Sunday, March 29, 2015

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY


Hi everyone! Today, we are going to talk about one of the most important and famous sculptures in the United States, The Statue of Liberty.

1. HISTORY
Although this important monument was inaugurated in 1886, his history began long before:


- In 1667, a Dutch colony named Isaac Bedloe, obtained a land in the Oyster Island. Later, this territory was sold to New York, where the Statue of Liberty is placed nowadays.


- In 1794, there were a lot of confrontations between the United States, France and Britain after the American Revolution. For this reason, fortifications were built on the Island of Bedloe that was a military post from 1807 to 1937.


- In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye, a French politician, decided to give a monument to the United States as a french gift to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of American Independence.

Edouard de Laboulaye

- In 1870, Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, started the project of Laboulaye and he was the author of the Statue of Liberty. The full name of this work was Liberty Enlightening the World.

Auguste Bartholdi
 - In 1881, Auguste Bartholdi asked for help to Gustave Eiffel to build part of this statue due to its complexity.

Gustave Eiffel
  - In 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote a poem called The New Colossus to raise money because this monument was very expensive, but the real success came thanks to Joseph Pulitzer (a New York World publisher) who got a lot of money to build the pedestal in 1885. This construction was made by the architect Richard Morris and the statue arrived at the harbor of New York on June 1885.
    

Emma Lazarus
Joseph Pulitzer
 

      

The New Colossus
                       
- In 1886, the pedestal was completed and it was the moment to unite the individual pieces of the statue. This work was made by immigrants. This year was important too because on October 23rd the Statue of Liberty was completely finished and five days later was inaugurated on Bedloe's Island.
 
- In 1903, Emma Lazaru's poem was inscribed on the pedestal of the statue.
 
- In 1956, it was decided to rename the island like Liberty Island under the leadership of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
- In 1965, President Johnson made Ellis Island part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.

 President Johnson
- In 1982, Lee Iacocca led the project to restore the monument and it began two years later. In this restoration there were several changes, but one of the most important was the construction of a new torch covered with gold. The work was completed in 1896 and there were numerous events too: President Ronald Reagan relit the torch of the statue, the Statue of Liberty National Monument was reopened, a new Statue of Liberty of Museum was incorporate in the pedestal and the centenary anniversary celebration took place.

 Lee Iacocca
- Finally, in 2004 it was reopened to the public after having been closed since 2001 because of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.


 
2. CHARACTERISTICS
First of all, this sculpture -that represent an allegory of Liberty- is situated at the entrance of the Harbor of New York. Because of that, it became the first thing that immigrants saw when they arrived to Ellis Island, where they were medically examinated.
Regarding the style, it has been described as a neoclassical sculpture with a mixture between the ancient art and the Art Nouveau.
At the beginnings, the interior was made of iron, but in the following restorations it was replaced with stainless steel to avoid damages. As we have said before, the original torch was made of copper, but it was later replaced by gold.

Now, let's name the dimensions of the sculpture because we think is important too:

- The statue is 305 feet (93 metres) from the pedestal to the tip of the torch, 111 feet (42 metres)  from heel to head, her waist is 35 feet (11 metres) and weight 225 tons.

Total measurement 
- The crown has 7 rays and 25 windows. Each ray is 9 feet (2,74m) long and weighs 150 pounds (56kg). The rays represent the seven continents and the windows represent the gemstones that exist in the world. Finally, the face on the Statue of Liberty measures more than 8 feet tall (2,4m).

 - The table on the left hand is 23 feet (7m) high and 13 feet (4m) wide. In this table is represented in Roman numerals the date of Independence of the United States.
Table's statue
- At the feet of the statue, the chains represent oppression and tyranny.
Chains statue
- Finally, the outside copper of the statue is 3/32 inch thick and the light green color is due to the natural erosion of copper.  

 
3. CURIOSITIES
If you want to know more about this sculpture, now we are going to name some curiosities about her:

- It is one of the most visited monuments with 4 millions of people each year.

- The face of the statue is inspired by Batholdi's mother.

- It became a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984.

- There are several replicas of the Statue of Liberty in Paris and Las Vegas.

- It was represented in the paintings of Andy Warhol as a part of his Pop Art series in the 1960s.

Statue of Liberty in Las Vegas


Statue of Liberty by Andy Warhol
 
      

 
 

 
Here you have a short video that summarize the history of the Statue of Liberty:
 


4.CONCLUSION

First, we must say that this sculpture has several different Internet websites due to its importance. These websites include all kind of topics such as its history, sculptors, construction, materials, curiosities, etc.

On the one hand, the most important thing is that it has become an international monument because in the construction, financing or renovation participated American and French people. On the other hand, the construction was very difficult due to its complexity and cost.

