The Isms

Mont Sainte-Victoire. Paul Cézanne. 1902-1904 C.E. Oil on canvas.

-Cubism Paul Cezanne's interest in the geometric substructures of nature laid the foundation for Cubism, Fauvism, and Expressionism in the early 20th century. Cézanne, regarded as the father of modern art, simplified and flattened landscapes into geometric shapes, planes, and colors and rejected long-established rules. Mont Sainte-Victoire is one of several landscapes Cézanne painted from his brother-in-law's estate in the South of France. The landscape is portrayed in a fractioned manner with more concentrated, abrupt changes, and the proportions of objects are varied without a strict perspective. The shift of color represents Cézanne's rejection of Impressionism. Cezanne's goal was to portray the lasting structure behind the fleeting image seen by the eye instead of the actual photographic truth of the subject. The abrupt color change in the background of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon reflects Cézanne's influence on Picasso and Cubism.

Aphrodite of Knidos. and Venus of Urbino. Titian. c. 1538 C.E. Oil on canvas.

-Females were portrayed as passive, sensualized objects created for the pleasure of men, known as "the male gaze"—artworks featuring women were commissioned by men, for the viewing of men. -Aphrodite of Knidos from the late Classical period portrays Aphrodite at a specific moment when she was bathing, but she was shielding herself from view while looking directly at the viewer. The same gaze is captured in Titian's Venus of Urbino. The woman gazes timidly at the viewer while lying nude and partially covering herself, aware of being observed. Titian's portrayal of her nudity was considered acceptable because it was perceived in a Neoclassical context.

The Coiffure. Mary Cassatt. 1890-1891 C.E. Drypoint and aquatint on laid paper.

-In contrast to Venus of Urbino, La Grand Odalisque, Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, and Olympia, Mary Cassatt's The Coiffure portrays the female nude in a unique moment in which the subject is unaware she is being watched. Cassatt, the only American Impressionist, chose to portray the woman in a fashion similar to Japanese woodblock prints, voyeuristic but not erotic. While she is nude, the details of her body are vague and not sexualized, lacking interaction with the viewer and the confrontational gaze represented in previous female portrayals. Cassat incorporates striped fabric, pattern, and areas of flat color to create harmony in the piece and accents the lines of the body, showing influence from Japanese art.

Luncheon on the Grass (or, Déjeuner sur l'Herbe). Édouard Manet. 1863 C.E. Oil on canvas, 7' × 8' 10". and Olympia. Édouard Manet. 1863 C.E. Oil on canvas.

-Inspired by Renaissance nudes, the Impressionist painter Manet portrayed the same, knowledgeable look in Déjeuner sur l'Herbe and Olympia. A photo-like "flashbulb" effect with extreme areas of light and dark in Déjeuner sur l'Herbe departs from traditional chiaroscuro. The nude woman reflects the bright light, emphasizing her intentional eye contact. Although she is nude and outside, she recognizes that she is being viewed. Olympia is a portrayal of a young white prostitute reclining on a bed while her maid presents her with a bouquet of flowers from a client. Although portrayals of prostitutes were not unheard of, her look was considered defiant and shameless and shocked both the public and critics. The look of the subject draws the viewer in, just as in Déjeuner sur l'Herbe.

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as the Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Katsushika Hokusai. 1830-1833 C.E. Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper. and The Starry Night. Vincent van Gogh. 1889 C.E. Oil on canvas.

-Mount Fuji is portrayed as a small, insignificant, snow-capped peak in the background. -A great wave rises up, about to crash down on a boat filled with hapless fishermen -Hokusai uses scale to suggest that the wave is greater in size than a mountain and is much closer to the view, suggesting movement and danger. -The careful use of color contrasts the mountain with the wave, giving the impression that they are both natural and permanent. While the mountain is firm and doesn't move, the wave will crash and recede, but the momentum will produced a new wave. -The low mountains to the right are dwarfed beneath the vast expanse of night sky. -Swirls of colors permeate the skies, portraying the stars and moon. -Van Gogh uses scale to suggest that the cypress trees, a symbol for death, in the foreground are larger than the mountains and city that are behind, rivaling the size of the moon and stars. -The yellow swirls in the sky and few lit windows in the buildings are evidence of energy and life, a stark contrast to the dark, dead appearance of the cypress trees.

La Grande Odalisque. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. 1814 C.E. Oil on canvas.

-While Jean-Dominique Ingres' La Grand Odalisque strays from idealism with the elongated body and limbs, her small head is similar to that portrayed in Raphael's works. The inclusion of the peacock feather duster and rich Oriental fabrics surrounding the nude woman aligns with the Romanticist infatuation with the exotic. This combination of styles caused confusion when La Grand Odalisque was first displayed, drawing criticism and deeming Ingres as a rebel in form and content of his works. Although her body is turned the opposite direction, she turns her head, confronting her viewer with the acknowledging gaze similar to Titian's Venus of Urbino.

House in New Castle County. Delaware, U.S. Robert Venturi, John Rauch, and Denise Scott Brown (architects). 1978-1983 C.E. Wood frame and stucco.

