Salvador Dali

Many people are some what framiliar with Dali and his work. He has some very famous paintings such as "The Persitence of Memory". In my opinion he is one of the best painters to have ever lived. He was not afraid to question reality.

Below is an excerpt from a critique that I wrote about him.

His technical style has clearly been influenced by many renaissance painters. They stand out from everything because of the sheer surrealism that they portray. Many other artists have tried to achieve this, but they go too overboard and lack the true motives. What Dali does so well is he achieves the surrealism without compromising the quality or conceivability of his paintings. He makes you believe the unbelievable and think the unthinkable. But most importantly, he makes you wonder “is everything as it seems?”

Here are some of my favorite pieces of his:

What is Art?

I've seen this question pop up all over the place and I've also heard mannny different answers. But what is it really? Does it have to be man-made? Can it be animal-made? Can nature make it (is a beautiful sunset art?)? If not, then are photographs of nature art? Is that modern-art really art? Is this art? Is a pencil art? Most people would agree that art is visual. Is sound art? What about smell, taste, or touch? What about an emotion?

How do you define art?

Once you find out what art really is, then you can ask yourself: what makes art good?

One definition by Paul O'neill struck me as very interesting. You can check it out here.

Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution's impact on society is obviously evident in almost every spacet of our modern lives. Many ideas/technologies fueled the growth of this movement. Some of the most impotant, infamous of these technologies were the automobile and, what brought the automobile to the public: the assembly line. This website gives some really good information about the assembly line's history and some important accounts.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ford.htm

Purpose

Throughout the next eight weeks my class will be partaking in a new a project that involves several different components. The title of the project is "(art)ifacts". Our purpose for this project is to gain a better understanding of artwork and how it reflects the world in which it was created. The project will also incorporate chemistry by using stoichiometric calculations to create materials for our artwork (like paint and stuff). We will each keep art journals to sketch ideas and finally, create individual art pieces.