Composição II – Perspectivas 4: Realismo, impressionismo, pós-impressionismo | 2016-04-06

2016-04-06

 

 

8 – c.1830 – 1900

 

Realismo, impressionismo, pós-impressionismo, (tendências simbolistas)…

 

– Corot (1796–1875), Millet (1814–1875), Courbet (1819–1877)
– Manet (1832–1883), Pissarro (1830–1903), Cézanne (1839–1906), Monet (1840–1926), Renoir (1841–1919)
– Van Gogh (1853–1890), Seurat (1859–1891), Gauguin (1848–1903)

Poussin-Ingres / Rubens-Delacroix

Arte académica / Arte independente

 

Delacroix “could not stand the standards of the Academy. He had no patience with all the talk about the Greeks and Romans, with the insistence on correct drawing, and the constant imitation of classical statues. He believed that, in painting, colour was much more important than draughtsmanship, and imagination than knowledge. While Ingres and his school cultivated the Grand Manner and admired Poussin and Raphael, Delacroix shocked the connoisseurs by preferring the Venetians and Rubens”

Ernst Gombrich, The Story of Art

 

Início do século XIX
Academia institucionaliza-se; através dela, a burguesia tenta perpetuar a ilusão da superioridade aristocrática do gosto Francês…
Conservadorismo;  arte erudita, conhecimento das questões da estética clássica (ordem, clareza, harmonia, beleza…), etc.
Hierarquia de géneros: 1 - pint. de História (clássica, bíblica, contemporânea); 2 – retrato; 3 - cenas de género (costumes); 4 – paisagem; 5 - natureza-morta
Interdição de certos temas (violência, crime, vícios, sexualidade, etc.) exceto se tratados de forma convencional, através de cenas mitológicas
Escala das obras (grande formato reservado aos temas importantes)
Importância do Salon (até c. 1890)

 

Hippolyte Flandrin (discípulo de Ingres); Delacroix; Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833; Corot

 

Arte académica – ligação à estrutura do poder do passado – conservadorismo 

Arte independente – romantismo (questionar temas e convenções artísticas oficiais – oposição?) – expressão individual

Arte oficial c. 1830-48 (Juste Milieu) – Ecleticismo (entre classicismo e romantismo); diversidade de abordagens

 

Novo realismo/naturalismo; revitalização da pintura de paisagem (Corot; escola de Barbizon)…

 

Corot / Escola de Barbizon (c. 1830-1870)

 

In 1816, the French Academy introduced a Prix de Rome in paysage historique, historical landscape painting. The prize, awarded every four years, enabled its laureate to live and work at the Villa Medici in Rome, an opportunity conferred on promising French painters schooled in the academic canon. Intended to restore history painting to its seventeenth-century glory, the new Prix de Rome actually prompted a frenzy of excitement over landscape painting. At the time, young artists were flocking to the Louvre to study seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish landscapes, a naturalist tradition long practiced in the Netherlands. The exhibition of John Constable's pictures at the Paris Salon of 1824 further set the stage for this new genre in France. […]
Despite differing in age, technique, training, and lifestyle, the artists of the Barbizon School collectively embraced their native landscape, particularly the rich terrain of the Forest of Fontainebleau .[…]
Barbizon was more than just a place; it was an encompassing motif.
Dita Amory, Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bfpn/hd_bfpn.htm

 

Vermeer, View of Delft, c. 1660-61; van Ruisdael, O Moínho de Wijkc, 1670; Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 1648; Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821, oil on canvas, 130 x 185 cm (Gold Medal – 1824 Paris Salon)

 

Escola de Barbizon c. 1830 – 1870:
seguir o programa de Constable; fidelidade ao real; um novo olhar sobre a natureza (mundo rural – Fontainebleau)

Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821, oil on canvas, 130 x 185 cm (Gold Medal – 1824 Paris Salon)
Theodore Rousseau, Edge of the Forest at Fontainbleau, Setting Sun, c. 1850, oil on canvas, 142 x 198 cm
Theodore Rousseau, Holm Oaks, 1850-52

 

