Art History Study 2

Plains Indian Wars

"wars" between US gov. and the Cheyenne and Sioux tribes, ended in Sand Creek Massacre, whites had advantages in technology (machine guns, telegraphs, etc)

broadside

- something such as an advertisement or public notice, that is printed on a large piece of paper

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865)

Winslow Homer - Prisoners from the Front, 1866

one year after the war ended and four years after he reputedly began to paint in oil, Homer completed this picture, a work that established his reputation. It represents an actual scene from the war in which a Union officer, Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow (1834-1896) captured several Confederate officers on June 21, 1864.

French Impressionism

Between 1918 and 1929, a new generation of filmmakers sought to explore the cinema as an art. Unsatisfied with french filmmaking, this new generation found inspiration through hollywood films that had flooded into france. Their films displayed a fascination with pictorial beauty and an interest in intense psychological exploration.

José Guadalupe Posada (Mexico) - Calavera Catrina, c. 1910-1913

Broadside showing a large skeleton hypnotizing a group of skulls and a sitting skeleton; an electric car with skeletons riding in it is in the background. The text is a calavera in verse conveying the fascination with the modern wonder of electricity as used in Mexico City's trolleys

Hudson River School

Founded by Thomas Cole, first native school of landscape painting in the U.S.; attracted artists rebelling against the neoclassical tradition, painted many scenes of New York's Hudson River

Thomas Cole

Founder of the Hudson River school, famous for his landscape paintings. - Cole's idea that art is the process of creation rather than reproduction is fundamentally religious in nature. - In 1842, Cole stated that art is "man's lowly imitation of the creative power of the almighty" (Stradling, 66). Cole believed that, through the act of constructing sublime landscapes, he was imitating God

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued by abraham lincoln on september 22, 1862 it declared that all slaves in the confederate states would be free

Kicking Bear (Lakota),"Battle of the Little Big Horn," 1898

Native American forces led by crazy horse and sitting bull defeat US army troops of LT col George Armstrong custer. To the left, in buckskin is Custer. The very faint, ghost-like figures in the upper left, behind the figures of dead soldiers, are the spirits of the dead. In the center are the figures of Sitting Bull, Rain-in-the-Face, Crazy Horse, and Kicking Bear.

Andrew Jackson (7th President, 1829-1837)

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: Democratic DOMESTIC POLICIES: -recognized the independence of Texas FOREIGN POLICIES: -Negotiates shipping rights with British West Indies Indian Removal Act forced American Indians to leave their land SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: -War hero in the Battle of New Orleans(War of 1812) -Founder of the Democratic Party -Arkansas and Michigan joined the Union -First presidential candidate nominated by national convention -Transportation Revolution continues -First modern police is created -Battle of the Almo

President Andrew Jackson

The seventh President of the United States (1829-1837), who as a general in the War of 1812 defeated the British at New Orleans (1815). As president he opposed the Bank of America, objected to the right of individual states to nullify disagreeable federal laws, and increased the presidential powers.

I'art pour I'art

art for art's sake

Eurocentric

focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as preeminent.

Asher B. Durand, Progress or the Advance of Civilization, 1853

geological formations and plants in rich, realistic detail, and rarely created composed scenes.

Trancendentalism

-An American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early 19th century -Centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson -Transcendentalists were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity -Urged each person find, in Emerson's words, "an original relation to the universe'" -Sought this relation in solitude amidst nature and through their writing and art

Winslow Homer

A Realist painter known for his seascapes of New England.

Modernism

A cultural movement embracing human empowerment and rejecting traditionalism as outdated. Rationality, industry, and technology were cornerstones of progress and human achievement.

Manifest Destiny

A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

frontier

A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control.

Asher B. Durand Kindred Spirits, 1849

After Cole passed away the New York drawing association requested a memorial address in his honor. Cole created a painting for durands friend Bryant that memorialized their friendship - Kindred Spirits is not only his tribute to his dear departed friend and colleague, it is also a testament to Durand's own mastery of the genre, as well as his expertise in painting portraits and figures. The painting also marks a turning point in Durand's career. As the art world moved increasingly toward realistic landscape, the composed landscape—imaginary landscapes composed by the artist for maximum impact—fell out of favor. Durand began to focus his skill on depicting geological formations and plants in rich, realistic detail, and rarely created composed scenes.

