Exam 3 ART 188

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptyc

-Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych is made of two silver canvases on which the artist silkscreened a photograph of Marilyn Monroe fifty times. At first glance, the work—which explicitly references a form of Christian painting (see below) in its title—invites us to worship the legendary icon, whose image Warhol plucked from popular culture and immortalized as art. -But as in all of Warhol's early paintings, this image is also a carefully crafted critique of both modern art and contemporary life. Not only pop culture: - With sustained looking, Warhol's works reveal that he was influenced not only by pop culture, but also by art history—and especially by the art that was then popular in New York. For example, in this painting, we can identify the hallmarks of Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. -As in the work of these older artists, the monumental scale of Marilyn Diptych (more than six feet by nine feet) demands our attention and announces the importance of the subject matter. -Furthermore, the seemingly careless handling of the paint and its "allover composition"—the even distribution of form and color across the entire canvas, such that the viewer's eyes wander without focusing on one spot—are each hallmarks of Abstract Expressionism, as exemplified by Jackson Pollock's drip paintings. -Yet Warhol references these painters only to undermine the supposed expressiveness of their gestures: like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work he admired, he uses photographic imagery, the silkscreen process and repetition to make art that is not about his interior life, but rather about the culture in which he lived. Emotional flatness: - Warhol takes as the subject of his painting an impersonal image. Though he was an award-winning illustrator, instead of making his own drawing of Monroe, he appropriates an image that already exists. Furthermore, the image is not some other artist's drawing, but a photograph made for mass reproduction. -We know the image is a photo, not only because of its verisimilitude, but also because of the heightened contrast between the lit and shadowed areas of her face, which we associate with a photographer's flash. -True to form, the actress looks at us seductively from under heavy-lidded eyes and with parted lips; but her expression is also a bit inscrutable, and the repetition remakes her face into an eerie, inanimate mask. Warhol's use of the silkscreen technique further "flattens" the star's face. By screening broad planes of unmodulated color, the artist removes the gradual shading that creates a sense of three-dimensional volume, and suspends the actress in an abstract void. Through these choices, Warhol transforms the literal flatness of the paper-thin publicity photo into an emotional "flatness," and the actress into a kind of automaton. In this way, the painting suggests that "Marilyn Monroe," a manufactured star with a made-up name, is merely a one-dimensional (sex) symbol—perhaps not the most appropriate object of our almost religious devotion. Repetitions - While Warhol's silkscreened repetitions flatten Monroe's identity, they also complicate his own identity as the artist of this work. The silkscreen process allowed Warhol (or his assistants) to reproduce the same image over and over again, using multiple colors. Once the screens are manufactured and the colors are chosen, the artist simply spreads inks evenly over the screens using a wide squeegee. Though there are differences from one face to the next, these appear to be the accidental byproducts of a quasi-mechanical process, rather than the product of the artist's judgment. Warhol's rote painting technique is echoed by the rigid composition of the work, a five-by-five grid of faces, repeated across the two halves of its surface. -These references to mechanical forms of reproduction further prove that for Warhol, painting is no longer an elevated medium distinct from popular culture. Ghostly Symmetry: - Aside from radically changing our notion of painting, Warhol's choices create a symmetry between the artist and his subject, who each seem to be less than fully human: the artist becomes a machine, just as the actress becomes a mask or a shell. -Her death haunts this painting: on the left, her purple, garishly made-up face resembles an embalmed corpse, while the lighter tones of some of the faces on the right make it seem like she is disappearing before our eyes. -Warhol once noted that through repeated exposure to an image, we become de-sensitized to it. In that case, by repeating Monroe's mask-like face, he not only drains away her life, but also ours as well, by deadening our emotional response to her death. -Then again, by making her face so strange and unfamiliar, he might also be trying to re-sensitize us to her image, so that we remember she isn't just a symbol, but a person whom we might pity. From the perspective of psychoanalytic theory, he may even be forcing us to relive, and therefore work through, the traumatic shock of her death. The painting is more than a mere celebration of Monroe's iconic status. It is an invitation to consider the consequences of the increasing role of mass media images in our everyday lives.

