Art History 381 Exam 1
Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Emphasis on spreading fascist propaganda and fighting back avantgarde art
Socialist Realism
reduced painting to its logical conclusion
Pure Red Color, Pure Blue Color, Pure Yellow Color (1921), Alexander Rodchenko
American flags with subtext in civil rights era
Faith Ringgold
father with cruel face and abusive hands. note she isn't in portrait, just a picture of her...degrees of separation. "painting calmed the chaos that shook my soul"
Family Portrait (1954), Niki de Saint Phalle
Pataphysics
"the pseudo-science that would explain the universe supplementary to this one. God is the tangential point between zero and infinity." - invented by Alfred Jarry
Realism, depicting happy aryan family embracing German values. Strong man, all three generations
Farm Family from Kahlenberg (1939), Adolph Wissel
anarchitecture. hostility to traditional architecture. dialogue about urban development and demolition
Gordon Matta-Clark
note pastel colors, children and mothers, happiness and plenty. playing with industrial toys
Great Leap Forward Propaganda
pale, ominous background, with imposing, dark Hitler in foreground. The x-ray of his stomach makes a political statement of the money Hitler consumes through the German economy and the hateful rhetoric he spouts. Dada, so art is a statement on politics moreso than a specific aesthetic
Adolf, the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk (1932), John Heartfield
Black and pale yellow (contrast with original which is black and white). Chaos and conflict, just like original. insanity of reason which leads humans to oppress each other and come into conflict
African Guernica (1967), Mslaba
The left and right are flanked with fabric prints showing the energetic movements of soccer players, over the top of which on the right side is painted a ghost-like volleyball player reaching for a ball. The fabric is of course stretched over the painting frame, resonating with the stretching sportsmen's movements. Through the middle and lower sections are sketched Sir John Tenniel's image of Alice along with the caterpillar smoking a hookah atop a mushroom. As Alice eats from either side of the mushroom, she is going to grow or shrink, depending on which side she eats from.
Alice in Wonderland (1971), Sigmar Polke
bright hues, low value - almost a wash. greens and reds are festive, obviously a joyous occasion. sound almost seems to emanate from the painting. tone and color is almost crude and mocking, comes across as satirical (masks). symbolism movement. depiction of an ugly mass of humanity, Christ is in the center of this writhing mass, calm and composed in direct contrast to the political leader egging on the mindless crowd.
Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888), James Ensor
Disregard for history of western fine art, anger in aftermath of WWII
CoBrA
Auto-destructive art was inherently political; also carrying anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist messages. It addressed society's unhealthy fascination with destruction, as well as the negative impact of machinery on our existence.
Auto-Destructive Art (1961), Gustav Metzger
alignment with nature's constant mutability. By spreading the canvas on the floor, Pollock obtained absolute freedom of movement and the capacity to splash paint to the canvas. motion throughout...could be falling leaves, wind, changing seasons...but throughout there is motion.
Autumn Rhythm (1950), Jackson Pollock
You still see human forms very distinctly, but the emphasis is on the light playing over the clothing and faces of the people. cloud-like and soft, gives the sense of spring/summer and warmth. Impressionist movement (camera made realism obsolete, emphasis is on capturing impression of light in the scene)
Bal de Moulin de la Galette (1876), Pierre-August Renoir
German trauma, red pain on black night backdrop
Birkenau Cycle (2014), Gerhard Richter
pale values and hues, color transcends form
Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra (1907), Henri Matisse
Classical poses, German women. Allusion to classical art and standards of beauty
By the Water (1938), Ernst Liebermann
Play on Rake's Progress. Rake/Dandy portrayed as black, social unacceptable, but in very fine setting
Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998), Yinka Shonibare
Dada. blue and white squares, no depth but scale difference. laws of chaos - do what you want
College With Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance (1916), Hans Arp
no depth, just colors seemingly randomly arranged in squares. white dominates, but even mix of other colors throughout. almost seems like light or inspiration from shadows in earlier photographs.
