4º - GOYA, Unit 1, art.

 Here you have the presentation (if it asks you to log in, use your educa.jcyl.es access data).

Example on how to interpret a work of art

Hi guys!

I share with you an example of commentary of a work of art... This one is an example from Unit 1 and the method is valid for all the year.

How to interpret an object/ picture/ work of art... 

You should follow these steps:

1- What is it? It is a sculpture, it’s a capital from a column inside a church. It belongs to San Pedro de la Nave, Zamora.

2- Who did it? or Which civilization? It is from the visigothic style in the Iberian Peninsula.

3- Which is its approximate date? It was made about the end of the 7th century.

4- How is it? (form, material, decoration, theme...) It is made from stone, it is part of a column, and the sculpture is on relief, adapted to the architectural element. This is a scene from the Bible, a religious theme, depicting the sacrifice of Isaac. It is very clear, designed for the people, who were illiterate in those days, to easily understand it.

5- What information from the past does it give us? (facts, government, population...) In the Visigothic kingdom, in the medieval era of history, churches were small, and used the decoration in order to teach people about christianity.

6- What was it used for? (function) Churches were a place to pray, and capitals were an element of the architecture, part of the column and therefore a support element. The real function of the decoration in this capitals was to show people the scenes of the Bible in a simple form.

Compare two pictures / monuments

First you have the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, from Charlemagne's period, the Carolingian Empire.

And next, San Vitale in Ravenna, a byzantine Church.

Project 1 - Unit 1 Art

Each group will present to the class their work in a speaking presentation.
You can use different resources (storyteller, narrator, online presentations, videos, poster...).
You have to choose and divide the different parts, so each member of the group participe equally.

GROUP 1 - GOYA

Ideas:
Biography
Work by stages:   1- First years (Zaragoza). 2- Tapestry cartoons (Madrid), 3-Portraits (Madrid), 4- Last works (History paintings, black paintings)

GROUP 2 - NEOCLASSIC MADRID

Ideas:
Carlos III - role
Tourist guided route: different monuments in Madrid made in that period, in neoclassic style (for example the Prado museum, the Puerta de Alcalá, the Royal Observatory, the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande...
     

"Your Spitfires At Work!" British Propaganda Poster in the Persian Gulf

© IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 5268)

The nature of propaganda is intertwined with that of human nature. Propaganda served as a way to solidify public support, decimate the reputation of the enemy, further one's ego and reputation (indeed, one of the earliest pieces of propaganda are those detailing the rise of Darius of Persia). In times of war, the home front is as crucial as the battlefront and propaganda is always an effective tool in a government's arsenal. In this post, I'm sharing this poster made by the British (likely the British Civilian Organisation) destined towards the British protectorates of the Persian Gulf whom had donated funds to the war cause (indeed, the hakim of Bahrain donated £30,000)

The title reads "Your [Persian Gulf] Spitfires in Action". Official transcript of the poster lies below:

[top left] One of the four fighter aircraft donated by the people of the Persian Gulf. The other three aircraft are called 'Bahrain', 'Kuwait' and 'Oman'.

[top right] When enemy bombers come close to Britain, fighter aircraft go to chase them and drive them away. The picture shows one of your fighter aircraft shooting down an enemy bomber.

[bottom left] Your fighter aircraft participate in sweeping raids on enemy territory, and their machine guns inflict huge losses on enemy ships, transport and communication routes.

[bottom right] Your fighter aircraft protect the Allies’ commercial ships against the attack of enemy aircraft. Good surveillance and vigilance of the fighter aircraft only played a major role in the arrival of many military shipments into their destination ports.

[bottom text] Countries of the Persian Gulf voluntarily participated in the daily punishment administered by the RAF to the aggressive Nazi State.

This photograph shows the spitfire (entitled Bahrain) that was donated to the Royal Air Force after raising £15,000 to buy it. The plane itself was piloted by Air Vice-Marshal (Flying Officer during the Battle of Britain) Francis David Stephen Scott-Malden.

His entry at ‘The Airmen’s Stories’ section of the Battle of Britain London Monument website reads:

‘Bearing the initials "S-M" below the cockpit and the legend "Bahrain", Scott-Malden's Spitfire W3632 - built at the Supermarine factory at Woolston, Hampshire - was a gift from the people of Bahrain, who had raised £15,000 to buy it.’

In his Bahrain plane, Scott-Malden led one of the Free Norwegian fighter squadrons leading three sorties in one day during the disastrous Deippe raid of August 1942. Scott-Malden was later awarded the Distinguished Service Order and decorated by the King of Norway.