Impressionism, an introduction

-The artists we know today as Impressionists—Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley (and several others)—could not afford to wait for France to accept their work. They all had experienced rejection by the Salon jury in recent years and felt that waiting an entire year between exhibitions was too long. They needed to show their work and they wanted to sell it. -The artists pooled their money, rented a studio that belonged to the photographer Nadar, and set a date for their first collective exhibition. They called themselves the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Printmakers and their first show opened at about the same time as the annual Salon in May 1874. The Impressionists held eight exhibitions from 1874 through 1886. -The impressionists regarded Manet as their inspiration and leader in their spirit of revolution -The paintings of Neoclassical and Romantic artists had a finished appearance. The Impressionists' completed works looked like sketches, fast and preliminary "impressions" that artists would dash off to preserve an idea of what to paint more carefully at a later date. Normally, an artist's "impressions" were not meant to be sold, but were meant to be aids for the memory—to take these ideas back to the studio for the masterpiece on canvas. The critics thought it was absurd to sell paintings that looked like slap-dash impressions and to present these paintings as finished works. Landscape and contemporary life - Courbet, Manet and the Impressionists also challenged the Academy's category codes. The Academy deemed that only "history painting" was great painting. These young Realists and Impressionists questioned the long established hierarchy of subject matter. They believed that landscapes and genres scenes (scenes of contemporary life) were worthy and important. Light and color: - In their landscapes and genre scenes, the Impressionist tried to arrest a particular moment in time by pinpointing specific atmospheric conditions—light flickering on water, moving clouds, a burst of rain. Their technique tried to capture what they saw. They painted small commas of pure color one next to another. When viewer stood at a reasonable distance their eyes would see a mix of individual marks; colors that had blended optically. This method created more vibrant colors than colors mixed as physical paint on a palette. -An important aspect of the Impressionist painting was the appearance of quickly shifting light on the surface of forms and the representation changing atmospheric conditions. The Impressionists wanted to create an art that was modern by capturing the rapid pace of contemporary life and the fleeting conditions of light. They painted outdoors (en plein air) to capture the appearance of the light as it flickered and faded while they worked. Reception: - By the 1880s, the Impressionists accepted the name the critics gave them, though their reception in France did not improve quickly. Other artists, such as Mary Cassatt, recognized the value of the Impressionist movement and were invited to join. American and other non-French collectors purchased numerous works by the Impressionists. Today, a large share of Impressionist work remains outside French collections.

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty

Earth Art: - comes apart thru time - establishing geometric order in an ever-changing enviornment

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, "The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism" (1909)

Focus Questions: 1. How does Marinetti codify "Futurism"? : 2. What is Marinetti's argument for rejecting the past? 3. Can you find arguments suggestive of Fascism in this passage? (Marinetti later joined the Fascist movement.)

Donald Judd, Untitled

Minimalism: - machine made property to it; manufactured blocks - of their time: used brass but portrays it as sheet metal to show its made from a factory

"Fauvism, an introduction"

Distinctive brushwork: -Fauvism developed in France to become the first new artistic style of the 20th century. In contrast to the dark, vaguely disturbing nature of much fin-de-siècle, or turn-of-the-century, Symbolist art, the Fauves produced bright cheery landscapes and figure paintings, characterized by pure vivid color and bold distinctive brushwork. -One of several Expressionist movements to emerge in the early 20th century, Fauvism was short lived, and by 1910, artists in the group had diverged toward more individual interests. Nevertheless, Fauvism remains significant for it demonstrated modern art's ability to evoke intensely emotional reactions through radical visual form. -The best known Fauve artists include Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Maurice Vlaminck who pioneered its distinctive style. Their early works reveal the influence of Post-Impressionist artists, especially Neo-Impressionists like Paul Signac, whose interest in color's optical effects had led to a divisionist method of juxtaposing pure hues on canvas. The Fauves, however, lacked such scientific intent. They emphasized the expressive potential of color, employing it arbitrarily, not based on an object's natural appearance. -Matisse employed a pointillist style by applying paint in small dabs and dashes. Instead of the subtle blending of complementary colors typical of the Neo-Impressionist painter Seurat, for example, the combination of fiery oranges, yellows, greens and purple is almost overpowering in its vibrant impact. -Similarly, while paintings such as Vlaminck's The River Seine at Chatou (1906) appear to mimic the spontaneous, active brushwork of Impressionism, the Fauves adopted a painterly approach to enhance their work's emotional power, not to capture fleeting effects of color, light or atmosphere on their subjects. Their preference for landscapes, carefree figures and lighthearted subject matter reflects their desire to create an art that would appeal primarily to the viewers' senses. -Bright colors and undulating lines pull our eye gently through the idyllic scene, encouraging us to imagine feeling the warmth of the sun, the cool of the grass, the soft touch of a caress, and the passion of a kiss. -Like many modern artists, the Fauves also found inspiration in objects from Africa and other non-western cultures. Seen through a colonialist lens, the formal distinctions of African art reflected current notions of Primitivism-the belief that, lacking the corrupting influence of European civilization, non-western peoples were more in tune with the primal elements of nature.

