that still shapes the political agenda in the United States (McKeon, 2013). The other drawing done by Walker was an Urban Relocator. This showed a hooded, Klan-like figure that was next to a simple cotton tree. Walker asserts that this piece of art was enthused by the boll weevil cotton plague that besides the violence, a lot of endured slaves made many black families to leave their land in the south so that they could have a good life in the north states (Barnett, 2013). Walker states that she did not understand what made the individuals to leave their land, whether it was economic strife, domestic terrorism or social violence. It is viewed that walker is at her most incendiary when cross-examining the stereotyping that demarcated race relations in the antebellum south and are seen presently. In her show, the largest room is filled with wall samplers; the cut out silhouettes showing figures engaged in exaggerated or violent acts. The art has a woman in a dress that is wide skirted; holding a severed head. On the other hand, the art has a man bending down to fellate an oversize phallus (Barnett, 2013). The effect of this art is to make the viewers question the black individuals’ cultural misrepresentation and the assumptions of these individuals on how the skin color defines the behavior and physical characteristics of anyone. Michael Ray Charles In Liberty Bros. Permanent Daily Circus poster-style art work, Michael Ray Charles states that SOMEPLACE, SOMEWHERE, SOMETIME, SOMEDAY. IT COULD HAPPEN. The image in this piece of art is a black figure that lies on its stomach, his hands are held behind as if they are tied and there is no evidence that there is a rope. The head of this figure is enfolded in chains, protected with a Masta Lock. In the mouth of this figure, the facial detail seen clearly is the key in the figure’s white teeth. This is not a pretty picture at all (Cohen, 1997). Charles goes on to state that the message seen on the paintings are all about the images and all about the racial stereotypes portrayed by white individuals. In his art works, he states that the negative images on African Americans are hiding inn the American culture, on cartoons and TV sitcoms. The art works done by Michael Ray Charles seek in creating understanding rather than fostering blame. They are all about analyzing symbols and finding their history, past to current. Some critics accuse Michael Charles of being absolute of trading on negative stereotypes on blacks that the whites invented. Charles stated that he talks about the past to be the present in every painting he does. By burning the books talking about Sambo and throwing Aunt Jemima into the trash of history will not make them disappear. One of his art works shows Aunt Jemima wearing a Wonder Woman Costume (Heller, 2012). It also reveals Aunt Jemima standing in an erogenous pose like Marilyn Monroe with the wind whizzing up her skirt. The art shows her wearing floppy pink slippers and her head is tied with a red and white polka-dot kerchief. The other art work done by Michael is rewopetihW (white power). In between the REWOP and ETIHW words is a Sambo taking watermelon. The painting support looks like a flag or banner that is burned and charred at the edges. Conclusion The use of racially charged images has put Michael Ray Charles on the fast track in the art scene in America. Most of his works has been put in different galleries. Charles uses these paintings to understand when and if insights of whites to blacks started to change for the better. Moreover, the paintings done by Charles are formalist masterworks and carry discomforting messages. On the other hand, the images done by Walker show that slavery is a common national history and not a position issue. The style used by Salvador was among the most creative and famous arts of the 21st century as he nourished and developed a style that was not important before his time. The dominant themes rotated around his childhood sexual desires and on the unconscious mind study. References Secrest, M. (1986). Salvador Dali. New York: E.P. Dutton. Etherington-Smith, M. (1992). The Persistence of Memory: A Biography of Dali. New York: Random House. Abouzaki, N. (2014). The Unique Style of Salvador Dali. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.people.vcu.edu/~djbromle/modern04/nayefa/ Kachur, L. (2003). Displaying the marvelous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, and surrealist exhibition installations. Mit Press. Cohen, R.S. (1997, October 24). Painting race: Getting Inside Michael Ray Charles’ Provocative Images. The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/1997-10-24/518624/ Heller, S. (2012, January 16). Michael Ray Charles: When Racist Art Was Commercial Art. Print. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.printmag.com/imprint/michael-ray-charles-when-racist-art-was-commercial-art/ McKeon, L. (2013, March 19). The Controversies of Kara Walker. Hyperallergic. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://hyperallergic.com/67125/the-controversies-of-kara-walker/ Barnett, L. (2013, October 10). Kara Walker’s art: shadows of slavery. The guardian. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/10/kara-walker-art-shadows-of-slavery Read More