MY LIFE
...merican artist to work in a cubism idiom. He made witty and original use of it and created a distinctive American style, for however abstract his works became he always claimed that every image he used had its source in observed reality. Davis once said " I paint what I see in America, in other words I paint the American scene." Stuart Davis' works of the late 1930's celebrate the urban and technological environment and are quite complex and frequently recall Legers's brightly coloured geometric forms. Early works depict saloons and ragtime musicians. Titles and images of his works in the 30's reflect syncopation and unusual rhythm of jazz, particularly swing . Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in 1960, four years before Stuart Davis' death. At an early age Basquiat showed an interest and love for drawing. His mother often took him to The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the age of seven he and a friend of his wrote and illustrated a children's book. Basquiat was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock films, cars, comic books, and Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine. By the time he was seven he was an avid reader of French, Spanish, and English texts. In his teenage years Basquiat ran away from home often. He did not like obedience. By 1978 he was in with the "in crowd." The filmmakers and artists of New York. He enjoyed doing graffiti work using the name SAMO ( same old shit ). Basquiat's career was divided into three broad phases. From 1980 to 1982 he used painterly gestures, mostly skeletal figures that signal his obsession with mortality. He also used figures that represent street existence, such as policeman, buildings, and graffiti. From 1982 to 1985 he was using more phrases and words in his paintings. They reveal a strong interest in his black and hispanic identity and his identification with historical and contemporary black figures and events. The last phase was from 1986 until his death in 1988. His work displays a new type of figurative depiction, using different symbols, sources, and content. He was seeking a new territory in his work. When Basquiat's Horn Players and Davis' Swing Landscape are displayed side by side it is quite obvious that they were done by two different artist. In Swing Landscape it is not obvious that this piece was inspired by jazz, as where in Horn Players the influence of jazz is evident. These painters have two completely different styles but are inspired by the same types of things. They are inspired by society and music. They both appreciate the art value of music, especially jazz. Stuart Davis' Swing Landscape is quite colorful and vibrant. The colors give a feeling of jazz with the use of blues and cool colors. The use of the warm colors shows the unpredictability of jazz. There are many forms of geometric shapes used in this painting. The shapes used in this painting again show the unpredictability of jazz, as well as the vibrancy of that music form. There are not a lot of distinguishing symbols of jazz in the painting, except for maybe a pair of sunglasses and a metronome in the bottom left corner. This painting represents the feeling of jazz, even though it is not evident at first glan...