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Why do we paint portraits and self-portraits? How have portraits (portraits themselves and their purpose) changed over time?

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Is the world (and art) objective or subjective? How can emotional experiences be expressed through art?

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Why do we need public art? What purpose does it serve? How can it reflect our community, society, and identities?

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What is reality? Can dreams, fantasy, and reality be united? How do dreams and the unconscious influence art?

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Does art have to mean something? Does art have to make sense? Should art look good? How far can art go?

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What is "fine art" or "high" art? Is there a hierarchy of culture in art? If so, why? How is art related to popular culture?

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Who were the earliest women artists and what are their untold stories? What are women creating today? How does their art reflect their experiences?

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How can we use art as a means for social change or social justice? How can art reflect our society, politics, and contexts?

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Why and how do humans use nature as an inspiration for art? How do our environments influence us?

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How does Renaissance art reflect changes in philosophy, literature, music, and science? How does it represent the transition to the modern age?

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How did photography change art? In what ways is it different from traditional forms of visual art?

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As long as people have made art there have been portraits. For the first few thousand years at least, portraits, whether drawn, painted or sculpted, were mostly reserved for those deemed important enough to be honored with a work of art bearing their likeness. The wealthy--mostly royalty and nobility-- and important religious and historic figures were the most common subjects.

In Europe, kings and queens had their own court painters, charged with painting the royal family and their various associated servants and attendants, as well as "history paintings" depicting historical events and figures such as important generals or leaders from bygone eras. Diego Velazquez and Hans Holbein the Younger are among the most well known of these court painters, and their bodies of work offer favorable depiction of royalty as well as important clergy and other members of the court.

Wealthy non-royals might also be able to afford portraits of themselves and their families, and the church regularly commissioned paintings of religious figures to adorn cathedrals.

By the time of the Baroque period following the Italian Renaissance, some painters had also begun to take an interest in portraits of the common man. Humanist philosophy started to appear and make its way into fine art. Johannes Vermeer and Georges De La Tour were Dutch and French painters respectively who spent much of their careers painting scenes of middle class life. Far from the idealized and heroic portraits of nobility, their work emphasized quiet humanity, and included details of everyday life that might have been considered too banal or insignificant in earlier times.

Still, most of their subjects were anonymous, and while ordinary people were being depicted, the works were largely still commissioned by wealthy patrons. Painting remained very much a skilled trade, and not something anyone could practice as a hobby. Patronage determined the content and subject matter of fine art for many years to follow, especially portraiture, and your status still played the most important part in whether or not you would ever see a portrait of yourself.

In the mid 19th century, things began to change again. The attitudes about humanity following the Age of Reason combined with the social upheavals fueled by the Industrial Revolution brought the activity of painting into the homes of the middle class. Mass production meant oil paint and canvas could be purchased at a store, rather than made by apprentices in a studio. Anyone could pick up a brush and and paint whatever they chose. French painters Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet and Honoré Daumier were part of the Social Realism movement, and they painted not just quiet scenes of middle class life, but the working class and poor, in paintings that were as much political statements as they were portraits.

Others grew even more experimental. The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists began deconstructing ideas about the nature of portraiture, and painting in general. None were more revolutionary than Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

The post-impressionists broke open traditional portraiture and the artists that followed them explored all possible avenues of representation and expression. Henri Matisse, Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch and most famously Pablo Picasso pushed the portrait in different directions at the beginning of the 20th century, focusing on different aspects- line, color, form, and most importantly psychology. For the first time for many artists, the inner psyche of the sitter was as important, if not moreso, as the likeness in a portrait.

While traditional painters and sculptors continued to make portraits throughout the 20th century, many of the dominant movements in the art scene had dropped representation entirely for abstraction and conceptual art. It wasn't until the 1960s with the emergence of artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein that portraits reemerged as a significant art form, this time as a comment on popular culture and the commoditization of art.

Self-Portrait Andy Warhol 1967

Drowning Girl Roy Lichtenstein 1962

Today portraiture is once again a healthy and vital discipline in the art world. While there are quite a few nontraditional approaches out there, many artists are returning to traditional techniques to address contemporary issues, and more people are painting portraits than ever.