Colors for a Large Wall (1951), Ellsworth Kelly
empty space, purely horizontal and vertical lines making up composition. rhythm of waves breaking in geometric cadence against right angles of pier
Composition No. 10 (Pier and Ocean) (1915), Piet Mondrian
center is circle and rectangle. almost eye of the storm surrounding it. Kandinsky drew from spirituality heavily, so you can almost see/hear a storm in the piece...rising and falling waves, possibly a biblical allusion. amorphous forms seem to form a vortex, going from angry and energetic (reds) in top left to calm and regenerative (blues - Kandisnky mysticism) in top right. transition into true abstract work
Composition VII (1913), Wassily Kandinsky
discomfort - black men's sexuality and piss christ
Culture wars - Mapplethorpe and Serrano
Collage-like work, faces, words, and industrial machinery spliced across page. post-war protest of German culture, government, and gender issues.
Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919), Hannah Hoch
Note shading, heavy black and white, shadows. German Expressionism, so emphasis on form, expression, emotion. Note that death and the child are almost grappling for the mother, pained expressions contrasted with expressionless skull.
Death and the Mother (1910), Kathe Kollwitz
Sacks pieced together. war doctor piecing together patients, broken Europe piecing itself back together after the war. coarse burlap texture, focus on the flaws
Details of Wheat (1956), Alberto Burri
black on white, dynamism and motion. emphasis is not on the form, but the transition of the form in movement. painting is filled with action. futurism movement, so the emphasis has shifted to the power and movement of the form
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912), Giacomo Balla
transition in the British art world from the grey austerity of the post-World War II period to the technicolor explosion of the 1960s. Their work laid out the pre-Pop basis for British Art in the second half of the 20th century by responding to new influences, most explicitly American-style advertising, movies, and new fashions. With the group committed to fresh and innovative expression, they produced art that referenced this culture shift extensively, particularly through collage, abstract sculpture, and architecture.
English Independent Group (Proto-Pop Art)
Giraffes and women. colonialism. nature and humans both hunted?
Evolution, Theresa Musoke
Collage of fashion magazines and studio lights. American-style advertising and beauty standards under the spotlight
Fashion Plate (1969), Richard Hamilton
a group of artists who had become disenchanted with the elitist attitude they perceived in the art world at the time. These artists looked to Futurists and Dadaists for inspiration, focusing especially on performance aspects of the movements. The Dadaist use of humor in art was also definitive in the formation of the Fluxus ethos.
Fluxus
what is art? repurposed toilet into fountain, art is the imagination and the creation, what artist says it is. doesn't have to be formal. Dada, so art is anything you want it to be
Fountain (1917), Marcel Duchamp
standing alone in public (brave). commentary on slave trade, wealth created in NYC from auctions
From her body sprang their greatest wealth (2013), Nona Faustine
futurism, power and movement, FUSION of two forms
Fusion of a Head and a Window (1912), Giacomo Balla
black historical figures and white people's perceptions of black people
George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware (1975), Robert Colescott
Happenings were the forerunners of performance art and in turn emerged from the theatrical elements of dada and surrealism.
Happenings
sculpture depicting giant man yoked to a cart like a horse...represents black labor and servitude during apartheid...displayed outside constitutional court of south africa
History (2003), Feni
muted, earthy tones. no central vanishing point, complete lack of perspective. houses and trees are entirely geometric. contrast of nature and man just as intriguing as anything impressionists do, but entirely different.
Houses at L'Estaque (1908), Georges Braque
the artist examined natural and social sciences and plunged into a continued multidisciplinary exploration of what humanity isregarding social and political systems which inevitably tend to moderate, form, surveil and control. heavy symbolism - pieta
How to explain pictures to a dead hare (1965), Joseph Beuys
Beuys' idea behind I Like America, and America Likes Me was to start a national dialogue. America in the 1970s, caught in the horrors of the Vietnam war, and divided by oppression of minorities, the indigenous population and immigrants, was far from the welcoming American Dream that the title of this performance suggests.
