Posts tagged Art History

So, this Field Work Term is my very last. I’m graduating in the spring and feel eager to make every moment count. I decided to stick around Bennington and experience the winter as a full season to test my limits and determine if I can really make it living on the east coast full time (I’m from San Francisco). I’m spending the days working in the Admissions Office and pumping out pieces from my sculpture studio in VAPA. I was eager to get my head back in the game and start making work but I feel the holidays stunted me. Whenever I’ve been in this position in the past I’ve referred to my trusty allies or in other words the artists that inspire my creativity. I thought that I would share just one of those today – because once again she’s propelled me back into the process of sketching and making. Angela de la Cruz started working as a painter but realized quickly that the canvas was limiting her process. One day, while she was in school, she folded her painted canvas in half and realized she had made a sculpture. I constantly refer to her work because of her brilliant use of color and her graceful ability to question the confines of sculpture and painting. Check her out! 

-Michaela

What is the general feel of the art program at Bennington? Representational art or more abstract? Is there a trend in the sort of work people do like certain schools that are known for their "super ironic political omg" stuff? Is illustration a thing that happens? — Asked by Anonymous

You can pursue your personal art interests at Bennington. I myself study fairly traditional art history (think Italian Renaissance, Baroque, etc.). Other students make incredible abstract art. It depends on your taste and what you want to study/create. To get a better feel for visual arts at Bennington, you should check out our faculty and the curriculum. Hope this helps!

Enjoy this piece by artist Jules Olitski, who taught at Bennington from 1963 to ‘67.

~ Holly ‘13

Jackson Pollock

Pollock's first retrospective in Bennington College's Deane Carriage Barn

A treat for my fellow art historians and art lovers - Jackson Pollock’s first retrospective - “A Retrospective Show of the Paintings of Jackson Pollock” - was held at Bennington in 1952! The show was organized by critic Clement Greenberg, one of Pollock’s most fervent supporters. The above photo shows Pollock with one of his paintings in the Deane Carriage Barn.

~ Holly, ‘13

I posted a few weeks ago about my project for Thematic Exposure, the art history tutorial I’m taking with Andy Spence and three fellow students. Quick refresher - We are each working with a theme and putting together our own (hypothetical) exhibit of works that span different times and cultures. I started out working very broadly with erotic art as a way to explore different conceptions of sex and morality. I’ve narrowed things down to look at erotic art as a way of taking sex, which is generally considered to be intimate, and making it public. My exhibit is driven by questions like: What makes sex in art tasteful/acceptable? How has art influenced cultural understandings of sex as an intimate v. public act? How do we distinguish between art and pornography? This week I looked at Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” a favorite painting of mine (which I saw in Madrid last month!). The triptych implies that sexual indulgence leads to eternal damnation. Yikes. I’m using this piece to consider connection(s) between sex, art, and Christianity. Next week I want to work with something more modern - perhaps I may go the film route? ~ Holly, ‘13

I posted a few weeks ago about my project for Thematic Exposure, the art history tutorial I’m taking with Andy Spence and three fellow students. Quick refresher - We are each working with a theme and putting together our own (hypothetical) exhibit of works that span different times and cultures.

I started out working very broadly with erotic art as a way to explore different conceptions of sex and morality. I’ve narrowed things down to look at erotic art as a way of taking sex, which is generally considered to be intimate, and making it public. My exhibit is driven by questions like: What makes sex in art tasteful/acceptable? How has art influenced cultural understandings of sex as an intimate v. public act? How do we distinguish between art and pornography?

This week I looked at Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” a favorite painting of mine (which I saw in Madrid last month!). The triptych implies that sexual indulgence leads to eternal damnation. Yikes. I’m using this piece to consider connection(s) between sex, art, and Christianity.

Next week I want to work with something more modern - perhaps I may go the film route?

~ Holly, ‘13

The Plan Essay: A Reflection

This past Monday was the due date for students to hand their Plan drafts in to their advisors. Which I completely forgot about until all my friends who are juniors and sophomores started freaking out about LIFE and EDUCATION and WHAT THEY WANT TO DO and WHAT IT ALL MEANS. Being a senior now, it’s too easy to stand back and be like, “That’s so cute that you don’t know and are still learning everything I just learned.” But really I’m just kind of like “Whoa” (it’s a Friday, I’m sorry, this is the extent of my emotional capabilities) because last term was my last Plan meeting EVER and I never have to hand in a Plan essay EVER AGAIN and it’s crazy to think that my Plan is no longer evolving. It’s evolved. This is it. This 35-page paper that I’m writing is IT. 

Which makes it fun for me in a kind of masochistic way to look back on my first Plan essay and my last Plan essay and COMPARE. The funny thing about this whole process is that even though it feels like my Plan has changed a lot, flip flopping between art history and anthropology and eventually just being both, I’ve actually been asking the same questions for the past three years. 

