Artist Reactions to WarDuring World War I, artists contributed to the cause of the war, whether positive or negative, through paintings, song, and even photographs. In 1914, artist Otto Dix painted two self portraits. The first was titled Self-Portrait as a Soldier and the second was titled Self-Portrait as a Gunner. The painting of Dix as a soldier used a mix of reds and whites said to be “a celebration of strength and violence verging on savagery” (Art of the First World War 2009). Through the painting, Dix proclaims the necessity of going to war and his readiness to join. In contrast, his second self portrait features “all pervasive black, the shadow around the helmeted head, the worried look” on the face (Art of the First World War 2009). It’s a new expression from within the war zone itself. War is real. War is horrifying. The soldier is scared.In 1915, Le Miroir, published a photograph of a shell exploding while soldiers fought one another in “a landscape of meadows and woods” (Art of the First World War 2009). The photographer expressed the irony of war by capturing the horrid fighting among the peaceful wooded meadow, which could easily be interpreted to reveal the effects of the war (the exploding shell) on the innocent (meadows and woods).The year 1936 marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Emerging artists of the time included names such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Robeson, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and Joan Miro (Vallen 2009). Their work focused on many aspects of war from the technology used to the suffering of those involved. For example, Pablo Picasso painted the Guernica in 1937 “depicting the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes” during the Spanish Civil War (Pablo Picasso 2009). Through this painting, Picasso expresses his grief over the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War by depicting the horrors and suffering war brings on others especially “innocent civilians” (Pablo Picasso 2009).Artist Paul Robeson expressed his reaction to the Spanish Civil War by touring “Republican Spain” and giving a live performance of the song “Peat Bog Soldiers,” which became a well known European protest song and also became the official anthem of the republic during the Spanish Civil War (Paul Robeson 2009). Photographer Robert Capa also contributed to the war by bringing reality to the public through his photograph of a soldier running from the enemy’s gunfire. The photograph reveals a bullet flying at the soldier, which will inevitably strike the soldier down (Art of the First World War 2009). It was up to Robeson to remind the world of the soldiers’ daily plight in the war through singing “Peat Bog Solders,” while Capa found his voice through the photograph depicting the realities of death and grief of war to the world.During both wars, there were a number of artists who made their contributions to the cause by designing various posters termed as “propaganda” posters. These posters revealed the true reality of war through pictures of suffering, bombings, intense artillery attacks, and hospital scenes. They also communicated to the public encouraging them to rally around the war, protest it, or run from it. Some artists were paid by the government to paint or draw particular pictures to send a message to the public on their behalf. For instance, during the Spanish Civil War an artist by the name of Giron was commissioned to design a poster depicting a mother and daughter running through the streets of Madrid as bombs fell all around them. The heading at the top of the poster read, “Do not let your family live the drama of the war: To evacuate Madrid is to help in the final victory” (Posters of the Spanish Civil War…1998).Throughout time, artists have painted, sung, and photographed scenes and people that relate to the time period in which they live. Being an artist during times of war is no different. The only way to express a stance or to share the reality of such trying times is to release it through art. Artists, although different in presentation and style, come together in similarity when it comes to the freedom (both personal and public) to tell the story of war and to share in its sorrows, grief, destruction, defeat and even victory.Works Cited“Art of the First World War.” 9 December 2009. < http://www.art-ww1.com/gb/visite.html>.“Pablo Picasso.” Wikipedia. 9 December 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso>.“Paul Robeson.” Wikipedia. 9 December 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson>.“Posters of the Spanish Civil War From UCSD’s Southworth Collection.” The Visual Front.1998. 9 December 2009 .Vallen, Mark. “Posters of the Spanish Civil War.” Art for a Change. 9 December 2009. .