A fundamental principle of modernism that a building's form must arise directly and logically from its function and structure. Robert Venturi, an American architect who coauthored Learning from Las Vegas, asserted that form should be separate from function and structure, contradicting that principle. Venturi rejected the abstract qualities of the International Style by incorporating elements from ordinary sources into his designs. Instead of Mies van der Rohe's philosophy of "less is more," Venturi clung to the philosophy of "less is a bore." This is exemplified in House in New Castle County. The exterior is a white, wood panel siding with a brown, shingled roof. The front is broken by a series of flat, geometrically shaped columns topped with a hallow arch in front of the roof gable. Each of these ornamental elements does not have a function. This decorative arch is also found on the opposite side of the home. The faces of the building are broken up by long series of windows. The interior also has decorative arches painted in aqua, white, and peach in the vaulted ceiling, reflecting Venturi's philosophy of "less is a bore."

Sleeping Gypsy. Henri Rousseau. 1897 C.E. Oil on canvas.

A self-taught artist, with no training in perspective, modeling, or the use of color, Rousseau worked intuitively to create a world of his own that was smooth, without surface texture, dominated by bold shapes and colors and composed through its own spatial logic. The gypsy, with flute and mandolin, in Sleeping Gypsy is sleeping in a desert landscape under a full moon. Rousseau's ambiguous use of rising perspective makes it impossible to know if the lion is at a distance from or stalking just behind the gypsy. Because of this, it is unclear whether the lion is a threat to the vulnerable traveler or represents the gypsy's dream world. Rousseau's symbols, like the lion or the vase in the lower right-hand corner, are not tied with known cultural iconography. This is typical of Symbolist artists, who preferred to use personal, often enigmatic symbolism in their art, conveying depth of meaning without using traditional representations. Symbolist artists include Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, James Ensor, Gustave Moreau, Edvard Munch, Odilon Redon, and Henri Rousseau.

One: Number 31. Jackson Pollock. 1950 C.E. Oil and enamel on canvas.

Abstract Expressionism initially referred to work that was abstract and expressed the feelings of the artist. Many early practitioners were influenced by the psychoanalytic approach of Carl Jung and created works designed to present the collective unconscious. Their abstraction of forms would contribute to the universal appeal of what was expressed. Automatist techniques associated with Surrealism were also used to free the unconscious mind and creative processes. Clement Greenberg, a strong advocate of formalism, was an important art critic associated with Abstract Expressionism. He believed artists should pursue each medium in its purity. Greenberg coined the late Modernist concept of flatness. Jackson Pollock underwent psychoanalysis, and Jungian archetypes played a large role in his earlier, more objective paintings. Pollock was instrumental in establishing Modern art in America through the sale of his work Autumn to the Metropolitan Museum. This was significant as it established America as a prominent contributor to the art world. By 1950, Pollock had developed his own style of painting characterized by laying huge canvases on the ground and energetically and expressively applying drips and splashes of color, as exemplified in Number I. Rather than draw the eye to one focal point, the paintings create a hypnotic pulsing rhythm over the whole of the canvas, emulating the concept of movement and enabling the viewer to experience it. Pollock's works have been theorized to connect with Native American sand paintings, which are temporary and function ritualistically. Pollock's work represented the importance of the creative process rather than product, known as gestural abstraction. The improvisational nature of Pollock's work and his reliance on the subconscious parallel Surrealism. The art critic Harold Rosenberg formulated the term action painting in 1952 to describe an approach like Pollock's, which Rosenberg believed emphasized the canvas primarily as the scene of action. Abstract Expressionist artists include Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollack, and Mark Rothko.

Matisse: Fauvist Paintings: Goldfish, Woman with hat, etc.

According to Freud's theories of psychoanalysis, subconscious desires can be symbolized in art. Henri Matisse was a dominant figure of the Fauve group, painters who used specific colors to have effects on the emotions. Color was the primary conveyor of meaning. The deep orange color of the subjects of Goldfish represents their intent as the focal point: they stand out among the greens, blues, pinks, and yellows in the background. The goal is expression and rejection of realism. Intuition, expressive color, brushwork, and rhythmic pattern reveal the serenity of the goldfish and the surrounding plants, which further express the unconscious desire for peace and reflection. Matisse painted several Goldfish-themed artworks after his visit to Tangier, Morocco, likely inspired by the bold contrasts of colors and the use of goldfish as reflection aids in East Asian gardens. His other works including Woman with the Hat, Portrait of L.N. Delekorskaya, and Vista de Collioure also explore the emotional qualities of color, not the actual appearance of the subject.

Post-impressionism

After 1885, artists looked beyond Impressionist ideals to represent the world around them. Post-Impressionism signaled an increase in experimentation without rejecting Impressionistic tendencies. Some artists tried new techniques, while others delved into fantasy. Some were formalistic, others expressionistic. Despite their diversity, all were emotionally intense and adept at manipulating color.

Nature Symbolized no. 2. Arthur G. Dove. 1911 C.E. Pastel on paper.

