A short history of Art Nouveau, Dada and Punk Art

A short history of Art Nouveau, Dada and Punk Art I originally chose Art Nouveau as my main art period for A level art because I love the deceptively simple flowing lines and the fine detail put into every individual piece of art, ranging from jewellery to Posters, and from wall-paper by William Morris to architecture some of the most popular being The Eiffel Tower in France and the staircase of the Maison Atelier of Victor Horta in Brussels or the Liberty Company department store in London. Art Nouveau is an approach to design according to which artists should work on everything from posters to jewellery and from furniture to architecture, making art part of everyday life. Art Nouveau was the most popular artistic style in graphic art at the turn of the century and peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century; roughly from around 1890 to 1905. It was commonly used within architecture and decorative arts. It was quite a simplistic art style and had a whip lash ripple or floral effect where a lot of the imagery looked as though the starting point had been curved in the style of a whip curves when it is about to strike something. The movement was strongly influenced by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, when he produced a lithographed poster which appeared on the first of January 1895 in the streets of Paris as an advertisement for the play Gismonda. It was an overnight sensation and announced itself and its creator as a new artistic form to the citizens of Paris. Originally named Mucha style, it later became known as Art Nouveau which means new art in French. Art nouveau had a fifteen year peak and was most strongly felt through Europe from Glasgow, to Moscow, to Madrid but its influence was worldwide. Art nouveau was a popular form of graphic design with detailed prints and bright colours which set the atmosphere of the imagery within. It was usually used for posters which drew the viewers eyes first to the outlined figures inside and then to the text within and then you would notice the fine detail around the whole image. The art style was a new form of Japanese inspired art and had a William Morris style of repetitiveness within the detail. I love the intricate detail of Art Nouveau, but I feel that it is not my style of art I like to produce detail pieces but a stranger style would suit me more. I have decided to move away from Art Nouveau and move more into the styles of Dada with are more interesting and confuse the viewer, the style is very different to what has been previously produced and that is why I have decided to do more of a Dada approach to my project now. Dada first started in Zurich, Switzerland, at the start of World War 1.Dada was an international movement among European artists and writers from 1915 1922 marked by a spirit of anarchic revolt against the futility and destruction of War. Dada took great pleasure in ridicule and promoted the role of the unpredictable in artistic creation. For many Dadaist, as they became to be known, their participation the movement was a protest against the conformist nationalist and colonialist interests, which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity in art and more broadly in society that corresponded to the war. In addition to anti war, Dada was also anti bourgeois, nonconformists, and anarchist in nature French poet Tristan Tzara plunging a penknife into the pages of a dictionary to randomly find a name for the movement this act in itself displays the importance of chance within Dada art. A lack of respect was another key feature in one of Dadas most infamous exhibitions, organised by Max Ernst, axes were provided for visitors to smash all of the works available on show. Marcel Duchamp, George Grosz, Otto Dix, Hans Richter and Jean Arp are among the leading Dadaists. The movement had a strong influence on Pop art, which was sometimes called neo Dada. Dadaists seeming to show lack of seriousness towards things on the surface, the Dada artists were actually charged by false belief and moral outrage at the unprecedented carnage of World War I, and the ultimate aim of the movement was to shock people out of complacency. Dada generally involved visual arts, poetry, art manifestoes, theatre art, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politics through rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti art cultural works. Dadas purpose was to mock what its contenders thought to be the meaninglessness of the modern world. According to its participants, Dada was not art; it was anti art. Dada represented the opposite to everything for which art stood. I felt that Dada was quite an interesting art period due to the style of its workings and its slight mysteriousness to it. The images produced during this time were unusual at the time and were seen as weird as is seen as today. The style of Dada is quite eye catching with its strange shapes and dull colours, it makes the viewer want to try and understand the picture so in a way Dada was quite a successful form of graphic design. The Dada movement became associated with anti-aesthetic creations and protest, which were affected by disgust and despair over World War 1. By 1924, after the first World War World War I, which was lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918 only a few years since the movement was founded Dada was melding into surrealism, and artists had gone on to other ideas and movements, including surrealism, social realism and other forms of modernism. Some theorists argue that Dada was actually the beginning of postmodern art Although the Dada period was very interesting and successful graphic design art period, I decided to evolve from this period into the form of Punk art. Punk art is more interesting for me because it uses bolder colours and has a more upfront and to the point style of things. For this reason I have chosen to move into this art period for my project. Punk has always been anti-establishment, a subversive form of protest against the status quo through outrageous and confrontational music, visuals and behaviour. At its inception it was a protest from the margins about inequality, poverty, unemployment and exclusion, and a rejection of the mythologies of the hippy dippy values of rock and peace which hid those realities. Punk fashion was primarily a demonstration of nonconformity, as well as opposition to popular culture and the hippie counterculture. Punk fashion often portrays aggression, rebellion and individualism. Some punks wear clothing or have tattoos that express sociopolitical messages. Punk visual art also often includes those types of messages. Many punks wore second hand clothing, partly as an anti-consumerist statement and partly because they were hard up. They expressed their art and their thoughts in their hair styles, their jewelry and their clothes. All were designed to shock. Punk raged against the cultural and fashion of its parents. Punk didnt belong to that mainstream; already outside, it raged against the society that had marginalized it. It was the voice of the those most affected by exclusion from mainstream society, poverty, inequality and injustice. Punk ideologists were an assembly of mixed social and political beliefs within the Punk subculture. In its first standing the Punk subculture originally was troubled with ideas such as rebellion, anti-authoritarianism, individualism, free thought and discontent. Punk ideologies are usually reflected through Punk rock music, Punk literature, spoken word recordings, Punk fashion, or Punk visual arts. Some Punks have expressed their radical views through direct action, such as protests, boycotts, squatting, vandalism, or property destruction. Some of the great punk artists include Vivian Westwood, fashion designer whose clothes epitomised the era and who today still designs to shock. The Sex Pistols whose leader Johhny Rotten would scare even political leaders because of their influence on the youth of the time. Others such as The Clash

