Gustav Klimt, born in 1862 in Austria, was most famous for his love of experimentation with several media to create his powerful and bold works, which often were to the distaste of the public due to the erotic and expressive themes of his pieces. Klimt was the first chairperson of the Vienna Secession which was founded in 1897 by multiple artists who resigned from traditional art institutes to protest against the prevailing conservatism and to unite artists who also used non-traditional media to create art. Klimt was said to have created the style of “Art Nouveaux”.
“The Tree of Life was created between 1905 and 1909. It exists in two forms; as a mural on a dining room wall in Palais Stoclet, Brussels, Belgium (not open to the public) and as a working sketch at the Museum fuer Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts) in Vienna, Austria. This piece was commissioned by Stoclet Frieze, a lover of art. For this piece Klimt used mixed media. “Tempera, watercolor, gold paint, silver-bronze, crayon, pencil, opaque white, gold leaf and silver leaf on paper…” (California State University, East Bay, n.d.). The painting measures 195 x 102 centimeters. Klimt used a palette of bright, vibrant colors, which draws the viewers into the painting and makes them feel part of it. The main focus in this piece appears to be the tree itself, although it is in competition with the vast amount of details it is surrounded by.
At first glance, “The Tree of Life” simply appears to be an abstract painting of a tree. In actuality, the theme of this work is considered narrative art. The symbolism of this tree appears in scripture and many cultures around the world. “The Tree of Life” is open to many interpretations depending on each culture. It conveys the circle of life and the connection of all three worlds; the underground, earth, and heaven. “There is also a show of femininity and masculinity in the tree. The tree is able to bear fruit and flowers, which is the show of female fertility while the phallic symbol, which means union, shows the masculine side” (The Meaning Behind the Klimt Tree of Life, 2011). The black bird represents death in many cultures while the tree itself and the eyes included in the painting could be interpreted as symbols of wisdom.
During his career Klimt created several narrative art pieces with religious meanings, but his art also included landscapes and the human form, mostly women due to his love for women.
The tree “swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit.” This sentence evokes images of happiness and serenity; however, it is in stark contrast with “month after month, the whip-crack of the mortgage.” The tone of this phrase is harsh and the onomatopoeia of a “whip crack” stirs up images of oppression. The final lines of the poem show the consequences that the family accepts by preserving the tree—their family heritage. When the speaker judges the tree by its cover she sees monetary value, but when she looks at the content in the book she find that it represents family. Even though times may be tough for the family, they are united by memories of their ancestors.
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
Gustav Klimt was a part of the Vienna Secession art movement. Not only was he just a part of the Vienna Secession art movement, but he was the cofounder and the president. The goal of the Vienna Secession was to exhibit foreign artworks in Vienna, and to provide exhibitions for young unconventional artists (Moffat, 2008). The Vienna Secession was the most influential breakaway on conservative art across Europe and was big to promote its own ideas. (Encyclopedia of Art History, n.d.). Gustav Klimt was native to Austria and worked on his art
There is a lot of repetition of the vertical lines of the forest in the background of the painting, these vertical lines draw the eye up into the clouds and the sky. These repeated vertical lines contrast harshly with a horizontal line that divides the canvas almost exactly in half. The background, upper portion of the canvas, is quite static and flat, whereas the foreground and middle ground of the painting have quite a lot of depth. This static effect is made up for in the immaculate amount of d...
“The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.
In the "Gilded Age" immigrants from all over the world became part of America's working nation in hopes of finding a new and better life for themselves and their families. As more and more new families moved to America with high hopes, more and more people fell victims to the organized society, politics, and institutions better described as, the system. The system was like a jungle, implying that only the strong survived and the weak perished. Bosses always picked the biggest and strongest from a throng of people desperate for work, and if you were big and strong, you were more likely to get the job then if you were small and weak. Packing town was also a Jungle in the sense that the people with more authority or political power acted as predators and preyed on the working people, taking their money unfairly because of the their lack of knowledge on the pitfalls of the New World and their inability to speak and understand the universal language adequately. The unjust and corrupt system kept workers from speaking out when they felt they had been wronged and punished them when they did. As a result of the system, men women and even children were overworked, underpaid and taken advantage of. Working immigrants weren't any better off in American then they were in their homeland, as they soon discovered. Dreams that any people had of America were washed away by the corrupt ways of the system.
There are many characters in The Jungle. These characters vary widely in their professions, social status, and economic status. The main character in the novel is a Lithuanian named Jurgis Rudkus. His wife is Ona Lukoszaite, also a Lithuanian. Their son is named Antanas. Mike Scully is a powerful political leader in Packingtown. Phil Connor is a foreman in Packingtown, “politically connected” (through Scully), and a man who causes much trouble for Jurgis. Jack Duane is an experienced and educated criminal who is also “politically connected”. A man called Ostrinski is a half-blind tailor who teaches Jurgis about Socialism. There are also the members of Ona’s family, each of whom play minor roles in the story. The story opens with the feast at Jurgis and Ona’s wedding in America, but soon flashes back to the time before they left Lithuania. Jurgis met Ona at a horse fair, and fell in love with her. Unfortunately, they were too poor to have a wedding, since Ona’s father just died. In the hopes of finding freedom and fortune, they left for America, bringing many members of Ona’s family with them.