Alfred Stieglitz was a leading exponent of modern photography and a campaigner of avant-garde art. He exhibited the work of European artists like Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and then championed the work of young American painters. He encouraged young artists to travel abroad; he exhibited and sold their work from his gallery, and sometimes provided a monthly stipend to individuals whose work was not selling to allow them to continue with their art. These artists became the Stieglitz Circle. One of the Steiglitz Circle, Arthur Dove distilled sensual experience into shapes, patterns, and complex color harmonies. Dove's inspiration was nature; he was fascinated with natural cycles of growth and renewal and sought to represent these harmonies in his work. He lived on the shore of Long Island, New York, and the ocean tides, weather patterns, and seasonal cycles influenced his local landscapes, which he reduced to essential forms and expressive lines. Dove referred to his quest for symbolic color effect as "a condition of light." Dove's anthropomorphizing of nature compares to what Franz Marc called his own "animalizing of art." Nature Symbolized no. 2 represents fields, vegetation, and sky without literally portraying them on the canvas. Dove sought to capture the essence of nature. Stieglitz admired painters whose art expressed the quality of spirituality defined by the Russian painter Kandinsky, who looked to music and other sensory experiences to articulate his compositions. Dove's paintings paralleled Kandinsky's experiments with abstraction. Abstraction artists include Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe, and Max Weber.

The Steerage. Alfred Stieglitz. 1907 C.E. Photograph.

Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer considered the father of modern photography, was a potent force in the emergence of art photography in the United States and opened the first galleries in New York to exclusively market Modernist works and photographs. He began making photographs in 1881 while studying chemistry at a German university. After his return to New York, he joined a company specializing in the mechanical aspects of printing photographs for books and magazines. Dedicated to the idea that photographs of ordinary subjects could have "a permanent value" as art, he pushed the limits of technology, making pictures in limited light and in the cold wet of a sleet storm. Stieglitz soon became a partisan of straight photography and rejected Pictorialist manipulations and sentimentality in favor of a more abstract outlook. The subject of The Steerage is the swarm of immigrants who have been refused at Ellis Island and are returning to Europe. In 1942 C.E, Stieglitz recalled that he was struck by the patterns he saw: "A round straw hat, the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right, the white drawbridge with its railings made of circular chains—white suspenders crossing on the back of a man in the steerage below, round shapes of iron machinery, a mast cutting into the sky, making a triangular shape." In other words, Stieglitz saw a perfect compositional structure in a regular scene.

Spiral Jetty. Great Salt Lake, Utah, U.S. Robert Smithson. 1970 C.E. Earthwork: mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, and water coil.

American-born Robert Smithson was a pioneer of Environmental art, or earthworks. Earthworks is a style of art in which the environment and the art are explicitly linked. Environmental artists manipulated earth, rock, and other organic material to alter the landscape, creating art that is sometimes permanent and sometimes deliberately impermanent. Spiral Jetty is a monumental 1,500-foot spiral of mud, black basalt rock, and salt jutting counterclockwise into in a remote section of Great Salt Lake, Utah. Smithson built the work when the red translucent water of Great Salt Lake was unusually low, and while it can still be seen, it has been partially submerged for years. The remote location emphasized the environment as the subject and the specific intention of the viewer to observe the work. The environmental changes that Spiral Jetty experiences, and the ways it changes over time, are an intended evolution of the work itself. Smithson died in 1973 while surveying a site for another work. The use and manipulation of the environment to convey meaning is a common theme in Modern art. In Spiral Jetty, Smithson's use of the landscape as the material to portray the earth itself challenges traditional concepts of human interaction with the landscape. While man can manipulate the earth and form it in his preferred image, the domination of the natural environment over the earthwork represents nature's control. Now partially submerged, the Spiral Jetty is a testament to the ultimate dominion and brutality of nature.

Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht. Käthe Kollwitz. 1919-1920 C.E. Woodcut.

An independent German Expressionist, Käthe Kollwitz portrayed social injustices in her artworks in a naturalistic manner. Her woodcut Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht portrays a Working-Class leader in the struggle for power in the developing Weimar Republic who had been murdered. Kollwitz desired to create art that the common person could identify with, so she chose not to focus on the reality and gruesomeness of death, but on the emotion of the mourners. She depicted the reality of the despair of the widow and other mourners, members of the working class that Liebknecht represented. The use of woodcut is significant as multiple copies of the work could be made, allowing accessibility to a larger audience. This once again emphasizes Kollwitz's desire to create art for the common person.

