Western New York Impression Prints From The Gerald Mead Collection

Art Gallery Lecture By Collecotor Gerald Mead,

Todays Lecture by Gerald Mead, made me see and visualize art in a whole new way. coming into the art gallery made me feel unsteady because i didnt know what i was looking at or looking for in the arts of the collections of gerald Mead. This lecture open and explained a whole new door for me to understand the meaning of what techniques where used from the 18 centurey to are time today. Inside todays lecture Gerald Mead explains all the different techniques used inside different process in art starting with woodcuts those who dont know what it is formally known as Xylography - is a relif printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. Other technique of art that were intrested that were explained are lithographs and silkscreens , lithographs is a method for printing using a plate or stone with a completely smooth surface. Lithography uses oils or fats and water to divide the smooth surface into hydrophobic regions which accept the ink, and hydrophilics regions which reject it and thus become the background. silkscreen are very intresting beacause their used everyday on all different materials such as t-shirts, wood , paper and different fabrics. This process is done by :

The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.


Those who have not yet heard or seen any work by Gerald mead i recommend you go to one of his lectures.

Reflection Journal Blog

The meaning of representation, denotation and connotation in visual arts has three main meanings representation is representing something of a final copy for example a painting famous person panted and it is copied in a different way for all of society to see. representation was used during a time in history for Emmett tills death. Emmett tills was a 14 year old young african american during the Jim crow laws and segregation, but little did this young boy know a whistle at a white women would lead to his last days on earth, after young emmett whistled that night later he disappeared, he was kidnapped and brutally beaten to death. after they have beat him they dumped him in the Tallahatchie river for no one to find him. family has found him after a short while. his mother was devastated, she was going to do a closed casket funeral but decided not to so the world can see the image she had in her mind and to show the world that torturing innocent people is wrong. I have learned as I have read that every picture has a meaning that is where denotation comes in it is a face value meaning of a sign like a rose as we know it is a flower. Connotation is similar like denotation it is what you see its considered a social, cultural and historical meanings that are added to a signs literal meaning. connotation can be seen in Henry Horace Roland dela portes still life painting he mimics a copy of a scene of a table set up. The elements such as food and drink convey philosophical as well as symbolic meanings, such as a transience of earthly life through the ephemeral materiality of basics.

The myths of photographic truth is using a picture in time to prove the truth of anything that is being processed, Roland Barthes goes on to explain how a photograph is perceived to be an unmediated copy of the real world , its a trace of reality and life its self for example during the holocaust many family member would send pictures of themselves to show that they are still alive for their family to know. Roland Barthes also, goes on to explain that the myths of photographic truth are used at a time of criminal use many pictures that are taken at a scene those pictures are the attorneys evidence that was there at that time and what happened.

Roland Barthes uses the term myths to explain what photographic truth can explain they say a picture says a thousand word well it does as Roland Barthes explains when a photograph is used as evidence anywhere, it is often presented as if it were incontrovertible proof that an event took place in a particular way and in that particular place. Barthes also uses several different terms to explain myths of photographic truth such as studium to describe this truth function of the photograph. The studium also refers to a photographs ability to invoke a distanced appreciation for what the image holds Roland Barthes also goes on to explain all of the new technology today that makes a photograph more photographic truth.