APAH 126-152

• Compression of mvmt, speed • The futurists depicted moving figures and machines at multiple movements of time all in one image • They took a cinematic sequence and compressed it into a single shot • Embracing modernity, progress • The speed of the new age (Planes, cars, telephones) • These were italians who embraced WWI, industrialization, and progress -- nationality, show power, etc.

Futurism

• color plays a prominent role • Shocking distortions of form, ragged outline, and agitated brush strokes • Emotional, powerful canvases in the years leading to WWI -- to show ugliness • Blue Rider: Abstract, Kadinsky; non objective, no objects/representations from this world • The Bridge (Die Brucke); emotion, distorted forms; Kirchner; Munich -- bridge to the future; has figures, but very distorted • contrast btwn light and dark; unrealistic colors • Artists lived and worked together, embraced avant garde as a bridge to the future; intense, anguished images w/ harshly; distorted forms/clashing colors • Paintings smack of the strong sense that smth bad is on the horizon in Europe

German Expressionism

• Reaction to abstract expressionism • Based on recognizable imagery from popular culture such as advertising, consumer products, comic books, and celebrities • US economy became consumer based • Used graphic art techniques like photographic transfer to create images, supplying color by using benday dots and silk-screens • Similar to dada using photomontages and readymades (Lipstick; Marilyn Diptych)

Pop Art

• Russian; utopian; -- looked to improve society rather than get away from or destroy it (Going through communism at the time) • Supreme reality in the world is pure feeling, which attached to no object • Non-objective forms; shapes not related to objects in the visible world • The basic form was the square combined with its relatives, the straight line and rectangle • All people would easily understand his new art because of the universality of its symbols

Suprematism

• Surrealist goals: to combine inner and outer reality together + Emphasize the subconscious, dreams and psycho analysis of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung • Surrealism can be definition by the process of automatism and displacement • Automatism: subconscious takes over • Displacement: images are juxtaposed together; don't belong together • Meant to mess with your perception and expectations • The goal of this process, for the viewer, is to awaken ex: Object by Oppenheim

Surrealism

• World War I • Post-war anxiety, uncertainty, pessimism • Rise of communism (Russia/China) • Rise of fascism (germany, italy, spain, japan) • Great Depression (worldwide depression) • World War II • DOMINATING THEORIES -- weaken ideas of about natural laws, truth, and reason

1900-1945 Context

• Modernist sculptures moved to abstraction of form from 19th century realism in sculptures • Tried to capture the inner essence of the subject material (ex: The Kiss) • Prized the values of "primitive" sculpture from non-european cultures • Simplified figural/natural forms to capture the monumentality of certain concepts, such as nature or femininity • Inspired by cubists, explored the use of holes to create negative space in their creations • Voids were just as impt as the masses, a revolutionary concept to be their legacy • Often contain organic or natural contours • No straight lines • KEY WORDS: Abstract, simplistic, monumental • Philosophical mvmt: Phenomenology -- own subjective opinion • Coincides with Einstein's theories -- Everything is subjective, nothing is absolute

20th Century Sculpture

• Influence of Carl Jung or Automatists in Surrealism -- Kandinsky • Expressed their inner feelings through abstract paintings with few identifiable objects - based in NYC • Action painting: expressive application of paint leaving visible and chaotic brushstrokes • Physical manifestation of feelings deep in his subconscious • Chromatic or color field paintings: uses block and lines of color to express complex feelings about the universe • Both types of abstract expressionism use very large canvases (Paint dripping method; Woman, 1)

Abstract Expressionism

• uncertainty/insecurity • disillusionment • The subconscious • overt sexuality (Freud) • Violence and savagery (WW1) • Primitivism -- "Noble Savage" • Abstraction

Early Modern Art Themes

• Refers to art that is the result of the artist's unique inner/personal vision and that often has emotional dimension • Different from western art produced since the Renaissance that focused on visually describing the world • Photography makes realism irrelevant • Art as creation, not reproduction

Expressionism

• Simple in design + shockingly bright in color • Bright, vivid, outrageous colors that are intentionally non-naturalistic • Clashing colors, thick expressive brush strokes • Art critic Louis Vauxcelle described the artists as fauves (wild beasts) • Influenced by (post)impressionism, but embracing intense color juxtapositions + their emotional capabilities

Fauvism

• World War II and the Atomic bomb, the • Holocaust • The cold war • Period of despair, disillusionment, and skepticism • Existentialism: absurdity of human existence and impossibility of achieving meaning • Sartre: God does not exist, then individuals must constantly struggle in isolation with the anguish of making decisions in a world w/o absolutes or traditional values • People more inclined to Atheism • Postwar expressionism in europe • No point to life → create your own identity + life • Hope -- Civil Rights movement

Post World War II

• One of the first US movements • Capturing the city life of American, New York, and industrialization • Fascination w/ machine's precision and importance in modern life • Enamored by the prospects of a mechanized society • Flat, clear, and precise • Industrial design • Derived from synthetic cubism • Exactness • Sometimes so realistic

