Art History Exam 2

John Brown series by Jacob Lawrence

22 individual pieces. One for all the followers and John Brown.

Public Works of Art Project (PWAP)

A relief for struggling artist during the depression

Mark Rothko, Slow Swirl by the Edge of the Sea

About the size of an average man. Vague figural forms with signs of a man and a women. Carl Jung often wrote about water. Water is the sign for the unconscious mind. Water is a reference to the giver of life.

Clyfford Still, 1950M

All thought not everyone can see what the meaning is abstract art still have a meaning. Did these images convey and emotional truth?

Franz Kline, untitled painting next to Congo, untitled painting

An animal and a chimp are not the same. Humans think, plan and make art with a purpose. Congo made a lot of art and did some really cool things but is still not an artist. There was an art show for all of Congo's pieces, art critics were livid.

Carl Jung: "racial memory" or "the collective unconscious"

Are synonyms that mean the same thing. They express the earliest human fears and desires.

John Steuart Curry, Baptism in Kansas

Born in Kansas, left the town for a big city. Remembering a baptism on the farm. Used circles to show importance (Social Circles). Heavenly birds and clouds in the sky. People don't look happy, this is just life not a fun ceremony.

Stuart Davis, Swing Landscape

Commissions for Williamsburg Housing Project for working class Rejected since it wasn't vernacular Part 1: fishing town, outdoor Massachusetts Part 2: Jazz swing music, free, original

Stuart Davis, Eggbeater 1-4

Completely moves to modernist Almost completely abstract No reference of an actual object

Aaron Douglas, Building More Stately Mansions

Crumbling tenement building Man with pitchfork represents agriculture. Man with a lattel represents factory worker Manuel worker with a stick and hammer Women with a globe represents education Roman triumphal arch, Steeple of a Gothic cathedral, pyramid, skyscrapers, siggurat

Stuart Davis, Hot Stillscape for Six Colors, 7th Avenue Style

Describing him as an individual Hot was a term for jazz musicians go off on a whim Squiggles represent how they play Energetic look to his signature

Aaron Douglas, magazine cover

Designed lots of book covers, prints, magazine covers Used narrow wasted and hips with broad shoulders Looking up at a star in visioning freedom

Jackson Pollock, Male and Female

Each of our unconsiencous minds contain both male and female components. To be happy with have to balance both of these. When balanced you will be a happy person. Vertical forms that are merging to parts that are male and female. Red and pink body outlines are women. The black geometric forms are the men. Merging of the different forms.

Thomas Hart Benton, Hailstorm

Farmers are trying to prevail against a thunder and hail storm. Express the down pour. Leaves/ trees are blowing over.

Jackson Pollock, Gothic

Gothic period, Great Cathedrals. Craftsman would train others in their art. His work has lots of arch window shapes. Large painting echoes the size of the cathedrals

American Regionalism

Grant Wood John Steuart Curry (1) Thomas Hart Benton Focused on the Midwest. Supported by gov. Vernacular style

Jacob Lawrence

Grew up in Harlem. Loved Diego Rivera. Parents were part of the migration. Visited Alfred Stieglitz gallery 291 and was influence. Received a fellowship, black people don't get these. Loved Picasso, cubism, Brutal German Killing by Picasso

Robert Motherwell, Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive

Has a free style. Has to do with Mexican Poncho Villa. Red that you see is a stencils of a flower, red blood stains were blood. Alive, he has male genitals. Dead, he has nothing , no flowers

Lois Mailou Jones, The Ascent of Ethiopia

Has to do with Africans, African Americans, Us. Evolution from Africa to American. Rising to the height of Black History. Inspired by Ethiopia Awakening. Book wrote by Joseph Casely, talked about Ethiopia.

Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic no 34.

Has to do with a very important event. Spanish/ruler dictator/Civil war. The ovals to him are living and the bars are crushing them. Male genitals (the black bull), Span's animal, the people of Spain persist and are still there, crushed but still push.

Jacob Lawrence, John Brown made many trips to Canada organizing for his assault on Harper's Ferry

He also gave guns to slaves in Canada to help him attack the federal arsenal. All the blacks faces are hidden and don't want to be know. This was a secret meeting that's why we are not up close.

Grant Wood, study for a Self-Portrait

He did lots of self portraits. Used old clothes and props that he collected from the late time period. Of himself dressed in old time clothes

Thomas Hart Benton, Boomtown

He didn't limit himself to the upper Midwest. Old oil town. Cute town with a hotel, theater. People are bustling around the dirt streets.

