life drawing - jenny saville style

today we had another life drawing class in which we had to focus on drawing the head and face, we were given the task of recreating a face in the style of jenny saville. i selected the image that jenny saville created (shown below) to draw in the style of because i liked the effect that the reds and oranges gave.

to create my own piece first i used a pencil to draw out a rough angular shape of the face and its details. i then used acrylic paints and only my fingers to apply the paint to the page, this was a messy process and proved hard to get the paint in smaller places but was useful as it was easier to blend the colours together.

the face began to look more realistic as i began to use thicker layers of paint and bigger and bolder strokes, i found that using white and also a pale orange were really good for adding highlights to the face.

When it came to going the inside of the eyes i was a bit uncomfortable as i know that the eyes can effect your work dramaticaly if they do not match with your image for example if they were looking the wrong way. I resolved this by using a graphite stick and white paint and was very pleased with the outcome, i then showed the colours that i had used to create my image in swatches underneath my completed image.

jenny saville

I find jenny savilles work to be quite interesting as it is quite abnormal.  I love the way that she creates larger images of the femail body, this to me seems to try to get the message that big is beautiful across and I find this to be what makes her work so unique, she shows that big women are can be used as models too aswell as smaller/slimmer women.

I don’t like the way that in some of her images she will draw parts of men onto the womans body such as penis’s, she may have had some reason behind this but I don’t think that it has any meaning and is a bit disturbing.

I like the way that jenny uses thick lashings of colour in her work and you can tell that she uses either a large brush or even her hand and I think this adds to the quality of her work and the use of unusual colours for parts of the body really has a good impact on her work.

what was the holocaust and why did it happen

The Holocaust was the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of other people leading up to and during World War II.

The killings took place in Europe between 1933 and 1945. They were organised by the German Nazi party which was led by Adolf Hitler.

The largest group of victims were Jewish people. Nearly 7 out of every 10 Jews living in Europe were murdered.

Most of the victims were killed because they belonged to certain racial or religious groups which the Nazis wanted to wipe out. This kind of killing is called genocide.

The Nazis also murdered politicians, trade unionists, journalists, teachers and anyone else who spoke out against Hitler.

We will never know exactly how many died but there were many millions of non-Jewish victims, including:

Civilians and soldiers from the Soviet Union

Catholics from Poland

Serbs

Disabled people

Homosexuals

Jehovah's Witnesses

Polish civilians

Roma and Sinti people (Gypsies)

Slavic people

In 1921 Adolf Hitler became leader of the Nazi party. The Nazis were racists and believed that their Aryan race was superior to others.

To them, an Aryan was anyone who was European and not Jewish, Romany or Slavic.

They also thought Germany was a more important country than its neighbours.

In 1934 Hitler became Germany's head of state. He introduced anti-Semitic laws which discriminated against Jewish people living in the areas he controlled.

Some of these laws meant that Jewish children could no longer go to school, keep pets or have a bicycle.

The Nazis believed that Jews were a problem that needed to be removed. The mass killings of the Holocaust were what Hitler called "The Final Solution".

Hitler also wanted to make Germany bigger, so he invaded neighbouring countries and took them over.

Many of the non-German people living on land that he wanted for Germans were also sent to concentration camps.

key dates of world war two.

30th January 1933            Hitler Chancellor of Germany     Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany

22nd March 1933              First concentration camp opened             The first concentration camp was opened at Dachau in Germany

1st April 1933     Jewish shops boycotted               Germans were told not to buy from Jewish shops or businesses

1 September 1939      world war 2 begins.

24th November 1933      'Undesirables' sent to camps      Homeless, alcoholic and unemployed people were sent to concentration camps

17th May 1934   Jewish persecution         An order was issued which prohibited Jewish people from having health insurance

15th September 1935     Nuremberg Laws             The Nuremberg Laws were introduced. These laws were designed to take away Jewish rights of citizenship and included orders that:

 Jews are no longer allowed to be German citizens.