Claude MonetMonet (1840 –1926)Oscar Claude Monet is a French artist. At a very young age Monet was popular in his community for his charcoal caricatures, which reveals his early artistic genius. Unlike artists of his time who were interested in copying famous works Monet took interest in painting outdoor life. Inspired by the artist HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Boudin" o "Eugène Boudin" Eugène Boudin, Monet painted mostly outdoors instead of working from a studio which was the most common practice at that time. He is known to be the pioneer of French impressionism, a style of art that has inspired many other artists in Paris and across the world. Monet is by far the most famous impressionist artist.ImpressionismImpressionism is a radical art movement of the 19th century. This style of art is widely acknowledged as the beginning of modern art movement. Prior to impressionism artist took interest in depicting historic themes with rigid principles. Most artists copnique involved capturing the essence of the objects in small, thick strokes of mostly direct unmixed colors. Black and grey tones were avoided and their palette was colorful. Impressionists used contrasting colors to create a striking imagery. Their technique of applying wet paint on wet paint produced soft edges and visual continuity. Impressionist mostly worked outdoors and captured landscapes and themes from everyday life. Interesting textures marks a distinguishing feature of this style. The artists focused on capturing light and shade and their effect on objects at varying times of the day. Shadows and reflections are captured in detail. Twilight is a subject captured with interest by many artists. They enjoyed depicting the fading light in varying shades. Impressionists were not keen on demarcating the background from the foreground. Their subject matter was spread across the canvas as one unified vision. Their technique makes their work appear casual yet classic making them the The medium used in this painting is Oil on canvas. The work measures 48 cm × 63 cm. and is on display at Muse Marmottan, Paris. Monet’s sunrise is a picturesque painting conveying the freshness of the moment. The predominant color theme is blue, applied in varying shades across the canvas. The orange of the sun against the blue of the sky is a classic example of the use of complementary colors to convey a striking image. The clouds reflect the orange of the sky. The sun itself is represented by an orange dot dominating the canvas. Small thick strokes capture the reflections in water giving both a sense of movement and a feeling of stillness connected to the moment. The picture has an almost frozen quality to it as if attempting to register the moment in the minds of the viewer.The most interesting element of the painting is the sun and its reflections on water, a classic example of the impressionist’s work where the “technique of applying paint in small dabs perfectly captured the flics Monet's wife, Camille, and their son, Jean Monet, silhouetted against a densely clouded sky. The movement of the wind is captured by the direction in which the grass on the hill top and Camille’s clothes are swaying. This is suggestive of the season when the work was done. The day is bright and sunny deducted by the depth of the shadows and the luminance of the clouds. There is a swirling sense suggested in the manner in which Monet’s has captured Camille’s clothes, the grass and the clouds.The cloud is represented in white, tones of grey and shades of blue. The strokes on the cloud are at varying angles defining the object. The cloud appears to be gathering together in small masses to form a large enveloping cloud conveying a sense of vastness through the work. This makes the painting appear dense and elaborate. Various elements of nature like the earth, the sun, the light and air are captured picturesquely. This is indicative of the forces of nature that acts to create an innocent nt in his lively portrayal. This work is brimming with the life and energy that has translated from his heart and mind into the canvas. The green of the grass complements the blue of the pond. The lilies are expresses in playful circular strokes, in varying shades and colors, defining their shape and beauty. The whole canvas is woven into a unifying image where the various elements are connected visually and metaphorically. Monet’s conveys the essence of the life energy where everything is connected in this cosmos by forces not yet fully known to the human mind. The pond connects the grass and the flowers and all these elements flow into each other without any line of divide. Each individual object completes the whole. The dazzling sparks of color spread across the canvas renders a sense of mysticism to the composition.Water lilies are a series of over 200 works done by Monet. He has captured these flowers over and over again without any sense of repetition or boredom from the perspectet
November 3rd 2009.Kokoschka and Mondrian: The Vision of the InternalAbstract: This brief essay will compare two artists Oskar Kokoschka and Piet Mondrian, both active at the beginning and middle of the 20th century. What they have in common is the domination of the internal, of consciousness affecting the external world. But how this works out in practice is another story.The selections of these two modern artists reviewed here deal with two distinct features of abstract art. These two features can be summarized this way:What dominates in modern societies are abstract entities that are associated with the world of technology and the machine, what makes objects regular and repeatable rather than unique;The internal dominates over the external: objects are functions of consciousness in one respect or another and the distinctions will be covered below.To put this differently, both artists conceive the artistic vision as both a function of the age of the machine, of scientific regularity, rdness, a focus on consciousness rather than externality as it appears. It is likely that Mondrian holds that the external does not appear at all, that it is always a “cultivated externality,” and therefore, the most false art of all is “realism” in the normal use of that word.How this actually functions in the world of the artistic