week 9 video review

The Impact of Cubism:
I chose this video because I find cubism a very interesting form of art, and of course, the influence of Pablo Picasso, a Spanish painter, is something I am acquainted with.
Cubism is a form of art that is influenced mainly by the works of Cézanne, African tribal art, and the art of the Iberian peninsula. It was highly influential during the early 20th century. It was a new way to represent time and space. One of cubisms artists, Gris, uses spiritual elements and imagination. He starts with abstraction and ends with the real object. Gris also uses a collage as a tribute to the austerity of the Spanish tradition. Duchamp's work is compared to stop photography. Robert Delaunay combines several points of view, nontraditional laws of perspective, elements of time and memory to reveal the Eiffel Tower as a confused, exciting statement about life. I thought this video was related to the reading in that it focused on some of the same artists that were also in the book. I learned a lot about other cubism artists other than Picasso from this video. I was not well aware of the others prior to the video.

Matisse and Picasso:
I chose this video because I am very interested in the works of Picasso and did not know anything about Matisse so I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn.
Picasso and Matisse were both known to have stood against tradition. Gertrude Stein was the first to recognize the greatness of Matisse (1905) and Picasso. In his works, Matisse is deliberate, rational, and his French roots show in the way he organizes his thoughts. Picasso is a worker, impulsive, and one can see how he immerses his heart and soul in his paintings. From this video, it seemed that Matisse was much more organized and methodical than Picasso. Picasso seemed to paint by his whims and in a state of “semi-consciousness” at night, while Matisse chose to paint by the clock regularly. This video related to the reading in the book in that both focused on these artists style (cubism) as well as they themselves.
I enjoyed this video a lot because of how thoroughly it described both Picasso and Matisse’s lives and styles of art.