How have recent advances in computer technology effected story telling in artwork? In this essay I will be exploring the way that advances in technology have affected story telling within artwork. I will also be exploring how narratives were typically represented in the past; media, setting, mood and how that compares with narratives created today. Before the technological revolution, well back into the 19th century, narratives were typically hand painted. These paintings were often used by the state to communicate with the mainly illiterate public, to represent laws that had been created and state policy etc. Furthermore, narratives were also used to represent subjects of a religious or moralizing nature. Examples of narratives of this style were Pre-‐ Raphaelite paintings, which were created by a group of young artists who made up the pre-‐Raphaelite brotherhood. The paintings reflected on an art of late medieval and early renaissance Europe, characterized by a palette of bright colors that linked to paint used by medieval artists. I will be looking at the work of John Everett Millais who was prominent figure of the pre-‐Raphaelite movement. With the rapid advancement of technology, the way in which narratives are represented has changed dramatically with many represented in the digital form. Although hand drawn/painted narratives still exist, digitally created narratives have grown more popular, with a range of young artists publishing their work on sites such as Flickr and Instagram and Tumblr. This change in how narratives are created and why, can be seen through the artwork of the young artists; Alex Stoddard and Kyle Thompson who as self-‐portrait photographers both use camera equipment and software such as Photoshop to edit and manipulate their images but use this equipment in different ways to create narratives with very different meanings and concepts. I have chosen to explore the work of artists, John everlett Millais, Alex Stoddard and Kyle Thompson in order to reflect on the difference between narratives which were created in the past and those made in the present and how the advancement in technology has influenced these narratives. John Everlett Millais an artist before the advancement of technology, creating narratives through paintings, which held a religious nature. In contrast to Artists Alex Stoddard and Kyle Thompson, who create narratives digitally through taking pictures and editing them on Photoshop. Has the advancement of technology improved the way narratives are represented or are narratives from the past more appealing/effective? Are the works of the pre-‐Raphaelite brotherhood still influential to modern artists of today or has their legacy died out? With the ease in which narratives can be created through the use of technology today, are the works of artists still greatly appreciated by critics and the public?
John Everlett Millais was an English painter/illustrator who was a part of the pre-‐Raphaelite art movement that took place in the mid nineteenth century. This movement had been created by a group of young artists, Millais among them who did not wish to conform to the expected style of art, which was created within the royal art academy at the time. Millais was in fact one of three artists that had founded the movement through creating the pre-‐Raphaelite brotherhood that frequently met at his parents’ house in London. He was arguably the most famous of the artists of the brotherhood, with his painting ‘Christ in the house of his parents' causing great controversy amongst critics. His work in conforming to the pre-‐Raphaelite style was often based around religious and moralizing themes and his paintings had great attention to detail, bright colours and were focused on the beauty of the world. This painting as mentioned above is ‘Christ in the house of his parents’. This is an early example of pre-‐Raphaelite work created by Millais in 1949-‐50, conforming to the pre-‐Raphaelite style through its use of symbolism and minute realism, as well as the narrative being of a religious nature. The painting represents the early childhood of Christ at his home with joseph and Mary. The use of symbolism can be seen within the painting, used to represent his crucifixion; nails and wood as well as the blood that has dripped on his foot from cutting his finger on a nail. During the process of creating the painting Millais painted the house from an actual carpenter shop in oxford, as well as using the heads of sheep from a butchers in order to paint the sheep seen outside and for the people in the painting he used his friends and family as opposed to models; his father being used for joseph and a friends son used for Jesus. There was heavy criticism towards this painting once it was created and shown within the royal academy of art, with a public reaction of horror and malicious attack from the press towards Millais’ work. It was described in the times as ‘revolting and objected to the way an artist dare to depict the holy family as ordinary lowly people’. Charles dickens describing the young Christ within the picture as, ‘a hideous, wry-‐necked, blubbering, red-‐headed boy, in a bed gown.’ This second painting was one of the first that Millais created in the style seen from the pre-‐Raphaelite brotherhood. The painting was created just a year after the brotherhood was formed and called, ‘Isabella’. This painting was based on a Italian novel created in the late 14th century called ‘Lisabetta e il testo di bassilic’ and reprises from john Keats poem ‘Isabella’. Again within this narrative, there is heavy symbolism which aids the story; Lorenzo, the man in red beside Isabella who can be seen in grey, handing her a plate with a blood orange. The blood orange symbolizing the death of Lorenzo, Isabella taking his head with her when she finds him buried. Also with her brother kicking her dog, dogs often representing loyalty symbolizing his later betrayal when he will kill her love Lorenzo, out of jealously. Millais also used distorted perspective and angular poses within this painting; characteristics of medieval art which the brotherhood was heavily influenced by.