From my first Plan essay:

and

And from my last Plan essay:

IN A NUTSHELL. Ultimately, for a lot of us here, when everything feels like it’s changing in our Plan, really it’s our perspective that’s shifting, not the thing we’re studying.

- Meg ‘12

I am SO PUMPED about my senior work this week. After a kind of traumatizing start (I started writing a week later than I scheduled, then spent a whole day staring at a blank Word document and flipping the eff out), I am finally in a really confident place and feel good about what I have so far. Double spaced, I have five pages. It doesn’t sound like much BUT that means I’m already halfway done with the first part of my three-part, 35 page paper! It’s been really scary to sit in front of so much research and raw information and not know what to do with it, but after I gave myself a whole day to really truly freak out about it, I feel a lot more capable. Look at that awesome and productive-looking screenshot. SO MUCH WINNING HERE. - Meg

I am SO PUMPED about my senior work this week. After a kind of traumatizing start (I started writing a week later than I scheduled, then spent a whole day staring at a blank Word document and flipping the eff out), I am finally in a really confident place and feel good about what I have so far. Double spaced, I have five pages. It doesn’t sound like much BUT that means I’m already halfway done with the first part of my three-part, 35 page paper! It’s been really scary to sit in front of so much research and raw information and not know what to do with it, but after I gave myself a whole day to really truly freak out about it, I feel a lot more capable. Look at that awesome and productive-looking screenshot. SO MUCH WINNING HERE.

- Meg

~ Thematic Exposure Tutorial ~ Meg blogged last week about her project for the “Thematic Exposure” tutorial with Andy Spence (looting & archaeological sites). I’m also in that class, and I’m feeling pretty pumped about my project. As a refresher, we’re spending the first 7 weeks of class working on a time-based exhibit, and the second 7 weeks on a culture-based exhibit. I’m still developing my theme and narrowing things down right now, but sex and erotic art are my broadest focus. I’m interesting in exploring the eternal presence of sex and why it is the subject of moral debate, given that it always has and always will be practiced. Has the representation of an intimate act in a public form (art) shaped our views at all? For my first piece, I’m working with vintage photographs. The picture above was taken by Bellocq, a photographer from the early 20th century who took photos of prostitutes in Storyville, the legal red light district of New Orleans. He was friends with these women, and captured them in a natural way (particularly given the stiff, posed nature of portraits at this time). His images are really beautiful. I’m excited to narrow my focus and see where my exhibit goes from here. Holly

~ Thematic Exposure Tutorial ~

Meg blogged last week about her project for the “Thematic Exposure” tutorial with Andy Spence (looting & archaeological sites). I’m also in that class, and I’m feeling pretty pumped about my project.

As a refresher, we’re spending the first 7 weeks of class working on a time-based exhibit, and the second 7 weeks on a culture-based exhibit. I’m still developing my theme and narrowing things down right now, but sex and erotic art are my broadest focus. I’m interesting in exploring the eternal presence of sex and why it is the subject of moral debate, given that it always has and always will be practiced. Has the representation of an intimate act in a public form (art) shaped our views at all?

For my first piece, I’m working with vintage photographs. The picture above was taken by Bellocq, a photographer from the early 20th century who took photos of prostitutes in Storyville, the legal red light district of New Orleans. He was friends with these women, and captured them in a natural way (particularly given the stiff, posed nature of portraits at this time). His images are really beautiful.

I’m excited to narrow my focus and see where my exhibit goes from here.

Holly

This term, I have a class in the Deane Carriage Barn, which is a con because it’s so far away from my room, but a pro because a) the class is great and b) I get to look over at this painting whenever I want. Bennington has a lot of cool art in cool places, but this is one of my favorites. Flame On (1964) is by Jules Olitski, an abstract expressionist who taught at Bennington for a little while but is mostly known for being one of the most important painters of his generation. We’re very lucky to have this piece in our collection, and especially lucky that we can go chill with it any old time we want.

- Meg ‘12

Studios in visual art at Bennington

This is my studio space in Swan Garage on campus this term! It’s called Swan Garage because it is a garage-like space behind Swan House (one of the colonials).

One of the best things about studying art at Bennington is that in your junior or senior year, after you’ve demonstrated a lot of work in one particular art, you get a studio space on campus. They are located in lots of small buildings spread around the campus in more secluded parts of it, and because of this the studios become these really wonderful secrets to visual arts students. We are encouraged to decorate our spaces, be in them a lot, visit each other…lots of classes will even spend a day going from studio to studio to see how one another work.

Here I am in front of Swan Garage, which I share with other visual arts students. I concentrate in photography and mixed media work but the other artists in the garage work in many different mediums, from print making to painting.

For me, having a space all to myself to just think and work in is awesome. I can be in it whenever I want and use it in any way I want. This is a way in which I feel I really benefit from the size of the campus. At a bigger school, I probably never would have been able to have a studio as an undergraduate. Instead, I can paint and put together my work in a space that is entirely dictated by me.