Precisionism

Modern (Organic and International style) • Organic style: Gaudi, Wright; doesn't imitate nature but is concerned with natural materials • International style; Bauhaus, De Stijl, Corbusier, Sullivan, Van de Rohe; rectilinear, undecorated, asymmetrical and white, open interior spaces, form over function; less is more POST MODERN • less is a bore • pluralism, complexity, and eclecticism • expansive and inclusive • urban life is diverse -- expresses this in architecture • past architectural elements juxtaposed with contemporary elements

Architecture

• Bauhaus principles (international style), pure form emerged from functional structure and required no decoration -- Art Deco wanted international style with decorations • Art Deco transform industrial design as a "fine art" • New materials into decorative patterns that could be machined or handcrafted reflect the simplifying trend in architecture • Elongated symmetrical aspect • Simple flat shapes alternate w/ shallow volumes in hard patterns • Inspiration from the aerodynamics from trains and cars (think of great gatsby or kingsman movie poster)

Art Deco

• Expressionism: artists use art as a way to express their own emotional responses to the world (Influences: Van Gogh, Gauguin, non-western art) • Abstraction: artists explore the internal structure of forms in the visible world (Influences: Cezanne, non-western art); Non-objective (no objects from this world); nothing is represented from our reality -- Artists were interested in this because of primitiveness; they believed that modernity caused WWI, so they wanted to reinvent society and have less industrialization; they were disillusioned • Fantasy: artists explore the interior of the human psyche, focusing on particularly the non-rational, such as dreams, fantasy, imagination, fears, anything within the realm of the unconscious (Influence: symbolists, Freud) • Realism: artists reveal their perceptions of life in the 20th century, focusing frequently on mechanization, urbanization, war, isolation, alienation (Influence: Courbet, Daumier)

20th Century Themes

• Influenced by the emigration of European artist, especially German artists like Beckkman • City Art Museum of Saint Louis exhibited Beckmann's work; Art institute in Chicago exhibited Grosz • The Great Depression affected the nation + artists • The already limited market disappeared and museums were limited • Federal govt supported a lot of artists under the New Deal • Treasury Relief Art Project and Works Progress Administration • American Regionalism and Social Realism focused on US and the effects of the great depression • Focused on the worker/poor -- social realism • Focused on America/city life -- American Regionalism • Define what is America? The farmside • City life depicts leisure • Included photography and murals influenced from Mexico + Russia • Art for the people

America 1930-1945

• Founded school in Germany -- Weimar School of Arts and Crafts bc Bauhaus • Train artists, architects, and designers to accept and anticipate 20th century needs • Promoted the unity of art, architecture, and design -- total art -- Gesamtkunstwerk • Offered courses in a wide range of artistic disciplines: weaving, pottery, carpentry, metalwork, mural painting, stage design, advertising, etc. • Function over form (International style); the artists must work well with the machine • Foundation is in arts and crafts • A Gesamtkunstwerk (translated as total work of art, ideal work of art, universal artwork, synthesis of the arts, comprehensive artwork, all-embracing art form or total artwork) is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so

Bauhaus

• russian art movement • Build up sculptures piece by piece in space, instead of carving or modeling them • Used new synthetic plastic material, transparent materials

Constructivism

• All views at once • Dissecting form/composition into different geometric shapes + rearranging them so that the viewer can see all angles at once • Like shattered glass • Analytic -- painting • Synthetic -- different materials

Cubism

• DADA: Iconoclastic, almost anarchic movement which was a protest against accepted forms of art • Born during WWI in mainly New York • Participants viewed the modern post-war world as morally and aesthetically bankrupt, and they viewed traditional forms and ideas of art as "part of a decadent past that had produced a great war, widespread suffering, and the destruction of the human spirit" • Disdainful of all values, their work intentionally flied in the face of our concepts of "art" and "meaning" • no set style, but common attitude among the artists with use of irony, sarcasm, paradox, blasphemy • Wanted to undermine cherished notions and assumptions about art • Art was a powerfully practical means of self-revelation and catharsis • Images from the subconscious had a truth of their own, independent of conventional vision • Readymades • Chance, improvisation, random; collage or photo montage

Dada

• Believed in the balance between individual and universal values, when the machine would assure ease of living • Reduce their art to simple geometric shapes • Reduce palette to primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and primary values (black, white, gray), two primary lines (vertical, horizontal) • created during WWI

De Stijl

• Emphasize shapes and straight edges of their creations • No surface decoration, narrative elements, figures, or other imagery in their works • Large and made from metal • Sought to remove any visible signs of themselves in the work • Rejects illusionism and reduces sculpture to basic geometric forms, emphasizes their art's "objecthood" • Artists didn't even create the finished products but rather sent blueprints to artisans who welded the metal sculptures

Minimalism

• Still life paintings or portraits with photographic accuracy during the 1960s and 1970s • Works are often based on photographs and employ airbrush • Often as photorealist • Like pop artist, superrealists used everyday objects • Looks like a photo, but is actually a painting

Superrealism

• Consisted of 8 realist artists who were influenced by an evangelical artist and teacher Robert Henri • Henri urged his followers to make pictures from life • Depict the rapidly changing urban landscape of NYC • These scenes often captured the bleak and seedy aspects of city life • Also known as the Ashcan School and sometimes referred to as "the apostles of ugliness" • Somewhat similar to German Expressionism The Bridge, but lacks the foreboding tone

The Eight