All posts filed under: Made-Up History

Made-Up History: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Cassius Clay,” 1982

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In this edition of Made-Up History, I’ll be talking about someone who is very dear to my heart. Jean-Michel Basquiat is my favorite artist. It’s really hard to pick one, but if I had to, it would be Basquiat. He started out as a street artist and he would tag his work (then, a collaborative venture with friend Al Diaz) with “SAMO,” which is a hypocoristic name for “Same Old Shit.” The Village Voice published a piece on some of their works. He graduated from street art and graffiti by 1979 and by 1980, he started showing some pieces in group shows. In 1981, a piece by Rene Ricard called “The Radiant Child” was published in Artforum Magazine, which brought him to the attention of the art scene. His works were provocative, a commentary on consumerism, popular culture, and cultural politics, and his style was a new take on primitivism. There were a lot of emerging modern artists in New York during this time, and he was one of the ones who shot up to …

Made-Up History: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso

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This look was borne out of a need to update this little section of my blog, Made-Up History, and also out of the fear of wearing blue eyeshadow. I never understood it, never knew why people wore it out of campaigns or editorials. When I heard that blues suited brown eyes, I was dubious. Still, curiosity got the better of me and thought this was a good time to do it. This is also partially inspired by both Mariana (whose personal makeup challenge was to wear a red lip in the day time) and Liz (who brought up the question that instigated Mariana’s experiment). Today, we’re going to look at Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon or “The Young Ladies of Avignon,” created in 1907 and is part of MoMA’s collection. (Source) Wikipedia says that it was originally called The Brothel of Avignon, which I can sort of see with the provocative poses of the figures. Even though they are distorted and rendered in the cubist style for which Picasso would be famous for, you can …

Made-Up History: Untitled (Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on White and Red)

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I initially planned to do this series, Made-Up History, at least once a week. For a total of 52 looks and works of art by the time this beauty blog turned a year old. Funny how things turned out. For this installment, I want to base a look off of a work by Mark Rothko. Mark Rothko is an American artist whose abstract expressionist works—a label that he rejected—shot to fame when Modern Art gained popularity after the Second World War. I’m sure you’ve seen his works! The most famous are typically blocks of color that almost touch or sometimes run into each other. People’s reactions to the paintings are often, “I could do that,” but I will tell you now that “No, you could not.” There is a rare quality of rawness and honesty present in Rothko’s work. It is inimitable because it’s the outpouring of his soul. One of my favorite quotes by Rothko is from an interview with Will Gompertz by Interview Magazine: Somebody said to [Rothko], “Why do you paint these …

Made-Up History: The Birth of Venus

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Made-Up History (get it?) will be a series of translations of art (for now) onto makeup. It merges two growing loves, one old and one new, which is why I have resolved to do it. In the process, I hope to get better at both, but I guess this really works out my makeup muscle more. Today, I chose to do Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus or “Nascita di Venere,” which is a very famous painting. We saw this in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy about two months ago, and I was completely enamored by it. The Birth of Venus presents a scene—the goddess of love stepping ashore on a shell—and is the sort of story that unfurls the more you look at it. In the 1350s, Christianity was prevalent in places like Florence. In Siena, war was attributed to the town’s reverence for a statue of Venus, a sort of idolatry that someone warned was forbidden by their faith. This followed the destruction of the Sienese statue, as Venus was then regarded …

Made-Up History: Liberty Leading the People

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Made-Up History (get it?) will be a series of translations of art (for now) onto makeup. It merges two growing loves, one old and one new, which is why I have resolved to do it. In the process, I hope to get better at both, but I guess this really works out my makeup muscle more. This is the first installment, for which I have decided to use Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, or as they say call it in France, “La Liberté guidant le peuple.” “And if I haven’t fought for my country at least I’ll paint for her.” — Eugene Delacroix Liberty Leading the People is arguably Delacroix’s most famous work. You have probably seen it on a Coldplay album cover, or in the Louvre if you’ve gone there at some point in your life. It depicts the “July Revolution” of 1830, during which the people of France overthrew Charles X, who had been in power at the time. Delacroix chose to personify Liberty as a woman of the people—robust, bold, fearless, …