Showing posts with label Fresco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fresco. Show all posts

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Detroit Industry Murals - Diego Rivera


We just learned about the famous work of art Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt.

Another famous work of art is the Detroit Industry Murals by Diego Rivera in 1933.

In the 1930s the area of Detroit Michigan was the best in the world at building things like cars very quickly using machines for manufacturing.

The Detroit Institute of Arts museum asked the famous mural painter Diego Rivera to come make paintings about Detroit's manufacturing.

He painted 27 different murals as frescos showing people using machines to build cars.
In the paintings he tried to make the people and machines very similar, so that people might even think about where the person ended and the machine started.

(from: wikipedia - detroit industry murals)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Solar Core - Size

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Raphael Rooms - Raphael


We just learned about the famous work of art The Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata by Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, also known as Donatello.

Another famous work of art is a collection of paintings called the Raphael Rooms by artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, also known as Raphael in Italy in 1509.

Just like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, these were frescoes.
They were painted during the Italian Renaissance, which was a time when artists from all over Europe came to Italy to share their art and work with other artists.

The leaders of the Catholic church named Pope Julius II asked Raphael to paint four rooms, and in each room to paint all four walls and the ceiling, which is twenty paintings.

Unfortunately, Raphael died after he had only completed two of the rooms, so the other artists that he worked with finished the other rooms.

The first room he painted was The Stanza della segnatura, meaning Room of the Signatura.
The four paintings there were to represent theology (God), philosphy (wisdom), jurisprudence (law) and poetry.

The painting for philosophy was called The School of Athens and many people feel it was his greatest painting ever.

Raphael painted 21 different people in the painting, and the people in the painting are supposed to be famous philosophers through history.
Two of the most famous philosophers were Aristotle and Plato, who are in the middle of the room by the door.
Each of the philosophers is dressed and posed different, to help show who they all are and the things in life they tried to study.

(from: wikipedia - the school of athens)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Lunar Rocks

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - Michelangelo


We just learned about the famous painting the The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Another very famous painting was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo.

Over 500 years ago, Michelangelo took on the job to add paintings to the ceiling of a chapel in Italy.
It took him four years to finish it, and it has almost 50 different paintings on it, with over 300 different people in all the paintings.

Michelangelo made something called scaffolding, which were like build up giant platforms for him to stand on while he painted the ceiling way at the top of the building.
He painted on what is called fresco, which means they put on wet paste to build the wall and he painted on it. The wet paste soaked the colors into the wall so it would look really good.

His painting shows many stories from the Bible, and he split the ceiling up into different parts for each area.

In the main top part of the ceiling he made three paintings about Noah, 3 paintings about Adam and Eve, and 3 paintings about God creating the world.
Around each of those paintings, he painted what people think might have been angels, and small shields with other paintings in them.
On the outside of those other 9 paintings, he made paintings of 12 prophets like Isaiah, Daniel and Jeremiah.
Below that he made 14 more paintings showing other people from the Bible like Jacob and Joseph.
In the 4 corners of the ceiling he painted more famous people from the Bible: Moses, Esther, David and Judith.
And in smaller paintings in the triangles between he made 8 paintings of the ancestors of Jesus, like Joseph.

Each one of those paintings that he did would have been a masterpiece in a museum somewhere, and he painted 47 different ones on the ceiling of a building!

Michelangelo was considered a master of painting and sculpting the human form.
That means he was really good at drawing and sculpting muscles, bones and skin so that it looked very real.


(from: wikipedia - sistine chapel ceiling)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Moon - Highlands