The Art Encyclopedia

On Focus: Harn Museum of Art's Exhibit "Elusive Spirits: African Masquerades" Located in Gainesville, Florida, The Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida makes strident efforts in providing its local community with a view into the unfamiliar to some yet familiar to others. The currently ongoing exhibit Elusive Spirits: African Masquerades continues this practice, highlighting the nontraditional world of masks and their role in African societies and traditions. Offering 30 different masks with a variety of mediums and from varying cultures and societies, the exhibition strives to make a direct link between the formality of the mask to its cultural and religious significance in African culture; a link that is sometimes hard for westerners to grasp (“Elusive Spirits: African Masquerades”, n.d.). Featuring 20th to 21st century masks from West Africa and Central Africa, The Harn Museum creates an interesting narrative of African masks in recent history and the cont...

On Focus: Carolyn Dean's "The Trouble with (the term) Art" c. 2005 Full original article: https://www.bucknell.edu/documents/griotinstitute/deanarticle.pdf Carolyn Dean Professor of Art History at the University Of California, Santa Cruz Author of the article In “The Trouble with (the Term) Art” 2005, Carolyn Dean writes a compelling argument and analysis of the contemporary art history world, in which eurocentrism and western perspectives have created a one-size-fits-all terminology of the word “art” when it comes to foreign indigenous visual cultures. At first, Dean introduces the well-known controversial issue of the diction behind primitive art, but then exposes this popular debate as a cover-up from the real problem; the word “art”. Dean makes it apparent throughout her whole paper that the word “art” is not applicable to prehistoric visual cultures that measure their artistic worth differently than the western world. The author does this repeatedly, cit...

On Focus: Yinka Shonibare's Girl Ballerina Yinka Shonibare is a Nigerian-English contemporary artist born in 1962, and studied in London to receive a Masters degree in Fine Arts. Shonibare grew up the majority of his life in Lagos, Nigeria, but was born and later returned for higher education to London. He has been known for his political art works and installations, which tackle the issues of racism, socioeconomic class distinctions, cultural identity, effects of colonization, and more, while using certain aspects of globalization to insure his message. Shonibare uses his art as an approach to dealing with the harsh and long relationship between Europe and Africa, and often mimics or mocks Western art and art history with an African touch. Examples of these mocks of Western art history include versions of famous artists’ works including Fragonard, Michelangelo, DaVinci, Durer, David, Ancient Greek sculptors, and more. Shonibare is also known to have a studio and works with other c...

On Focus: Walter Isaacson's Leonardo Da Vinci Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci, a biography of Italian renaissance master artist Leonardo Da Vinci, recognizes the ingenuous demur behind Da Vinci's creations, as well as contextually examines the old celebrity we all know today. Throughout the first 4 chapters of the book, Isaacson explores Da Vinci’s childhood and early career life, starting from his humble upbringing in rural Italy, his apprentice stage in Florence, and his standalone career in Milan. Ultimately, Isaacson impacts his readers by decoding and humanizing the legendary Da Vinci, breaking down all of the fame and masterworks, to explore his past and inner personality in the modern age. Isaacson delves deep into Da Vinci’s persona, starting from illegitimate upbringing due to the implications of his birth, in order to humanize him to the audience. Isaacson solemnly writes, “Being born out of wedlock was more complex than merely being an outside. It created ...

Who owns the Elgin Marbles?  A non-partisan perspective on the 200+ year long debate between Greece and the United Kingdom  Luis Flores  In 1801, Lord Elgin, a British nobleman, embarked on the typical coming-of-age journey across the European continent, similar to today’s popular standard of a “college graduation trip to Europe”. Prompted by the Western trend of obsession over the exotic and primitive, or what was thought to be, due to colonialism, Lord Elgin was initially granted permission to make sketches of his findings in the unfamiliar yet intriguing territories. Once arriving in Ottoman-controlled present-day state of Greece, Lord Elgin was immediately star struck by the beauty of one of the most significant wonders of the ancient world: The Parthenon.  The Parthenon The damaged acropolis, struck recently by an explosion during conflict, still conveyed  its  monumentality as it does today. As the main landmark for the ancient Atheni...