Art History Quiz Four

Lichtenstein, Brushstroke

pop artist influenced by warhol using everyday objects and painting them •Takes on something about the sacredness of modern technique •Think about those Color-field painting, DeKooning's thick greasy strokes, Stella's work •Highly stylized brushstroke and over exaggerated and ridicules the brushstroke (how it's magical) •Accentuates it like a comic book •Does the giant comic book strips •Little dots like a comic book oHow a cheap printing was done oNot printed, but puts the dots there •Poke fun at some of this, like Warhol did

abstract expressionism

to record emotions and physical movements of the artist final image was not the result of a preconcieved idea, but of hte process of making the work

review

• Classicism •Seeks the universal, the ideal • Neoclassicism • Seeks an empirical basis • Romanticism • Seeks what provokes emotional response • Realism • Seeks the incidental, momentary, particular • Impressionism • Seeks optical stimulation, passing light effects

Monet, Impression Sunrise

-1872 •This is the painting that started it all •Exhibited in one the salon and a reporter said "What is with these people, these Impressionists?" Monet liked that and took the term •Why are they called Impressionists? •His painting gave the group its name •It demonstrates his method of working •Most sparing palette and brush marks, he fixed the movement of light and water between the morning sun, dulled by fog, and the small dark skiff in the foreground •Set down essentials, not details, yet his skill at translating vision into paint managed to register a complex reality: distance, atmosphere, light, time of day, place are convincingly portrayed •Moment of transition, which in a few minutes would disappear

Duschamp, Nude Descending a Staircase

1912 •Dadaist? •Made a big splash because it was shown in American •Fitting in with cubism and expressionism •first time this kind of European painting came to America, in NY •Americans didn't like it •Described as an explosion in a matchstick factory •How can he call it this? •A little bit cubist •Trying to capture a moment - almost like Degas •But then it's multiple movements •Suggests rhtymn and convey the movement of the figure merging into itself •Cubism but with motion - pretty clever isn't it?

Manet, Olympia

Bougereau, Satyr and Nymphs, 1873 •Bees knees of the 19th century - critics said that he was going to be famous in a hundred years •He sucks in terms of art history writers •Gets sticky here •Manet said about this painting - •Why is her butt right in our face? It erotica and provocative •Oh, so Bougereau can do that and if he paints it smooth and pretty •He can lay the paint down - the flesh tones are incredible •It's amazing and he's an exceptionally refined painter •And Manet is going whoa...so I can do this - Olympia •Critics mostly hated this - it's outrageous •Vast majority said this was outrageous •Why is it called Olympia? oNot a portrait of Olympia oWho is it? We actually know •Laying on the bed looking at you •Not embarrassed with her nudity •Bringing her flowers by a female servant- come from her "john" •Prostitute oThe john is the viewer!! •He can't paint!! He cant do flesh tones and gets them all screwed up •We concerned with that he just can't paint •What's around her neck? oA shoe, bracelet, necklace with bow (like a choker tied around her neck) and flower in her hair - these all accentuate her nudity and make the nudity more dramatic •She's a provocateur •A recognized prostitute •She was only 16 years old - went onto having a minor art career herself •Black cat? Eroticism symbol maybe •Provocateur staring out at you •Pornography or is she Olympia? •Manet is going to say oh wait what about these previous works of art? •Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538 oWhy would you have this painting done of your wife? Where are you supposed to hang this painting? •Cabanel, Birth of Venus, 1863 oAnother academic painting oHad this in mind with his criticism of Olympia oOh I see, if we call it Venus, then it's fine •So he called his Olympia oIt has some classic pornographic devices: •Displayed for the gaze Consumer gaze Laid out so we can go "Oo la la" •She's looking away covered by her arm Not a lot of her face showing Classic pornographic device Depersonalize the face and objectify the body Emphasis on the body Produce the body for consumption Not interested in the person only the body •Manet - mine is more honest and more real •This is troubling - his critique to pretty good and long overdue •Exudes a frank sensuality •Leaves no doubt as to her profession •More truthful relationships between light and form •Earned admirers like Zola •Ideal or Aesthetic Love? oThe notion of sex oWhat is the difference between sex with a prostitute or with a spouse? •One involves with love oThe idea of love that transforms the sex act into something else - not just an act oSex with a prostitute is just about sex oIt's sexuality aestheticized oIs sex beautiful? Yes •But sex with a prostitute is not beautiful oBeauty can also be pleasurable oConnected to the ideal of love, not just aesthetic oBoth types of sex are pleasurable oIf connected to the ideal of marriage, that sex is not just a reflex oWhereas sex with a prostitute is that it feels good oManet is astute in his criticism •Hard to look at Venus of Urbino and think what a brilliant classical work of art About aesthetic pleasure and consumption, and pornography and eroticism Just like Nymphs and Satyr If it's pornography, it's still pornography So we should have honest pornography? So the technical things can shift meaning a bit Even if greatest painter ever does that make it not pornographic or erotic? Doesn't take away the experience of that

Concepts of Postmodernism

But the moment comes when the avant-garde (the Modern) can go no further, because it has produced a meta-language that speaks of its impossible texts (conceptual art). The Postmodern reply to the Modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. Umberto Eco