I like America and America likes me (1974), Joseph Beuys
we find the Black artist as superhero, painting himself into history rather than waiting for someone else to confer the honor upon him. also solidarity with black panthers
Icon for My Man Superman (1969), Barkley Hendricks
Thicker brush strokes, more of an attempt to capture light over details. You see the bright color of the sunrise through a fog of thick, loose grey brushstrokes (almost a mist obscuring the background). Impressionist movement (focus on impressions and form over precise detail, as emergence of camera renders realism obsolete).
Impression: Sunrise (1872), Claude Monet
uniting all different types of Chinese people in front of symbols of Chinese power under Mao
In Front of Tian'anmen (1964), Sun Zixi
black and white wood print. see chains in back contrasted with quill and pen in Phyllis's hand. artist specialized in prints of famous black women in civil rights movement.
In Phyllis Wheatley I proved intellectual equality in the midst of slavery (1946), Elizabeth Catlett
Stalin died during painting...on second painting you can see him contemplating blank canvas, "free" but unsure what future is. note posters on walls and signs on the ground
In the Days of War (1953/54), Geli Korzhev
The production of monochrome paintings was probably conceived by Klein as both a spiritual and a marketable activity. At his 1957 exhibition in Milan, he displayed a series of eleven ostensibly identical blue monochromes, each with a different price which he claimed reflected its unique spirit. As he explained: 'Each blue world of each painting, although the same blue and treated in the same way, presented a completely different essence and atmosphere. None resembled any other - no more than pictoral moments resemble each other - although all were of the same superior and subtle nature (marked by the immaterial)
International Klein Blue (1959), Yves Klein
collage-style art. resembles post-war ads for modern appliance and happy family
It's a Psychological Fact Pleasure Helps Your Disposition (1948), Eduardo Paolozzi
a midcentury living room is filled to the brim with logos and cut-out images of consumer products. At center, a lampshade is emblazoned with the emblem for the auto manufacturer, Ford. collage-style critique of post-war consumer culture
Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (1956), Richard Hamilton
Russia, Suprematicism movement, squares are the secular equivalent of Russian icons
Kazimir Malevich
His manifesto for immateriality was his attempt to 'new painting', to go even beyond abstraction. His work was meant to escape the eye and abandoned lines and shapes in order to surprise the spectator with an 'atmospheric impression' without detours. Le Videis the objectification of this aim. Perhaps the words of Camus consolidate it, 'with the void, full powers'. Deliver ideas in a material form... Void is not real...I can get people to buy nothing...also trying to get people into an experience When he claims sky, he's claiming void, claiming the spiritual
La Vide (1958), Yves Klein
use of color to depict light and differentiate between foreground and background. Der Blaue Reiter group
Landscape with Clouds (1908), Gabriele Munter
Wanted return to innocence untarnished by WWII. simpler perspective, blue on brown, calm colors, simple subject
Large Sooty Nude (1944), Jean Dubuffet
Deep value colors, subdued tones, but bright white and red on Christ. German Expressionism, so note faces and emotions. Jesus is exalted and at peace, almost framed by light, while the other disciples look on. member of Die Brucke, so color is expressive of mood. German Expressionist take on religious imagery that is traditionally romantic art.
Last Supper (1909), Emil Nolde
cubism and emphasis on form and motion. uses geometric shapes to illustrate the female body, challenging expectation of traditional depictions of female beauty. figures look directly at viewer and seem unaware of each other, not simply models to be admired.
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Pablo Picasso
Preoccupied with collective memory, mortality, and the passage of time. Installation brings to mind treatment of "hysterics" by Jean-Martin at the Charcot at Salpetiere
Lessons of Darkness (1987), Christian Boltanski
trauma, time in concentration camp, killed by Nazis.
