20th Century

Braque, The Portuguese (1911)

A Fauvist deeply affected by his friend Picasso's Les Demoiselles d' Avignon...together they formulated Cubism a radical turning point in the history of art that rejected the pictorial illusionism that had dominated Western art since the Renaissance They shunned naturalistic depictions and instead composed shapes and forms abstracted from the conventionally perceived world Cezanne's dissections had used geometry: P and B continued that journey by dissecting every object into its many constituent features, which they then reassembled with a new logic of design into a coherent, independent aesthetic picture In the wake of the upset of the Newtonian view by Einstein avant-garde artists aggressively challenged five hundred year old norms of depiction as outdated and not longer applicable Matisse saw one of their works and described it to a Paris journalist as having been painted "with little cubes" The dealer who championed avant-garde artists, Guillaume Apollinaire, described Cubism as "not from the reality of vision but from the that of conception.....a poetic kind of painting which stands outside the world of observation... (in which) the geometric surface of an object must be opened out in order to give a complete representation of it" This work is an example of Analytic Cubism in which the two dissect the forms of their subjects and then present their analysis of form across the surface of the canvas The subject is a Portuguese musician that Braque had once seen in a bar in Marseilles The man and his instrument are disassembled and the resulting form creates a dynamic interaction with the space around them Colors are muted into shades of brown, unlike the bright colors of the Fauves, in order to stress form Viewers must work diligently to discover clues to the subject amidst a series of large intersecting planes....smaller shapes interpenetrate and hover within the larger planes Areas of light and dark suggest hint at both chiaroscuro and modeling-but also seem to allow the viewer to see through one plane to another Solid forms seem to emerge only to be canceled out by a different reading Stenciled letters and numbers add further complexity by letting the painter play with viewer's sense of two and three dimensional spaces....they lie flat yet the shading and shapes of other forms seem to flow behind and underneath them Sometimes these letters and numbers seem attached to the surface of some object within the painting Constantly shifting imagery makes it impossible to arrive at any definitive reading: a disconcerting excursion into ambiguity and doubt-a radical disruption of space and time

Brancusi, The Kiss (1907-1908)

A Romanian modernist who sought in his sculptor to move beyond surface appearances to capture the essence or spirit of the object depicted His works are rhythmic and elegant with softly curving surfaces and ovoid forms His works often refer to the cycle of life and were often the result of a long process of evolution Studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts after his arrival from Romania Brancusi said, "One achieves simplicity despite oneself by entering into the real sense of things" ......"what is real is not the external form but the essence of things" Truth for Brancusi did not exist on the surface of a subject Very different from his temporary teacher Rodin's agitated and very textured surfaces Brancusi instead often carved into stone in a style that stressed formal and conceptual simplicity Brancusi's sense of simplicity grew out of his study of Plato who held that all worldly objects and beings were imperfect imitations of the perfection that exists only in the mind of God Sought to portray the timeless essence of objects he depicted

Warhol, Marilyn Diptych (1962)

A diptych (that has a long history in Christian art) on which Warhol and his assistants silkscreen a publicity photo of the iconic American actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe 50 times Silkscreening, first developed in China during the Sung Dynasaty (960-1279), is a versatile printing process that involves placing a heavy coverage of ink on a nylon fine mesh over a wide variety of surfaces allow for mass production with strong colors Warhol invites us to question the celebratory "worship" (again a Christian reference) of a popular culture sex symbol: hardly an appropriate focus for adulation: like many early Warhol works this is a carefully crafted critique of contemporary art and life in the 1960s: here a manufactured "movie star" with a made-up name (Norma Jeane Mortenson) Warhol and the Pop artists focused on the external world of "popular culture" and rejected the inner psychological focus of the Abstract Expressionists of the previous generation like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning: cool detachment and an automatic machine-like art versus the soulful, intimate subjectivity of the Abstract Expressionists Although he does borrow from the Abstract Expressionists 1) using a monumental scale (here more than 6 ft. X 9 ft.), 2) their distribution of form and color over a large area, 3) and the resulting effect that a viewer's eyes wander over a large area without focusing on a single spot To do so Warhol, already a well-paid and award-winning illustrator, did not use his own photo when he mass produced this silkscreen of a photo, but rather expropriated an existing photo of Marilyn from a 1953 Hollywood movie that was itself made for PR mass distribution Since no two silkscreens are exactly the same so the many images that make up this work vary from slightly to significantly True to her popular culture typecasting as a sex symbol Marilyn looks at us seductively with heavy lidded "come hither" eyes and parted lips But Warhol's silkscreening also transforms here image into an eerie, inanimate mask with a flattened face (and emotional flatness as well): he removes the gradual shading of he original publicity photo with its sense of three-dimensionality by adding broad planes of un-modulated color Even as the silkscreening flattens Marilyn it also complicates Warhol's own identity as an artist: the same art-making process much reduces the creative contribution of the artist himself ...in a way the silkscreen takes on a life and identity of its own beyond the artist's judgment Because of the mechanical repetition painting is no longer an elevated medium distinct from popular culture, however the artist is now symbiotically linked to his subject-both are less than fully human Thus, the artist as machine, the subject as mask-like: using psychoanalytic theory does the repetition force us to "work through" the traumatic shock of her death? Ghost connection: Warhol began this series only after her apparent suicide: her purple garishly made up face takes on the look of an embalmed corpse while the lighter tones of some of the facial images make her appear to be disappearing before our eyes And, through repeated exposure of her image we the viewer become desensitized: these numerous faces drain away her life and deaden our response to her tragic death (we forget she is a person and not just a misleading symbol