Jacob Lawrence, And Harlem society looks on

He does a flip to rich people now. In the mist of all the bad things others are having fun, spending money. These are the wealthy and elite of Harlem (black)

Jacob Lawrence, The Seamstress

He got to know the people that worked in Harlem. He makes the peoples had large and there bodies play into the machine like they are one. The white is the light not her eye.

Jackson Pollock, Birth

He wanted to make his work interesting through psychology. He looked to Carl Jung, Freud. He had an alcohol problem, depression. He always said that the source of his painting is the unconsiensious. This painting was rebirth this is what he learned through psychoanalysis. In the painting. Several signs of birds or bird like creatures. Jung used birds as the universal sign for rebirth. Birth is painful.

John Brown hanging after being found guilty of treason (last image in the series)

He was captured and put on trial for his crime. He believed that God had sent him to do this job of freeing the slaves. There is low detail and still a point is made. No landscape he's close to heaven and will go their because he was doing Gods work. He was hung in a suite.

Thomas Hart Benton, Hollywood

He went to Hollywood to work for the movie studios he was hired by Walt Disney to draw publicity ads. The movies were a big industries. He had access to the back stage, movie starts, everything. They are filming her and the set behind her. People would go to the movies to escape from life they wanted to see excitement and disaster and sex. You are looking at the people behind the set. He liked the working people.

Jacob Lawrence, The Shoemaker

His hands are bigger than his head. The knife he was using is bigger than his torso. His eyes are completely absorbed in his work. His shoulder is very cubistic in his work.

Jacob Lawrence, During the War there was a great migration north by southern Negros, from the Migration of the Negro series

In a train station. Black Americans going to the big cities to find jobs. His parents were part of the migration, he had to do research to correctly depict this.

Thomas Hart Benton

Liked small town life. Had an intense interest in the working class but didn't like factory workers. He developed a style that had political significance to it. He was trying to create the energy of American workers (people who work with their hands, outdoors). Figures has an unusual body structure to them. Turbulent rhythm - the movement have this turbulence to them

Grant Wood, Dinner for Threshers

Looking back at this time of his life. Farmers would come together and help and then share a meal. Inspiration was the First Supper (has a religious meaning to it). Date of the time period is hidden in the peak of the barn.

Stuart Davis, Lucky Strike and Sweet Ccaporal

Loved Avan Guard work at gallery Vernacular and Avan Guard Used collage in a paint form Creative, intentional Inspired by Picasso

Aaron Douglas

Loved graphic design Worked and lived in Harlem Fascinated with Art Deco Loved the Egyptian part of African roots Large shoulders, tiny waste and hips, elongated figures, reduced details

Jacob Lawrence, Watchmaker

Loved the Picasso worked with African pieces reduced detail like in African Art Middle ground of complete abstraction and human like.

Sargent Johnson, Forever Free

Low details. See that it is a women. Protecting the children still.

Jacob Lawrence, One of the largest race riots occurred in East St. Louis, from the Migration of the Negro series

Not all them are pleasant pieces he would show the bad too. Strike breakers would leave the factories and blacks would come take their jobs and this would cause riots. We don't actually know who is winning in this piece. He used a lot of power stances.

Abstract Expressionist

Often called The New York School. Politically left of center. Where all friends but then grouped together by critics. Its how they feel rather than what they see optically.

Jackson Pollock, Number One

Oil and aluminum paint, a challenge to photograph the flash reflects the light back to the viewer. Its gigantic the size of the room. Has his hand prints in the upper right hand corner. Signed it in the middle bottom.

Aaron Douglas, dust jacket fro a book

Opportunity commissioned him The sun is rising like the opportunities for blacks is rising So simple but very powerful

Stuart Davis, The Terminal

Painted works of working people Likes the dock workers at the terminals All about movement (lines, barrels, dolly)

Plastic arts

Painting and sculpture Not the material used

Jim Crow Laws

References Winslow Homer, Our Jolly Cook They were stereotypical cartoons of blacks and were bad Locke didn't approve of it No museums would collect art from blacks These law didn't allow for blacks to still do most htings

Black African art is generally (these are all POSITIVE traits according to Locke)

Rigid, controlled, disciplined, sophisticated, fatalistic, abstract

Lois Mailou Jones, Mob Victim

She loved Van Go. Liked common people. This man was about to be lynched. This was a staged piece by a man she found on the street to show that the man is calm and not a bad person.

Grant Wood

Small town Iowa. Doesn't paint the Great Depression. Neat landscapes. Could be considered primitive. Makes his work look happy. Fond of landscapes. Shows form a birds eye view. They are not ordinary fields.

