ART Website URLS & Paintings

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/impressionism.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism
http://www.impressionniste.net/impressionism_history.htm
http://www.radford.edu/~rbarris/art216sumfall/Impressionism.html
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Selected paintings
Claude Monet's "Impression, Sunrise" & "Rouen Cathedral"
Edouard Manat's "Woman Reading"
Gustave Caillebotte's "Paris Street, Rainy Day"

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While the large golden building in the center anchors the composition. The viewer can follow the street to the left of the mammoth structure deep into the horizon. And then do the same with the street to the right of the building. Though not as deep. And then there is the foreground painting, dominated by the couple coming into our space in the right. And by the wide open brand new brick street to the left. In combination with a playful approach to a thoroughly modern sense of perspective. Look at the couple walking toward us. Their cut off just below the knees. Why? Surely there was plenty of space in this large painting for the artist to portray them in full. And the gentleman to our right walking towards them. He has been literally cut in half. Cropped half in and half out of this scene. Again, why? The answer I think has to do with photography, a new invention in the 19th century that Caillebotte and his contemporaries often responded to in their paintings. Seeking to insure that art remained relevant by portraying life on canvas in ways photography could not. Especially when it came to capturing perspective, light, and color. In this painting though, Caillebotte playfully seems to me, gives photography a little jab. Not only can paint portray life more richly and fully than a camera. If a painter chooses to, he too can cut off subjects at his knees. And crop human beings in two. In other words, anything you can do camera I can do better seems to be the message here, and that is a lot of fun.

In Paris Street Rainy Day, Caillebotte captures a momentary impression, from memory, of a Paris street just after a stormed has passed. So recently passed in fact, that the pedestrians still have their umbrellas up and notice that the brick street is still wet. Just as Monet captured scenes of everyday life and of nature portraying light and the subjects in the scene as they appeared to him in a fleeting moment of time Caillebotte does the same thing. The moment and time Caillebotte portrays in Paris Street Rainy Day also serves as an important metaphor. Those initial moments just after a rain storm seems to have passed. They suggest the initial period of civil calm that followed bloody fighting in the streets of Paris. Fighting even took place in this very intersection, just before the painting was completed in 1877.

Significantly the painting also captures in vivid color the changes in that the Paris cityscape and street corners, just implemented by Napoleon the 3rd after a trip to England where classical architecture was settled on white broad boulevards. Notice also deep in the background just beyond the center building over the tip of the central gentleman's umbrella, the scafle showing how recent this work is and that it's still ongoing. Napoleon the 3rd had more in mind than civic pride and classical architectural taste however. Since police and soldiers under his charge could form up and maneuver in such wide spaces, whereas previously cold, angry disinfected, and angry Parisians could easily block a medieval street for hours or days. And so the respectable middle class Parisians depicted here in this work are out of doors on a clean safe street dressed to show. Resuming life again. Although the presence of the umbrella sure leave some uncertainty about whether or not the storm has really passed or has just taken a brief resting.

This is a urban modern street scene transformed into something beautiful and complex and alive. Notice the alert interested gaze of the couple in the foreground as they look at something of interest unknown to us off canvas. And Caillebotte gives the scene plenty of room to unfold much Napoleon the 3rd's new streets. There is also a hint of sadness in the piece with the rain, the haze of the sky, and the complete lack of interaction. Among most of the people portrayed on the street, perhaps raising more modern themes of the alienation of urban life and a lack of communication between people who ironically spend their whole lives practically or literally on top of one another in major cities.

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Death Penalty Paper - Introduction

@5752
ENGL P050 CRN 32356
Professor Jacinto Gardea
4 April 2011
"Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life," said Coretta Scott King. Yet to this day we continue to carry out death executions. In the United States a death row convict is executed every 3.5 days (Barry par.4). I believe that the death penalty needs to be abolished from the United States because it is costly, ineffective, and outdated. According to the online newspaper The Guardian, the United States has executed approximately 1,156 people in the time period of 1976 to April 2009 (Rogers). Do not forget to include the 107 people executed from 2009 up until this year. We, as humans, are prone to make mistakes and this system is capable of causing irreversible results. Many innocent people have been executed because they were in the minority or because they lacked funds to pay for adequate representation. The Death Penalty Information Center explains that since 1976 there have been eight cases which reveal that the prosecuted persons were innocent after they were executed. Even if we do choose to go through processes to make sure that the person was one hundred percent guilty it would still bombard our taxpayers with a ridiculous amount of money to pay for the court costs. Ironically, states that do not use the death penalty often usually have lower crime rates than states that do. The question remains. Why does the United States continue to waste millions of dollars on this obsolete system? All of this money should be put into more beneficial services, such as abuse prevention programs, education, and public safety programs. Former Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti told Los Angeles Times:
The money would be far better spent keeping kids in school, keeping teachers and counselors in their schools and giving the juvenile justice system the resources it needs. Spending our tax dollars on actually preventing crimes, instead of pursuing death sentences after [they have] already been committed, will assure us we will have fewer victims (California's Death Penalty).

