Art History
Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, 1928-30
-In France -best known exponent of the international style in France -the house was a machine for living -interested in innovative advances in other fields -five points of architecture: list of elements he thought should be included in every architectural foundation: pilates, flat roofed terraces, open floor plan, ribbon windows, and a free facade -inspired by the design and technology of steam ships -dynamic non tradition-uses ramps, and spiral staircases -the house almost appears to be floating -all elements are of equal importance -ribbon windows let in a lot of natural light -associated white with purity, cleanliness, and health -
Palmer Hayden, Janitor Who Paints, 1939
-beret, polkadot tie, and surrounded by the tools of his trade:broom, dustpan, trashcan, artist pallet, brushes -painting a picture of a young woman who is dressed up -very different from the original version-he painted over it where it used to be very racial -they were never referred to as painters, but instead Janitors
Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction, 1934
-part of the Harlem Renaissance -response to Alaine Locke directed to use African art and African American culture as inspiration -paintings meant to reflect that any art should be morally constructive -four historical narratives -African ritual, African ceremonies, African Americans in the south, and African Americans in the north -masks translate into African American culture in the United States -represent Jazz here through color tones and the syncopation of it -Egyptian wall paintings -confront racial violence -counter negative stereotypes -represented everyone as the same color
Jackson Pollock, Lavender Mist, 1950
-very thick paint -used cigarette buds -drip and splash style used -pour paint from a can onto the surface in broad gestures -didn't use brushes -would add sand or crushed glass to the paint to add a quality to the paint itself -action painting comes from surrealism and automatic techniques -concept was that the technique would result in a more direct and uncensored release of the inner feeling of the artist-the unconscious -spectator was supposed to feel the energy and emotion of the artist from all the lines -he would try not to name his paintings because he didn't want someone to make a meaning out of his painting and focus just on the paint -painted in a manner that was similar to Native American sand painters -always went horizontally instead of vertically
Albert Gleizes, Man on a Balconey, 1912
10.4D -first to create a text about cubism -composition takes the methods that were devised by Picasso and brach, and uses them in a slightly different way -broken lines and fractured planes -full length portrait -tall elegantly posed man leaning in the foreground of the painting -bathed in natural light -series of perpendicular lines that compete with the monumental presences that is here -color is very different from Picasso and brach -Really effective in capturing the city and modern life -
Robert Delauney, Simultaneous Contrast, Sun and Moon, 1913
11.Orphism -color pulls away from focus on form -orphic cubism "orphism" -light was really important and the sign or symbol for modern life was light -light absorbs everything, and everything can be absorbed into light -life, movement, flux, and light itself -express the flux of modern life -not looking at objects but just throwing themselves into the painting -orpheus-musician in greek myths -music required time which the cubists were very interested in
Adolf Loos, Steiner House, Vienna, 1910
12.Early Modern Architecture -one of the first architects to use reinforced concrete as a building material for domestic architecture -very industrial, cold, alienating materials, it erodes and cracks from snow -flat roofed almost abstract cubic form -smooth white surfaces -more complex interior spaces he could create, and play with wall angles, and curving walls -progressive shedding of ornament -sign of a civilized society is to shed ornament -advocated for simplicity -praises neoclassical architecture -advocated simplicity -he had an idea that the modern middle class city dweller was alienated from rural vernacular traditions, and also aristocratic building traditions -the middle class has no traditions and so therefor you don't have to do anything for them because they just needed a space to be in, and middle class didn't need warmth, tradition, or anything like that
Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913
13.Futurism -Figure that seems to be striding into the future -series of undulating surfaces that seem to transfer right before our eyes -helmet like face to express war ready -sculpt both the figure and its immediate environment and the displacement of space by energy -three years before this he said that nudes were a hopeless use of tradition -he broke his rules of futurist sculpture he made that said that futurist sculpture could only be made of strong straight lines, sculptures should not be made of one single material, or made of traditional materials such as marble or bronze -original sculpture was made of plaster on purpose because he argued that his art should be destroyed or not have any lasting quality -
Carlo Carra, Patriotic Celebration, 1914
14.Futurism -futurists were very quick to adapt to collage -fusing of the avant garde with mass culture -doesn't have any logical arrangement to it -there is no one thing that is related to each-other, but as a whole it is a highly nationalistic and propagandistic work
Mikhail Larionov, Rayonist Composition, 1916
