ITAP - Interpretation & Platform

The two principles i have chosen to write about this week are Principle 1 and 2, Interpretation and Delivery.

Interpretation

The Zeitgeist being the spirit of the age, I am going to look at an example of how this has affected art.

         Francisco De Zurbaran, Crucifixion              Piss Christ, Andres Serrano

Taking the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, a scene that has been depicted by many over the centuries, and choosing just two versions of it I can make some very interesting observations. The first image, Zurbaran's Crucifixion, was painted in 1627 in catholic spain. Zurbaran was a himself a catholic and I think this really shows in his painting of the crucifixion  Jesus in the Christian & Catholic faith is the central figure, the Lord and Saviour of their lives, so as a catholic Zurbaran would be sure to paint Jesus in a good light (literally speaking!). You can see that Jesus has a strong looking physique, he looks strong despite his disposition. The detail on his stomach shows ab muscles and his skin is very clean with no sign of blood from the flogging that Jesus received before hand. 

This is a more accurate depiction of what someone would look like after receiving the kind of torture that Jesus did, which is historically recorded.

He has painted Jesus with respect and admiration influenced by the strong religious culture of his day. Compare this with Adres Serrano's Piss Christ and it couldn't be further apart. Piss Christ completely disrespects Jesus, the Crucifixion and Christianity itself. Such a bold statement of having Jesus submerged in urine really shows the views and opinions of people of the 1980's. In the 80's there were a lot of public failures with big Christian TV evangelists, people caught in adultery and TV stations found out as being huge money scams. This teamed with the continuation of the free thinking movement of the 70's where people began to think about how they didn't have to believe in God, they didn't have to listen to what the Church was telling them anymore. A lack of disrespect and a sense of not caring about the sacred figure of Jesus Christ is prevalent in this depiction.

The culture of the times, the spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist is easy to see in any piece of art once you have a look at surrounding issues and themes of a particular date.

Delivery/Platform

Anton Repponen is a creative director, designer, illustrator, product designer, photographer, t-shirt designer and much more. He obviously does work across a variety of platforms and I think he does this with particular elegance and skill. Designing apps, websites, socks, iPhone IOS themes, online map tools he is a great example of a designer who is making the most of many different platforms and doing very well at it too.