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DVC Learning Styles

The results of Daniel Contreras's learning inventory are:
Visual/Nonverbal 20 Visual/Verbal 24 Auditory 32 Kinesthetic 24
Your primary learning style is:
The Auditory/ Verbal Learning Style

You learn best when information is presented auditory in an oral language format. In a classroom setting, you benefit from listening to lecture and participating in group discussions. You also benefit from obtaining information from audio tape. When trying to remember something, you can often "hear" the way someone told you the information, or the way you previously repeated it out loud. You learn best when interacting with others in a listening/speaking exchange .

Strategies for the Auditory/ Verbal Learner:

Join a study group to assist you in learning course material. Or, work with a "study buddy" on an ongoing basis to review key information and prepare for exams.

When studying by yourself, talk out loud to aid recall. Get yourself in a room where you won't be bothering anyone and read your notes and textbook out loud.

Tape record your lectures. Use the 'pause' button to avoid taping irrelevant information. Use a tape recorder equipped with a 3-digit counter. At the beginning of each lecture, set your counter to '000.' If a concept discussed during lecture seems particularly confusing, glance at the counter number and jot it down in your notes. Later, you can fast forward to that number to review the material that confused you during lecture. Making use of a counter and pause button while tape recording allows you to avoid the tedious task of having to listen to hours and hours of lecture tape.

Use audio tapes such as commercial books on tape to aid recall. Or, create your own audio tapes by reading notes and textbook information into a tape recorder. When preparing for an exam, review the tapes on your car tape player or on a "Walkman" player whenever you can.

When learning mathematical or technical information, "talk your way" through the new information. State the problem in your own words. Reason through solutions to problems by talking out loud to yourself or with a study partner. To learn a sequence of steps, write them out in sentence form and read them out loud.

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ART Test 2 - Take Home Essay Question