Ashcan School

Also known as The Eight, a group of American Naturalist painters formed in 1907, most of whom had formerly been newspaper illustrators, they believed in portraying scenes from everyday life in starkly realistic detail. Their 1908 display was the first art show in the U.S.

Thomas Eakins - Portrait of Miss Amelia Van Buren, 1891

Among his finest and most compelling portraits is this painting of a former student and friend, Miss Amelia Van Buren. Eakins centered his attention on Van Buren's face and hands, creating through subtle means—deft highlights, distant glance, and relaxed yet tensile hands—an image of great psychological complexity. Her weary head leans on her curved hand, while her other hand rests in her lap. She looks absently towards but not into the strong light, which emanates from the left and defines her face

Battle of Antietam

Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in American military history, showed that the Union could stand against the Confederate army in the Eastern theater.

Paris Opera

Charles Garnier

Nocturne: Blue and Gold—Old Battersea Bridge, 1872-1877

Chelsea Old Church to the left (on the north bank of the river) and the then recently built Albert Bridge to the right, with fireworks above, can be seen in the distance.

Thomas Eakins - The Gross Clinic (The Clinic of Doctor Samuel Gross), 1875

Choosing the city's world-famous surgeon and teacher Dr. Samuel Gross as his subject, hown leading a clinic of five doctors operating on the left thigh of a patient. At the same time Gross is demonstrating to students the relatively new surgical procedure he had developed to treat bone infections. In contrast to the recoiling woman to the left—traditionally identified as the patient's mother—Gross embodies the confidence that comes from knowledge and experience.

Battle of Antietam

Civil War battle in which the North suceedeed in halting Lee's Confederate forces in Maryland. Was the bloodiest battle of the war resulting in 25,000 casualties

John Sloan - "Ludlow Massacre," The Masses, June 1914

Colorado National Guard Troops fired machine guns into the tent camp of striking miners and their families at Ludlow. Later that day, they charged into the tents and set them afire. The National Guard's killing of women and children shocked the nation, and helped turn management policies away from direct confrontation with strikers to strategies of co-option of workers' demands

general George custer

Commander of the 7th Cavalry. Killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876.

Thomas Eakins - The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), 1871

Eakins began a series of representations of the sport of sculling, a subject for which he is uniquely identified. This is the first major work in that series of paintings and watercolors. It is believed to commemorate the victory of Max Schmitt (1843-1900), an attorney and skilled amateur rower, in an important race on the Schuylkill River in October 1870. Also an avid rower, Eakins depicted himself pulling the oars of a scull in the middle distance.t he theme of rowing plays into Eakins' own love of sports and his tendency toward masculine themes, as well as the contemporary interest in the moral virtues and health benefits of outdoor recreational activities. In an era in which American printmakers were just beginning to take up the rowing craze and memorialize victorious single scullers as gentlemen and regional heroes, Eakins produced nineteen such rowing images.

"Turbaco volcanoes," [from View of the Cordilleras], 1810-1813 - Pierre Antoine Marchais

French 19th century painter

Indians Visiting a Brazilian Plantation, 1825 - Johann Rugendas

He identified more savage people by depicting them with skin marks and deformities, and normally without clothes.[9] On the other hand, criollos were represented wearing clothes and jewelry, as if to mark a step forward toward civilization if compared with black Africans. Rugendas celebrated black people born in Brazil, saying they were more polished and benevolent than Africans.part of tropical romanticism movement which challenged dichotomy between nature and civilization and considered places like colonial Brazil to be a harmonious environment of racial mixing.

Mathew Brady - Abraham Lincoln, c. 1863

Lincoln was denigrated in his campaign as little more than a bumpkin, Brady's photograph of a beardless Lincoln in a smart suit, his collar showing high so as to hide an unusually long neck, helped give him a sophisticated look that matched his timeless words.Lincoln himself is to have said that it was "Brady and the Cooper Union speech made me President." - mages of Lincoln on the five dollar bill and penny are based as well on Brady portraits, they wouldn't have been possible without that first portrait.

Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860 - Frederic Erwin Church

Rendered with a scientific realism that reflects Church's abiding interest in natural history, Twilight in the Wilderness is a spectacular view of a blazing sunset over a distant purple mountain. Cloaked amid quickening nightfall, its foreground features a dark crimson lake flanked by masses of dramatically twisted and attenuated trees. Even if the exact scene it depicts is open to debate—in fact, some historians surmise it may be a composite view of multiple locations—it is known that the artist painted the canvas in his New York studio, partly basing it on sketches he produced during travels

Thomas Eakins

Specialized in painting the everyday lifes of working-class men and women and used the new technology of serial-actions photographs to study human anatomy and paint it more realistically.

Erie Canal

The Erie Canal in New York is part of the east-west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System. It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, originally stretching for 363 miles from the Hudson River in Albany to Lake Erie in Buffalo.

John Reekie, A Burial Party, Cold Harbor, Virginia 1865, [from Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War], 1866

This gruesome scene depicts the unpleasant job of burying the remains of fallen Union soldiers from the June 1864 battles of Gaines' Mill and Cold Harbor. This task has fallen to a group of black men doing the menial work while a white man standing at upper left acts as overseer. The man seated in the center, next to the stretcher laden with human parts, looks directly at the camera, revealing no emotion that can be reconciled with his grisly cargo.

Emanuel Leutze, Westward Ho! [Westward the Course of Empire takes its Way], 1860

This painting represents the concept of Manifest Destiny, the belief, popular in the mid-nineteenth century, that Americans were destined by God to settle the continent westward to the Pacific Ocean. This painting was a study for a larger mural, com pleted in 1862, for the U.S. Capitol Building.

The Course of Empire: Consummation of Empire, 1835-6 - Thomas Cole

Thomas Coles series of 5 allegorical paintings that portrayed the rise and fall of a civilization. he sees a prehistoric age where nature dominates man. consummation - war and chaos

The Course of Empire: The Pastoral State, 1834 - Thomas Cole

Thomas Coles series of 5 allegorical paintings that portrayed the rise and fall of a civilization. he sees a prehistoric age where nature dominates man. pastoral state - era of decadence.

sterograph

Two separate images are printed side-by-side. When viewed without a stereoscopic viewer the user is required to force his eyes either to cross, or to diverge, so that the two images appear to be three. Then as each eye sees a different image, the effect of depth is achieved in the central image of the three.

Winslow Homer - On the Trail, c. 1892

Winslow Homer is one of the best known painters of American scenes of outdoor life. After an apprenticeship in lithography, Homer began his career as an illustrator for Harper's, drawing scenes of the Civil War battlefront. After the war, he traveled to Europe and then spent the summer of 1873 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he began to work in watercolor—what would eventually became his primary medium. Homer's outdoor genre scenes painted a varied picture of Americana, from scenes of wilderness guides, to rural African American life in the post-Civil War era, to children at play. In 1881, he spent almost two years on the English coast depicting simple scenes of the local communities. As his career evolved, Homer turned more and more to the sea, and a move to a secluded spot in coastal Maine prompted the eternal struggle between man and nature to become a prominent theme in his work.

The Slave Hunter, c. 1820-1830 - Jean-Baptiste Debret

a French painter who was active in Brazil in the first decades of the 19th century, started out by painting portraits of members of the Brazilian Imperial Family, but soon became concerned with the slavery of both blacks and the indigenous inhabitants. During the fifteen years Debret spent in Brazil, he concentrated not only on court rituals but the everyday life of slaves as well. His paintings (one of which appears on this page) helped draw attention to the subject in both Europe and Brazil itself.

Nocturne in Black and Gold—The Falling Rocket, ca. 1875

a depiction of a fireworks display in London's Cremorne Gardens, is probably Whistler's most infamous painting. It was the central issue of a libel suit that involved the art critic John Ruskin and the artist. Ruskin had publicly slandered the work by making the statement, "I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler won the libel suit; however, he was awarded only the token damages of one farthing. This is one of Whistler's many "Nocturnes," which are characterized by a moody atmosphere, a subtle palette, and overall tonalist qualities.

expedition

a journey or voyage undertaken by a group of people with a particular purpose, especially that of exploration, scientific research, or war.