The Reason for Freedom of Religion Essay -- United States Constitution

Religious influence in the adoption and development of law is contradictory to the structure of the American government and way of life. We are all familiar with the phrase; â€Å"My fellow Americans†, these are words we probably have heard many times before, Presidents have uttered them in addressing the nation, they always have the same connotation every time they are spoken, that all of us are Americans, notice please that the statement is not My fellow Christians. That’s because being an American does not automatically indicate being a Christian, one of the reasons this is such a great country is that we have specific rights guaranteed by our government, such as the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, freedom of the press and as important as any†¦.Freedom of religion. I am not a religious person, I cannot remember a time when I ever truly was, even when the central component of my parents teaching and family interaction was religious belief. I never felt it was logical to proclaim unfettering belief; it just wasn’t an investment I could make in good conscience. I agree somewhat with Karl Marx who wrote: Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.1 though I do not believe the removal of religion is key to alleviating the condition, It is my conjecture that religious practice will di... ...r be allowed to corrupt, government in order to protect religion and liberty. And in the hopes that never again will â€Å"You shall have no other gods before me† (Exodus 20:3)5 be used as reasoning for ethnic and religious cleansing. Works Cited 1. Marx, Karl, and Joseph J. O'Malley. Critique of Hegel's 'philosophy of Right'. Cambridge [Eng.: University Press, 1970. Print. 2. "Code of Ur-Nammu." Online liberty library.org. Liberty Fund, 05Dec2010. Web. 6 Dec 2010. . 3. Mount, Steve. "The United States Constitution." USConstitution.net. U.S. Constitution.net, APR 1997. Web. 5 Dec 2010. http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am1 4. Baroja, Julio Caro. The World of the Witch. 1st ed. 1. America: Phoenix Press, 2001. 125. Print. 5. Exodus 20:3 The Bible King James Version

How might a Jacobean audience see certain events in MACBETH differently to a modern one? Essay

