One of the reasons why I absolutely do not regret taking the AP Art History course this past year is definitely the exposure I got to different artists and art eras. After a year of studying everything from Medieval art to Renaissance to Romantic to Fauvism - whatever, you name it... I was able to start forming opinions on the kinds of art that I was particularly drawn to and the ones that I just don't feel as much from.
Post-Impressionism - this was a movement that I was drawn to from the beginning (literally since September, when we had to choose any random era to do a crash course on), and by the end of the year, this has remained my favorite era (along with Impressionism). Among the Post-Impressionism artists, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec has stuck out as a name I will remember long after the AP exam and the class's end. I adore his Parisian Moulin Rouge posters, the slight Japanese-print flavor, the asymmetrical compositions, photographic cropping, and the interior night scenes. There are so many of his works that I love (here's a link to the presentation I made for the art class if you want to check out some of them). One of my favorites has to be the Aristide Bruant poster - just for its bold visual simplicity.
During this time that I was creating my own rendition of the Aristide Bruant poster, I was particularly obsessed with the Kennedys and their Camelot era in U.S. history (partly because we had begun watching a film on the Cuban Missile Crisis in my AP U.S. History class, and/or maybe partly because I had recently gotten back into listening to Taylor Swift's Red album - which one of the songs, "Starlight," is confirmed to be written about Bobby Kennedy and his wife). Nonetheless, here is my rendition of the poster combined with what was on my mind at the time.