William De Kooning, Woman I

Abstract expressionist Not a fan of women

Lam, The Jungle, (1943)

Arturo Lam, born and raised in a Cuba dominated by puppet dictators who did the bidding of US corporate and farming interests described himself as a "Trojan horse" artist who sought to undermine the idyllic stereotype American image of Cuba as a hedonistic beach playground After studying in Europe and making the acquaintance of Picasso, who in turn introduced him to Andre Breton and other Surrealists, Lam returned to Cuba in 1941 to wait out the Second World War Surrealists sought to free the unconscious mind from it imprisonment by the rational Lam's The Jungle echoes Surrealist themes in an other-worldly atmosphere of metamorphoses that simultaneously includes human, animal, organic, and mystical elements (influenced by Santeria, a fusion of Christian and African religious traditions) Santeria rituals included merging the supernatural and the here and now with masks, animals, and a belief in mystical possession of the mind and body by spirits and gods Although no Marxist Lam celebrated the downfall of the Bautista dictatorship in 1959 and the rise of a new leader ostensibly dedicated to equality and justice, as well as much improved educational opportunities and access to health care for the beleaguered Cuban masses The Jungle, painted a generation before Bautista's downfall, is his best known work: an important painting in the history of Latin American art and 20th century modernism This work fuses Afro-Cuban themes, European Surrealism, and Cuba's socio-economic realities A cluster of enigmatic faces, limbs, and sugarcane, set incongruously in a jungle environment (sugar cane is cultivated in open fields) fill a canvas that is nearly 8 ft. square Lam fills the top section with a more crowded arrangement of haphazardly constructed figures than the bottom area (there are not enough feet and legs to support the upper half) No traditional horizon or ground line, or sky, or horizontal sense The forms include crescent-shaped faces, rounded backsides, willowy arms and legs, and flat, cloddish hands and feet that together resemble a funhouse mirror Lam's self-described "Trojan horse" metaphor mean depicting the toiling and exploited masses whose invisibility cannot undermine the "island playground" image Americans had of Cuba in 1940 and the US government's frequent interventions in support of US investments Lam's The Jungle depicts a new narrative that is distinctly Cuban and an antidote to the picturesque frivolity stereotype so ingrained in the American understanding of this island nation in 1940

Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay (1963)

Figural works are becoming obsolete The colors here range from violet to indigo and run into each other (with a clear zone ("field") of navy at the top that draws our eye upward Frankenthaler, a second generation "drip painter" and Abstract Expressionist, follows in some ways the example of Jackson Pollock: drip painting without the traditional easel Knowing the method one can almost visualize HF pouring out the acrylic paints and watching the moving paint, influenced by gravity as it flows and melds with nearby areas The shades of blues that intersect and/or merge with one another are part of a specific process of pouring paint on to the canvas instead of using a brush to place colors on the surface of a canvas Is it literally its title? Or does the swelling amorphous blue mass floating amidst the moss green and cream border intended to stand for something beyond itself? The Abstract Expressionist suggested that viewers NOT get caught up in ascertaining possible social and historical contexts-but instead to focus solely on the physical elements of the work in front of you HF was had already made a reputation for herself before she was profiled in Life Magazine in 1956 as the girl chum and associate of the largely male Abstract Expressionists (recall Mary Cassatt and the Impressionists) This work was chosen as one of the works for the US pavilion of the 1966 Venice Biennale (the world's most renowned art show) HF used the soak-stain method using acrylic paint (not oil-based) that gave her more flexibility with greater viscosity and movement as she poured it onto the unprimed canvas and it was absorbed into the weave To create the work HF lift and tilt the canvas as she poured the paint, letting gravity and the ebb and flow of the liquid determine the final outcome Thus blending artistic control with the unpredictability of nature, resulting in a simplicity of line and a focus instead on color Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman were the first generation of color field painters, a subcategory of Abstract Expressionism The "painted gesture" had already been made famous by Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline in the early 1950s HF in turn inspired other Color Field painters to adopt her approach: canvasses of floating thinned color with a sense of natural spontaneity-the viewer experiences the work in a fundamental direct manner Clement Greenberg, the art critic and personal friend of Pollock and HF, championed the abstract cause as the only possible artistic response to the horrors and brutality of the Second World War and Holocaust that would affect viewer's deepest consciousness Greenberg saw abstraction as universal and expansive mode of visual communication As another contemporary critic noted that, unlike the abstractions of the Cubists, the Abstract Expressionists create bands of blue, green, and pink and the viewer's mind does not visualize sky, grass, or flesh The real question is, what are the colors doing with themselves and with each other? Sentiment and nuance are being squeezed out (meaning the colors on the canvas don't have to represent something else) Instead respond to the colors on the canvas as you would to a sunset or the light penetrating a stained glass window: simplicity and pure emotion through clarity of color and form

Rivera, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park (1947-1948)

