For my research I visited a museum about art and design on Saturday 24th of October, 2015 in Belt Valletta (south street) called National Museum of Fine Arts by Heritage Malta. I’m going to discuss about five different furniture of design.
Designer : unknown Italian
Venue : National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta
Date : 24/10/2015
This 18th century chest drawer was one of the first piece of furniture that caught my attention with its geometric rigid lines and the small square shapes in the second and third drawer. The type of wood is veneered with walnut and orange wood. The size of the drawer is height 82 cm, depth 49.5 and width 79.5 cm. There is a feeling of stability and equality in the lines from right to left. The first drawer is different from the rest and although the “star shaped” shapes in the second and third drawer have some value to make it look like more three dimensional, the first drawer has all of the three colors of the drawer all together. Black to dark brown and light brown. The dark and light brown are the drawers natural color.
Personally when it comes to my musical art project I don’t intend on using any symmetrical and geometric shapes or patterns apart from musical instruments such as a guitar and the chords etc. I see music as something that is fluent and goes with the rhythm of the song. Here is a sketch that I drew of what I mean.
Title : Chest of Drawers
Designer : Unknown French
Venue : National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta
Date : 24/10/2015
This walnut drawer was designed and made in the 18th century with a height of 94.5 cm, depth 62 cm and width 129.5 cm. Unlike the first drawer this one has circular shapes and sides and unlike the first one that’s all flat and has the drawn shapes and elements on it while this one was carved to shape those three dimensional textures. Again there is a sense of stability in the design it’s self. What I really liked about this drawer was the wavy motion of the drawers. It creates that easy flowing movement. This is the same movement and feeling that I feel on music. This inspired me to draw curved and wavy musical chords for my project.
Title : unknown
Designer : unknown
Venue : National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta
Date : 24/10/2015
As you go up to the second floor of the museum you will immediately notice the sculptures and the ornaments but what I really liked about all of this was the lion because of its fine sculptured features. We see a lot of sculptures such as a lions on peoples front porch of there house and sometimes I don’t even notice them but when I see them in museums and other sites like this one I appreciate them more especially when I know that they are old. In fact the palace is one of the earliest to be built in Valletta as it served as residence to successive Knights of Malta and then in the 1760’s it was largely rebuilt by a wealthy Portuguese Knights Ramon de Sousay Silva. Also in the early 19th century it was home to the Count Beaugolais, a relative of the King of France. Back to the lion, the most part that has detail and texture in it is the hair of the lion. Lines can be found forming the hair and the staircase. The staircase is very smooth and very well made. What I noticed too is that the lions face has a lot of characteristics with the one of a human face. The eye brows, nose and those lines that appear on the forehead when someone gets old and even the expression on the lions face is somewhat human-like. Maybe the artist was trying to show us that “humanity rules all” since in the wild the lion is known as the “king of the jungle”. These are just my thoughts and opinion. The design of the staircase and the hair of the lion has a lot in common with the famous whip lash from Art Nouveau where there's those curved lines and forms and that inspired me to draw them once again for my self.
Title : Writing desk
Designer : unknown Italian
Venue : National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta
Date : 24/10/2015
The reason that this 18th century wooden writing desk caught my attention was that star shaped symbol on it. The size is height 83.5 cm, depth 63 cm and width 109.5 cm. That same symbol is also on the first drawer that I talked about during this essay. On the drawer the symbol was under the keyholes and now it’s on the surface of the table and if you look closely the pattern of the lines are forming a geometric angle which is creating movement by pointing to the symbol and the symbol is in the middle of all of it. So in both furniture that can be the same artist is showing great importance to the symbol. Since the palace was the home for the knights of Malta I thought maybe it’s the Maltese eight pointed cross but the points and lines don’t match. The sense that I don’t know what the symbol means for the artist it is making me curious but I know for sure that it was of great importance to him/her. There are a variety of tones of brown on the surface. This table is even more alike with the drawer because it has geometric shapes such as the rectangles and it’s all flat. Although I said that I won't be using any or at least a lot of geometry in my project, the symmetrical patterns of the surface of the desk really inspired me to work with geometric shapes and patterns for my own personal drawings.
Title : unknown
Designer : unknown
Venue : National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta
Date : 24/10/2015
What I really like about this wooden desk is the symmetrical balance from right to left. The surface is obviously smooth since it was probably used to write or place something on it. Although everything is symmetrical there are no geometric shapes just organic. Vertical and curved lines were used to help with the design. The design of the desk is not something you see everyday because the legs go inwards beneath the surface. The way that the legs are curved they are creating a flowing wavy motion and again here is the same movement in want to create in my work. Personally I'm not a fan when it comes to figure art and design but I really liked the proportion of the length of the face and that inspired me to draw exaggeratingly proportionated narrow and long forms. Task 2 research
Art Nouveau
Started in Belgium in the early 1890s Art Nouveau was an international influence that spread in France, Spanish, American and British art and design. It was mostly practised by young painters and designers because it was considered as a modernist movement. This is because Art Nouveau was based on the idea to create a new style of art and design where no influences of any historical events laid.
