Decluttering art and art supplies

Cannibalized picture file

(very) mixed media

©2009 – 2015 Charlene Brown

Last week, I listed my Plans for 2025.  One was "Decluttering computer and hardcopy files"

I’ve just come across the following in Plans for 2015:

“What to let go of to start the year anew?  

Old projects that never got past the background info-gathering stage, or what’s left of those that have been excerpted for better projects." 

At the time I mentioned that would be a lot of paper to be recycled out of binders and files, and a lot of MBs of computer memory to be cleared.  

In my Review of 2015 a year later, decluttering wasn’t even mentioned. And it’s quite possible I could have a GB of jpegs I can get rid of by now.  Plus dozens more works on paper...  

However, I have now begun the project. The cannibalized picture file above contains some of the remnants (now deleted) of the files I used in my book, The Fine Art of Physics.  And I’ve made a small start on cutting or tearing up watercolour paintings and sketches for cards or collage…

Twentieth Century Design in Europe

The Atomium, Belgium
Watercolour, crayon, and marker
Charlene Brown

The Atomium was constructed for the first post-war world exhibition (Expo 58). The nine sphere model of atomic structure represents faith in the power of science, and in nuclear power.

This is the last of the four samples highlighted in the twentieth century time capsule below.

I have written nine stories for the online publication platform, Medium, each with four paintings representing four areas of the world.  So far, seven of these stories have been published, all with the underlying message: 

“History isn’t just a series of wars, you know.”  

A few of these examples, like today’s painting, mention war or even have obvious military connections – Citadel in Mohenjo-Daro, Great Wall of China, Fort at Bahla, Alhambra at Grenada, and Morrow Castle in Havana.  But I think there is general agreement with my point that the art and architecture of civilization often outlasts the re-drawn maps and treaties and military alliances and other results of wars... And will continue to do so.

Twentieth Century Design in the Near East and Africa

Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca, Morocco
Watercolour and crayon
Charlene Brown

Hassan II was the King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999.  Because he stated in 1980 that he wanted the Hassan II Mosque to be built on the water, it is situated on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.  Work began in 1986 and the mosque, with the tallest minaret in the world, was completed in 1993. It can accommodate 25,000 inside and an additional 80,000 in the outdoor courtyards.

Next week I will post my fourth painting illustrating twentieth century design selected from the cross-cultural timeline I printed in a blog post a couple of weeks ago. 

Twentieth Century Design in Asia

Pudong, Shanghai
Watercolour, crayon and marker
©2022 Charlene Brown

In the early twentieth century, the Bund, with dozens of foreign banks and magnificent commercial buildings in the Beaux Arts Style, was world famous, the best known area of Shangai. However, The Communist government that took over in 1949 began the systematic removal of these ‘colonialist’ structures and, although there was some restoration in the 1970s and ’80s, international interest soon shifted to the Pudong New Area, directly across the river, when its amazing redevelopment began in the late twentieth century.  Some of the buildings shown here were not completed until the twenty-first century, but the structure most often associated with Pudong – the iconic Oriental Pearl TV Tower (with red and blue lighting in the painting), was completed in 1994.

Twentieth Century Around the World

Golden Gate Bridge
Watercolour and crayon
©2010 Charlene Brown

When completed in 1937, the Golden Gate was the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world.  It spans the mile-wide strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean.

Of the four examples highlighted in the 20th Century time capsule below, the Golden Gate Bridge, representing design in the Americas and Pacific, is the only one I’d already painted -- back in 2010 actually.  I'll be painting the other three over the next few weeks.

 

The Last Nineteenth Century Painting

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus

Watercolour and crayon

©2022 Charlene Brown

This historic Victorian Gothic Revival structure in Mumbai, India was originally named the Victoria Terminus, when completed in 1887, the 50th year of the reign of Queen Victoria, then the Empress of India. It was renamed in 1996 after Shivaji, the 17th century warrior king who employed guerrilla tactics to contest the declining Mughal Empire.

This UNESCO World Heritage site represents Asia in the time capsule shown in a blog post two weeks ago, Nineteenth Century Around the World. 

 

The Nineteenth Century in Africa

Yoruba figure carvings
Watercolour and crayon
©2021 Charlene Brown

Instead of the usual landscape illustration, this painting is a diorama of typical 19^th century Yoruba carvings.