Life? or Theater? (1940), Charlotte Salomon
technology, new materials, and light. bauhaus, so uses everyday materials in art
Light, Space Modulator (1922), Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Arman began examining the artistic possibilities of everyday objects, giving them an importance never seen before - in effect, transforming garbage or abandoned items into art - yet another, more complex, interpretation of Pop-art.
Long Term Parking (1986), Arman
Canned and sold for price of gold of the day. Nobody has opened because it would change art, nobody knows what's in it
Merda d'Artista (1961), Piero Manzoni
challenged the traditional concept of the picture plane as an extension of the viewers space, providing a window into another reality. The title is derived from the union of the goat and tire, which reminded Rauschenberg of the interweaving letters in a monogram.
Monogram (1955), Robert Rauschenberg
early cubism, transition from impressionist focus on light to cubist focus on abstract structure and form, especially of powerful, immovable objects like a mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902-1904), Paul Cézanne
design for massive monument to Russia. Thinking about the future in Russia - what it would look like in architecture and art. constructivism, so main themes are reflecting modern industrial space
Monument to the 3rd International (1919), Vladimir Tatlin
Like other neo-expressive movements of this era, the work of the Neuen Wilden (i.e. new Fauves), is characterised by bright, intense colours and quick, broad brushstrokes, and can be seen to have arisen in opposition to the then dominant avant-garde movements of minimal art and conceptual art.
Neue Wilden
Brutalism was generally characterised by its rough, unfinished surfaces, unusual shapes, heavy-looking materials, straight lines, and small windows. Modular elements were often used to form masses representing specific functional zones, grouped into a unified whole.
New Brutalism Architecture
Vietnamese uprisings against the French. red (communism and anger). collective mass of humanity - the individual is not important
Nghe Tinh Soviet (1958)
artists questioned the idea that art had to elevate, politicize, or idealize any subject. This questioning led to an intersection between art and life, narrowing the gap between artists and the public, allowing everyone to participate in and easily relate to a rich multiplicity of media, forms, and styles.
Nouveau Réalisme
a taxidermized horse hung from the baroque ceiling of one of the museum's salons, its legs elongated to give the impression that the force of gravity was stretching it down to the ground.Cattelan has used taxidermy since the 1990s to explore the emotional relationships and cultural associations between humans and animals. This taxidermy horse is one of the artist's most iconic works. This work invites us to consider how we feel when we see a horse - usually associated with power and grace - in this submissive position. Cattelan's horse may symbolise a country exhausted by a century of upheaval and violence. The horse - usually a symbol of strength - is here worn and tired; perhaps embodying a look back at the last century and a warning about the future.
Novecento (1997), Maurizio Cattelan
note the geometry of the form, emphasis on motion down the staircase. beauty here is not in the form or the body, but in its motion.
Nude Descending a Staircase (1912), Marcel Duchamp
motion of the body extending outwards. Bauhaus, so focus on fusion of art and everyday life
Oskar Schlemmer
capitalist realism. postwar germany. life appears normal, but beneath that veneer everyone is evil and has blood on their hands. Richter sees underside of world, WWII & east germany, bombed out...dark undertones
Party (1963), Gerhard Richter
room size abstraction, supposed to make some visitors feel that they are floating in space
Proud Space (1923), El Lissitzky
Art doesn't have to be intelligible or political, can just be from dreams
Pierrot (1947), William Baziotes
It is the archetypal Dadaist work of anti-art. It is explicitly offensive -- a rather nasty attack on painting: Cézanne, Renoir and Rembrandt are stuffed monkeys, and painting is dead. The stuffed monkey -- a found object -- in the center of the panel illustrates the text of the title that surrounds it. The monkey is a kind of exclamation point in what is essentially a verbal performance. The crude lettering of the title and the shabby look of the monkey make the subversive point bluntly. Picabia makes a monkey of painting, and its use of the model from nature.
