As a group we chose a painting (apart from one individual) which appealed to us because it presents a challenge to reconstruct it from impressionist to contempary art. At a first glance we came up with ideas about the painting itself, how we felt about the it and which artsits we thought linked with the work.
We came up with several artists we feel have a connection with this particular piece in terms of techniques,use of colour and structure
The artist that Sana associated with the painting was Salividor Dali, because his use of movement used through surealism and comparing it to the movement of the swirls.
Kate felt that the texture of the painting was reminiscent of Frank Auerbach who works with application of thick paint.
Alan considered that it was associated with the artist Anselm Keifer also beacuse of the textures and the layering of the paint.
The techniques of Jenny Savilles work impressed Amy because of the visible brushstrokes on both her's and his work.
GROUP THOUGHTS
Romantic feeling towards the painting
The painting has a calm effect because of the use of colours used within the painting itself
Dream like look
Fluidity/liquid
Stormy night
Fire
Memoires
Chilhood
Home
Story
Structures/ graphic/ set lines
Textures
Peaceful
Quiet
Layerd paint
Thickness of the paint
THE STORY BEHIND 'STARRY NIGHT'
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starryindex.html - link to the background of 'starry night'
After looking at the painting in closer detail, taking into account the background and what the painting means to the artist, 'Vincent Van Gogh'.
We decided to look at the signerifers within the painting. The first signifier that had struck our group the most was 'MOVEMENT', this was beacuse looking at the painiting we saw movement in the entire painting, the eye directly takes you in to the center, as it looks like a wirlwind,
the paintstrokes are so close together that gives the effect of being so tight, unbreakable and clostrphobic. We felt that the tightness of the paintstrokes and how twised it looks, makes you feel like you want to escape but you cant. A form of art movement is EXPRESSIONISM. The term used to descirbe any art form that distorts reality to produce a highly emotional effect is called expressionism. This is also charactrized by symbolic and meanigful colours, it gives the impression of larger than life imagery. This term relates very closely to Vincent Van Goghs peice as it represents an emotional factor through out his life and what difficulties he was going through.
Having researched his backgroud around the time of his painting, we had found out information about his mental health and how it had imacted on his work. The signifier we looked into was his mental health.As a group we came up with a mind map around the signifeir, MENTAL HEALTH.
- Erratic Behaviour
- Depression (since 27 years)
- Painted in Saint-Remy asylum
- Powerful emotional impact
- Turbulent
- From dark depression to light stars? (found in death)
- Attacked Gaugin with razor
- Cut off his ear/ Shot himself
- Rging night sky
- Massive dark structure (expresses)
- Isolation
- Tortured mind?
- Village lights = warmth of home
- Bright stars- dreams of reaching in death
- Failed- art dealer, methodist preachers in love - Prostitues
Quote - "we spend our whole lives in unconcious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words"
This lead us as a group to think about the PHYSICAL Signifers, and how much of an impact it has played within the creation of the peice and what physical aspects linked to Vincent in that period of time. As a group we came up with a mind map, which included aspects of why van gohg used what technique and where.
- Mirrored - 'the curving lines mirror that of the sky and create a sensation' - Mirror - symmetry, however structured houses contrasting against the swirls in the sky and rolling of the hills,which is very unsymmetrical.
- Colour - Blue- connetations of sea and sky each relate to movement, the cool dark colours and fiery windows spark memories.
- Dot to Dot effect - ' a visual dot to dot using the stras leading your eyes in a particualr way', lead you eyes which then 'roll over' the hills this has alot to do with movement. There are connotations to be made of jumping dot to do, a fragmented piece that is broken very complex and happeing. Abstraction , use of dots called pointilism (stipple) to again create movement or circles, using circles in a structed manner. The sound phrases are reminded of rain droplets falling and thier sound when they fall in puddles.
His piece, 'starry night' give u the impression that you want to touch it in a way to understand the texture, however a modern deconstruction could create the same response in attemp to understand what it is - abstraction.
We wanted to incoprate all all the signifers into one peice.This is when as a group we decided to look at each siginfier into more depth.We looked at movement as a form of expression, this linked in well with the insanity of Vincent Van Gogh.