Pollock drip paintings concept

Can art be good for us? Can art be bad for us? The lingering question... •"It was pointed out at the time that his [Rosenberg's] analysis, although a rollicking account of the new art as a whole, provided no criteria for distinguishing between a good action painting and a bad." M. Lewis •is it a good action painting or a bad action paintings? What the criteria for being good? What's the difference? •If you want to be a great artist can you do drip painting? No, because it's already been done •No one is doing drip painting anymore - you cant' do it anymore even though it's great •It's troubling •You got to move onto the next thing •Assertion - it's not that great, it's just original •Part of his appeal was that no one had done this before •Is that great painting? It's something different •Is it good quality? Talking about the quality of painting is reduced to the technique •Is it good technique or bad technique? •Or can a monkey do it? •How do we even know he painted from his subconscious or not? Is there even a profound randomness? •It's not random at all - he picked the colors of paint, canvas size, poked holes in the bottoms of cans •He made all these decisions -developed a style that made paint, action, and canvas coalesce in a wholly personal and original way -while pollock abandoned control in the conventional sense, he did rework his paintings and destroyed many canvases that did not convey the rhythms and arrangements of color he was seeking

Neogothic architecture

Gothic Revival • Last gasp • Something happens in England that's worth noting - Charles Dickens • 19th century London wasn't pretty • Impoverished, Despair, orphans, inner city blight, all kinds of destruction on environment • Sherlock Holmes fog was actually coal fire pollution • Breathing problems, illiteracy, substance abuse • Across the board was falling to ruin • Urbanization things • An effort by some to reform this • In part by Queen Victoria • A concerted effort to fix some of these things • Salvation army, Sunday school • Part of this push to reform was architecture • Pugin - writes this book and everyone gets excited • Not everyone agreed with Durand • Cambridge Camden Society • Wrote about architects that were reforming architecture • AWN Pugin • Pick a better, more virtuous style • Everyone can relate to this • Before Italy style came over • More English and more virtuous • Spurns the Gothic Revival o Nationalistic o Worked with new materials, can work with iron more easily o Flexible style can be used for many purposes, not symmetrical o Somehow more honest and pure, (sticks in architecture - honest architecture) • St. Barnabas, Snowshill, ? o Brown stone, like Oxford, gorgeous o Pugin says look everyone can relate to this style in England and its that rubbish from Italy came over o This is what we are searching for • New materials - can work with iron really easily • Gothic is more flexible, than Neoclassicism because to doesn't have to be symmetrical - long tradition of gothic being asymmetrical • Important when it comes to cities - if you're restricted to the lot it might not always fit • More honest and pure - speaks big in architecture - be honest to materials - modern architects like this • In his book, Contrasts, because he's contrasting o Industrial cities - smokestacks, pollution is horrible, cluttered o Medieval city - filled with Catholics, steeples, good Christian city o House for poor in industrial / poor house in gothic city o Burials are very different (medical experiments - industrial) o Maybe you overstated argument • Architecture that affects people's lives, to make people better • Barry and Pugin: Houses of Parliament, London, 1835 • Not a medieval building 9th century • Kicks off neogothic movement which spurns more things o Universities o American colleges (survived shorter amount of time than in England) • Like Rhodes College • Pugin, (what is it?) • Gothic barn • G. F. Bodley, Queens' College Chapel, Cambridge • Scott, Holy Trinity Church, Headington • CS Lewis' church- neogothic • Looks really old, but tits from 19th century • Play up the old thing • Look at it from front - basic church structure • Off to the side - entrance way • Massive column inside • Oh it looks like they had to expand the church because it's "old" o Did this effect on purpose to make it look older o Did this in America too - Yale/Princeton sandblast stone to make them look worn, break stain glass windows and repair them badly • Neogothic spreads into everything • GG Scott, St. Pancras, London • railway station • Neogothic style • Train station is supposed to look like a functional element - keep rain off • Iron is thought of like brick and stone • Usually supposed to be covered - unless cheap building, chunky, guts of building • They work with iron in a radically different way - to make it a design element • Capitals, design features • This culminates into the crystal palace • Paxton, Crystal Palace, London, 1851 • Massive place • Iron and glass component pieces from all over England - shipped to London and bolted together • Took it down and tried to reassemble it in Kensington Palace, but it caught on fire • Early iron could actually burn - so hot that 20 miles away people could see it • Mimic of it in Dallas on I-35 • LaBrouste, Biblioteque Nationale, Paris • • Eiffel Tower • Iron used here • I can do that • Huge component of bolted together iron • Really big • Paint it every year to keep it from rusting every 10 years • It was supposed to temporary • Brooklyn Bridge • Used of new material in America • First suspension bridge, they hang o Not propped up from the bottom • Although not purely functional inside at all o Why arches, why can you see the stonework? Aesthetic o Why does it have classical intaverture across the horizontal band o Some design • Deane & Woodward: Oxford Museum, Oxford • Classical - columns, piers • Arches springing up • John Ruskin o Big proponent of neogothic • Great place to visit in Oxford • Capital at top • Why don't we use utilitarian material but make have some sort of design quality?

Abstraction of Kandinsky and Gorky

Kandinsky and Der Blaue Reiter • Makes a big splash because he writes a book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910), that is widely read • Wrote, On the Spiritual in Art. • "independence of color and the spiritual value inherent in it" • Form and color w/purely spiritual meaning. By eliminating all reference to physical world one may express their deepest feelings. • Associated with the expressionists from the start • He liked them and like the idea that we are trying to express something here, but what he wants to move away from is any kind of representation • Moved away from expressionists o Any kind of representation • Towards pure abstraction • First pure abstractionist in the West • No reference to any visible reality - color is very evocative and I want to capture the evocative feelings that color has • "expressed pure feeling" • Deeply influenced by the composer, Schoenberg o He dismantled the traditions of western music, o came up with atonality - atonal music (wow that's bad), o fits right there with cubism - dismantle and its very technical o very jarring to our ear like perhaps Kandinsky's art is jarring to our eyes (perhaps what he was trying to do) • "Liberated art from the restrictions of representation" • representation restricting anything that art is o very much of the moment and very much of the time • We've got to get back those things o anything that's holding us back from progress • Composition no. 12 o Evocative color o Dismantling or removal or getting past the feathers o Trying to reveal something pure or untainted o Goes back to the realism thing again - want something real, concrete o Goes in a direction that seems really obvious here non representational imagery - in book, spiritual in orientation preferable to use an art based solely on the language of color free from references of a specific reality color could become like music - beautfiul for its interrelationships of tones and intensities Gorky Gorky, Garden in the Sochi, 1941 • "Gorky himself could not explain precisely what the forms meant or represented, since his images flowed freely from his subconscious and were executed without conscious effort by the swift action of his hand." Craven • Can you tell us what you are doing? No, I can't it's from my subconscious. • Who cares about this? Can you give me a reason to care?