Jews cannot marry non-Jews.

Jews cannot have sexual relations with non-Jews.

13th March 1938               Austrian Jews persecuted            Following Anschluss which joined Germany and Austria, Jews in Austria were persecuted and victimised.

8th July 1938      Munich synagogue destroyed    The Jewish synagogue in Munich was destroyed

5th October 1938             Jewish passports stamped with 'J'            The passports of all Austrian and German Jews had to be stamped with a large red letter 'J'

9th November 1938        Kristallnacht       A night of extreme violence.

Approximately 100 Jews were murdered,

20,000 German and Austrian Jews arrested and sent to camps, Hundreds of synagogues burned, and the

Windows of Jewish shops  all over Germany and Austria smashed.

12th November 1938      Jews fined          Jews were made to pay one billion marks for the damage caused by Kristallnacht.

15th November 1938      Jewish children expelled from schools   An order was issued that stated that Jewish children should not be allowed to attend non-Jewish German schools

12th October 1939           Austrian and Czech Jews deported          Jews living in Austria and Czechoslovakia were sent to Poland

23rd November 1939      Yellow Star introduced  Jews in Poland were forced to sew a yellow star onto their clothes so that they could be easily identified.

Early 1940            European Jews persecuted         Jews in German occupied countries were persecuted by the Nazis and many were sent to concentration camps.

20th May 1940   Auschwitz           A new concentration camp, Auschwitz, opened

15th November 1940      Warsaw Ghetto                The Warsaw Ghetto was sealed off. There were around 400,000 Jewish people inside

July 1941              Einsatzgruppen The Einsatzgruppen (killing squads) began rounding up and murdering Jews in Russia. 33,000 Jews are murdered in two days at Babi Yar near Kiev.

31st July 1941     'Final Solution'   Reinhard Heydrich chosen to implement ‘Final Solution’

8th December 1941         First 'Death Camp'           The first 'Death Camp' was opened at Chelmno.

January 1942      Mass-gassing     Mass-gassing of Jews began at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Summer 1942    European Jews gassed  Jews from all over occupied Europe were sent to 'Death Camps'

29th January 1943            Gypsies sent to camps   An order was issued for gypsies to be sent to concentration camps.

19th April - 16th May 1943            Warsaw Ghetto Uprising              An order was issued to empty the Warsaw Ghetto and deport the inmates to Treblinka. Following the deportation of some Warsaw Jews, news leaked back to those remaining in the Ghetto of mass killings.

A group of about 750 mainly young people decided that they had nothing to lose by resisting deportation. Using weapons smuggled into the Ghetto they fired on German troops who tried to round up inmates for deportation.

They held out for nearly a month before they were taken by the Nazis and shot or sent to death camps.

Late 1943             'Death Camps' closed     With the Russians advancing from the East, many 'Death Camps' were closed and evidence destroyed.

14th May - 8th July 1944                Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz           440,000 Hungarian Jews were transported to Auschwitz

30th October 1944           Auschwitz           The gas chambers at Auschwitz were used for the last time

27th January 1945            'Death Marches'               Many remaining camps were closed and evidence of their existence destroyed. Those who had survived the camps so far were taken on forced 'Death Marches'.

30th April 1945  Hitler committed suicide               Faced with impending defeat, Hitler committed suicide

7th May 1945     German surrender          Germany surrendered and the war in Europe was over

2 September 1945                  world war 2 ends  (6 years, 1 day)

20th November 1945      Nuremberg war trial began         Surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial at Nuremberg

Adolf Hitler- The Final Solution

How to get rid of the Jews was a question answered by Adolf Hitler. His answer was to murder Jews throughout Europe along with other races that were believed to be sub-humans. This answer was called the “Final Solution,” a solution that started in the summer of 1941 and was believed to answer the “Jewish Question” and create an end to the Jews.     