History is often written by the winner: here the renowned Mexican muralist and on-again, off-again husband of Frida Kahlo attempts to tell the tempestuous story of 400 years of Mexican history that is inclusive and gives voice to the indigenous and the masses, not just the elites Hundreds of figures from Mexican history assemble for a promenade (itself a vestige from the Spanish conquerors) around the largest park in Mexico city Sellers of goods, colorful balloons, participants in their Sunday best clothes But also, disturbingly, a policeman confronts an indigenous family while another man shoots in the face someone being trampled by a horse amidst a melee, and a calavera skeleton Surrealists, whom Rivera never officially joined, loved this work because it emerged from the unconscious through a dream and it juxtaposes somewhat incongruous elements Present are Cortes the Spanish conquistador, Sor Juana (among Mexico's most notable writers), Benito Juarez (who freed Mexico from French rule and sought to establish a democratic republic while modernizing the nation) and the military dictator Porfirio Diaz A central quartet includes a child-size Diego Rivera adjacent to an adult proportioned Frida Kahlo (a size reversal of Kahlo's 1931 portrait of the two: they frequently painted each other) This central foursome also features the famous Mexican printmaker Jose Posada who, although he died in obscurity, heavily influenced the next generation of famous Mexican muralists that included Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros And finally the quartet includes a smiling calavera named Catrina in European garb that Rivera has also given a feather boa that may represent the ancient Aztec god Quetzocoatl The calavera Catrina holds Rivera's hand and Posada's, uniting two of Mexico's greatest artists Frida has one hand protectively on Diego's shoulder while the other hand holds a "yin and yan" symbol (opposite yet interdependent forces like day and night, man and woman) a strong metaphor for their difficult relationship that brought Kahlo much pain The much younger Kahlo revered the famous Rivera before they married and they were also political comrades in their embrace of worker and indigenous rights The historical chronology emerges with the left side encompassing the conquest and colonization of Mexico, while the fight for independence from Spain and the Mexican Revolution are depicted in the center, and modern achievements fill the right side Those strolling do so under the vigilant gaze of the dictator Porfirio Diaz All are included from the conquerors to the "land and liberty masses championed by Rivera and Kahlo

Lawrence, The Great Migration (1940-1941)

Jacob Lawrence's work grew out of the Harlem Renaissance, a tremendous flourishing of black cultural life in New York City in the 1920s This flowering of poets, novelists, playwrights, intellectuals, and jazz musicians in turn emerged from the Great Migration by tens of thousands of black Americans fleeing the lynch rope and the Jim Crow South for a better life in northern industrial cities that desperately needed labor during World War I Lawrence used a figural but stylized narrative series each accompanied by text, the best known of which he created in 1941 during another northward moving black wave, The Migration of the Negro composed of sixty small panels Lawrence borrowed from black folk art and Cubism, as well as the social commentary of Goya and Daumier Lawrence's own parents' "coming up," in the language of the day, from South Carolina to New Jersey where he was born (he moved to New york city in 1927) There he took full advantage of the cultural programs and lectures at the famous 135th St. NY Public Library to educate himself about Black History His initial work focused on the everyday life around him in Harlem and portraits of antebellum black heroes like Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Tubman The first panel in this famous series using bright but flattened colors shows African Americans flocking to portals labeled for the northern cities to which they were moving In this panel, #49 in the series, Lawrence documents the discrimination and segregation faced by the Great Migrationers in northern cities A yellow line bisects the dining room, segregating white diners from blacks with the former pointedly ignoring the presence of the latter The perspective follows folk art traditions while color choices help unify the composition: a consistent palette of bluish green, orange, yellow, and greyish brown

Klimt, The Kiss (1907-1908)

Klimt led a group of Viennese artists (Secessionists) that drew on Art Nouveau and sought an art that abandoned conservative academic associations dedicated to richly decorated works that offered escape from the drab ordinary world This work typifies Klimt's "golden style" as a couple embrace in a golden aura Representation is subservient to decoration that is intricately ornamental, typical of Art Nouveau designs The tension in the couple's physical embrace-the woman's head is forced uncomfortable against her shoulder They kneel very close to the edge of a precipice: look beyond the alluring surface Gold background evokes Byzantine mosaics

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoy (1929)

Le Corbusier spent the 1920s linking his fascination with the wonder of machines to his theories about buildings appropriate to the new age following the horrors of World War I He married his delight in the magnificence of efficient machines to his admiration for the Classical Age, especially the "perfection" of the Parthenon as the culmination of centuries of ancient Greek construction evolution Villa Savoye, just outside Paris on a very large lot for a wealthy patron, brilliantly demonstrates his theories of an architecture appropriate to the age: "the house is a box in the air" that "should be a machine for living in" Along with the home's patron he believed strongly in the importance of fresh air: the narrow stilts both buttress the middle and upper registers and allow air to circulate below, refreshing the interior Villa Savoye combines the "circle and the square" that Vitruvius had championed (and uses concrete, the ancient Roman construction innovation, as its primary material) Villa Savoye is both functional house and modernist sculpture, marvelously fusing form and function Throughout the 1920s Corbusier championed science, technology, and reason (recall the mid-19th century Positivists, themselves rooted in the 18th century Enlightenment) He further linked modern science and technology to the Platonic ideals of the ancient Greeks: race cars, airplanes, electrified factories, etc. produced rapturous efficiency Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture: 1) pilotis (slender columns) that lifted the building off the ground, airplane-like; 2) roof terraces to link the residents to the fresh air of the outdoors (Thomas Jefferson); 3) an open interior with curves that contrasted with the rectilinear exterior concrete shell; 4) an unadorned planar façade; and 5) and ribbon windows (a continuous series of side by side to form a continuous horizontal band across a façade) that let light in while reinforcing the flat plan of the exterior walls Villa Savoye brilliantly incorporates these five design principles The lower floor's walls in a way echo the deep porches of Etruscan temples and are painted green to enhance the feeling that the building floats in the air Inside a multi-story gently curving ramp that flows upward to a "salon" and then leads to the rooftop solarium deck (a room without walls that "brings the outside in") that evokes Corbusier's beloved ocean liners Corbusier believed that modern leisure time should be spent in fresh air and sunlight for maximum health benefits-the house allows and encourages this, particularly with the rooftop solarium Villa Savoye fulfills Corbusier's notion of the house as a machine The home's proportions and interior processional ramp link it to the Parthenon's balance, symmetry, and the Panathenaic Festival

