Coursework Art & Design Unit 1.

AS level. 2007-08

By September students need to have already collected digital images and studied the working methods of an artist, which could form the basis for the development of their ideas.

Light and Dark / Figures and Places’

The first unit (‘Light and Dark / Figures and Places’ see below) to be completed, mounted and presented by December, 2007.

A written evaluation has to explain the processes you have been through in arriving at the finished piece and the reasons for the decisions made. The development of your work has to be clear.

Chiaroscuro- Italian for "light-dark." The gradations of light and dark values in two-dimensional imagery; especially the illusion of rounded, three-dimensional form created through gradations of light and shade rather than line, highly developed by Renaissance painters.

Work has to express some aspect of how light and dark extremes can affect the subject of a figure, figures or place.

It has to involve both form and content.

Students could work in 2 or 3 dimensions; experimenting with, for instance: paint, sculpture, collage, print, photography, use of text, video, objects.

Students could choose one or more of the following areas to explore in relation to ‘Light and Dark’: Body/Personality, Sense of Place.

Light and Dark - Body/Personality

Body, the location of our being,– how are light and dark used to convey mood or meaning in the portrayal of the figure, flesh, blood, bone, light and dark emotions. Artists have continually tried to express their feelings of an inner life or through exploring the light and dark imagery of the unconscious mind. Possible artists to look at:

Painters

· Caravaggio

· Rembrandt

· Leonardo da Vinci

· Lucien Freud.

· Munch

· Goya

Don’t just consider painters look at photographers and film makers. Make your own video? Light and dark words, text, music can be used too. Look at:

· Frank Capra's ‘Meet John Doe’ (1941); of the genre of film noir- look on the Net

· The shadowy shots of Marlon Brando's character Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979) Google it.

· Various photographers use Chiaroscuro in their work. Visit the national Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square or the massive photographic exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Research artists and collect examples of their work. Take your own digital photographs of figures in extremes of light and dark

Light and Dark - Sense of Place/Locations

Artists have continually tried to express feelings of significance to places and locations through symbolism, light and dark colour, gesture or through exploring the light and dark imagery of locations

Possible artists to look at:

John Virtue – London paintings when Artist in residence at the national gallery

John Piper – war artist who portrayed the enduring spirit of the British conveyed by his paintings of bombed out Churches and cityscapes with shafts of golden light piercing the darkness.

Piper also used strong Chiaroscuro in his textural landscape paintings.

Samuel Palmer: printmaker who worked in beautiful black and white imagery of landscape.

Anselm Keifer – mixed media conveying the vast dereliction of modern life.