Art History Final Exam

Nkisi Nkonde (how does it change over time and become visual record for the community)

(how does it change over time and become visual record for the community?) - Minkisi (the plural form of Nkisis, a Kikongo word that means "container") are objects harnessing spirit forces or powers that were made by the Kongo and Songye peoples of the Decomcratic republic of the congo. Minkisi were produced primarily during the nineteenth and early to mid twentieth centuries to alleviate illness, protect vulnerable individuals such as children, and provide success in hunting, trading, other endeavors. Nkisis Nkonde became a more specialized version, served a divinatory and judicial function to seek out wrongdoers and punish them for their misdeeds. A nkisi Nkonde served an important public function as an impartial abiter of justice. Two rural warring communities, might agree to end their conflict by swearing an oath, it was believed that the figure was an arbiter of the agreement, would avenge the wronged party by meting out an appropriate punishment to the offender. Texture, form (3 dimensional), Repetition (the hay strands, Proportion (not proportional), Symmetrical Balance

Honore Daumier, Rue Transnonain

A lithographic print of the atrocities is what Rue Transnonain shows. A government guard had been shot and killed on this street during a demonstration by workers, and in response the riot squad killed everyone in the building where they believed the marksman was hiding. Daumier shows the bloody aftermath of the event, an innocent family disturbed from their sleep and then murdered. It takes a few moments for the viewers to realize that under the central figure's back there are also the bloody head and arms of a murdered child. Assymetrical, value, focal point, (emphasis,) variety (differences to increase the visual interest) shape (two dimensional)

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Falling Rocket

A painting of a London nighttime landscape, depicting a fireworks show viewed over a lake by several observers dimly recognizable in the foreground. Some found his work disturbingly unfinished and devoid of moral purpose, asking in print how the artist could demand such high prices. He sued the man who talked badly about his work and won. He was awarded only a farthing (a quarter of a penny) in damages, and his considerable legal expenses bankrupted him. His theories became important for justifying abstract art in the next century. Shape-2 dimensional, Pattern (repetition of design), Rhythm (movement throughout), Space (depth), Asymmetrical

Jean-Francis Millet, the Gleaners

After the revolution of 1848, Millet began to focus on paintings of peasant life, and a state of commission allowed him to move from Paris to the village of Barbizon where he could be a closer observer of the difficulties and simple pleasures of rural life. The painting shows three women gathering stray, left-over grain after harvest. The warm colors and hazy atmosphere initially seem soothing, but the scene is one of extreme poverty; gleaning was a form of relief offered to the rural poor, requiring hours of backbreaking work to collect enough wheat to make a single loaf of bread. Asymmetrical, color (contrasting, soothing) Texture (the wheat), Space (depth), Emphasis Focal point (3 women)

Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon

Developed a distinctive style of assemblage in artworks he called "combines"- combinations of painting, collage, and sculpture using non-traditional materials. Canyon incorporates an assortment of old family photographs, public imagery (The statue of liberty), fragments of political posters (in the center), and various objects purchased or salvaged from the trash (the flattened steel drum at upper right), and projecting three-dimensional forms such as a stuffed eagle (donated by a friend) perched on a box and a dirty pillow tied with a cord and suspended from a piece of wood. The rich disorder, enhanced by the seemingly sloppy application of paint, challenges viewers to make sense of what they see. In fact, he meant his work to be open to various readings, so he assembled material that each viewer might interpret differently. Cheerfully accepting the chaos and unpredictability of modern urban experience, he tried to find artistic metaphors for it. "I only consider myself successful, when I do something that resembles the lack of order I sense."