If you talk about the Statue of Liberty, you are talking about freedom and emancipation. Americans are very proud of this work because it is very important for them for its history. For this reason, we think they have made many restorations, because they want others to know the positive changes and evolution in the society.

We also think that the United States won't be the same without the Statue of Liberty. Do you agree with us?
 


 We hope you enjoy this post! Next week, we are going to continue adding information about art.
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY
● Information:
- Statue of Liberty painting: https://youtu.be/OCV-mbeI2Tw http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/11868/12022126_1.jpg?v=8CEBB7309E7ADB0


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Sunday, March 22, 2015

Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane



Yeah! It is time again to talk about visual arts in the United States. This time we are not going to talk about painters, but about famous American cartoonists.
 
Can someone guess which American family is the most famous all over the world? Yes, you got it, they are The Simpsons.
The old and actual Simpsons family
1. Matt Groening

As all of us know, one of the fathers of this family is Matt Groening. He was born in Portland (Oregon) on February 15th, 1954 and his father was cartoonist as well. He pushed his son to follow his path and Matt did it. Matt felt strongly linked with coloring books rather than going to school, mostly because he was not able to stay inside the lines (as he said). He went to school, but he spent his time doodling his notebooks. He tends to think that he has gaps in education because he was not able to say his capitol state or even to multiply any number between 7 and 13. During high school, he kept drawing in every class and he also drew cartoons for the school newspaper. With his hippie friends, they created their own political party called Teens for Decency. He was elected as Student Body President, but their classmates immediately regretted it. Later he went to college in Olympia (Washington), where he met Lynda Barry (cartoonist), who pushed Matt to keep drawing cartoons.

In 1977, Matt graduated and moved to Los Angeles to become a writer. He did not have a good beginning because he started working as a chauffeur and biographer for an 88-years-old director of bad movies. Hopeless, he sent a message to his friends in Oregon. Instead of writing a letter, he sent a comic book about life in Los Angeles. He called it Life in Hell and it soon became an underground success in L.A.

1.1. The Simpsons and Futurama
In 1985, James L. Brooks (renowned film and television producer) showed interest in his work and asked Matt to work with him in some projects of animation for comedy series. 15 minutes before the meeting took place, he was told he had to come up with something new and original. There, The Simpsons were born, while waiting in Brooks foyer, he hurriedly sketched a quirky looking family consisting of one father, one mother, two girls and one boy - and named them each like his own family members (with the exception of Bart). In this meeting, the executives liked Matt’s work but they asked him to tell them a little more about this singular family. They started laughing and Matt knew at this moment that they were in.
The Simpsons

The first 13 full-length episodes came out on April 19th, 1989. At the beginning, the episodes were focused on Bart, but weeks later, they realized that Homer was more popular. Nowadays, the episodes are just around the family, and some episodes featuring supporting characters are very common.

In our opinion, the Simpsons criticizes the society of the United States: rich people who do not care about the poor ones, the obsession of a mother about taking care of her baby and her family, etc., and also we have been watching the most fancy famous performing a little role in Springfield, including Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, George Bush and the Spanish Rosa López. The Simpsons has been on our screens for more than 25 years and still remains as one of the best programs on television.

Matt Groening also has created other famous programs as Futurama but it was canceled after 4 years. For this program, he picked up the 2011 Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.
Futurama


2. Seth MacFarlane
Let’s move to another, but not less famous, cartoonist. He is Seth MacFarlane. He is younger than Matt Groening but he is very important as well.

Seth was born on October 23rd, 1973, in Kent (Connecticut). He had his first job as a cartoonist when he was nine years old in a local newspaper. He studied video and animation and his career ambitions were initially focused on Disney but he caught the attention of Hanna-Barbera Productions with his thesis film, Life of Larry, which contained the beginnings of what would later become Family Guy. In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles and started working for Hanna-Barbera as a writer and animator on Johnny Bravo (1997) and Cow and Chicken (1995).

His career has been very successful. He is the father of Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show and also, he has been the director of Ted and he participated as producer for the TV show Flashforward.

The Cleveland Show
Flashforward
Ted
American Dad




 Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane worked together to create a special episode
of Family Guy in which the characters of both cartoons, The Simpsons and
Family Guy, lived togheter. It was released on September 28th, 2014, on Fox TV
under the name of The Simpsons Guy. Do you want to watch it? Here you have a trailer of it:

3. Reflexion
These two cartoonists are similar and different. Both of them used their “families” to criticize the American civilization and others world issues. These TV shows have been part of our lives (for some of us) from the beginning and also nowadays, we are watching it during our lunchtime.

These shows are not for children, even though if they are watching it. The Simpsons are violent and cruel in some ways and children could copy this behavior. We grew up watching them and we are not a violent person, so what do you think? Do you agree with people who use to think that these TV shows could change the behavior of our children?

We are waiting for your comments and we hope you enjoy our post this week.


● Bibliography




 

● Pictures
 
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