The Yoruba, a large ethnic group found in parts of what are now Nigeria and Benin, created iconic art works in many mediums including wood carving.

The carvers generally used omo, iroko or mahogany.  The work was influenced by religious ritual, myths, regional perspectives, local history and, of course, the specifications of wealthy Nigerian patrons.  By the mid nineteenth century, the practice of slavery had created an African Diaspora through which Yoruba concepts and style were exported to the Western world.

Also, during the Colonial period, a new genre of carving developed in Africa, targeted to appeal to ex-patriates and visitors. For example, depictions of Queen Victoria, as in this diorama, sold well to Europeans as well as British ex-pats – especially at the time of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

 

Nineteenth Century around the world

Château Frontenac
Watercolour and crayon
©2011 Charlene Brown

This magnificent example of the ‘chateau’ architecture built by the Canadian Pacific Railway opened in 1893.  It is situated perfectly on the citadel above Québec City.  This architectural style was meant to evoke the romanticism of the 14th and 15th century Châteaux of the Loire Valley.

Of the four examples highlighted in the 19th Century time capsule below, the Eiffel Tower representing design in Europe and this example of design in the Americas and Pacific are the only ones I’ve already painted.  I just painted the Eiffel Tower for last week's blog post, and this one was originally done in 2011, and eventually used in my book Inventing the Future. 

My Plan for '1150 Words by Charlene Brown' in 2022

Eiffel Tower as seen from the top of the Arc de Triomphe
Watercolour and crayon
©2021 Charlene Brown

The Eiffel Tower was built to be one of the main attractions at the Exposition Universelle held in 1889 to mark the 100^th Anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille and the launch of the French Revolution.  This painting will be one of the illustrations in the first project listed below.

History of Design:  A few years ago I put together a cross-cultural 'History of Design' timeline covering art and architecture from the third millennium BCE to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Since then I have illustrated the designs highlighted in this History of Design, and published them in stories such as this one about Design in the Second Millennium CE in the History section on the online platform Medium.  I plan to add The End of the Second Millennium CE (19th and  20th Centuries) to this series.

Graphic Novel:  As I mentioned last week, Canadians are kind of ‘electioned out’ so I won't be rushing to finish the graphic novel I’m working on – “By-election in Exceptional Pass” in 2022.  But I’ve got lots of background landscapes to work on, so I’m going to borrow this sentence from my Plan for (would you believe?) 2016, on which I didn’t make much progress –  “I hope to continue shifting from representational landscapes toward more stylized paintings and add some people to my landscapes” – and apply it to these backgrounds.

Creative Archaeology: And here’s a sentence from my Plan for 2021 – “In case my travel plans don’t work out any better than they did this year, I may re-interpret some of the photos and sketches I accumulated in past archaeology-related travel with the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and University of Victoria travel study program” – on which I did make some progress, as I mentioned last week. I plan to continue the series ‘Time Travel with a Bag of Crayons’ working with the only truly portable plein air ‘painting’ kit I have discovered.

 

 

What the Early Second Millennium CE looked like around the World

Americas and Pacific

The moai monoliths were carved between 1250 and 1500 CE on Rapa Nui, a Chilean island also called Isla de Pascua or Easter Island, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle. Of the almost 900 of these  massive head and torso statues, 45% have been moved and positioned, 10% were dropped along the route from the quarry and 45%, including the largest which is 12 metres in length and weighs 75 tons, remain in the quarry.

Europe

The Historic Centre of Tallinn, Estonia dates back to the 13^th century, when a castle was built there by the returned knights of the Teutonic Order.  It developed as a very wealthy major centre of the Hanseatic League, and now contains some prime examples of Northern European Medieval architecture.

Near East & Africa

The Bahla Fort at Nizwa, Oman is an outstanding example of a fortified oasis settlement of the Medieval Islamic period. The walls and towers of this immense structure are made of unbaked brick on a stone foundation, and the compound is watered by an extensive falaj system.

