Illuminating Manuscripts

There have been many artists through the 1400’s and 1500’s that did illuminating manuscripts. These artists have made beautiful manuscripts for Bibles and other books for people to read and awe over the beautiful art around the lettering. Men and women worked with manuscripts for many years. Now in the twentieth century, contemporary artists use the old traditional calligraphy to create manuscripts but with a kick into the art of their own. The artist I have picked is Cari Ferraro. She uses the traditional calligraphy with the twentieth century technologies. She has made greeting cards, wedding invitations, prints, books, and art. She has found out by doing manuscripts that it would be hard to sell her products if it is one of a kind, so she has decided to use the technology to create more. She uses Photoshop and an Epson printer to create copies to sell more to not just the higher customers, but to other customers who can appreciate and afford her work. A lot of her work is colorful like watercolors, but she does have some that is the traditional work from the 14^th and 15^th century. The work I am going to talk about is Fra Giovanni's "Letter to a Friend".  This piece is in the traditional setting with beautiful art on the side. She used gouache, watercolor, walnut ink and gold leaf on this print. She made this in 1994, but she used a letter that was made in 1513. The letter is about a friend talking to another and how he appreciates their friendship. This is what the letter says: I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all! . . . And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away. With Cari Ferraro’s work, she makes wonderful work! I think it is amazing that there is an artist that still work with this traditional setting and makes it their own in this century.

Old Comics vs. New Comics

From the 1930’s to 1980’s, the comic book artists went through different perils from degrading children’s minds to putting words like “weird”, “horror”, and “ terror” in their comics. Now the comic book artists have shown a lot of improvement with the way they design their characters to how they make a storyline. Everybody enjoys the famous superheroes like Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and many more, but I have found other artists on the other side of the world I love to read. The comic book artists are from Japan and the word for comic book in Japanese is “manga.”  One of the artists I like is actually a group of artist who are called CLAMP. CLAMP is four women who found each other and decide to do books for people in Japan and other countries. They have a certain style that is bubbly and mystical. Their art has a simple sway of the ink pen, but a lot of detail to make each character one of a kind. The comic book series I am going to talk about is X/1999. The series is about two brothers who find out that their destinies are going to be difficult. Both brothers have to decide if they are going to destroy Earth or help Earth from each other. So the two brothers, Kamui and Fuma,  picks sides with other people, but finds out that their sister is also involved in the situation and has to be protected from her brother, Fuma.  X/1999 is suspenseful, on your edge, and blood everywhere comic. CLAMP shows their characters with long slender legs, long arms, and very tall. They have big eyes and flowing hair. But with the CLAMP girls, the design comes within the clothes each character wears in the book, and the storyline that makes each character at home in the story. I love the way that the artists also incorporates some of the characters in other comics. CLAMP has made me happy for years with their stories and the art of the comics. This comic shows improvement for what women can do for themselves as an artist. From the Comic book Confidential movie, the 1970’s was the time women could show what they could do as an artist. I think from that time and now the women of the comic book world have shown more detail in their work and made storylines more interesting to the reader. Women can show action, romance, cat people, fantasy, and gore without having to worry about what the people would have to say when a child reads one of their books. In this generation, the parents have to be the ones to see the age limit on a book to decide if the child can read it or not. Women and men as an artist can show off their skills and not have to worry about what people would say because after it is put on the shelves it is the parent’s responsibility. 

Blog 1 for contemporary art over Cave paintings and Graffiti Art

From the cave paintings in France to graffiti art on streets, there is another medium of art that artists use that everyone walks or drives on everyday. It is called three-dimensional pavement art. Pavement art is a unique art form where the artist uses chalk to draw on the pavement. Instead of graffiti artists using paint or spray paint to show their work in two-dimensional or three-dimensional format, pavement artist uses the chalk to show their work, but they have a certain illusion called anamorphosis that tricks the eye, if seen the right way, that shows the piece of art in a three-dimensional way. One artist, Julian Beever, is a pavement artist who does comical art. From Julian Beever’s official website, a viewer can tell how his art is fun to look at and question how to figure out how he designs the art. Most of his art is in landscape form that is sometimes connected to a wall or building. When he draws on the pavement, he will use the illusion by stretching a certain part of the character which gives it that form. Julian will also use the pavement to show depth by showing the pavement or sidewalk cracked around the drawing.  When he finishes his piece, he will incorporate a person with it to show the depth of the drawing and it gives it a greater view when the person shows action within the piece.There is many drawings from Julian Beever that people would give improvement, but one drawing that he did I loved. The pavement drawing is called “Taking the Plunge.” He incorporated the side of a building, the sidewalk, and stairs to create this wonderful three-dimensional drawing. This drawing shows a diving board connected to the building which is over a pier-like ocean area where the water flows down from the stairs like a waterfall. I love the way he shows depth in this drawing by the way he uses the atmosphere of the area plus using himself taking a dive from the diving board to dive into the water down below. Julian Beever is one pavement artist that is enjoyable and comes from the origins of early cave paintings and even graffiti art. I would think that one graffiti artist that would have introduced the pavement art is Akumi from the graffiti video we saw in class. Akumi was using paint to write his name on the streets for people to know who he is as an artist. Pavement artists would probably not just worship early artists but graffiti artists who introduced the new era a way to express themselves on the outside canvas.