Contextual Research

 Analysis

The "Last Supper" is a mural painting created by Leonardo da Vinci. The mural is painted onto the back wall of the churches dining hall and spans 15 by 29 feet. Da Vinci created the piece of work and it took a total of four years to complete it.

The "Last Supper" is named after an event in the Holy Bible that can be found in the gospels of Luke, Mark and Mathew. Jesus Christ and his twelve disciples gather for a Passover dinner on the night which will precede his death. During the meal Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him and he will be killed. Da Vinci's painting illustrates this exact moment when Jesus' disciples are shocked by what they have just heard.

The painting illustrates thirteen men sitting behind a table. The man in the middle of the painting is Jesus Christ. He sits with his eyes closed, hands on the table and he doesn't have an expression on his face. The twelve disciples surround Jesus, with six of them on each side. The twelve disciples have been grouped into four groups of three people, with the individuals of each group sharing a common expression. Starting on the far left side are Bartholomew, James and Andrew. All three stare at Jesus with a puzzled look on their faces and their eyes wide open. The next group is composed of Judas, Peter and Peter. Judas holds a bag of silver in his hand which symbolizes a bribe he was given to betray Jesus. Peter leans over and clenches a knife as though he wants to protect Jesus and John appears to sob. The next group of men is Thomas, James and Phillip. These three men looked surprised and appear to want an explanation from Jesus. The last group of men is Matthew, Jude and Zealot. These three men are all facing each other as though they are having a discussion on what they have just heard.

Da Vinci has also incorporated several elements and techniques into this painting. Perspective was used by tapering the lines that form the walls, windows and ceiling of the room to give the illusion value and depth. Jesus' head is centered perfectly both horizontally and vertically. This alignment combined with the perspective makes Jesus' head the central focal point of the whole painting. The use of geometric shapes is evident. There are many rectangular patterns built into the structure yet all the objects on the table are round. There is a wide range of colours used in this piece, especially in the clothing. Lighting is also incorporated in this painting. The left wall, back wall and ceiling are all dark in comparison to the wall on the right which is really bright. I would guess that this lighting difference is in reference to the sun's location to symbolize what time of the day it was.

My own design of the last supper influences from Leonardo Da Vinci "Last Supper".

also Jean Michael Basquiat "Fallen Angel"

This image consists of four canvases sizing (unknown) and put together forms this long and modern image i have created using my family and friends as influences as they are all different shown with different objects on each canvas shows their personality and hobbies and other objects that are personal to them. 

Analysis

Jean Michel Basquiat  "Fallen Angel" 1981 (167.6 x 198.1cm)

Jean Michel Basquiat is very energetic. His work called 'Fallen Angel' is the image I have chosen to use as a pastiche. In this work he draws out angels, devils, halos and saints. In 'Fallen Angels' I see his work like of an angel falls from heaven and they are either losing a right to their wings or going straight to hell this is because an angel has done something wrong to end up in a situation like this. When looking at this image there are alot of dark red colours on outlines of this picture. Sometimes the colour red represents the devil or hell in most religions. You can tell with this with this image even though it looks very gestural and energetic but even though it is quite visible that a child has created it you can tell that it is an angel with the recognizable features i.e. wings, halo etc. With the title 'Fallen Angel' Basquiat gives the idea and concept away by giving us a clue to the message he is sending us that an angel is falling from the sky and it could be either going to hell or stuck in limbo on earth.

But he uses sharp and aggressive lines in his work as it looks rushed and domesticated. On the image in the detail of the angels eyes you can see that he are closed but with a bit of red showing through the blue eyelids that could show that it is a devil now and not an angel. With the colours red and black they mean to us warning danger and with Basquiat using these colours it tells us to watch out for this as it is a hazard. Some of the colours Basquiat has used are vibrant and loud with the use of yellows, blues and reds. All of these draw your attention in towards this image as it is wacky and exciting to view his work. While looking at Basquiats work he uses themes of x-ray looking figures in most of his work were you can see the inside of the body with the background faintly coming through the body in a pastel blue colour.

Basquiat uses very thick paint throughout 'Fallen Angel ' with the colours black reds, yellows, whites and oranges these are direct to the canvas he splotches them on and spread them out thickly to get bumpy texture with the paint. He has layered each of these colours on the canvas to gain a bold and direct response from the viewers. As you can see on the right wing there has been a drizzling effect going down the wing and to do this he has used dirty water from his brushes and spread it on the wing in a rough way and tipped it to allow the water to come down the image with Basquiat doing this it looks like that there has been acid poured on the wings to dissolve away. With the thought of this it must feel very painful in this manor and experiencing excruciating pain from the acid being poured down him and turning in to a devil from an angel.

Basquiat has used tin marking for the fingers as this suggest that he is boney and thin in scale. The shapes that Basquiat has used in his painting s are very flat and suttle in the way that they are not in 3D form but are simple for example the halo. When looking at the image you can tell that it is an angel and a devil as this image could represent both as one with the wings and the other one with the bloody red thick lines on the eyes and body. He has used contextual lines throughout his work as this I think is the most important part of Basquiats work as this is a mark of recognizable work to let us know that it is his work and no one else's the lines could be sharp or smooth looking but rough in places. This image comes across to me very willing and strong in the marks he has created it shows that he has a great vivid imagination with angels, devils, saints etc.