Newman on art

Newman, Vir Herocius Sublimis, 1950 •"man, heroic, and sublime" •paints these abstractions Newman on art: •"The invention of beauty by the Greeks, that is, their postulate of beauty as an ideal, has been the bugbear (monster) of European art and European aesthetic philosophies." •"The impulse of modern art was this desire to destroy beauty." (any ideal) Remember Newman on Modernism? • "The impulse of Modern art was the desire to destroy beauty."

Intellectual foundations of Postmodernism

Nietzsche (1844-1900) •Thought Kant was a fool •Kant read Hume and said if Hume is right then nothing is anything - owe got to make up a grounding for stuff oInvented a truth •Denies claims of both genius and a rational, secular morality (the Categorical Imperative). oCategorical imperative is Kant's to make an objective moral structure oWho can make beautiful art? The genius oIf you are a genius, you can recognize it •Someone's a little better than you? oEveryone thinks they are geniuses oWrites a lot about beauty - only a genius has taste •Nietzche said Kant was cracked and nothing is anything - •"God is dead!" •there is nothing above human •there is no universal •no objective realm •there is no truth, good and beauty except for what you make up in your mind •He's ultimate relativist •He went - what do we do? •His position on this partly dealing with the Ubermench - "Super Men" •This might have influenced Hitler •There's nothing except your own opinion •So how does humanity move forward? • The strongest man will run things, which their strength is determined by their willfulness •that's all there is the strongest will - that's who should run things owhat if their will makes them deposit ideas like lets kill everyone? •Triumph of the Will •"Whether we speak of race, gender, economic class, or the individual, whether we speak of the majority or a minority, the unifying dogma of Postmodernist thought is the will to power." Pontynen •some postmodern grounding in Nietzsche •The willful pursuit of what? (lots and lots of questions) •"Metanarratives" •postmodern term for world view •Philosophical position on world •You embrace because think this is true •Postmodernists say that all that is a big story - you have your story and I have my story •God help if you claim yours is true •This is the great unpardonable sin of postmodernity - You must not ever make any truth claims •When you do that, all your doing is attempting to impose your will onto somebody else (oppressive) •A major part of postmodernism was to expose masks of oppression •Post-Modernism signals the death of such "metanarratives" whose secretly terroristic function was to ground and legitimate the illusion of a "universal" human history. We are now in the process of wakening from the nightmare of modernity, with its manipulative reason and fetish of the totality, into the laid-back pluralism of the post-Modern, that heterogeneous range of lifestyles and languages games which has renounced the nostalgic urge to totalize and legitimate itself... Science and philosophy must jettison their grandiose metaphysical claims and view themselves more modestly as just another set of narratives. Terry Eagleton, (Critic) •Why do we have various studies at a university? (gender, woman, Latina, gay and lesbian, African) •There's not one meta narrative

Koons, Michael and Bubbles

Ushering in Banality, 1990 • Managed to make millions of dollars • Started off doing things like this Ceramic object that he did not make • He designed and sent it off for people to make Michael and Bubbles • Like in the 80s • In modernist time would have received with ridicule disdain • Sappy, sentimental and banal Equilibrium • 3 basketballs floating in a fish tank • 60 minutes interview with him • Koons goes on with art speak • Well it's a shop vac, but Koons said it comes with a certificate of authenticity • This echoes Duchamp in that "it's art if I say it's art" • I could make up a theoretical statement, but I made it and I call it art

Criticism of Postmodernism

Why should I care? •Who cares if freakish postmodern artists have some bizarre ideas? •You cannot not have a philosophy in your art •You cannot not have a philosophy in your life oeveryone has one, not having a philosophy is a philosophy •When philosophy, and truth, are reduced to styles, then the will become predominant. othis is where we started offer, the aesthetic and preferences, what you like •What else is there besides willfulness? •When the will is predominant we are left, as Nietzsche demonstrated, with tyranny and nihilism. •Just goes on and on and on •Isn't kind of postmodern move not to have a philosophy as a professor? -Carl •He likes art that seeks wisdom

Picasso, Ladies of Avignon

• Early 20th century this is the painting that rocked the world • There is no going back from this painting • Picasso throws this down and no one can look back from this • We don't look back - progress, progress, progress • So, what are we supposed to see here? How do we understand this? • Clearly the women look like African (primitive) tribal masks • African art was called primitive art • Massive resurgence • It's a little bit like Rousseau - idea of "noble savage" • Other cultures have a more pure aesthetic • African masks are actually communicating what people wanted them to communicate • This was one influence and another was Japanese prints • have a real two-dimensionality to them • this one particular period of Japanese prints • these came to the West and were copied and influenced in different things • Who are these ladies? Prostitutes - all naked, masks • What are we supposed to understand, perceive, or appreciate about this? • Cubism • Technically, a revolution • Does it mean something when you do that to the human form? Surely it must • He's the greatest! • Picasso tried everything - sculptural things, different kinds of cubism, synthetic cubism (looks like a collage), analytic cubism (like this one) • Picasso never did pure abstraction - that's something • He always had a subject, always • Always a figure, always a recognizable subject - even if it's highly distorted • "Traditional ideas of beauty, form, and atmosphere have been replaced by a rigorous intellectual structure." Wood -1907

post impressionism

• Fleeting sensations are not substantial • But something remains • Art is no longer thought to require history, theology, politics or anything other than itself. • Art for Art's Sake o Related to what philosophy? o Existentialism: the focus of philosophical thought should be to deal with the conditions of existence of the individual person and their emotions, actions, responsibilities, and thoughts

