Introduction to Paintings

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Introduction to Paintings

• By Cathy Chang

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Jean-François Millet The Gleaners
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General Questions

• When you look at the painting, what do you see?
• What is the focus of the painting?
• Is the painting a positive portrayal of the women
  or a negative one?
• Do you like the painting?

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Jean-François Millet

• Millet was born the son of farmers in a small
  town in Normandy. His father loved singing and
  carving, but he gave these things up to meet the
  needs of his family. As a child, Millet often
  helped his parents in the field or read at home.
  He was especially attracted to beautiful
  illustrations in the Bible and tried copying
  them. He would also use a piece of charcoal to
  draw farmers or horses in a small notebook.
• His father and townspeople noticed his talent. At
  the age of twenty, with their support, Millet
  left for Paris to fulfill his dream of studying
  art.
• Millets art became highly valued after his
  death. Though he left behind only about eighty
  paintings, his style inspired many other great
  artists, such as Monet and van Gogh. Today, the
  world remembers Millet as a painter who devoted
  himself to showing country life as noble and
  beautiful.
• 
  (Stevenson)

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Vocabulary

• Normandy ???
• Carving ??
• Field ??
• Charcoal ??
• Inspire ????
• Devote ?...??(?)
• Noble ???

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Claude Monet Impression, Sunrise
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General Questions

• What do you see in the painting?
• What time of day is the painting?
• What is unique about it?

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Claude Monet

• Claude Monet also known as Oscar-Claude Monet or
  Claude Oscar Monet was a founder of French
  impressionist painting, and the most consistent
  and prolific practitioner of the movement's
  philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before
  nature, especially as applied to plein-air
  landscape painting. The term Impressionism is
  derived from the title of his painting
  Impression, Sunrise.
• Characteristics of Impressionist painting include
  visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis
  on light in its changing qualities (often
  accentuating the effects of the passage of time),
  ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of
  movement as an important element of human
  perception and experience.
• Monet was born in Paris, but moved with his
  family to Normandy when he was just a child. His
  father wanted him to go into the family grocery
  store business, but Claude Monet wanted to become
  an artist. His mother was a singer.
• Monet died of lung cancer when he was 86 years
  old. Monet had insisted that the occasion be
  simple thus about fifty people attended the
  ceremony.
• (Claude Monet)

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Vocabulary

• Consistent ?????
• Prolific ???
• Practitioner ???,???
• Movement (??,??,??)??
• Perception ???????
• Plein-air (in the open air) ?????
• Composition ??
• Accentuate ??????
• Inclusion ????
• Element ??,??
• Grocery store ???
• Occasion ??,??

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Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night
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General Questions

• What do you seen in the painting?
• What kind of atmosphere does the painting give
  off?

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Vincent van Gogh

• Vincent van Gogh, for whom color was the chief
  symbol of expression, was born in Holland. The
  son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and
  cultured atmosphere, van Gogh was highly
  emotional and lacked self-confidence.
• The works of his early Dutch period are
  somber-toned, sharply lit. In Paris, van Gogh
  began to lighten his very dark palette and to
  paint in the short brushstrokes of the
  Impressionists. His nervous temperament made him
  a difficult companion and night-long discussions
  combined with painting all day undermined his
  health.
• During his brief career he had sold one painting.
  Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less
  than three years during which time he cut off
  part of his left ear following a breakdown in his
  friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he
  suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which
  led to his suicide.
• (Van Gogh Gallery)

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Vocabulary

• Symbol ??,??
• Expression ???
• Pastor ??
• Cultured ???????
• Atmosphere ??
• Emotional ?????????
• Self-confidence ??
• Somber-toned ??

• Sharply ???
• Palette ????
• Temperament ??????
• Companion ??
• Undermined ????
• Breakdown ????
• Recurrent ?????
• Bouts ??

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Pablo Picasso Guernica
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Background to Guernica

• Guernica is a monumental painting by Pablo
  Picasso, depicting the Nazi German bombing of
  Guernica, Spain, by twenty-eight bombers, on
  April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. The
  attack killed between 250 and 1,600 people, and
  many more were injured.
• Guernica presents a scene of death, violence,
  brutality, suffering, and helplessness without
  portraying their immediate causes. The choice to
  paint in black and white conveys the
  chronological nearness of a newspaper photograph
  and the lifelessness war affords.
• (Guernica)

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Pablo Picasso

• Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1974) was a Spanish artist
  whose name is almost synonymous with 20th century
  art. No artist was ever as famous as Picasso was
  in his own lifetime, or has been since. The
  controversies over his personality, arrogance,
  affairs with younger women, and unwillingness to
  be classified in the art world only added to his
  fame. Picasso was able to create incredibly
  complex and powerful paintings with a few strokes
  of the brush, or capture the essence of someone's
  face from many different angles all at once. Most
  of all Picasso was an individualist. He was a
  founder of art movements, such as Cubism. Picasso
  was incredibly proficient, especially near the
  end of his life, when he would often complete
  three paintings in one day. It was as if he
  believed he could delay his death through
  painting. At the time many of these works were
  dismissed. It wasn't until long after Picasso's
  death that critics took a new look at his later
  works and realized that Picasso had invented
  neo-expressionism and was, as usual, decades
  ahead of his time.
• (Cooper)

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Vocabulary

• Monumental ??????????
• Depict ????
• Brutality ????,????
• Immediate ???
• Causes ????
• Chronological ???????????
• Afford ??,??
• Synonymous ???
• Controversies ??

• Arrogance ????
• Classified ???,???
• Complex ????????????
• Essence ??,??
• Individualist ?????
• Cubism ???
• Proficient ???,???
• Dismiss ???
• Neo-expressionism?????

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References

• Claude Monet. Wikipedia. 2008. 30 June 2008.
  lthttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monetgt.
• Cooper, James. About Pablo Picasso. artst.org.
  10 July 2008. lthttp//www.artst.org/picasso/bio/gt.
  
• Guernica. Wikipedia. 2008. 10 July 2008.
  lthttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_28painting
  29gt.
• Stevenson, Sean. Jean-François Millet A Simple
  Heart. English 4U. 6 (2008) 12-16.
• Vincent van Gogh Biography. Vangoghgallery.
  2008. 30 June 2008. lthttp//www.vangoghgallery.com
  /misc/bio.htmlgt.