Calavera

a representation of a human skull. The term is most often applied to edible or decorative skulls made from either sugar or clay that are used in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead and the Roman Catholic holiday All Souls' Day.

Allegory

a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

explorer

artist

Cotopaxi (1862: Detroit); Frederick Church

by this time the Civil War had begun and Church's decision to depict an eruption had been interpreted as a direct reflection on the tragic turn of events. The rising sun is obscured by the smoke of the nature "at war with itself" and the landscapes shows the world evolving out of the simultaneous process of creation and destruction. - 19th century vision of nature's sublime and terrifying power. The painting made a tremendous impact on the American art public, who perceived it as a geological parable of the Civil War then in progress. Church mirrors the contemporary tragedy of the Civil War and offers hope for its resolution through the cross formed by the sun's reflection on the lake

Robber Barons

captains of industry- business man, leaders of railroad and industry, also bankers - accumulated a lot of wealth example Andrew Carnegie. emassed huge personal fortunes at the time. anti-competitive, unfair business practices

Winslow Homer - Visit from the Old Mistress, 1876

captures a tentative encounter in the postwar South. The freed slaves are no longer obliged to greet their former mistress with welcoming gestures, and one remains seated as she would not have been allowed to do before the war. Winslow Homer composed the work from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia; it conveys a silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future

Civil War (1861-1865)

deadliest war in American history; conflict between north (union) and south (confederacy); 11 southern slave states wanted to secede from Union

John Gast, American Progress, 1872

expresses a powerful historical idea about the meaning of America's westward expansion. The static painting thus conveys a vivid sense of the passage of time as well as of the inevitability of technological progress. The groups of human figures, read from left to right, convey much the same idea - idea of progress coming from east to west and notion that the frontier would be developed by sequential waves of people. women that portrays idea of American destiny

Mary Cassatt, In the Loge, 1877-1878

first of Cassatt's Impressionist paintings to be displayed in the United States. Cassatt gave her female figure a noticeably more dynamic role, for she peers avidly through her opera glasses at the row of seats across from her. In the background at upper left, a man trains his gaze upon her. The viewer, who sees them both, completes the circle. Cassatt's painting explores the very act of looking, breaking down the traditional boundaries between the observer and the observed, the audience and the performer.

James Abbot McNeil Whistler - White Girl—Symphony in White, Number 1, 1861-1862

he White Girl made 19th-century viewers distinctly uncomfortable. The woman pictured wears an informal cambric (lightweight cotton or linen summer fabric) housedress of a type worn in private. Her red hair is loose, contrasting vividly with the tonal white interior setting and dress. Gazing impassively, her expression is vacant and unfocused—she does not charm us, yet rivets our attention. She stands on a wolf or bearskin rug whose fierce appearance contrasts with her own blank look, and flowers drop languidly from her hands to the floor. To viewers of the period, these attributes made Hiffernan's worldliness and lack of innocence explicit and shocking.

Albert Bierstadt, Last of the Buffalo, c. 1888

his work reflected Manifest Destiny ideals, this painting evokes contemporary issues of his and our times—wildlife conservation and preservation, species displacement, and the related destruction of indigenous cultures. landscape combines a variety of elements he had sketched during multiple western excursions. Because of its composite nature, the view incorporates many topographical features representative of the Great Plains: the dead and injured buffalo in the foreground occupy a dry, golden meadow; their counterparts cross a wide river in the middle ground; and others graze as far as the eye can see as the landscape turns to prairies, hills, mesas, and snow-capped peaks

Robert Henri, Snow in New York, 1902

impressionist urban snow scenes of the period in several ways: it represents a common side street rather than a major avenue; there is nothing narrative, anecdotal, or prettified about the image; the straightforward, one-point perspective composition is devoid of trivial details; the exceptionally daring, textured brushwork resembles a preparatory study rather than a finished oil painting; and the somber palette creates a dark, oppressive atmosphere.