15.Russian Abstraction-Rayonism -non-objective style inspired by Italian Futurism -lines of force -he claims he made his first Rayonist work in 1909 because it was non-objective work and he wanted to be seen as the first to use it -when light rays reflect off the surface of an object they intersect with one another and create intangible spacial forms that the artist could create -no objects but just light rays -interested in 4th Dimension -the fact that theres things that exist that we cant see with the naked eye -idea of a Lubke behind this work -
Lyubov Popova, Study for a Portrait, 1914-1915
16.Russian Abstraction-Cubo Futurism -Russian cubo-futurism started in1912-13 -because there was such a high amount of women in the avant garde futurism was incredibly mysogonistic -intersection between futurism and cubism -Planar faceting is cubist in this work -the colors, and dynamic intersection of planes is futurism -the color gives it a more dynamic function
Malevich, Red Square, Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two-Dimensions, 1915
17.Russian Abstraction- Suprematism -influenced by fauvism -cubo futurism-intermediary between the static state of cubism, and the movement in dynamism found in futurism -favored cone and cylindrical forms -used a lot of strong primary colors -lot of futurist interaction happening -adopted suprematism to define his style and philosophical stance -believed in a transformative power in art -believed cubism had failed because the depicted object became incomprehensible -suprematist paintings are completely objectless and it was very important for them to be -argued that realism in figurative painting was a copy of reality who's depth and richness it could never match -stressed the purity of shapes zaum-used to describe sound poetry -said cubism was innovative because of the way it rendered forms but was still too traditional because it was always tied to the objects -started reducing objects to geometric forms -reaching the zero of painting-the essential minimum of art -influenced by theosophy -realism is a convention -every time you draw a square you are not representing a square, but creates one and he says its more real than a naturalist painting
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White Square on White, 1918
18.Russian Abstraction- Suprematism -brimming with content -very flat -zero of painting for him
Vladimir Tatlin, Selection of Materials, 1914
19.Russian Constructivism-Faktura -experimenting -influenced by Picasso in creating a sculpture that wont last -mark of critique -working with materials like metal, wood and glass relating to factory, industry, technology -in Russia wood was the most plentiful material in the SSR -the purpose was that the experimentation would contribute to some sort of solution -also influenced by lubki -Faktura: resonance of materials -wanted to exploit those inherent properties -properties of wood, easier to manipulate and has a certain surface texture -metal can represent strength but also be maluable because it can curve -glass is transparent -the intrinsic property of the material wasn't important but instead the osculating role that individual piece could play in the larger pictorial synthesis -instead of thinking about composition he is thinking about the construction -the material will dictate the form
Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52
Abstract Expressionism-Existentialism -Artists were very engaged with marxist ideas:working class rise up and throw over the beaugiouse -responsibility of the individual -construction of self -absurdity of being -action painting -very rough brush strokes -figure in the process of becoming, and not becoming -calls it the "no ground"
Henri Matisse, The Open Window, 1905, oil on canvas
1Fauvism .-appear unfinished -no depth, everything is on the same plane -liberated color in abstraction -pointing to the tension that he is painting on a 2D surface -shattering the notions of a painting viewing a real world in it
Maurice de Vlaminck , The Bathers, c. 1907
2.Fauvism -using objects such as masks and put on women's bodies with the desire to be more authentic
Aleksander Rodchenko, Model for Worker's Club, Paris Expo, 1925
20.Russian Constructivism -experimenting wiith materials, and forms -taken the counter relief concept and given it a new dimension -was interested in the expressive qualities of component geometric elements -spacial objects-3 dimensional -argued that painting was dead because it was burnt out -one of the earliest attempts to design an entire constructivist interior and is one of the few that was actually achieved -utilitarian aesthetic -meant to be used on political grounds -cultural, educational and social place -communism looks at religion as a false ideology -workers club was meant to replace the role of the church -was meant to serve a function for amusement also -engages in economy of materials -collapsible and function-able objects that observed an economy of space by things being collapsible and multi function-able -the smaller the objects are the bigger the room looks -made of wood, but also painted it white, red, grey, and black -
Otto Dix, Metropolis, 1927-28
29. -triptych -bourgeois -showing us disastrous war heroes -hypocracy of the bourgeois -dressed up masks painting their faces to go out and have pleasure to forget who they are, and whats going on -prostitutes of different classes on the left and right panels -even the prostitutes ignore the war veterans -he was suffering from PTSD, put himself in the picture as the war veteran
Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1923
3.-abstraction -based on something -implies a bird flying -pushed the materials to new expressions -bronze, and limestone pedestal -about light, and movement -depiction of gentle organic arching of what birds do that we love -
Varvara Stepanova, Designs for Sportswear Company, 1923
