"In six minutes, a conjuring trick combining special effects and the magic of painting enables us to enter the world of Jacques Brissot. It is a visual poem that humorously recounts the building of a collage inspired from artist Peter Breugel's 'La Chute des Anges Rebelles.'" Artist Jacques Brissot is shown adding to and retouching a large-scale collage work, lending insight into his compositional choices and his techniques and methods. Music is by Michel Arich, with Barney Wilen playing saxophone.

Features works by the master printmaker and by his collaborators, students, and friends. Blackburn (1920 - 2003) changed the course of American art through his graphic work and the Printmaking Workshop, which he founded in New York City in 1948. His experiments in color lithography helped fuel the explosion of graphic art during the 1960s.

Creative activity (isn't) the icing on the cake. Human creativity is the cake. (Jerry Hirschberg) Creativity - "The mastery of information and skills in the service of dreams" (Hirschberg) - is much prized in the arts, science, business and the classroom. What does the creative process look like? Under what conditions does it flourish - what ignites the creative spark? Attempting to answer these questions, this class explores ways creativity has been understood in Western culture: what we prize and fear about creativity and its wellsprings; how writers, artists, scientists and inventors have described their own creative processes; how psychologists and philosophers have theorized it; ways in which creativity has been represented in Western culture, particularly in 20th century films; and creativity in everyday life, including our own lives. Readings include portions of psychologist Rollo May's The Courage To Create, and essays by Joan Didion, John Updike, Alice Walker, Oliver Sacks, and others. In addition, we'll watch video profiles of choreographer Paul Taylor, architect Maya Lin, and jazz musician Dave Brubeck. We'll keep journals in which we note our own observations and reflections on creative process. We will also watch a film together as a class one evening early in the term.

In this module you will find the outline of the slide presentation that can be used with this lesson. The slide presentation can be viewed in the link offered at the end of the slide outline. In the first lesson, students will visit a museum in Spain. They will read about its history and type of exhibits that hey hold regularly during the year. Students will be able to visit the "virtual museum" and see actual works of art by Spanish artists as well as other artists. They will gather information based on a series of questions provided and then compile their findings and prepare written and oral presentations to the class. Students will post their findings to the teacher web site on their daily Team Notes (See the powerpoint presentation and outline for an example of how to do this part). Each clue can lead to a different discovery with continuing lessons and/or according to what country and culture students are studying.

Acclaimed theater director brings movement to Cezanne's painting, reproduced in the studio for the camera. [Suzushi Hanayagi,] a dancer from the Kabuki theater, performs the role of the woman, whose slight, almost imperceptible, facial and body movements -- together with mysteriously animated objects and strange apparitions -- bring the painting alive. A spoon stirs a cup of coffee without the benefit of human assistance. An off-camera figure manipulates objects. The woman eats green candies. A giant rat head appears in the background. Finally, the woman exits and is replaced by a young woman. Lyrical music and exaggerated sound effects form the soundtrack by Hans Peter Kuhn.

Accounts of Caravaggio's life are filled with suggestions of murder and intrigue. But does knowing more about this dark artist's experiences help us to interpret his art? Or does understanding his motivations cloud their true meaning? This unit explores the biographical monograph, one of the most common forms of art history writing.

"Twentieth Century Artists" raw material on the artist Lee Krasner, consisting of three-hour interview on three video cassettes.

Tape 1 (60:00): Childhood; influence of Hebrew on her art; influence of calligraphy on her art; attitudes toward feminism; reasons for getting into art; early education; education at Cooper Union and National Academy of the Arts (New York); ideas on talent vs. will in art; the unconscious in art; the opening of Museum of Modern Art (New York); life after art school; job as a waitress; work with Harold Rosenberg and Max Speevak on murals for the WPA (Workers Program Administration); influence of loft spaces on large-scale paintings; early shows of Abstract Expressionists (Gallatin, Morris, Furlinghouse, Balcolm, Green, Ballatowski); views on the group; Hans Hoffman's teachings on Cubism and her perceptions of his art; Greenberg's and Rosenberg's relationships with artists of the 1930's and 40's; her debunking of the myth of there being a "group" of New York painters; the meaning of the term "Abstract Expressionism"; her disputation of regionalism in Pollock's paintings.

Tape 2 (60:00): Disputation of the provincial label placed on Pollock; Krasner's and Pollock's ideas on French art; disputation of the myths placed on Abstract Expressionists by critics; her "Little Image" paintings; influences of Kadinsky, Picasso, Matisse and Miro on her and Pollock; first meeting with Pollock; influence of John Graham and his idea of "autonomic writing"; early encounters with Peggy Guggenheim; influence of Emerson's writings; her wedding with Pollock; Pollock's interest in spiritual matters and rituals; their move and life at the Springs in East Hampton, Long Island; the "macho" aspects of the New York artists in the 1940's and 50's; the influence of Melville's and Joyce's writings on her and Pollock.