REMEMBER
and italicize titles of artwork

Daniel Contreras
ART P112 CRN 32284
Professor James Entz
6 April 2011
Moving Forward
I firmly believe that Charles Baudelaire's statement describing modernity as "the transitory, the fugitive, and the contingent" is true. The world cannot achieve true modernity if it stays at a standstill, frozen and unchanging. Therefore the contingent, the fugitive and the transitory must be opposite. There is always more than one single way to achieve something. There usually are fall backs like Plan B, Plan C and on. In order to be considered as modern, the subject has to respond and adapt to change which is dependent upon something else. Everything that is novel is changeable, like a chameleon changing its skin into the same color of the mossy rock it is underneath. The chameleon camouflaging to match its surroundings is an example of the fugitive which is always "on the run." Modernity is constantly in motion, moving from one place to another like a city transit bus. This example of always moving forward demonstrates the transitory as modernity.
Nothing has captured modernity better than the impressionist styled paintings. In fact, impressionism is contingent all in its own. After several rejections from The Salon, who favored traditional styled paintings, these anti-establishment artists broke away from previous inveterate traditions to what now is known as impressionism. In 1874, this group of independent artists gathered together to present the first impressionist exhibit. These artists chose to depict the modernity of the world through a new and revolutionary means (Samu par.1). Louis Leroy coined the term "impressionist" inside his Le Charivari newspaper review after seeing Claude Monet's art piece Impression, Sunrise at the 1874 exhibit. Leroy wrote, "A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more highly finished than this seascape” (Wikipedia). What Leroy meant in this quote was that Monet’s finished composition had an unrefined sketchy quality, which was odd and modern. The artwork contained pure colors, broken and loose brush strokes. In Monet's Impression, Sunrise, the new impressionist style is candidly showcased. Modernity is present in the picture in the way the colors are used. The dominance of color over subject was a characteristic that was absent in previous traditional paintings and present in many Impressionist paintings. However, instead of muted colors for shadows, Monet and other impressionists chose pure and bright colors. The transitory motions of the brush strokes reveal the artist’s hand, unlike Romanticism and Neoclassicism where the artist’s brush strokes were, for the most part, invisible. The brush strokes also give the picture a blurry characteristic. The dabs of color that represent the reflections from the sun and silhouetted boat create a rippling feeling on top of the water. Most scholarly artists painted in art studios. On the other hand, Monet chose to create his art pieces outdoors. The booming impact of the Industrial Revolution had made it possible for artists to bring paint outdoors in little tubes; so now they could choose to either work in the studio or not. Among many of Monet's subjects were nature, light, and leisure time for the working class.
Claude Monet's compositions were the result of transitioning into different atmospheres. In Monet's Rouen Cathedral, the Portal and the Tower of Alvane, the Morning, the dawn is the transitory and the form is the fugitive. This artwork captures the movement of light for a brief moment so beautifully that to ignore its modernity is to ignore the magic of the always changing world. That drawn scene will change soon. With his own eyes, Monet directly drew what he saw. He captured time or recovered a memory and preserved it on canvas. Monet painted a vast series of pictures pertaining to the Rouen Cathedral that are similarly beautiful and share some characteristics within themselves. Some difficulties that Monet faced while painting the series were: he had to hastily capture the image before the atmospheric and light conditions changed. Thus, the series of the Rouen Cathedral lacked the detailed manner that traditional paintings possessed. When viewed side by side, the canvases depict the passage of time; while the Rouen Cathedral is shown at the beginning (dawn) and gradually moving towards the end (dusk) (Art Factory par.6).
Paris Street, Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte captures a transitory impression of a Paris street just after a stormed has passed, from memory. It was so recent that the pedestrians still have their umbrellas up, and the brick street is still wet. Just like Monet, Caillebotte depicted events of everyday life and of nature portraying light and the subjects in the scene as they appeared to him in a fleeting moment of time. Paris Street, Rainy Day could also serve as a metaphor. It may suggest the initial period of civil calm that followed bloody fighting in the streets of Paris. Fighting took place in that very intersection, just before the painting was completed in 1877.
The painting also captures in vivid color the changes just implemented by Napoleon the 3rd of the Paris cityscape and street corners. However, Napoleon had more in mind than just civic pride and classical architectural taste. Police and soldiers under his charge could now form up and maneuver in such wide spaces; where as previously, enraged citizens could easily block a street for hours or even days (Samu par.5). The middle class Parisians shown here in this artwork are outdoors on a clean, safe street dressed lavishly. Though the presence of the umbrella leaves some uncertainty whether the storm has really passed or has just taken a brief resting.
In Paris Street, Rainy Day the modern urban street scene is transformed into something bustling, complicated and stunning. There is also a absence of interaction amongst many of the people on the street, suggesting more modern ideas of the alienation in urban life and the lack of communication between people, possibly neighbors, in larger cities.
The viewers have the choice to either follow the street on the left of the mammoth structure or voyage into the street to the right of the building. Notice that the path on the left seems to lead us deep into the horizon. Though the one on the right seems not as deep. Either way, we are still the modern man, wandering about possibly without a destination, like a flâneur. The foreground is dominated by the couple and the brand new brick street to the left combined with an approach to a modern sense of perspective. Caillebotte and other Impressionists often responded to photography, a new invention of the 19th century, in their paintings. Caillebotte made sure that art remained relevant by depicting life on canvas in ways that photography was not able. Impressionists did this especially when it came to capturing perspective, light, and color. In Paris Street, Rainy Day, Caillebotte gives photography a little jab. Not only can paintings portray life more richly and fully than a camera, but if a painter chooses to, he may crop human beings in half or cut off subjects at their knees.
All in all, I still agree with Charles Baudelaire that modernity is the contingent, the fugitive and the transitory. Deconstructionist literary critic and theorist Paul de Man said, “Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.”




 
Works Cited

Adams, Laurie. "Chapter 19 & 20." Art across Time. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill College, 2010. 690-731. Print.
"Claude Monet - Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight." Art Factory. Web. 30 Mar. 2011. .
"Louis Leroy." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Dec. 2009. Web. 31 Mar. 2011.
Samu, Margaret. "Impressionism: Art and Modernity". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Web. Oct. 30 Mar. 2011. .