Street, Berlin. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1913 C.E. Oil on canvas. and Self-Portrait as a Soldier. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1915 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Art is a commentary on social issues. Kirchner was always interested in art, yet he started as an architectural student in Dresden, Germany, in 1901 C.E. He took two semesters off to study painting in Munich, and he was especially impressed by the work of Dürer and Rembrandt. This led him to practice woodcuts, a discipline that taught him how to simplify art. Kirchner moved to Berlin before World War I and found contemporary issues such as prostitution and poverty on the city streets. He created scenes of urban Berlin, focusing on female prostitutes. His jagged brushwork, elongated figures, and vibrant color create a dazzling city atmosphere and signify the primal nature of the city. Like Picasso, Kirchner was intrigued by the art of Africa and Oceania. Street, Berlin of Kirchner's urban series depicts a man with a cane behind his back, looking in a shop window, perhaps a reflection in the window; the men's black and navy blue suits represent danger. The two elegantly dressed women are prostitutes. Lines throughout the composition are sharp and angular, adding to the intensity of the scene and creating a sense of disorientation for the viewer. Kirchner also used jagged brushwork, elongated figures, and vibrant color along with sharp and angular lines in Self-Portrait as a Soldier to emphasize his fear and commentary on the injustice of war.

The Kiss. Auguste Rodin. 1889 C.E. Marble.

Auguste Rodin's The Kiss depicts two characters from Dante's Divine Comedy, Paolo and Francesca, who were murdered by Francesca's husband as they exchanged their first kiss. The sculpture was commissioned by the French state in 1888, and the figures are classically formed and proportioned. The passion and romance portrayed is not overly sexual but is symbolic of the tragedy in the death of the two lovers. This is in conjunction with the natural and realistic portrayal of the figures. In contrast to Klimt's hopeful portrayal, the viewer witnesses a transitory moment in Rodin's sculpture, and while it is a moment of passion and romance, it is also one of sadness as it is realized that the lovers will never move beyond this point.

Fauvism

Building on the legacy of Post-Impressionist artists, Fauvists explored the different effects colors can have on emotions. Their works included rich surface textures, lively linear patterns, and bold colors. Henri Matisse believed color could play a primary role in conveying meaning.

Boulevard du Temple. Louis Daguerre. 1838 C.E.

Calotypes William Henry Fox Talbot created images on paper he named "photogenic drawings" at the same time Daguerre captured reflections of the world on his silvered plates. When word of Daguerre's work arrived in England, in February 1839, Talbot quickly publicized his own method. Daguerreotypes fired the public's imagination and attracted business investment. The daguerreotype, while technically demanding to produce, resulted directly in an image. Talbot's calotype negatives required further work to produce the final, positive picture. Talbot's images were soft in effect, fuzzy compared to the finely detailed daguerreotypes.

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks. Claes Oldenburg. 1969-1974 C.E. Cor-Ten steel, steel, aluminum, and cast resin; painted with polyurethane enamel.

Claes Oldenburg used sculpture, especially his mammoth outdoor sculptures, as a commentary on American consumer culture. Commissioned by a group of graduate students at Yale School of Architecture, the Colossal Keepsake Corporation, the Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks was Oldenburg's first monumental public sculpture. The sculpture displays Oldenburg's characteristic humor, combining sexual and militaristic imagery with the lipstick symbolizing a phallus and the metal tracks symbolizing a military tank. The sculpture was intended to be a platform for speakers and protestors, with the sexual allegory further underscored by the lipstick tip needing to be inflated. The sexual and militaristic imagery are significant as the sculpture was installed on a site where many Vietnam War protests took place, and the combination of the female-related lipstick with the phallic imagery expresses internal conflict and anti-war sentiments.

Impression: Sunrise. Claude Monet. 1872 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Claude Monet's Impression: Sunrise is the piece that an art critic used in 1874 to mock and ultimately name the Impressionist movement. For this reason, it is considered the first piece of the new period. Monet painted Impression: Sunrise looking out a window overlooking a harbor in Le Havre, his hometown. He painted it rapidly, as a study of the orange sun rising over the blue morning fog. Impressionist artists include Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and James Whistler.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Pablo Picasso. 1907. Oil on canvas.

Cubists expounded the Expressionist's departure from realist representation and perspective. Pablo Picasso, who founded Cubism with Georges Braque, was admitted to the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts when he was 14, although attendance was normally reserved for those 20 and over. Despite this, Picasso felt the classes were inferior to the training his father, an artist and Picasso's first drawing and painting instructor, offered. Picasso went through many stylistic changes during his career. He considered stylistic change a revolution to avoid stagnation. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon portrays women from Barcelona's red-light district, representing Picasso's continued reduction of and departure from reality that began with Expressionism. Multiple viewpoints and jagged discontinuous planes indicate a sense of isolation and fear that is felt among these intimidating women and the general uneasiness of the brothel environment. With influence from African masks and the art of Oceania and Iberia, Picasso fully breaks from Realism. Cubist artists include Aleksandr Archipenko, Georges Braque, Robert Delaunay, Julio González, and Pablo Picasso. Cubism was impacted by, an inclusion of, and a reaction to previous artistic techniques and styles. Post-Impressionism and Abstraction led to disjointed, angular, and geometric representation of forms as exemplified in Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany. Hannah Hoch. 1919 C.E. Photomontage.