Vermeer, View of Delft, c. 1660-61 – Opção naturalista
Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 1648 – Paisagem idealizada
Corot, The Bridge of Narni, 1825, oil on paper, 34 x 48 cm
Corot, The Bridge at Narni, 1827, oil on canvas, 68 x 94,6 cm

 

Paisagem: naturalismo / idealização – several of Corot’s salon paintings were adaptations of his Italian oil sketches reworked in the studio by adding imagined, formal elements consistent with Neoclassical principles. An example of this was his first Salon entry, View at Narni, where he took his quick, natural study of a ruin of a Roman aqueduct and transformed it into a falsely idyllic pastoral setting, a conversion meant to appeal to the Neoclassical jurors.

 

Corot, Florence – The Boboli Gardens, after 1834, oil on canvas, 51 x 73,5 cm – Naturalismo…

 

Millet, The Gleaners (as respigadeiras), 1857, oil on canvas, 84 x 111 cm
Realismo – não idílio campestre – ausência de evento dramático – solidez das figuras – …  

 

Transição

 

“Muitas pessoas atribuem e decadência presente na pintura ao nosso comportamento decadente. Este dogma dos estúdios […] é uma fraca desculpa para os artistas, pois eles têm um interesse declarado em representar constantemente o passado; é uma tarefa mais fácil, e que pode ser levada a cabo pelos preguiçosos.[…] A maioria dos artistas que se viraram para a vida moderna contentaram-se com os temas públicos e oficiais – com as nossas vitórias e heroísmo político […] No entanto há temas privados muito mais heroicos do que estes.[…] A vida da nossa cidade é rica em temas poéticos e maravilhosos. Estamos rodeados e imersos numa atmosfera do maravilhoso; mas não damos por isso.”
Baudelaire , “The Salon of 1846: On the Heroism of Modern Life”, 1846

Transição – pendor realista – c.1847 Thomas Couture cria estúdio independente alternativo à École des Beaux-Arts (Puvis de Chavannes e Manet estudam com Couture)

Thomas Couture (1815 – 1879), Les Romains de la décadence, 1847, huile sur toile, 472 x 772 cm; Musée d'Orsay.

 

Realismo de Courbet

 

Dá-se o nome de Revoluções de 1848 à série de revoluções que eclodiram na Europa central e oriental e que abalaram as monarquias da Europa. A revolução irrompeu primeiramente na França e guiou-se por ideais republicanos como o princípio de que os povos devem governar-se a si próprios. Foi derrubada a monarquia de Julho e criada a Segunda República, ao que se seguiram as primeiras eleições por sufrágio universal (mulheres ainda sem direito de voto).

Falhanço da Revolução de 1848:
– subida ao poder de Napoleão III (eleito Presidente em 1848, faz golpe de estado em 1851; ascende ao trono como Napoleão III em 1852)
– autoritarismo/censura

– industrialização
– renovação de Paris, 1850-70, Baron Haussmann

 

Radical realism; no graceful poses; no flowing lines; no impressive colours; search for truth; artistic sincerity

Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849, oil on canvas, 159 x 259 cm

 

(Hippolyte Flandrin, Theseus Recognized by his Father, 1832, oil on canvas, 115 x 146 cm)

Courbet, Burial at Ornans, 1849-50, oil on canvas, 315 x 668 cm

Radical realism; no graceful poses; no flowing lines; no impressive colours; search for truth; artistic sincerity
The frieze-like portrayal of somber middle-class citizens at a graveside in Courbet's home province generates an explosive reaction among the painter's audience and critics. Viewers react to the work as an assault on the very idea of what a painting should be. To sophisticated Parisians, it's unprecedented to accord rural folk the magisterial scope of the historical masterpieces of French tradition. With the worker uprisings of 1848 a recent memory, Courbet's use of the common people as a grand subject is deemed a radical act. Furthermore, in his push towards a realistic style, Courbet has intentionally painted his black-clad folk in a manner that does not idealize their suffering. The Salon audience is accustomed to paintings that poeticize and uplift, and they read Courbet's grieving figures as vulgar and ugly. The exhibition makes Courbet famous, and he describes A Burial at Ornans as the "debut of my principles." He writes that his purpose is to use art to "translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch according to my own appreciation." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/courbet.html

 

Ingres e Delacroix, Exposition Universelle, 1855, Paris
Courbet, L’Atelier du peintre: Allégorie Réelle déterminant une phase de sept années de ma vie artistique (et morale), 1855, huile sur toile, 359 × 598 cm

 

Exposition Universelle, 1855, Paris: participam Ingres, Delacroix, Vernet, Descamps.