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Vincent Van Gogh video questions

Daniel Contreras
ART P112 CRN 32284
Professor James Entz
16 March 2011
Van Gogh video questions
Who was Vincent Van Gogh?
Vincent Van Gogh considered himself as a prophet and thinker. Van Gogh pictured a revelation of heaven on Earth. He lived his most of life in his mind. Gogh's father was a pastor in South Netherlands and his uncle was a London art dealer, so Van Gogh was in between these two differently similar worlds. At first he wanted to be a preacher as he had rediscovered Jesus. His goal was to search for salvation in either choice. Unsuccessful as a pastor, Van Gogh was exiled from preaching in the slums of Belgium. Van Gogh began a new approach to spread his message. Nearly thirty years old with little to no experience, Van Gogh began to paint. His father did not take his decision too lightly as the parents began to feel shame that Van Gogh chose art over preaching. His younger brother Theo did aid Van Gogh financially and work-wise by putting his paintings up for sale. Day in and day out he poured his thoughts into pages of art. Despite the quantity, the quality of the art was considered as dreary, murky and unsellable. As time passed his mental illness became stronger. Van Gogh suffered from epilepsy and depression which later led him to cut off a chunk of his ear. It didn't matter because his greatest creation was a result of his madness. Before dying, Van Gogh shot himself in the abdomen and was left mortally wounded. He died from a fever shortly after. Van Gogh hoped that one day his paintings would showcase and he could share his paintings as he was the "the lowest of the low."
What was he trying to say with his paintings?
His paintings reflected on his frustration and anger. He used paintings to show the lives of lowest people living as shown in Potato Eaters which was his first remarkable piece. Van Gogh believed that the painting itself was like the labor shown in the image creating a union of artist and painting. His paintings were an "ejaculation of energy" that had boundless and universal qualities. They also show us what was in inside his head and every mark was a letter to us. Van Gogh wants to tell us that he is trying to recover from himself as his life was art vs. craziness. He put a mental upheaval onto a canvas. All he wanted is for people to know and understand his message by opening their eyes and hearts.
How did his paintings convey his message?
Fascinated with complementary colors, Van Gogh included them in a number of his works. He also used powerful and visible brushstrokes. The images convey their message through the color as it trembles, sways and pulses. His artworks are wild, deeply insane, but comforting.

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CA Career Zone Reality Check

Your Monthly Expenses Monterey

Housing $1,202.00
Utilities $192.00
Food $350.00
Transportation $721.00
Clothes $50.00
Health Care $372.00
Entertainment $50.00
Personal $75.00
Misc $550.00
Savings $356.00

Monthly Expenses $3,918.00
Annual Expenses $47,016.00
Taxes (25% of Annual Expenses) $11,754.00
Annual Salary Needed $58,770.00

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Photography Changes

Instead of
ISO 400
change to
ISO 200 (more light)
and develop film in 13 minutes
at 68-70 degress (Closest to 70 the better)
Use sunny 16 sheet
(f11 sunny day in porterville)

500 shutter speed

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Person of Interest Interview

Name of person: Norma Macias
Graduated from: Norma graduated from Fresno State.
Degrees received: She received a bachelors degree in Liberal Studies in 2003. In 2005, Macias received her Masters Degree in Counseling & Student Services. Then in 2006 she received her P.P.S. credential.
Deciding factors in choosing major: What led her to become a counselor was an internship in high school with the school's school. She realized that she liked working along with students and wanted this as her career.
Student profile as college freshmen & college senior: As a freshmen, Macias was confused about her goals and at first wanted to be an elementary school teacher. She was dedicated, however as a senior in college she had a much more vivid decision and chose counseling instead.
Opinion on students who plagiarize: Macias says that students who plagiarize should ask for help if they initially need it instead of resorting to cheating. Plagiarism is a serious matter and should not be tolerated.
What makes their life enjoyable: Family, job, traveling and trying out new restaurants are what make Macias' life enjoyable.

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Sample Notes

Marietta Jaeger, whose 7 year-old daughter Susie was kidnapped and murdered in the US in 1973 said,
"I say there is no amount of retaliatory deaths that would compensate to me the [...] value of my daughter’s life, nor would they restore her to my arms.

To say that the death of any other person would be just retribution is to insult the immeasurable worth of our loved ones who are victims.

We cannot put a price on their lives.

In my case, my own daughter was such a gift of joy and sweetness and beauty, that to kill someone in her name would have been to violate and profane the goodness of her life."

Source: http://listdom.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/quotes-against-capital-punishment
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We no longer burn witches or keep slaves, or have monarchs rule our lives. But we still manage to have the death penalty which is similarly obsolete (Dutta 41).

After adopting the death penalty from British law, we began to apply it. Soon degrees of murder were formed. However, there are still many flaws (Grant 119).