Dada was a loosely organized movement of poets and artists whose rejection of traditional conformist culture and conventional artistic expression reflected their disillusionment over the outbreak of World War I. The name "Dada" itself was chosen randomly from a dictionary and could mean a number of things in many languages. It was intended to be nonsensical; playfully childlike, because the seriousness of adults had led only to war in their view; and individually defined or determined, rejecting definitive meaning. Dada celebrated chance rather than choice and rejected the notion that art should be separate from life. Like many of the early Dada movement, Hannah Hoch employed the technique of photomontage to assemble nonsensical juxtapositions of reused images from magazines and newspapers in a way that criticized contemporary political and social institutions. Hoch's Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany uses photomontage to replicate the chaos and inconsistency of German culture. In this montage: the head of Weimar Republic President Friedrich Ebert is placed on the body of a topless dancer writer and art critic Theodore Däubler's head is placed on a baby's body the popular German actress Niddi Impekoven joins Dadaist artist John Heartfield in the bathtub Hoch's political commentary also critiqued gender roles of the period. Consider the fact that the kitchen knife of the title, an implement from a traditionally feminine realm, is a dangerous element, and that the period is characterized as a "beer-belly cultural epoch," suggesting the image of the self-satisfied man whose wife is at work in this kitchen. While the period was relatively progressive for women, Hoch's image represents the persistence of sexist attitudes. Dada artists include Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Hoch, and Kurt Schwitters.

Still Life in Studio. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. 1837 C.E. Photograph.

Daguerreotypes were made on silver plates coated with a light-sensitive layer of silver iodide. After an exposure lasting several minutes, an hour, or more, mercury vapors were used to "develop out" the image. This time-consuming process led early photographers to turn their cameras toward still-life arrangements, like Still Life in Studio, and landscapes more often than people, as the long exposure time was not conducive to natural human movement. Daguerreotypes were unique images. They could not be replicated like later images printed from negatives, so they were valued as artistic objects and documents. They were typically housed in lined cases that protected the fragile surface of the plate and abated the deleterious effects of light.

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park. Diego Rivera. 1947-1948 C.E. Fresco.

Diego Rivera was born to a wealthy Mexican family descended from Spanish nobility and European Jews who had converted to Catholicism. He showed artistic promise at an early age, entering art school in Mexico City at age 10. He moved to Europe in 1907, living first in Madrid and then in Paris before traveling throughout Italy to view and study European art. While in Paris, he became familiar with the vivid colors of Paul Cézanne, whom he regarded as his foremost influence. In Italy, he viewed the frescoes of Giotto, which inspired him to become a muralist. He was a leading artist in Mexico by the time he returned, in 1921, to join a government-sponsored mural program. Rivera sought to create a national Mexican style focusing on Mexico's history that would be popular and available to all classes. A Marxist, Rivera supported the social and political role of art in the lives of the lower and middle classes. He felt that the higher classes used art to exercise domination over the lower classes. The mural portrays Rivera and his contemporaries, including Frida Kahlo, his third wife. They had a tumultuous relationship, and here she is in traditional Mexican dress, holding the Yin-Yang, a Chinese symbol of duality, with her other hand resting on a young Rivera's shoulder. The Chinese symbol is significant as Kahlo is of German, Jewish, and Mexican descent, and her hand resting on River's shoulder is symbolic of her protection and guidance as he proceeds in life. Rivera depicted Calvera Catrina who is a symbol of the middle class and resembles the Mexica goddess Coatlicue, wearing her symbolic serpent. Calvera Catrina is linking arms with Jose Guadalupe Posada, who was one of Rivera's artistic influences, specifically in his narrative style. The image of Calvera Catrina was created as a parody of vanity by Posada and here represents the complacency and lack of values of the middle class in Mexico before the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

The Horse in Motion. | Eadweard Muybridge. 1878 C.E. Photograph.

Eadweard Muybridge photographs explained how living things, from horses and birds to humans, actually moved. Former California governor Leland Stanford wagered a friend that a galloping horse, at some point, had all four legs off the ground. In painting, the conventional pose for a galloping horse resembled a rocking horse—both front legs extended forward and both hind legs extended back. Stanford asked his good friend Eadweard Muybridge, a respected photographer on the West Coast, to devise a way to track a horse's precise movements. Stanford won his bet in 1872 C.E., although the photographs also proved that the "rocking horse" pose favored by painters was an unrealistic position. In 1877 C.E., Muybridge continued with this project, initially with the financial backing of Leland Stanford. Horses moved in front of a backdrop on which precisely calibrated lines had been painted. As they did so, they tripped electrically operated shutters on 12 cameras. The shutter speed was an unprecedented one one-thousandth of a second. Muybridge published The Horse in Motion, a set of six views of a horse cantering and trotting. This led to further research, and in 1887 C.E., Muybridge published the three-volume work Animal Locomotion and Prospectus and Catalogue of Plates. Muybridge's photographs would be influential to generations of fine-art photographers, as well as to many painters.

Villa Savoye. Poissy-sur-Seine, France. Le Corbusier (architect). 1929 C.E. Steel and reinforced concrete.

