The New York Museum
The New York Museum holds most artistic works from as early as the impressionist movement.
Among the pieces of art that impresses in the Museum of Modern Art is the painting “The Starry Night” done by Vincent Van Gogh in 1889. It is oil on canvas painting that depicts a night filled with swirling clouds, luminescence blazing stars and a bright crescent moon. Using the formalism theory, the starry night painting displays Gogh’s emotional turbulence evident in the constant swirly movements he developed on the stars and the luminosity displayed in the painting. On the contrary, Marxist theory would judge the piece of art as reflecting the social institutions in 1889. Van Gogh painted the piece of art to reflect class struggle and materialism by focusing on how the church and other important installations looked in his period. The paper will attempt to discuss in detail Vincent Van Gogh’s painting in terms of styles and techniques used through formalism and Marxist methodologies.
The paper will also mention how Gogh’s style exhibited in the painting had a direct and indirect impact in art industry since other painters imitated him. Ideologically, he also influenced the tone and ideals of the twentieth century artistic movements. Annotated Bibliography Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing About Art, 10th ed. Upper Saddle.
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2010. The book is a short guide to art and contains pictures of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that depict creative arts. It contains tools of presenting ideas in effective writing. The book distinguishes between description and analysis and contains critical approaches to art, getting ideas for essays and highlights how to develop paragraphs in an essay.
It entails writing captions for illustrations, engaging in peer reviews, using bibliographic tools and how to write sources. Finally it highlights how to documenting sources, using either The Chicago Manual of Style or The Art Bulletin style and how to prepare for essay examinations Beuys, Joseph. What is Art?: Conversation with Joseph Beuys. Clairview Publishers, 2004 The book details an intimate discussion with Beuys to highlight a deeper motivation and insight behind his view on art and the social sculpture. The writer here talks about different formulation of aesthetics that dates back to the origis of art. Aesthetics is portrayed to mean ‘enlivened being’ where it means responsibility as an ability to response.
The book mobilizes one’s imagination through the examples used in art. Bois, Yve-Alain. Painting as Model: Formalism. MIT Press, 1993 This book tries to redefine the status of theory in the modern critical discourse through structuralism and post-structuralism. The author warns of uncritical adoption of theory against a priori rejection of theory. The book argues how theory is the best response to the specific demands of a critical problem.
The book clearly demonstrates uses of different theoretical approaches in close reading of paintings and texts. Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. University of California Press, 1976The book analyses issues that subject the writings of Marx and the critics of Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Crecht, Caudwell, Lukacs, Benjamin and Goldmann. The criticisms are tackled through a viewpoint central to Marxist theory.
The writer portrays the relation of literature to history, problems of form and content, literature, production and technology in art and political commitment in art. The book explores exploration of the critical stances and their connection to Marxist approach and structuralism. The book finally analyses the author as a producer and literature as a process of production through Marxist theory. Freeland, Cynthia. But is it art? New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. The book explains why controversies and innovation are valued in the field of art.
The author weaves together philosophy and theories of art with many captivating examples. The book discuses culture, beauty, blood, money, sex, politics and museum while clarifying the contemporary and historical accounts of interpretation, function and nature of arts. The clear provocative literature engages in the big debate surrounding different responses to art. Gareth, Jones. What is art? Bristol Classical Publisher, 1994 This is an authoritative art that highlights writers of art from antiquity to the nineteenth century. It traces the evolution of art from ancient Greece to the end of Victorian era.
The evolution is chronologically arranged to more than forty entries. The book is divided into key historians, art critics, philosophers, social scientists, art historians and arttists. It has also included the views of Aquinas, Plato Alberti, Burke, Marx, Kant, De Piles, Ruskin, Michelagelo, Riegl and Wolffin. The entries highlighted are accompanied by critical essays, bibliographies and biographies of the individuals listed. Kant, Immanuel.
Critique of Judgment. The Art In Context. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1987. The book by Kant offers an analysis of beauty and sublime. He discusses aesthetics, objectivity of taste, the relation of art and nature, disinterestedness, genius, limits of representation and originality. The book also highlights the connection between aesthetics and morality.
Kant investigates the validity of people’s judgments on the degree at which nature has a purpose in respect to interests of reason and enlightenment. The book discuses phenomenology, hermeneutics and Frankfurt school of though. Schneider, Laurie A. The Methodology of Art: An Introduction (2nd Ed.) Westview Press The book provides a lucid introduction to formalism, Marxism, iconography, feminism, structuralism, post-structuralism and psychoanalysis with sections of gender, race, colonialism and orientation. She balances her commentaries well to highlight the ideal introduction to what is an ongoing productive debate.
She provides ways of describing and interpreting works of art. She discusses how every work of art expresses culture, time and marks the artist’s independenceWinsor, Kummel. A Guide to Writing about Art: Short Guide Series. Pearson/Prentice Hall Publishers, 2011 The book explores how man is awkwardly tangled in dreams of salvation, struggles and meaning to a physical world with much indifference. It highlights that man still has a substantial power left in them to develop own imagination in art.
It explores arts up from the West coast of North America to Mexico. It highlights the risks and rewards artists face in the world of art. Sayre, Henry. Art: Writing about Art. Pearson Prentice Hall Publisher, 2008 The book features step by step approach to writing about art. The book contains sample essays and extracts that focuses on formal analysis of art.
He portrays both the criticisms and admirers of iconoclasm of Art. He describes art as a natural and necessary for humankind. The book shows how vitally personality and experience of life enables the creation of art.
