Images Required for Final Exam

Elie Nadelman, Dancer, 1920 (Business Boom)

A difference in past position, it was common to see the body in contrapposto, the natural relaxed state, an icon of classical art. By kicking her legs up its showing movement, evolution and character.

Alexander Archipenko, Torso in Space, 1935 (Depression)

An abstracted nude showing only the shoulders down to the calves. The streamlined style portrays the sleek style that Archipenko was looking to achieve. The body's sleek but curved disposition shows a sense of aviation, Americanizing the piece ever more so.

Shreve, Lamb, Harmon, Empire State Building, 1929-1931 (Business Boom)

Art deco, like the Chrysler building with its similar type of architecture. Both buildings are built upon a foundation of set backs, giving the building its tiered look. A similar design inside of the building draws the eye to its strategic placements of sunbursts, and chevron.

William Van Alen, Chrysler Building, 1928-1930 (Business Boom)

Art deco, the use of art deco is to draw the viewers eye all the way up, in this case the decorative walls of the building draw the viewers eye up higher and higher, following pieces of art like chevron and sunbursts. the hood ornaments that are placed on the outside of the building are like gargoyles, but the Chrysler hood ornaments represent speed, elegance and its sleek appearance.

Arthur Dove, Nature Symbolized, 1911 (Progressive)

Curvilinear figures and shades of green represent a sense of growth, evolution and movements in nature. The curves help to show the movement of wind in nature. Dove used shapes and color to capture spiritual aspects that draw attention to movements and life cycles beyond the human eye.

Edward Steichen, The Flatiron- Evening, 1904, (Progressive Era)

Designed by Daniel Burnham. The images are indistinct and the lines between the building and figures are left unclear, the view of the building is caught through the delicate branches of the tree in the foreground. The streets are rain-soaked, the globe lights provide pinpricks of light. Soft tones, grainy imprecision. Embodied the promise of a crude commercialization civilization redeemed through both a visual and poetic perspective.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917 (Progressive)

Duchamp submitted his work under the pseudonym "R. Mutt" to a show held by the New York Society of Independent Artists, which was an organization that looked to break the hold of jury system over fine arts exhibitions. The piece made people feel uncomfortable in the sense that it put them too close to viewing an aspect that art was not meant to go towards. Duchamp's purpose for claiming a sideways urinal as art was to show that art can be identified in anything, and if you make that interpretation, it is your art. The photograph was in fact taken by Alfred Stieglitz which he emphasized the Fountain's aesthetic qualities by use of light and placing the work in front of a painting giving it a background.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, 1917 (Progressive Era)

O'Keeffe first began displaying her art in abstract forms, but steered away from it when she felt that critics were misreading her art when they were seeing them as psychological expressions of her sexuality. Her were meant to represent flowers and foliage, but critics were interpreting it as female genitalia.

Alfred Stieglitz, The Flatiron 1903, (Progressive Era)

Photo was taken without any manipulation, the image was no longer manipulated by hand. It was left uninterrupted. Stressed purity of the photo. Visible snow covered tree branches, visible windows and geometric lines.

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907, (Progressive Era)

Promoted photography to become an art form, not a method of documentation. Interested in the formal properties of the photo over the narrative. The relationship that the visible shapes on the ship had with one another taught Stieglitz how to see photographically. "A New Vision", shapes meeting shapes, social classes colliding.

George Ault, From Brooklyn Heights, 1925 (Business Boom)

The Hudson river is shown in its actual state and not dramatized to be a blue body of water, its shown as green and polluted. The art shows a simplified view of the subjects, reducing them to basic geometric shapes in cubism. The painting shows a sense of isolation in the city that Ault associated with.

Stuart Davis, Odol, 1924 (Business Boom)

The checkered style shows a bathroom floor, Davis used logos and commercial signage in his art long before Pop artists like Andy Warhol did. He created a streamlined ode to products in his art.

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912, (Progressive)

The piece was considered controversial because a nude figure was created in a cubist piece of art. It was considered too futurist as it was ahead of its time. The painting was a result of Duchamp's interest in stop action photography as it became popular on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. Rather than showing a nude figure the way it always had been, with a sense of modesty in the body's natural state, the body is broken up into components that resemble pieces of a machine with jagged edges. What was sought to be the most disturbing was the idea that it could not be identified if the figure was male or female, showing the genderless character of a machine. Duchamps concept was a result of his interpretations of Jules Etinenne Marey in France and Eadward Muybridge in the US, work.

Charles Demuth, I Saw the Figure Five in Gold, 1928 (Business Boom)

The powerful and prominent use of shades of red and gold represent a fire truck with screaming sirens in the crowded New York City streets. As a cubist piece, you can still differentiate what the lines, colors, and figures are meant to represent. The painting pays homage to the writer of the poem that the painting is based on William Carlos Williams' (The Great Figure). Bill is clearly written in the painting

Charles Sheeler, Classic Landscape, 1931 (Depression)

The simple use of colors keeps the image in a realistic realm allowing you to see it in a natural state without overemphasis. The sharp shadows give the image dimension and the use of foreshortening brings the eye to look at the rails as if they are coming out of the artwork.

Max Weber, Rush Hour, New York, 1915 (Progressive)

Weber's use of cubism is a display of a futurist representation of of movements and rhythms in the streets at rush hour in New York. The sharp lines and color are bold in showing how prominent rush hour is in a New Yorker's day and culture.