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

From the irrational mind; dream-like

Georges Braque, Violin and Palette

Need to review for exam

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon)

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Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night

Post-Impressionism: -The curving, swirling lines of hills, mountains, and sky, the brilliantly contrasting blues and yellows, the large, flame-like cypress trees, and the thickly layered brushstrokes of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night are ingrained in the minds of many as an expression of the artist's turbulent state-of-mind. Van Gogh's canvas is indeed an exceptional work of art, not only in terms of its quality but also within the artist's oeuvre, since in comparison to favored subjects like irises, sunflowers, or wheat fields, night landscapes are rare. Nevertheless, it is surprising that The Starry Night has become so well known. Van Gogh mentioned it briefly in his letters as a simple "study of night" or "night effect." -

Surrealism, an introduction

Psychic freedom: - Historians typically introduce Surrealism as an offshoot of Dada. -Although they shared the group's interest in anarchy and revolution, they felt Dada lacked clear direction for political action. So in late 1922, this growing group of radicals left Dada, and began looking to the mind as a source of social liberation. Influenced by French psychology and the work of Sigmund Freud, they experimented with practices that allowed them to explore subconscious thought and identity and bypass restrictions placed on people by social convention. For example, societal norms mandate that suddenly screaming expletives at a group of strangers—unprovoked, is completely unacceptable. - Did weird shit and tried to get unfiltered emotions; scientific meaning behind it Envisioning Surrealism: automatic drawing and the exquisite corpse: - These artists drew on many stylistic sources including scientific journals, found objects, mass media, and non-western visual traditions. (Early Surrealist exhibitions tended to pair an artist's work with non-Western art objects). They also found inspiration in automatism and other activities designed to circumvent conscious intention. -Surrealist artist André Masson began creating automatic drawings, essentially applying the same unfettered, unplanned process used by Surrealist writers, but to create visual images. In Automatic Drawing (left), the hands, torsos, and genitalia seen within the mass of swirling lines suggest that, as the artist dives deeper into his own subconscious, recognizable forms appear on the page. -Another technique, the exquisite corpse, developed from a writing game the Surrealists created. First, a piece of paper is folded as many times as there are players. Each player takes one side of the folded sheet and, starting from the top, draws the head of a body, continuing the lines at the bottom of their fold to the other side of the fold, then handing that blank folded side to the next person to continue drawing the figure. Once everyone has drawn her or his "part" of the body, the last person unfolds the sheet to reveal a strange composite creature, made of unrelated forms that are now merged. A Surrealist Frankenstein's monster, of sorts. The Surrealist experience: -Today, we tend to think of Surrealism primarily as a visual arts movement, but the group's activity stemmed from much larger aspirations. By teaching how to circumvent restrictions that society imposed, the Surrealists saw themselves as agents of social change. The desire for revolution was such a central tenet that through much of the late 1920s, the Surrealists attempted to ally their cause with the French Communist party, seeking to be the artistic and cultural arm. Unsurprisingly, the incompatibility of the two groups prevented any alliance, but the Surrealists' effort speaks to their political goals. -They disrupted cultural norms with shocking actions, such as verbally assaulting priests in the street. They sought in their lives what Breton dubbed surreality, where one's internal reality merged with the external reality we all share. Such experiences, which could be represented by a painting, photograph, or sculpture, are the true core of Surrealism. The "Nonnational boundaries of Surrealism"*: Surrealists's map removes colonial powers to create a world dominated by cultures untouched by western influence and participants in the Communist experiment. It is part utopian vision, part promotion of their own agenda, and part homage to their influences. -It also reminds us that Surrealism was an international movement. Although it was founded in Paris, pockets of Surrealist activity emerged in Belgium, England, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, the United States, other parts of Latin America, and Japan. Although Surrealism's heyday was 1924 to the end of the 1940s, the group stayed active under Breton's efforts until his death in 1966. An important influence on later artists within Abstract Expressionism, Art Brut, and the Situationists, Surrealism continues to be relevant to art history today.

Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers

The Stonebreakers of 1849 (painted only one year after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote their influential pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto) the artist's concern for the plight of the poor is evident: - Courbet depicts figures who wear ripped and tattered clothing -the two stone breakers in Courbet's painting are set against a low hill of the sort common in the rural French town of Ornans, where the artist had been raised and continued to spend a much of his time. The hill reaches to the top of the canvas everywhere but the upper right corner, where a tiny patch of bright blue sky appears. The effect is to isolate these laborers, and to suggest that they are physically and economically trapped. -Courbet wants to show what is "real," and so he has depicted a man that seems too old and a boy that seems still too young for such back-breaking labor. This is not meant to be heroic: it is meant to be an accurate account of the abuse and deprivation that was a common feature of mid-century French rural life. And as with so many great works of art, there is a close affiliation between the narrative and the formal choices made by the painter, meaning elements such as brushwork, composition, line, and color. -Like the stones themselves, Courbet's brushwork is rough—more so than might be expected during the mid-nineteenth century. This suggests that the way the artist painted his canvas was in part a conscious rejection of the highly polished, refined Neoclassicist style that still dominated French art in 1848. -Perhaps most characteristic of Courbet's style is his refusal to focus on the parts of the image that would usually receive the most attention. Traditionally, an artist would spend the most time on the hands, faces, and foregrounds. Not Courbet. If you look carefully, you will notice that he attempts to be even-handed, attending to faces and rock equally. In these ways, The Stonebreakers seems to lack the basics of art (things like a composition that selects and organizes, aerial perspective and finish) and as a result, it feels more "real."

Pop Art

an American school of the 1950s that imitated the techniques of commercial art (as the soup cans of Andy Warhol) and the styles of popular culture and the mass media: -At first glance, Pop Art might seem to glorify popular culture by elevating soup cans, comic strips and hamburgers to the status of fine art on the walls of museums. But, then again, a second look may suggest a critique of the mass marketing practices and consumer culture that emerged in the United States after World War II Genesis of Pop: - In 1917, Marcel Duchamp asserted that any object—including his notorious example of a urinal—could be art, as long as the artist intended it as such. Artists of the 1950s built on this notion to challenge boundaries distinguishing art from real life, in disciplines of music and dance, as well as visual art. -These "Proto-pop" artists were, in part, reacting against the rigid critical structure and lofty philosophies surrounding Abstract Expressionism, the dominant art movement of the time; but their work also reflected the numerous social changes taking place around them. Post-War Consumer Culture Grabs Hold (and Never Lets Go): - The years following World War II saw enormous growth in the American economy, which, combined with innovations in technology and the media, spawned a consumer culture with more leisure time and expendable income than ever before. The manufacturing industry that had expanded during the war now began to mass-produce everything from hairspray and washing machines to shiny new convertibles, which advertisers claimed all would bring ultimate joy to their owners. Significantly, the development of television, as well as changes in print advertising, placed new emphasis on graphic images and recognizable brand logos—something that we now take for granted in our visually saturated world. -It was in this artistic and cultural context that Pop artists developed their distinctive style of the early 1960s. Characterized by clearly rendered images of popular subject matter, it seemed to assault the standards of modern painting, which had embraced abstraction as a reflection of universal truths and individual expression. Irony and Iron-Ons: - In contrast to the dripping paint and slashing brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism—and even of Proto-Pop art—Pop artists applied their paint to imitate the look of industrial printing techniques. -As the decade progressed, artists shifted away from painting towards the use of industrial techniques. Warhol began making silkscreens, before removing himself further from the process by having others do the actual printing in his studio, aptly named "The Factory." Similarly, Oldenburg abandoned his early installations and performances, to produce the large-scale sculptures of cake slices, lipsticks, and clothespins that he is best known for today.