He works with applying thick acrylic on top of each other and using oil pastels to add detail in his work such as the markings of the lines, letters, numerals and symbols he was influenced by CY Twombly and Leonardo Da Vinci with reading and drawing from anatomy books. Basquiat uses a 3 point crown to symbolize and mark his work the lines he has used to create this piece of art are very quick, sharp and slick on the wing it looks like he has rushed the depth and colour but on the other hand it looks abstract but the style looks crazy with the use of random points of colour such as the yellow as this is the brightest colour. With the idea of doing an angel on his surface it is very spontaneous and naïve in the way he has layered the acrylic paint and the theme of making it energetic and vibrant. He hasn’t included tone or depth in this image as it looks flat and there is no form to it. But with the use of the bright blue it highlights the angel and allows it to show.

My first reactions to Basquiats ‘Fallen Angel’ was WOW that’s amazing it’s very bright and colourful and quite bold and you can tell he has expressed his feelings and external and internal visions hens x-ray vision. X-ray vision in this case is a good technique he has used and he has exaggeration with the lines that he called blood lines and other organs. He is a neo expressionist painter and some of his work comes across aggressive because he puts much power and boldness and randomness in to his imagination and his ability to achieve great work he has created. The writing in his work isn’t understandable and he crossed words out to get some ones attention to look in more detail into his work and this makes people feel curious about the decision he has chosen. World of images, body and machine parts, parts of speech, figure cartoons, graphs and cross words out. ”I cross words out so you will see them more, the fact that they are obscured makes you want to see them” – Jean Michel Basquiat

At first from a distance I thought that it was a bird with the obvious shapes of the wings but as I gradually concentrated on the image it became clearer that it was an angel because of the shape of the halo and wings. It looked like a child had created the image the way he has used the lines with the acrylic and pastels. I do like this image but it is very difficult to get to terms about how he created the image in such a huge scale and the difficulty in getting the colours right for the overall image to make it abstract. The work remind me of an explosion of a factory who is making paint and the explosion is on the wings but all over the image as it shows that people who could be working in the factory could be hurt or feared dead. The image makes me feel like this because it looks sad, depressing but scary in the shock of the arms and face is laid out. The halo on this image reminds me of Jesus and the thorn crown he wore on his crucifixion and the raw emotion can be mirrored on to this image.

The work is an angel or devil that could be seen either way. Basquiat is dominated by the figure of the fallen angel rendered in quick rapid red, yellow and black lines, floating against luminous blue background. Within each brush stroke you can tell the energy and strength that Basquiat has put into his work. The lively tonal qualities of the work represent a radical mixture of street drawing onto the modernist canvas. “The colours are not those of easel painting, obtained while learning a craft and constantly worked on. They are lively, swift colours of the street, vibrant, fading, affixed and opposing distant but not foreign” – Jean Michel Basquiat. Basquiats angel appears both conflicted and endearing much as the artist was himself at the time his work was painted. The angel figure was more about historical stuff than religious; he used iconography to discuss his experience. It was to talk about of a black man in America and not about history. In addition to the angel another iconic symbol in Basquiats work is the crown, which appears over the angel’s left wing in the present lot. Both the crown and the angel are central metaphors for Basquiats understanding of his own personal mission and eventually they would become emblems.

This relates to an autopsy in the way he has drawn and painted the physical anatomy of the male in nude coming from heaven going to hell. This relates to the human form and anatomy for the requirements of drawing a figure. With the amount of paint he has used and layered on top of each other it must be a quite thick ripple effect with him applying it thick on canvas material. I don’t think that there is a sense of space in ‘Fallen Angel’ because it doesn’t look 3D and the sense of depth to me isn’t there as there is no tonal aspect on the painting he has created. He has used a large canvas to do this image on (5.5ft x6.5ft) and the media he has used is acrylic and oil pastels. The work was made in 1981 in New York it was therefore presented in Annina Nosei Gallery New York. There is an interesting connection with this work and the year it was created because there was a lot of street pop art going on including expression graffiti and animations of cartoon characters which Basquiat was also deeply influenced by his past. Jean Michel Basquiat created this interesting conceptual piece of art called ‘Fallen Angel’.

He was a New York artist who began graffiting communities and building until a professional person approached him and offered him money to create his work within galleries to show and inspire the viewers of the world who came and visited multiple galleries over the world but soon after at the age of 27 years the passed away due to an over dose. He work to this present day is still inspiring the young people as it appeals to them for the use of sophisticated and vibrant colours used and the techniques he has used to create marvelous work and they are all preserved in galleries all over the world for us all to remember him and to get inspired by the creativeness and imagination he worked hard for in his work. A major history event affects the art world in 1981 by including women into the art world “Feminist art history began with the aim to support women in the arts and to make women artists in art history visible. Until the 1980s the interest was predominately political and research concentrated on women. Major issues were the social history of women artists, the question of a female aesthetics and the representations of women in art.”

http://userpage.fuberlin.de/~glossar/en/view.cgi?file=dat_en@53&url=/~glossar/en/menu3.cgi?l1=abc@@l2=F@@l3=Feminist%20Art%20History:%20Women%20Artists%20and%20the%20Canon. His art work is very x-ray like this is influence by reading and drawing the images from Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomy work which led to drawing medical like examinations of people bodies. Well I ask several people in my family what do they think it looks like from a distance and they said it looks like a bird which I agree but as they got closer they could see the detail and the obvious outlines on an angel including the wings and halo. The viewer’s said that it remind them when they started to attempt to draw in school when the lines weren’t even and parallel to one another it was very abstract and out of context and the use of colour is random and they wasn’t too sure if he should of used them colours as they were to bright. But with the young people in present time are inspired by simple energetic images such as ‘Fallen Angel’ etc. with it being hung up in a national museum it is difficult to get the viewers to see his inspirational work that is currently helping me to get out of my comfort zone and helping me to understand the art world and what this image is trying to tell me. I don’t think that it needs written supported help to understand what is going on in the image as it is a simple drawing of and angel / devil falling from heaven to hell or in limbo to decide what to do.