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain

Duchamp believed that art should appeal to the mind rather than to the senses. This is a porcelain urinal turned through 90 degrees and signed with "R. Mutt, " a play on the name of the fixture's manufacturer. This piece was submitted anonymously in 1917. A majority of the society's directors declared that Fountain was not a work of art, and moreover, was indecent, so the piece was refused. Duchamp immediately resigned from the society in mock horror. He had a tremendous impact on later artists. Asymmetrical, texture, color, focal point (emphasis the holes), Form (3 dimensional)

Portrait Head of Pakal the Great

From the tomb of Pakal the Great in Mexica, a stucco portrait found underneath the sarcophagus depicts the ruler in the guise of the Maize God, with a headband of Maize flowers and unswept hair that recall the leaves of the plant. His features- slopping forehead and elongated skull, large curved nose, full lips, and open mouth are characteristic of the Maya ideal of beauty. Traces of pigment indicate that, like much Maya sculpture, this stucco head was once colorfully painted. Symmetry is used as both sides of the face is very similar creating a pleasing result. This piece of artwork has form because it is three dimensional and something that you could hold. This sculpture has mostly positive space as it fills up most space and does not have negative areas. The texture of the object appears to be smooth in some areas, where other areas such as the face are rougher. The focal point of this piece of art is the head piece as that is what your eye is immediately drawn to. Variety is used as the vast differences in the face compared to the headpiece. Proportion- some of the individual pieces such as the head piece seem almost out of proportion.s there information you could include regarding the use of this object in the culture? Was it to venerate a ruler

Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808

In 1808, Napolean conquered Spain and placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on its throne. Many Spaniards, including Goya, at first welcomed the French because they brought political reform, but the new government soon turned despotic. A rumor spread through Madrid that the French planned to kill the royal family. The populace rose up, and a day of bloody fighting ensued. Hundreds of Spanish people were arrested, herded into a convent by a French powering squad before dawn. A spotlighted victim in a brilliant white shirt confronts his faceless killers with outstretched arms, recalling Jesus. An image of horror and blind terror. Painted to "warn men never to do it again." Assymetrical, Value (dark sky), Emphasis (The man in white) Color (brightness, intensity of man in white) Unity

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas

Kahlo presented an identity split into two ethnic selves: the European one, in a Victorian dress; and the Mexican one, wearing traditional Mexican clothing. The painting also reflects her stormy relationship with Diego Rivera whom she married and later divorced. She told an art historian at the time that the Mexican image was the Frida whom Diego loved, and the European image was the Frida he did not. The two Frida's join hands and the artery running between them begins at a miniature portrait of Rivera as a boy held by the Mexican Frida, travels through the exposed hearts of both Fridas, and ends in the lap of the Europeanized Frida, who attempts without success to stem the flow of blood. Asymmetrical, Texture, Space (background), Line of vein leads your eye, color (contrast white against dark colors)

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych

Marilyn Diptych is one of a series of silkscreens that Warhol made immediatley after the actress's death, an apparent suicide. He memorializes Monroe, using a famous publicity photograph transferred directly onto silkscreen, thus rendering it flat and bland so that Monroe's signature features- her bleach blond hair, her ruby lips, and her sultry, blue-shadowed eyes- stand out as a caricature of the actress. The face portayed is not that of Norma Jeane but of Monroe the celluloid sex symbol as made over by the movie industy. Warhol made multiple prints from this screen, aided by a host of assistants working with assembly line efficiency. He named his studio "the factory" mocking the commercial aspect of his art by suggesting he was only in it for the profit. The diptych format recalls the conventions of the religious art, perhaps suggesting that Marilyn was a martyr in the pantheon of departed movie starts. By symbolically treating the famous actress as a saint, Warhol shed light on his own fascination with fame.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise

Monet developed his own technique of applying paint with strokes and touches of pure color, intended to describe flowers, leaves, waves, figures, and buildings, but also to register simply as marks of paint on the surface of the canvas. This painting is made up almost entirely of flecks of color. Using these discrete marks of paint, Monet recorded the shifting play of light on the surface of objects and the effect of that light on the eye, rather than the physical substance of the objects or the spatial volume they occupied. Asymmetrical balance, color (teal and pinks), Rhythm (Makes the boat look like it is moving) Space (creates depth), Contrast (colors and different strokes of the brush)

