Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Norman Rockwell is probably best known for his wholesome and nostalgic illustrations that graced the covers of The Saturday Evening Post for decades. His name has become shorthand for an idealized version of America but as we all know, in great art, there is always more than meets the eye. In this episode, we did not focus on Rockwell’s depictions of the American mythos. If you are interested in that stuff, check out my previous episode on Freedom from Want. For this episode, we focused on the hard truths Rockwell depicted in The Problem We All Live With. This is a piece about the struggle surrounding race, integration and equity and regardless of race, gender, ability, religion or other cultural identifiers, the struggle for equity is one we all live with because injustice for anyone is a harm to everyone. Norman Rockwell believed that our ideal of all people being treated fairly was important enough that he felt compelled to use his platform and his talents to call attention to it.My guest this week is Candido Crespo, fellow art teacher and host of Everyday Art Room from The Art of Education University. He is doing a ton of good work and here are the various places you can find him: https://linktr.ee/crespoarts Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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 Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful man-made structures in the world. It is a UNESCO world heritage site considered to be one of the modern wonders of the world. The story behind its construction is equally beautiful as it is a tale of love and devotion between Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal who passed away shortly after giving birth to their fourteenth child.The Taj Mahal has a massive dome stretching 240 feet covered in marble. The are four thin white marble minarets to mark the four corners. Of course without cranes, getting giant slabs of marble to such heights was no easy task. A ramp would be constructed to bring the pieces up, and to keep the incline manageable the ramp used for this construction had to be about 10 miles long. Shah Jahan never really got over the loss of his wife. He remained in mourning for years before his position was usurped by his fourth son. He was imprisoned in a fort in Agra in 1658. He was forbidden to leave and spent the final 8 years of his life in the fort looking out the window at the Taj Mahal. When he died in 1666, Shah Jahan was reunited with his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal in the crypt beneath the Taj Mahal.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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

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The bulk of Olowe’s carvings seem to have been both decorative and functional artworks for the Yoruba kings and prominent families. One of his celebrated works for example is the veranda post that sits in the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. In that piece we see the elongated neck and oval faces that were a part of his signature style. Traditionally Yoruba artists used scale and proportion to indicate hierarchy. The more important a figure, the larger they are within the composition. The status of the king’s senior wife is shown by her size while the king is seated central to the post. His crown eye level to the viewer and the king sits with his feat up above the ground signifying his transcendent nature. His eyes are cast down expressing a contemplative mood as he looks down on the world beyond. The crown has four ancestral faces signifying the legitimacy of his royal lineage, the divine line and wisdom running through it.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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

This is an encore presentation of the episode about Henri Matisse and his painting The Dessert: Harmony in Red from 1908.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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

In 1896, Louis Sullivan wrote about skyscrapers and architectural design in “The Tall Building Artistically Considered” This was the origin of the famous phrase, “form follows function.” What Sullivan actually said was “form must ever follow function” but regardless of phrasing, the meaning remains the same - architects should first consider how a building will be used then base the design on that. I remember when I was in school hearing my art history professor describe the early modern architectural philosophy like a layer cake. Sullivan argued that the building should be considered in tiers. At the base level, the business should be easily accessible to the public. It should be light and open and the second story should also be easily accessed by stairways. Above that, there should be offices. The offices should be uniform. They should look the same to unify the design and because they are all serving the same purpose. This section can have as many stories as needed and desired, then finally the attic at the top. Sullivan argued the attic story should have distinctive molding or a cornice to add not only a decorative flourish but to mark an end point to the building. Simultaneously this decorative topper would serve to set the building apart from others in the skyline. While the building bears Sullivan’s name today, and he was a very important and influential architect, he was not an easy man to work with. One of the things many people leave out of the story of this building is the fact that a different architect, Daniel Burnham was hired to complete the last phase of the building in 1906. Louis Sullivan had a reputation for being great artist but awful human and his career suffered because of it. In the end, Sullivan died penniless. Another great architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, actually took up a collection and paid for Sullivan’s burial and stone inscribed to pay tribute to Sullivan’s legacy. While the man may be gone, his words that “form must ever follow function” have been repeated in textbooks and etched in stone to live on influencing generations to come. Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain was a controversial early readymade. It has been named one of the most influential artworks of the 20th century and it is on the list of required works for AP Art History students to learn about. Since the Art History AP test is just a few weeks away, I thought this would be a good time to drop an encore presentation giving a little bit of contextual information to understand how a toilet could make such a splash in the art world.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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

Robert Smithson decided to make monumental sculptures using perhaps the world’s oldest material, the earth itself, but he used modern tools to shape it in a way and on a scale rarely seen. Spiral Jetty is as the name would suggest, a spiral. Part of what makes it special is the enormousness of it. On the peninsula at Rozel Point on Utah’s Great Salt Lake, Smithson created his most famous monumental sculpture using over six thousand tons of black basalt rocks and earth from the site. The spiral forms a path out onto the lake. It is intended to be not only witnessed, but experienced. Walking the spiral would be an almost meditative act similar to circumambulating or walking around a hindu temple. The spiral allows people to walk out onto the lake. A small speck on a vast lake witnessing the entropy of nature as the water erodes the foundation. The gigantic piece built from thousands of tons of stone has been decaying from the moment it was built. It was a giant monument to nature demonstrating the concept of entropy. It was born out of a time of social upheaval and changing norms leaving in which people were rethinking the ways they related to both nature and the constructed environment which now that I’m saying it out loud could just as easily be a description of pretty much any time period as the only true constant is change.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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 Impressionist movement was named after one of Claude Monet's paintings. In this episode, we discussed a bit about Monet and his life as well as one of his most famous series of works, Water Lilies. Monet loved painting his garden and over his lifetime, he created about 250 paintings of Water Lilies.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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

One Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous works is not housed in a museum. It is in the Convent of Santa Maria in Milan Italy. It seems totally fitting for a depiction of the last supper was painted on the wall in the convent’s dining hall. Visitors today are often surprised by how enormous the work it. The People are life sized on this massive 15 by 29 foot painting. Another surprising fact is that while people flock to see Leonardo’s work on the wall of the convent, very little if any of what we see there today was actually painted by Leonardo.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me: Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show: Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffeeAs 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