For hundreds of years, and through to today, the art of basket weaving has been and continues to be an important component of many Native American cultures. Basket weaving is not just a skill leading to the creation of a nearly endless array of practical tools, from baby carriers to food containers and from water carriers to heirloom repositories; they are also the product of great skill, imagination and artistry. http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/baskets/subpage.cfm?subpage=view_lisa
Joan Miró was a Spanish painter whose surrealist works, with their subject matter drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy, are some of the most original of the 20th century.
His work is humorous and playful pictures of distorted animal forms, twisted organic shapes, and odd geometric constructions. he used bright colors, especially blue, red, yellow, green, and black. Amoebic shapes alternate with sharply drawn lines, spots, and curlicues, all positioned on the canvas with seeming nonchalance.
French painter, Paul Cézanne, usually painted still-lifes and developed the style of using geometric shapes as the basis for his paintings. He believed that everything in the world was made up of either a sphere, a cone, a cylinder or a cube. He began many of his works with these basic shapes layering thick paint with strong outlines to build form. This style of painting influenced artists who came after Cézanne such as Braque and Picasso who painted in a style known as Cubism.
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/baskets/subpage.cfm?subpage=view_lisa