Ando Hiroshige, "Ohashi, Sudden Shower at Atake," [from the series One Hundred Views of Edo,] 1857

influential in the compositional development of French impressionist landscapes. It also inspired postimpressionists such as Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), who painted an oil version of this work. Atake was an informal place-name for the area shown on the far bank, named after a gigantic governmental ship, the 1500-ton Atake-maru, which was moored in front of the shögunal boathouses. The boathouses, barely visible here to the far left, were damaged by the Great earthquake of Ansei in 1855. By the time of this print's publication, the boathouse had been restored.

The Heart of the Andes, 1859 - Frederic Edwin Church

inspired by Church's second trip to South America in the spring of 1857. Church sketched prolifically throughout his nine weeks travel in Ecuador, and many extant watercolors and drawings contain elements found in this work.

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, 1836 [title may be shortened to The Oxbow] - Thomas Cole

known as "the oxbow" this work portrays a masterpiece of American landscape painting. Cole's interest in this subject came from is Europe trip between 1829-1832 where he was inspired and created a landscape which contrasts untamed wilderness and pastoral settlement to emphasize what could happen in the national landscape

Sublime

proposed by Edmund Burke

picturesque

proposed by William Gilpin

Civil Rights Act 1975

protect all citizens in civil and legal rights

Aestheticism

reverence for beauty; movement that held beautiful form is to be valued more than instructive content

George Luks, Hester Street, 1905

scene capturing a crowded pushcart market on Hester Street on New York's Lower East Side, George Benjamin Luks positions the viewer directly at street level and in close proximity to the array of men, women, and children who throng the foreground. Although the painting has been interpreted as a sympathetic vignette of Jewish life, it shows a closer kinship to Luks's colleague Robert Henri's method of representing people as racial or ethnic "types" rather than as specific individuals

New England Scenery, 1851 - Frederic Erwin Church

serves as a symbol for all of New England, may be considered Church's first cosmic landscape. The cosmic landscape, a picture of varied scenes assembled on one canvas to represent an entire region, was popularized by the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. - combine naturalistic features of a region according to the principles of classical landscape composition. familiar with the art of landscape composition through his teacher, Thomas Cole - New England Scenery bears a striking resemblance to Cole's Pastoral State however It was no accident that Church based his composition on Cole's Pastoral State, the image of an empire flourishing in Arcadian harmony with nature. With New England Scenery, Church meant to reveal an ideal world. The bridge and road in the foreground indicate a system of transportation, the mill represents technology happily coexisting with the natural world, the cleared fields point to abundant agricultural development, and the church represents the importance of religion. Church has even replaced the classical peasants usually found in idyllic landscapes with hard-working, distinctly American farmers and laborers.

Mathew Brady, Dead Confederate Soldier, Antietam, 1862

showed the public the first ever photographs of a battlefield before the dead had been removed. These images received extensive media attention, with the New York Times saying, "Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war."

José Guadalupe Posada (Mexico) - Calavera from Oaxaca, broadside, 1900

shows a male skeleton dressed in a charro outfit wielding a machete in a graveyard, apparently in the process of creating more skeletons--a crowd of skeletons surround him and skulls lie at his feet. The text block is decorated with four small skulls. (1910) -

John Sloan - Three AM, 1909

shows two young women in a kitchen. One of them sits drinking coffee, her hat on the chair in front of her; the other one stands at the stove in her nightgown, barefoot, a cigarette between her fingers. What are they doing having breakfast (or supper) in the middle of the night?

expatriate

someone who chooses to live outside of, or renounce, his or her native country

George Bellows, Both Members of this Club, 1909

the fighting is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves." --George Bellows, 1910

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Frederic Church

was an American Landscape painter who attended the Hudson River School for artists. He was well known for the uniqueness of his paintings because although he painted natural landscapes he included a spiritual aspect in his work

Mary Cassatt, The Bath, c. 1893

women and children—while also experimenting with compositional elements of Japanese art. The Child's Bath is the culmination of her investigation of a flattened picture plane and decorative patterning. The intimate scene of everyday life also echoes the subject of many Japanese prints. In Cassatt's painting, the encircling arms and gentle touch of the mother or nurse convey an overall feeling of protection and tenderness.