Asia

The picturesque village of Shirakawa-go in Japan, known for the cultivation of mulberry trees and sericulture (silkworm farming), is located in a mountainous region that was cut off from the rest of the country. A steeply-roofed, thatched multi-level Gassho-style architecture, well suited to heavy snowfall, evolved. The area was settled for hundreds of years BCE, but the name ‘Shirakawa-go’ did not appear clearly in history until the 12^th century.

What the Late Second Millennium CE looked like around the world

Americas and Pacific

Morro Castle(Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos dei Morro, named after the Biblical Three Kings) is typical of 17^th century Spanish American military architecture.  It guards the entrance to Havana Bay in Cuba.

Europe

The early 18th century Roccoco-style architecture of the Alte Stadt (old city) of Innsbruck in the Tirolean Alps is sometimes described as the exuberantly decorative final expression of the Baroque movement.

Near East & Africa

The Shah Mosque, completed in the 17^th century, was renamed the Imam Mosque at the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.  It stands at the south end of spectacular Nagsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan.

Asia

Jodha Bai’s Palace, a mixture of Hindu and Moghul styles, is at Fatehpur Sikri, a small city just west of Agra, that was founded by a 16^th century Mughal emperor.

What the Third Millennium BCE looked like around the world

Americas & Pacific

The pre-Incan Temple of the Crossed Hands, in Kotosh, Peru, is the oldest archaeological structure in the Andes.  Stone constructions suggest that complicated building work began here in the third Millennium BCE centuries before anywhere else in the Americas.

Europe

Construction of Mnajdra, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Megalithic Temples of Malta, began in the fourth Millennium BCE, and this part on a hilltop overlooking the sea and the islet of Fifla, was built in the third Millenium BCE. The temples of Malta are among the oldest religious structures on Earth.

Near East & Africa
This stylized version of the bas-relief carving on the Garden Tomb of Hili  at the Al Ain oasis in present day United Arab Emirates, represents the Umm Al Naar civilization that flourished at the southeast end of the Persian Gulf in the third Millennium BCE. The tomb was constructed in the same time period as the much grander neo-Sumerian ziggurat at Ur in present-day Iraq, and the Old Kingdom Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza in Egypt.

Asia

Mohenjo-daro, one of the largest settlements in the ancient Indus River civilization, was built in about the middle of the third Millenium BCE. It is located in the province of Sindh, Pakistan.

The city was abandoned soon after the beginning of the second Millenium (19^th century) BCE, and the site was not re-discovered until the early 20^th century CE.

What the fourteenth century looked like around the world

Americas & Pacific

Tenochtitlán, founded in 1325, was the capital of the Aztec empire.  Unlike most of my ‘point in time’ paintings, this is not a picture of what it looks like now – a remnant of the Templo Mayor in downtown Mexico City.  Rather, it is my interpretation (from various models that archaeologists have assembled) of what this “awe-inspiring mega-city that stunned its European discoverers” and the chinampas (floating gardens) surrounding it actually looked like in the fourteenth century. 

Near East & Africa

I sketched this picture of the mausoleum of Oljaytu during an Art Gallery of Greater Victoria tour of Iran in April of last year. The octagonal mausoleum was constructed in the early fourteenth century in the city of Soltaniyeh, in Zanjan province.  With its 50 metre high, faience-covered dome, it is considered to be one of the outstanding achievements of Persian architecture.

Asia

The Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is one of the fascinating places I’d heard about for the first time when I was researching South Korea’s ‘painting possibilities’ when I was hoping to travel there in 2013. When the trip was called off following a disagreement with North Korea, I decided to go ahead and paint some of them anyway.

Unlike most Buddhist temples in Korea, typically built high in the mountains, Haedong Yonggungsa is spectacularly situated overlooking the East China Sea.  It was built in 1376, and is one of the major Buddhist temples in Busan. 

Europe April 5, 1996 was a perfect day to see the Alhambra and I discovered, after a one-hour climb from the Granada train station to the palace gate, that literally thousands of others thought so as well. (It happened to be Good Friday, which may have had something to do with this.) I waited one hour in a queue to buy a ticket which stated my hora de entrada to the Moorish Palaces, would be in another three hours!