Artists that were influenced by this movement had to look back at there origin of there own culture. This movement consisted of simplicity, nature and organic elements. Nouveau was influenced by a number of movements such as Rococo (France), Egyptian art, Gothic revival, Celtic art with its patterns, Japanese art with its flattened space, the Arts and Crafts movement by William Morris with his idea to create new things and to promote the return to hand-craftsmanship and independent creativity and an other obvious big influence was nature.
In the 1900s there were few countries in the West that were not influenced by Art Nouveau. It was adopted by a lot of artists such as architects, furniture makers and designers, jewellers and graphical artists. The main focus of artists was to create new and creative things which this movement was driven by. The fact that this movement was very famous and we’ll known by everyone at that time ever people from different cultures and countries gave Nouveau different names. Art nouveau in Britain and Glasgow, Nouveau or modern style in France, Sezessionstil in Vienna and Austria, ‘Stile liberty’ in Italy, Modernist in Spain, in America it was considered to be part of the Arts and Crafts movement and Jugendstil not Germany which means ‘young style’ because of the link with the activities of young painters.
Many of the art and design works had similar elements like the use of a lot of organic shapes, curves and absence of straight lines. Many other works were inspired and have insects, birds, swans, dragonflies, peacocks and shallows. A very famous deportation is called whip lash. This is a sort of curved sharp line that gives the impression that it’s trying to free it’s self from some invisible force. In a metaphorical way it can be associated with what Art Nouveau is really driven by and that’s the intention continuity to break it’s self away from any traditions.
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| Figure 1 (Vam.ac.uk, 2015) Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) ‘Job’ 1898 Colour Lithography |
An example of the use of white lash can be seen on how the hair of the woman in the poster is curled.
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Figure 2 (Musee-orsay.fr, 2015)
Emile Galle’ (1846-1904)
Vase 1900
Multi-layered glass, marbled and partly hammered outer surface, glass marquetry and wheel engraving.
Height 24.5; Width 15 cm
Paris, Musee d’Orsay
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Inspiration from the natural flora and arts and crafts techniques. Use of organic shapes and earthy colours.
References :
Vam.ac.uk, 2015. Study Room Resource: Art Nouveau - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/study-room-resource-art-nouveau/> [Accessed 12 Dec. 2015].
Images :
Musee-orsay.fr, 2015. Musée d'Orsay: Emile Gallé Vase. [online] Available at: <http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/decorative-arts/commentaire_id/vase-7197.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=846&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=843&cHash=2179e4a112> [Accessed 12 Dec. 2015].
Vam.ac.uk, 2015. Study Room Resource: Art Nouveau - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/study-room-resource-art-nouveau/> [Accessed 12 Dec. 2015].
Arts and
Crafts movement
Started around
1880 by an English artists called William Morris the arts and crafts movement
was the main source of inspiration and influence for the aesthetic movement and
Art Nouveau. Some of the first works of this movement were by Morris in Britain.
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Figure 1 (Vam.ac.uk, 2015)
William Morris
‘Trellis’ woodblock printed wallpaper
Made in England 1864
Museum no. E.452-1919
Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
Later other works
influenced by this movement started appearing in America and Europe before
finally it spread to Japan and became Mingei (folk craft) movement. Morris
first was in a movement called the Pre-Raphaelites which then this inspired him
for the idea of the arts and crafts movement in 1861. Not until 1887 when the
movement took its official name From the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.
Morris was an English educationist, theorist, writer, lecturer, artists and
designer. Just like art Nouveau, he was inspired from nature and John Ruskin which
the Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by.
The purposes
behind this movement were to educate society like Augustus Pugin wanted, to
raise design at the same level of art and to fight against the mass production
of that time. Morris believed a lot in equality and harmony in society but when
it came to hand made products, they are usually always much more expensive then
manufactured machine-made products so low and middle class people of that time
could not always afford to buy such products and Morris tried a lot of things
to solve it but never actually managed to and that really worried him. Another
very important purpose behind this movement was the concern of losing the craftsmanship
for the products made by hand.
A great inspiration
for Morris’s wallpaper was the Acanthus leaf which can be seen in a lot of his
works.
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Figure 2 (Vam.ac.uk, 2015)
William Morris
‘Acanthus’ wallpaper
1875
Museum no. E.495-1919
Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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Figure 3 (Collections.vam.ac.uk, 2015)
Voysey Charles Francis Annesley (1857-1941)
Wallpaper Made in England 1899
Color Machine print with mica on
paper
Credit: Given by Morton Sundour Fabrics Ltd Museum Number: CIRC.263-1953 |
Figure 4 (Vam.ac.uk, 2015)
(Ticket of The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society by Walter Crane, England UK 1890, Victoria and Albert Museum London)
References:
Tate.org.uk, 2015. Arts and Crafts. [online] Available at: <http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/arts-and
crafts> [Accessed 12 Dec. 2015].
Vam.ac.uk, 2015. The Arts & Crafts Movement - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-arts-and-crafts-movement/> [Accessed 12 Dec. 2015].
Images:
Vam.ac.uk, 2015. The Arts & Crafts Movement - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-arts-and-crafts-movement/> [Accessed 12 Dec. 2015].
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