Kirchner, Berlin Street Scene

• Germans are trying to be hot stuff (in textbook) oDie Brücke - a group that wanted a "bridge" between the past and the future • Kirchner was very excited about the pure and emotiveness of African masks • Helped started this group, Die Brücke o "His studio became a venue which overthrew social conventions to allow casual love-making and frequent nudity. Group life-drawing sessions took place using models from the social circle, rather than professionals, and choosing quarter-hour poses to encourage spontaneity. Bleyl described one such model, Isabella, a fifteen-year-old girl from the neighborhood, as "a very lively, beautifully built, joyous individual, without any deformation caused by the silly fashion of the corset and completely suitable to our artistic demands, especially in the blossoming condition of her girlish buds." (Wikipedia) • Kirchner was famous for his street scenes of Berlin • Berlin in-between the world wars o Chicago of Europe o Decadent o Anything goes and went in Berlin • The feathers on the hats - they are prostitutes, pimps • These distortions - decadence and creepiness, sliced, diced up people • He is worried about the decadence of the city • Corruption of contemporary urban life (text) • What's that do for you? • If you want to raise awareness of "Issue x" and how bad it is, so you paint "issue x" • It maybe even tells us it's not such a great thing - painted in such a heavily abstracted way • Ghostly faces, depersonalized, just bodies • How should things be Kirchner? o That's gone o No ideal o This is bad, and? Nope, it's just bad. o This is just fact • Profound shift • Kirchner gets couched with the Expressionists because he makes statements like this: • Kirchner and Die Brücke • "He who renders his inner convictions as he knows he must, and does so with spontaneity and sincerity, is one of us." • This way of painting would lead to more pure rendering of emotional responses • Expressionism - Trying to capture something, his feelings/response to this street scene and to communicate that to you • If you do spontaneously and sincerely, then that's a good thing apparently • Although as a viewer we have no idea whether it was done spontaneously o You can perhaps make a claim about spontaneity based on the stylistic, the way its painted - refined style vs. a kind of quick o Maybe it's a bit spontaneous the way it's painted o Did he paint it sincerely? We don't know • Expressionists - not about technique but expressing the dangers and "corruption of contemporary urban life." Wood Kirchner - Earlier landscape in the mountains with clouds before he does the city scenes, light is like laser beams, pew pew

Origins of Modernism

• Hard to pull together • Romantic • Individualistic • What are my emotional responses? • Emotionalism • Idea about your (viewer) responses • Artist will start messing around with what their emotional responses are • "Scientificky" • Positivism • History is a social science • Massive shift o Part of this is fueled by the 19th century • Finding the answer • Facts - you can't argue with facts • this notion will start to stick in art • start to be this spilt - one towards scientificky • one side will be going to scientific o Pointillism (Seurat) - little dots based on math proportions o Cubism - optics, color • "Evolving" • Thank you Chuck • Completely other notion • Culture evolves and adapts • All fueled by Darwin o Origin of species • Did you know culture evolves? • Bad things will change, we will evolve from that • does culture evolve? o Darwin gets in the mix • Sticks in a funky way • Marx, 1818-1883 • 1848 - Revolutions in Europe • Communist Manifesto, 1848 • 1861, American Civil War • JS Mill, 1806 - 1873 • On Liberty, 1859 • Darwin, • Origin of Species, 1859 • Nietzsche, 1844- • Thus Spoke Zaranthustra, 1883 • Freud, 1856 - 1939 Positivism • Positivism is a philosophical position, partly espoused by the 19th Century French philosopher, Auguste Comte. (Cours de philosophie positive, 1830-42): holds that the only authentic knowledge is that which is based on sense experience and positive verification. • Philosophy of the time • right on the money • very much of the time • there are only scientific answers - there isn't anything else • things that can only be scientifically or positively discussed (soul) • Comte says The only authentic knowledge is that based on sense experience • Only knowledge you can have is based on sensory input • The Law of Three Stages of human condition, social development • Theological - all problems explained by the will of some deity., will of God, religion • Metaphysical - all explained by metaphysical abstractions. (Natural Law?), Plato's ideals, non material, idealization, emblazed ideals • Positive - Phenomena explained through preciese observation, experimentation. We go from the Will of God to Platos "Ideals" (or Hegel's Absolute Idea) to the laws of science., everything is explained through precise observation, laws of science • Reached this third stage right then! • We are the best • Vanity - now we understand, now we get it, yeah people were nice back then, but now we really get it, we always think that now is the best time ever • Comte says it's material, material, material • Comte falls in love and realizes that humans needs this, how do you scientifically dissect love? • Freud says love is sex • Humans need a religion • He invents a religion - great humanists days, go to ceremonies, someone in robes, ceremonial procedures • Gets to this idea of what science can and cannot do • Are humans purely material beings? • Food, shelter, sex • Is that it? • Big issue that sticks in the water • How do we do this in the culture that's "evolving"? • Are humans more than that? • Labrouste, Bibliotheque Nationale, 1862 "Evolving" • Romanticism • Classical moral tales or provoking of our emotions? So, where to for art? Two distinctive threads in Modernity • External and Internal • External thread tends to focus on technique - impressionists, pointillism, experimentations in technique, technical shifts • Internal thread focus on the subconscious - deep inner need is going to fuel things like post-impressionism, surrealism, automatic painting, emotionally driven, inner-most feelings or parts of me, not ideal but turning this inward gaze on me