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (In Sun)

- Painted the cathedral in different aspects of light in his studio across from the cathedral -trying to capture a moment in which it is fleeting; however he takes a very long time to complete these works - These works lack a sense of three-Demensionality -building is shaped and re-shaped by the way the light hits it -optical over the physical -There is truth to our experimental

Conceptual Art: An Introduction

-Conceptual art placed emphasis upon the concept or idea, and deemphasized the actual physical manifestation of the work. Thus an artist did not need manual skill to produce his work, and in fact could get away with not making anything at all. Rather than being a mere prank (as many dismissed it at the time), Marioni's work was a proposal for a new kind of art that deliberately disavowed art's traditional role as a showcase for the creative genius and technical abilities of the artist. - Refusing to work in any one medium, and especially hostile to the painting and sculptural traditions in Western art, Conceptual artists would broaden their approach to art-making to include just about any material: text, photography, found objects, and even the physical space of the gallery, as long as there was a conceptual dimension that emphasized a set of principles or process involved in producing a given artwork, rather than a finished product. - Art's new role, as proposed by Conceptual artists, was to convey information in the most straightforward, objective manner as possible and to engage the viewer within their immediate environment (instead of presenting a transcendent and imaginary world that accentuated the pleasures of looking). Minimalism as precursor - Conceptual art constituted a dramatic departure from traditional art-making, but it did not come out of nowhere. Minimalism, the movement that directly preceded Conceptual art and the style that dominated the 1960s, conceived of art not as something internally complete and detached from the everyday world (a view that had been strongly held by the Abstract Expressionists throughout the 1950s), but rather as something that related to both its site of display as well as the viewer's body -maintained a reliance on a physical object, which was, in many cases, a highly finished and aestheticized form that lent itself to being traded on the art market and shown on gallery circuit. By contrast, Conceptual works like Measurement Room and My First Car not only departed from the conventional media of painting and sculpture, but moreover, their unusual forms prevented them from being easily sold or collected.

Italian Futurism: An Introduction

-Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ringleader of this group (trying to re-establish Italy on the map since they were lagging behind other industrializing nations), called the movement Futurism. Its members sought to capture the idea of modernity, the sensations and aesthetics of speed, movement, and industrial development: A manifesto: -Futurism quickly grew into an international movement and its participants issued additional manifestos for nearly every type of art: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, photography, cinema—even clothing -Cubism had an immediate impact that can be seen in Boccioni's Materia of 1912 for example. Nevertheless, the Futurists declared their work to be completely original. Dynamism of Bodies in Motion: -Entranced by the idea of the "dynamic," the Futurists sought to represent an object's sensations, rhythms and movements in their images, poems and manifestos

Inventing Cubism

-Like Cézanne, Braque sought to undermine the illusion of depth by forcing the viewer to recognize the canvas not as a window but as it truly is, a vertical curtain that hangs before us. -By 1910, Cubism had matured into a complex system that is seemingly so esoteric that it appears to have rejected all esthetic concerns. -Cubism is an analysis of vision and of its representation and it is challenging. As a society we seem to believe that all art ought to be easily understandable or at least beautiful. That's the part I find confusing.

Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon)

-Oppenheim's Object was created at a moment when sculpted objects and assemblages had become prominent features of Surrealist art practice. -In 1937, British art critic Herbert Read emphasized that all Surrealist objects were representative of an idea and Salvador Dalí described some of them as "objects with symbolic function." In other words, how might an otherwise typical, functional object be modified so it represents something deeply personal and poetic? How might it, in Freudian terms, resonate as a sublimation of internal desire and aspiration? Such physical manifestations of our internal psyches were indicative of a surreality, or the point in which external and internal realities united Visceral Responses: - Oppenheim described her creations as "not an illustration of an idea, but the thing itself." Unlike Read and Dalí, Oppenheim stresses the physicality of Object, reinforcing the way we can readily imagine the feeling of the fur while drinking from the cup, and using the saucer and spoon. The frisson we experience when china is unexpectedly wrapped in fur is based on our familiarity with both, and the fur requires us to extend our sensory experiences to fully appreciate the work. Object insists we imagine what sipping warm tea from this cup feels like, how the bristles would feel upon our lips. With Oppenheim's elegant creation, how we understand those visceral memories, how we create metaphors and symbols out of this act of tactile extension, is entirely open to interpretation by each individual, which is, in many ways, the whole point of Surrealism itself.

