02/23/13
4.1

My favorite material from the Drawing media would have to be pen and ink. I find it interesting how many ways there are to get ink on paper that I never thought of before. I especially like the sponge idea when you soak it and swipe it on the page. Pen and Ink was used in Rembrandt’s Cottage among Trees (6.11) in Getlein’s text. He used different kinds of pens to draw varied lines in the painting. My favorite material from the Painting media would have to be Fresco. The process of using Fresco is interesting. It is using pigments that are mixed with water and applying them to a wet lime plaster support. When the plaster dries, the lime undergoes a chemical transformation and fuses the pigment with the plaster surface. Fresco is used in the Mixtec Culture by Diego Rivera. From the Print media, my favorite the woodcut. I find it very creative to draw a desired image on a block of wood, and creating all sorts of works of art with it. The earliest surviving woodcut image was made in China in 868 C.E. which portrayed Buddha preaching at the Diamond Sutra (Getlein 8.2). From the Sculpture media, my favorite is material is blocks of material and cuts used for carving. Tilman Riemenschneider uses this when he carved Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon (Getlein 11.8).

Jeff Koons is an American artist who is well known for his reproductions of banal objects. He is from Pennsylvania, but lives and works in New York City. In 1992, he was commissioned by three art dealers to create a piece for Arolsen Castle in Bad Arolson, Germany. This is when he created Puppy. It is a 43 ft. tall sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier puppy. It is made with a variety of flowers on a transparent colour-coated chrome stainless steel substructure. It has been installed around the world, not just in Germany. Other places include Australia, the United States and now it is located in permanently in Spain.

The author Getlein once stated that “Like much of Koon’s work, Puppy explores issues of taste”. I believe Getlein is referring to Koon’s interest and taste in nature. According to Guggenheim.org, “Koons engages both past and present, employing sophisticated computer modeling while referencing the 18th century formal garden”. The puppy is made out of all kinds of flowers, and the size of it is huge. It also continues to grow, really emphasizing nature. His taste for nature is very clearly shown in Puppy. Another issue that I think is suggested by this monumental live sculpture is sentiment. Puppies are sweet, sentimental animals. Flowers remind us of love. Both flowers and puppies remind me of sentiment, so that is what I see as suggested by Koon. Koon really wanted to give people that sentimental feeling when they see this extremely large puppy made from a variety of flowers.

The relationship between material and message in art is the visual communication between the art and us viewing it. A lot of the time, the materials that an artist uses are used especially to get a specific idea across. Koon uses different flowers to make Puppy, an extremely large monument of a puppy. I would say flowers are perfect material to use to make a large puppy because puppies are such sweet, harmless animals and flowers are sentimental and natural plants. A lot of an artist’s message is dependent on the medium he/she chose. For example, an artist may specifically use watercolor to emphasize transparency. Watercolor is not applied thickly, giving a translucent image like John Singer Sargent’s Mountain Stream from Getlein’s chapter 7 (7.11). Because the colors are so lightly applied, they give a controlled yet spontaneous feeling. Sargent used the perfect material to give out that feeling.

If this sculpture was made from bronze, marble or steel, I think the meaning of this artwork would somewhat change. I think the sentimental feeling would greatly decrease because the flowers are gone. There would still remain a small sentimental feeling because it is a puppy, but I feel like bronze, marble or steel give an aggressive, more defined feeling. These materials can bring about a loyalty feeling because they are such firm materials, unlike flowers. I feel like the friendship feeling stays no matter what material is used because it is still a puppy. I think Koon greatly valued nature, and bronze, marble and steel do not represent nature, so that would be taken out of the image. I believe that nature was one of the main messages that Koon wanted to portray, so the material he uses is greatly dependent on his message.

A work of art that I think would not be drastically affected if different material was used would be the Three Mile Island, Night I by Yvonne Jacquette (Getlein 6.8). The artist uses charcoal to make the landscape appear as seen from an airplane. He creates different shades of gray to thick black with the charcoal, really differentiating the buildings and houses from the ground. The painting looks as if you are viewing it directly from above. I feel like he could have used a different material than charcoal, and the painting would still have the same view of a landscape as seen from an airplane. I feel like the same painting could be made with dark crayons, or color pencils because you can really emphasize the shading.

Creating a work of art that is purposefully transitory is creating an art that gives you a temporary feeling. Transitory means not permanent. For example, if I were to look at an art painting that portrays nature; I get this relaxed feeling for a few minutes. A good example is Koon’s Puppy monument. When I looked at the picture of it, I thought of flowers, nature, and friendship. I thought about nature because of all the flowers and green. I thought of friendship because it is a puppy, and it reminded me of my sister’s new puppy she got a few weeks ago. It was a good, happy, temporary feeling.

In conclusion, I do like Koon’s Puppy monument. I certainly accept it as art. I think it is a creative large piece of art that has some meaning to it. I really like that he uses different flowers. I think it goes really well with the idea of a puppy. I also like how large he made it, really exposing the nature of it. According to Guggenheim.org, “Koons draws from the visual language of advertising, marketing and the entertainment industry”. His Puppy monument is certainly entertaining. It is such a large work of art that you can tell a lot of time has been put in to it.

Source:

Guggenheim. SRGF, n.d. Web. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections