Preparations for the November Assessment Event and reflections on my studies to date

Following a consultation with my tutor last week, I have decided to make some adjustments to my assessment submission prior to submitting the work to the OCA. These are small changes to improve the quality of my work and to ensure that it is clear and easy for the assessment team to read and evaluate.

Fortunately as the majority of my work is online and as such is presented digitally, very little work needs to be printed out and sent to the office at Barnsley. Phew!

What changes have I made following advice from my tutor?

• The opening sentences of the essays have been adjusted to make a more confident statement.
• I have scoured the essays to ensure that it is clear where I obtained my information, as I must avoid plagiarism at all costs! Thus the facts are properly referenced to avoid any potential confusion.
• In the earlier pieces I have removed the duplicated reference lists as these are surplus to requirements. These were mistakenly inserted twice originally due to a misunderstanding between myself and my first tutor.

Assignment 5 – Your reflections and comments on the course as a whole

A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of my work to date:

• Please see the PDF file for more information:
• Lucy Dean OCA – Assignment 5 – Your reflections and comments on the course as a whole
• My account is illustrated with photos to complement and enhance the written elements.

Assignment 5 – Your final assessment

For the final assessment and penultimate task of the course I have decided to examine the exhibition: Leon Underwood Figure and Rhythm as part of the programming rationale of the Pallant House Gallery. I visited the exhibition in April of last year (see the blog post entitled: Study visit- ‘Visit a modern art exhibition’); and was truly inspired by the works that I had seen.

“The twentieth century saw the arrival of numerous innovative and pioneering sculptors. Yet while Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth are frequently touted as the figureheads of modern British sculpture, the contribution made by Leon Underwood has largely been ignored”. (Whitworth, 2000). Thus the Pallant House Gallery launched an exhibition last year to reassess the contributions of this important artist.

• Please see the PDF file for more information: lucy-dean-510514-history-of-art-1-assignment-5-your-final-assessment-critical-review– the bibliography is on page 7 of this PDF file.

Exercise: Analyse an Impressionist landscape

Annotate one of the following:

• One of Whistler’s Nocturne series of paintings.
• An Impressionist landscape painting which uses a well-documented technique, for example one of Monet’s many paintings of water lilies or a Pointillist painting by Seurat or Cross.

Annotate your chosen image, concentrating particularly on technique and the use of scientific colour principles.  Whichever option you choose, work your annotation up into a short (400-500 word) report analysing your chosen painting.

I have selected Morning Walk (Study for The Seine at Courbevoie), 1885, by Georges Seurat for further study as it is a fine example of the pointillist technique and contemporary trends in colour theory and light studies.

• Please see the PDF file for more information: Lucy Dean OCA – Exercise – Analyse an Impressionist Landscape– the bibliography is on page 7 of this PDF file.

Study visit: Visit a landscape

For this task I must visit a landscape that I think will make a good subject for a painting – or one that has been painted by an artist or artists in the past. I need to find out as much as I can about the locality and its history in advance. Who has painted it previously? When I visit I must look at it with a painter’s eye.

I need to consider the aspect that I would choose and the media that I would use. I must also make notes on the choices that other artists have made.

Why have they tackled the subject in a particular way? Is there a local gallery exhibiting work by local artists? Make notes on how other people have approached this task. I must also draw or paint the landscape for myself and specify the aspect and the medium that I would use.

Am I planning to work in my own style or that of another artist? Make notes on composition, colour and tone. Would I include any figures in the landscape? Make some sketches demonstrating my ideas.

• My account is illustrated with photos and paintings to complement and enhance the written elements.
• Please see the PDF file for more information: Lucy Dean OCA – Study visit – Visit a landscape– the bibliography is on page 7 of this PDF file.

