Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Claude Monet loved his garden and made about 250 paintings of water lilies. He and his Impressionist contemporaries were focused on color, light, and how our eyes perceive the world, but I would say technology was also central to the development. In his paintings of the train station, The Gare Saint Lazare, Monet gives us a glimpse of iron and glass station filled with the smoke of the steam engines. One critic wrote, “Unfortunately thick smoke escaping from the canvas prevented our seeing the six paintings dedicated to this study.” While the Impressionists were overtly apolitical, there is always a statement made by what is shown and what is not shown. Even if the artist himself or herself strives to be objective simply holding a mirror to their world, which way they aim that mirror matters. Monet shows the steam engine in its element as the subject of the work not merely something in the background. Technology of course drives change in our world. In the middle of the 19th century, painters suddenly had to compete with the camera. As photographs could quickly and easily capture the lines, shapes and proportions of a subject, painters shifted their focus to the color, an element cameras could not capture at that time. The tube of paint and numerous synthetic pigments also came about in the 19th century giving artists easy access to a wider range of colors. As I look at Monet’s use of so many colors, the pinks and blues of the cloud rising from the steam engine, I think of the critics the defenders of the status quo feeling threatened by change. They feel overwhelmed by the subject and begin to choke at the sight of roaring engines filling the space with smoke and they want to look away. They want the grand facades buildings and well-dressed elites walking city streets, not the workers and machines that powered the advancements. Monet though was unwavering. He meticulously studied his subjects at different times and in different seasons to find the beauty of even the smoke and engines in the industrial space. While the critics wanted grand visions of mythology, Monet showed what he and countless others experienced in the real world.Other episodes to listen to: Claude Monet | Water Lilies Art Smart: Impressionism & Post Impressionism Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Sun Stone is probably the first bit of Aztec art I became familiar with even before I studied art. On its face, we see a beautiful image full of symbols laid out in radial symmetry that is just so visually satisfying, but as we look a little closer and get to know the symbols, this stone image is a lot deeper and heavier than I realized.Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Art Smart is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.ArtSmartPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelangelo was considered to be one of the greatest examples of a Renaissance man. He is also one of the worst examples of personal hygiene. Learn a little bit about the artist who painted the ceiling on the Sistine Chapel.Related episodes: Michelangelo | The Sistine Chapel Ceiling Art Smart: The Renaissance Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Basquiat as the artist himself was like tofu, able to soak up and take on so many different flavors. Middle class child, homeless teen, bankable star of the art world. He was a graffiti artist selling postcards on the street, celebrated painter wearing armani suits to work in his studio. Basquiat inhabited so many different worlds, people can pick the story that resonates with them because as Basquiat famously said, “I am not a real person. I am a legend.”It seems an impossible task, but I always like to look for stories that will help to understand the real person behind the legend. With Basquiat, I first learned of him as a graffiti artist turned studio artist. The graffiti work that helped him rise to prominence was a team effort. Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz made humorous, thoughtful and critical text based pieces on the walls of Manhatten. In Diaz’s telling when he got to know Basquiat as a teen, it was immediately obvious to him, that Jean Michel was not a graffiti artist. Diaz laughed as he said Basuiat “drew the sliding doors in a subway car and put his name in it: ‘Jean the Bohemian.’ That was his tag.”To learn a little more: Jean-Michel Basquiat | Untitled Skull (full episode with Todd Leban) Jean-Michel Basquiat | Horn Players Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Nigerian-born artist who moved to America as a teen and her work Predecessors looks at how her family has changed over generations. She uses painting and collage techniques to share her memories and connect different aspects of her identity as she has roots in both Nigeria and America.If you want to learn more, check out the full episode I recorded with Janet Taylor, an artist, art teacher, and writer for The Art of Education University.Njideka Akunyili Crosby (full episode)Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cezanne is widely celebrated today, but he struggled early on. He was rejected by Beaux Arts multiple times. He went back home to work at the bank for a while but he felt compelled to pursue the arts and he persisted. He met other artists like Renoir and Monet who had also been rejected by academic establishment and many critics of the day. The supported each other and learned from each other. In 1863, people were so sick of being rejected by the Paris Salon, they actually set up “Salon des Refuses” (salon of the rejected) next to the official salon to exhibit works by Monet, Manet, Pissarro. Cezanne would have loved to have his paintings exhibited in The Paris Salon, but his work hung in The Salon