Romare Bearden, African Am. Artist
From Idea to Realization
Romare Bearden
Bearden found themes sympathetic to the African American experience. These motifs of wandering, mourning and the questing for home--considering Bearden's scores of interiors and exteriors, country and city life and depictions of family love--emerge as the central themes of all his art.
http://www.artbook.com/catalog--art--monographs--bearden--romare.html
Collage Technique
Artist, Anthony Zinonos, and Studio Desktop
Artists
Art Terms
Collage
Composition
Contrast
Genre
Harlem Renaissance
Movement
Organic Shape
Repetition
Silhouette
Texture
Unity
Example of Silhouette
What is a Genre Painting?
Genre painting developed particularly in Holland in the seventeenth century. The most typical subjects were scenes of peasant life or drinking in taverns, and tended to be small in scale. In Britain William Hogarth’s modern moral subjects were a special kind of genre, in their frankness and often biting social satire.
Simpler genre painting emerged in later eighteenth century in for example George Morland, Henry Robert Morland and Francis Wheatley. Genre painting became hugely popular in the Victorian age following the success of the brilliantly skilled but deeply sentimental works of Sir David Wilkie.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a new focus for genre painting emerged. Artists wanted to capture the excitement and fleeting nature of the modern life they saw around them in fast-growing metropolises such as London and Paris. The simple and slightly sentimental genre scenes of the Victorian era were replaced by bustling street scenes and glittering cafe interiors captured by impressionist artists such as Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. Reflections on the downsides of urbanisation also became a subject for artists. Camden Town Group painter Walter Sickert’s genre scenes painted early in the twentieth century include alienated couples in interiors – suggesting the loneliness people can feel in big cities.
Confusingly, the word ‘genre’ is also used in art to describe the different types, or broad subjects, of painting. In the seventeenth century five types – or ‘genres’ – of painting were established, these were: history painting; portrait painting; landscape painting; genre painting (scenes of everyday life) and still life. These genres were seen by the art establishment as having varying levels of importance, with history painting (the painting of scenes from history, the bible or literature) as the most important genre, and still life (paintings of still objects) as the least important.
Rule of Thirds
Project Goal and Directions
1. Inspired by an Olympic sport, research and find an athlete in motion and save that reference photo.
2. Collect magazine pages for the colors: red, yellow, blue, and green.
3. Sketch in your notebook a full figure outline of the athletic pose reference example you saved digitally.
4. Keeping in mind the rule of thirds for compositon, design the athlete pose on 9 x 12 inch paper, focusing on the silhouette or overall shape.
5. Make the figure as dark as possible for contrast using paint or collage papers and glue.
6. Add color magazine pieces in specific shapes, organic or geometric, to create a vivid background in contrast to the figure creating balance and unity.
Rubric
- Composition uses rule of thirds
- Figure silhouette is in action post
- Collage background uses bright colors
- Collage shapes create unity and contrast