Our opponents say that the death penalty is a deterrent of crime and that it helps prevent some future criminals from committing heinous deeds.

Allow me to use an example. The 9/11 terrorist attack. Do you think hijackers of a plane would consider death penalty as a serious punishment for killing hundreds of people? Do you think that they even acknowledged the death penalty while boarding the planes? In most cases, criminals do not think about the crime because it's usually committed in the "heat of passion" (King 2).

Many violent people end up killing themselves after killing others anyways. This is particular to violent adolescents (Grant 122). Remember the shootings at Columbine High School? The death penalty definitely did not deter the murder of those 15 people.

Every year in the United States there are on average 22,000 homicides, but only 15,000 suspects are arrested. And only 10,000 are convicted. So how is capital punishment applied equally and affectingly? It isn't. And it actually increases the intensity of violence (Grant 122).

And where is capital punishment exercised the most? In the South, most notably Texas. The South alone was responsible for approximately 88 percent of all the executions made in the time period of 1977 through 2002. Is it a coincidence that the most violence occurs in the southern region (Grant 121)?

"Violence begets more violence" (Grant 123). How is backwardly killing people supposed to teach us not to kill? It is completely void if logic to think that way. By supporting the death penalty we become no better than animals closing in for the kill in order to protect or demonstrate vengeance. Every act of violence makes the culprit more violent---no matter what the circumstance (Grant 123).

These last 100 years have been the most violent in human history and it is reflected in our music, movies, television shows, video games, literature, intolerance, political attitudes, and abuse towards prisoners, domestic partners, and children. A paster at a memorial service of an executed Timothy McVeigh said, "Is there another way we can respond to this violence without doing violence ourselves?" (Grant 124).

McVeigh himself was victim of retributive justice. He was an Oklahoma bomber whose execution was filled with television and media coverage. One spectator said that McVeigh deserved to be stoned to death for committed such a deed. Some wanted McVeigh to receive a life sentence. Over 80 percent of the viewers said that he should die a more painful death. Civil liberties and lawyer Clarence Darrow noted, "[The state] continues to kill its victims not so much to defend to society against them...but to appease the mob's emotions of hatred and revenge" (Grant 121).

Media coverage and endless judicial processes turn the criminal into a celebrity while the victim's family seethes with resentment. Not only is the criminal glorified, but the taxpayer-financed court costs are horrendous (Dutta 43).

Families sometime do not seek the penalty. In some cases, families actually much prefer seeking life imprisonment for the criminal. Maria Calderon, ex-girlfriend of Reynaldo Rodriguez found three of her family members killed. Rodriguez, who was responsible, took his own life afterwards. Calderon told Los Angeles Times magazine, "I would have much rather he stayed alive. That was he could face the justice system and live with the fact that he murdered three people, and suffer what we're suffering. Now he took his own life---and he's not suffering anymore" (Dutta 43).

"We cannot be a civilized society while we indulge in hatred and consign forgiveness to the sidelines" (Dutta 45). "Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life" (King 1). "If we don't find a way to break the cycle of violence we will never be able to end the culture of violence that infects the United States" (Grant 125).
"The only way to break the chain of violence reaction is too practice nonviolence as individuals and collectively through our laws and institutions" (King 2).

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Course Grades

Daniel Contreras
EDUC P102 CRN 32341
Professor Olmedo
10 March 2011
Self Evaluation Progress Report
Modern Art History
Grade: B (85%)
Why I am getting this grade: I am getting this grade because all of my turned work hasn't been completely correct. I do read and try, but it results on a B all of the time.
What I will do to improve/maintain this grade: I will study more carefully and I will turn in extra credit assignments to raise my grade.

Personal and Career Exploration
Grade: A
Why I am getting this grade: Because everyone has an A so far.
What I will do to improve/maintain this grade: Keep turning in the work and complete my test with the best accuracy possible.

College Writing
Grade: B- (82%)
Why I am getting this grade: I am getting this grade because our group competitions haven't done as good as other groups so we've been getting less points. Also, I could improve on some other things such as writing my summaries and reading over my English book more often.
What I will do to improve/maintain this grade: I will turn in better quality summaries and complete some of the given extra credit.

Basic Photography
Grade: A
Why I am getting this grade: I am getting this grade because we haven't turned in our first photographic assignment yet.
What I will do to improve/maintain this grade: I can improve by turning in quality photos and a good quantity of them. Also, the procedures should run smoother this second time.

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