                           

  Hitler first explained and thought about his “solution” since 1919. Hitler believed his race was pure, which was the Aryan race. Wanting to protect racial purity, he then thought about getting rid of all Jews throughout Europe, along with other races he believed to be sub-human, including Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the mentally ill and disabled people. Shortly after 1933, Hitler and his Nazi party obtained power in Germany and tried to force Jewish emigration. In 1938, the Nazis defended the Jewish Policy by threatening and taking away some privileges hoping for them to leave. Some countries did not accept them, sending almost all of them back to Germany. Hitler, having a great amount of power, along with his army, had almost total control over Europe. The Nazis considered the “Jewish Question” no longer a German issue, but a European issue.

It was decided. Hitler had to reason with the Jews one way or an other. He had to carry out his idea of the “Final Solution” and make it a reality. Germany then invaded the Soviet Union to gather up more Jews. They collected as many Jews as they could grab a hold of. Hitler had sent SS (Schutzstaffel) units to search town to town throughout most of Europe to track down all the Jews in their path. Some Jews were killed right there on the spot, but most were sent to death camps built by Nazi’s and still under construction. They were going to be sent to Auschwitz, and other death camps where mass murder would shortly begin. The “Final Solution” was in progress, and the answer to solve the “Jewish Question” had begun.

Having the “Final Solution” in progress, The Germans began to kill Jews using simple methods at first. They fired at them with guns and put the bodies in pits. This did not work well as planned, it killed very few using too much time. By fall 1941, techniques were developed. With amounts of death camps, the number of Jews being assassinated greatly increased. They were sent to camps by trainloads as if they were animals. Load by load, they were all killed each day and it continued for quite a time. Many Jews died from starvation or were often killed in concentration camps. Unlike death camps, more than 6,000 died from Gas Chambers alone, each day. Gas Chambers consisted of the poisonous chemicals known as Zyclon B. After instant death, the bodies were gathered and thrown into crematoriums where they burned. Some bodies were even pushed by bulldozers into the giant pits, many Jews also died by failing physical tests, checked by SS doctors, known as selections. The weak and the ill often died. Having a doctor raise a single hand, another life was gone. The ones who failed, were sent to showers. Not knowing, the showerheads were fake. The doors were shut on them, and they were poisoned by cyanide gas that poured from the showerheads. The bodies were later burned as well. The “Final Solution” appeared to be successful for Hitler and was continued throughout the war.

Dr Mengele - Josef Mengele, The Angel Of Death.

At death camps like Auschwitz children did not fare well: they were generally killed upon arrival. Children born in the camps were generally killed on the spot, especially if the child was Jewish.

So called camp doctors, especially the notorious Josef Mengele, would torture Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. "Patients" were put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death, and exposed to various other traumas.

Dr. Josef Mengele was born on March 16, 1911, the eldest of three sons of Karl and Walburga Mengele. Josef was refined, intelligent and popular in his town. He studied philosophy at Munich and medicine at Frankfurt University. In 1935 his dissertation dealt with racial differences in the structure of the lower jaw.

In 1937 he joined the Nazi party, then in 1938 he went to the SS. In 1942 he was wounded at the Russian front and was pronounced unfit for duty. After that he volunteered to go to the concentration camp, he was sent to the death camp, Auschwitz. Dr. Josef Mengele, nicknamed "the Angel of Death", became the surviving symbol of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution".

Mengele was always immaculately prepared for the long-drawn-out rituals of death, the hellish selections which the young SS doctor so regularly attended during his twenty-one months at Auschwitz.

Josef Mengele was the chief provider for the gas chambers and their crematoria. "He had a look that said 'I am the power,'" said one survivor. When it was reported that one block was infected with lice, Mengele solved the problem by gassing all the 750 women assigned to it. At the time, Mengele was only 32 years old.

The Angel of Death fed his legend by dramatizing murderous policies, such as his drawing a line on the wall of the children's block between 150 and 156 centimeters (about 5 feet or 5 feet 2 inches) from the floor.Then sending those whose heads could not reach the line to the gas chamber.

