Celtic Thunder!

Yesterday, I got to go see Celtic Thunder, a musical group from Ireland.  They aren't so much a band, as a group of performers, the kind that you might see on PBS occasionally.  I must say that they were absolutely spectacular.  The quality of their performance was beautiful, including everything from the lighting and sets to their perfect voices.  They sang songs to please everybody, from their traditional Irish songs, some even sang in Gaelic, to covers of popular American songs, including Viva La Vida by Coldplay.  Each of the men has a different style of singing and a completely different voice, so each of their solo songs were completely different and they were picked to suit that particular man's voice.  It was a fantastic performance that caused the audience, the majority of which was over the age of 60, stand, scream, and cheer as if everyone they were at a Beatles concert.  It was amazing, to say the least.  I wish that it had never ended.

Videogames as a form of art.

As you've probably noticed, many of my posts aren't really about conventional art forms.  Today, I was playing my Wii and I started thinking about how beautiful the graphics are on some of the games that I play.  I'm a huge fan of Legend of Zelda, and in Twilight Princess, the scenery looks almost real.  As your character swims underneath the water, the sunlight glances off the surface and ripples across the lake floor.  Sometimes I get so captivated in the game that I think I'm watching a movie.  The PS3 and Xbox are very competitive to get the highest definition in a game, and those really do play like movies.  The graphics are so realistic that it's as if you are talking to and often killing real people.  Many gamers get so sucked in that they will play for days.  Videogames are becoming more beautifully created with every passing day.  Soon, virtual reality will be a reality and people will not know the difference between a game and the real world, except that the game will be in HD.

Digital Artwork

One thing that always sticks out to me when I see it is beautifully down digital artwork.  Artists will take so much time and effort to create something like this, and many people may not see it as true art, but I do.  This piece is by Adelle Lorienne, a favorite artist of mine on deviantart.com.  Each painting that she completes takes her around 50 hours or even more, placing layer upon layer to form beautiful details.  It astounds me that someone can bring something like this to life by sitting in front of the computer for hours on end.  But in truth, digital painting is key.  There's no mess, it's easy to erase your mistakes, and everything is very simple to use.  As these technologies continue, we will have a whole generation of digital artists to emerge.

Titian Exhibit

Today I went to the Titian exhibit at the High and it was absolutely beautiful.  I thought it was interesting how Titian thought that sketches and drawings were a means to an end, so he never did much to keep them pristine like his paintings.  That is why there were so few sketches in the exhibit, and what they did have were faded or slightly crumpled.

My favorite pieces were the Diana paintings.  While I was there, there were high school classes visiting as well.  The guide for their group asked if someone could tell a story as to what was happening in the painting.  One girl suggested that they were getting ready for a wedding or fancy event.  As it turns out, a man had just intruded on Diana and her nymphs, and Diana became furious.  The painting was supposedly picturing the scene just before she changed the man's body into a stag and let him be ripped apart by his own hunting dogs.  The other painting showed her fury when she found that one of her nymphs that was sworn to a life of chastity had become pregnant by Jupiter.  Each painting there was based off of a religious figure or mythological figure, which I found incredibly interesting.

In the permanent collection, the High has a lot of statues that resemble traditional Roman and Greek statues of different gods, goddesses, and people, which were the subjects of many of Titian's paintings and sketches.  Also, many of the paintings are similar in a way too, with many of the same subjects, especially the religious ones.  

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibit, and would like to go back on another day when there aren't a million loud high schoolers there.

"This Is Not A Puppy"

This piece of art was something that I found in my favorite coffee shop, Jittery Joe's in Athens, GA.  When I saw this, I immediately thought about the painting that Mrs. Bremm had shown us of a pipe with the caption "This is not a pipe."  I thought it was interesting to find a modern day version of this famous painting, by a folk artist from a smaller town like Athens.  Athens has a large folk art scene and has for many years.  I just thought it was funny and interesting to find something from such a small time artist that reflects such a famous painting.

Visual Essay

Working on the visual essay was really hard at first, especially trying to pick a topic.  My theme changed about 5 times before Sunday night before I presented I settled on one in particular.  My photos changed constantly, and I started out with over 100 which was definitely too big of a number.  The actual presentation of the project was pretty fun.  I feel like I did well, and it was really interesting seeing everyone else's, especially the one about cars as public art.  I loved that one.  Except for finding the actual pieces of public art, it was a fun experience.  Finding these was so difficult, and one would think that oh, Atlanta is a big city, there's bound to be plenty.  But when you don't have a car and are limited to a very small area, there's next to none.  Overall, I enjoyed the project much much more than the first essay we wrote.