Posts Tagged ‘Expressionism’
“But, after all, the aim of art is to create space”*…
The remarkable work of Eric Ross Bernstein…
See more at his website or on Instagram. Via @Booooooom.
* Frank Stella
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As we ponder perspective, we might send expressive birthday greetings to artist, playwright, poet, and teacher Oskar Kokoschka; he was born on this date in 1886. His theories of vision and his intense expressionistic paintings (largely portraits and landscapes) made him a key member of the Viennese Expressionist movement.
“The most beautiful sight in a movie theater is to walk down to the front, turn around, and look at the light from the screen reflected on the upturned faces of the members of the audience”*…
Back in the early 1990s, movie theaters weren’t that great. The auditoriums were cramped and narrow, and the screen was dim. But in 1995, the AMC Grand 24 in Dallas changed everything. It was the very first movie megaplex in the United States. This is the gigantic, neon, big-box store of moviegoing that we’re all used to today, and it’s easy to dismiss as a tacky ‘90s invention. But the megaplex—specifically this first megaplex in Dallas—upended the entire theater business and changed the kinds of movies that got made in ways you might not imagine…
A plethora of choice, stadium seating, a surge of independent films, the move to 3-D and IMAX– how the rise of the multi-cinema shaped movie-going and movies: “The Megaplex!” from the ever-fascinating 99% Invisible.
* François Truffaut, as quoted by Gene Siskel
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As we salt our popcorn, we might recall that it was on this date in 1921 that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released in the U.S., roughly a year after it’s release (as Das Kabinett des Doktor Calagari in its native Germany. Directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, it is considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema… and was hailed by Roger Ebert as arguably “the first true horror film” and by Danny Peary as cinema’s first cult film and a precursor for arthouse films.
“Such art reinforces human dignity”*…
For a growing number of twenty-first-century viewers the paintings of Johannes Vermeer reserve some of the most profound insights into the nature of human existence that a work of art can provide. The artist’s ability to side-step didactic finger-wagging and picturesque anecdote, both quintessential characteristics of Dutch painting of the Golden Age, is unique, as are the formal perfection of his compositions and his precise but powerful painting technique. His few themes–letter writing, letter reading, courtship, domestic chores, and scientific inquiry—appear pertinent to today’s museum goers as to those Dutch women and men who gazed upon his deceptively simple pictures 350 years ago.
The primary goal of the Essential Vermeer website is to take full advantage of the extraordinary potential of the World Wide Web and Internet Technology in order to provide a thorough and organic presentation of the art, life and cultural milieu of Vermeer. Complex art historical issues are dealt with in a straightforward manner so that they become comprehensible to the curious art lover without losing their value for inquiring writers or art specialists. News of Vermeer-related exhibitions, publications and multi-media events are reported in real time.
All (and I do mean all) about Dutch master: The Essential Vermeer
* Great art, for those who insist upon this rather philistine concept (as if un-great art were unworthy of even their most casual and ill-informed attention), makes us stand back and admire. It rushes upon us pell-mell like the work of Rubens or Tintoretto or Delacroix, or towers above us. There is of course another aesthetic: the art of a Vermeer or a Braque seeks not to amaze and appal but to invite the observer to come closer, to close with the painting, peer into it, become intimate with it. Such art reinforces human dignity.
– Germaine Greer. The Obstacle Race (1979)
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As we light up, we might spare a thought for Franz Marc; he died on this date in 1916. A painter and printmaker, he was one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement, and a founder of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it.
“There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere”*…
click here (and again) to enlarge
Via Goodreads.
* Diane Setterfield
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As we dogear the page, we might send avant-garde birthday greetings to Hermann Bahr; he was born on this date in 1863. A journalist, playwright, director, and critic, Bahr helped found Die Zeit (one of Germany’s leading newspapers) and edited Oesterreichische Volkszeitungwas (one of Austria’s). He worked as a director with Max Reinhardt at the Berlin Deutsches Theater and as Dramaturg with the Vienna Burgtheater. And he was the first critic to apply the label “Modernism” to literary works– part of a critical career in which he championed (successively) Naturalism, Romanticism, Expressionism, and Symbolism.
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