Portrait of Cezanne (1920), Francis Picabia
Note aggressive red background and traditional shirt
Portrait of Mao Zedong (1940), Li Qun
colors - bright in background, darker in foreground (normal inverted). tree seems to float in space somewhat. emphasis on color. blue is calm, red is violent motion in foreground, together balance. De Stijl
Red Tree (1909), Piet Mondrian
massive scale, interaction with nature. ran installation into the water, even though they were told not to
Running Fence (1976), Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Art Nouveau originated in the late 19th century Arts and Crafts Movement in England. It was considered a response to growing industrialization in Europe and the rise of factory mass production at the expense of traditional craftsmanship. An international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts.
Salomé (1891), Aubrey Beardsley; Paris Metro, Abbesses Station (1900), Hector Guinard
Stalin made Malevich paint more traditionally, but he still places his square in the corner of the painting
Self Portrait (1933), Malevich
simplified, angular background in fiery colors. contrast him in green, in a thoughtful pose. the emphasis on the monocle presents him as scholarly and thoughtful. Die Brucke group, so color is expressive of mood.
Self-Portrait with Monocle (1910), Karl Schmidt-Rottluf
The fresco's ambiguities (between reality and illusion and plane and volume) resonate in the sculpture, where our perception constantly shifts between two dimensions and three as the seated figures are neither fully rounded nor consistently flat.The central figure of Christ is beautifully chiseled from a block of salvaged New York City stone, while the rest of the figures and the table items are assembled from more than a hundred painted and drawn pieces of wood. Looking serene and ashen, and already otherworldly in spirit, Christ's physical solidity provides the visual and emotional anchor for this dramatic scene. Seated across the room from The Last Supper, a single wooden figure representing the artist herself scrutinizes her handiwork. Her watchful presence reaffirms the point that art is about looking, evaluating, and reinventing what one sees.
Self-portrait viewing the last supper (1982), Marisol Escobar
In the piece, first performed at the Surplus Dance Theater with the visual artist Carolee Schneemann, Morris, wearing a mask of his own face (madeby Jasper Johns), systematically carried away four-by-eight foot sheets of plywood to reveal a nude Schneemann emulating Edouard Manet's Olympia (1863). Morris maneuvered the boards around the stage, until finally using them to again conceal Schneemann, all the while the sound of a jackhammer played repeatedly in the background. Site recalls Box with the Sound of Its Own Making through its use of an audio recording and focus on the banal (de)construction of a wooden structure, but here the situation is more complex and ambiguous; it is unclear whether the anonymous masked Morris or the nude Schneemann, whose pale skin and white backdrop discourage attention, is the focal point of the performance-an ambiguity that prompts the viewer to consider the relative importance of the artistic process versus the resulting artwork itself.
Site (1964), Robert Morris
international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and Marxist-Leninist political theorists.
Situationist International
bright colors, intensity and anxiety of modern city. crowd circles but each individual is distinctly alone. Die Brucke group, so color is expressive of mood. dark greens, whites, and reds separate the people from each other...crowd does not merge together
Street, Dresden (1908), East Kichner
parody of In Front of Tian'anmen. Wang parody uses "anonymous types" to point out disconnect and isolation; disjointed collective Clear class divide/people looking in different directions Meaning of Tiananmen Square architecture changes in meaning after Massacre
Taking a Picture in front of Tian'anment Square (1992), Wang Jinsong
Pure red background, pain. black/grey figure in foreground, hollow eyes almost seem to be skull like, faces in expressions of pain.
That never dies, the people remember everything (1966), Bertina Lopes
more symbolism, pale bodies contrasted with deep values of darkness wrapping people like blankets. people in different stages of sleep, from peaceful, to sleeping with another, to fitful, to terror. all subjects experience the same night, but different ones
The Night (1889-1890), Ferdinand Hodler
Note artist drawing himself, landscape, nudes, peasants, nobility - full walks of life. foreground is crowded but background is empty, almost like canvas. you are in the crowd of admirers around the artist with his future works (blank canvas) looming over you. Placed in realism movement - homage to portraits of nobility, shows artist versatility in drawing EVERYTHING.