19th century elements that shaped architecture

• Industrialization - huge issue as to terms in what they can make and the application (what should a bank look like) • Iron - radically expanded what you can do with architecture, most transformative thing that comes up, shocking advancement, much less time and expense, shocking as to what it can do • New applications - well what should a bank look like? • Pluralism (eclecticism - architects want to do any style) • Functionalism - sticks big time into 20th century and wild hypocrisy Industrialization • Technical changes • Intellectual changes • Massive urbanization • Rising middle class

Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergere

• It's a strip club essentially • Who barmaids were here? o Sometimes they would actively solicit sex, they were prostitutes o Sometimes it was just a way to make some money on the side, kind of prostitutes o Sometimes just a way for a young woman to have a job where guys would constantly hit on her (like the man on the side) • Some question as to whether this is her reflection of this woman in a mirror because it seems a little bit weird if it is. This back here seems to be a reflection of the room, gets a little confusing it that's a mirror or not a mirror • Consider this face and all of these details here • Who's this woman? Just another bar maid in the big city working at the Folies Bergère the strip club, the can-can strip club o So we could see their underwear o And then have sex with them afterwards • Mirror behind her reflects not only her particular client of the moment but it sets before the viewer the entire world in which she exists • Full spectrum of colors - unerring use of black • Divides the picture vertically - her large and stable form becoming the axis around which the social activity swirls • "Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergère suggests that the essence of modernity is the fleeting encounter, the superficial contact that leaves no lasting impression." Chu • Without perhaps realizing it, he has given us a representation of man the automaton and man the disposable object - not the rational animal, the immortal soul, the hero, the darling of nature and the universe, but an ever changing physical datum who's value is primarily statistical. In this product of the nineteenth century successes of the biological and social sciences, man is a mere adaptive mechanism, an insignificant unit that blends its biological, political, and social backgrounds. Gardner o How Manet paints the figure and the things around the figure in exactly the same amount of detail o Her lace collar, the foil tops of the champagne bottles, just a part of the scene - kind of dehumanizing her o A bit of tension o Connection with the human figure and her face that you don't with the bottles o Shes an individual and has an identity but sort of blends into the background o Not a real happy painting

Meaning of Impressionism

•"Their rejection of idealistic interpretation and literary anecdote was paralleled by their scrutiny of color and light." Wood •Records passing of time •Shapes are not specific nor clear •Subject doesn't really matter •How do we know if it is good? •Fleeting sensations of light and color •Not about refined painting •Not about ideas, subject matter is irrelevant •Capturing sensation

Warhol, Campbell Soup Cans

•...comics, picnic tables, men's trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles - all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all." Andy Warhol •sort of the first postmodern artist •makes the big splash and gets the news •clearly represents a distinctive break •these are not really brillo soap pad boxes •he made those and puts them on display and the art world lapped it up •Before this was heavy, "boring" artwork - no one wants to look at DeKooning •Warhol puts his finger in the eye of the art world and supplies Campbell soup cans (Silkscreened prints, mass produced) •"Art if I say it's art" - Duchamp esque •Why are you doing this? I used to eat everyday for lunch. (Campbell soup cans) •It's very ironic •How do we understand what a great work of art is now? Has the understanding for that shifted? •Before used to be about pure technique •Not about technique - something else isn't it? •Green Coke bottles •Turquoise Marilyn, 1962 •Colors are off slightly so you have to recognize it's a silkscreen print •So you know it's a made objective (different than Modernism) •"heir to the tradition of Copley, Stuart..." Craven

Dada

•A movement and the word itself is nonsensical •Rejects all of this •Says what? You're going to find some reason to make art? •Absurdism/absurdist •Not just on crack •They are responding in some ways to the world at the time (it was bad place in the 20th century) (wars, depression) •Feelings? Why express anything? •Dada manifestos •knows everything, spits on everything, no thing, has no fixed ideas, does not catch flies, bitterness, laughing at everything accomplished or sanctified, dada is never right, no more painters, no more writers, no more religions, no more royalists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more police, no more airplanes, like everything in life it is useless, everything happens in a completely idiotic way, we are incapable of treating seriously any subject whatsoever, including this subject, let alone this subject ourselves -came after surrealism and before abstract expressionism

Courbet, Burial at Ornans

•Another great example of an attack on the techniques of bouquoise art •21 feet long •there had been a tradition of big giant paintings like this, but the subject matter were classical, wars, romans, and antiquity or a big giant bible story •classical or biblical models held up as ideals •French •however here they are just people! •Just a village burial •Composition - creates almost a baroque closeness to us , right next to hole, all these people are just in our faces •Watching this go on •3 crying women (his sisters as models) •in the front of the picture plane is a dog? A mutt? Might as well just give us the finger •what is that? •Facts, realism man •Someone is carrying crucifix •"The heroic, the sublime, and the terrible are not found here - only the drab facts of undramatized life and death." Gardner

Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte

•Classicist painting •The dress on the banks on this compared to the other side (smoke stacks in the back) •Something going on with content in some of his paintings - he didn't want to admit that •Instead he wants to talk about Charles Henry A Scientific Aesthetic, Charles Henry •"...claimed that effects of sadness, serenity, and gaiety could be attained through the pictorial means of color and compositional direction (e.g.: bright colors such as yellow and lines rising from the horizon evoke cheer; dark colors such as blue and lines descending from the horizon evoke gloom." •19th century author -same sort of intense intellectual analysis of form and exploration of basic structure characterized that Cezanne also to contemporary Seurat -here thousands of tiny dots form areas of pattern and interpose a colored cloud between the viewer and the objects represented -color is a complement to the highly rigorous structure of Seurat's carefully planned composition, which has stability and permanence lacking in the work of the Impressionists but found in many of Cezannes' paintings

Moore, Piazza d'italia

•Go and eat lunch in front of an office building •Has classical elements but not classicism •He's Doing classical bits and pieces •You can do that now in postmodernity! •He just likes these elements - it's cool and clever •Get it?