Experimentation was not limited to art. The architectural experimentation in the 1920s of Swiss architect Charles-Édouard, better known by the name he chose for himself, Le Corbusier, and others led to the proliferation of buildings in a style that transcended borders and was known as the International Style. Using International Style, Le Corbusier constructed the Villa Savoye just outside Paris as a country retreat for the Savoye family. The villa sits at the center of a large plot of land cleared of trees and shrubs, with windows on all sides and a roof terrace that provides extensive views of the surrounding landscape. This was done with the intention of providing a calm, serene environment for the inhabitants to interact with in communion and peace, while causing as little disturbance as possible to the existing natural surroundings. The villa has features typical of Le Corbusier's work, known as his Five Points, which are his basic tenants for architectural aesthetic: It is elevated on freestanding posts. It uses a flat roof for a terrace. Its walls are used to divide the interior and for privacy on the exterior, but never for support. It has ribbon windows, windows that run the length of a wall. It has façades that serve only as a skin of the wall and windows. In the shape of a cube, the villa is made of steel and ferroconcrete and has only a partially enclosed ground floor. It was intended as a representation of a new vision in the form of functional architecture. The exterior was initially painted dark green, cream, rose, and blue-an analogy for the colors in the machine-inspired Purist style painting of Le Corbusier. The interior is open space with thin columns supporting the main living floor and roof garden area. Without a defined entrance, visitors must walk around and through the house to comprehend its layout, which includes several changes of direction and spiral staircases. As a person moves through the spaces, they experience the harmony between the architectural forms and the play of light.

Fountain (second version). Marcel Duchamp. 1950 C.E. (original 1917). Readymade glazed sanitary china with black paint.

French/American Marcel Duchamp was never an official member of the Dada movement, but his work reflects the "anti-art" philosophy that many of Dada's adherents espoused and would impact the French Dadaists for the next generation. Dada was characterized by the use of found objects. Duchamp felt that the viewer was as important as the artist was, and that it was perception and not creation that actually makes something "art." He coined the term readymade to describe the act of taking objects not ordinarily identified as art and assigning them the value of art objects. Duchamp's most famous challenge to the definition of art was his 1917 submission of a urinal, which he signed as "R. Mutt" and titled Fountain, to the Society of Independent Artists in New York. The Society held a nonjuried show where any artist was allowed to enter any work as long as they paid a $6 entry fee. Duchamp, who served on the Society's board, tested this policy by entering Fountain under one of his pseudonyms (derived from the popular comic strip Mutt and Jeff and Mott Works, the maker of the urinal, with the initial "R" standing for "readymade"). The piece was accepted but displayed in a dark corner behind a curtain, hidden from view; Duchamp resigned from the Society's board after the show. In Duchamp's critical response, the artist argued that it was "Mr. Mutt's" choice that made the urinal a work of art by adding a new conceptual dimension to the work; it did not matter that he did not create the piece using his own hands-he chose it.

Portrait of Charles Baudelaire. Nadar (Felix Tournachon). 1862 C.E. Lithograph.

Gaspard Félix Tournachon (1820-1910), who called himself Nadar, used glass negatives and albumen printing paper to record finer detail and a wider range of light and shadow than Talbot's calotype process. This wet-plate technology became the universal way of making negatives until 1880 C.E. The plates had to be prepared and processed on the spot, so working outdoors meant taking along a portable darkroom. Until the development of digital photography at the end of the 20th century, the negative/positive process set photography on the road it would follow. Nadar became famous for his wet-plate photographic portraits, so much so that he became the subject of a lithograph that provides commentary about the struggle of photography to be recognized as a fine art in response to an 1862 court decision acknowledging photographs as artworks.

The Portuguese. Georges Braque. 1911 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Georges Braque, who co-founded Cubism with Pablo Picasso, was introduced to Cézanne's work through an exhibition after Cézanne's death. Braque appropriated Cézanne's ideals and experimented with reducing objects to geometric solids. The Portuguese is a still life that exemplifies Braque's early Cubist style, known as Analytical Cubism. This style intensely focuses on the study of shapes and multiple perspectives. The subject is a Portuguese musician that Braque saw in a bar in Marseilles. This representation is a dissection of the man and his instrument interacting with the space around. The subdued hues contrast with those used by German Expressionists so that the focus is solely on form, disrupting expectations about the representation of space and time. Later in the Cubist movement, Braque, Picasso, and other Cubist artists pushed their stylistic limits and moved from a monochromatic palette to a more decorative and colorful one, incorporating found objects and using collages to develop a new style known as Synthetic Cubism. Braque and Picasso utilized similar intersecting geometric planes to emphasize form in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and the Portuguese.

Sunday on La Grande Jatte. George Seurat. 1884-1886 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Georges Seurat's Sunday on La Grande Jatte fuses a modern subject and setting with a variety of both traditional and innovative techniques. The average Sunday afternoon at a spot in Paris frequented by members of all ages and social classes is a study in types—stereotyped images of women, men, children, and animals. Instead of the diffused atmosphere created by Impressionists, geometric shapes dominate the composition. Large areas of complementary colors, a key element of Seurat's color language, are juxtaposed. Subsequent Post-Impressionists would use complementary colors to convey emotion through color. Post-Impressionist artists include Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent Van Gogh.