Kollwitz, Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht (1919-1920)

Many German artists embraced printmaking in the tumultuous years following Germany's defeat in World War I after years of deprivation and hunger in the latter stages of the war: quickly and cheaply produced political propaganda to reach the masses during the early years of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) Socialists had initially opposed entry into the war in 1914 on the grounds that capitalists would get rich while working men killed each other.....Kaiser Wilhelm II fled into exile in the last few days of the War and a new government was formed led by moderate socialists under Friedrich Ebert These moderate elements in the SDP (German Socialist Party) who had gained control of the government in 1918 then used army forces to put down a determined revolt by Communists in Berlin and elsewhere who sought to create a radically new society of brotherhood and equality out of the ashes of defeat in war, based on local soviets (modeled on what Lenin had just done in Russia) No real evidence exists that Kathe Kollwitz embraced radical political solutions during and after the war, but she did have great empathy for the many Germans, especially the working class, who had suffered during and after the war Much of her work was influenced by the death of her soldier son during the war: much of her work features grieving and anguished mothers (recall Goya's series lamenting and condemning the dire impact of war on civilian populations AND Mary Cassatt's many paintings with women and children as subjects) Kollwitz was the first woman to gain entrance into the Prussian Art Academy (her career overlaps the Expressionists but she did not so identify) This work pays tribute to the martyrdom of Karl Liebknecht, a charismatic Communist leader captured in the Spartakusbund revolt and then murdered while in captivity The work is as much about the workers who grieve their leader's passing as about Liebknecht himself This work was commissioned by Liebknecht's family (Kollwitz had once heard him speak and admired his commitment to lift Germany's downtrodden) The work's lamentation theme powerfully echoed Germany's strong Christian heritage (recall Giotto's Lamentation panel from the Arena Chapel, circa 1300) Another German avant-garde artist of the day, Max Beckmann, also memorialized the execution of Liebknecht and his radical companion and firebrand leader in her own right, Rosa Luxembourg The uppermost of the work's three sections is densely packed with working class figures who maintain their individuality, highlighted by a mother and young child The middle section is less crowded and focuses on a single grief-stricken male figure who places his hand on the body Woodblock printing: a design is carved into a slab of wood that is then saturated with ink and pressed onto paper. Ink covers the original surface of the wood-those sections print out as black on the paper, while the cutaway areas of the wood remain the color of the paper This process is different from engraving: here the ink is caught in the recesses carved into a metal plate by a sharp stylus tool (the etched lines print black and the areas of the copper plate untouched by the burin remain white

Wright, Falling Water (1936-1939)

Not all architects embraced the industrial and "modern" ethos that was first popularized by the Futurists Wright, instead, sought a more organic and natural architecture that is sometimes referred to as the Prairie School Apprenticed with Louis Sullivan in Chicago Wright was influenced as well by three early sources: The volumetric blocks in an educational set designed for children by the German Friedrich Frobel, the Japanese buildings Wright saw at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, and an embrace of the Jeffersonian principles of individualism, and populist democracy These various influences, along with his time under Louis Sullivan (that ended badly when the boss caught Wright free-lancing and fired him) combined to give FWL a firm belief that Free individuals have the right to move about freely in non-symmetrical open space that interacts spatially with its surroundings Wright further argued that planning, structure, materials, and site must interact holistically and organically Wright further believed in this sense of holistic unity between walls, ceilings, floors, and fixtures in a home: "CONTINUITY" Wright's work intersected with the Arts and Crafts Movement and the furniture of Gustave Stickley and the Roycrofters, among others His "prairie homes" feature strong horizontality with long, sweeping, ground-hugging lines reaching out to the surrounding elements of the site Bring the outside in Little or no confining walls: freedom of movement As in all Wright homes, the great central fireplace was the central gathering spot for the family Wright believed strongly in the age-old importance of fire for light, warmth, and cooking and wanted to bring that long tradition of humankind to his designs Play of light and shadow constantly in flux, both inside and out From the moment this was completed for a Pittsburgh department store chain owner critics labeled it a masterpiece of modern architecture The house displays Wright's conviction that in the American democracy one is able to live free in nature, to be at one with nature On full display in this iconic house is Wright's naturalistic linking of the structure to the site Designed as a weekend retreat Perched on a small hillside, above a small waterfall Wright's floor-to-ceiling windows join interior and exterior spaces For Wright, space not mass was always the crucial touchstone The cantilevered balconies of reinforced concrete, made possible by modern engineering, seem to float precariously yet effortlessly over the water The massive cantilevering has experienced serious problems in recent years, giving rise to the charge that Wright's designs were created for the moment and not to endure intact on the site The great room contained a massive fireplace that was a part of an on-site boulder that was anchored to the site For Wright the hearth and fireplace was the center and focal point of the public space in a home The herald of the International Style, Mies van der Rohe, said in 1940 that the "dynamic impulse from (Wright's) work invigorated a whole generation. His influence was strongly felt even when it was not actually visible

Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick Ascending on Caterpillar Tracks

Obscene spending on the Vietnam War

Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902-1904)

