Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a very confusing era of art. It seems to be hard to define but it might be a mix of different cultures and things that don't seem to go along with each other but are put togerher ans somehow do look like they are supposed to be together. Postmodernism seems to be saying that there isn't one way of life anymore but the way of life is a mixture of different things from different  cultures all mushed together. Postmodernists may believe that electronics and television are taking over our lives but help to create a "hyper-reality" which is "more real than real" which I do not understand what this is saying. Places like Disneyland can be seem as a "hyper-reality" because it allows for people to forget their worries and troubles but in reality they are just being represented in front of them. I do not really understand what they are trying to say but I think it means that people look towards things like a fake world that isn't real to forget about the "real world" but the real world is just outside of the park or the house. Places like Disneyland are fake places made to make people feel comfortable? Postmodernism is a very confusing concept and I do not think I will ever truly understand what it means. My best guess can be that its a mixture of things that do not go together but do that makes people feel safe or makes them feel as though its real.

Shape of Time Review

Kubler's "The Shape of Time" he discusses the difficulties that biographers of artists have to face and the different ways to compare artists. He believes that writing about an artist's life solely through biography doesn't do a good job in being able to understand the art and the messages behind it. He believes art that an artists creates changes throughout their life. Only having "one entrance" about an artist means that the author will skip over important information in order to just summarize their life rather than take a deeper look into the art. He believes that it is very difficult to determine if one artist is greater than another because there are so many different ways an artist becomes who they are. He says "talent is a predisposition", which I agree with because a lot of artists are born with this talent that will lead them to greatness, their painting or sculpting might come more natural to them then the next person. Their talent is hard to judge from person to person because I believe that their messages and ways they developed their talent is so unique and different from artist to artist that its hard to compare their work. Kubler believes that there are a lot of factors that effect talent such as, "physical energy, durable health, powers of concentration, are a few of the gifts of fortune with which the artist is best endowed". He looks at the life of an artist to see what events were going on that could have affected their art at the current time. I believe that it is important to look at an artist's life because it makes a huge impact on their art, they take their struggles, successes, good times, and bad time and try to create a story or a narrative to express their feelings. Reading a biography of an artist can really help someone understand the art but people should be aware that it is just a summary of their life, rather than an analysis into a specific part of their life.

Whitescapes

                                 
The picture on the left is a towel on a white bed sheet without the flash. The picture on the right is the same picture but taken with the flash. The picture on the left without the flash seems so have more warm undertones that makes the towel and the sheet seem more soft. The picture with the flash makes the towel stand out more and makes it look more white and more harsh. The bed sheet in the back seems to be more smooth and flat and you can't see the shadows as much as the picture without the flash.

Ways of Seeing Reflection

In John Berger Ways of Seeing he discusses the importance of "seeing" and the different levels of it in our world and daily lives. I found this excerpt to be really difficult to read and to keep focused on but I found some interesting points that caught my eye and made an impression on my. His first point is "the way we see things is affected by what we know or believe". This idea is really interesting and I believe that it's true. People are going to look at a painting and see different things based on their knowledge of art and painting. A regular person might look at it and see just what it appears to be like a landscape or a portrait, but an artist who studies paintings might see the different brush strokes, the way its laid out, or the kind of paint the artist used. Berger discusses the idea that we don't just look at one thing, but that we are always looking at things in relation to ourselves. This idea was interesting because he goes on to talk about how a photographer chooses to take a picture a certain way to get the viewer to see what he wants them to see. This idea can be expanded because this is the way a lot of artists, writers, or directors create their art. They create something a certain way because they want you to see what they saying.  A musician's music video is an expression of what they see when they play their song.

Berger also makes an interesting point that images can "outlast what it represented". People can look at a picture from a long time ago and "see" what was seen a long time ago. Also artists might see something in their art that other people might never be able to see and will never truly understand what the artist is "seeing". This idea is demonstrated in the thousands of art pieces left behind by deceased artists, we will never really know what the artist is seeing or what they are trying to say because we all see different points, and have different backgrounds that makes us think differently. This John Berger wrote a very interesting excerpt that I found to be confusing at times but made me think about how "seeing" really affects the way we live. Although artists, photographers, musicians and writers try to have us see their vision, our interpretation of what we see is all going to be very different and unique.

Visibility Reflection

This reading by Italo Calvino was hard to follow but there were many points that I found important about the idea of imagination and imagery. Calvino starts his excerpt by talking about Dante’s Inferno and the images and ideas that Dante has. While going through many circles of Purgatory Dante sees images of different landscapes, scenes from heaven, people, and supernatural beings. Dante believes that there are two types of imagination the “high fantasy” and the corporeal imagination. Calvino continues with this idea and elaborates on this idea with his idea that there are two types of imagination, the first one being that imagination starts with the word and ends with a visual image. The second time is that imagination starts with a visual image and ends with a verbal expression.

Calvino believes that the first type of imagination is the one that usually occurs when we read. He goes on to describe how movies and television shows are just products of this, they are the visualizations of a story or book that someone had written down. The director and the writers “visualize” what they think the book or story is and make it happen physically. This type of imagination is always at work even when we don’t think about it. Visuals and images are in everything even if they are not meant to be. Even reading a scientific article or a set of data can force the imagination to picture what they are talking about visually. The second type of imagination, that imagination starts with a visual image and ends with a verbal expression, seems to be the more complicated of the two. Calvino argues this point by saying that when he first starts writing he usually has a visual image in his mind that is the source of his fantasy stories. This can be seen throughout a lot of art because the visual of the painting can often cause someone to have a verbal expression, they did not create the painting but they had a verbal reaction to it. So maybe the two types are just a circle of imagination, visuals starting from words and words starting from images.

Calvino believes that imagination is the basis for everything, art, science, writing, even math. People think in terms of images and it is a very important part of our lives that we don’t think about very often. Calvino ends his excerpt with the question of is there anything left for people today to create brand new ideas and stories? He believes that people are either going to have to recycle old images and ideas and create a new context for them to be in, or that we will have to start from scratch. This reading was very interesting and thought provoking, I had never thought about where imagination and ideas are derived from. Image is a powerful tool that we use to communicate and survive. Calvino makes a lot of good points about the significance of imagination and makes me wonder if there is any true, original imaginations left or are all images and ideas based off other images and ideas?