Stuart Davis, New York Waterfront

Smoke stakes "LR" name of factory White cloud shapes colors tell yo its USA

Jackson Pollock, Full Fathom Five

Some people think they are childish, not art, ugly. Others thin they have a primal, anti-rational, intuitive. Others see a harmony and beauty. They are random but still have a balance of color, linear. Many of the works he entitled with colors, numbers, or quotes. There are different shades of blue that represent the ocean, an anchor in the top right corner. Included are buttons, cigarette butts, coins, he took something dirty and ugly and made them into something pretty.

William Johnson, Mt. Calvary

Studied with George Lukes. Never became a part of the group. Wanted to make Christianity relevant to blacks. He made the thieves much darker in color to symbolize that they are guilty for the crimes. He gave them African themed clothing

Gouache

Take glue and mix with water to thin is and mix it with pigment and makes a paint. Like an egg shell paint they are beautiful in person and have a certain shimmer in the light.

Jackson Pollock, Going West

Taught by Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock would experiment away form the things he was taught. People were picking up and leaving due to the dust bowl.

Stuart Davis

Taught to love NY and the people working their. Loved GD type and images Loved Jazz Believed that abstract is more interesting than still life

Jacob Lawrence Series

The idea of a series to tell a story. The descriptions turned into the titles, he was worried people would understand his work otherwise. 60 paintings in the series. He did each color separately. Imagined they would be all around a room together.

Winold Reiss, Harlem at Night

Used black ink and color ink he loved to work with silhouette figures who are black and so are the black americans

Alexander Hogue, Drought-Stricken Area

Used cartoon to get attention. Doesn't fit into a specific group (Stuart Davis). All the circles are broken. Cow will die, vulture will eat him. Color of dust and soil everywhere. Dust storm in the horizon.

Thomas Hart Benton, Cradling Wheat

Using an older toll used to harvest the wheat. The man and the child have lots of energy. The tree and the cloud have lots of contour. He is nostalgic like Grant Wood He did not paint the dust bowl

Jacob Lawrence, Another cause [of black/white tension during the migration] was lynching..., from the Migration of the Negro series

Very moving but very sad. You need the caption to understand (she added the brackets for us). The empty noose and the person sitting on the rock is a person grieving who was just recently lynched. We don't know gender? color? Leaves it up to the viewer.

Jackson Pollock, She-Wolf

WWII bloody year of all years. She-Wolf was a myth, Romulus and Remus. In the painting: Body of some creature. Boys are boxy shapes. Has to do with all life being affected by war. Expressing hope (life can start over/ happen again).

Reconstruction

a period after the Civiil War, beginning in 1866 and ending in 1877, when the States that dad seceded form the Union were reorganized and brought back into the US

John Brown

hung for raiding a federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry. Trying to give guns to black slaves to help other slaves escape. 21 followers

Art Deco style

may have influenced Aaron Douglas Based on silhouettes

Nestalgic

remember the past in a nice pleasant way (fields had a hand plow now a machine)

Stuart Davis, Tenement

snowy night, good type, poor man walking the streets

Therapeutic

something good for you something that makes you feel better, a new life, marriage coming together.

Ancestral Arts

the art of black Africa Locke wanted African Americans to look to their roots

Automatic Writing or Automatism

A technique used in Freudian psychoanalysis. A person is hypnotized and just writes or draws what is on their subconscious.

Cecil Beaton, photo of a model posing in front of a Pollock painting, Vogue

Act of painting is human necessity. Don't want to be considered mass production. Not a necessity its a luxury. Sell art to eat and live. Pollock was not happy that is paintings were used in this way.

Palmer Hayden, Midsummer Night in Harlem

Allen Locke beleived that this was making fun of blacks. Hayden said this was just showing every day life. Many people were in poverty. People still look happy though. Didn't base this off of Cliff Dwellers

Jackson Pollock, Guardians of the Secret

Best example of painting that is large and hard to understand. Pollock saw a lot of American Indian art on reservations in Wyoming. Guardians are surrounding the paintings. The center no one can read its the secret they are protecting. The surface of the work within the guardians are a dense build up of shapes, lines, colors.

Aaron Douglas, Into Bondage

Bottom left: 2 hands of the women pointing towards a star Men going off to the ships Ships them selfs Star: sending a ray of light way of AD saying that something can and will change The man looking up seems to sense that

Joe Jones, American Farm

Compare with Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat after the Flood. Showed the dust bowl in a creative innovative way.

Stuart Davis, Artist Against War and Fascism

Davis was against facsist painting represented a facsist governtment and facsist brutality

Jacob Lawrence, You can buy bootleg whiskey for 25 cents a quart

Different kind of drinking. This is the prohibition, people couldn't buy or sell alcohol. People would make their own at home. Lawrence would deliver alcohol so he saw this first hand. The alcohol matched the color of all their clothes representing they are drunk.

