Office Art Memo, Coursework Example

Our upcoming move to the new location on Spring Street offers an opportunity for Winslow Personal Management (WPM) to refresh the public face that we present to our clients.  As many of these clients are, themselves, involved in creative fields, our choice in artwork will link our corporate motif with their own professional aims.  My recent studies in the Humanities have provided me with unique insight into Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, enabling me to choose six pieces which will best represent WPM’s image as an innovative personal management company devoted to all spheres of the artistic world.

The Artwork

After careful consideration and a thorough review of art scholar Henry M. Sayre’s influential text The Humanities: Culture, Continuity, and Change (2011), I recommend that we purchase the following six pieces:

Boating, Edouard Manet (1874)

Two Young Girls at the Piano, Auguste Renoir (1892)

Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery, Edgar Degas (1879-80)

L’Arlesienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (nee Marie Julien, 1848-1911), Vincent van Gogh (1888-89)

At the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and Her Sister, Henri Toulouse-Latrec (1892)

Two Tahitian Women, Paul Gauguin (1899)

The pieces by Manet, Renoir, and Degas are representative of Impressionist art due to their rejection of former artistic expectations.  Although these pieces appear, to a certain extent, incomplete, they are intricately crafted to give the illusion of spontaneity and movement (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011).  The pieces by van Gogh, Toulouse-Latrec, and Gaugin are representative of Post-Impressionist art because of their simple nature and tendency towards the abstract.  Unlike Impressionist art, the works from this period are less interested in light and color than in rendering the artists’ internal worlds through symbolism (The Art Story, 2011).

Aesthetics

These six pieces share a common interest in rendering the human form in a realistic yet attractive manner.  Edouard Manet’s Boating depicts a man and woman in a rowboat.  The woman is viewed in profile while her companion stares directly at the viewer; their clothing and physical attitudes suggest relaxation and contemplation.  The color blue dominates, as do Manet’s heavy brushstrokes.  Two Young Girls at the Piano by Auguste Renoir  shows two girls at a piano, one apparently given lessons to the other.  The girls appear happy and focused in their creative endeavours and possess an emotional warmth that is duplicated in the gold and rose tones employed by the artist.  Edgar Degas’ Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery depicts two young women standing before a painting.  One woman stands, her back to the viewer, and the other is seated with her face hidden by a book.  This etching uses shadow and shades of gray and black to illustrate the women’s depth of concentration as they immerse themselves in the artwork before them.  L’Arlesienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (nee Marie Julien, 1848-1911) by Vincent van Gogh is a portrait of an attractive older woman in repose at a cafe table.  Books are spread out around her and she rests her chin on her hand, as if she is deep in thought.  The mustard-yellow background brings added depth to the painting, imbuing the scene with a positive and lively tone.  Henri Toulouse-Latrec’s At the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and Her Sister is a lithograph composed in six colors, with pale yellow dominating.  The central figures are two women whose faces, as in Degas’ piece, are turned away from the viewer.  They are concentrating on two men in top hats in the lithograph’s background, and the overall scene suggests the excitement and spontaneity of Paris nightlife.  Paul Gaugin’s Two Tahitian Women is dominated by two women, one of them bare from the waist up and the other in a sarong that leaves one breast exposed.  One woman holds a basket of fruit, the other a bunch of flowers.  They stare slightly away from the viewer, their bodies close together.  This coupled with the rich use of greens, blues, and yellows lends the piece an air of exoticism.  I recommend that these pieces all be displayed in our outer-offices so that they will be most visible to our clients and visitors.

Historical Significance

Taken as a whole, these pieces are historically significant because each marks a breaking away from the old artistic order of formal composition and a desire for creative independence (Sayre, 2011).  Indeed, the Post-Impressionist pieces demonstrate how art is continually changing as these works were a response to what the artists saw as the limitations of Impressionism.  Specifically, the brushwork of Manet, which gives the appearance of a sketch, the level of detail and realism in Renoir’s work, and the complex tonal effects of Degas’ etching all utilize elements which marked the Impressionist period as one of great artistic importance.  Van Gogh’s use of a saturated color palate, Toulouse-Latrec’s employment of geometric patterns, and Gaugin’s use of nudity all demonstrate how the Post-Impressionist both built on and moved away from earlier artistic movements.

Corporate Image

Our primary focus at WPM is to provide our clients with dependable representation that will allow them to reach their professional and personal goals.  As our clients are largely artists, actors, musicians, and writers, it is both appropriate and relevant to decorate our new offices with art that reflects their creative interests.  Additionally, choosing works that focus on the human figure, will symbolize how, much like the artists discussed herein, our agency assists our clients in presenting the best of their internal and external selves to the public at large.

In closing, I believe that these works will reinforce our corporate image while creating a warm, stimulating, and welcoming environment for everyone who visits WPM.  Thank-you for considering my proposal.

References

Degas, E. (1879-80). Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery. [etching]. The   Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/19.29.2

Gaugin, P. (1899). Two Tahitian Women. [painting]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/49.58.1

Manet, E. (1874). Boating. [painting]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/29.100.115

Renoir, A. (1892). Two Young Girls at the Piano. [painting]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1975.1.201

Sayre, H.M. (2011). The humanities: Culture, continuity, and change, Volume 2. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Chapters 21-32.

The Art Story. (2011). Post- Impressionism. Retrieved from http://www.theartstory.org/movement-post-impressionism.htm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2011). Impressionism: Art and modernity. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm

Toulouse-Lautrec, H. (1892). At the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and Her Sister. [lithograph]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from      http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/41.12.18

van Gogh, V. (1888-89). L’Arlesienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (nee Marie Julien, 1848-1911). [painting]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/51.112.3