Paul Cezanne was the eccentric boyhood friend of the famous writer Emile Zola and the son of a prosperous banker in the south of France who made his way to Paris and connected with Manet's circle and later the Impressionists. Rejected their quest for spontaneity/transitory effect of light as well as photographic naturalism of the Academy in favor of trying to capture in his landscapes, frequently of this mountain, the "sensation of nature" Little public success until the last few years of his life-but deeply influenced the next generation of young 20th century painters Sought to capture a sense of order in nature through a methodical application of color that merged drawing and modeling into a single process Said, "make of Impressionism something solid and durable like the art of the museums" Painted this mountain near his hometown about 30 times, this one a late example: landscape dotted with houses with an aqueduct at the far right Large areas of greens, yellow browns, and blue-greys attempt to create a visual harmony of a scene of timeless endurance instead of a moment in an ever-changing world (Impressionists) Cezanne's brushstrokes: short parallel hatching + sketched lines + broad swaths of flat color that together serve to weave together very element of the scene in a unified surface design Painting also creates an effect of spatial recession: fruitful tension between the illusion of three dimensions and the actual reality of only two dimensions Atmospheric perspective creates a sense of depth but at the same time the blues, pinks, and reds in the foreground tie that area to the background mountain and sky (= spatial ambiguities) Gauguin thought is horizon lines were high, his blues very intense, and reds had astounding vibrancy Divided into 3 horizontal and interrelated sections: band of foliage and houses, then the patchwork of an expansive plain, then mountain and sky Flatness coexists with depth + rough brushstrokes

Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907)

Pictorialism was an international movement by photographers to win recognition and acceptance for their work as an art form-they sought to create images whose aesthetic qualities matched those of painting, drawing, and printmaking Typically these photographers imaged traditional subjects like landscape, genre scenes, and nudes...the leading American Pictorialist, Alfred Stieglitz instead found his subjets in the street life of New York city Born into a wealthy German immigrant family (his father, a wool merchant, had retired at age 48) His famous gallery had exhibited works by European avant-garde artists.....he also championed the work of Georgia O'Keefe, and married her (his serial infidelity strained the relationship to the breaking point Used a high speed hand-held camera invented in 1888 by George Eastman and manufactured by Kodak that, he said, allowed him "to await the moment when everything is in balance" and capture it Unlike his Danish immigrant contemporary, Jacob Riis, Stieglitz did not seek to bring about social change by photographing homeless children on the streets.....Stieglitz's risk-taking was aesthetic not social When photographing he sought "to hold a moment, to record something so completely that those who see it would relive an equivalent of what had been expressed" This picture came about while in first class accommodations journeying to Europe with his social climbing wife and adored daughter Stieglitz felt ill-at-ease with the newly rich and yearned to join those in steerage who were traveling home on the cheap to visit, return to live in the old country, or had been rejected at Ellis Island He was conflicted about the entire topic of immigration (perhaps his German origins caused him to look askance on the many from southern and eastern Europe who were flooding into the US?) This iconic photo was spontaneous although Stieglitz had to run back to his cabin to retrieve his trusty camera What he saw on the third day out from port affected him deeply-the subjects themselves but also the shapes and forms and the exact position all were in When he breathlessly returned he found the scene exactly as he had left it, with for him the most essential subject, the man in the round straw hat, still looking down on those in the lowest steerage section But this photo is not first a political statement but an aesthetic one Stieglitz the modernist was always most interested in the formal elements of the photograph

Mondrian, Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow (1930)

Piet Mondrian, deeply influenced by Russian Suprematists and Constructionists, co-founded The Style movement in the Netherlands in 1917 This group of Dutch artists believed that the birth of a new age was dawning in the wake of the horrendous slaughter of the Great War They believed that machines would help usher in this new age of relative comfort and ease with an emphasis on the universal and less attention to the individual They also sought to totally integrate life with art in what they called a "new plastic unity" while arguing that art was no longer a separate and distinct aspect of human existence Members of The Style believed they had found the underlying eternal structure of existence Mondrian in particular sought to purge all individualism from the world while attracted to Theosophy (as Kandinsky had been) His "pure plastic art" was designed to express the new universalism that would enable the "interior of things" to penetrate through Mondrian came to limit his palette to the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue bordered by thick black rectilinear lines that traveled only vertically or horizontally The only path to a pure composition, Mondrian believed, was to employ these colors and line directions whose grid patterns and areas of pure color would create internal cohesion and harmony Mondrian further claimed that his designs were anything but static and instead featured dynamic tension generated by the size and position of the lines, shapes and colors

Stepanova, The Results of the First Five Year Plan (1932)