 If you are interested, you can read about the role of Bahrain during the Second World War

A History of Contemporary Theatre in Bahrain

Below I'm reposting the Wikipedia article I've written:

The history of the theatre in Bahrain is one example of the modernisation that swept Bahrain in the 20th century, as a result of the British-backed reforms.  Contemporary Bahraini theatre, in its present form, originated in the early 20th century, resulting from the introduction of formal education in the country.
Traditionally, shadow plays and puppet shows were widespread forms of entertainment in Bahrain. The European-style drama plays were first introduced in schools and plays written by Arab dramatists would be later included in the school curriculum.

As civil society became more interested in theatre and influenced by the likes of Tawfiq al-Hakim and Saadallah Wannous, Bahrain experienced a golden age by the 1970s of playwrights such as Ali Al Shargawi, Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh, Aqil Sawar and Yousef al-Hamdan. The country hosts three notable theatre companies; Awal Theatre, Al-Jazira Theatre and the Al-Sawari Theatre companies

History 

Archaeological excavation of sites dating back to the Dilmun civilisation of the Bronze Age in Bahrain have revealed the existence of a ritualistic polytheistic religion that was believed to contain elements of theatre. However, limited information is known about it. In the 7th century AD, Bahrain converted to Islam. Islam did not encourage human representation or drama; however, the events of Ashura inspired a form of dramatic expression called Ta'zieh (Arabic: تعزية‎). These dramatic re-enactments occur during the Islamic month of Muharram and commemorates the Battle of Karbala where the grandson of the Prophet Muhammed, Imam Hussain, and his companions were killed. Furthermore, there exists two related forms of drama in the Islamic world; Maqama and shadow plays.

Aside from this, other forms of performance art in Bahrain included puppet theatres and shadow plays, which were popular between the Middle Ages up to the 18th century. European drama plays were first brought to the Arab world as a result of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798, eventually reaching the island nation of Bahrain.

20th Century

Drama in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf was pioneered by Kuwait and Bahrain in the early 20th century.^[4] The first recorded theatre production was A Judge from God's Will (Arabic: القاضي بأمر الله‎) which was performed in 1925 at the Hidaya Al-Khalifa Boys School in Muharraq.^[5] As a result of the formal education system in place in Bahrain, plays written by European playwrights, Arab and eventually Bahraini dramatists were staged by students and teachers in school. Religious, moralist and historical plays were primarily written by Syrian and Egyptian writers and performed at school. The earliest credited pioneers of Bahraini theatre were the two poets Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh and Abdulrahman Almoawda, whose plays in the 1950s were primarily based on historic figures and events in Islamic Arab history.^[2] Influenced by the likes of Egyptian playwright Ahmed Shawqi, both writers authored a combined ten plays, with Almoawda basing his plays on historical characters in Arab history such as Al-Ala'a Al-Hadrami.

In the 1940s, literary societies began expressing interest in amateur theatre, eventually culminating in the establishment of multiple theatre companies and a generation of Bahraini playwrights by the 1970s. Most plays were translated from English such as Shakespeare, with the later introduction of Arabic plays from Egypt and Syria. Eventually, a home-grown dramatic movement was born in the 1970s. Notable writers from this time include:

• Ali Al Shargawi (born 1948), who primarily produced children's plays,.
• Aqil Sawar (born 1946), who was a realistic author and playwright of Al-Nawkhidha (1985) and Al Baraha (1990),
• Yousef al-Hamdan (born 1956) was an experimental dramatist and respected academic critic, who published his memoirs Al-Jathoum in 1990.
• Amin Salah (born 1949) was a novelist and later-turned dramatist who gained recognition after rewriting Romeo and Juliet, titled Romeo al-Fareeg in 1988. Other works were satire of current events such as Al-Jutah on capitalism.

Censorship was a common obstacle for playwrights; any content deemed politically motivated was subject to censorship by the Bahraini government, making it difficult to highlight seemingly apolitical social problems in plays.

Companies

Traditionally, there have been three notable non-profit theatre companies operating in Bahrain. They receive subsidies from the Bahraini government.

 Awal Theatre

Established in 1970, it is the oldest theatre company in the country and the first to be formed independent of any civil society or club. Headquartered in the city of Muharraq, its performances were mainly carried out in the nearby capital city, Manama. Relying on government subsidies, the Awal Theatre company promoted local playwright talents and actors. Its first play was Kursi Ateeq in 1970, an original play written by Mohammed Awad. Since then, the company had performed regional Arab as well as international plays

Al Jazira Theatre

Established in 1971 as an extension of the Al Jazira club and included former Awal Theatre members, its members were semi-professionals and frequently trained in the higher institutes of dramatic arts in Kuwait. Both Awal and Al Jazira theatre companies performed seasonally in Bahrain and toured in drama festivals across the Arab World.

