Gilardi's Hidden Images

    Deb Brehmer's lecture on Bernard Gilardi's paintings and her experience with them was a very unique experience.  She was able to view all of his works, his notes, and everything, in good condition, and really get the feel for the artists vision from one area without having to search as widely for her resources.  It is wonderful that she was also able to get a lot of the information (practically most of it) that went along with the art. This was an incredibly unique opportunity because it allowed her to influence the way in which Gilardi's work would be shared with the public without any preconceived ideas. Her experience really allowed people to see that anyone can become an artist if they work at it.
    Gilardi had very intriguing aspects to his paintings of a sort of religious fantasy and little things about his life.  It really shows how adding small aspects of your own life or some symbolism can really add meaning to the work of art you are creating and the idea you are trying to get across.  Speaking with Brehmer about this along with a few other artists, we agreed that Gilardi must have been very well versed in many things and that he had done his research on the things he added to his painting.  His addition of some elements show it is possible and perhaps easy to frame elements of the real world, but it seems they all will have bias.  They will be influenced by the way the artist shows them, which seems as if it no longer makes it part of the real world, but part of the artist's world.  One of my favorite examples of hidden "real world" images in art are the "Easter Eggs" hidden in Disney films which seem to be making up for the earlier controversial "inappropriate for children" images that appeared in earlier films.  The "Easter Egg" images have had a lot of thought put into them.  In truth, the art is really shaped by what you see when you observe it.