#contextual study

After exploring a quick review of artists Richard Long, Sophie Calle, and Hamish Fulton, I have developed a deeper understanding of their work and how it relates to my ideas. The similarities among these artists highlight the connection to specific environments; for example, Long and Fulton engage with landscapes through physical interactions with nature, while Calle navigates urban and personal spaces. This makes my work similar to Calle’s, particularly with the idea of urban environments, as my sketches focus on man-made modern seating.

The work we explored and experienced was amazing. I really enjoyed learning about and understanding different artistic practices that provoke questions and invite varied interpretations. This philosophical aspect of art deeply interests me, inspiring me to create complex works rich in hidden meanings that explore the relationships between subjects and their natural and social surroundings. I particularly appreciate how Calle’s work engages the audience, inviting viewers to connect with and understand the art on a personal level.

All three artists document their work in unique ways. Long and Fulton document their walks through photographs, texts, and maps, whereas Calle frequently incorporates narrative and photography, which together offer insight into their thought processes. I aspire to document my work similarly, using mini vlogs to help me understand the creative process while maintaining clarity about my thoughts and how they may impact my final designs.

LetterPress Research 

Holographic Shop Windows: Contextual Study 

Following on from the interactive shop window designs that Ive researched into, I found holographic displays which I thought would be particularly useful for my project, as they use realistic figures in movement, which adds a sense of realism to the design. Featured above is a shop window design for Ralph Lauren by Cinimod Studio. This was were their sub-brand Polo-Sport was promoting their brand by using what they called ‘The Holographic Experience.’

Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris, France. He was a founder of French impressionist painting and often expressed his perceptions before nature, which he especially applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise.

He was the second son of Claude-Adolphe and Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family business, but Claude wanted to become an artist. 

On the first of April 1851, Monet entered the Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He was first known, locally, for his charcoal caricatures, which he sold for ten to twenty francs. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857 he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air", or outdoor, techniques for painting.

When Monet traveled to Paris to visit The Louvre, he witnessed painters copying from the old masters. Monet, would instead go and sit by a window and paint what he saw. Monet was in Paris for several years and met several painters who would become friends and fellow impressionists. One of those friends was Édouard Manet.

Whilst Monet was at university, he was disillusioned with the traditional art taught at universities. In 1862 Monet became a student of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille, and Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches to art, painting the effects of light en plein air with broken color and rapid brushstrokes, in what later came to be known as Impressionism.

After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, July 1870, Monet took refuge in England in September 1870. While there, he studied the works of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, both of whose landscapes inspired Monet's creativity in the study of colour.

In 1872 he painted Impression, Sunrise, depicting a Le Havre landscape. It hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 and is now displayed in the Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris.

From the painting's title, art critic Louis Leroy coined the term "Impressionism", which he intended as disparagement but which the Impressionists appropriated for themselves.

  Joseph Mallord William Turner was born 23 April 1775 in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, England. He was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style can be said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.

His father, William Gay Turner was a barber and wig maker. His mother, Mary Marshall, became increasingly mentally unstable, perhaps, in part, due to the early death of Turner's younger sister, Helen Turner, in 1786. 

Turner was sent to stay with his uncle on his mother's side in Brentford in 1785, which was then a small town west of London on the banks of the River Thames. It was here that he first expressed an interest in painting.

He entered the Royal Academy of Art schools in 1789, when he was only 14 years old, and was accepted into the academy a year later. At first Turner showed a keen interest in architecture but was advised to keep to painting by the architect Thomas Hardwick (junior). A watercolour of Turner's was accepted for the Summer Exhibition of 1790 after only one year's study. He exhibited his first oil painting in 1796, Fishermen at Sea, and thereafter exhibited at the academy nearly every year for the rest of his life. 

He died in 19 December 1851. He is said to have uttered the last words "The sun is God" before expiring. At his request he was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. His last exhibition at the Royal Academy was in 1850.

Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light". One of his most famous oil paintings is The fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, painted in 1838, which hangs in the National Gallery, London. Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He also made many visits to Venice. On a visit to Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England, he painted a stormy scene (now in the Cincinnati Art Museum).

Turner first visited Otley in 1797, aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area. He was so attracted to Otley and the surrounding area that he returned time and time again. The stormy backdrop of Hannibal Crossing The Alps is reputed to have been inspired by a storm over Otley's Chevin while Turner was staying at Farnley Hall.

As he grew older, Turner became more eccentric. He had few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for thirty years, eventually working as his studio assistant. His father's death in 1829 had a profound effect on him, and thereafter he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married, although he had two daughters by Sarah Danby, one born in 1801, the other in 1811.

Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius. English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."

Turner's inspiration was found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the Burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). 

Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand, but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period nature of the world. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.

His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321)

One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. 