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The History of Portraiture: A Trip Through Time

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As long as people have made art there have been portraits. For the first few thousand years at least, portraits, whether drawn, painted or sculpted, were mostly reserved for those deemed important enough to be honored with a work of art bearing their likeness.

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“Description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.

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The Case for Surrealism | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios

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Why do we need public art? | Nancy Ann Coyne | TEDxBratislava

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Light Channels

Artist: Bill FitzGibbons
Category: Downtown Infrastructure/Streets
Details: light art, LED lighting, aluminum (metal)
Date completed: 2006

Description:
The artwork utilizes LED lighting systems to create slowly-changing color patterns onto surrounding columns and sidewalks. In addition to lighting, the project includes nine aluminum-capped sculptural columns at both bridge entrances, creating a "colonnade" effect. Sidewalks and rip-rap were repaired and concrete columns were cleaned and painted a sky-blue color. The IH37 demonstrated how public art connects our community, sparks revitalization, and provides functional and dynamic solutions which enliven our built-environment.
The project transforms highly-traveled but blighted areas into passages that encourage pedestrian activity and promotes revitalization east of downtown San Antonio.

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Artist: Bill FitzGibbons Category: Downtown Infrastructure/Streets Details: light art, LED lighting, aluminum (metal) Date completed: 2006 Description: The artwork utilizes LED lighting systems to create slowly-changing color patterns onto surrounding columns and sidewalks. In addition to lighting, the project includes nine aluminum-capped sculptural columns at both bridge entrances, creating a "colonnade" effect.

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Fierce Women of Art | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios

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The Migration Series | Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series

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More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I.

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Art as activism | Marcus Ellsworth | TEDxUTChattanooga

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This week's poem is based on "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa," a famous woodblock print by the Japanese artist Hokusai completed in 1830. It is reprinted above.

The fancy word for a poem based on a piece of art is ekphrastic. The best ekphrastic poems leap off from the work of art - they simultaneously exist separately and add new dimensions to the piece. Here, the poet puts herself in the boat with the artist and imagines what it's like to be doomed or, at least, to watch a group of people who are doomed.

Linda Aldrich lives in Portland. Her most recent book is "March and Mad Women" (WordTech Communications, 2016).

Please note that Deep Water is accepting submissions during September and October; there is a link to more information below.
In the Well of a Wave Off Kanagawa By Linda Aldrich
In the same boat with Hokusai,

I watch other boats, slender

arcs of yellow moon, struggle

in the dark water, ride the back

of a wet dragon that roils and rises

mightily over them, all froth and

disruption, a tower about to collapse.

This is the day they will die. This

the moment before it happens, before

they jump through small windows

of time. They are facing away, pulling

hard on the oars, hoping to slide up

one side, down the other, as though

theirs is just any row of eyes going

someplace, their oblivious heads

lined up, thinking of those they left

on shore? But look, they're already

dead and don't know it. Hokusai

has filled their sockets with black

ink, their mouths fall open.

He looks past them to Mt. Fuji,

and the mountain looks back at him,

cloaked in white, impassive, unmoved,

like a line of rope thrown to us.

Our boat steadies, holds taut.

If Hokusai decides to jump,

I will take his hand.
Gibson Fay-LeBlanc is Portland's poet laureate. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2015 Linda Aldrich. It appeared in the Union of Maine Visual Artists Journal, spring 2015, and appears here by permission of the author. Please note that the column is currently accepting submissions. For information, see mainewriters.org/programs/deep-water.

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Deep Water: "In the Well of a Wave Off Kanagawa" by Linda Aldrich

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This week's poem is based on "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa," a famous woodblock print by the Japanese artist Hokusai completed in 1830. It is reprinted above. The fancy word for a poem based on a piece of art is ekphrastic.

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Renaissance - Overview - Goodbye-Art Academy

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Some of the earliest applications of photography came in the fields of archaeology and botany. Pictured is a photograph from botanist Anna Atkins' Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843).

Much like a painting, a photograph has the ability to move, engage and inspire viewers. It could be a black-and-white Ansel Adams landscape of a snow-capped mountain reflected in a lake, with a sharpness and tonal range that bring out the natural beauty of its subject. Or it could Edward Weston's close-up photograph of a bell pepper, an image possessing a sensuous abstraction that both surprises and intrigues. Or a Robert Doisneau photograph of a man and woman kissing near the Paris city hall in 1950, a picture has come to symbolize romance, postwar Paris and spontaneous displays of affection.

