Juanwara's F200X Art Blog

Conceptual art is not for everyone. Many people will go to a conceptual art exhibit and simply say, "Well I could've done that, I don't know what the big deal is." People who are fans of the art form will usually respond with, "Well you didn't so..." But to me, the response should be a bit deeper than that. While I don't believe that everyone HAS to like conceptual art, I think it's important to understand where the art is coming from and what it's trying to say. Just because something is not a beautiful, detailed, conventionally easy to understand painting doesn't mean that it can't tell a story.  The Dada movement, though short-lived, was a sort of catalyst for conceptual art. Most can directly attribute a huge shift in the art world to Duchamp's 1917 Fountain . Before that, no one had really taken a ready-made object and tried to make it mean something else. The piece stood out to question what exactly makes something art?    U...

 The Early Modern Era gave way to a number of different art styles. The most prominent probably being forms of abstract art. Abstract art began to develop in response to the first world war. World War I caused terror and trauma that people had never experienced before due to the existence of new technology. There was the use of tanks and bombs but also chemical weapons such as mustard gas that were able to kill people in a much larger capacity than previous times. Of course this had tremendous affects on how artists viewed the world and it opened a whole new need for artists to express themselves. Expressions of the trauma and pain of people needed to be conveyed in ways that people should feel, not just see.  Fauvism is an art style that focused on explosive color and often aggressive brushstrokes. Henri Matisse was a French painter who is most associated with this style. While his style is most known to be colorful and focused on nudes, the war and the influence of Pablo Pic...

 The Romantic Era (late 1800s to early 1900s) was a time where art began to take on many different styles. Up until this point, art was always the style of what people wanted at the time. Mostly realistic or idealized commissions. Historical moments were captured in great detail as if it were a photograph. However, in this era came the first cameras. Though they were slow and the technology was still developing, the need to have portraits made began to fade. I believe this contributed to a freedom of the artist to express themselves with new techniques in art.  I'd like to compare two different art styles from this era: impressionism and art nouveau.  Impressionism was an art style developed by a group of artists who chose to create works exhibiting more personal creativity and expression than recreating historical or biblical stories. Some founding members included Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot.      The Japanese Footbridge by Claude Monet (France, 1899...

 The Classical Period (est. 1750-1820), followed the Baroque Era. It began with the development of the Rococo art style which could be viewed as the opposite of the Baroque style. Rococo art tends to be very light, playful, and very pastel in it's use of color. At first, Rococo was coveted by the aristocracy class of the French. However, history began moving somewhat quickly around this time causing Rococo art to fall out of fashion relatively quickly. There was a change in attitude and revolutions were beginning, which created a shift in styles with people preferring depictions of history and heroism. Thus, the Neoclassical style was born. Due to the number of scientific discoveries and the revolutions that were occurring, I believe there was a morality shift as people's values began to change. This can be seen as the events depicted in art change from what is painted in Rococo to what is painted in Neoclassical. With a few exceptions of course.  The Meeting (1771-72, France...