Final Project -- Essay on Field Notes

The posts in this blog tagged "Field Notes" were written for my History of Graphic Design class during Fall quarter 2010 at Foothill College.  The course covered “the development of visual communication in art, graphic design, illustration and popular culture” from its start in cave painting and pictographs, through modern times.  Each post was written after reading the weekly assignment in Megg’s “A History of Graphic Design” and class lectures, then researching some of topics discussed.

I am always amazed at how new knowledge can transform the everyday; when something new is learned, it seems to pop up everywhere.  It’s as if you suddenly were able to see a new color; maybe it has always been around but you are seeing it all over for the first time.  The posts relay not only what I discovered but also my new way of looking at the various topics.  I think this is the most valuable thing I learned from the class.  To take what I had read and not leave it in the isolation of my studying, but to go out and look for it, see it in its new forms, find it in my life. 

And in being aware of these new topics, opportunities to expand on them seemed to present themselves.  When we were reading about the development of printing, I was travelling to Ashland, Oregon to see their Shakespeare Festival and was able to view Shakespeare’s First Folio and listen to a docent lecture on the printing of it.  During our reading about Ukiyo-e and its influence on the Impressionists, the nearby Palace of the Legion of Honor was hosting an exhibit on exactly those topics.  While the exhibits were excellent by themselves, there is a special pleasure in bringing your own knowledge of the subject to the viewing.  There are two extra credit posts that I wrote on my visits to these as a direct result of the class; they are tagged "Extra Credit" if you'd like to read them.

I learned a lot from the class, and I think the posts reflect that.  The class nearly killed me – the workload is pretty intense – but I guess that if it is easy and accessible, its impact is not nearly as strong. 

I hope you enjoy the posts as much as I did researching and writing them.

Extra Credit -- Japanesque at the Legion of Honor

Recently I took my mom to see one of the most beautiful art exhibits I've ever seen.  It's titled Japanesque: The Japanese Print in the Era of Impressionism, and its at the Palace of  the Legion of Honor in San Francisco until Jan. 9, 2011.

 

The whole exhibit is really in three parts, along with an accompanying smaller exhibit of Japanese print books from the museum's collections.   The first part of the main gallery looks at the Ukiyo-e themselves and examines the art form from its inception through the late 1800s.  Included in this part of the exhibit is all of the series by Katsushika Hokusai, which is most famous for its "The Great Wave off Kanagawa":

from http://famouswonders.com/

For me, it is always exciting to finally view a painting or print that you've seen a million times in books or copied or spoofed a million times in popular culture (in fact, there are several homages to it in the exhibit by other Ukiyo-e artists).  The original print did not disappoint; its colors are gorgeous and vibrant, and you are able to stand close enough to it to see all the details: the men in the boats coursing through the wave, Mt. Fuji in the background, the white spray coming off the waves.  Several of the other people viewing the exhibit were amazed to see that it contained more than a wave!

 

Throughout the exhibit, the color and vibrancy of the Ukiyo-e were easy to see.  There is a translucency to the way they layed the ink onto the rice paper; the rich color seems to shimmer.  The exhibit notation also did a great job of explaining various transitions or techniques in the art form, such as how Ukiyo-e artists would allow the woodgrain to show if there were large areas of color, to have another pattern so it was not a flat, vast expanse of flat color.

 



The Japanese influence is easy to see
in this print by Mary Cassatt
from http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles



The second part of the exhibit shows how the impressionists were highly influenced by the Japanese woodcuts, and how they incorporated it into their art.  Again, the exhibit notations were excellent in explaining the influence found in each impressionist artwork, and often having a small picture of a specific woodcut they were referring to.  The small pictures also had text telling you which gallery they were displayed in so you could go back and look at them for reference.  The gallery was pretty much a who's who of Impressionists, such as Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

 

Also included in the second part of the exhibit was all of Henri Riviere's "36 Views of the Eiffel Tower."  Directly influenced by Hokusai's Mt. Fuji series, Riviere's work was done while they were building the Eiffel Tower and contain many scenes where it is not complete or the workmen are in the process of building it. The entire series was done in tans and black and is gorgeous.  To be able to directly compare the two series is very rare, and we are lucky the exhibit included both.

 

 

 



from http://www.art.com/



The final part of the exhibit were supplemental mini-exhibits adjacent to the main exhibit or nearby.  To the right of the main exhibit entrance was a room that contained a seating area and flat-screen TV showing a movie about the exhibit; this area was also where the docents begin their lectures and tour.  Across the room from the seating area plates showing how the prints were made.  These show The Great Wave from beginning to end -- all fourteen plates -- so you can look at the original plate then how it prints up and the picture emerges.

In addition, there is a small room on the left before the cafeteria, which contains a selection of books.

Noted photographer Arthur Tress (b. 1940) began collecting Japanese books in the fall of 1965, and has continued to collect books and now has a comprehensive collection numbering several hundred volumes. He has selected a small group from his collection for this first of a two-part exhibition of illustrated books on the subject of Fuji, the iconic mountain that is the enduring symbol of Japan.

The whole exhibit is well presented and spacious, and the day we went, not very crowded.  It is well worth going to!