Exhibition 3 - Portrait Busts - Various Artists

This Exhibition was not made or focused on the works of one artist. These Portrait busts are of various personalities and have been produced by many different artists coming from different centuries. these busts in the exhibition represent the various people throughout time. These people are all from different classes, different jobs and show their different characters in life. 

The busts are quite realistic as they represent people who lived throughout the years and they show no abstraction. The works which are representing higher class people are easily distinguished from those of a lower class. this is because the posture they are in and even the clothing they have distinguish one from the other.

Some of the Busts in the Exhibition

Man with Tie

Vincent Apap

 

Smiling Girl

Antonio Sciortino

                                                                    

                                                                       

  

Medical Officer

George Borg

 

Man in Uniform

Vincent Apap        

                 

  Very Elegant Woman 

  Antonio Scortino   

  Elegant Woman

 Antonio Scortino 

Exhibition 2 - Chris Ebejer

Chris Ebejer was born in 1979 and is a Maltese artist who taught himself how to be a sculptor, and despite his young age, he had already shown an interest in the baroque heritage of the Maltese Islands. His training was given to him later on for 3 years in the History of Western European Art which helped him meet masters of the trade as Carpeaux, Bernini, Michelangelo and Rodin.

While training to become a painter, he found that three dimensionality was his way to forward in producing high standard works for the types of works he produced.  throughout the years he designed many works including those for cinema. His most notable work being the horse of troy for the film "Helen of Troy" which was released in 2002. His work ranges from film set design, to interiors, to fine art. He has now completed many public commissions and his Art is also included in various private collections.

 Images of The Swan lake Series in the Exhibition

The works seen in the photos taken in the exhibition are all monochrome in color (black and white) and have the theme Swan Lake. When you look at his work, you can see movement and this is because they are very flowing. Organic shapes are the main element in his works and geometric shapes are barely present.

 

Exhibition 1 - Alfred Chircop

Alfred Chircop is a Maltese artist. He has attended the Malta School of Art, the Accademia Pietro Vannucci in Perugia, the Bath Academy of Art at Corsham UK and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome where he learned and mastered techniques. This is seen in the media he uses in his work which are paintings, drawings using water colors  etchings and aquatints, lino cuts, pen and wash and mono prints. His works have developed through the years and are figurative and abstract. 

Apart from a career as an artist, he also was a teacher in Malta in various levels of schools. Among them, he taught at primary, secondary schools and sixth forms. he also taught at the Faculty of Architecture in Malta as a Senior Lecturer teaching visual education and design. He has exhibited his work interdependently from 1960 in Malta and abroad. Alfred Chircop has participated in many collective exhibitions in which he had his work highly renowned by local and foreign critics. 

His works of art are found in both private and public collections in Malta and Abroad. His paintings and drawings were done in different media like for example using water colors or pen. The pictures that are seen below are of these different media. They were in the exhibition which Alfred Chircop had at Auberge D'Italie in Merchant Street in Valletta on March 25th 2013.

Some of his works

 

                       

                  

  

   www.alfredchircop.com/about.html - 18.05.2013.

Art Nouveau

The Art Nouveau Style contained:

• sinuous, elongated, curvy lines
• the whiplash line
• vertical lines and height
• stylized flowers, leaves, roots, buds and seedpods
• the female form - in a pre-Raphaelite pose with long, flowing hair
• exotic woods, marquetry, iridescent glass, silver and semi-precious stones

This movement was aimed at producing a modernized design and to go against paintings and sculptures being superior to craft-based decorative arts. Their designs had combined flowing, natural forms with more angular contours. These elegant designs were inspired from both organic and geometric forms.

Their key ideas were as follows:

Desire to abandon the historical styles of the 19th century and establish a modernized art movement.

To revive good workmanship

 Raise the attitude of craft

 Produce genuinely modern design

To establish the new belief of “total works of the arts” were attention was taken to good craftsmanship and overturn the idea of paintings and sculptures being Superior to crafts
The function of an object should dictate its form and not be heavily ornamented.                                                                                                                                                                    Although this movement faded by the time of the first world war ( 1941 – 1918 ) as mass-produced products were seen more then just surface decoration. Here is where they started to focus on shape, form and color of the materials then the tiny detailed decor works.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_artnouveau.shtml

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-art-nouveau.htm

http://www.artnouveau-net.eu/Network/ArtNouveau/AboutArtNouveau/tabid/133/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

http://pinterest.com/thebigmachine/art-movements-art-nouveau/

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853. As he grew struggled for identity and longed for direction. He spent most of his adulthood on a pilgrim throughout Europe; painting, sketching and preaching the word of god.

