Moving Image

There has always been something fantastical about animation to me. The word animation comes from the Latin Anima which translates as the breath of life. Animation is associated with energy, exuberance and liveliness. It is described technically as being a photographic technique in which successive 2D or 3D forms are captured and played back to create a moving image. Animated images have fascinated and beguiled man since the technique was created. The earliest known animation is not the thaumatrope or the zoetrope. It is believed that the earliest known animations can be found earthenware and ceramics from Greece and Iran. The thaumatrope, which became a popular Victorian toy,  was invented in 1825 by Dr John Paris.

From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taumatropio_fiori_e_vaso,_1825.gif

The thaumatrope worked due to persistence of vision. A card with for example a flower one side and vase on the other would have two pieces of string or elastic attached to either end which could be wound and when released cause the card to spin. when looked at whilst spinning, the human eye sees the first image, holds it and before it can release this image, the second enters its vision thus merging the images. A flip book works in the same way but with more images just like any piece of animation.

“Bouncing Totoro” 3D zoetrope by Studio Ghibli from : http://www.ghibliworld.com/museumspecial.html

One of my favourite things featured in the moving image lecture was the Studio Ghibli 3D Zoetrope. It features one of the most beloved Ghibli characters, Totoro. The “Bouncing Totoro” Zoetrope was made using 347 3D figurines and it took a year to complete. The 3D Zoetrope is a predecessor of William Horner’s Zoetrope. The fundamentals of drawn and 3D figurine animation have not changed greatly. It is the technology and the craft of animation that has evolved. Early lightning sketches animations didn’t have the realism that exists in modern animation.

Link to J. Stuart Blackton’s “The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dRe85cNXwg

Disney is very well-known for this but earlier is the work of Eadweard Muybridge, who was a very interesting character, was a pioneer of moving image. Even if this only came about due to a bet about whether or not when a horse runs if at one point all its hooves leave the ground. It turned out to be true though some mocked Muybridge’s discovery, it was true he had photographic evidence and an animation to stun the public. Muybridge’s books which contain series of successive images of people and animals are still highly influential to this day. If a little bit naked in places. I love a good animated movie, I am a huge studio Ghibli and Disney fan. I think I may actually prefer to look at Ghibli than Disney. Mostly because I don’t think I have ever seen a Ghibli film that was not visually stunning whereas some of the Disney sequels are somewhat lacking in the lustre that the first films had. Which is usually the way of sequels but it’s also rather disappointing. For example Mulan which had both a great plot and was visually stunning is rather let down by its sequel which doesn’t have the impeccable background and character art that the first movie had. Whereas Ghibli is just so lush. The scene in Spirited Away where Chihiro is running to the pig sheds through the flower bushes ( which I’m pretty sure are rhododendrons) is so vivid and so real, you really are pulled into that world. Like with a good book, a good animation draws you in and takes you into its world and a really good animation lingers in the memory. Persistence of vision.

References and Links to webpages that helped me write this post :

Muybridge, E. (2000) The Human Figure in Motion. Dover Publications Inc.

Eadweard Muybridge website. Available at : http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/

All of the above links were accessed on the 19.11.2013.

Summer project – What is Illustration?

Cave painting of a bison is the Altamira caves in Spain – taken from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AltamiraBison.jpg

What is illustration? This was a question I asked myself when I started my summer project. For which I had to pick one artist or movement to research and write about. So I began with illuminated manuscripts which were featured in the Image lecture.

I began with the dictionary and the definition of illustration and illustrate : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/illustration?q=illustration Oxford dictionary definition. To illustrate comes from lustrare which means to illuminate thus leading me to illuminated manuscript. Most illuminated manuscripts were created predominantly in the Middle ages and laterally in the Renaissance. The word manuscript comes from the Latin for handwritten. which makes sense as illuminated manuscripts were handwritten over long periods of time by monks for the most part. If a manuscript was to be illustrated it would be sent to an illuminators. When moveable type and the print press came to the fore front want for the expensive and labour intensive manuscripts died out. Manuscripts like the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels were written one vellum which was made of sheep or cow skins. So large manuscripts could use a herd of sheep to make.

Image of Christ from the Aberdeen Bestiary. Taken from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AberdeenBestiaryFolio004vChristInMajesty.jpg

Here’s a wee link to a YouTube clip of a Horrible Histories episode that explained it better once it gets past monk sign language : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wVTP2016G0

Illuminated manuscripts are viewed as one of the earliest examples of illustration however some argue that ” Art was illustrative long before it was holy” ( Illustration, A Visual History. Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast.  Abrams, New York, 2008) Therefore can cave paintings such as those at Lascaux and Altamira be viewed as illustration. Cave painting can be seen as man recording and illustrating the world around him albeit before text. I believe that cave painting can be viewed as illustration as it was integral to the visual mass communicative language of early man.