vision Mondrian holds very explicitly: the artist is to ignore the “commonplace,” which is held counter intuitively. Usually, one holds the commonplace to be that which objects have in common. But in this view, the commonplace is what makes objects allegedly “unique.” (Mondrian, 1921, 323). In terms of artistic creation therefore, what comes to the fore are straight lines and primary colors: the building blocks of reality.What then is held to be at the basis of art, eccentrically speaking, is what is regular and law bound: the straight line, simple colors, and the “grid” upon which the “commonplace” can function. It is radical in the literal sense of the wosquares and rectangles. While it clearly expresses what has been written above, one cannot help but seeing that it also appears like a prison, a prison of reductionist reason that can only see what is in pure balance, without anything that actually is in balance. It is the art of despair, and it seems that the order one sees in such a work is more the artists obsessing about control over a clearly hostile universe that the artist (or most, for that matter) has absolutely no control over whatsoever. Hence, it is the art of compensation. (see Figure 1). It is a mockery, therefore, of modern shibboleths such as equality and democracy.The right angle, therefore, is the ultimate expression of peaceful, balanced relations that are the only real consort of autonomous, free reason, a reason with the ability to get to the root of all appearance allegedly unique. He sees the right angle as the unity of opposites: mind/body, interior/exterior, consciousness/object (Mondrian, 1919, 323). From thist both writers concentrate so intently on the internal dominating over the external (such as it is) is a challenge to science, that assumes that the sense pick up what is “out there” and can work upon then in a “realistic” way. Of course, both of these writers will hold that their own ideas, prejudices and social context dominates what they are working on, the “objects” that are always in motion.Artistic creation for Kokoschka seems a bit simpler than for Mondrian. For the former, artistic creation is the capturing of motion in externality as it affects the consciousness, affecting it as it affects external reality. Kokoschka holds that this interplay of flux can be captured. Putting it simpler, for art to exist at all, this constant flux and instability must be expressible. The world and the consciousness of that world are constantly inter-penetrated (Kokoschka's, 1912, 171).From this, Kokoschka will hold the radical idealistic theory that objects do not exist, but are created in fixeka will reject externality completely, holding that it is only understandable in the mind of the artist, who realizes that it is flux: the state and science hold that it is structured, law bound and predictable. Artistic expression is the expression of a psyche that has let go of control (Kokoschka's, 1912, 173).In Kokoschka's (1913) Two Nudes; Lovers, this is powerfully expressed. This is a painful and depressing painting, because these two figures are supposed to be “in love,” an emotion that is as fluctuating and unstable as anything else. Neither person in the couple is happy. Both express both dread and sadness. Both are embracing, but the position of the embrace is one of separation (see Figure 2). They are both two consciousnesses, both seeing the flux differently and expressing it differently. It is clear that they may be “in love” now, but that can and will change very soon. There is no evidence that they even agree on such abstract terms as “love,” and what it entails. Their
Treatment of the Theme of Power in Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'September 18, 2004Power is the predominant theme of Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest': who holds power, who doesn't, who wants it, who loses it, how it is used to intimidate and manipulate and for what purposes, and, most especially, how it is disrupted and subverted, challenged, denied and assumed. On a deeper level, the theme reveals the ways in which an individual in pursuit of power will reduce any others who threaten that pursuit to the level of disposable commodities, and this dichotomy is, in turn, embodied in the chaotic relationship shared between Nurse Ratched and her adversary, Randle Patrick McMurphy.Before McMurphy arrives at the hospital, Nurse Ratched's routine works efficiently in maintaining a simple sense of order. "The ward is a factory for the Combine," 'Chief' Bromden notes in his narration. "It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in theing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing... Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing... A man go around lettin' a woman whup him down till he can't laugh any more, and he loses one of the biggest edges he's got on his side. First thing you know, he'll begin to think she's tougher than he is." And he succeeds in bringing laughter back to the ward: "I forget sometimes what laughter can do," the Chief says. Later he remarks on McMurphy's use of humor as a weapon against the routine of the ward: "He begins to see how funny the whole thing is - the rules, the disapproving looks they use to enforce the rules... [and] he goes to laughing, and this aggravates them no end. He's safe as long as he can laugh, he thinks, and it works pretty fair."Of course, Nurse Ratched cannot play McMurphy's game. McMurphy's laughter is a result of his increasing familiarity with the machine of the ward, so, to regain her diminished power over him, she sets about disruptinn [he] backed down a hand or two to give them confidence and bring them along again." The power belongs to McMurphy, and Nurse Ratched is his pawn no matter what she does.However, although the battle between them is rooted in their deeds, the heart of their conflict is rooted in their principles. Nurse Ratched does not care why certain rules have been established - indeed, her excuse for every rule is that it is simply for the therapeutic benefit of the patients - but instead she cares only that certain rules have been established, and must be abided by. Likewise, in the incident with the re-arrangement of the television schedule to accommodate the World Series, McMurphy