Wikimedia Commons

No one would question that photographs such as these are works of art. Art historians can explain the technical and artistic decisions that elevate photographs by the masters, whether it's Weston's use of a tiny aperture, Adams' printing techniques or Doisneau's distinctive aesthetic. It's clear that Pepper No. 30 belongs in a museum, even if a selfie posted on Facebook doesn't.

Oddly enough, it was not always this way. Photography has not yet celebrated its 200th birthday, yet in the medium's first century of existence, there was a great deal of debate over its artistic merit. For decades, even those who appreciated the qualities of a photograph were not entirely sure whether photography was - or could be - an art.

Science or art?

In its first incarnation, photography seemed to be more of a scientific tool than a form of artistic expression. Many of the earliest photographers didn't even call themselves artists: they were scientists and engineers - chemists, astronomers, botanists and inventors. While the new form attracted individuals with a background in painting or drawing, even early practitioners like Louis Daguerre or Nadar could be seen more as entrepreneurial inventors than as traditional artists.

Before Daguerre invented the daguerreotype (an early form of photography on a silver-coated plate), he had invented the diorama, a form of entertainment that used scene painting and lighting to create moving theatrical illusions of monuments and landscapes. Before Nadar began to create photographic portraits of Parisian celebrities like Sarah Bernhardt, he'd worked as a caricaturist. (An aeronaut, he also built the largest gas balloon ever created, dubbed The Giant.)

One reason early photographs were not considered works of art because, quite simply, they didn't look like art: no other form possessed the level of detail that they rendered. When the American inventor Samuel F B Morse saw the daguerreotype shortly after its first public demonstration in Paris in 1839, he wrote, "The exquisite minuteness of the delineation cannot be conceived. No painting or engraving ever approached it."

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A photograph of a haystack, with its thousands of stalks, looked visually staggering to a painter who contemplated drawing each one so precisely. The textures of shells and the roughness of a wall of brick or stone suddenly appeared vividly in photographs of the 1840s and 1850s.

For this reason, it's no surprise that some of the earliest applications of photography came in archaeology and botany. The medium seemed well suited to document specimens that were complex and minutely detailed, like plants, or archaeological finds that needed to be studied by faraway specialists, such as a tablet of hieroglyphics. In 1843, Anna Atkins produced Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions - considered the first book illustrated with photographs.

Finally, the genesis of a painting, drawing or sculpture was a human hand, guided by a human eye and mind. Photographers, by contrast, had managed to fix an image on a metal, paper, or glass support, but the image itself was formed by light, and because it seemed to come from a machine - not from a human hand - viewers doubted its artistic merit. Even the word "photograph" means "light writing."

Critics weigh in

Before the photograph, painted portraits had almost always flattered the client and conformed to the fashions of the day; meanwhile, the earliest photographic portraits didn't.

Elizabeth (Lady) Eastlake, one of the foremost 19th century writers on photography, listed many of the photograph's shortcomings when it came to rendering the female face. In a black and white photograph, blue eyes looked "as colourless as water," she wrote, blonde and red hair seemed "as if it had been dyed," and very shiny hair turned into "lines of light as big as ropes." Meanwhile, she noted that the male head, with its rougher skin and beard or moustache, might have less to fear, but still suffered a distinct loss of beauty in the photographic portrait. To Lady Eastlake, the photograph, "however valuable to relative or friend, has ceased to remind us of a work of art at all."

Wikimedia Commons

Debate over photography's status as art reached its apogee with the Pictorialist movement at the end of the 19th century. Pictorialist photographers manipulated the negative by hand; they used multiple negatives and masking to create a single print (much like compositing in Photoshop today); they applied soft focus and new forms of toning to create blurry and painterly effects; and they rejected the mechanical look of the standard photograph. Essentially, they sought to push the boundaries of the form to make photographs appear as "painting-like" as possible - perhaps as a way to have them taken seriously as art.