 Al Sawari Theatre

Founded by Abdullah al Sawari in 1991, the company primarily focuses on experimental theatre, adapting Asian elements of theatre such as Kathakali from India and Kabuki from Japan<sup>.

Reference:</sup>

• Rubin, Don (1999). The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: The Arab world. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780415059282. Retrieved 5 June 2015.

The Happiest Man in 1901-1904

Item file

It's often incredibly rare to find photographs of people smiling pre-20th century. In fact, you can be forgiven for thinking the smile was an invention of the 20th century, after seeing the seemingly solemn and emotionless expressions of people in Victorian-era photographs. The reasoning behind this was that photographs were costly investments and were rarely taken in the lifetime of a Victorian gentleman. Considering the fact that this photo would likely serve as their identification for decades and for life, could you blame them for not wanting to look silly?

Regardless, that isn't the topic of this post. This post is an elaborate excuse to post this uplifting photo of a photogenic man eating a bowl of rice in China, sometime between 1901-1904. The photo was shot by the Jacob H. Schiff Chinese Expedition (an expedition led by the German scholar aforementioned) and kept in the records of the American Museum of Natural History. What's puzzling to us is the near stock-photo-like appearance, the over-the-top expression, the seemingly flawless dental hygiene. I think it's worth spending a few moments taking in this image.

I mean, when was the last time you've seen an old photo with a guy as cheerful as this?

Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh: The Life of a Bahraini Poet

Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh (in Arabic: إبراهيم العريّض‎, born 8 March 1908 – died May 2002) was a Bahraini writer and poet, and is generally considered to be one of Bahrain's greatest poets and one of the leaders of the Bahraini literary movement in the 20th century. In this article, we'll try to see why he is regarded as such.

Biography:

Arrayedh was born in Bombay, India to his Bahraini parents on 8 March 1908. In 1922, he visited Bahrain for the first time at age 14, where he started his education at the country's first school, the Hidaya al-Khalifa school though he did not permanently reside in the island. He returned to Bombay in 1926 and enrolled at a local school where he earned his high school diploma. It was at this school that Al-Arrayedh studied Farsi and the English language, alongside Urdu, and had expressed a deep interest in Urdu literature. He later studied Urdu literature at the Aligarh Muslim University.

In 1927, Al-Arrayedh returned to Bahrain and was appointed as an English teacher in the Hidaya al-Khalifa school, a position he held for four years. He later became the deputy director of the Jafari school though he was forced to quit his job over disputes with the British colonial authorities. After this, he served as a treasurer in the State Customs Service. In 1937, he moved on to become the head of a translation department in a Bahraini company, which did not last as a result of the outbreak of World War II. In 1943, he traveled to Delhi and worked at a radio station. He later returned to Bahrain where he worked for the Bahrain Petroleum Company until 1967, when he retired.

Poetry and honours:

Since the age of 18, Al-Arrayedh began writing poetry, with his first set of poems being published in Baghdad in 1931. Since he was a multi-linguist, he translated the works of poets between Persian, Hindi, Urdu, English, and Arabic. His poems were popular in Iraq, Syria and Egypt; such that the American University of Beirut asked him to deliver lectures on Arab literature, which he had agreed to. Ebrahim published another collection of poems, The Dolls, in 1946. This was followed by another three compilations, two poetic dramas, four critical studies of Arabic poetry, one poetry collection in Urdu and another in English. He translated Al Khayami's Rubayat from Persian into Arabic in 1966. Throughout his life, Al-Arrayedh lectured widely and travelled extensively to participate in conferences and debates in the field of poetry

He was awarded the Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa Order - First Class, by the Bahraini government.  He was also a noted reformer setting up a school, and was appointed head of the Constitutional Council by the emir Sheikh Isa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa. In short, Ebrahim was responsible for developing Bahrain's constitution in the early 1970s prior to independence from the United Kingdom. He served as Bahrain's ambassador-at-large (which is a diplomat of the highest rank or a minister who is accredited to represent his country internationally) in 1974 and later as ambassador extraordinary plenipotentiary at the Ministry of Foreign Affair, a position he held until his death in 2002.

Ebrahim al-Arrayedh in his later years

Death and legacy:

Ebrahim died in May 2002 at the age of 94, after suffering breathing problems. He was buried in the Manama graveyard, next to his late daughter Layla Al-Arrayedh who died the preceding year.

Following his death, the King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, named one of the Kingdom’s most geographically important roads after him — opposite the Bahrain Financial Harbour. In 2006, his old house, in Gudaibiya, in the capital city of Manama, was turned into a cultural centre, the Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh Poetry House, open to tourists and as a meeting place for poets.