Tree itself is already a very commonly used symbol in many places, it symbolize sheltering, evocative of enternity, rooted in earth and reaching up to the sky and many more. In this book however, it focoused on the growing of the tree, we all know that it takes a lot of time for a tree to grow, likewise, it took a long time for melinda to speak up and face the truth. Moreover, this drawing of the tree is representing the mind growth ofMelinda, for inctense, the drawing was poorly done at the beggining, Melinda’s presure and her life is weighting her down, as the drawing gets better throghout the school year, Melinda’s strength and mind set is getting better too. If the tree ment sheltering, then Melinda sure developed a very nice shelter for herself in the
This is first introduced when the Maitu Seed (Mother Seed or “Our Truth”) is shown and while Asha is dreaming about a tree growing in the desert (Pumzi 0:44). This scene however, granted the Maitu Seed an important role in the movie. This theme was introduced again when Asha got to her lab and the branch of the last living tree was on display with the title “There Goes the Last Tree” (Pumzi 4:05). This was a dead giveaway that deforestation plays a major role in the development of the story. It demonstrated the importance of trees as well.
Symbolism plays a key role in the novella in allowing the author to relay his political ideals. In The King of Trees, Cheng uses many elements of nature to represent both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ideas. The king of trees - and trees in general - throughout the novella is a symbol of counter-revolutionary ideals, and the older Chinese customs. Li Li, and in turn, the followers of Mao Zedong/the Red Guard, believe that “In practical terms, old things must be destroyed” (Cheng 43). This is shown through the felling of the trees – getting rid of the Old Chinese cus...
Art is a very important part of humanity’s history, and it can be found anywhere from the walls of caves to the halls of museums. The artists that created these works of art were influenced by a multitude of factors including personal issues, politics, and other art movements. Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh, two wildly popular artists, have left behind artwork, that to this day, influences and fascinates people around the world. Their painting styles and personal lives are vastly different, but both artists managed to capture the emotions that they were feeling and used them to create artwork.
Moreover, the effect achieved by the current painting technique is often that of a human face behind glass or of a reflection rippling in the water surface: for instance, Shirley (2007), Susan (2011), Self-Portrait (1997) and others. Although these gridded paintings look fragmented from the small distance, they form an easily recognizable and identifiable figurative whole. The tendency towards application of pixelization in painting might be perceived as a skillful allusion to the legacy of Gustav Klimt, for Klimt, an Austrian Secessionist of the early 20th century, often ‘infused’ geometric elements similar to Close’ marks into his paintings. In other words, Close seems to have revived use of geometry in figurative depiction as he entered the third stylistic phase and endowed his photorealistic vision with more complex optical
Vienna was one of the unique and artiest centers of Europe. Vienna was technology improved and peaceful city. According to Michel hood Vienna achieve modern art for the 20th century. Secession is beautiful building with its cupola of golden laurel leaves and its art deco facade. It is one of the key works of Viennese Art Nouveaux architecture and was planned and built by Joseph Maria Ulbricht. Les Fauves were early 20th century Modern a...
The painting Olive Trees, now at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is one of a series of ten or twelve paintings of olive orchards, which Van Gogh painted in 1889 while living at the asylum of Saint-Remy. This painting is a landscape accomplished in bright, complementary colors, with Van Gogh’s characteristically brisk brushwork. The image is divided roughly into thirds, with the middle zone, the trees, being highly capricious. The brushstrokes describe the lay of the land, the movement of the wind in the trees, and the rays of the sun. The sun itself is hugely misrepresented in size, and highlighted also by an outline of orange. It dominates the picture and takes on perhaps a “supernatural” aspect, possibly representing deity or faith. The curved trees all lean, even quiver, away from the center of the painting. They cast violet shadows which shouldn’t be possible, given the placement of the sun: Realism is sacrificed for the content. The most prominent of these shadows is at the center of the foreground, and is not associated with any one tree. One could see this central shadow as the thing from which the trees are bending. The base of each tree is painted with red lines that ambiguously outline where the shadows would fall if the sun were directly overhead. Both the ground and the trees have a singularly wave appearance, while the sun is more stable, and the distant mountains are still.
And when they look for a messenger to go find flowers, they’re talking about re-finding the tranquillity and lack of fear that they wanted. I believe that the burials, actually represent life. It may sound a bit peculiar, but in real life once you get accustomed to living a happy, joyful life, you then will not be able to live without it and so, you will need to do practically anything, as the people in the star did, to find the “flowers”. The symbol of the deity that the youth saw in the temple, I understand that by the way in which the story progresses the symbol is actually representing the fact that war, or trouble (the bird of prey) destroys all happiness or good hearted feelings. I think that the representation is what I mentioned above, because when the messenger “goes” to the foreign star he sees destruction and a total lack of joy.