-India K, ‘12

Luis Meléndez, Still Life with Chocolate Service, 1770 My Spanish painting class with the amazing Dan Hofstadter continues to amuse and interest me. Today we looked at Meléndez and his amazing still lifes, really advanced and detailed for the time. Many consider him the master of the Spanish still life genre. This is what Dan has to say about the awesome one shown above: “This is like your most adorable breakfast. Don’t you just want to be there?” -India K, ‘12

Luis Meléndez, Still Life with Chocolate Service, 1770

My Spanish painting class with the amazing Dan Hofstadter continues to amuse and interest me. Today we looked at Meléndez and his amazing still lifes, really advanced and detailed for the time. Many consider him the master of the Spanish still life genre.

This is what Dan has to say about the awesome one shown above:

“This is like your most adorable breakfast. Don’t you just want to be there?”

-India K, ‘12

One of my favorite things to do is research my professors. All of the Bennington faculty are “teacher practitioners,” meaning they’re all doing their own work (research, composing, painting, writing) while they’re teaching at Bennington. The great thing about this is, you learn from their personal, current experience in the field that you may be interested it. It gives a great perspective.

My art history professor is a painter named Andrew Spence (Andy also teaches painting classes). The class is entitled “Art in America Since WWII,” so it covers a lot of art that’s abstract and non-figurative. As a teacher practitioner, Andy is both painting currently, lives in New York, and has lived as an artist during many of the eras/movements we talk about in class. So cool! Here is some of Andy’s art as found on his website: http://www.andrewspenceart.com

-Leah

“They just might be whores, though.” - professor Andy Spence in my advanced work art history tutorial talking about artists who make stuff for the Pope. Sometimes stuff like this happens. - Meg ‘12

“They just might be whores, though.” - professor Andy Spence in my advanced work art history tutorial talking about artists who make stuff for the Pope.

Sometimes stuff like this happens.

- Meg ‘12

This week’s Dan Hofstadter quote, brought to you by the class “Spanish and Catalan Heritage: Painting and Sculpture”! Of “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez, painted in 1656, Dan says: “‘Las Meninas’ should be a mystery! Let it be a mystery, like the person you’re in love with! You’ll never get it but that’s why it’s beautiful.” -India K, ‘12

This week’s Dan Hofstadter quote, brought to you by the class “Spanish and Catalan Heritage: Painting and Sculpture”!

Of “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez, painted in 1656, Dan says:

“‘Las Meninas’ should be a mystery! Let it be a mystery, like the person you’re in love with! You’ll never get it but that’s why it’s beautiful.”

-India K, ‘12

We were looking at this painting in my Art History class last Friday morning. It is Bacchus by Caravaggio, and it now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. My professor, the amazing and very intelligent Dan Hofstadter, likes to go on little tangents now and then. In seeing this painting he says “You know this is one of those paintings that gives people Stendhal Syndrome. They go to the Uffizi and become overwhelmed by all the beauty and they fall over and faint and wind up in the neurological or psychiatric ward from all the splendor they’ve seen.” We all cracked up but out of curiosity I googled “Stendhal Syndrome.” Read it and weep, guys. It’s real. -India K, ‘12

We were looking at this painting in my Art History class last Friday morning. It is Bacchus by Caravaggio, and it now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. My professor, the amazing and very intelligent Dan Hofstadter, likes to go on little tangents now and then. In seeing this painting he says “You know this is one of those paintings that gives people Stendhal Syndrome. They go to the Uffizi and become overwhelmed by all the beauty and they fall over and faint and wind up in the neurological or psychiatric ward from all the splendor they’ve seen.”

We all cracked up but out of curiosity I googled “Stendhal Syndrome.”

Read it and weep, guys. It’s real.

-India K, ‘12

Plan Anxiety: A Love Story

Today was the deadline for all Plan essays to be submitted to the Dean’s office, so for the last couple weeks all the sophomores have been freaking out over what they’re going to say, what a Plan essay should look like, and whether or not their Plan committee is going to approve it. Because I’m a senior who has been forced to write a more than usual number of Plan essays, one of my sophomore friends asked if she could read my first one in order to get an idea of what is expected.

Very reluctantly, I went digging through my old folders from fall 2009 to email her my first Plan essay. At first, I only opened it to make sure it was the right copy. In addition to being terrified of reading my old work, my Plan process has been so long and complicated that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to relive that first awkward Plan meeting. But in verifying that this was the copy I needed to email, I was intrigued by remembering that when I graduated high school, all I wanted to do was study Medieval Studies at Smith College, get my MA in Celtic Studies at University College Dublin, and spend the rest of my life mucking around in Irish bogs and libraries. So, out of pure curiosity, I read it.

Read more »