Stepanova used photomontage (combining photos, text, newspaper clippings, and words) in the service of propaganda works that sought to put Stalin's Soviet Union in the best possible light in the eyes of audiences both domestic and foreign After centuries of tsarist autocracy, corruption, exploitation and degradation of the peasant masses the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 seemed to open the promise of a new egalitarian Russia rooted in brotherhood, fairness, and human rights But Stalin, the quintessential in-fighting bureaucrat, seized control of the Revolution upon Lenin's demise and proceeded to construct a ruthless dictatorship that instituted the collectivization of agriculture that resulted in the deaths of millions from displacement and starvation-terror, violence, and fear replaced the initial optimism of the Revolutiion Stalin both opened a series of distant gulag prison camps for any and all who showed the slightest open opposition to his dictatorial changes, and ordered the execution of numerous Communist loyalists that his paranoid delusions deemed "enemies of the revolution" Stepanova and many other Russian artists fully embraced the promise of the Revolution-she served the government's need to propagandize the drastic changes Stalin instituted in a series of photomontages for a sanctioned Soviet government publication that sought to convince other European powers that the new approach would make the Soviet Union a force to be reckoned with and a modern state worthy of respect (while reversing the historic backwardness that had plagued tsarist Russia for centuries) Photomontage fuses and juxtaposes photographs and other images into a unified new composite composition-in this case to propagandize (Stepanova did not see herself as being used by a ruthless dictator) While Stepanova was given great tactical creative freedom to construct the composite images she was constrained by Soviet officials who answered to Stalin regarding the overall strategic content of her published work Stepanova worked for a new Soviet magazine, Construction, that initially focused on rapid and immense industrial developments, and later branched out into education, sports, and leisure Avid small Communist parties in other countries used the magazine to keep abreast of what they thought was the new wonderful reality of Stalin's Soviet Union and his Five Year Plans Few realized that the ambitious reports of industrial progress were exaggerated by top Soviet officials so as to put Stalin's goals in the best possible light (similar to China in recent decades) Stepanova here alternates black and white with sepia photographs (subtle tone alterations in black and white pictures done in the darkroom) She also includes red geometric planes (Soviet flag)...on the left are public address speakers with the number 5 (years of the Stalin plan) with signs proclaiming USSR in Cyrillic script The letters and an outsized, cropped photo-portrait of the beloved Lenin appearing to gaze into a positive and prosperous future, while a series of electric wires convey modern communication, as a large crowd of supportive citizens looks on approvingly Dynamism is created by intentionally juxtaposing different size images-some seem to project from the flat surface Foreground triangle + contrast between the massive Lenin and the indistinct crowd + an artist who mediated between creative freedom and service to the State and its terrible policies

Kandinsky, Improvisation 28, Second Version (1912)

Strongly resembled Gauguin in his goal of using art to express to viewers spiritually significant inner themes Sought to shock the complacent bourgeois out of their vapid and dull lethargy Arguably the first modernist to explore abstraction as a way to communicate inner feelings and emotions (recall JMW Turner's large areas of color, although in the 18th century he did not use them for this same purpose) Kandinsky was Russian-born and moved to Munich in 1896 He developed a spontaneous and aggressive style that was influenced variously by Theosophy, Buddhism, the occult, and mysticism He was an intellectual who read widely in history, religious studies, music, and philosophy Breakthroughs in Physics by Einstein and others assaulted European "truths" and convinced Kandinsky that material objects had not genuine substance...he had little faith in the ability of concrete forms to convey a message or even echo actual reality This work epitomizes Kandinsky's belief that an artist must deploy line, color, form, and space so as to transmute his innermost emotions and spirit Linear elements intersect, colors are juxtaposed, and spatial relationships seek that end: his own ineffable interior life was what he struggled to convey, abstractly

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain (Second Version)

The manufacturer's name Dada Making fun of art

Kahlo, The Two Fridas (1939)

The near mono-brow depictions make the many Frida self-portraits unique Kahlo was a rebellious loner whose one great love, the renowned Mexican painter Diego Rivera ("my second accident," she said), was a serial philanderer after their 1929 marriage, causing her interminable grief and anguish Adding to this were the 32 operations she endured through her adult life after a Mexico City bus accident left her crippled with a broken back She pursued her own life and artistic vision: she refused to knuckle under to societal norms of submissive, domestic wives + she often dressed in indigenous clothing when the Mexican smart set wore European fashions Kahlo told an art historian in the 1930s that Diego loved the one in the Mexican dress on the right-but not the one in the European attire on the left Her powerful and unflinching self-portraits used anatomy to lay bare her many physical and emotional pains German immigrant father and very traditional Mexican mother (who disapproved of her independence, marriage to a Communist, and insistence on painting This double portrait has her imaged twice with each version holding the other's hand in solidarity, while sharing a bench under a stormy sky: they differ in attire (European and Mexican selves as seen through the dresses): a vein physically unites them One Frida is weakened by an exposed heart and pines for her lost love-while the other is muy fuerte and clamps down with a hemostat to stem the bleeding (taking control) The portrait conveys both suffering and resilience with the two beating hearts: the vein begins with the left hand of the right Frida that holds a miniature portrait of Rivera Painted the year she was divorced from Rivera whose serial infidelities she could no longer abide (he had influenced her to switch from European dress into indigenous attire) In other self-portraits she used jewelry to tie herself to Mexico's complex past: Aztec-influenced jade necklaces + colonial era earrings + the simple white dress of a Mexican peasant woman (purity) 200 works in her relatively brief adult life (many self-portraits driven not by vanity but rather by loneliness, isolation, and a desire to share herself with others Kahlo said, "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best" Andre Breton visited her in Mexico City and proclaimed her a Surrealist while championing her work; she demurred, saying "I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality (she did, however, exhibit in some Surrealist shows)

Kusama, Narcissus Garden (1966)