The memory of this slightly built man, scarcely a hair out of place, his dark green tunic neatly pressed, his face well scrubbed, his Death's Head SS cap tilted rakishly to one side, remains vivid for those who survived his scrutiny when they arrived at the Auschwitz railhead. Polished boots slightly apart, his thumb resting on his pistol belt, he surveyed his prey with those dead gimlet eyes. Death to the left, life to the right. Four hundred thousand souls - babies, small children, young girls, mothers, fathers, and grandparents - are said to have been casually waved to the lefthand side with a flick of the cane clasped in a gloved hand.

In another case in which a mother did not want to be separated from her thirteen-year-old daughter, and bit and scratched the face of the SS man who tried to force her to her assigned line, Mengele drew his gun and shot both the woman and the child. As a blanket punishment, he then sent to the gas all people from that transport who had previously been selected for work, with the comment: "Away with this shit!".

There were moments when his death mask gave way to a more animated expression, when Mengele came alive. There was excitement in his eyes, a tender touch in his hands. This was the moment when Josef Mengele, the geneticist, found a pair of twins.

Mengele was almost fanatical about drawing blood from twins, mostly identical twins. He is reported to have bled some to death this way.

Once Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs of Gypsy twins during the night. Mengele placed them on his polished marble dissection table and put them to sleep. He then proceeded to inject chloroform into their hearts, killing them instantaneously. Mengele then began dissecting and meticulously noting each and every piece of the twins' bodies.

The Holocaust Children

At Auschwitz Mengele did a number of twin studies, and these twins were usually murdered after the experiment was over and their bodies dissected. He supervised an operation by which two Gypsy children were sewn together to create Siamses twins; the hands of the children became badly infected where the veins had been resected.

Mengele injected chemicals into the eyes of children in an attempt to change their eye color. Unfortunately a strict veil of secrecy over the experiments enabled Mengele to do his work more effectively.The full extent of his gruesome work will never be known because the records he sent to Dr. Von Verschuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute were shipped out in two truckloads and destroyed by the latter.

Twins undergoing his experiments didn't know what the objectives were. It is known that he had a special pathology lab where he performed autopsies on twins who had died from experiments. It was located next to the cremetorium.

Any remaining notes Mengele carried with him on his escape to South America and those were never found. Some forty years after the war, only a few of these twins could be found, many living in Israel and the United States. Strangely enough, many of them recall Mengele as a gentle, affable man who befriended them as children and gave them chocolates. Since many had immediately been separated from their families upon entering the camp, Mengele became a sort of father figure. Still a tension existed, that at any time they could be killed if they did not keep a low profile. Older twins recognized his kindness as a deception ...

The horrors of the Holocaust

Mengele performed both physical and psychological experiments, experimental surgeries performed without anesthesia, transfusions of blood from one twin to another, isolation endurance, reaction to various stimuli. He made injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, the removal of organs and limbs, incestuous impregnations.

Prisoner number A26188 - Henia Bryer - Holocaust

 This short film was about the holocaust and was a survivor telling her story about how lucky she was during the holocaust well as lucky as a prisoner can be she spoke of the horrific things that she witnessed and things that they all had to endure such as starvation and lack of clothing.

I found this film to be very upsetting as I knew that the things she spoke about really happened to real people that didn’t deserve it, they were punished purely for their religion. The things that she spoke about were truly sickening things such as having unsafe ammounts of blood taken from them while suffering from severe starvation and illness so that it could be pumped back into the injured german soliders.

Jews of all ages and genders were made to have their hair removed, this was to make them all appear the same, to take away their individuality and identity, this was also to prevent the spread of lice/fleas and the hair was sold off to be used as stuffing for mattresses and pillows.

The Jews were treated like this due to propaganda and mass media, they were made to look inhuman and evil in the media and with the mass amount people began to believe that they were bad and an image of them was portrayed that looked nothing like them and made them out to be monsters for money and sex.