The Tower of Blue Horses. Franz Marc. 1913. Oil on canvas.

German expressionists were socially critical artists, addressing moral issues such as materialism and poverty in both a conscious and subconscious reaction to the centralization, mechanization, and modernization of Germany. Two main groups formed: Kirchner's die Brücke and Kandinsky's der Blaue Reiter. Franz Marc was born in Munich and studied at the Munich Academy for three years. He traveled to Italy and France, drew inspiration from the Impressionists, and studied Japanese woodcuts. Between 1908 and 1910, while studying animal anatomy and doing lithography work, Marc met Kandinsky. Marc and Kandinsky designed the almanac der Blaue Reiter advertising the December 1911 exhibit of their group. Marc exploited color to communicate emotion and to "express the life of the dream". His perception of human beings as deeply flawed led him to use animals as subjects-he felt they were pure and more appropriate to express inner truth which exemplified der Blaue Reiter's expression of the artist's desires through varied forms. In the Tower of Blue Horses, Marc breaks the complex forms of the horses and their anatomies into simple shapes. These shapes are shaded in a way that suggests movement and depth. The color blue is significant as Mark believed it was primarily a male color, and the yellow to the left a female color. He stated that The Tower of Blue Horses was his attempt to see through and paint through the horses' eyes. Expressionist artists include Vassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Franz Marc, Emil Nolde, and Egon Schiele.

Expressionism

German expressionists were socially critical artists, addressing moral issues such as materialism and poverty. Before World War II, the German population was booming. The country was quickly advancing from an agricultural economy to an industrialized state. Artists had a conscious and subconscious reaction to the centralization, mechanization, and modernization of Germany. Two main groups formed: die Brücke (The Bridge), led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), led by the Russian Vasily Kandinsky. The goal of Kirchner's group, die Brücke, was to build a bridge between Germanic heritage, modern experiences, and their future. They wanted to re-create and renew modern art in Germany. Kandinsky's group, der Blaue Reiter, celebrated "in the variety of represented forms how the artist's inner desire results in manifold forms." Expressionist artists include Vassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Franz Marc, Emil Nolde, and Egon Schiele.

The Kiss. Gustav Klimt. 1907-1908 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Gustav Klimt's unabashed eroticism in The Kiss is typical of the fin de siècle period in its portrayal of opulence and sensuality. Klimt was connected with Art Nouveau, which was called the Sezessionstil, or secession style, in connection to the Vienna Secession, a group of progressive artists who had left behind the strictures of institutionally established art to exhibit independently. Color and portrayal superseded reality and representation, so that the concept represented was more pertinent then the execution of it. The awkward angle of the man's head and the contortion of the couple's hands represent erotic tension in their embrace. The unknown couple's relationship is a mystery, represented by the obscured face of the man and the closed eyes of the woman. Both are kneeling precariously at the edge of a flower-strewn hill, shrouded in gold and framed against a night sky in a way that suggests the secularization of a sacred revelation, a combination of the erotic and the spiritual. The lack of true perspective here is intentionally disorienting, and the painting implies that love and desire are beautiful but unknowable mysteries.

Third-Class Carriage. Honoré Daumier. 1862 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Honoré Daumier, a contemporary of Courbet, was best known as a graphic artist, publishing 4,000 lithographs in daily and weekly periodicals. His medium of choice was lithography, as it lent itself to reproduction and best supported his wit and satire. He created series of both lithographs and paintings of the same subjects, producing gravely serious paintings and reserving his sense of humor for his caricatures, which were printed in Le Charivari and other Parisian newspapers. He was unique to France for both the quantity and quality of his social and political drawings. Like the subjects of Courbet's Stone Breakers, Third-Class Carriage portrays the poor working class of 19th century France, unposed and not idealized. It was commissioned by William Thomas Walters, an American industrialist who had recently moved to Paris. The Third-Class Carriage figures appear both content and uncomfortable at the same time; while the carriage is crowded and dark, the passengers do not appear to be unhappy but lack distinctive features, lacking individuality like Courbet's The Stone Breakers. Daumier's photojournalistic approach is quite distinct from Realism and far different from the Academic and Romantic painting that continued to dominate the French art world. Daumier's portrayal of the cramped and dirty railway cars is a commentary on the underappreciated labor of the industrialization.

Impressionism

Impressionism built on the innovations of Realism and rejected traditional mythological and religious themes in favor of daily life. It expressed the elusiveness and impermanence of the subjects through movement, open compositions, and depictions of changes in light and reflections. Impressionist painters drew from direct observation and believed that painting was a visual experience, not historical or social commentary. To achieve images of light and color, Impressionists eliminated black, gray, and brown, colors that tend to flatten an image, and used complementary colors to make shadows. They emphasized the boundless nature of light and space, preferring to not bind their compositions with framing devices like tall trees or rocky cliffs.

Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure). Meret Oppenheim. 1936 C.E. Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon.