Grant Wood, American Gothic

One group of painters from the Midwest, called Regionalists, took generally sympathetic attitudes towards their subjects. Their leader was Iowa painter Grant Wood, who focused on the farms and small-town life of the American heartland. American Gothic is usually mistaken as a picture of a husband and wife, but it is actually meant to show an aging Iowa farmer and his unmarried daughter (wood's dentist and sister were the models). The stony-faced pair stands in front of their house, built in a Victorian style known as "Carpenter Gothic", which suggests the importance of religion in their lives. The farmer's pitchfork signifies his occupation while giving him a somewhat menacing air. The woman is associated with potted plants, seen behind her right shoulder, which symbolize traditionally feminine domestic and horticultural skills. Repetition (the lines) Color (contrast), Asymmetrical, Texture(Clothing) Space (Looks like it goes on in background)

Frank Lloyd Wright, Falling Water

Pennsylvania - Commissioned by Edgar Kaufmann, a Pittsburgh department store owner, to replace a family summer cottage on a site that featured a waterfall into a pool where the Kaufmann children played. Wright decided to build the house into the cliff over the pool, allowing the water to flow around and above the house. In a daring engineering move, he cantilevered a series of broad concrete terraces out from the house, echoing the great slabs of natural rock. The rocks on which the family had once sunbathed by the waterfall became the hearthstone of their fireplace. Long bands of windows and glass doors offer spectacular views, uniting woods, water, and house. Asymmetrical, pattern (repition in the stone and the ceiling, Space (depth), Unity, Variety (stone among other types)

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party

Perhaps the best-known work of feminist art from the 1970's. She adopted the surname Chicago (the city of her birth) to free herself from "all names imposed upon her through male social dominance." The Dinner Party is a complex, mixed-media installation that fills an entire room with powerful proclamations of the accomplishments of women throughout history. Five years of collaborative effort went into the creation of the work, involving hundreds of women and several men who volunteered their talents as ceramists, needleworkers, and china painters to realize Chicago's designs. The Dinner party is composed of a large triangular table, each side stretching 48 feet. The "Heritage Floor" bears the names of 999 notable women from myth, legend, and history. Most of the plates feature abstract designs based on female genitalia because that is what all woman had in common, they came from different classes, ethnicities, geographies, experiences, but what kept them within the same confined historical space was their biological sex.

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii

Pierre Corneille's seventeenth century drama Horace, that was itself based on ancient Roman history inspired the subject. David invented for his painting, however, an incident that is not found in the play nor in any ancient text the horatii taking an oath to fight to the death for Rome. The young men's father, Horace, standing at the center, administers the oath to his sons. To the right, Horace's daughter in law Sabina (from an enemy family) and his daughter both weep, knowing that whatever the outcome of the battle, they will inevitably lose someone dear to them. The tense, energetic young men with swords strike a powerful contrast to the limp swooning of the women, already mourning the tragedy to come. Composition is stabilized by the interlocking of the classical pyramidal groupings, coordinated with the measured rhythm of repeated arches in the background. David's Oath became an emblem of the French Revolution of 1789. Assymetrical Balance, color- contrasting, value - light and dark, focal point is the hand with the swords in it

Frank Ghery, Guggenheim Museum

Powerfully organic, sculptural style exemplified in his dramatic Guggenheim Museum in the Basque city of Bilbao, Spain, where he reconciled the client's needs for a museum and civic monument with his own interest in sculptural form. Gehry covered the building's complex steel skeleton with a thin skin of silvery titanium that shimmers gold or silver depending on the light. Seen from the north, the building resembles a giant ship, a reference to the shipbuilding and port facilities so important to the economy of Bilbao. This building initiated a trend of adventurous designs for art museums.