Four hundred years ago in the time of the Jacobeans, beliefs then were very different from what they are today and this had impacts on the way Jacobean audiences interpreted certain events in Shakespeare’s plays. This essay sets out how some events might be interpreted differently in Macbeth. Bad things that happened to people were blamed on the supernatural like curses, witches and ghosts e.t.c. First of all was the whole idea of witches. For everything bad that happened to people, witches were blamed for them. Witches were seen as real people who had magical powers and could do almost anything. In Macbeth the witches appear at the very start of the play and accompanying them was thunder and lightning. The Jacobeans see that type of weather to be a bad omen and meant forces of evil or bad things were coming, whereas nice weather meant good things were going on. Today we see bad weather as being caused by scientific reasons; to do with air pressure for example. It has nothing to do with any events happening in the world. In Act 1 scene 2, the witches go on to create a massive thunderstorm. A Jacobean audience would believe this really happened because they thought witches did actually have the power to do that. Nowadays, a modern audience would see that as simply just made up, because we don’t believe in witches anymore. Adverse weather conditions are caused by natural phenomena not by supernatural evil witches. When Macbeth sees the witches for the first time they say â€Å"Hail Macbeth hail to thee Thane of Glamis,† â€Å"Thane of Cawdor† then â€Å"King hereafter†. The witches are saying he definitely will have those titles, not just might be. A Jacobean audience would see this as the witches predicted the future because people back then believed that they could do that. Today we do not believe in witches and again; it would be seen by a modern audience as the witches guessing what would happen. Next is the Thane of Cawdor’s execution. No-one has been executed in Britain for many years; the death penalty has effectively been abolished. But in Jacobean times, it was regarded as the natural thing to do. Therefore a modern audience would see this execution as very serious and would feel he would not deserve that punishment as much as we did 400 years ago. A Jacobean audience would see that he does need to be executed because betraying the king’s (monarch’s) army was considered a very serious crime because it would be a crime against God as well; as the monarchy was considered to be run directly by God. When Lady Macbeth calls on evil spirits to make her powerful and string-minded to carry out the murder of Duncan she says, â€Å"Unsex me here,† and, â€Å"Make thick my blood.† She actually wants to be changed into a man (on the inside) from a woman and be praying out to spirits somewhere she can do this. A Jacobean audience would believe that this is really happening because they believed in sprits; good or bad, and that if you call for them, they can do what you want. A modern audience however would see this as Lady Macbeth thinking that she has lots of power when really she can’t and she’s got too much energy and feels really powerful when really nothing will happen like that. I.e. she has a big lust for power. Today we don’t believe in spirits and that they never exist. We now would think that she’s just feeling lots of power and wants to get it very badly. But just before Macbeth goes to commit the murder of Duncan, he imagines a dagger leading him to Duncan’s room. He says, â€Å"Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?† He’s seeing this dagger actually taking him to Duncan’s room meaning the dagger should be used to kill him. Macbeth is really convinced and believes it’s there. Because of that, a Jacobean audience would think the witches have put it there in his head because they told the future earlier on in the play, that Macbeth will become king, and he would have needed to kill Duncan to do it. A modern audience on the other hand would think he’s having a hallucination and he’s just simply imagining it; probably explained by the stress of being about to kill the King. Jacobean’s might not have thought that because they didn’t appreciate people can imagine things deliberately or because of stress or mental illness. They would not understand those things. In addition, Macbeth sees a vision of Banquo’s ghost at a banquet. He says to the other guests, â€Å"Which of you have done this?† Again, like the dagger only he can see it and he believes it really was there. A Jacobean audience would have believed in ghosts and life after death. Macbeth had just unlawfully killed Banquo so a Jacobean audience would see that it would make sense for his ghost to haunt him and only him and appear real. But, a modern audience would see this as Macbeth being so stressed by the murder of Banquo and Duncan that one of his victims comes back to haunt him in his mind. The fact that only Macbeth can see it proves that it’s probably his stress. Jacobean’s believed in the â€Å"Divine right of Kings† meaning that the king’s reign is so because it is what God wanted; it’s God’s will for him/her to be king. Therefore if you kill the monarch (called regicide), it was the worst possible crime anybody could commit at the time. If you did it, you were committing a sin against God and the audience would be so shocked they would be petrified. So when Macbeth murders Duncan, the audience would be petrified with disbelief that that just happened. Today, we believe that kings and queens reign because we allow him/her to reign over us and it’s nothing to do with God. So a modern audience would see the murder of Duncan as just a very serious murder, not a crime against God. This is also because we believe much less in religion now than we did 400 years ago. Plus, the monarch today does not have it much power as it did back then; since the English civil war, laws are passed by parliament, the king or queen virtually has no power and can be abolished by parliament at any time. When Macbeth sees the witches for the final time to show him the apparitions, again in thunder and rain, they cast a spell in rhymes in order to do that. For example one says, â€Å"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes†. Jacobeans would see this as the witches truly casting a spell but today we this as just a poem. Also, the apparitions that the witches come up with would have been seen to have really done that by a Jacobean audience, because again, they thought witches had unlimited magical powers and could do almost anything, including bringing out naked out of a bubbling pot children or futuristic visions out of their cauldron. A modern audience would see this as Macbeth being drugged by the witches and that potion made him go on to see those apparitions, perhaps in some sort of trans or dream. We don’t believe in witches having the magical power to do that themselves. The final thing whose perception has changed is Lady Macbeth sleepwalking. In Jacobean times, people did not understand that anyone can sleepwalk for whatever reason and thought anyone who did was mad meaning they thought Lady Macbeth was mad and stressed because of what her husband had just been doing. Today however, we think that anyone can sleepwalk and hence Lady Macbeth could have been feeling fine and she was doing a totally random thing. We no longer link sleepwalking with madness. So to conclude, in Jacobean times 400 years ago, people were less knowledgeable about science, weather and how the mind worked. This combined with poor education for most people then, meant that the Jacobeans had to make up phenomenon like witches and ghosts to explain why bad things happen or things go wrong. Nowadays, more people live in urban areas and are well-educated and less religious. Kings and queens have mostly been replaced by fully elected party leaders and the monarch is now just a person and far less important in decision making and politics. Doctors and psychology mean we can understand people’s emotions better and events such as bad weather are now explained by science.