The Artist's Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Artistic and Moral Life (1854-1855), Gustav Courbet
political art. Great Depression, celebrating the "arts" of daily life, with a come and a go
The Arts of the South (1932), Thomas Benton
The use of "real" animals and the act of knitting make a close connection with real life and ordinary events and undermine the idea of art as something removed from everyday experience. found voice as artist seeing fragile dead sparrow on street
The Boarders (1971), Annette Messager
women and children in conflict being overrun by horses. "fog of war", aggression of US against Vietnam civilians. distinction between soldiers and civilians
The Enemy Have Burnt Our Village (1954), To Ngoc Van
Mao elevated, addressing the people in Tiananmen Square. All the party leaders in the background (painted over as they were accused of being traitors). Art as depicting history and providing a record of moments to create propaganda
The Founding Ceremony of the Nation (1953), Dong Xiwen
more classic German sense of beauty. classical style work. pale and comfortable background, posed models, christian symbolism
The Four Elements: Fire, Water and Earth, Air (1937), Adolf Ziegler
peaceful blue horses against violent and uneasy red hills in the background. color and form have life of their own. Der Blaue Reiter group
The Large Blue Horse (1911), Franz Marc
The title of the work alludes to the moment when Christ cries out : "Why have you forsaken me ? " and dies on the cross. In a dark theater of the absurd, the vicar of Christ on earth dies in a scene devoid of symbolic features, killed by a meteorite as if in a work of science fiction. It seems to suggest that even the holiest man in the Roman Catholic tradition may not be safe from misfortune. The work has been interpreted in various ways. Some read it as a comment on the Catholic Church's reputation for harbouring scandal beneath its moral surface. Others have seen it as suggesting that even the most established seats of power can become vulnerable. The Church is an institution dazed and changed by our increasingly secularised world. The Pope could be a symbol of resilience and re-invention; a call to find new languages for perennial faith and culture to survive and adapt.
The Ninth hour (1999), Maurizio Cattelan
breakup of frame with letters and numbers. makes viewer aware of canvas. cubism - emphasis on form and motion
The Portuguese (1911), Georges Braque
Coarsely gouged-out areas, jagged lines, and the textured grain of the wood effectively combine in this portrayal of a fervent believer—a quintessential German Expressionist print.
The Prophet (1912), Emil Nolde
bright and vibrant background, pale and wraith-like figure in the foreground. Symbolism, represents the uncertainty and panic at the end of the century
The Scream (1893), Edvard Munch
Heroic Realism, Hitler in white armor on a horse, noble pose with standard.
The Standard Bearer (1934), Lanzinger
very distinctive brush strokes - brush strokes are almost the purpose of the art, rather than something to be minimized. fairly dark color value, with intensity used to indicate the brightness of the stars. transition from Impressionism to symbolism (away from just the impression a scene leaves and towards the use of symbols and underlying meanings). in this piece, we see stars and a church, a traditional town but one where the scale and spacing manages to depict the stars as the focal point and the overwhelming scale and brightness of the universe over humanity.
The Starry Night (1889), Vincent Van Gogh
Sculpture of man with sword, noble warrior off to war. promoting strength of German men before war
The Warrior Departs (1940), Anro Breker
Watercolor. Member of Der Blaue Reiter group, emphasis on abstraction of color, form for its own sake communicating something about its life. negative white space is defining silence, red is anxious and energetic, smeared and in motion across the page. blue is mystery (Kandinsky mysticism). yellow earth and black sun (apocalyptic gaps in the silent white).
