04 Apr
Vancouver Video Tours

In Search Of – Vancouver Film School (VFS)



Is your dream really worth the struggle? Heon Soo, the hero of “In Search Of”, leaves his life behind and moves to Canada to pursue his dream career. Lonely, isolated, facing language and cultural differences, Heon starts questioning his decision. Follow the character’s story in this short film by our Film Production program alumni Artha Putra (Producer), Pauls Dombrovskis (Director), Iris Amandy G. (Director of Photography, Editor), Antoine Vile (Production Designer)

Learn more about the Film Production program at VFS:

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25 Mar
Vancouver Tours Blog

Edvard Munch – An Expressionist Experience of the Art World

Born on December 12, 1863 in Loieten, Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and a graphic artist. His family moved to Oslo (Kristiania) in 1864 and it was here that Edvard Munch started his art training. His father, Christian Munch was a military doctor and an ardent follower of Christianity.

Edvard Munch (not Edward Munch) enrolled in Technical College for an engineering degree in 1879; However, his recurrent illness prevented him from completing his degree. A year later, in his endeavor to become an artist, he joined the Royal School of Art and Design, Kristiania (now Oslo). His art and thoughts were greatly influenced by the writer Hans Jaeger, who was the leader of the controversial group, called 'Christiania's Bohemia.' Jaeger was a believer of free love and of a non-materialistic society.

Beginning with Impressionism and Naturalism, Munch graduated to a Symbolist and Expressionist art form. His early and one of the most popular paintings, 'Sick Child' (1886) and 'The Scream' (1893), illustrate his childhood ordeal of losing his mother in 1868 and sister in 1877 to tuberculosis at a young age. The 'Sick Child' used a popular theme amongst the Norwegian pragmatist artists, served as a tribute to his sister. Munch's paintings used the artistic expressions in a manner, which allowed audiences to interpret the content in their own way.

In 1889, Edvard joined the Bonnat School of Arts in Paris and held an exhibition of over a hundred works at the Student Organization in Christiania. After his father's death in 1889, Munch took up to heavy drinking and moved back to Norway. Berlin Artists' Association invited him in 1892 to exhibit his paintings. However, Munch found his paintings in the midst of a controversy, commonly referred as "The Munch Affair," forcing the exhibition to shut down in a week's time. He used this publicity to his advantage by organizing other exhibitions and selling his paintings in other towns.

The following year, Edvard Munch joined the international circle of writers, critics, and artists including Ola Hannson, Richard Dehmal, Holger Drachmann, Gunnar Heiberg, and August Strinberg. He painted a series of painting depicting love, anxiety, and death, which were coined as 'Frieze of Life.' To ensure that his painting got a large audience, he started making prints, the designs of which were mostly taken from Frieze. 'The Scream,' perhaps his most popular work to date, has been inferred to represent the angst of modern man.

He maintained that, "in my art I attempt to explain life and its meaning to myself." After having suffered a nervous breakdown in 1908, requiring electrical shock and the months of recovery time, he became a teetotaler and rational. However, he had lost his edge but continued painting. Also to his credit, he composed a prose poem titled 'Alpha and Omega' (1909), through lithograph illustrations. By the time he died at the age of 81 on January 23, 1944, he left behind thousands of paintings and prints for the world to cherish.

Source by Annette Labedzki

21 Jun
Vancouver Tours Blog

The Art of India – Early Indian Sculptures – An Affair With Creative Finesse

India is known not only for her rich heritage, history, and culture, but also for some of its oldest and finest sculptures in the world. The first Early Indian sculptures date back to the Indus Valley Civilization that inserted in the second and third millennium. This civilization produced numerous stone, terra cotta, & bronze sculptures that are tour de force. In the third century BC, Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, in an attempt to spread Buddhism in the country, built some 85,000 stupas (dome shaped monuments), with their pillows having Buddhist teachings engraved. "The Great Sanchi Stupa" at Sanchi, is forty-four feet high, with remarkably carved gateways, illustrating Buddhist legends, and "The Ashoka Pillar" at Sarnath in Madhya Pradesh, are flawless models ascertaining the superiority and the finesse of the Early Art Of India since its inception.

By the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries AD, a new epoch in Early Indian Sculpture surfaced. Sculptures of Hindu deities, such as Lord Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, the Sun God, and Goddess Durga, were crafted in profuse numbers, as Hinduism became the official religion of India. A huge sculpture of "Lord Shiva" incarnated as a wild boar saving mother earth is carved at "The Udaigiri Caves" in Madhya Pradesh. Sixth century in India, witnessed the mastery in cave architecture. "The Elephanta Caves" in Maharashtra is an exemplary of the competent artisanship. A twenty-foot high sculpture of "Lord Shiva" in these caves, with three heads personing his fiercely, feminine, and meditative facets, is another spectacular piece of Art of India.

Sculptures at Khajuraho Temples, created in tenth to eleventh century AD, went to oblivion, until archeologists rediscovered the lost treasures of this unperturbed town in Madhya Pradesh that housed 85 temples, of which only 22 endured. The sculptures of this period depict Gods, Goddesses, and animals, made primarily of sandstone, with an under theme theme, symbolizing the eternal bond between male and female gender. Khajuraho Sculptures are the most sensuous, erotic, and aesthetic sculptures known to the world.

The famous "Buddhist marvels," created over a span of fourteen centuries, and "The Ajanta & Ellora Temples," are the other relics of fantabulous Art of India. "The Ajanta & Ellora" temples are carved out of live rocks & cliffs, and boast of the colossal sculptures of animals & Gods, paintings depicting the ancient life, and Buddhist fables, with numerous Buddha images. The most magnificent and striking creation at the Ellora is the "Kailasa Temple," a breathtaking depiction of Lord Shiva's abode, flanked by elephants, ornately carved out of big rocks. "The Sun Temple of Konark," "The Arjuna's Penance" at Mammallapuram, and the temples of "Kanchipuram," "Madurai," "Rameshwaram," "Amravati," "Nagarjunakonda," and "Varanasi" .

Source by Annette Labedzki