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V&A Museum!
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| photograph taken by myself. |
The museum is split into parts, Asia, Europe, modern, materials and techniques and exhibitions. They all had their own unique artifacts and sculptures which were either 18, 19 or 20th century. We managed to look around the museum as much as possible and along the way I found some inspiring artists.
When looking through all the separate galleries, I wasn't so much interested in the 18/19th century antiques however, they were gorgeous to look at but I think my own work doesn't relate to that sense of style.
I was mainly intrigued by the isotype gallery, painting and drawings, stained glass and photography. To find practitioners at the V&A I thought these three areas would be key to use towards my own work, since I am mainly focusing on virtual environments as my chosen pathway for the next two years. The images below show the artwork in each area that inspired me the most. I have written a brief description to show why I am inspired by them. (I photographed all the images below and manipulated them only slightly to present them more attractively and clearer.)
Isotype
Isotype (International System Of TYpographic Picture Education) is a method of constructing and publishing information using visual graphic materials. These are pictogram's of people or objects that communicate visually to people of all ages. It shows a clear design method for educational and development of knowledge.
From the images above you can see on the right hand side, the design titles 'Unemployment In Great Britian' and below give a clear example of the dates and small graphic pictures of people. This shows us a quick and easy message to what it is trying to get across to the viewers.
There are three creators of Isotype. Otto Neurath, Marie Neurath and Gerd Arntz. Otto Neurath is the intellectual leader of Isotype, who spent his lifetime embracing political economy, sociology, philosophy, urbanism and visual communication. He was also the director of the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna. Marie Neurath became a creative author in the 1950's and 60's designing children's books on history and science subjects. Gerd Arntz worked at the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna producing pictogram's and gave Isotype its outstanding graphic style.
I have decided to use Isotype within my research for my visual essay because I think this will help me to show my work visually and since my chosen pathway for level two is virtual environments (animation), I consider the style of graphics used in Isotype can relate to the design in my own work. I tend to use block, bold and bright colours within my work, which keeps it quite modern and clear. This applies insignificantly to the graphic style of Isotype. I will continue to research further on Isotype, which can potentially work towards my ideas for presenting my essay.
Paintings & Drawings
In the paintings & drawings gallery, I came across these paintings by an artist named John Constable. The detail of each painting made them stand out to me and the artist uses similar landscape images. Constable uses pencil sketches to produce his work. He was an English romantic painter, who painted the surroundings of is home - "I should paint my own paintings best".
I definitely consider to use him to relate to my own work because he creates brilliant landscape paintings which connects with the reality of virtual environments. In animation it is crucial to have an artistic background and I personally think John Constable can help me throughout my research to be able to capture the environments within an animation. I will continue to research John Constable and his paintings.
I also came across children's books in the paintings & drawing gallery, as shown above. The artist is called Walter Crane who was a English artist and book illustrator. Crane is a well known children's book creator of his generation. As you can see above, he has developed numerous illustrated children's books with some minor text during the 19th and 20th century. I was interested by the style of the drawings and how you can see that they are quite aged by the costume design and detail.
On the bottom right image, you can see the sketched illustration and the painted version. This is nice to see, because you can see a simple development of the drawing. I would like to use this practitioner towards my own work to show the contrast and familiarity within my animation and character design work.
Photography
The photography gallery was quite small and a security woman kept telling us to not take photographs for some reason, but I managed to take the two above. The image on the left was produced by an artist named Robert Heinecken. I read the blurb about the photographs and I thought it was interesting because Heinecken believed there was too many photographic images. He named this ARE YOU REA, which extenuates REAL/REALLY. He used this to explore consumer culture and self-image.
The image on the right is by an artist named Henry Holmes Smith. In his portfolio he explains 'As the syrup lens runs down the sheet of glass it causes light falling on it to refract, making marks that celebrate life itself. This celebration, in turn, honours sight and in this double celebration I honour not only light and sight but true master, L. Moholy-Nagy, as well.'
I'm inspired by this photograph because it is very unique and abstract and it keeps you thinking about the image. It also looks quite modern and stylish, yet the meaning behind it is very detailed, as shown above.
I could explore these two artists because even if their artwork doesn't inspire my own, there style of thinking about design could possibly inspire me to think more creatively.
Stained Glass
I thought the stained glass gallery was interesting because of the fine detail and how they tell a story visually, which is a great feature to explore for my own work. The three images above (I have manipulated them slightly) tells the story - The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee. The story depicts the miracle of Jesus calming the Sea's Of Galilee, which is from the Gospel Of Mark of the Christian Bible.
This is unique and delicate, especially the stained glass artwork which shows a narrative understanding of the testament in the bible.
I purposely picked out this piece of stained glass because the people in the artwork look a lot like modern cartoon characters compared to the stained glass artwork we normally see. Originally stained glass artwork has many people shown, which tells a story however this doesn't seem to be narrative. The main aspect I like about stained glass artwork is the colours used. They always seem to be bright and colourful to look at, which makes it attractive and graceful. This would be useful to research, as they use different materials and in college I made a candle holder using stained glass, which I could possibly included within my visual essay. After selecting the practitioners and information from the V&A museum, I will now expand and research my chosen artists. I will also use these artists to relate to others who are similar.
Isotype, John Constable, Walter Crane will be considered as the main practitioners I have selected from the trip to use towards my visual essay. Yet, I will also explore photography and stained glass in a way of thinking about design as a concept.
Overall the V&A museum was a great opportunity and I am pleased with the practitioners I have found, which can potentially inspire my own work.
Cool. glad you found it useful. I really like the mix of artists here.
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