Untitled (First Abstract Watercolor) (1910), Wassily Kandinsky
unease of overlay, loss of innocence. even red and white shows this same loss
We'll shake the bag (1980), David Salle
red background, contorted white figures. Inspired by Picasso, Bathers with a toy boatAlso The Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein. Bacon's emphasis on contortion and pain represents a post-war conscience. furies punishing human wrongs. reminiscent of nazis
Three studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion (1944), Francis Bacon
photo of performance. commentary on raising social status, allusions to childhood
To Raise the Water in a Fishpond (1997), Zhang Huan
The Transavanguardia movement was part of the international phenemenon of a revival of expressionist painting in the late 1970s and 1980s. The term, which literally means 'beyond the avant-garde', was coined by the critic Achille Oliva in his texts for an exhibition he organised in 1979 in Genanzzano titled Le Stanze. aimed to return to the traditional act of painting, one that elicited emotion - especially joy - and provided some meaning. The artists created paintings, drawings and sculptures that intentionally belonged to figurative art and employed neglected imagery such as the mythical symbols, which marked the movement's highlight years. These artworks revealed the excitement behind every brushstroke, every line and hue of color, the very texture of the canvas. According to Oliva himself, transavanguardia relied heavily on the materialism of techniques and new materials, rejecting the "catastrophe" enacted by conceptual ideas and recuperating the intensity of painting, the image, the narrative.
Transvantguardia
theater of the absurd. play was schoolboy farce.
Ubu Roi (1896), Alfred Jarry
East German. Post-war Germany. picture of Nazi, Richter manipulates image to blur out features of individuals
Uncle Rudi (1965), Gerhard Richter
sculpture drawing inspiration from Nude Descending a Staircase. same hues, same geometric form that shows a purposeful motion forward.
Unique Forme of Continuity in Space (1913), Umberto Boccioni
Return to physical forms in this piece. Thin brush strokes, contrast dark values and subdued tones in "beyond" in background (death) with paler values, brighter hues in foreground (life). strokes in background are less precise, there is less space as fluid forms seem to crowd barrier between life and death. Symbolism movement, so focus is less on realism of forms and more on what they represent. this piece is a contemplation of life and death, from the elderly dying woman to the newborn. the woman is alone with her thoughts, represented by the white bird (a symbol for the uselessness of vain words). the blue figures represent the beyond, or the unknown beyond life (where do we go). the mid ground seems to show wandering souls in between the dead and the living, as the lines blur in contemplation.
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897-98), Paul Gauguin
Successor to De Kooning. further deconstructed paintings (even erased a de Kooning.
White Painting (1951), Robert Rauschenberg
Rejecting traditional representations of women, which he summarized as "the idol, the Venus, the nude," de Kooning painted a figure with gigantic eyes, massive breasts, and a toothy grin. Her threatening stare and ferocious smile are heightened by the artist's aggressive brushwork and frenetic application of paint.
Woman I (1950), Willem de Kooning
pastel hues, light value. brush strokes are very imprecise (it is not supposed to be an exact likeness). background would be entirely negative/empty space, but it is filled with splashes of color that mirror the woman's hat. Fauvism movement, color is no longer defining or bound to form, but is its own entity (simply is).
Woman with a Hat (1905), Henri Matisse
Words, exhibited at the Smolin Gallery in New York in 1962, takes the audience on a journey through two rooms, encouraging them to contribute to written and verbal components as they progress. Through this interactive environment, Kaprow denotes "urban text" referencing graffiti, billboards, newspapers, overheard conversations, and a lecture, engaging the viewer in a multi-sensory experience that literally brings "words" to life. The importance of this piece is based in the responsibility of the viewer to become part of the creative process beyond passive involvement.
Words (1962), Allan Kaprow
Kandinsky-style art, but in machine with moving parts
Wundermaschine Meta-Kandinsky I (1954), Jean Tinguely
Techniques from West, but paintings of people and world around him. note colors and unison, strength of workers. faceless and smaller oversee. light on workers but shadow on overseer
song of the pick (1946), Gerard Sekoto
Zone of Pictorial and Immaterial Sensibility (bought zone of void, bought the immaterial) 7 parts of gold for nature (throws in the river) and 7 for himself in payment Transfers zone of immaterial sensibility to purchaser Quintessential work of conceptual art
Zones of Immaterial Pictoral Sensibility (1959), Yves Klein