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

-The Futurists wanted art to break from the Classical and Renaissance styles still dominant in Italy at the start of the Twentieth Century -For some, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space shows a figure striding into the future. Its undulating surfaces seem to transform before our eyes. About fifty years after Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution and about thirty years after Nietzsche described his "super-man," Boccioni sculpted a future-man: muscular, dynamic and driven. Motion as Form: -The face of the sculpture is abstracted into a cross, suggesting a helmet, an appropriate reference for the war-hungry Futurists. The figure doesn't appear to have arms, though wing-like forms seem to emerge the rippling back. However, these protrusions are not necessarily even a part of the figure itself, since Boccioni sculpted both the figure and its immediate environment. The air displaced by the figure's movement is rendered in forms no different than those of the actual body. See, for example, the flame-like shapes that begin at the calves and show the air swirling away from the body in motion. -Movement was a key element for Boccioni and the other Futurists, as the technology of transportation (cars, bicycles, and advanced trains) allowed people to experience ever greater speeds. The Futurist artists often depicted motorized vehicles and the perceptions they made possible—the blurry, fleeting, fragmentary sight created by this new Breaking his Own Rules: - Boccioni synthesized different positions into one dynamic figure. -Although Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is the most famous Futurist sculpture, there are some aspects of the work that do not fit neatly with the artists' declarations. For example, three years before he made this sculpture, Boccioni and the other Futurist artists had banned the painting of nudes for being hopelessly mired in tradition—and Unique Forms is a nude male, albeit one abstracted through exaggerated muscles and possibly shielding its head with a helmet. -Boccioni also breaks rules from his "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture" where he declared that Futurist sculpture should be made of strong, straight lines, "The straight line is the only way to achieve the primitive purity of a new architectonic structure of masses or sculptural zones." Clearly, he had not yet recognized the potential for the dynamic curves so powerfully expressed here. His manifesto also states that sculpture should not be made from a single material or from traditional materials such as marble or bronze.

"Abstract Expressionism, an introduction"

-The group of artists known as Abstract Expressionists emerged in the United States in the years following World War II. As the term suggests, their work was characterized by non-objective imagery that appeared emotionally charged with personal meaning. The artists, however, rejected these implications of the name. -They insisted their subjects were not "abstract," but rather primal images, deeply rooted in society's collective unconscious. Their paintings did not express mere emotion. They communicated universal truths about the human condition Art for a world in shambles: -Abstract Expressionists shared common artistic and intellectual interests. While not expressly political, most of the artists held strong convictions based on Marxist ideas of social and economic equality. -This European presence made clear the formal innovations of Cubism, as well as the psychological undertones and automatic painting techniques of Surrealism. Whereas Surrealism had found inspiration in the theories of Sigmund Freud, the Abstract Expressionists looked more to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his explanations of primitive archetypes that were a part of our collective human experience. They also gravitated toward Existentialist philosophy What does it look like? -Most Abstract Expressionist paintings are large scale, include non-objective imagery, lack a clear focal point, and show visible signs of the artist's working process, but these characteristics are not consistent in every example. Abstract Expressionism's legacy -Throughout the 1950s, Abstract Expressionism became the dominant influence on artists both in the United States and abroad. The U.S. government embraced its distinctive style as a reflection of American democracy, individualism, and cultural achievement, and actively promoted international exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism as a form of political propaganda during the years of the Cold War. However, many artists found it difficult to replicate the emotional authenticity implicit in the stylistic innovations of de Kooning and Pollock. Their work appeared studied and lacked the same vitality of the first generation pioneers. Others saw the metaphysical undertones of Abstract Expressionism at odds with a society increasingly concerned with a consumer mentality, fueled by economic success and proliferation of the mass media. Such reactions would inevitably lead to the emergence of Pop, Minimalism, and the rise of a range of new artistic developments in the mid 20th century.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

-bringing science to the elements of impressionist - imposing the science of vision/color through the use of impressionist style - take colors and put them next to each other; optical mixture technique - Able to create outdoor light (impressionist goal); thru his own style - sense of thoughtfulness to impressionism - Post-impressionism: artists taking a sense impressionism, but adding an element of their own - Timelessness/classicism, thoughtfulness to impressionism - Organized space, unlike norms of impressionism - Receding diagonals to create space - Controversial; took everything impressionist's knew and turned it on its head

Monet, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, Impressionism

-modern subject - lesure associated with the impressionist cause; this picture is luscious; drenched with steam/light/smoke; delights us/melts to our eye - impressionists were positioning themselves outside the academic requirements -human figure was once the centerpiece of academic art; now it is the same as the trains/architecture -Light and color/atmosphere; urban landscape -modern life depicted; artists didn't have to paint biblical contexts now.