In his later years he used oils even more transparently, and turned to creating almost pure light by the use of shimmering colour. A example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.

  Contextual Study of John Nash

        The architect I have chosen is John Nash (1752-1835) I like the way he can still be seen around central London today and has hugely influenced the architectural development of the city.

  I have chosen the Nash terraces for my example of his work which inspires me, but in particular it is the style, shape and arrangement that I admire.

  I am studying the designs of John Nash, in particular the architectural development of his Regency Terraces. The Regency style in which Nash worked refers to the buildings built during the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent. The style follows on from the neo-classical Georgian Style of architecture, adding an elegance and lightness to it. Many buildings of the Regency style have a white painted stucco facade and an entryway to the main front door which is usually coloured black, which is framed by two columns. Regency houses were typically built as terraces or crescents and elegant wrought iron balconies and bow windows came into fashion at this time too.

    Nash buildings can still be seen in many areas around Regents Street and Buckingham Palace, and in particular Regent’s Park. He transformed Marylebone Park (Henry VIII’s old hunting ground) into Regent’s Park and laying out the elegant terraced housing that edges it. In 1806 Nash accepted with his draughtsman James Morgan, the post of Architect to the Department of Woods and Forests, at the ‘hideous joint salary of two hundred pounds a year’, during this time he had to develop a plan for the park. It was intended to be an exclusive development reserved for the ‘wealthy and the good’. Nash planned a palatial summer residence for the Prince Regent, fifty detached villas in parkland setting and elegant terraces around the exterior of the park.  This was all an ambitious plan to develop The Regent’s Park and lay out an elegant new street, Regent’s Street, to link it to St James’s Park and the Prince’s London residence, Carlton House.

  Work started in 1812 but Nash was not a very good businessman and the venture was nowhere near as profitable as he had hoped. The number of grand villas was reduced to 26, in fact only 8 were ever built and nothing became of the Prince’s summer pavilion. By 1923 the north half of the circus had been cancelled and replaced by a square with its north side open to the park.

  The Nash terraces were badly bombed during World War II and there was some debate over whether they should be restored. In 1947 the Gorrell Committee recommended restoration and in 1957 the Crown Estates Commissioners announced that the Nash terraces would be preserved. Restoration work took place throughout the late 20th century and 6 new villas were added between 1988 and 2004 following the same style.

John Nash worked mainly for the Prince Regent who later became King George IV, which is where we get the title ‘Regency period’. Nash created a plan for the area around Marylebone Park which included the long curve of Regent Street, Regent’s Park and its neighbouring streets, terraces and crescents of elegant town houses and villas. His style and influence was more 19th century, he worked in many styles from gothic to Italianate, Palladian, Greek and picturesque.

  The ‘planning’ of London was not new in Georgian times, after the Great Fire, Christopher Wren tried and failed to bring order to the growing capital. The jumble of shops and houses sprang up again on the old medieval street plan, London was increasingly crowded and smelly and did not reflect the city’s growing importance in the world. The rich of Mayfair were rubbing shoulders with the poor and so the Prince Regent needed someone to design improvements.

  Nash had a skill of mixing styles and making everything sit effortlessly in its setting which suited London’s eclectic nature. The most lasting legacy of Nash’s work is his grand ceremonial route from St James’ Park in the south to Regent’s Park in the north, cutting a slice through London, separating the rich from the poor. This was no accident.  Nash himself said he wanted to create a line ‘between the streets and squares occupied by nobility and gentry’ and ‘the narrow streets and meaner houses occupied by mechanics and the trading part of the community’. In this way he was one of London’s most influential town planners.

  The term Regency style also applied to interior design and decorative arts of this period, such as elegant furniture and vertically striped wallpaper and to styles of clothing.

There are two major areas of architectural styles in Regency period, Gothic Revival and classical.  The gothic revival was based on medieval architecture, in particular the gothic churches of the late 13th and early 14th centuries.  Architects used the gothic tracery and other decorative elements of this period, but used more modern methods of construction and used cheaper materials. Many Gothic Revival buildings used stucco in place of medieval stone and braced fanciful gothic curves with hidden iron struts.

    The second style of architecture was classical in nature, it used the philosophy and traditional designs of Greek and Roman. The typical Regency upper and middle-class house was built in brick and covered in stucco or painted plaster. Fluted Greek columns, painted and carefully moulded cornices and other decorative touches were all reproduced in cheap stucco, this made a ‘refined elegance’.

In the Regency period of Nash’s time there was a huge interest in classical Greece, popularized by men like Lord Byron and a lot of aristocratic amateur archaeologists from Britain went over to Greece during this time looking for Greek remains to take home. This Greek style also included painting, furniture, interior decoration and dress design.