The self-taught Yajoi Kusama, who lives by choice in a Tokyo mental health care facility, is among the most visibly international artist of our time Her output over the decades has been prolific and in many media She has long claimed to battle mental illness This work from several decades ago explores narcissism: the excessive egotistic admiration of oneself She arrived in New York in 1958 and pressed numerous dealers and other artists to pay attention to her work-her first "mirror installation" took place in 1965 NY gallery A mirrored room without a ceiling filled with colorfully-dotted phallus-like stuffed objects on the floor-the repeated reflections of these objects seemed to inundate and overwhelm the viewer with phallic imagery Her pinnacle of success occurred at the Venice Biennale in 1966 where she established another controversial installation outside the Italian pavilion-she was not officially invited to exhibit but did have the backing of Lucio Fontana, chair of the Biennale She arranged 1500 mass-produced shimmering silver globes (that resembled a fortune teller's ball) in a tight arrangement on the lawn outside the Italian exhibition area, which created an infinite reflecting field Every nearby form was convex mirrored back albeit in a distorted image that appeared closer and smaller than was objectively real Kusama then added a performance angle to this placing two signs nearby "YOUR NARCISSUM FOR SALE while she wore a gold kimono with a silver sash and played the role of "street peddler" asking passers-by to pay two dollars to see the installation, all while distributing copies of a positive review of her artworks (a practice which the Biennale board stopped Her twin goals were to explore the topic of self-imaging and self-love while also asking viewers to examine the commercial side of art-making-the installation and her "peddling" gathered international attention In 1993 Kusama was invited to represent Japan at the 45th Biennale. Her groundbreaking 1965 installation has been commissioned and installed in various settings (including Central Park in NYC) The reflective balls, now made of stainless steel and carrying a hefty price tag, have become trophies of prestige and self-importance-originally intended by Kusama as media for an interactive performance that called for introspective reflection they are now regarded as valuable commodities for display The artist's own pervasive ostentation has further amplified the profound narcissistic undertones, as have "selfies" taken by participants at these subsequent installations...we are seduced by our own reflective images, giving new meaning to her original 1965 message and questions Now anyone in the world who has Internet access can view them-many of the installation are now done on the water to reinforce the original Greek myth of the young man who fell in love with his own image and drowned Kusama has always claimed that the original 1965 installation was not a "guerilla act" because she received permission to exhibit even though she was not officially invited

Smithson, The Spiral Jetty (1970)

This quintessential earth art work at the Great Salt Lake in Utah grew out of the environmental movement that captivated activists beginning in the 1960s with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring The dangers posed by toxic waste, depletion of natural resources, litter, urban sprawl, and mass consumerism energized environmentalists and artists who embraced their positions (in part leading to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency) As had the Pop artists this group insist that art must move out of the rarified air of museums and tony galleries into public space that encouraged spectator interaction Environmental art, which intersects sculpture and architecture, is considered by scholars among the most exciting post World War II developments in art: works are site specific and done in the outdoors, often using indigenous natural or organic materials, including the land itself Robert Smithson, before his tragic death in a plane crash on the way to visit a prospective earth art installation site in Texas, used industrial construction equipment to manipulate vast quantities of earth and rock, often on very isolated sites like this one The 1500 ft. coil of black basalt, limestone rocks, and earth extended out into the lake (the iconic photograph of the finished installation, however, skews the proportion-visitors to the site are struck by how small the spiral actually is in relation to the land and the lake around it) When looking over this prospective site Smithson came across some abandoned mining equipment, testimony in his view to the enduring and overriding power of Nature and the futility of man's attempts to conquer it (recall the gardens of Versailles) Smithson insisted on shaping the work to the site's pre-existing conditions rather than arrogantly trying to bend nature to his will While researching the site he discovered that the salt crystals that covered the area had a spiral-shaped molecular structure-hence the shape- he also described the entire area as "a rotary that enclosed itself in an immense roundness" Smithson also documented the entire installation process, an important choice since the Great Salt Lake expanded, covering the Spiral Jetty for a decade before it receded

Oppenheim, Object (Le Dejeuner en Fourrure (1936)

This sculpture, Luncheon in Fur, identified by many art cognoscenti in the late 1930s at the single most representative Surrealist work, grew out of a café conversation between the then 22 year old Basel-born artist and her friend, Pablo Picasso He noticed and admired her fur-covered copper bracelet and suggested it could be the inspiration for a work of art-she then asked the waiter for "un peu de fourrure" (a little more fur) She then went out and purchased a ceramic cup, saucer, and spoon resembling those she had just used for tea in the café with Picasso, and then wrapped these everyday objects in Chinese gazelle fur and submitted them to Andre Breton, leader of the Surrealists in Paris, as a work of art Oppenheim shrank back from the fame and notoriety this sculpture brought her, making little new art while destroying some of her existing works over the next decade before rebounding with new confidence and assertiveness in 1954 Sculpted objects and assemblages were frequent creations by the Surrealists-used to represent an idea with a symbolic, deeply personal function, resembling a poem Freudians also chimed in, asserting that these Surrealist works spoke to one's sublimation of internal desires, hopes, and goals: physical demonstrations of our buried inner world: a sur reality (sur = sub) Surrealists were known for alchemical works that joined or juxtaposed items that one would not ordinarily pair or group: humor, irony, incongruous groupings, and visual appeal (sometimes erotic) Although Oppenheim "objected" many gave the work a Freudian sexual meaning: phallic spoon "penetrating" the concave furry cup (New Yorker Magazine reported on an anonymous woman who fainted in front of the work in1937 after its purchase and exhibiting by MOMA) She said, Object was "not an illustration of an idea, but the thing itself" seemingly rejecting accepted Surrealist intent. Oppenheim emphasized the physicality of the work's component parts and the extension of our sensory experience into the unfamiliar territory of feeling and tasting the fur while sipping tea Surrealist stressed that every individual will experience a work of art in their own unique way, that a piece will take them on a personal reflective journey rooted in their own experiences Andre Breton forced an overt sexualized interpretation of this sculpture for a 1936 Paris gallery exhibition by deciding on the title, "Luncheon in Fur" (evoking Manet's sexually charged 1863 Luncheon on the Grass and an 1870 novel by Austrian Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs) Meret insisted her inspiration was an unconventional way to keep her tea warm, not primarily anything sexual...although many have also seen an anthropomorphic quality in Object (human characteristics) In a 1975 award acceptance speech in Basel Oppenheim said, "I think it is the duty of a woman to lead a life that expresses her disbelief in the validity of the taboos that have been imposed on her kind for thousands of years. Nobody will give you freedom; you have to take it"