Courbet organiza exposição independente: Le Realisme, G. Courbet

Começo das exposições retrospetivas; fim da polémica (desenho/cor; Poussinistes/Rubenistes; Ingres/Delacroix); estilos intercambiáveis (neutralidade do estilo?); consolidação do realismo de Courbet

 

De Manet ao impressionismo

 

Bouguereau, Birth of Venus, 1879, oil on canvas, 300 x 218 cm

“Ai daquele que estuda o antigo para outra coisa que não a arte pura, a lógica e método em geral. Ao mergulhar demasiado a fundo no antigo, irá perder toda a memória do presente.”
Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”, 1863

 

Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863, óleo sobre tela, 208 x 264 cm (exposto no Salon des Refusés, 1863)

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe: narrativa contemporânea (provocatória?); jogo lumínico ambíguo – suavidade da paisagem / dureza da iluminação das figuras (contrastes violentos; transições abrúptas); etc.

 

(Ticiano, A Vénus de Urbino, 1538, óleo sobre tela, 120 x 165 cm)
(Cabanel, The Birth of Venus, 1863, oil on canvas, 130 x 225 cm)
Manet, Olympia, 1863, oil on canvas, 130 x 190 cm

Tudo sugere tratar-se de Vénus (a nudez, a pose, o ramo de flores…) mas é Olympia (figura magrinha, insignificante, corpo não idealizado; imitação que ridiculariza o original?); prostituta (?) de classe baixa cujo olhar confronta o espectador.

Luz frontal (como numa foto com flash); ausência de gradações tonais suaves; figura contornada a cinzento; contraste abrupto entre zonas claras e escuras…
Recepção negativa: The figure of Olympia “apes on a bed, in complete nudity, the horizontal attitude of the Venus of Titian”. The painting apes the identity of a woman too, as a sort of “female gorilla, a grotesque in indiarubber outlined in black”. Amédée Cantaloube, 1865

“What made the painting particularly provocative was the unabashed outward stare of the woman, inviting as it did an answering regard from this side of the picture plane. In this case to assume the imagined spectator’s role was to find oneself cast as the other party in an alienated exchange of money for sex.” Charles Harrison, An Introduction to art, 2009.

 

Manet, Retrato de Emile Zola, 1868, óleo sobre tela, 146,5 x 114 cm
Hokusai, The Fuji from the mountains of Totomi, 1830, woodblock print

 

Influência da arte japonesa (“Japonisme”); Japão representado na Exposição Universal de Paris, 1867.
Composições assimétricas; pontos de vista inesperados (vistas de cima e de baixo); espaços vazios; enfatização das linhas de contorno; ausência de gradações de claro-escuro; cor plana e vibrante; não utilização da perspetiva cónica… 

 

Fotografia: concorrente e aliado da pintura

View from the Window at Le Gras (La cour du domaine du Gras) was the first successful permanent photograph, created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes. Niépce captured the photo with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of 20 × 25 cm oil-treated bitumen. As a result of the 8-hour exposure, sunlight illuminates the buildings on both sides.
Nadar, Charles Baudelaire, 1855, fotografia
Muybridge, The Human Figure in Motion, 1887

 

Outros precursores:
Turner, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming on, 1830
Constable, Clouds, 1822, oil on paper
Constable, Study of Clouds, 1822, oil on paper, 29,8 x 48,3 cm

 