    Regency Terraces

  Regency terraces themselves are a row of houses each sharing a wall with the house beside it. The most characteristic Regency designs survive today in terrace housing. Many of the more upper class terraces such as those designed by John Nash surround Regents Park and are entered through triumphal arches reminiscent of ancient Rome. These arches, mainly in stucco, lead to grand rows of houses with carefully balanced pediments fronted by massive pilaster columns.

  Windows are tall and thin, with very small glazing bars separating the panes of glass. Balconies are of extremely fine ironwork, made of such delicate curves as to seem almost too frail to support their structure. Proportions are kept simple, relying on clean, classical lines for effect rather than decorative touches. Windows and doors, especially those on the ground floors are often round at the top. Curved bow windows were popular and detached villas often featured garden windows extending right down to the ground.

The Royal Opera Arcade was designed by Nash in 1818 and The Burlington Arcade the year after which followed Nash’s original design. The Royal Opera Arcade was ahead of its time, dramatically increasing retail frontage and making best use of space, it remains the forerunner of modern day shopping centres and is the world's oldest existing shopping arcade.  The arcade consists of a covered walk some twelve feet wide, parallel with the Haymarket and extending between Pall Mall and Charles II Street. On its west side are eighteen (originally nineteen) small shops, each with a basement and a mezzanine room.

  Conclusion

  I am attracted to the curve design of the terraces, I like the fact they are all in the same direction, windows all facing the same way, the curve doesn’t make it seem like a normal modern straight row of houses, it seems natural, organic even in a more relaxing, unique way, no one ever done it before, he was the first of his kind. I have also looked at the modern architect Norman Foster and his curves made out of glass, they almost have a similar style in this way, although the small windows would not suit Foster.

Contextual study: Abraham Roentgen’s writing desk - Synoptic

(This video shows how the writing desk works)

Abraham Roentgen (30 January 1711 – 1 March 1793) was a German Ébéniste (cabinetmaker).

Abraham Roentgen learned cabinet-making from his father, then worked in the Netherlands and for various London masters. He was regarded as an expert in metal inlay. At age 20, he travelled to Den Haag, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, learning from established cabinet makers. The Roentgen's became known some of the best Cabinet makers of 18th century for their understanding of forming high-end furniture, using a range a rare selection of materials, and using mechanical processes to form and structure their work. Abraham in particular became known for his marquetry work, and worked in London (in the workshop of William Gomm) until 1738. His son, David Roentgen, was born on 11 August 1743. In 1753 they migrated to the Moravian settlement at Neuwied, near Coblenz, where he established a furniture manufactory. Abraham Roentgen died in Herrnhut in Saxony Germany in 1793.

 Around 1760, Roentgen’s furniture became more mechanically complex and luxuriously decorated. Despite his reputation and patronage, the business became financially overstretched and Abraham passed the management to his son David Roentgen in 1772 who established his own reputation. The Roentgens came from nowhere, and through their work ended up just about everywhere: in the courts of Louis XVI of France, of Catherine the Great of Russia and of King Frederick William II of Prussia, not to mention sundry German princes and nobles. Ambition and an urge for newness seem to have run in their blood.  At the V&A I found one of Abraham Roentgen's writing desks. I did further research and came upon this particular highly exquisite desk that is one of most highly praised furniture piece.

 This writing desk particularly struck me. It was desk was made for his premier patron, the Catholic official Johann Philipp von Walderdorff. Its interior holds a multitude of drawers, panels, and compartments, in addition to sophisticated mechanical fittings that safeguard the user’s privacy. The desk uses a wide variety of metal inlay, marquetry and wood pattern arrangement that involves complex design processes known by high-end cabinet makers as the Roentgen family would've been during the 1700s. Not only is beautiful in wooden and metal aesthetics but it has a wide range of opening and closing compartments that work in different ways. Abraham used a variety of mechanized with weights and springs, so that the press of a button or turn of a key can activate authentic choreographies of opening doors and pop-out drawers, hidden niches and secret mirrors, candlestick mounts, easels and bookstands . It has been argued to be perhaps the most exquisite and technically refined pieces of its time using a rarity and variety of materials, that have been composed using complex processes and arranged to be multifunctional as well as secure to only those who knew how to unlock it. Though designed to for several different purposes it's arguably very attractive and entertaining since once opened reveals many hidden design treasures.

 Here is how the desk opens up:

The opening of this desk is a journey in itself requiring the user to understand how to unlock its hidden compartments. First you open a sliding arm to release the main table to rest it on. Then you pull out the main compartment draws in the middle of the table allowing the user to release several more revolving hinged draws and sliding doors to show more hidden doors and a secret inkwell. Two hidden revolving tables can be pulled out from each side which then lift up to form easels. A key catch can be twisted to mechanically pull out a hidden draw underneath the main table. One of the most interesting parts of this piece includes two boxes which are hidden behind a sliding door and then pulled out to reveal several draws. At the bottom of the piece a folding table transforms the desk into a private altar. At the very top of the desk a button is pressed to twist a door 180° niche compartment for devotional objects. When these processes are done in reverse the desk returns to its original form.

