Constraints on Artists

.. all experienced constraints throughout their life which lead them to be the artists they are today. Constraints define each individual artist. Anything could be classified as a constraint in somebody’s life but in the 5 artists that I have chosen the constraints that stand out the most are gender expectations, physical illness, mental illness and views of art critics. Artemisia is considered one of the most accomplished painters to this day.

She painted in the movement of Baroque which was a lot similar to the Renaissance art but Baroque art rebelled against the traditional style of Renaissance. In Artemisia’s era female artists were not accepted into formal art training, creating many gender constraints. Females were allowed to help out in studios but it was never easy for females to become a well known artist for themselves. She tried not to let any gender constraints hold her back from what she wanted to peruse which was to become a well known artist.

Throughout Artmesia’s life she had gone through a very controversy court trial.After her father had found a man to tutor his daughter in drawing, the tutor, Tassi, raped Artmesisia. She had to undergo severe torture to test her honesty of the accusation upon Tassi. After the trial the paintings that Artemisia was creating become more evident with emotional power towards strong women.

Her paintings were all very intense and showed a very emotional bond between the figures appearing in her paintings and between the paintings and the ausience. She was influenced by a famous painter, Caravaggio, through his style of creating shadow and lighting in paintings.This technique made her paintings even more powerful with a dark background but the figures standing out in the light. In all of Artemisia’s paintings she painted characters and scenarios from the bible or myths, always female heroic character. The constraint in Artemisia’s life was mainly gender expectations and the fact that she got past that and was still able to become one of the most accomplished painters, makes her life even more extraordinary.

Even the constraint of sexual abuse made her stronger as a painter and gave more meaning to her paintings.Frida Kahlo’s life was full of extreme pain and suffering, ever since she was as young as 6 when she was diagnosed with Polio, an acute viral disease marked by inflammation of nerve cells of the brain stem and spinal cord. This left her bed ridden for 9 months, through this time she formed an imaginary friend. The imaginary friend appeared in one of Frida’s paintings “The Two Fridas”.

After attaining a normal life again after her illness she was determined to live life to the fullest in which she did, becoming fairly popular with a group of boys from her local town.After school one day she was in bus accident afer it collided with another car. She was pierced by a metal pole through her body, she suffered from many infuries including a broken spinal column. Frida went through 32 operations after the accident and still had to live every day with cronic pain and suffering. “I never lost my spirit. I always spent my time painting”, Frida Kahlo said after her near fatile accident.

Painting ended up being a way of releasing her pain and suffering. Frida had became very popular throughout the world of art and had held three exhibitions during her life.One in New York in 1939, one in Paris in 1939 and one in Mexico City in 1953. At this time Frida’s health was so bad doctors advised her not to even attend.

Frida Kahlo’s physical health held her back and limited her from many things in life but also led her to a lot of great things. The paintings she had created came from the physical constraints she had. Vincent Van-Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 and dies on the 29 July 1890 and was in the Post-Impressionism movement. Van Gogh had an extraordinary life full of mental illness.Ever since the age of 16 he had numerous failures and let downs which led him into deep depression each time. He would remain gloomy for months, isolated himself and communicated with very little of his family.

He turned towards religion to break him out of his depression cycles and become very passionately involved with that which he then lost all interest he had for art. "My only anxiety is, how can I be of use in the world? " At the age of 27, he resolved to become an artist with the passion to produce works of art for the people.The people of the art world didn’t exactly like his paintings which then again led him to depression. He felt he was useless in the world and that there was no place for him. Van-Gogh was very close to his brother Theo and when Theo got married Van-Gogh felt he was losing the person that meant the most to him. He committed suicide at the age of 37.

Throughout his life he had experienced eccentric personality, unstable moods, recurrent psychotic episodes, temporal lobe epilepsy and bipolar. Even with all these constraints holding him back he was still able to created amazing paints.Unfortunately, the art world only discovered his true talent after he had committed suicide. Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 and died on May 2, 1519, aged 67.

He was apart of the high renaissance movement. His most famous works were “The last Supper” and “The Mona Lisa”. He was considered as one of the greatest artists of his time. The fact that Leonardo da Vinci didn’t have many paintings made him even more interesting.

He would take a very long time to finish his artworks, whether this is seen as a good or bad thing. It took him 10 years to just paint the lips of “The Mona Lisa”. The Last Supper” was 460 x 880 cm.It took him three years to finish. Most of his paintings didn’t even get finished.

Time was a big constraint for Leonardo da Vinci as if he was able to paint faster or even be able to finish his paintings he would be famous for a lot more artworks. Each of these four artists fought through the constraints that life had thrown at them. Whether it turned out to be good or bad, they made them who they are to this day. The constraints and limitations influenced each and every one of them on what they do and make and how the perceive the world around them.