Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte was a Surrealist painter who was born in Belgium in 1898. He wanted people to look at ordinary things in different ways. He sometimes painted objects in places were they didn’t usually belong, like in Time Transfixed in which a train is coming out of a fireplace. Other times, Magritte confused the foreground (the things at the front of the painting) with the background, like in Blank Signature, The Large Family, and The Seducer.

Magritte did not enjoy school, and he knew he wanted to paint, so he went to the Academie dex Beaux-Arts in Brussels to study art. During this time, he worked to find his own style. He tried cubism and futurism (which I have not yet posted about) but neither would become his style. Instead, he painted in the Surrealist style.

He got married in 1922 and designed wallpaper and posters in order to make enough money to live.

Magritte was not a huge success right away. In 1927 he had a one-man show that did very poorly. Critics did not like his artwork.

He moved to Paris to work with other Surrealists. After three years in Paris he disliked the other Surrealists so much that he moved back to Brussels and burned everything that reminded him the Surrealists. He continued to paint in the Surrealist style and as the Surrealists became more popular, so did Magritte.

He experimented with other styles during his life, including Impressionism and a style he called Vache which poked fun of Fauvism. Magritte, still unhappy about the time he spent in Paris, disliked the French and wanted to annoy them by making fun of their art. He returned to Surrealism at the end of his life.

Magritte died in 1967.

Magritte is well-known for including men in bowler hats in his paintings. He often wore a bowler hat himself and, though you usually can’t see the men’s faces, these paintings are commonly thought of as self-portraits.

I especially like Magritte’s paintings of paintings, like this one and this one.

I should also mention that he created several paintings that included a picture of an object and a sentence that the object wasn't what it seemed to be. For example, he painted a picture of a pipe and the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” which means “This is not a pipe.” He wanted to point out that the names we give things are completely random. Why is a pipe called a pipe? Couldn’t it just as easily have been called a snoolo or a dorbling?

Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make your own Magritte-inspired masterpiece. (I promise. It’s already ready to go.)

Return to main page.
_________________
My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

36631 / 50000 words. 73% done!
Tuesday’s NaNoWriMo Word Count:

33784 / 50000 words. 68% done!
Monday’s NaNoWriMo Word Count:

32867 / 50000 words. 66% done!

Counting with Wayne Thiebaud

I posted about Wayne Thiebaud (Tee-Bow) and his tasty food paintings awhile back. I also recommended using the National Gallery of Art's website to teach fractions with Thiebaud's paintings. Today’s book, Counting with Wayne Thiebaud by Susan Goldman Rubin, brings Thiebaud’s art to an even younger audience: those just beginning to count.

This board book makes counting to ten enjoyable and delicious as kids count pieces of pie, ice-cream clowns, candied apples, hot dogs, and many more treats, illustrated with Thiebaud’s paintings.

If you liked Susan Goldman Rubin’s Andy Warhol’s Colors, you’ll like Counting with Wayne Thiebaud, too.

Return to main page.
_________________
My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

25149 / 50000 words. 50% done!
Past the halfway point a little ahead
of schedule!

Kevin Collier

We'll get back to the American Regionalists on Monday. Today I want to share a great website with you instead.

Kevin Collier, an author and illustrator of children's books, has begun a blog that teaches you how to draw. It's really fantastic. Every post is a video teaching you to draw something new. You can learn to draw a whale, a mouse, and several other animals and objects. I especially like the video about how to draw glass.

Also, check out the art from some of his books (here and here).

Return to main page.
_______________
My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

23038 / 50000 words. 46% done!

Grant Wood

Yesterday you learned about Regionalism. Grant Wood was a Realist painter who is most famous for his paintings of the American Midwest, like American Gothic.

Wood was born in 1891 in Iowa. His father was a farmer and his mother was a teacher. After high school, he moved to Minnesota to learn how to work with wood and metal.

The next year, Wood decided to become a teacher. He studied for his teaching certificate at the University of Iowa. He also studied architecture and he painted.

In 1916, Wood went to the Art Institute of Chicago to study art.

He never finished any of his studies, but in 1919 he earned his teaching credentials by teaching in a school in Iowa. He taught middle school and high school art for 6 years and traveled to Europe during the summers. During these trips, Wood studied many European artists. It was during his travels that Wood learned to paint the ordinary as something special.

Wood set up his own studio in Iowa and began painting scenes of the American Midwest. He taught art classes at his studio. He also supported other local artists, musicians, and actors. He even let a local acting group put on performances in his studio.

Wood left his studio and began teaching art at the University of Iowa. Even though Grant Wood was a famous and well-liked artist at the time, many other teachers at the University of Iowa were upset that he hadn’t finished his own college education.

Grant eventually left the University of Iowa. He found a new studio and painted until his death in 1942.

Check out the Iowa state quarter that came out in 2004. Though Grant Wood had been dead for 62 years when the quarter was released, Iowa decided to use one of his designs on the back.

If you want to click through a lot of Grant Wood's art, check out this site which includes 74 of his paintings Notice how they look just a little too simple to be real. It’s almost like a dream version of the American Midwest.

Return to main page.
________________
My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

21334 / 50000 words. 43% done!

American Regionalism

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, many Americans had a difficult time making enough money live. A lot of people lost money when the stock market crashed and many people were fired from their jobs. At this time, people were not very hopeful about the future.

The Regionalist art movement came about at the end of the 1920s. Instead of painting the world as dark, dirty, and hopeless, Regionalists painted hopeful scenes of the American Midwest. The paintings often showed hard working people who were making it through the depression. They gave people hope that the future would be better.

In Europe, abstract art was becoming popular at this time. Regionalists painted more realistic paintings instead. However, Regionalists cared more that the objects in their paintings were easy to recognize than that their paintings looked exactly like what could be seen in real life.

Regionalism fell out of popularity in the mid-1940s.

In the next few days, I’ll post about some of the better known Regionalists, beginning tomorrow with Grant Wood.

Return to main page.
________________
My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

20048 / 50000 words. 40% done!
It was a slow day, but a little
progress is better than no progress.