Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Awwwwwe, I feel ...better!

Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU

My husband and I went down to the BYU Museum of Art on Saturday to see the Carl Bloch exhibit.  It was so nice to be able to go to a museum again,  I haven't been to one in a long time.


It was a lovely and fairly simple exhibit, as far as BYU stuff goes, but it was awesome to be able to get that close to the real paintings and see how the artist used his paint, and how he used color to indicate a change of light.


I thought it was interesting how many people were willing to pay the extra $3 to rent an iPad.  Aparently it gave insights and additional information about the paintings and etchings that according to my mom you wouldn't normally notice.  We chose to take the tour as it came and save money (since the tickets were already free).  I figured that I had been going to museums long enough without having extra technology like that to help me appreciate the art, that it wasn't really necessary.


I guess it was a good test to see how much I remembered from my Art History, Art Theory, Design and Figure Drawing classes.  I loved his religious pieces.  However my favorites were probably his portraits of his parents in their home and of his wife.



He had some other fun, satirical and though evoking pieces of the street life he observed in Rome while studying.  It was really fun.  I just wish we had gone earlier this year, because it was a little crowded.



We also decided to visit one of the other exhibits going on in the lower level, called, "At War! The Changing Face of American War Illustration."  Mostly highlighting the use and adaptation of illustration for use in ads and posters.  For those of you that know my art tastes well, know that I kinda geek out on poster art, so this was right up my ally.  (I love it especially because it combines illustration and design).  Some of the imagery was a little gruesome, they were war posters after all, but some of them were simply breath taking.



They even had posters done by famous illustrators like Norman Rockwell and the surprising one for me was Dr. Seuss.  My husband's favorite Rockwell was this ammunition ad (appropriate since he served in the US Army and Airforce).


They also had some illustrators that I wasn't as familiar with and I really liked:




J.C. Leyendecker


  
Howard Chandler Christie

It was also very interesting how they used advertising, everything from buying bonds and stamps to saving rubber and not wasting food.  Behold the power of advertising:



Oh to live in a time when advertising was as much an art form as it was a form of persuasion!

~Fraise

(all images were from the BYU exhibits pages)


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