Van Gogh, Bedroom at Arles

•His bedroom •He's trying to capture something here - does it? •What is that? •Is that a nice place? Seems okay •Seems more nostalgic than something actually there

Renoir, Girl with Watering Can

•Is this only about fleeting sensations of color and light? Or does it matter that she's a cute little girl with a watering can? •He's right there with the impressionists, but he doesn't want to let go of the subject •He struggles with this living in the moment more about girl despite him instinct always led him back to the figure despite his first inspiration like the impressionists of landscape

Van Gogh, Starry Night

•Meant to be cheerful colors •Oh yeah •What's he doing here? •Everyone knows this painting •This is not what a starry night looks like •But it's cool - people aw over it but don't reflect upon other aspects •Cypress tree is a symbol of spiritual paganism for Van Gogh •Lights are on in the village in every building, but the church is off •Cypress tree is taller than the church steeple •But never mind all that it's just cool •What is he doing here? What is that about? •Not realism - impressionistic •Not what a night sky look like •So what is the night sky like? •It's more about what you feel when you see a sky •Evocation of night sky - that movement and energy is mysterious •Kind of like when you at the stars and think you're just a little tiny peanut •Something evocative about that •Filled with content that gets quickly dismissed •"For my own part, I declare I know nothing whatever about it, but looking at the stars always make me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star."

Millet, The Gleaners

•Millet conveys a classical art composition - 1 2 3 or AAB -Gives it a formality •Poor ladies are collecting what's left after what everyone harvests •Poorest of the poor •Horrendous idea of just Back breaking labor •Horizon line -almost underneath the horizon line •Gives the impression of that they're tied down to the earth •Hats are primary colors - the most basic -It doesn't look nice •Suffering is bad •Nothing is heroic or idealic here

Concepts of Realism

•No more pretense from "heroic" history. •What's real! •Ideal to aim for •It's real! •That's what matters! •No more light-weight emotionalism •What about the Real World? •Maybe simple things, the simple life, could be heroic as well? •"What was required now was something plainer and more firmly grounded in the apprehension of material reality." Ernest Renan on Realism •"It is possible, then, that the ruin of idealistic beliefs is destined to follow the destruction of supernatural beliefs, and that a real abasement of human morality dates from the day it saw the reality of things." •Historian from 19th century •Realism says you're in the real, well is there something beyond the real to aim for? Or is that it? •Relates to relativism problem

Barry and Pugin, Houses of Parliament

•Pick a better, more virtuous style •Everyone can relate to this •Before Italy style came over •More English and more virtuous •Spurns the Gothic Revival oNationalistic oWorked with new materials - can work with iron more easily o Flexible style can be used for many purposes, not symmetrical o Somehow more honest and pure, (this concept sticks in architecture - honest architecture) •St. Barnabas, Snowshill, ? oBrown stone, like Oxford, gorgeous oPugin says look everyone can relate to this style in England and its that rubbish from Italy came over oThis is what we are searching for •New materials - can work with iron really easily •Gothic is more flexible, than Neoclassicism because to doesn't have to be symmetrical - long tradition of gothic being asymmetrical •Important when it comes to cities - if you're restricted to the lot it might not always fit •More honest and pure - speaks big in architecture - be honest to materials - modern architects like this •In his book, Contrasts, because he's contrasting oIndustrial cities - smokestacks, pollution is horrible, cluttered oMedieval city - filled with Catholics, steeples, good Christian city oHouse for poor in industrial / poor house in gothic city oBurials are very different (medical experiments - industrial) oMaybe you overstated argument •Architecture that affects people's lives, to make people better •Barry and Pugin: Houses of Parliament, London, 1835 •Not a medieval building 9th century •Kicks off neogothic movement which spurns more things oUniversities oAmerican colleges (survived shorter amount of time than in England) •Like Rhodes College

Zola and Manet

•Poet, author, and critic, friend and supporter of Manet •"defend[ed] Manet's right to follow his own visual and intellectual instincts however much they defied academic rules, and challenging the concept of beauty as an absolute, universal standard." •Manet influenced by Zola's realist novel •Beauty = "vitality and personal quality." •"Beauty lies within us, and not without." oNo ideal oZola had a lot to say about Manet •Thus I put the past on one side -I have no rules or standards - I stand in front of Edouard Manet's pictures as if I were standing in front of something quite new which I wish to explain and comment upon." Zola