21. -women were still really active during this period -most successful in getting her designs in the factory and actually produced -interdependence of material used and the function it was meant to be used for -related the cloth to what the outfit is supposed to be used for -what are the inherent properties of material -clothing should not be regarded in an aesthetic view but they should be viewed in constant motion -clothing was an immediate signifier of your status -clothing should lose ideological significance and her clothing was genderless -perfect adaptability between form and function -argued the very concept of the uniformity would overcome by the variety by the types of work and leisure that were performed and each one would demand a particular kind of clothing -leisure and work were the two qualities
Gustav Klucis, Electrification of the Entire Country, 1923
22. -artists could be very useful in propaganda -in 1921 there is a shift from industrial materials and functional aesthetic to photo montage -pappie colle-just paper -collage-can be different materials put together -photomontage-just photos -distinction in how they were used -re-emergence of bourgeoise, realism, and easel painting -imagery that was more readable to the masses -abstraction can't really express meaning to people that can't easily understand it -tell stories with pictures because people can't read -push towards photo montage -mass production -photographs were often not considered art, but more scientific -photomontage developed from cubist collage and pappie colle -social ideas of comunism made propaganda a more powerful tool -he did graphic design work for the Bolshevik's -this work is about getting the entire soviet union hooked up with electricity -modernization and industrialization was going to free the proletariat -intended to liberate the working class -indicating the idea of progress, movement, and building
Hugo Ball in his "Magical Bishop" costume, at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, June 1916
23.DADA -constriction of convention -performance was a central meeting of DADA -time and space, meaning was meant to be derived from the moment, and what they have to perform doesn't matter -he was trying to empty language of its conventional sense -language led to war -retained because it was multilingual, non-sensible, and childish founded DADA-direct link between words and their meaning
Hans Arp, Collage of Squares, 1916-17
24. -invited chance -interchangeability -the artists role in determining the final outcome of the work was being rejected -cut pieces of paper and drop them from above and glued them where they fell -outside of rationality, and logic -is not pure chance because there is no overlapping, he cut the papers, he also picked the colors of the papers
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
25.-mocking originality in artists, and Avant Garde at the same time -consisted of a standard urinal laying flat instead of in upward position -this was shocking to society because toilets weren't even allowed to be seen on TV or film till 1967 -opposite of what people fantasize art to be -bought a urinal, and submitted it to an art commission -his work was rejected -assault on good taste that New York DADA was known for -creates new thought for objects -idea based rather than object based -same ideas without losing any value, can be recreated -made it look like the female torso and it became problematic
Francis Picabia, Girl Born Without a Mother, 1917
26. -skeptical view towards machines -mechanical -strong sexual illusions -Marxism -referred to the production line as re-production -industrialization led to the alienation of the human spirit -work becomes different-assembly lines -people start to become an extension of that machine they are working on -no originality -his work was being hung up in places where people would least pay attention to them
George Sholz, Farmer Picture (Industrial Farmer), 1920
27. -he was a begging wounded war veteran -kill or be killed mentality in Berlin -told to go eat out of the compost heap- inedible discards -this painting was his response -she's holding a baby pig, while her son is mutilating a frog -she has a screw loose -terrible stereotypes juxtaposition to the angel child books next to him -money on the dads mind -background window has a clergy member working hard and his stomach shows the meal he expects to receive when he gets to the front of the house -fly trap in the background something is rotting -these people are able to engage in a consumer culture from the objectts around them such as a three hole punch
Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer Belly of the Weimar Republic, 1919-20
28. -very interested in representations of the new modern woman:started wearing pants, smoke cigarettes in public etc. -product of spirit of the age, and advertising -ballerinas -DADA and Weimar Republic at large -map of Eurich- countries that have granted women the right to vote -artists deeply engaged in socialism at this time -absurd elements spread amongst the picture plane -anti-DADA people -industrialization/urbanization references -isn't about being real and trying to speak out to people -deliberately untidy -rejecting any sense of a narrative
Piet Mondrian, Tableau No. II with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow and Gray, 1921-1925
30.De Stijl -new art -vision of an ideal new form of art and design -pure type of abstract art that was going to adhere to strict rules of composition -theosophy-combo of a bunch of different ideas-spiritual-universal religion -he wanted to get as close to truth as possible with painting -style was non-objective -vertical, and horizontal lines, and rectangles -straight lines or rectangular areas had to be the composition, no diagonals, curves -totalitarian art structure -only primary colors can be used -dynamic asymmetry -verticals and horizontals create a stable area -
Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral of the Future, 1919
31.De Stijl -cover for the first manifesto of the bauhaus -Bauhaus-refers to masons lodges -how to engage in socially committed design -wanted to bring together many different viewpoints and bring harmony with the diversity -re-established the idea of a master and apprentice -woodcut-german artform -expressionist, cubist looking
Gerrit Rietveld, Schroder House
32.De Stijl-functionalism -architecture being the anti-cube -only house designed and complete with its style principals -primary colors -Asymmetry -no diagonals -composed primarily of rectangles -designed to its function, and not necessarily the aesthetics of it -screens used to separate space
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, 1923
33. -crisp composition -impressions, improvisations, and compositions -compositions were more formally developed of the three -invited to join the bauhaus -became the master of the mural workshop -geometric shapes across the canvas -a lot of circles; has symbolic connotations:no beginning, no end-wedding ring
Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Light-Space Modulator, 1930
34.DADA -fetishized the machine -Russian constructivism -meant to be used in performances as the design of the set -machine that moves (rotates) light at the bottom
Max Ernst, The Horde, 1927
35.Surrealism -dream imagery and automatism -this painting is automatism -Ernst was one of the first artists embraced by bratton -automatism comes out of spiritualist mediums-supposed to fall into a trance and start writing or speaking -covered the canvas in brown paint,and scraped over it with a crayon and went back and painted in between -feels like it should be something butcould also mean nothing -repressed urges and desires
Salvador Dalí, Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, 1940
36.Surrealism -putrification -references Freud a lot -perspectile anymorphisis-distorted perspective that requires the viewer to stand in a particular vanish point or requires a device to reconstitute the image -wanted to make a surrealist play on meaning -osculation between two references that appear to be embedded in the same form -pear becomes the base of the hill in the background -The empty background makes up the bust of voltaire, but its almost made up of two women wearing dutch outfits -peach in the dish becomes the butt of the figure -representation of unexpected views takes on double meanings -related to a method he uses called paranoiac critical -he wanted to objectify the illusions suffered by the mentally ill -he was trying to control that in an art setting -the inability to interpret what you are seeing properly -hidden meanings relating to Freud's unconscious dreaming with symbols that one object will signify another
Rene Magritte, The Menaced Assassin, 1927
37. -interested in varistic dream paintings -had been involved with DADA-convention between meaning and language -repressed urges -sense of stopped narrative that the viewer would want to complete -corpse of a woman-corpse of rare perversity -three figures in the balcony staring at you-the uncanny -boulerheaded men hiding with weapons -how to communicate with a visual and verbal language
Brassaï, Nude, 1933
38. -power over people -female body seen as commodities
Meret Oppenheim, Dejeuner en Fourrure, 1936
39.Surrealism -"Breakfast and fur" -edgy avant-garde participant -used objects associated with femininity and domesticity, but she perverts them -women makes the tea -shattered our expectations of the object by adding fur -made something functional, unfunctionable -fur is a fetish object -allusion to oral sex, and art pieces that have women eating lunch on the grass
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdam Square, Berlin, 1914
4.German Expressionism -all the members of Die Brücke went to Berlin -city scene -very alienating with the cooler colors -two women in the front are prostitutes based on what they are wearing, the sickly green color of their skin-linking to disease and prostitution -no ones interacting in this picture -lost the soft brush strokes from his earlier work -inner unrest -primitive -prostitutes was a social regression
Charles Sheeler, American Landscape, 1931
40.American Scene Painting -calls for cultural nationalism -factories and skyscrapers become identities of America -model of production efficiency -Fordism- if you set people up on an assembly line they would be getting more for less -made sketches, took photographs of the new river plant in Detroit -rational organization -saying "this is modern America" -in most scenes the factory worker is completely absent or so small that they have no impact on the whole operation as to not matter at all -very popular in magazines -toying with the viewer on a landscape that has been man made by including the water -stillness and silence of the scene that we would see in the American West
Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930
41.American Scene Painting -regionalism -committed to visualizing the American scene in very positive terms -mid-west agriculture -dynamic compositions -dominated art because it corresponded to the new deal:set of policies that created a system of social safety nets to help the people that really needed it-dust bowl and great depression -system of support was made for artists to beautify buildings, and document what was going on during the dust bowl and great depression so that we would still have art, and artists could make a living -works had been readable, and upbeat representing America -Emblem of American Scene movement -American couple, man with a pitchfork in his hand while woman stands behind him and doesn't look directly at the viewer -wearing a broach of goddess Diana-hunting-yet there is this social requirement of submissiveness -he got into a spat with the daughters of American revolution -they called him a traitor for restoring a window in a gothic church -delighted in visual patterns, and puns -pitchfork reflected in the gothic window-window is the same cloth as her apron she's wearing