ultimately does not care what he watches on television, but instead cares only that he watches television. It is a matter of principle - as long as he can change the rules she has established, even if he does not succeed in changing them as much as he had hoped, he wins the power. When the pressure becomes too intense tivities: "By the time they found Mr. Turkle in the linen room and led him out blinking and groaning... we were roaring." Ultimately the laughter brought about by McMurphy reaches the point where Nurse Ratched can no longer tolerate it with the same kind of stoicism with which she earlier tolerated his abrupt change in behavior: "The Big Nurse took our good humor without so much as a trace of her little pasted smile; every laugh was being forced right down her throat till it looked as if any minute she'd blow up like a bladder... The men were immune to her poison. Their eyes met hers; their grins mocked the old confident smile she had lost." Later, after McMurphy's attack on Nurse Ratched, Bromden notes the accomplishment of the very goal McMurphy was working toward all along: "She couldn't rule with her old power any more."Although Nurse Ratched does eventually destroy McMurphy, her methods of doing so have less to do with characteristic power and more to do with functional power; shetless, humorless attempts at jokes on the six o’clock news, to the silent laughs of mimes and clowns that fill the people around them with a happy feeling. These are all examples of what laughter is and how it is used. But why do we do it? What in nature created the laugh and made it so successful? There are a few theories out there about the biological benefits of laughter. Blood is thought to be oxygenated better, your internal organs are massaged, and your body reaches a balance (the technical term is homeostasis) when you laugh. In simple terms, it feels good to laugh, and even if you are not in the mood- you had a bad day, etc. - laughing always seems to shake off your troubles.This is clearly evident in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when MacMurphy leads the unauthorized fishing excursion. They laugh, laugh at each other, and by simply reading about their adventures, their feelings, and the laughs they shared, the reader gets a warm feeling inside knowing that everyone is being ves.
Question 6: What is forgiveness and what are some factors that influence the degree to which it is expressed and received? What are some likely outcomes of forgiveness, and how might it promote or hinder the development of healthy close relationships?ForgivenessForgiveness is a topic that is not easy to define. Exline and Baumeister argue that forgiveness occurs when a debt created when one person acts outside the limits of acceptable behavior and the other person decides to forgive or cancel this debt (Exline and Baumeister, 2000). Their research suggests that the ability to forgive benefits both the individual committing the transgression and the individual doing the forgiving in several ways. First, individuals will demonstrate improved relationships with the other individual. Second, they will feel less guilty about what they did. Finally, they may have increased self-confidence if they forgive others (Exline and Baumeister, 2000).McCullough suggests that there are several reasons why people forgive each other. First, people who are likely to forgive others have specific personality traits that include agreeableness, emotional stability, and some type of religious or spiritual belief system. This makes them more likely to forgive than other individuals. Second, people forgive others because they may feel some sense of empathy for the person needing to be forgiven. A third reason is that some people who commit transgressions are more likely to be forgiven than others is that they are seen as being more likeable. Finally, some individuals may be less likely to mull over conflicts and therefore are easier to commit an act of forgiveness than others (McCullough, 2001)The main problem lies in the fact that some people may not seek forgiveness because they are truly sorry but because it is to their benefit in some way to do so. (Exline and Baumeister, 2000) There are, however, some barriers to forgiveness such as anger, or the commission of acts so horrendous that the offended party simply cannot forgive the offender. (Exline and Baumeister, 2000)Karremans, Van Lange and Holland stated that forgiveness or the ability to forgive indicates that an individual may be more likely to act in a pro-social manner and are more focused on the greater good of the group rather than the greater good of the individual. They also argue that these individuals benefit in terms of relationships confidence and overall contentment with themselves than individuals who are not forgiving (Karremans et al., 2005). Grant and Gino suggest that expressions of gratitude such as, thankfulness or forgiveness may actually encourage pro-social behaviors. Their research indicated the things as simply as “I’m Sorry” “I forgive you” or “Please and Thank You” made people increasingly willing to help in crisis situations or to help others out in terms of financial donations or simple acts of kindness (Grant and Gino, 2010). Thus, forgiving others will strengthen and make healthier relationships.The evidence suggests that these variables are all critical in determining whether or not an individual is forgiven. However, other variables may play a role. For instance, some people may forgive others simply due to societal expectations that they forgive others rather than out of true forgiveness. Another critical issue to look at is whether the person being forgiven takes anything away from the interaction. While forgiveness serves its purpose, sometimes, individuals who are easily forgiven for transgressions continue to commit the behavior that got someone else angry in the first place.Forgiving someone is clearly difficult thing to do since people tend to have the fundamental attribution error. One needs to understand the other people’s situations and the reason behind his or her behavior. In order to have a better relationship and to have a prosocial community, forgiveness that serves one of the critical factors is essential in our lives. PAGE * MERGEFORMAT 1