Pollock drip paintings

•Started off being interested in automatism - automatic painting •If you are interested in the subconscious, how is the subconscious going to inform what kind of art you're going to make? • Somebody along the way came up with the idea of "let's paint purely from our subconscious" • How do you do that? So, Gorky claimed that. Now, let's actually do that. • Subconscious is just letting go - and have this thing when you're finished. • an attractiveness to this idea • Pollock starts off doing this - I'm not imposing myself on that, I want it to be it's own thing • During the depression, joins up and is trained by social realist Benton - interesting • Goes to New York tries to make it big time • Becomes much more well known, doing automatic paintings, surrealist paintings • But he is really well known for his drip paintings "Jack the Dripper" •Doing this seems to congeal several different threads •One of which is this subconscious thing - what's driving the way those paints go - he doesn't have a conscious plan of where each color is going •Lots of issues of randomness gets stuck to drip paintings •"it liberated the creative act from the filter and censorship of the conscious mind, and gave it the absolute psychological freedom that the Surrealists had desired." •Because the creative act has not been liberated yet •Jack had issues and to spare •Died from driving his car and killing someone in an alcoholic rage • All had names - She Wolf • Starts throwing down these drip paintings • The whole story of Pollock is very interesting • The most influential art critic at time, essentially made Pollock - Greenberg called the shots on things - how he told them what to paint to be better • Interesting moment in art history and arts in America • Pollock made it to the 12 page spread in time - called the most important American artist of the 20th century (even though he didn't sell much) • Smoked a lot - sometimes butts are in paintings along with his footprints • He showed action in his paintings because it's movement, really dramatic • Automatism! • Pollock, "undergoing psychoanalysis and suffering from incipient alcoholism began to experiment with Surrealism and Jungian archetypes..." gave it the absolute psychological freedom that the Surrealists had desired."

Surrealism

•The attempt to probe another direction •Trying to become more real or more truthful and more authentic •Investigates the subconscious! •Early 20th century there is a lot of subconscious talk •Freud throws this down in 19th century and by 20th century, people are talking all about the subconscious - what's really directing you and motivating you •Dreams, thought •Reason is out •Pure innerness •"Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern." Breton, Surrealist Manifesto, 1924 •"Whatever comes forth from the depths of the subconscious, as Freud theorized, has truth and significance, and is even a superior form of reality." Craven •untainted, pure, spontaneous, and sincere because your rational mind is not directing it •the appeal of that to them: no colored by history, by religion or by mankind •optical sensations? No, this is a pure thing, my subconscious is driving me •This sticks for a while Klee, Twitering Machine, 1922 •Swiss man •Suggests that the handle is turned and the birds do something Miro, Hunter, 1923 •Surrealist painter •If you looked at this and had spontaneous reaction to this, Miro would go "riiight" -he developed a language of visual symbols instead of recognizable objects precisely drawn symbols that allude to title pictoral language consists of symbols that are repeated in various configurations which in their lack of specificity, strive for universal meaning look beyond confines of traditional western art to trace human origins and to forge a new future Gorky, Garden in the Sochi, 1941 •"Gorky himself could not explain precisely what the forms meant or represented, since his images flowed freely from his subconscious and were executed without conscious effort by the swift action of his hand." Craven •Can you tell us what you are doing? No, I can't it's from my subconscious. •Who cares about this? Can you give me a reason to care? Calder, sculptor •Doing the same kind of thing in sculpture, but then he throws in this new thing and everyone just gets so excited. •Abstract sculpture, kind of surreal •When hung up in a room, it moves and spins •It's a kinetic sculpture! •This is introduced Dali, Persistence of Memory, 1931 •Surrealist, most famous one perhaps •Melting clocks - wow so coo, yeah totally •Eye thing •Abstract landscape from dreams •Pocket watch covered in flies •His greatest fear was of castration •Does this communicate something about the subconscious world? •Yeah, it's creepy •Fantastic title •Memory is just like a melting clock Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939 •Typically associated with surrealists, about the same time •Her work tends to be incredibly personal •When she was young, she was in a horrific accident on a bus a pole went through her and scrambled her insides •Unable to bear children, 20 surgeries throughout her life, constant pain •So we get these paintings like this, spine is a broken column, pins holding her together •Horrific paintings •Echoes different surgeries that she had where she feels like there are two different facets of her •Incredibly popular with feminist art historians •Questions of her feminity oUnibrow, upper lip hair oClearly not interested in traditional views of feminity •Inner, and angst-filled images of suffering •People tend to respond to this suffering •You don't her, but these are potent images of human suffering Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936 •Also about human suffering like Kahlo Frida Kahlo, Columna Rota (autorretrato), 1944 •Why do I care about her suffering? What does that do in a painting? •You do feel bad, but does that make it good art? •You can relate to it •If you reduce to how we relate to it, there are quality issues •It reveals something about pain •She's not doing surrealism like Dali •Dali is so mysterious - whereas Kahlo is very explicit, you get the grimness Giacommetti, Man Standing, 1947 •Sculpture where the figure of non gender specific humanity is reduced to basic elements •Kind of what we see in painting Brancusi, Bird in Flights, 1923 •Trying to capture something of the idea of a bird of flight •Does he? Yes. •It looks stylized, feather maybe -reduce things to their pure essences, to their fundamental shapes -influenced by rodin -embodies spirit of soaring flight as it curves effortlessly upward elegant and lyrical in its beautiful expressive shape and subject

Degas, Orchestra of the Paris Opera

•This is degas' thing •Chunks out the rules for what defines a good painting • Strange things about this, visually strange • Eye catching ... • Degas is a genius • Guy in the back is looking at us • "Up and down, near and far are confounded in what appears to be both a candid camera record of public Parisian fact and a totally artificial construction that proclaims the artist's right to invent the rules of his own aesthetic domain." Rosenblum • Degas is capturing fleeting moments of time • With great subtlety, obscured what is usually shown in a theatre and focused on the area reserved for the audience, particularly the orchestra pit. • The space is divided into three zones. At the bottom is the public part of the theatre, the area allocated to the audience of the painting as well as the performance. In the centre is the pit where the musicians sit. At the top is the stage, edged by the footlights and filled with headless ballerinas. • The areas reserved for the audience and the performers are incomplete. The subject here is the pit, which is usually out of sight, • The contrast between the pit and the stage is reinforced by the difference in the treatment of the three zones: studied, precise and detailed, the central area of the pit is a veritable group portrait and accurately depicts the musicians and their instruments. • It's like a badly composed photo • Well who says that's what a good painting is? I decide what a good painting is. • the rules to compose a good painting? Degas chucks those out • Bold composition • Cut off frame and large portion of it is not the dancers