Edouard Manet, Le Dejeuner Sur L-Herbe

Scandalized viewers and helped establish Manet as a radical artist by provoking a critical avalanche that mixed shock with bewilderment. Manet offered flat, sharply outlined, and starkly lit figures who, rather than being integrated with their natural setting, seem to stand out sharply against it, like silhouetted cut-outs propped up before a painted backdrop. Most disturbing was the immorality of the subject: a suburban picnic featuring a scantily clad bathing woman in the background and even worse a completely naked woman seated alongside two fully clothed bourgeois men. Made people think that the women were prostitutes and the men their clients. Assymmetrical, Emphasis (woman in middle), Space (depth), Color (light skin against dark men's suits) Texture - the trees

Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing

Shows a pretty young woman, suspended on a swing, her movement created by an elderly bishop obscured by the shadow of the bushes on the right, who pulls her with a rope. On the left, the girl's blushing lover hides in the bushes, swooning with anticipation. As the swing approaches, he is rewarded with an unobstructed view up her skirt, lifted on his behalf with an extended leg. The young man reaches out toward her with his hat as if to make a mockingly useless attempt to conceal the view.. contains a robust sense of humor. Value- lightness and darkness that is shown throughout the picture Shape- enclosed area defined and determined by other art elements - 2 dimensional, Focal point - the woman in the swing, because of the lighting, rhythm- makes her look as if she is moving, unity all of the elements work together to make it work

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory

Surrealist practice- sane artists cultivate the ability of the paranoid to misread ordinary appearances in order to free themselves from the shackles of conventional thought. He placed limp timepieces in a very realistic view of the Bay of Rosas near his birthplace in Catalunya. The idea came to him one evening after dinner while he was meditating on a plate of ripe cheese. One of the watches drapes over a human like head, its shape is inspired by a large rock on the coast. This head, which he identified as a self portrait, appeared in several painting and may express the anxiety he felt concerning his own sexuality. Another image of anxiety is the ant covered watchcase, inspired by his childhood memories of seeing dead animals swarming with ants. Space (depth) Asymmetrical Balance, Value( some light colors some dark) Rhythm (the clocks look as if they're gooey or moving through) Variety (real and not real)

The founding of Tenochtitlan, (Iconography)

Tenochtitlan means the prickly pear cactus on a stone. The city was situated on a collection of islands linked by human-made canals. Tenochtitlan was transformed into a glittering capital. Spanish conquistadors admired the stone buildings, towers, and temples that seemed from a distance to rise from the water like a mirage. The first page of Codex Mendoza, prepared for the Spanish portrays an idealized representation of the city of Tenochtitlan. An eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus- growing from a stone- the symbol of the city- fills the center of the page. Waterways divide the city into 4 quarters and indicate the lake surrounding it. Early leaders are seated in the quadrants, and the victorious warriors at the bottom of the page represent early Aztec conquests of nearby cities. Asymmetrical balance, color, form (2 dimmensional, emphasis on the eagle (focal point) contrast in colors, balance iconography- the visual images and symbols used in a work of art or the study or interpretation of these. a collection of illustrations or portraits

Willem de Kooning, Woman 1

Took him almost 2 years to complete. His wife said that he painted it, scraped it, and repainted it about 200 times. Part of his dissatisfaction stemmed from the way his subject, a figure inspired by conventionally pretty women seen in American advertising, kept veering away from those models. What emerges in Woman I is not the elegant companion of advertising fantasy but the powerful adversary, more dangerous than alluring. The prettiness of the soft pastel colors and the luxuriousness of the painted surface are nearly lost in the furious slashing of his brush. The image is powerfully sexual, full of implied violence, and intensely passionate, like a great fertility goddess. But on another level it connects with the coloristic tradition of artists such as Titian and Rubens, who superbly transformed female flesh into luscious layers of paint. (Assymetrical, Variety, Texture, Balance, Unity)