There is a theory that the Alhambra, completed in the late fourteenth century, came by its name, from an Arabic word, al-hamra, for red, because of the colour in the stone used to construct it. But I prefer the explanation that, in their haste to fortify the position, the original Muslim conquerors were forced to work by the red glow of torchlight. Present day visitors have no such constraints, of course.  I had all the time I needed to sketch the all-encompassing view from the watchtower – the courtyards, and roof-tops of the palaces, up through gardens and olive groves to the peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

What the First Millenium BCE looked like around the world

Following my last blog post about paintings of eigth century CE archaeological sites relating to four very different cultures, I decided to write about paintings of archaeological sites from the same geographical regions – Americas & Pacific, Europe, Near East & Africa and Asia – reflecting third century BCE sites.

Once again, Europe was the area for which I didn’t already have a painting, and I selected the island of Delos in Greece.  Despite the title, it and the other paintings posted here do not in fact show 'what the third century BCE looked like' at all.  They show what some third century BCE sites look like now – except for the painting of the plank longhouse, which is based on an old photograph and shows what the coastal settlements looked like in the nineteenth century.

Europe

Located at the centre of the Cyclades, Delos was an important centre in Greek mythology and history. The Terrace of the Lions, shown here, originally had as many as twelve squatting, snarling marble guardian lions when built in the seventh century BCE. However, following the death of Alexander the Great in the fourth century, increasing political disarray, the lack of water and trading infrastructure on Delos caused the island to go into decline.  It was for a time the centre of the slave trade and eventually came under Roman control. 

Americas & Pacific
First Nations of the British Columbia coast and islands of Haida Gwai built the first permanent habitation in that region – plank longhouses – in the late fourth and third centuries BCE. 

Near East & Africa

When Alexander the Great died, his empire was divided among three of his generals. North Africa, the part that went to General Ptolemy fared much better than the European and eastern Mediterranean sectors.  The city of Ptolemais in present day Libya was founded in the third century BCE by Ptolemy III, a descendant of Gen. Ptolemy. Much later, after the Romans took over, Diocletian imposed wage and price controls, which I have superimposed on this computer painting.  

Asia
Meanwhile, in the Far East, construction of the Great Wall of China began late in the third century during the last years of the Qin Dynasty.  It was expanded, strengthened and maintained by the Emperors of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE).

What the Eighth Century looked like around the World

Afew years ago I put together a cross-cultural 'History of Design' timeline covering art and architecture from prehistoric times to the beginning of the twenty-first century.  I used either facts I'd learned while visiting archaeological sites or looked up when I was writing blog posts about them.  While making some additions to this timeline recently, I noticed I have painted archaeological sites from the Americas, Asia and the Middle East dating from the eighth century CE, but didn't have anything from Europe for that time period.  In Europe the time from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries was referred to as the Dark Ages.  The first painting below fills that gap.  It and the other paintings posted here do not in fact show 'what the eighth century looked like' at all.  They show what some eighth century sites look like now.

Europe
The Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle in Aachen Germany is one of the oldest in Europe.  Construction started in the late eighth century by order of Charlemagne.  It was heavily damage in the ninth century by Vikings and restored in the tenth century.  Originally Carolingian in style, with Gothic additions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the cathedral was heaviy damaged, and restored, in the twentieth century.

Americas & Pacific

Copan, in what is now Honduras, known as the Athens of the New World, was founded in the fifth century and construction continued through the 700-year Golden Age of Mayan Culture.  The Hieroglyphic Stairway shown here, which has enabled historians to decipher the Mayan language, was completed in the eighth century.

Near East & Africa

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is an example of Umayyad architecture which developed in the Middle East in the seventh and eighth centuries, at the beginning of Islam. Completed at the beginning of the eighth century, the Dome was built on the Temple Mount, site of Herod’s  Temple in the first century BCE and a subsequent Roman temple in the second century CE, and may have been an addition to an existing Byzantine building.  It collapsed and was restored after earthquakes in the ninth and eleventh centuries, became a Christian church after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem at the end of the eleventh century and was re-consecrated as a Muslim shrine in the late twelfth century.

Asia

Meanwhile in the Far East, the Bulguksa Temple was completed by the Court of Silla in the eighth century.  Considered a masterpiece of the Golden Age of Buddhist art, the temple encompassses seven National Treasures of South Korea, including two stone pagodas, the Blue Cloud Bridge and two bronze statues of the Buddha.