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
42.Social Realism -shot a series of photos of this woman in her thirties -the woman and her kids would eat scraps, dead birds, plants on the vine that had rot -elicit sympathy and empathy from the viewer -virgin and child-renaissance composition of mother and child -connection to charity -ethical? -aesthetic of someones pain-pity in the viewer
Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry, 1932-33
43.Mexican Muralism -revolts against the Mexican government -educates people with murals since the public is illiterate to express the ideals of the government and socialist structure -part of the communist party -"True" Buon fresco -exact way of painting -panels in Brassai- painting only in grey scale -north wall, and south wall inter-dependance of man and machine -mocks the leisure class -Ford cars being made, and represents Henry Ford as "The Thinker" -connection between stamping press and statue that "causes death and destruction"-goddess you sacrifice human beings to -aztec and myan imagery -represented the four races as white-building materials like limestone, red-iron ore, yellow-sand, and black-coal and diamonds -everyone does their part-movement up and through the piece -contradicts the realities of Detroit in 1932 with racism, anti-communist activity, strikes, soup kitchens etc. not shown in the painting -contrasts positive, and negative-poison gas, and vaccinations-science, and religion -committed to politically engaged forms of social realist mural paintings on an incredibly large scale
Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and the United States, 1932
44.Mexican Muralism -using imagery very consciously -worked very small and very personal depicting herself -her body is a terrain of pin and suffering because of accidents she's had in her life -she hated the United States -representing Mexico and America on each side -showing that Mexico has a long history of culture -sun and moon-duality -fertile fettish since she can't have kids -referencing her dual heritage -holding a cigarette as a sign of rebellion -America behind her -talking about corruption with Mexico and America with the cords wrapping around the plants
Vasily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913
5.Abstract -Russian -huge component in abstraction -influenced by theosophy-incorporates elements like buddhism, and hinduism -he says theres a qualitative hierarchy in the human experience -standing in front of an artwork can be a spiritual experience -Human life is made up of a Hierarchy of experiences and works of art in particular are united because they possess an essential expressive or spiritual value -this value is what makes art atonomous and not have to represent the world -compared the spiritual life to a pyramid -artists have the mission to lead us to the pyrimid top of the art world -people need to be guided into abstract paintings -developed impressions-based on an external reality, abstract but still based on something -also developed improvizations-looser, and compositions-developed- both depict things that emerge from the unconscious -interested in music theory -related to his interest in synesthesia -wanted to convey the experience to his viewers in his work
Franz Marc, Large Blue Horses, 1911
6.Expressionism -used color in a very symbolic way with his own symbolism -blue is severe and spiritual-masculine -yellow was gentle and sensual-feminine -red is brutal, and heavy -nature was a way to turn away from urbanization, and industrialization towards a more spiritual world -his turn to abstraction was tied to a pursuit for a connection with nature
Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910
7.4D Analytic Cubism -cubism similar to fauvism with artists painting what was around them -very different also because they are looking at the process of art, but theres also a lot of interaction with philosophy, mathematics, and what's going on in the modern period -backing of a single dealer-Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler -this dealer had a small group of people he knew he could sell to -this allowed artists like Picasso to experiment and not worry about the publics reactions to their work
Georges Braque, Fruit Dish with Glass, 1912
8.4D Synthetic Cubism -refers to something external but not that external thing -challenging notion of 3 dimensional space, and linear one point perspective -the picture plane starts to come out at us when these layers of paper are stacked up on each other -the word play that cubists engaged in was very significant for DADAism and early surrealism -synthetic-builds up
Pablo Picasso, Maquette for Guitar, 1912-13, construction of cardboard, string, and wire
9.4D Cubist sculpture -assemblages born from pappie colle and collage -fundamental elements of how sculpture works -given negative space positive treatment in sculpture -deliberately untidy -appear improvisational -easily assembled using basic non-specialized skills -made space a positive element by making it a part of the form of the shape -deconstructing the object
Mark Rothko, Orange and Yellow, 1956
Abstract Expressionism-color field painting -we favor the symbol expression of complex thought -stopped making direct references to the human form, but did not remove the subject from his work, but just put symbols and shapes in their place -he wanted to represent the universal human drama -paintings of soft luminous rectangles, with color in constant movement -always emphasized subject matter over form in his work -human in the most direct way possible