Exercise: The classical landscape

In this essay I will analyse at least two landscapes by Claude Lorrain and use them to test the following statement made by the noted art historian Kenneth Clark in his book Landscape into Art, first published in 1949:

“This involved a dark coulisse on one side (hardly ever on two), the shadow of which extended across the first plane of the foreground, a middle plane with a large central feature, usually a group of trees, and finally two planes, one behind the other, the second being that luminous distance for which he has always been famous, and which, as we have seen, he painted direct from nature. Much art was necessary to lead the eye from one plane to the next, and Claude employed bridges, rivers, cattle fording a stream and similar devices; but these are less important than his sure sense of tone, which allowed him to achieve an effect of recession even in pictures where every plane is parallel.”

I must do a full annotation of at least one of the images that I’ve chosen and include notes on the use of perspective.

• My account is illustrated with photos and drawings to complement and enhance the written elements.
• Please see the PDF file for more information: lucy-dean-510514-history-of-art-1-exercise-the-classical-landscape-essay– the bibliography is on page 9-10 of this PDF file.

Reflections on Project 1 (The Interior) of Part 5

This is a quick SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of my work to date:

Strengths- resourcing information, ideas.

Weaknesses- time management, sometimes too many ideas- paralysis by analysis!

Opportunities- study as and when I can, allowing the course materials to inspire me rather than putting me off the course.

Threats- work and life in general.

Overall this first project has been positive, my only real issue is that the first series of exercises took some time to produce as I had many different ideas.

I’m pleased with the work I produced for the research point: “Visit an interior”, as The Vyne Chapel was crammed full of interesting works of art and plenty of history too.

As I approach the end of this course I will need to manage my time carefully to ensure that I create the content in a timely manner. As usual I have lots of ideas; it is just a question of whether I have enough time to package it together to my satisfaction. I have some great photos for the “Visit a landscape” exercise which is coming up soon….

Exercise: Plan a country house refurbishment

For this exercise I must imagine that I’ve been asked to advise on the refurbishment of a country house. The building can be of any period.

I must:

• Limit my scheme to a set of three or four rooms and show these on a ground plan.
• Specify the period and the location of the building.
• Include a thumbnail sketch of the present inhabitants – the people who have commissioned me.
• Include any European paintings or works of art, irrespective of cost, but make choices appropriate to the history of the house and the taste and lifestyle of its occupants.
• Consider if I will have an integrated approach and have common stylistic schemes running throughout; or whether I will vary the style of the rooms to reflect the preoccupations of the principal user?
• My account is illustrated with photos and drawings to complement and enhance the written elements.
• Please see the PDF file for more information: Lucy Dean OCA – Exercise – Plan a country house refurbishment– the bibliography is on page 8 of this PDF file.

Exercise: Room with a view

For this exercise I must choose a painting that has a window as a significant feature – either a view in or a view out. I must start by analysing the image in formal terms, with particular attention to the use of perspective (both linear and aerial or atmospheric perspective) and the overall composition.

How does the artist contrast the worlds on either side of the window? What effect does this create?  An interior that’s safe and secure from the outside world or a yearning for something beyond?

My account is illustrated with photos and drawings to complement and enhance the written elements. Please see the PDF file for more information:Lucy Dean OCA – Exercise – Room with a view– the bibliography is on page 10 of this PDF.

Research point: Trompe l’oeil decorative schemes

For this exercise I must research some of the ways in which trompe-l’oeil has been exploited in works of art, particularly in decorative schemes.

According to the Tate: Trompe-l’oeil is a “French phrase meaning ‘deceives the eye’, which is used to describe paintings that create the illusion of a real object or scene” (Tate, n.d.).

My inspiration for this task was a visit to the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest in March 2016. Whilst on a tour of the building I encountered the large and expressive fresco of the Apotheosis of Music, 1875-1884, by the German-Hungarian painter Károly Lotz.

My account is illustrated with photos to complement and enhance the written elements.

Please see the PDF file for more information:

Lucy Dean – OCA – Research point – Trompe l’oeil decorative schemes– the bibliography is on pages 12 – 13 of this document.