THE MIDDLE AGES - REQUIRED: FINAL PROJECT: ART HISTORY ANALYSIS PAPER

The Middle Ages - Required: Final Project: Art History Analysis Paper



The Middle Ages - Required: Final Project: Art History Analysis Paper

Introduction

In order to realize the similarities among different art movements, I will be analyzing two vastly different movements and artists. Impressionism and Abstractism are two art movements that came to exist one after the other, but are as dissimilar as two movements can be. Impressionism created an uprising, with world renowned artists such as Vermeer, Monet and Van Gogh coming forth. Abstractism was represented by Picasso, who took the movement to great heights with his creative input and varied subjects. In this paper, I will be analyzing the differences and similarities between the works of Van Gogh and Picasso, belonging to Impressionism and Abstractism respectively.

Discussion

As is widely known, both artists had troubled beginning. Van Gogh is widely known as being chronically depressed and came about at a time when Impressionism was highly developed. Artists such as Gaugin and Monet had established quite a name for themselves and Van Gogh's art was considered to be caricatures as compared to them. In the same way, Picasso had troubled beginnings with his foray into abstractism being seen as unworthy of being called art. Both artists were considered extremists of their time, and with time it was realized that both created a distinct paradigm shift in their times with the kind of art they produced. Van Gogh's work created several controversies, especially when he created a self portrait after having chopped off his own ear. He was one of the few artists who taught himself how to create mesmerizing art, and although the artist met a harrowing end to his tale, his art lives on quite successfully and he's considered one of the geniuses of the post-impressionist movement. While Van Gogh's palette started off as limited, soon he built a name for himself through his unique use of bright yellows and oranges, greens and blues. His use of primary colors is what links him to Pablo Picasso, with most of his work being covered within a small but attractive palette.

Another link between the two artists was that both were highly adaptive of the trends of their times, Picasso and Van Gogh both worked rapidly to produce more than a hundred works of art within a small amount of time. Picasso made a name for himself in the social circles of Paris with his focus on subjects of his paintings. Picasso started off as painting a wide range of subjects at first, but after the death of his good friend Casagemas, his color palette turned murky and depressing as well, something that was later found to be an enigmatic style of art. Both Van Gogh and Picasso created self portraits that have remained iconic to this day, with a similar use of technique and bright, caricature-like designs of their physical features. Van Gogh sat for his self portrait before cutting off his ...