fuck yeah art history

I and the Village
Marc Chagall
1911
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York, USA

Painted the year after Chagall came to Paris, I and the Village evokes his memories of his native Hasidic community outside Vitebsk. In the village, peasants and animals lived side by side, in a mutual dependence here signified by the line from peasant to cow, connecting their eyes. The peasant’s flowering sprig, symbolically a tree of life, is the reward of their partnership. For Hasids, animals were also humanity’s link to the universe, and the painting’s large circular forms suggest the orbiting sun, moon (in eclipse at the lower left), and earth. (From the MoMA website.)

The Runaway
Norman Rockwell
1958
The Norman Rockwell Museum of Stockbridge, Stockbridge, MA, USA

American illustrator Normal Rockwell produced this piece for the cover of the September 20, 1958 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.  To create his iconic images, Rockwell used photographs of the people and places in the small towns of Arlington, VA and Stockbridge, MA. NPR’s website has an interesting article, along with a gallery, on his artistic method and background on the models for his work.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
Gustav Klimt
1907
Neue Galerie New York, New York City, NY, USA

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt is probably most known for this piece, which at one point was the most expensive painting ever sold - for a whopping $135 million.

What people may not know about this painting is its interesting ownership history. The painting’s subject, Ms. Adele Bloch-Bauer, passed away in 1925 with the request in her will that this painting, along with a four others by Klimt, be donated to the Austrian State Gallery. When her widower husband fled Austria during WWII, his property (including this painting) was confiscated by the Nazis. Later, in his 1945 will, he bequeathed the Klimt paintings to his nieces and nephews.

In 1998, the Austrian government ordered that all paintings confiscated by the Nazi party be returned to their owners. At this time, the paintings had been on display in Vienna for over 60 years, and the Austrian government felt that they were the rightful owners because Bloch-Bauer had specified in her will that the paintings be hung in an Australian gallery. Bloch-Bauer’s nieces and nephews felt that they were the rightful owners, as the paintings had been granted to them in their uncle’s will. After a long legal battle, it was decided in 2004 that Ms. Maria Altmann, niece to Bloch-Bauer, was the rightful owner of the Klimt paintings. In 2006, it was sold to Ronald Lauder and the Neue Galerie in New York in the infamous $135 million transaction.

The Kiss
Constantin Brâncuşi
1912
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Sometimes all you need to convey an emotion is a block of limestone and a few simple lines.

Scene from Sleeping Beauty
Walt Disney Productions
1959

Sleeping Beauty marks one of the first times that Disney animators took a prominent role in the design process of a feature-length animated film. The illustrators and animators created a design aesthetic that resembled stained glass windows, with incredible attention to character detail. While the creative team fell in love with their work, audiences weren’t ready for a break from the stylized “Disney method,” and that combined with a lacking storyline and unremarkable songs resulted in harsh criticisms and low box office numbers. This led to the firing of over half the animation team, and a fresh start for their next feature-length film

What role do you think animators should have in the making of an animated film? Are they “artists,” or simply the means to create a product? Does modern animation/illustration have a place in Art History?

(source: Mouse Under Glass : Secrets of Disney Animation and Theme Parks by David Koenig)

Double Elvis
Andy Warhol
1963
MoMA, New York City, NY, USA