des Refuses.Related episodes to check out: Paul Cezanne (full episode) Art Smart - Impressionism & Post Impressionism Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season 6 is covering the artists in this year's Arts Madness Tournament. I will be releasing 64 mini episodes in 64 days to give you a quick refresher on all the different artists and artworks in the tournament.By the 1960s Roy Lichtenstein was intrigued by the ideas of pop art and began dabbling in the style. Of course, if you want fresh new ideas, the best source is often the younger generation. Roy Lichtenstein was pushed by his young son. One day in 1961, the younger Lichtenstein taunted his father holding up his copy of the Disney book Donald Duck: Lost and Found. He pointed to an illustration and said, “I bet you can’t draw something as good as that?” In what can only be described as one of the greatest “so there’s” of all time Roy Lichtenstein made a direct copy of the illustration painting onto a canvas four feet tall and almost six feet wide. In doing so, he was not only successful in sticking it to his son, Roy Lichtenstein became a tremendous success in the art world.Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Episodes to check out for further learning: Who ARTed - Roy Lichtenstein Art Smart - Pop Art Art Smart - Abstract Expressionism Who ARTed - Zaria Forman Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am releasing a mini episode every day in the run up to this year's Arts Madness Tournament to give you a quick refresher on all 64 artists/artworks. In this mini episode, I covered Christian Dior and The New Look from 1947.If you want to learn more, you can listen to the full episode I recorded back in October with Cassie StephensChristian Dior | BarArts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Eiffel Tower was by far the largest structure built for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. Eiffel was an entrepreneur and he had two engineers working with him to plan the iron tower, but not everyone was on board with the design. Audiences today may be surprised to hear that many Parisians thought the design was an eyesore and a blight on their beautiful city. The architect Stephen Sauvestre was commissioned to work on the design to make it less ugly. He drafted arches, glass-walled halls on every level, stonework around the base, and other ornamental details throughout the structure. Ultimately they stripped it down to a more utilitarian structure but they kept his idea of arches at the base. The form of the tower is largely determined by the engineers' calculations to cut down on wind resistance. The primary resistance came from writers and artists who criticized the tower throughout its construction. I think my favorite description came from Francois Coppee who called it “this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed.” Of course, this criticism faded as the world’s fair began and the tower was a huge hit. Over 2 million visitors came to marvel at it. While it did prove successful, the Eiffel tower was not intended to be a permanent fixture in the city. It was built to wow visitors in the fair and then to be torn down later. Eiffel only had a permit to have the structure stand for 20 years. The idea that the tower would be temporary provided an interesting opportunity for another sort of creative visionary. A truly remarkable con artist named Victor Lustig sold the tower for scrap… two times. While truly awful, his plan was quite clever. He posed as an official with the French government, but instead of claiming a high-status post, he pretend to be a mid-level, government official. He met with heads of various scrap iron companies telling them that because of the sensitive nature of such a high-profile project he was trying to meet with people discretely to get bids for the roughly 7,300 tons of iron used to build the tower. He then met privately with the least successful of the bidders and tried to appear empathetic. He told the guy, look I know you are up and coming, it’s hard to compete with these bigger companies, I feel for you. I’m just a mid-level government employee, I’m struggling too. Maybe we can help each other out. He actually got the guy to bribe him for the contract for all the scrap iron which did a few things. It made him seem a little more credible to the guy he was conning, but more importantly for Lustig, it made his mark less likely to report the crime as doing so would be not only embarrassing but also implicate him for bribery. Lustig got the money and then fled to Austria where he watched the papers to see if there were any reports of his crime. He was correct that the businessman would be too embarrassed to report the crime. In the ultimate show of hubris, Lustig returned to Paris and attempted to repeat the same scam. The second time around he was not so successful and ended up fleeing the country yet again. He went on to carry out numerous other audacious crimes before he was arrested and sent to the notorious Alcatraz prison in the United States.Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season 6 is all about the annual Arts Madness Tournament. I am releasing 64 mini episodes over 64 days to give you all a quick refresher on the diverse artists that will be up for consideration as we narrow the field down to just one ultimate Arts Madness Champion. To make it more fun, I will be using my ad revenue from the month of February to give out some prizes, so tell your friends about the show. The more listeners we get, the more prizes I can give out.Today's mini-episode is about Auguste Rodin and his sculpture of The Burghers of Calais. The story behind the piece is an inspiring tale that defines courage.Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices