Alex Explores Art

    Ukiyo-e, meaning "pictures of the floating world" was a style of art that flourished in Japan from the mid-17th century until the mid-19th century when it fell into steep decline. The floating world referred to the red light districts of Tokyo (known as Edo prior to 1868), along with the fleeting pleasures of life in general. As such, artists working in the style favored elegant (and sometimes highly erotic) depictions of courtesans, geisha, urban life, kabuki theatre, and natural beauty.     While the ukiyo-e style also included paintings, most works were produced on woodblocks, allowing them to be printed in high volumes and cheaply sold to the masses. Due to their mass availability, many ukiyo-e prints found their way overseas, becoming highly influential to Western artists, particularly Impressionists like Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh. Kitagawa Utamaro, Tsuitate no Danjo (1797) Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons .     Tsuitate no Danjo ...

    The countercultural wave of the 1960s unleashed a torrent of influences on the art world, including the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, Eastern spirituality, New Age philosophy, and the popular use of psychedelic compounds like LSD. At the same time, the political atmosphere of the Cold War and the Space Race kept the world in a state of tension and awe. With this blog I'm going to examine how some artists took these influences to heart, producing colorful, mind-bending images full of radical new ideas. Mati Klarwein, Nativity (1961 ) Image courtesy of Mati Klarwein's website .     Klarwein uses all the color without remorse, but he demonstrates masterful control of tone in the central subject. Tiny head aside, the woman is painted in a highly realistic manner, including bodily imperfections and tan lines. A cohesive aesthetic clearly isn't what Klarwein was striving for here. The rainbow colored cloak has the optical texture of a woven fabric, whil...

    The first World War came at a time when modern art was beginning to flourish. Artists were experimenting with color, perspective, and form in exciting new ways. The paintings just below are outside the scope of this analysis, but serve as examples of the multifarious kinds of images that were being created just prior to the advent of World War I. All images above courtesy of Obelisk . Please visit the link for more information.     When global war broke out in 1914, there was a perceptible impact on art. The vivacity on display in the above images was generally replaced by a more somber aesthetic and darker subject matter. Even as artists continued to explore their own eclectic styles, their output changed in response to the anxiety that swept across the globe. Romaine Brooks,  The Cross of France  (1914) Public domain image courtesy of  Wikimedia Commons .     In The Cross of France , a Red Cross nurse stands looking on with a deter...