Impressionismo: abandonar o estúdio e pintar diretamente a partir do motivo; representar a impressão do momento; transformar o esquisso (?) na obra final; espontaneidade da execução; materialidade da massa pictórica / afirmação do plano do quadro; responsabilidade do artista perante si próprio (autonomia)…

Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869, oil on canvas, 74 x 100 cm_Metropolitan_NY
Monet, Les Bains de la Grenouillère, 1869, huile sur toile, 73 x 92 cm_Nat Gallery_London
Renoir, La Grenouillere, 1869, oil on canvas, 66 x 81 cm_Stockholm
Renoir, La Grenouillère, 1869, oil on canvas, 59 x 80 cm_Pushkin_Moskow

 

Nadar, Charles Baudelaire, 1855, fotografia

Monet, Impression – Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm

1874 – 1ª exposição dos impressionistas, estúdio de Nadar, Paris (nome do movimento provém de uma crítica desfavorável que se apropriou do título da pintura de Monet)

“An exhibition has just been opened at Durand-Ruel which allegedly contains paintings. I enter and my horrified eyes behold something terrible. Five or six lunatics, among them a woman, have joined together and exhibited their works. I have seen people rock with laughter in front of these pictures, but my heart bled when I saw them. These would-be artists call themselves revolutionaries, "Impressionists". They take a piece of canvas, colour and brush, daub a few patches of paint on it at random, and sign the whole thing with their name. It is a delusion of the same kind as if the inmates of a mental hospital picked up stones from the wayside and imagined they had found diamonds.” (crítica, 1876)

 

Monet – séries (medas de feno; catedral de Rouen; etc.) / diversidade temática (campo e cidade; etc.) / unidade formal

 

Caillebotte, Le Pont de l'Europe, 1876, oil on canvas, 125 x 181 cm Estabilidade da composição / clara afirmação das formas; conteúdo narrativo explícito (permite resposta literária tradicional); espacialidade tradicional (perspetiva cónica – “uma janela para o mundo”)…

Monet, The Pont de l'Europe, Saint Lazare Station, 1877, oil on canvas, 64 x 81 cm

Sensação / atmosfera / diluição das formas; ausência de narrativa; espacialidade liga-se sobretudo a valores plásticos (embora ainda obedeça a regras da perspetiva); afirmação da superfície plana do quadro…

Renoir, Bal du Moulin de la Galette, 1876, huile sur toile, 131 x 175 cm (pintar a vida moderna)

 

Pissarro, Factory Near Pontoise, 1873, oil on canvas, 45 x 55 cm
Pissarro, River Oise Near Pontoise, 1873, oil on canvas, 45 x 55 cm

 

Pós-impressionismo (precursores do cubismo, expressionismo, etc.)

 

Seurat, Die Seine an der Grand Jatte, Frühling, 1888

“Pontilhismo”

The development of color theory (Chevreul, Michel Eugène – De la Loi du Contraste Simultané des Couleures, 1839; Chevreul , Michel Eugène – The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours, and Their Applications to the Arts, 1855) in the late nineteenth century played a pivotal role in shaping the neo-impressionist style. To avoid dullness, the neo-impressionists devised a system of pure-color juxtaposition. Mixing of colors was not necessary. The effective utilization of pointillism facilitated in eliciting a distinct luminous effect, and from a distance, the dots came together as a whole displaying maximum brilliance.

 

(Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego (Even in Arcadia am I), c 1637-38, oil on canvas, 87 x 120 cm)

Renoir, Bal du Moulin de la Galette, 1876, huile sur toile, 131 x 175 cm

Seurat, Domingo à tarde na ilha da Grande Jatte, 1884-86, óleo sobre tela, 207 x 308 cm

Prolongamento e oposição ao impressionismo: composição calculada e meticulosa; classicismo; representar a permanência das coisas; realização em estúdio.