Mayflies, Order Ephemeroptera

The order Ephemeroptera includes only the mayflies. Ephemeroptera comes from the Greek ephemeros, meaning short-lived, and pteron, meaning wing. Adult mayflies live just one or two days. Description As adults, mayflies have delicate, slender bodies. They hold their membranous wings vertically when at rest. You can easily identify an adult mayfly by its triangular forewings and two or three long, threadlike tails extending from the abdomen. Most species also produce a subimago stage, which looks similar to the adult but is sexually immature. Mayflies live on land as adults, but are entirely aquatic as nymphs. Adult mayflies live just long enough to mate, which they often do in dramatic swarming flights. Receptive females fly into the cloud of swarming males, and mate in flight. The female deposits her eggs on the surface of a shallow pond or stream, or on objects in the water. Mayfly nymphs inhabit streams and ponds, where they feed on algae and detritus. Depending on the species, a mayfly nymph may live two weeks to two years before emerging from the water to complete its life cycle. Mayflies are known for emerging en masse, usually in May. In some places, large numbers of emerged mayflies can coat roads, making travel slippery and dangerous. Habitat and Distribution Mayfly nymphs inhabit fast-flowing streams and shallow ponds with high levels of dissolved oxygen and low levels of pollutants. They serve as bioindicators of good water quality. Mayfly adults live on land, near ponds and streams. Scientists describe over 4,000 species worldwide. Major Families in the Order Family Baetidae - small minnow mayfliesFamily Heptageniidae - stream mayfliesFamily Ephemeridae - common burrower mayfliesFamily Leptophlebiidae – prong-gilled mayfliesFamily Siphlonuridae - primitive minnow mayflies Families and Genera of Interest The American sand burrowing mayfly, Dolania Americana, is one of a few species of predatory mayflies.The Gila mayfly, Lachlania dencyanna, is known to exist only in one small area of New Mexico, and is threatened with extinction.An unusual parthenogenetic mayfly, Eurylophella oviruptis, employs a surprising method of oviposition. The subimagos abdomen literally ruptures, spilling its eggs onto the waters surface. Sources: Borror and DeLongs Introduction to the Study of Insects, 7th Edition, Charles A. Triplehorn and Norman F. JohnsonOrder Ephemeroptera - Mayflies, Bugguide.netGuide to Aquatic Insects and Crustaceans, Izaak Walton League of America