Through the use of this artist and his works, it is seen that pre-‐dating the technical revolution of the 21st century narratives were represented in detailed paintings; a time-‐consuming process requiring immense artistic skills in drawing and painting. Particularly of the pre-‐Raphaelite period, Techniques from artists were the use of symbolism of objects within the painting, minute realism and a use of bright coloring; seen from medieval art. It is clear that as narratives of this time represented religious and moralizing concepts, that they held a lot more meaning and feeling than in future narratives today. Religion a lot less represented in modern narrative artwork, particularly from the modern artists that I have looked at. The second painting although not intended as moralizing or religious, is very meaningful in telling an already present story from an Italian novel; exploring love, romance, betrayal and death. In contrast, Kyle Thompson is modern day self-‐portrait photographer from Chicago. His work is very focused in using technology in order to emphasize surrealism and ‘the impossible made possible’ within his narratives, which makes him useful when looking at the effects of the advances of technology on story telling. The advancement of technology influencing Kyle Thompsons work in allowing him to create surreal scenes that would not be possible without computers and software such as Photoshop in order to manipulate his images. Kyle Thompson locates his narratives in mainly rural landscapes and abandoned buildings, using a camera on a timer to take images of himself wearing clothing planned for the scene with a range of different props that are later manipulated. As seen from the three pieces created by Kyle Thompson below, his work is very centralized on the use of Photoshop in order to manipulate and make his pieces surreal and impossible. This use of photo manipulation used effectively to make it appear as though the character in the first picture is on fire, that the second is surrounded by floating knives, that the character in the third image has wings made of water splashes, all of which would not be possible without technology. This Emphasizing how technology has changed the attitude of narratives allowing artists to explore further more surreal and magic like concepts within their work that would not have been possible before with Millais. All of these pieces are without a name or description as to what they mean. Showing that there is a lot less meaning behind these narratives with which he has created; although this is obviously open to interpretation. In comparison to narratives created in the past, the process involved in creating narratives today is vastly faster and easier. With the use of photography, producing character realism can be achieved without the need to draw or paint but with the click of a camera. Photography also allows the ability to use yourself as the character of the narrative, without the need of friends and family to pose as models, with the use of a tripod and timer. And with the assistance of computers and editing and design software, surrealism is easily created, with no limits to what could be produced. Furthermore, It is seen the nature of narratives have made a swift change from the
meaningful religious and moralizing narratives of Millais’ age to narratives shown to represent surrealism and the impossible made possible. Alex Stoddard is an 18-‐year-‐old fine art and self-‐portrait photographer from California. His style of work is outwardly different from other self-‐portrait photographers such as Karl Thompson, in the way that he edits his photographs without heavy emphasis on surrealism or a reflection on the impossible, through the use of Photoshop and similar software packages. Instead, his editing is kept very realistic, with emphasis made on lighting. Another way this artist stands out is through creating a more dark and sinister atmosphere within his narratives as opposed to the typical fairy tale or surrealist approaches from other artists to narratives. With the absence of photo manipulations and props, the narratives which Stoddard creates are given a lot more depth and meaning allowing more to be deciphered from the scene with less clues as to the real meaning and story being told. The first piece of work by Alex Stoddard is a self-‐portrait piece called ‘Lifeblood part 3’. This piece is of the typical style of Alex, through the dark and sinister atmosphere it creates; the character covered in blood, standing amongst dark bushes of a forest, with a face without any expression. This image is one of a series of four images which relates to a small self-‐ portrait series intended to explore a male's transition from childhood into adolescence. The concept bases around the idea that a women’s transition to childhood to adolescence is marked by the symbol of blood and this is also the same for men but is just not as easily seen. This second piece by Alex is named ‘the marking’ and is slightly different from his usual style in being a picture of someone beside himself and therefore not his usual self-‐portrait work. However, the image remains consistent in showing a darker, narrative. This piece visibly showing a wounded