Muybridge: Alexander Calder

http://www.teachingstars.com/2012/07/19/adventures-in-art-alexander-calder/

Although Alexander Calder was originally not interested in art, Calder ended up being a highly esteemed artist and father of a medium still widely used today. Calder wanted his art to be about fun and the joy of making the work of art itself. He thought this fun and joy would be best communicated if his pieces moved. At first, Calder tried putting motors on his works, but the movement this created did not sit well with him. He wanted his pieces to move in a more natural and fluid way, so he got rid of the motors and instead strung up his pieces so that the wind would move his works for him. That was when the mobile (a term coined by Marcel Duchamp) was created.

http://galeri.uludagsozluk.com/r/alexander-calder-162374/

With his newly invented mobile, Calder liked to portray abstract shapes that focused on color and form. Since Calder already had experience working with wire early on in his art career, most of his mobiles were made out of wire and aluminum that he painted over. Calder’s mobiles were also inspired by the surrealist and modernist painters he was interested in at the time. Even though Calder’s mobile creation is now mostly used for infants, it should never be forgotten that mobiles were first and foremost an art form.

http://kaylovesvintage.blogspot.com/2012/04/alexander-calder.html

Information provided by:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/alexander-calder/about-the-artist/78/