Archive for the Videos Category

An Introduction to Charles Burchfield

Posted in Art, Modern, Videos with tags , on February 9, 2012 by Nell

 Guide: Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), painter

Charles Ephraim Burchfield (1893-1967) was born and raised in Ohio (first in Ashtabula, then Salem). He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and was employed as a wallpaper designer at H.M. Birge in Buffalo, New York. He eventually quit to pursue painting full-time, and lived thereafter in Gardenville (West Seneca), a suburb of Buffalo.

Burchfield’s middle-period work (roughly the 1920s-early 1940s) focused on realist paintings depicting American small-town and industrial life, which brought him popularity and acclaim in his time. However, the visionary works of his early and late output may appear even more remarkable to us today: Burchfield’s mystical, abstract nature imagery is arrestingly unique.

The videos below were produced by Beyond the Notes and feature Nancy Weekly, Curator and Head of Collections at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, who has written and edited several books on Burchfield including Charles E. Burchfield: The Sacred Woods, and co-curated the recent exhibit Sensory Crossovers: Synesthesia in American Art.

Fear, Hope, and the Sublime in Burchfield’s Paintings

The co-existing themes of fear and hope were central to the character of Burchfield’s artwork. Many of his paintings have an ominous or negative quality, but ultimately his output as a whole may be seen to portray an optimistic outlook.

Burchfield’s Canvas Expansion Technique

Some of Charles Burchfield’s later works were revisions and expansions on paintings that he had created decades earlier, including Autumnal Fantasy and Sun and Rocks, which were started when Burchfield was in his 20s and completed when he was in his 50s. He started with the kernel of an early painting and attached new sections of canvas to create a more expansive and more fully realized vision.

Burchfield’s Influences from Music and Sound

Music had major influence on Burchfield’s paintings and his aesthetic. From Burchfield’s early days in art school when he idolized composer Richard Wagner and sketched abstract symbols representing musical motifs from the opera “Siegfried”, to the maturity of his career when he drew on Beethoven and Sibelius for inspiration in his large-scale watercolor paintings, music served as an ongoing source of inspiration and a reference point for his artwork.

Charles Burchfield is thought to have had synesthesia (check out my video “An Introduction to Synesthesia”). Although we can’t be sure (Burchfield himself never addressed it), some scholars find ideas in his art and journals that are distinctly synesthetic in character.

Related Topics:

Vocal Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods [GUIDE]

Posted in Guides, Medieval, Music, Renaissance, Videos with tags , , on January 30, 2012 by Nell

 Vocal music in the Medieval and Renaissance periods is some of the most interesting and beautiful music of all time. Use this guide as a jumping-off point to explore some of the more important genres and techniques in the Medieval era through the Renaissance (ending around 1600).

Topics:

Exercises:

…video coming soon!

Isadora Duncan: The Dancer of the Future [VIDEO]

Posted in Dance, Modern, Videos with tags , on January 25, 2012 by Nell

 Guide: Modern Dance in America

In this video, I discuss Isadora Duncan’s philosophy, influences, and aesthetic. I intend to put together a second video covering her biography and her influence on the following generation of dancers.

This is the second in my series of videos charting the evolution of Modern dance in America. In the first video in this series, I surveyed the atmosphere that gave birth to pioneering dancer Loie Fuller.

I’m teaching as I learn, so it’s possible there may be errors of fact or overly broad generalizations in this video. Feel free to comment with corrections or additions (and please provide a citation if possible). My sources are:

Mazo, Joseph H. Prime Movers: The Makers of Modern Dance in America. Princeton, 2000.
Reynolds, Nancy, and Malcolm McCormick. No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century. Yale UP, 2003.

Loie Fuller and the Beginnings of American Modern Dance [VIDEO]

Posted in Dance, Modern, Videos with tags , , on January 22, 2012 by Nell

 Guide: Modern Dance in America

This is the first in my forthcoming series of videos charting the evolution of Modern dance in America. Here I briefly survey the atmosphere that gave birth to pioneering dancers Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and explore the performance style and impact of Loie Fuller (1862-1928). While her career took place primarily in Europe (and particularly Paris), her work was well known in America. Loie paved the way for—or was perhaps a precursor to—Modern dance.

I’m teaching as I learn, so it’s possible there may be errors of fact or overly broad generalizations in this video. Feel free to comment with corrections or additions (and please provide a citation if possible). My main sources were:

Mazo, Joseph H. Prime Movers: The Makers of Modern Dance in America. Princeton, 2000. pp. 13-34.
Reynolds, Nancy, and Malcolm McCormick. No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century. Yale UP, 2003. pp. 1-10.

Supplemental Viewing

Given how early Fuller’s work was, there is very little photographic documentation. Here’s a short film clip from 1896 of Fuller’s Danse Serpentine posted on YouTube (I have read conflicting reports on whether this film depicts Fuller herself or a follower of her work). This is hand-colored, frame-by-frame, to create the illusion of colored lighting.

P.S. On the wish list for when I win the lottery: this crazy Art Nouveau bronze sculptural lamp of Loie Fuller: http://bit.ly/wq5Ymp