 This multifunctional piece holds many compartments within allowing the user to have various objects kept secure and lock away in its complex system, as well as allow the user to write, has surfaces for card games, chess, letter writing and backgammon that open  use it's hidden easels and turn into an altar to pray.

 Abraham also included a variety of rare materials unobtainable by most, only accessible to most high-end cabinet makers in the 18th century. These included gilded mounts and precious inlay in mother-of-pearl, tortoise shell, bronze and ivory alongside with intricate marquetry techniques. A writing desk from 1758-62 that is considered the pinnacle of Abraham’s career epitomizes this complexity. In the decoration its exterior is rife with depictions of either intricate architectural interiors (with sparkling chequered floors) or pastoral landscapes. The resulting collection of intersecting spatial illusions and angles is quite stunning.

Witches at their Incantations By Salvator Rosa

(A trip to the National Gallery)

Salvator Rose, an Italian poet, produced this gruesome and visually amazing painting during his years in Florence from (1640-9). Due to the superstitious view of the time, scenes like this, depicting Witches, the Occult and other hard to press subjects of the time were very rare.

The painting depicts witches spell casting in the center if the painting, underneath a man hanging from an old tree. The brightly illuminated foreground contrasts with the dark and shadowed landscape behind.

Visually the scene is very hard to split into sections, I think this is why the painting was so successfully. Like the gears of a car or a line of dominos, each subject and action leads to another, drawing the views eyes across the scene, encouraging them to examine every detail of the scene, of which there are many.

Colour wise, the painting emits mainly dark tones, this is in conjunction with the scene's dark subject and depictions. These dark colours make the painting seem cold and depressing. However there is a hint of what could be sunrise in the top left, suggesting that this gruesome scene is at an end.

Rosa uses light much like a play uses light, highlighting every important part of the scene and emphasizing others such as the pale skin of the naked subjects in the middle if the frame. The subject and lighting are reminiscent of Shakespeare's Macbeth, specifically Act 1 Scene 3, when the witches deliver their prophecy to Macbeth. I like to imagine that this is how the scene may have looked, Rosa may actually have been inspired by Shakespeare's work; both of the covered the same controversial a rarely depicted subject of the time.

The BBC Macbeth Animated film released in 1992 could have used this painting as a reference for it dark and Gothic visuals, taking inspiration from a painting of the same subject matter, created at a similar time to the plays original publish date. A screen is displayed above.

It seems like each time you look at the painting, you notice something new, a minor detail that makes the scene more real, yet more bizarre at the same time. The painting toys with the views imagination, featuring every object or visual element that has connotations of witchcraft, mystery and spirits, such as voodoo dolls, bones and corpses. The fact that this scene can still install those same connotations in a modern audience is a nod to how entrenched witchcraft is to western culture and it's history. Rosa contemporary audience would have viewed this painting with mixture of fear and wonder, it's small size transformed the scene into a window to another world, or possible a window that simply depicts the outside world for what it is. The one of a kind monsters depicted in the painting could bring light to many interesting character designs.

Bill Brandt was a photographer who is said to have been one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Brandt was born in Hamburg on May 2nd 1904, his father was English and his mother German. However, later in life he begun to say that he was born in south London. This was due to him suffering the traumas of World War I as a child in Germany, having been bullied at school and the rise in Nazism. Brandt suffered from Tuberculosis for a long period of time which led to him travelling to Vienna between the ages of 16 and 22. It was while in Vienna visiting his lung specialist that he was cured and decided to start work in a photographic studio in the city. He was found the job by Dr Eugenie Schwarzwald who through her, is probably how he met the subject of his first major portrait; poet Ezra Pound. It was shortly after this that Pound suggested that Brandt should contact American photographer and surrealist artist Man Ray. This introduction was of great value to Brandt and strongly influenced his later works. He assisted Man Ray for three months in Paris, where he experienced Surrealist art and film during its prime. In 1937 Brandt visited the north of England where he photographed unemployed miners searching for coal and northern cities which were later published in the 1940s. Brandt’s early photographs experiment with angular modernist styles and night photography.

In 1932 he married Eva Boros and settled in Belsize Park, London. It was while living here that he made the photographs which were published in his first book, The English at Home. Brandt used his family contacts - for example, his banker uncles - to gain access to a variety of subjects. The book contained a number of pointed social contrasts, such as the high life presented on the front cover and a poor family shown on the back cover. His second book A Night in London, was published in 1938 in London and Paris. It tells a story of a London night, portraying different social classes and again making use of his family and friends.