 

Seurat, Domingo à tarde na ilha da Grande Jatte, 1884-86, óleo sobre tela, 207 x 308 cm

 

Gauguin, Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888, oil on jute, 73 x 91 cm
Van Gogh, The artist’s room in Arles, 1889, oil on canvas
Hokusai, The Fuji from the mountains of Totomi, 1830, woodblock print

 

Alterar a aparência das coisas; acentuação / distorção; libertação da cor / cor plana…
“Colour, which is vibration just as music is, is able to attain what is most universal yet at the same time most elusive in nature; its inner force.” Gauguin, 1899
“…this time it’s just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything […]. The shading and the cast shadows are suppressed, it is painted in free flat washes like the Japanese prints…” Van Gogh

 

Van Gogh, Portrait of Père Tanguy, 1887-88, oil on canvas
Expressividade; intensidade cromática…

 

Van Gogh, Night Cafe, 1888, oil on canvas, 72,4 x 92,1 cm

“I use colour more arbitrarily, in order to express myself forcibly.”
“I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien reds and greens.”
Van Gogh, 1888

 

Van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885, oil on canvas, 72 x 93 cm

 

Cézanne, The Card Players, c. 1890, oil on canvas, 65 x 82 cm

 

Bouguereau, As banhistas, 1884, óleo s tela, 210 x 129 cm
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jeunes Filles au Bord de la Mer, c. 1879, Panneau décoratif, 205 x 154 cm
Cézanne, Bathers, 1883-85, oil on canvas, 63 x 81 cm

“[The artist] must beware of the literary spirit which so often causes the painter to deviate from his true path”. Cezanne, 1904

 

Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1885-87, oil on canvas, 67 x 92 cm

Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire from Les Louves, 1904-06, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 cm
Fidelidade à natureza; análise da forma / racionalidade; procura de uma nova ordem
“Tornar o impressionismo mais sólido e duradouro, como a arte dos museus”. Cézanne

 

(Tendências simbolistas) – oposição à ideia de um mundo dominado pela razão e pela tecnologia; reação contra o realismo / naturalismo; enfatização da espiritualidade, da imaginação, do sonho; síntese entre o visível e o invisível (entre sonho e vida)…

 

Gauguin, Where do We Come From? What are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897-98, oil on canvas, 139x375 cm
Simbolismo; primitivismo(?) / regresso às origens; busca de autenticidade…
Disappointed with Impressionism, Gauguin felt that traditional European painting had become too imitative and lacked symbolic depth. By contrast, the art of Africa and Asia seemed to him full of mystic symbolism and vigour.
“As for me, my mind is made up. I am going soon to Tahiti, a small island in Oceania, where the material necessities of life can be had without money. I want to forget all the misfortunes of the past, I want to be free to paint without any glory whatsoever in the eyes of others and I want to die there and to be forgotten here.”
“To the right, below, a sleeping baby and three seated women. Two figures dressed in purple confide their thoughts to each other. An enormous crouching figure which intentionally violates the perspective raises its arm in the air and looks in astonishment at these two people who dare to think of their destiny. A figure in the center is picking fruit. Two cats near a child. A white goat. An idol, both arms mysteriously and rhythmically raised, seems to indicate the Beyond. A crouching girl seems to listen to the idol. Lastly, an old woman approaching death appears reconciled and resigned to her thoughts. She completes the story. At her feet a strange white bird, holding a lizard in its claw, represents a futility of words.” Gauguin

 

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), L'Été, c. 1873, Panneau décoratif, 350 x 507 cm
Idílio intemporal(?)…

James Ensor (1860 – 1949), Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889, 1888, oil on canvas, 256,8 x 378,4 cm

Arnold Bocklin (1827 – 1901), Island of the Dead (third version), 1883, oil on wood, 80 x 150 cm

Arnold Böcklin (1827 – 1901), Self-portrait with Death as Fiddler, 1872, oil on canvas, 75 x 61 cm

Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916), Crying Spider, 1881, 49,5 x 37,5 cm
Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916), Cactus Man, 1881, charcoal on paper, 49 x 32,5 cm

 

Epílogo

 

(arte autónoma / vanguarda / rutura / série…)

 

Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire from Les Louves, 1904-06, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 cm
Mondrian, Árvore, c. 1913, óleo sobre tela, 100 x 67 cm

 

Monet, Haystack series, 1890-91
Olafur Eliasson, The large stone series, 1998

Olafur Eliasson, The Island Series, 1997

 