In 2008, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation held an exhibition in Al-Arrayedh's honour in its headquarters in Paris, France.

Notable works:

(In Arabic, couldn't find a decent translation.) 

(A larger collection of his poems can be found here)

• ليلاي
• ذلك الصوت
• الخياميات
• الوطن المفدى
• الغصن الذاوي
• أرض الشهداء
• ولكن لماذا ؟
• ملاكي
• يد بيضاء
• أهكذا ؟
• مشاركة
• حواء
•  في سكون الليل 
• مي 
•  دمية

Remembering an Artist: Jean-Paul Laurens

Jean-Paul Lauren' self-portrait in 1876

Jean-Paul Laurens (28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921), was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style.

Born in Fourquevaux, he was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexandre Bida. Strongly anti-clerical and republican, his work was often on historical and religious themes, through which he sought to convey a message of opposition to monarchical and clerical oppression. His erudition and technical mastery were much admired in his time, but in later years his highly realistic technique, coupled to a theatrical mise-en-scène, came to be regarded by some art-historians as overly didactic. More recently, however, his work has been re-evaluated as an important and original renewal of history painting, a genre of painting that was in decline during Laurens' lifetime. 

Laurens was commissioned to paint numerous public works by the French Third Republic, including the steel vault of the Paris City Hall, the monumental series on the life of Saint Genevieve in the apse of the Panthéon, the decorated ceiling of the Odéon Theater, and the hall of distinguished citizens at the Toulouse capitol. He also provided illustrations for Augustin Thierry's Récits des temps mérovingiens ("Accounts of Merovingian Times").

Jean-Paul Laurens in 1914

Laurens was a professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught André Dunoyer de Segonzac and George Barbier. Two of his sons, Paul Albert Laurens (1870–1934) and Jean-Pierre Laurens (1875–1932), became painters and teachers at the Académie Julian. He died in Paris in 1921.

Among Laurens' many students are:

• Ludwig Deutsch,
• Ernest Leonard Blumenschein,  
• Sears Gallagher,
• William Horton,
• Caroline Lord, 
• Ella Pell,  
• Granville Redmond,
• Henry Ossawa Tanner,  
• Frederick Vinton,
• Lawton Parker 
• Louis Ritman.

Artistic Works:

Le pape et l'inquisiteur (1882)

Pope Formosus and Stephen VII" - The "Cadaver Synod" (1870)

L'Excommunication de Robert le Pieux - 1875

Hostages. Held by the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (1896)

The Agitator of Languedoc (1887). Held by the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse.

The last moments of Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico (1882). Held by the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Porträtt av en kvinna (1874).

The Western Roman Emperor Honorius (1880)

La Délivrance des emmurés de Carcassonne (1879)

Faust

Intérieur du Capitole de Toulouse, painted by Laurens.

The execution of the Duke of Enghien (1873)

Salle des illustres au Capitole de Toulouse, ville de Toulouse, région Midi-Pyrénées (France) : Le Lauraguais Campagne Toulousaine

Toulouse strengthens its walls to resist Simon de Montfort in 1218 

Honouring a Legend: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

It's Art and Culture month once again on the blog (in case you missed last year), a time when we appreciate the visual and musical wonders of art that our ancestors and contemporaries have given us. 

Now recently, I've developed a thing for classical music and seeing as it was absent last year (unfairly!), it deserves to start at #1 here. Though I'm sure most of you are familiar with the likes of Beethoven and Bach, quite a handful (aside from well-versed classical music enthusiasts) would recall the likes of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the great Russian composer. If you haven't heard of him, I don't blame you. If you haven't heard his works before, you should sit in a corner and think about what you've done.

Short Biography:
(From Wikipedia)

Tchaikovsky

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer whose works included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of The Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy. Some of these are among the most popular theatrical music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, which he bolstered with appearances as a guest conductor later in his career in Europe and the United States. One of these appearances was at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1891. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension in the late 1880s.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time, and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from where he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music; this seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or from forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great, and this resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia of the country's national identity.

Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his leaving his mother for boarding school, his mother's early death and the collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor, but musicologists now play down its importance. His sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera; there is an ongoing debate as to whether it was accidental or self-inflicted.

While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it sufficiently representative of native musical values and were suspicious that Europeans accepted it for its Western elements. In apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than base exoticism, and thus transcending stereotypes of Russian classical music. Tchaikovsky's music was dismissed as "lacking in elevated thought," according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg, and its formal workings were derided as deficient for not following Western principles stringently.

Works:

Swan Lake: Scene

Romeo and Juliet: Fantasy Overture

Nutcracker Trepak (Russian dance):