woman, in a bright red dress as vivid as blood, running in the wood, the image is slightly blurred in order to represent movement. ‘St. Valentine’ the final piece that I have explored from this artist is the most recent of Alex’s work that has been uploaded on his Flickr account. At this time there has been no description to describe the image he has created, although it appears to contain the same model from the previous image which could mean that this piece is a part of a series that he is producing to tell a particular story and this scene may have happened before or after the previous piece. This piece sticks to Alex style of dark and sinister scenes with a women embracing/being embraced by a wounded man whom has been shot by three arrows in the back and is visibly bleeding. The women holds one of the arrows in her hand, her hand bloody in which is angled to clever bring to question: is she pulling the arrow out to help him? Or is she pushing it further in? The piece nicely encompasses both the concepts of love and war; the violence of being shot by arrows and blood representing war whilst their embrace and the way the man holds the women, the women
peaceful, her eyes closed can be seen to represent love. This piece could possibly have correlation to actual events in history, as St valentine was a priest of the third century who fought for the marriage of young people particularly of soldiers and their partners as a result of the edict made from the church, which prohibited young people from getting married; marriage being very sacred at the time as well as an hypothesis made that unmarried soldiers performed better than married ones. His work is displayed on his own website as well as on Flickr as well as being visible on social networking sites such as Facebook, and on Tumblr and Pinterest. Overall people’s comments on his piece are greatly positive with many wanting more, his recent work being the most liked and favored. Through the use of Alex Stoddard, it can be seen that despite technology making the process of creating narratives much easier and allowing artists to manipulate photos to show the impossible and create surreal scenes, it has not completely removed mood and feeling from digital artwork. Alex Stoddard having chosen to keep his design simple, with limited props and any surrealism. Being heavily influenced by Pre-‐Raphaelite artist John Waterhouse, he has brought back the symbolism and mood and feeling displayed of narratives of the past before the technical revolution. Choosing to take a darker route to his narratives, with great stills of himself and others, which through symbolism tell a story that is open to interpretation. Has the advancement of technology improved the way narratives are represented or are narratives from the past more appealing/effective? It is clear through the observation of the above artists work that there is an obvious difference as to how narratives have been represented in the past compared with the future. It could be said that compared with the past, narratives are created to represent a lot less meaningful concepts. With the use of work of artists today such as Kyle Thompson, the meaning behind narratives has greatly changed, with less emphasis on deep emotions and more made to the surrealist imagery created through the aid of technology. It would be argued that past narratives were a lot more interesting in how the use of symbolism made the observer have to think and look very carefully in order to decipher the detailed story that it told. However, the use of symbolism still exists in narratives today and some narrative artists such as Alex Stoddard, still reflect on very emotional and meaningful narratives. Are the works of the pre-‐Raphaelite brotherhood still influential to modern artists of today or has their legacy died out? It could be said the pre-‐Raphaelite brother is still of influence to some modern artist today, Alex Stoddard having revealed in an interview that a key influence to his work is that of William water house, who was also a prominent member of the brotherhood. He is very interested in the way that waterhouse was able to reflect on such deep emotions between characters within his narrative. With the ease in which narratives can be created through the use of technology today, are the works of artists still greatly appreciated by critics and the public? Although, it is obviously a lot easier for artists in these technological times to create narratives, represented digitally through manipulated photos. The works of artists such as those mentioned; Alex Stoddard and Kyle Thompson are still greatly appreciated. The technical revolution aiding to a faster way of getting art work out there through online forums such as Flickr and Instagram and Tumblr, that can be seen and commented on by all internet users.
Bibliography http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-‐christ-‐in-‐the-‐house-‐of-‐his-‐parents-‐the-‐carpenters-‐shop-‐n03584/text-‐summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_%28Millais_painting%29 http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/collections/pre-‐raphaelites/lorenzo/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/alex-‐stoddard/10104928003/