(simbolismos…)

 

Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916), Crying Spider, 1881, 49,5 x 37,5 cm
Louise Bourgeois, Maman, 1999, installation view, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

 

Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), Jeunes Filles au Bord de la Mer, c. 1879, Panneau décoratif, 205 x 154 cm

Justine Kurland, West of the Water, 2003, C-print, 114 x 145 cm

 

Gauguin, Where do We Come From? What are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897-98
R. B. Kitaj, If Not Not, 1975-76, oil on canvas, 152,4 x 152,4 cm

 

Munch, O grito, c. 1893
Bill Viola, Hall of Whispers 2 (Sala dos murmúrios 2), 1995, video

Hall of Whispers is a video installation in which one sees, on two sides of a dark space, projections of the pallid faces of ten people who have been gagged. […] The gallery of gagged individuals evokes a union of imposing presence and stirring silence. Those depicted remain anonymous, cannot be understood and keep their eyes shut. These are black-and-white portraits of unknown individuals whose gaze and narrative are turned inward. Any form of communication seems impossible. http://artdaily.com/section/lastweek/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=11693&int_modo=2#.VR2EX9J0zcs

 

Arnold Bocklin (1827 – 1901), Island of the Dead (third version), 1883
Jeff Wall, The Flooded Grave, 1998-2000, transparency in light box, 246 x 299 cm

 

(le realisme…)

 

Sophie Calle, Pas pu saisir la mort, 2007, video 13’

When Sophie Calle’s mother was dying in 2006, the artist propped a camera by the foot of the bed to capture her last moments on film. Pas pu saisir la mort" (“Couldn’t Catch Death”) is a film installation of the last minutes of her mother's life.

 

Courbet, The Stonebreakers, 1849, oil on canvas, 159 x 259 cm
Ben Shahn, Homem ao longo da via de caminho de ferro, 1935-36

Walker Evans, Floyd and Lucille Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama, 1936

Robert Frank, Charlston, South Carolina (The Americans 13‘), 1955 (South Carolina – a segregação de brancos e afro-americanos em lugares públicos foi gradualmente extinguida durante as décadas de 1950 e de 1960.

Tina Barney, The Daughters (The Europeans), 2002

Boris Mikhailov, From the Case History Series, 1997-98, 2 fotografias

Lucian Freud, Painter Working, Reflection, 1993

Ellen Altfest, The Back, 2008-09, oil on canvas, 40 x 63 cm

 

(revisitações…)

 

Muybridge, The Human Figure in Motion, 1887
Francis Bacon, Tríptico – painel central, 1972, óleo sobre tela, 198 x 147 cm

Thomas Couture, Les Romains de la décadence, 1847, huile sur toile, 472 x 772 cm
Eleanor Antin, Plaisir d'Amour (after Couture)

Jeff Koons, Ilona with ass up, 1990

Manet, Olympia, 1863, oil on canvas, 130 x 190 cm
Yasumasa Morimura, Portrait (Futago), 1988, dye coupler print with gel medium, 210 x 300 cm

Gabriel Abrantes / Katie Widloski, Olympia I & II
Olympia I & II is a lushly textured 16mm diptych which first depicts a cherubic, nubile Widloski as the reclined Olympia, her porcelain skin aglow with blushing cheeks and perky attributes (her features, especially her round face, are more Ingres than Manet). In part II, it’s Abrantes himself as an effeminate Caravaggesque transvestite expressing, in a mock Southern drawl, a deeply felt malaise and a need for consolation.
http://cinema-scope.com/columns/in-the-age-of-contamination-gabriel-abrantes-tall-tales-and-tainted-love/

Jean-Luc Moulène, Roxana, Amsterdam, 17 03 04, 2004, Ilfochrome, aluminium, 130 x 100 cm

Valter Vinagre, Posto-de-Trabalho, 2010-13

 

Monet, Impression – Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm
João Queiroz, Sem título, 2001

Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project, 2003, mixed media, installation view, Tate Modern

In The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the Turbine Hall has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.