An introduction to Minimalism

-refers specifically to a kind of reductive abstract art that emerged during the early 1960s. At the time, some critics preferred names like "ABC," "Boring," or "Literal" Art, and even "No-Art Nihilism," which they believed best summed up the literal presentation and lack of expressive content characterizing this new aesthetic. While scholars have recently argued for a broader definition of Minimalism that would include artists in number of disciplines, the term remains closely linked to sculpture of the period -Donald Judd's Untitled (1969) is characteristic in its use of spare geometric forms, repeated to create a unified whole that calls attention to its physical size in relationship to the viewer. Like most Minimalists, Judd used industrial materials and processes to manufacture his work, but his preference for color and shiny surfaces distinguished him among the artists who pioneered the style. LACK OF APPARENT MEANING lack of any apparent meaning. Like Pop Art, which emerged simultaneously, Minimalism presented ordinary subject matter in a literal way that lacked expressive features or metaphorical content; likewise, the use of commercial processes smacked of mass production and seemed to reject traditional expectations of skill and originality in art. - In these ways, both movements were, in part, a response to the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, which had held that painting conveys profound subjective meaning. However, whereas Pop artists depicted recognizable images from kitsch sources, the Minimalists exhibited their plywood boxes, florescent lights and concrete blocks directly on gallery floors, which seemed even more difficult to distinguish as "Art."

Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life)

A style never quite seen before; gives you a different feeling - Pastel tones do not match reality; expressing joy and happiness (think why we associate certain colors with certain moods) - Psychological effect; socially constructed to view certain colors and think of certain moods - disconnects the viewer from real life and bring them into the painting a little more, with warmer and softer tones lead the audience to a happy disposition - "The whole arrangement of my pictures is expressiveness... everything plays a part"

Abstract Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism is one of the most notorious movements in modern art because the paintings produced can often appear random and devoid of talent: -An artistic movement that focused on expressing emotion and feelings through abstract images and colors, lines and shapes. -comprising diverse styles and techniques and emphasizing especially an artist's liberty to convey attitudes and emotions through nontraditional and usually nonrepresentational means. -often characterized by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.

Futurism

An early-20th-century Italian art movement that championed war as a cleansing agent and that celebrated the speed and dynamism of modern technology: - Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city.

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs

Conceptual Art: -Embody an idea that remains constant despite changes to its elements. - highlight the relation between language, picture and referent. It problematizes relations between object, visual and verbal references (denotations) plus semantic fields of the term chosen for the verbal reference.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain

Dada: - Ready made/alchemy - transformation of ordinary materials -asking us to see the urinal in a new way; what is art; is craft required, is aesthetic experience required

Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910)

Focus Questions: 1. What are the two things you experience looking at an artist's palette, with its variety of colors? 2. What physical experiences does Kandinsky link to color? 3. What analogy does he use to express the effect of color on the "soul"? -If you let your eye stray over a palette of colors, you experience two things. In the first place you receive a purely physical effect, namely the eye itself is enchanted by the beauty and other qualities of color. You experience satisfaction and delight, like a gourmet savoring a delicacy. Or the eye is stimulated as the tongue is titillated by a spicy dish. But then it grows calm and cool like a finger after touching ice. These are physical sensations, limited in duration. They are superficial, too, and leave no lasting impression behind if the soul remains closed -And so we come to the second result of looking at colors: their psychological effect. They produce a correspondent spiritual vibration, and it is only as a step towards this spiritual vibration that the physical impression is of importance... -Generally speaking, color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.It is evident therefore that color harmony must rest ultimately on purposive playing upon the human soul.

Gino Severini, Armored Train in Action

Futurism: Painted in 1915, the year Italy entered World War I, this work reflects a Futurist declaration of the same year: " War is a motor for art. " Although poor health prevented Severini from enlisting in the military, he was obsessed by this first fully mechanized war. Living in Paris, he witnessed the city's bombardment, and from his studio he had an aerial view of the Denfert-Rochereau station and trains transporting soldiers, supplies, and weapons. -Here, five faceless figures crouch in a militarized locomotive car, aiming their rifles in unison. Smoke from gun and cannon fire eclipse the natural landscape. Severini celebrated war, which the Futurists believed could generate a new Italian identity—one of military and cultural power.