HH Richardson, Trinity Church, Boston

•Trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts •Learned about the Ancients/Moderns debate •Learned about the new rationalist architecture •Like most Americans, didn't buy into Gothic •Do we design in what style? Historic or contemporary •Or the notion that it's functional •Knew what was going on there in Europe •Americans doesn't like neogothic, was here for a bit •America doesn't have a history like Britain, we need something more American •So what style? •Trinity Church, Boston, 1872 •Right here in Coploi square - Boston •Not gothic - But Romanesque (came before Gothic) •American said oh, simpler, less effeminate, less nancyboy, more masculine •Romanesque took off - yes! This is what we want • However, we were actually doing more of a mish-mash of styles • Borrowing left right and center and yet Americans style really wanted this • Copies tower off cathedral style in European countries • American said this was the American style • Public libraries • This was it this was the bomb • Lasted for about 15 minutes • Threw it down and were down • Goes in this other direction we would not have anticipated • Romanesque! • "The promoters of the Romanesque style thought it hearkened back to an earlier period of Christian history and the Romanesque served as a means by which to revive a more pietistic, simplistic Christianity." P&M • Freedom in application • It was something different, neither Neo-Gothic nor Neo-Classical (nor French or English). • It was simpler, clearer, perhaps even more masculine. • It was thought to be archetypically American. • The NEW American, modern style? • Woburn Public Library and other public libraries came out of this mostly • New direction we wouldn't have expected

Manet, Luncheon on the Grass

•Was rejected by the Salon •Hangs this up and people flipped out in a bad way •Controversial •What are you doing here? Are you out of your mind? •What upset them? • The Luncheon on the Grass is the greatest work of Édouard Manet, one in which he realizes the dream of all painters: to place figures of natural grandeur in a landscape. Zola •On a technical side: guy can't paint -background perspective doesn't quite fit -she seems to be floating above their heads -other times in the background -it lacks depth -not technically a great painting - if that matters, but that didn't matter to Manet •This shameless woman who's naked -You can't put naked woman sitting there in the grass at a picnic -Guys are in contemporary Parisian clothing -Manet asks them to remember this painting? -"I'm just doing the same thing as the classics? Explain these to me then." •Titian, Pastoral Concert -(nudes are personifications of the muses) -Not naked or erotic though -They are personifications • Raimondi, after Raphael's, The Judgment of Paris, 1520 -Same figure positioning -Look it's exactly the same as Manet's -Even to the provocation of this •Guess where it's pointing •He's just doing the same thing as the previous painters •Quite provocative •Figures of natural grandeur.. -Zola (good to have friends in high places) -Zola's novel influenced him -He influenced Zola •All of these things disturb contemporaries •Manet says he's just contemporizing these classics •Something else that sticks -Who is woman looking at? The viewer. A naked woman looking at me? How dare she? •Does he have a point? •Momentum that's shifting with Manet's work •"With the collapse of inherited order, the sympathetic viewer inevitably wishes to find here a new kind of order, which, for many later generations, was of a purely aesthetic kind, that is, the savoring of Manet's painted surfaces, with their velvety blacks set against the chill of pale flesh or their muted variations on green provided by a shaded landscape." Rosenblum -savor the colors -Manet said "what I'm doing is paint on the canvas" •But he's actually having a subject •In the mix now - that painting is about technique •He certainly changed the technique

Courbet, The Stone Breakers

•about stone breakers, who work on roads, and crack up the stones to make roads •we can't see faces because we don't need to know their faces - they are DE individualized and dehumanized •they are just stone breakers •slaving away •Ragged clothes, torn pants •Grim •No hope in this •Young guy and older guy - only thing to aspire to is becoming the old guy busting his hump to break up stones •No idealism •It's a blunt fact •But in reality very, very few people in France who did this horrific kind of work •Courbert might have had socialist leanings - these were revolutionary years •Marx •Communist manifesto •Look how labor alienates •It's a great example of realism •Provoke an emotion - sympathy, anger •Scandalized the Salongoers of 1850 •Inspired by the complete expression of human misery in an encounter with an old road worker and his young assistant, asked them to pose in his studio •Showed them absorbed in their task, faceless, and anonymous, dulled by the relentless numbingly repetitive task of breaking stone to build a road •Unflaggingly honest •Violated rules of artistic propriety •Real and existing things attacking the established social standards

Cezanne, Bay from L'Estaque

•messes with perspective •houses, bay and mountains •well what happened to the traditions like atmospheric perspective? •Do the mountains look any further away than the houses up front? NO •He's not interested in that •All flattens out because he's trying to do structure •Maybe he just couldn't paint? Is this good? •STRUCTURE •"I want to treat nature in terms of the cylinder, sphere, and cone." •Find the forms underneath things •Compare with impressionism •Impressionism is looking for these fleeting sensations by its color and mark •Cezanne is saying no I want to know the forms or something solid that's there •Does he care about the location? He doesn't seem like the subject matter actually matters - not exactly impressionistic •Just the ability to render forms •Huge influence on later modernist paintings - technical thing •the revolutionary shift of Cezanne in his structure •dismantled previous pictorial conventions • "What begins as an almost inertly stable structure ends by registering a subliminal earthquake of multiple forces that dare to warp and bend spaces and volumes to conform to the truths of Cezanne's, and no one else's, perceptions." Rosenblum • it's Cézanne's perceptions -searching colorist, not attempting to duplicate surface reality but to amplify structure