Stylized figures

Doesn't conform to realistic appearances, means that if conforms to an artistic pattern or convention and ideals

Stuart Davis, Eggbeater 2-3

Feel a lot of corners Almost see different elements Trying to express the dynamic power of NY

Claude Clark, Slave Lynching

First saw lynching a long time ago, mostly hangings. Man is in a stock, in the shape of a cross. Mob came to watch the lynching.

Jackson Pollock, War

Focused on war. Terrible event throws animal, human in air. War was detrimental.

Black African art is generally (these are all NEGATIVE traits according to Locke)

Free, exuberant, emotional, sentimental, human

Renaissance

French word for "rebirth" of the black race after a time of slavery They never had a chance to show their art in the Urban culture

Stuart Davis, Eggbeater 4

Has energy and sharp line uses smaller lines to connect different shapes

Arshile Gorky, The Betrothal

He painted camoflas in WWII on the military vehicles. Some people see a lot of swelling, pods, eggs. There is supposed to be a horse. Celebrating marriage and the unity of opposites.

Jackson Pollock "Action Paintings"

Huge paintings on the floor and fling paint on to the floor. He would walk around and fling the paint with a reason. Interested in the idea of getting at your subconscious mind by spontaneously working with your media.

Jacob Lawrence, John Brown formed an organization among the colored people of the Adirondack woods to resist the capture of any fugitive slave

John Brown is arming colored people in up state NY woods which is cabiny. This would be where they would escape to hide. He gave them guns to help others escape. All the black men are hiding their faces so they are not seen or found.

Aaron Douglas, From slavery Through reconstruction

Left side a man picking cotton KKK shadowed in the back irding horses Middle a man holding election ballot pointing at the capital Man on right holding EP free from slavery musical instruments represent the African roots

Alexander Hogue, Mother Earth Laid Bare

Mother earth is fertile and gives life. Mother earth was striped of the green clothing. He nestled her into the land. The wind has almost decapitated her

Aaron Douglas, The Negro in an African Setting

NY public library commission him to make murals Uses concentric circles and arcs to show what is important Shows african roots and traditional head pieces Tribal figure is a power figure, for black power

Grant Wood, American Gothic

National Icon. No other painting has had such a large impact. "Painting that best depicts the mid-westerns of this time". Name came form an old farm house (most popular style). Gothic style windows. Meant to be a dad and is unmarried daughter. Used clothing from the time period of the house to reminisce it. Pitch fork was used it echoes his clothes and the house windows.

Grant Wood, Arbor Day

One room school house, unpaved roads, planting trees

Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA FAP)

Paid artists to paint murals for government buildings Davis didn't like that artist were forced to paint in a vernacular way

Jackson Pollock, Mural

Pollock explored the idea of large murals. No name. Loved Diego Rivera, Piccasso Guernica. Way to protect human aggression, war, violence. He wanted his art to be public. (Thats why his work was so large). He liked Guernica because it was a art of protest

Locke

Said that black art is good and if you use your roots you will gain the attention of the art critics

Aaron Douglas, Aspiration

Same star as "Into Bondage" now larger They have achieved everything they hoped Education, Jobs, Travel, Freedom

Jacob Lawrence, Tombstones

Saw Harlem as a big family. People would live above shops on the first floor. Shows life (baby) to death (tombstones). Doll sprawled out on the ground shows that children were suffering from the GD too. White doll for a black kid.

Alexander Hogue, Dust Bowl

The sun has been abandoned and the sun has a shadow over the land. The sun is resting at the bottom of the bowl. This was the time of the dust bowl.

Abstract Expressionism

There work shares certain themes, ideas. Human tragedy: war, death and the threat we face from death. The begins of human life: people come together to make something good. Unconscientious mind: rational, irrational states. Humanity as inherently good: all the things we do. These artist are not here to shock people, not crazy, not unskilled, not animals.

Alexander Hogue, Crucified Earth

This land has been severely damaged by the wind and the water. Abandoned farm in the background. Scarecrows were placed to scare away crows. Also reminds us of a crucifixion.

Jacob Lawrence, John Brown, a man who has a fanatical belief that he was chosen by God to overthrow black slavery

This was a public hanging that began the Civil War. People compared him to christ thats why the painting looks like a crucification. Not sure who is below the cross maybe a Mary representation.

Harmon Foundation

William Harman was a white man who was a real-estate agent He had a lot of money and decided to give his money to achievement by African Americans Founded all achievement form science of music

Fat

rolling hills, swelling, bursting trees.