Pictorialist photographers found success in gallery exhibitions and high-end publications. By the early 20th century, however, a photographer like Alfred Stieglitz, who had started out as a Pictorialist, was pioneering the "straight" photograph: the printing of a negative from edge to edge with no cropping or manipulation. Stieglitz also experimented with purely abstract photographs of clouds. Modernist and documentary photographers began to accept the medium's inherent precision instead of trying to make images that looked like paintings.

"Photography is the most transparent of the art mediums devised or discovered by man," wrote critic Clement Greenberg in 1946. "It is probably for this reason that it proves so difficult to make the photograph transcend its almost inevitable function as document and act as work of art as well."

Still, well into the 20th century, many critics and artists continued to view photography as operating in a realm that was not quite fine art - a debate that even continues today. But a look back to the 19th century reminds us of the medium's initial shocking - and confounding - realism, even as photo portraits printed on calling cards (" carte de visites ") were becoming as fashionable and ubiquitous as Facebook and Instagram today.

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How photography evolved from science to art

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Much like a painting, a photograph has the ability to move, engage and inspire viewers. It could be a black-and-white Ansel Adams landscape of a snow-capped mountain reflected in a lake, with a sharpness and tonal range that bring out the natural beauty of its subject.

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Often times in our busy lives, we seem to take some of the important things for granted. It seems to be that more and more each day, the connection between us and our planet earth drifts further and further apart. Not only does the earth provide us with everything we need to survive, like air to breathe and material to build our shelters, but it also provides us with inspiration for art. The complex beauty of nature has inspired many artists whether it is the array of colors in a sunset or the natural geometry of a pinecone. Some take the beauty and transpose it into an entirely new medium such as a canvas, wall or sculpture; however, some artists actually manipulate nature and turn it into art. This is most commonly called "Land Art," yet also referred to as "earth art," "earthworks" or "environmental art."

Art that functions on multiple levels is important to our world. It is something that is pleasing to the eye, but also something that portrays an important message. Although each land artist's work contains its own unique message, the whole field of Land Art possesses an underlying message of reconnecting with nature. By creating art using the land, one is almost forced into a much deeper level of connection. Just as an artist who uses paints and a canvas becomes much closer to the materials they are using, so does the land artist as they use leaves, pinecones, wood and ice, thus reintroducing that long lost connection with nature that our species once had many years ago. For the viewer, a deeper connection is also offered as they are reminded of the inherent beauty that exists in nature.

Land Art first gained popularity in the American West in the '60s and '70s. Many environmentalists started to paint landscape paintings in order to feel that deeper connection with the landscape with hopes of inspiring people to feel eager to save it. However, in order to really inspire people, a more public approach needed to be taken.

Michael Heizer was one of the first artists to create Land Art. He is most well-known for his giant project in the Nevada Desert entitled, " Double Negative." It consisted of a 1,500-foot-long trench, which was naturally created by the displacement of rocks. On either side of this long trench are two manmade trenches, thus it consisted of two negative spaces, one manmade and one naturally occurring. Heizer saw the beauty in what was not there, for it was the negative space that made the piece what it was. This giant piece, which obviously could not be moved, was one of the first that made people question, "What is art if it cannot be put into a museum?" Thus, Heizer became an innovator of public art and also forced people to look deeper at nature. Today, this piece is owned by MOCA.

Andy Goldsworthy took this new idea of land art to a smaller and more feasible level. Every time you are on a hike, and you see some rocks balancing on top of each other, you have Andy Goldsworthy to thank, as he is known as the first to start the worldwide fad of rock balancing. His simple and ephemeral works of land art are created using anything that he can find in his surroundings, thus truly site specific pieces of work. He wanted to be able to connect with nature as directly as possible, so he starting creating art by balancing rocks, placing leaves together in a pattern, or molding icicles formations. Machinery was never used in his pieces besides for a rare few that were public commissions. Spit holds the leaves together, mud helps the rocks to stick, and the heat of his hands melts the ice into his desired shape.

The beauty in his art exists in its ephemeral status. Because real tools or manmade products were ever used, nature would often take its course in destroying the art whether it is a gust of wind, the growth of a plant, or heat causing the ice to melt. Goldsworthy believed that nothing can or should last forever. His deep work with nature obviously helped him to recognize the impermanence in all things.

