Gerhard Richter, born February 9, 1932, is a painter who created a series of enormous paintings called the Wald (Forest) Series.  These paintings depict large scenes of the woods and trees, yet are abstracted.  This includes variation and layering of many colors not traditionally associated with trees, as well and lines of counterchange.  One technique he uses repeatedly is scraping and sliding the wet paint across the canvas with and enormous rubber brush.  This gives a very looming and washed look.  I completely love the unique take Richter puts on the classic landscape, and the very scale of these works baffle me.

 In the early twentieth century America was considered behind in the avant-garde art movement, and the growth of modern style art in comparison to European countries where this art movement was beginning to flower.  Instead, America was still prioritizing the Academy style of technical and studied realism and soft figures.  Between the two articles, the Armory Show and the Ism That Isn’t, breakthroughs in the art world are hardly ever received without critique and skepticism.  Modern art is no exception, with cubism, expressionism and more fragmented art, such as the explosive work Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912, by Marcel Duchamp.  This painting shows the phases of a nude woman descending a staircase from different angles and times.  This painting was attacked fro its lack of realism or quality, and the strange mark was almost unknown before this time.  Because to was so new, people were not sure how to react in a positive manner. Both of these articles show the similarities and connections between the progression of art and how the world reacts to this, as well as how they transition.  They also both dress British art in particular, as well as how America and other countries follow and react to such.

    The Saatchi Gallery is the attempt of a man, Charles Saatchi, to unveil the newest movement of British art, Neurotic Realism.  Every time a new style of art presents itself, they all seem to bring a new element to the table.  Neurotic Realism claims a link between psychology and the real (The Guardian, page 1) and combine both roughness with technique.  My personal opinion is that “Isms” of art are not so much labeled and presented as styles and groupings that just sort of happen and present themselves indirectly.  While it is possible to collect and control such a change, these evolution son art happen by themselves and become set in stone movements by themselves.

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My acrylic non-objective painting is finally complete! I finished it by adding a few more white gloss drips from a few more places, more dots of white connecting each block of color, and finally adding thick white areas to lighten up places of intense color.  Overall I am pretty happy with this, I really like the mark and the dots on top of such a dark background, however I do wish the color scheme could have been slightly more teal than blue.  Happy to be complete!