Now this lead me to the age-old question of what is the difference between fine art and illustration. In “Illustration, A  Visual History” by Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast, states that ” illustration is a clearly defined act of making art, the goal of which is to illuminate the printed page.” Illustration is not as some view it a lesser art in comparison to what is viewed as high or fine art. Illustration is art for the populace. It is a form of mass communication for a mass audience. There are many similarities between illustration today and the fine art of the Renaissance period. Whose artists, such as Durer used mass communicative processes such as printmaking to sell their artwork or to make it for themselves. There is no denying that illustration is sometimes very commercial but then again so is fine art. I feel that the idea at fine art is a higher art form is false and that it is almost impossible to completely separate fine art and illustration. They both have as much merit as each other.

References and Links to webpages that helped me write this post :

Oxford definition of fine art : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fine-art?q=fine+art

Here is Illustration Art’s view on fine art and illustration : http://illustrationart.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/old-question-finally-answered.html

Heller, S. Chwast, S. (2008) Illustration: A Visual History. New York. Abrams.

All of the above links were accessed on the 10.11.2013.

Lithography – Printmaking

This is my favourite print out the many that I did yesterday as part of my printmaking project. As I said in my previous post, it was inspired by something I learnt about my image lecture. The mandorla among other things. It was a great experience and I will definitely be back to the printmaking workshops as soon as possible.

Printmaking – Mandorla

So I may have mentioned in one of my previous Kathe Kollwitz posts that I am starting my printmaking block in the studio. I’m doing lithography which I am really excited about as it is one of the mediums used by Kathe Kollwitz. The reason this is relevant to my lecture blog is that I was inspired by something I saw in my image lecture.
So we have to create imagery for our printing next week with a starting point of a random number, my number being 5. I googled the number five and began investigating many five related things. The one that connected to my lecture and that got me the most excited was the fact that members of the rosaceae family or the rose family all have five sepals and five petals (though cultivated roses can have many petals they retain their five sepals). The rose family is not just roses, it also includes apples, strawberries, plums and almonds. Now as I was investigating the shape of sepals and petals, I found myself at first thinking of Freud’s idea that eyes symbolises the vagina. The sepals have an oval shape thus this connection arose. But I was also reminded of another use of this oval shape from my image lecture two weeks ago. Where we were shown the art of the Dark ages. In many examples of Dark ages Christian imagery a form called a mandorla or a vesica piscis came up. A mandorla is a form of whole body halo or aureole in which Christ and the Virgin Mary are portrayed. The oval shape is created by the intersecting of two circles, symbolising among other things Heaven and Earth and it is often associated with rebirth, resurrection and the Ascension. Now the reason this fitted in so nicely with my floral, female idea was that mandorla is the Italian word for almond, the almond is part of the rose family. The almond has connotations of holding something precious making me think of wombs and the Virgin Mary. Further still the mandorla/ almond shape is viewed by many to be symbolic of the vulva and also a fertilised uterus. This goes back to the fruit and flowers which symbolise fertility and female reproductive organs. If found this whole research very exciting and interesting, mostly because everything seems to link in and reflect each other. Everything just fell into place. So far so good. I really enjoyed the lecture on medieval art as it is a very interesting and dynamic period in history.
I love the interconnecting symbols in religious and non – religious art. For example the mandorla not only exists in Christian art but also in Buddhist and Hindu art. Much like the mandala the mandorla could be argued as a universal spiritual symbol. The mandala is more common in eastern religions and in meditative practice. It is a joint symbol of the universe and the soul. But is also present in Christian imagery as the points of a cross can be smoothly joined by a circle. Which is the core of the mandala, which is a collection of concentric circles. I find it really interesting that simple shapes such as oval and circles have such a resonance with religion and spirituality. Even before I knew what I mandala was I was attracted to circular forms in art, as I found the shape and composition both calming and pleasing. This made sense when discovered mandalas and their significance. The image is a close up of one of my sketches for my printmaking project.
Here is a link to an interesting mandorla related post on the website the Theosophical: http://www.theosophical.org/publications/1348 accessed 23.10.2013.

Oven face

Not sure if this Pareidolia is happy or looking mildly menacing. His mouth resembles a fish mouth. I really shouldn’t think to much about the emotions of inanimate objects. As my house now seems full of really depressed light switched and slightly scary kitchen appliances. But I think its part of some sort of human brain hardwire. A bit like people feeling sorry for animals eating others animals in nature documentaries when it not sad, well at least not in a human way, because if a lioness didn’t kill a gazelle her cubs would starve and die but on the other hand if the gazelle gets away it can go on to reproduce and feed its babies. The circle of life etc. But if a human eats another human its cannibalism. which is of course bad. But I’m getting off topic.