Patrick Daughtery also believed in the impermanence of his land art. He specialized in creating art that looks as if it was found rather than made. Daughtery was inspired by nests, animal lairs, cocoons and hives which he found in nature. He would often interweave sticks and twigs together in order to create these nests -- never worrying about how long the art would be maintained.

Other land artists prefer to work on an even more delicate scale. Artists Walter Mason and Richard Shilling specialize in art using leaves. Walter Mason created very intricate and ornate carvings into leaves and often leaves them in specific patterns based off the color.

Richard Shilling often incorporates the use of geometry into his art as he places leaves together with sticks, often resembling mandalas. He prefers to use colors that represent the flux of the seasons. Both of these artists take small, usually unnoticeable things, and turn them into true pieces of art. They succeed in not only creating admiration for the talent of the artist, but also a deeper look at an ordinary part of nature that too often goes unnoticed.

Martin Hill and his wife Philippa Jones are modern land artists who seek to create their art on an even deeper, more metaphorical level. They travel around the world to beautiful remote places creating semi-circles made of ice, stone or twig tensegrity techniques on top of bodies of water. Through the use of a camera, they capture the piece at the perfect time when the reflection on the water creates a full " circle of life." The photographs require a very calm reflection on the water in order for the circle to become perfect and complete.

They serve as a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all living beings and the cyclical nature of life. Hill and Jones aim to promote sustainability through this reinforcement of this closed loop, hopefully influencing the ways we design products and create processes. This closed loop design results with no waste, just total recycling. The man-made semi-circle is completed with a naturally made reflection, serving also as a metaphor for our connection with the earth, and the beauty that can be realized if that connection is created in a calm and peaceful manner.

Cornelia Konrads is another amazing land artist who creates site-specific installations in public spaces. Her work has a common theme of the top portion of the structure to seemingly be floating into the sky. She uses stones, sticks and other natural materials, putting them into "piles." The tips of these piles slowly lift up as if some gravitational force is pulling them up and away into the sky. Her pieces bring to the viewer a sense of magic back to nature as they mystify with their floating tufts.

These artists have all created beautiful pieces of work through the use of natural materials. Some land artists, however, seek to create land art that is not just made of live materials, but is also truly living. There is an artist collective in Germany, who go under the name of Sanfte Stukturen, and focus entirely on living architecture. They create domes, altars and palace-like spaces made entirely of living willow trees. They build them using ancient Sumerian building techniques and the results are reminiscent of whimsical structures you might find in fairytales. Since these structures are living, they will grow and change over time. They have built over 70 of these structures around Europe in various parks, forests and museums.

Giuliano Mauri also used this technique of creating a living sculpture with his " Tree Cathedral," which was finished in 2010 in Italy. This 90-foot-long, 80-foot-wide and up to 70-foot-tall "cathedral" was created entirely with living trees. Mauri had a vision of the piece transforming into something complete organic and new over time, so he also planted 80 Hornbeam saplings inside. In 15 years, the piece will have be entirely novel. The title of this project is based of the spiritual connection that one can feel with nature. This is not a real cathedral obviously, yet it offers viewers a place that truly looks and feels sacred.

This type of art has been so inspiring that there has even been entire organizations centered around it. The Land Art Generator Initiative is one of them. They seek to promote sustainable design solutions by integrating art with renewable energy infrastructures. This organization is currently asking for entries for their LAGI 2014 Design competition. They are looking for entries that utilize public art into something that can also create clean energy. This is a little different than the land art, which was mentioned before, yet it is still drawing the attention back to the earth through the use of art. They, however, seek to do this in a more productive way. Ideas are welcomed to be submitted up till May 18.

This type of art offers an entirely new way of interacting with nature and truly does create a relationship between the artist and the earth. In modern times, this connection is vital to our future. I believe that art really can change the world. Both art and nature are purely inspirational. Put together, they might possibly provide us with the key for a bright and long future.

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Creating Connections With Nature Via Art

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Often times in our busy lives, we seem to take some of the important things for granted. It seems to be that more and more each day, the connection between us and our planet earth drifts further and further apart.

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How can two art forms be related and interact with each other? How can visual art interact with poetry?