Édouard Manet, Olympia

Going off Titian's Venus; however he is stripping away the intellectuality of the way it was OG created and stripping away the sense of greek mythology - Rejecting academic art; challenging what was expected -Not idealized -looking right at us; pondering - We are not confronted by her beauty; instead we are confronted by her sexuality - Confronting 1860 Paris with its' own corruption; Olympia as a prostitute; receiving flowers from one of her mans -In so many of Manet's work; he rejects the clear articulation of represented space

Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, 1849

Manifesto of what he thinks painting should be: broke so many rules of the academy: - Ordinary figures, at an ordinary funeral, in an ordinary place - Wanted to reject the cliche works; anted to paint his own day @ his own time - Individualism: people having their own thoughts - Natural manner/authenticity: even a dog is shown - Painting what has actually happened; "Show me an angel and I'll paint one"

Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory

Playing with reality; visual brain teaser, mind trippy -Quiet tone; seems deserted -Hot; time has melted (clock) - surrealism; the natural world that we have so much faith perhaps may not be so deserving of all the faith it receives -retrieve the world of the dream; where the irrational mind came to life -what we see (our perception) is how are brain is wired -The safe ideas of objectivity are being blown out of the water; this art is confronting this aspect

Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire

Post-Impressionism: optical movement: the un-finished nature seems to be directly attacking the old accepted style of structured space - "High finish"; which was an accepted style of not seeing the brush strokes; which are so visible in this work - Here; it is a time where artists are composing their own personal vision as he stands in front of a landscape (why it looks like this) - Understanding his own visual language; and creating his own way investigating what it means to break contour -breaks all the previous rules about what was once accepted; instead of using atmospheric perspective to create a sense of form, he instead deliniated distance by choice of color; place by color - creates ambiguity by combining/overlapping color schemes

A beginner's guide to Realism

Realism and the painting of modern life: - The Royal Academy supported the age-old belief that art should be instructive, morally uplifting, refined, inspired by the classical tradition, a good reflection of the national culture, and, above all, about beauty. -The world was changing rapidly and some artists wanted their work to be about their contemporary environment—about themselves and their own perceptions of life. In short, they believed that the modern era deserved to have a modern art. -The Modern Era begins with the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. Clothing, food, heat, light and sanitation are a few of the basic areas that "modernized" the nineteenth century. Transportation was faster, getting things done got easier, shopping in the new department stores became an adventure, and people developed a sense of "leisure time"—thus the entertainment businesses grew. -In Paris, the city was transformed from a medieval warren of streets to a grand urban center with wide boulevards, parks, shopping districts and multi-class dwellings (so that the division of class might be from floor to floor—the rich on the lower floors and the poor on the upper floors in one building—instead by neighborhood). -Therefore, modern life was about social mixing, social mobility, frequent journeys from the city to the country and back, and a generally faster pace which has accelerated ever since. -How could paintings and sculptures about classical gods and biblical stories relate to a population enchanted with this progress? In the middle of the nineteenth century, the young artists decided that it couldn't and shouldn't. In 1863 the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire published an essay entitled "The Painter of Modern Life," which declared that the artist must be of his/her own time. Courbet: - Realism—"history painting" about real life. He believed that if he could not see something, he should not paint it. He also decided that his art should have a social consciousness that would awaken the self-involved Parisian to contemporary concerns: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Vassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (Second Version)

Stimulate a new form of sensation; something a picture has never accomplished before - Nothing makes literal sense, as there is no distinct hidden works within; instead the main point is to create an act of synesthesia: If you let your eye stray over a palette of colors, you experience two things. In the first place you receive a purely physical effect, namely the eye itself is enchanted by the beauty and other qualities of color. You experience satisfaction and delight, like a gourmet savoring a delicacy. Or the eye is stimulated as the tongue is titillated by a spicy dish. But then it grows calm and cool like a finger after touching ice. These are physical sensations, limited in duration. They are superficial, too, and leave no lasting impression behind if the soul remains closed. And so we come to the second result of looking at colors: their psychological effect. They produce a correspondent spiritual vibration, and it is only as a step towards this spiritual vibration that the physical impression is of importance.... Generally speaking, color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.

Roy Lichtenstein, Oh Jeff

is among the most famous of his early romance comic derivative works from the period when he was adapting cartoons and advertisements into his style via Ben-Day dots. The work is said to depict the classic romance-comic story line of temporary adversity.[5] Lichtenstein's sketch for this was done in graphite and colored pencils on paper

Édouard Manet, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass)

non-idealized figures - no-one is truly interacting with each other -Purposeful errors in composition -Refusal to tell the story; teasing the audience; no-narrative is visible -challenge to the authorities to those in charge; It is ''I" who determines what to paint. This will have a great impact on realism art going forward