Tape 3 (70:00): Overemphasis of Jungian analysis on Pollock's works; life with Pollock (good times and bad); influence of Jung's writings on her and Pollock; refutation of group label placed on the New York School; polarity of struggle and transcendence in her paintings and those of the Abstract Expressionists; gesture and "the physical" in her works; nature and "the organic" in her and Pollock's works; impact of transcendentalism on her paintings; changes in her work after Pollock's death; "mystery" in painting (the way some paintings "miraculously" come through to her); the importance of the "Little Image" paintings to her career; origins of her collages; use of calligraphy in her works; intuitive, unconscious nature of her creations; her work cycle; perceptions toward her audience.

This project was the second of what was to have been a collection of interviews with artists of all fields, the goal of which was the formation of a national videotape archival center at WGBH. Edited segments of these interviews were to be used for broadcast. Neither of these goals came to fruition. The only other interview to be conducted as part of the Twentieth Century Artists" series was with installation artist Judy Chicago. (Dancer Honi Coles was interviewed as part of the "Dance Archiving Project" in 1981, and Melanie Kahane (interior designer), Paul Rand (graphic artist), Charles Blessing (city planner), and O'Neil Ford (architect) were interviewed as part of the "Design Archives" project in 1981.)

The interview was conducted over two days in October 1979 in Boston. The interviewer is Barbara Novak, a professor and authority on American painting. The bulk of the interview consists of Krasner discussing her pre-Pollock and Pollock years. (Krasner was the wife of painter Jackson Pollock.)

Lee Krasner was born in New York City in 1911 to a conservative Orthodox Jewish family. After becoming interested in art while in high-school she studied painting at Cooper Union and the National Academy of the Arts in New York. After graduation she worked as a muralist as part of the WPA (Work Progress Administration), along with many artists who would later become well-known "New York School" artists. She first met Jackson Pollock in 1943. They were married in 1946. Pollock and Krasner formed part of the New York School of artists in the 1940's and '50's. Like Pollock, Krasner was regarded as an Abstract Expressionist, perhaps the most famous group of twentieth century American painters. Though she was well known when she met Pollock, his paintings and persona largely overshadowed Krasner during their tumultuous years together. After Pollock's death in 1956, Krasner went through a period of inactivity until reemerging with her "Little Image" series in the 1960's. She also became famous for her collages in which she used fragments of her former paintings. She died at the age of 83 in 1984.

In this course, you will study the various artistic movements that comprise 19th- and 20th-century modern art. You will examine several dozen artists, all of whom helped define their respective artistic styles and eras through their innovative approaches to representation, artistic space, and the role of the artist in society. Each unit will cover a significant period in the history of modern art and explore the ways in which both the principal figures from each period and the corresponding movements challenged the limits of art through the incorporation of modern life, as each artist addresses the political, philosophical, and personal implications of “modernity” and how it relates to the production of artwork.

Bill Charette's 'Northlight' looks at three different artists with studios in the same building. A painter working from a still life talks about the importance of light. A woman who makes sculptures talks about her obsession with the equilateral triangle, a shape that dominates her work. The third artist, a man, is shown painting portraits of live models.

This course is a self paced question oriented path to help you as an artist determine your goals, direction and your voice.

Documentary-style piece featuring associates of artist Emmett Williams, speaking about their personal recollections of him. Speakers are shown in extreme close-up. Some of the speakers' stories are left unfinished. Digital effects are used with some of the speakers. Shots of a hotel worker delivering food occasionally are placed between the speakers, with subtitles showing what time the room service was delivered. Shot during the International Seminar on the Arts, Warsaw, Poland, May 23-30, 1987. A self-portrait drawing by Emmett Williams is shown at the beginning and the end of work. Williams is shown after the final speaker, though he does not speak himself. Approximately 23 minutes in length.

This site focuses on the powerful memorial created to honor one of the first African-American units of the Civil War. Six sections of in-depth material explore the artist and his working methods, historical background on Shaw and the regiment, the memorial and its conservation, text from the exhibition, and teaching resources.

Focuses on the production of visual art for public places outside the gallery/museum context. Readings and discussions that engage aesthetic, social, political, and urban issues relevant to this expanded public context complement studio production. Traditional approaches of enhancement and commemoration are contrasted to more temporal and critical methodologies. Historical models are studied and discussed, including Russian Constructivist experiments, the Situationists, Conceptual Art, and more recent interventionist tactics.