He studied the word of the new impressionist painters and artists in Paris to try to imitate their delicate strokes and soft colors  But the result seemed stiff and effected. Then he developed his own bold and unconventional style. This although offended and alienated the art world elite.

In his whole lifetime he only sold 1 painting.

Work and solitude took its toll on van Gogh, and he started to act strangely from paint and turpentine fumes. Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear and delivered it to a prostitute.

While hospitalized, van Gogh worked in a studio set up by his brother Theo. There inspired by a dream, Vincent van Gogh painted "Starry Night."

Overcome with despair in 1890, he had written a letter in despair to his brother Theo. This was discovered only after his suicide.

                                                                      Starry Night

http://www.biography.com/people/vincent-van-gogh-9515695

Owen Jones and The Grammar of Ornamentation

Owen Jones is an architect and a designer of welsh descent; who was born from London. He studied at the Royal Academy School and traveled to Italy and then Greece where he met Jules Goury who studied the use of paint and color to enhance architecture and statuary by the ancient Greeks.

Goury and Jones traveled to Egypt and carried out intricate studies of the Alhambra palace, and its Islamic decorations. This was finally finished by Jones and published the works in ‘Plans, elevations, sections and details of the Alhambra’.

The studies of the Alhambra were highly significant in the development of his interest in ornament. Jones and Goury observed the harmony of Moorish decoration was achieved through the use of primary colours with secondary and tertiary colors used in the backgrounds.

Jones was responsible for the interior decoration of Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace and also the arrangement of the exhibits inside for the Great Exhibition of 1851. This brought him attention from the public and also gave him the chance to test out his colour theories. For the interior he based the colour scheme on the primary colors of red, yellow and blue.

Jones presented his theories on decoration, ornament and polychromy in lectures at the Society of Art and the government school of design. Henry Cole, who was the mastermind of the Great Exhibition, encouraged Jones on the publication of his great work, ‘The Grammer of Ornament’.

This book presented in color many examples of ornament from a wide range of counties. The book contains:

·         100 detailed color plates of ornaments drawn from architecture

·         Textiles

·         Tiles

·         Rare books

·         Metalwork

·         Stained glass

·         And other decorative arts.

http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/special-collections/featurejonesgrammar.pdf

http://digitalcommons.ric.edu/book_gallery/1/

Jules Cheret

Jules Cheret was born in Paris in 1836. He was placed in a three year apprenticeship with a lithographer by his father who was a typographer. This is done due to low finances in the family and would have helped to sustain his formal education which ended at age of 13. Cheret's formal training in arts was limited to a course at the Ecole Nationale de Dessin.

Though Cheret was able to sell some of his art sketches to a number of music publishers in Paris, he was not satisfied. Therefore in hope of finding a greater opportunity as an artist - he left for London. He then later returned to Paris after working for The Maple Furniture Company with no more money than when he started. Although this did deter him and his determination led him his first task to create a poster. This later would reveal his role as the master of the poster.

His first poster was created in 1858. It was during this time he first worked in one or two colors. Cheret, in 1869, he introduced a new system of printing from three stones. These stones were black, red and 'fond gradue' Cheret had achieved what no other artists had done before. This was creating a process which was the basis of his color lithographic posters.

His work empowered uniqueness and aesthetic finesse of his creative endeavors. This was done through his work which showed a combination of delicate, powdery and graceful fluidity of pastel and hue. Charet's artistic style was truly original. He elevated lithography to an art form. He had the ability to print colours which were separated and balanced. His color lithographic process would later be used by Henri de Tourlouse-Lautrec.

He was famous for light-footed beauties which he painted; these were the iconic "Cherettes", which were two posters for the Moulin Rouge. This was achieved by fusing modernity, innovation and commercial effectiveness which attracted the attention of Paris.

                           

          Saxoleine                                   Eldorado                  Orphée aux Enfers d'Offenbach

http://www.cheret.info/index.html

http://www.artrepublic.com/biographies/205-jules-cheret.html

http://be-artsy.blogspot.com/p/jules-cheret.html

http://www.all-art.org/history530-3.html