Matisse, Goldfish (1912)

Towering giant of 20th century art who sought to soothe the viewer with complementary colors and comfortable subject matter...far from the subject matter of Goya and David, while much closer to Cezanne Goldfish became a recurring subject in his work after a pair of visits to Morocco in 1912 where he observed the locals frequently gazing absently into their fish tanks at the languidly swimming occupants: neo-orientalism This interest in North African culture extended to his observation of Islamic treatment of water, vegetation, and gardens (which regularly provided the painter with subject matter) The resulting calm, order, and tranquility greatly appealed to Matisse and were themes he often sought to convey in his works Also, just as Islamic art often sought non-figurally to convey a sense of Paradise Matisse saw in this subject matter a sense of perfect contentment for both fish and viewer that provided a glimpse of Heaven, at least for him Echoing Gauguin's Tahitian paintings which also sought to convey an idealized sense of Paradise, although with heavy erotic overtones Bright orange of the fish strongly contrasts with the subtle pinks and greens around the fish tank (blue and orange, and red and green are complimentary colors) Matisse here and elsewhere chose complimentary colors that increased the soothing and relaxing mood of his paintings Throughout his career Matisse often returned to the ethos of his early 20th century Fauvist years featuring bright colors Are the contented and unhurried goldfish Matisse himself as he fled the bustle of Paris for a home in Issy on the outskirts? (he painted this work in his glassed-in greenhouse: a man surrounded by glass painting fish in the same situation) Matisse sought "an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter......something like a good armchair that provides relaxation from fatigue Although soothing, tension does exist here in a number of ways: the fish are depicted simultaneously from two angles (think Cubism but thankfully with more figuration): frontally we see the fins, eyes, and mouth while from above the fish are merely suggested using bright brushstrokes The plants are distorted when seen through the transparent glass compared to the unfiltered plants in the background Plants and flowers above the tank are flattened + the tabletop is tilted upward in non-naturalistic way (Cezanne's apples) Matisse paid limited homage to naturalism in a "yes but not really" manner that can be disconcerting (but nowhere near as much as many Cubist works) His major Themes: 1) complementary colors, 2) quest for idyllic peace and tranquility, 3) goal of fostering contemplative repose, and 4) complex pictorial space that largely leaves behind Renaissance naturalism and perspective

Venturi, House in New Castle County (1978-1983)

Venturi was one of the founder of postmodernism, following the lead of the 1952 about-face by Philip Johnson, the renowned disciple of Mies van der Rohe (Seagram Building) and his "less is more" approach that had reigned supreme since the 1920s Johnson turned his back on the severe geographic formalism of modernism as well as its restrictive authoritarianism and its restrictive, impersonal, and sterile look, particularly the skyscrapers of many American downtowns Cities and neighborhoods, the postmodernists argued, were messy, eclectic zones of constant change and architecture should reflect that reality Postmodernists instead sought a more encompassing and accepting of experimentation while jettisoning the old "form follows function" axiom that began with Louis Sullivan (different styles from the past were now combined to produce a new vision enhanced but not determined by modern technology and materials Robert Venturi's 1966 book was instrumental in following Johnson's lead and creating a cataclysmic shift in the approach of architects to designing buildings: complexity and contradiction were in and rigid minimalist conformity were out Postmodernists like Venturi consciously included past architectural elements and juxtaposed them with contemporary design features or hi-tech materials, as well as allusions to mass culture and popular imagery Johnson had made reference to the contradictions of the ancient Greeks or Gothic cathedral builders (including wood roofs hidden above the stone vaulting of the ceiling, for example) and argued that history supported his call for a new eclectic architecture of no rules Venturi separated form from function and structure including elements in the homes he designed that had no discernible necessity

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)

one of the most important canvases of the 20th century painted by a young rebel artist hungry for fame response to a work by another young rebel of the day, Henri Matisse Picasso influenced by the 1907 Cezanne show in Paris Here a claustrophobic and tight space filled entirely by five prostitutes who seemed trapped within: a subject Picasso had personally experienced in brothels in the red light district of Barcelona where this work is set No vibrant colors as befits an indoor scene + sharp, jagged, almost shattered forms that resembles shards of glass (Picasso clearly feared the diseases they sometimes carried that were lethal in the pre-antibiotic age of the early 20th century) Grapes on table long a symbol of sexuality and vanitas (youth and beauty are fleeting) Middle women may be both vertical and horizontal: lying down for the viewer or Picasso to penetrate (note the figural phallic imagery of the table itself) Picasso influenced by Iberian masks and African masks (he borrowed ideas from every artist that he knew to the point that they often barred him from their studios) Woman on our left evokes archaic art before contrapposto-her right arm hangs down while her left arm and oversized hand seem disembodied Early sketches featured 2 men but the final version omits them in order for the women to focus solely on us (Manet, Olympia) instead of prospective clients Do the masks of the women on the right indicate Picasso's understanding that they don't reveal their true selves to their customers? Or the "primitive" nature of sexual activity? Did Picasso link African colonial peoples to alien and aggressive as these masks suggest? Drapery scattered and fractured among these nudes (femme fatale sense of women common in late 19th century male aesthete society: they lure you in then break your heart) Woman on the bottom right seen simultaneously from front and back: multiple vantage points a key to Cubist depiction goals Male Desire and Fear coexisting in looking at these prostitutes