Prendergast: Umbrellas in the Rain

Prendergast: Umbrellas in the Rain, 1899

The puddles!
The contrast between the repeating spear-shaped windows and the speckles of color that the umbrellas offer is lovely!
When I see this painting I think of the word: nice.
Though it's somewhat dreary to think about, with muted colors and washed out details, it is pleasant to look at and holds a bit of fantasy to it because how often does one see such an image?
The thing that makes this painting for me is the puddles.

Shinn: Early Morning Paris

Everett Shinn, Early Morning Paris, 1901

This guy compares to Degas in his later works when he is one of the first to go into the interior view of public spectacle, in circus tents and other indoor performances. But a year before, Early Morning Paris happened, which is much more Ashcan inspired, yet has a more pathetic and depressing vibe about it. The figure is a beggar, and his little friends are cats, the one in front of him is alive, and the one in the back is dead.

Reasons Why I like this:
The texture of the buildings has the appearance of flatness, as if the artist scraped the pastel down and then scribbled fine details over it. The colors at any rate are perfect, though the feeling of the painting is midday, definitely not early morning to me. The beggar does not seem very interesting to me, what's more interesting is when the buildings meet the right edge of the painting and form a strange atmosphere there, creating a blurred out illusion in the distance. My interest in this is in the buildings, which is unusual for me because I typically prefer representations of the figure over buildings or objects.

Bellows- Cliff Dwellers, 1913

example of Ashcan painter's subject interest in the urban spectacle. Bellows is later than the period of time between 1908-1913 in which the Ashcan painters held center stage in the painting world, yet is still considered an Ashcan painter. The term Ashcan describes The 8 painters in total, yet 5 of them really reigned during this period while 3 seemed to be less progressive. The first five are Henri, Sloan, Luks, Glackens, and Shinn. Ernest Lawson, Prendergast, and Davies are the lesser known and less important figures still considered Ashcan, and Bellows is grouped on to them after all of the Ashcan fuss happened.
I think the Ashcan painters and their style in general is interesting. The painters vary with different focuses, but for the most part the Ashcan painters were representing the truth of low-class or urban lifestyles.

Why I like Cliff Dwellers:
We're learning that the attitude of many american's in the 1900's to 1950's is that city life is the best life to live. I personally agree with this. The sense of community that takes place in this 'urban spectacle' is amusing to look through. The eye flows in a criss-cross motion throughout the painting, from top to bottom. The general sense of the crowd is not one of poverty or the stress of daily life even though it could be assumed judging from the painting that the figures are representing these ideas through their clothes and the general disorderliness of the crowd.
More interesting is the colors used, which is probably why I payed more attention to it. The palette seen by a lot of Ashcan painters this far seems to be murky grays, whites, and darker cool tones. The palette here is much more vibrant. It brings across the message that the poor experience sunny days as well, and perhaps more freedom from their lack of wealth. There is a feeling of joyousness, as if the street outside the murky small living quarters is a carnival for everyone.
Look at the purple that serves as the shadow on the building, I think this works really well with the buttery tones of the neighboring building, and the vibrant yellow cart in the crowd.

The John Baker Tuesday Morning Experience

"Painting and Sculptor from the 1900's to the 1950's" is my Tuesday morning class. After a morning of telling myself to get out of bed, until I finally do, after which I get a coffee and muffin on the way to the T, and then walk down windy Ruggles St, it's a relief to watch John Baker mumble about his cataracts and why he can't judge the focus of his slides. Let it be noted that this is professor John Baker's last semester here at MassArt, and he is fully aware that he is the last professor at the college, let alone the current decade, to use slides. He excuses this with insisting that slides are better quality than other photographic representations of paintings or sculptures. From my experience of this class, that is a big, fat lie. Many of these slides have seen better days, and its arguable that if you are going to represent a 2-d image in any way, that it's going to suck either way because its not the real thing. Therefore, it seems more likely that Baker probably is just too stubborn to let someone pry the slides out of his fingers before making a damned Powerpoint.
With that being said, Baker is charming with his cute little Buddy Holly frames and sweatervest. A sharp dresser and a funny mumbler, he'll entertain you with his speech patterns and will academically sweet-talk his way out of anything before you have the chance to really think about what he just said. An example of this other than his b.s. explanation of still using slides, could be when one student asked how much sculpture is really in the class considering its hardly mentioned in the syllabus yet in the title of the course. To that he mumbled poetically on and on about David Hockney (which will presumably be discussed later in the coursProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 during only one class). By the time he had finished his monologue on David Hockney, most paying attention realized he knew what he was talking about when he shifted the subject to something else he preferred, but didn't have any real defenses for the question at hand. Much of Baker's class experience echoes this, so the general attitude seems to be we'll just let him blabber on about what he wants and take note of the cohesive moments and laugh at his old-school vernacular or dramatized phrases.
Professor Baker Quotes
"that was the cat's pajamas!"
"hip, I'm not"
"a pharmacological FAD?!"
"how could this have grown up in the prairie?"
"Oh! The weight of the past is crushing us!"

Preface

I took it upon myself this semester to take a hunk of critical studies courses out of the way. This decision came out of my frustration in needing to balance my right and left brains, finding my attention span confused, and my critique voice buried under the burdens of everything I do not know about art history or art at all.
I am now using this blog as a way of looking into the past, since these Art history classes are going to shove these images and opinions down our throats. I thought i should personally look at and record the images of the past that interest me and analyze for my own personal work what I find interesting, what I do not, what I would like to incorporate into my own work, and what I find goes against my grain for one reason or another.
Let it be understood I am doing this as a kind of personal journal exploration to record my transitions in taste and possibly my shift from being completely unbrainy to somewhat of an academic in the areas that I am required to study on the sidelines of my big deal, art education. I do in no way consider myself an art critic, and that is actually what motivates me to use my unjaded eye into gathering my own opinions, and at the end of the day get more of a connection into the past of art
If I'm going to buy the books and read what everyone else has to say, I might as well blog my own opinions in the process.