Take a look at this short clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs
& perhaps think back to our first in-class exercise where we tried to place poetic extracts in chronological order of composition. If these portraits were scrambled in the same way, would we have an equally difficult time locating the 'modern', and defining it against the 'old-fashioned' or the simply 'old'? Remember that each of these pieces is modern to its own time. I'm interested what you think about the idea of historical 'trajectory' or 'narrative' - can you trace a narrative here?
Next week we'll be talking about 'the audience' versus 'the consumer', so it might be a good idea to think about those ideas too.
It's great to see some of you responding to your fellow students' postings.
Compared to the poetry, I think unscrambling the portraits would be just as hard. While it is easier to differentiate between the really old and the current portraits, the portraits in the middle seem to be equally "old" or "old-fashioned." Also, while these portraits seem modern to their own time, the last portraits still seemed old.
ReplyDeleteAs I was watching this film, I did see a slight historical narrative. Each piece seemed to contain elements from the prior work of art. Thus, each portrait seemed historically tied together.
I was absent the first day so i missed the discussion on poetry. However, i found the video to be pretty interesting. I found i hardly recognized any of the women being displayed ( I knew two tops). I did notice that the shift from from "old fashion" portraits to more modern seemed very mild until about the last ten. The only thing i could really pick up during those early portraits was that the color scheme seemed to gradually get lighter as they progressed. Around the last ten there was a very distinct change from the earlier art works. They seemed to use more vibrant colors and in some instances were completely abstract. I guess in some ways you could describe this in a narrative sense because they do seem to build upon one another, however i find this form of narrative, or story telling, entirely reliant on visual aid. With this being said i think it would be incredibly difficult for any person not having interest in women's art to see it other than a collection of old paintings, rather than a story that depicts the different eras that these paintings were produced.
ReplyDeleteI found this video to be very interesting because it shows how artwork over the last 500 years morphed a little bit each year. The faces and styles were so similar, that it seemed easy for the person who made the video to just move from painting to painting. For around seventy-five percent of the video I thought the artwork all looked very similar. It was hard to tell what years we were getting into because I could notice a change in style at all. However, once it got to the more modern artwork there was a very obvious change in the look. It was more distinctive lines and bolder looks. To me it seems like people have to try harder to be individual today and their work has to be more abstract. The same goes for poetry and creative writing today. I think a lot of writers try as hard as they can to be unique, but they don't necessarily like what they write.
ReplyDelete-Sydney Gitelis
To me, I see somewhat of a sad narrative with a happy ending. It seems the majority of the pieces were from the exact same time, which makes it interesting that each one is in fact separate and was modern to its own time. The sad thing is that because of this, looking at them one after another, there seems to be no imagination, the next only copying the first and changing minutely. Yes, these pieces are extremely beautiful, and expertly painted, but seeing them all together, what makes them any different than the other brilliant paintings before their time? It is only when we come to our modern day abstractions do I get the happy ending, people are starting to think outside the box. Why stick to traditions? All we get are the same "old" things, nothing new; traditions breed closed-mindedness. But then again, like the poetry we read, I don't know enough to tell the small subtle differences.
ReplyDeleteI think the video shows a narrative of the varying emotions of women throughout history - expressions of how life may have been (for women in general or just for that particular woman)in each time period. Each portrait has a different expression than the one before it; some seem melancholy, depressed, confused, lost in thought, happy, sly, devious, etc... To me it seems that the earlier faces seem more negative until the middle of the video, then they go back to being negative, but more abstract. Not quite sure what this means, but interesting, nevertheless.
ReplyDeleteTo me I feel like it would be very difficult to figure out which paintings were older than the others. While I could pick out some really old ones and I noticed the modern ones in the end, the ones in the middle seemed to be about the same to me. As for the narrative, I'm not sure but I did notice how some paintings had a more vibrant feeling to them than other ones did. The ones with color would be able to tell more of a story I feel like.
ReplyDeleteAll of the faces in the paintings looked exactly the same to me as the years progressed, except for the abstract ones of course. The only thing that changed was the hair and background. I think it would be incredibly difficult to guess what time period each was from, especially since I don't study art. I agree with sm4rt? about how there's a big change in the last few to more abstract painting and colors. Actually, looking back it seems that as it progresses the women are wearing more makeup as opposed to the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI think what I found most interesting was how surprisingly similar many of these works of art are. The vast majority of the women in the paintings had closed-mouthed smiles and an expression of mild amusement. The way each painting blends into the next was very impressive. I can't imagine hoe much time went into selecting each painting and then meshing them all together into this piece. While each women looks very similar in a way, they also have key differences based on the time period and artist.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I noticed the most was how seamlessly each of the pictures seemed to fade into one another. This seems to state that beautiful women throughout the ages were universally considered to have the same facial structures and features. I also clicked on a link on the same page that was "women of film" that did the same thing, and it was interesting to see again how similar many of the women looked.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous posters who have said that many of the faces seem very similar. I am not very artistic and have a hard time grasping the higher nature of art besides thinking things are "pretty." However, I was still amazed at the ability of the creator of this video to arrange/morph these works so seamlessly. When it comes to the era of these works of art though, everything just lumps into two categories to me - either "really old" or "kind of old". I did enjoy seeing these pieces in a new way, with some of these women being only a fraction of much larger works.
ReplyDelete-Christine Mallari
I think if all of these portraits were scrambled it would be really hard to pick out which ones are the most modern. I don't know much about art and I wouldn't be able to decipher what is modern today compared to a hundred years ago. I think the only way to really tell for me would be some of the really old ones and their hairstyles or outfits may give some insight. I thought it was interesting that all the women pretty much had the same features, soft clear pale skin, and all of them were white who looked upper class. This is how beauty seems to be portrayed throughout the ages. I did like how the most modern ones were abstract and blocky and not typical to the other conventional portraits.
ReplyDeleteI would like to find an argument with what everyone is saying but i feel like everyone is spot on. The women were all depicted in the same portrait style with no bold colors or distinct features. As much as art has changed over the years, the way women are portrayed has not changed. I found that once they did get to the newer, more modern works, the value of the pieces decreased but i also have no taste in art.
ReplyDeleteI think the narrative of this piece is somewhat along the lines of "the more things change, the more they stay the same". It's really incredible to see these faces morph through time and cultural or societal eras. It's interesting that someone can paint an "old fashioned" piece of art today based on previous work, and it becomes modern, one again. It shows how relative the phrases "modern" and "old-fashioned" really are.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this peice shows (outside of the abstract peices) that the more we think things change, the more they just stay the same. It was amazing that all the faces could morph into each other almost seemlessly. The idea of female beauty has changed little over time.
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