In 1924, André Breton wrote the Surrealist Manifesto, in which he attempted to address the issue of freedom and the human psyche to build an art based on creation rather than negation, or an "anti-art" philosophy. Breton drew on the ideas of Sigmund Freud—the psyche was the setting for a battle between the conscious, reasoning forces of civilized society and the unconscious, irrational, and personal desires that strove for freedom against the repression of reason. Surrealism advocated setting human desires free, no matter how irrational they might seem. The practice of automatism was to enhance creative output by circumventing conscious control. Méret Oppenheim created works that surprised the viewer by defamiliarizing the everyday through the creation of seemingly nonsensical objects. While fur may have beautiful visual qualities, it is not something someone would want to taste or eat; the viewer shudders at the thought of taking a sip from the cup. As one of the few women involved in the Surrealist movement, Oppenheim also expressed a feminist message with her fur-lined cup, transforming an object traditionally associated with feminine decorum into one that is both highly eroticized and repulsive. Oppenheim was inspired to create Object after a conversation with Pablo Picasso in a Paris café. Picasso noted the fur-covered bracelet that she wore (and had designed herself) and commented that anything could be covered with fur; she replied, "Even this cup and saucer." Surrealist artists include Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, and Méret Oppenheim.

Fallingwater. Pennsylvania, U.S. Frank Lloyd Wright (architect). 1936-1939 C.E. Reinforced concrete, sandstone, steel, and glass.

In contrast to Le Corbusier's machine-like style, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a weekend retreat at Bear Run, Pennsylvania, for Edgar Kaufmann, a Pittsburgh department store entrepreneur. Wright intended to convey space, not mass, and designed the structure to fit the lifestyle of the patron. The site was a waterfall and pool where Kaufmann's children played, and a large boulder where the family had sunbathed in the summers was used for the central hearthstone of the fireplace. Set on a rocky hillside over a waterfall, the home was incorporated into its site to guarantee a fluid, vibrant exchange between the interior and the natural environment. This gave the impression of organic architecture. Nicknamed Fallingwater, the home is built over the waterfall because Wright believed the inhabitants would become desensitized to the waterfall's presence and power if they merely overlooked it. A series of terraces extend from a cantilever, and the exteriors provide contrasting textures of concrete, painted metal, and natural stone. Full-length strip windows create an interweaving of interior and exterior space, exemplifying the marriage of architecture and nature.

Lady of Elche. Iberian Sculpture. Elche, Southern Spain. ca. 450 B.C.E. Limestone.

In his search for new ways to depict form, Picasso found inspiration in ancient Iberian sculpture, which he initially explored in his portrait of Gertrude Stein. He incorporated aspects of Iberian stone heads, reflecting the influence of primitive art and exploring the simplified breakdown of the planar form.

Study After Velàzquez's Pope Innocent X. Francis Bacon. 1953 C.E. Oil on canvas.

In the years immediately following the end of World War II, some of the most enduring works of art created in Europe expressed the meaninglessness and existential angst of life lived in the wake of human loss and brutality. Francis Bacon's Study After Velázquez's Pope Innocent X is inspired by The Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez, a painting that fascinated Bacon due to its perception of suppressed emotions within its subject. Bacon's rendition portrays the pope as a terrified howling ghost in front of a black wasteland. While Velázquez only suggested the pope's anger and frustration in his portrait of him, Bacon fully expresses those feelings. Bacon's painting imitates the open-mouthed scream exemplified in Edvard Munch's The Scream by ripping away the reason, nobility, faith, order, and canonical status that Velázquez's image represented, exposing the terror and inhumanity that Bacon perceived at the heart of European civilization, which led to World War II and countless horrors before. Postwar Expressionist artists include Frances Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, and Alberto Giacometti.

Seagram Building. New York City, U.S. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson (architects). 1954-1958 C.E. Steel frame with glass curtain wall and bronze.

International Style made its way to the United States as a result of World War II and the exodus of avant-garde architects from Europe. The Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe, in collaboration with Philip Johnson, America's foremost Modernist architect, constructed the Seagram Building in New York City. The Seagram Building represents both an extreme paring away of details and a reverence for materials, as exemplified in the lack of a cornice and dark glass windows set off by bronze beams. The tower is supported by a series of bronze columns below, and the architects intentionally designed the building as a thin shaft, leaving the front quarter open as a pedestrian plaza. This gives the illusion that the building rises from the pavement on stilts. Completely encrusted with glass windows, the building gives the illusion of having glass skin.

Abstract Speed + Sound. Giacomo Balla. 1913-1914 C.E. Oil on millboard.

Italian Futurism was founded by writer F. T. Marinetti in 1909 when he penned the Manifesto of Futurism. It has been called a cult of machinery because the members saw beauty in machinery, but they also valued the dangerous life and extreme violence as the means to break from the past, embrace originality, and celebrate mankind's technological triumph over nature. Futurism embraced the modern world and demolished both the status quo and Classical inspiration. Many of the Futurist artists actually hoped for a war, which they saw as the only way to cleanse the world of the corrupt politics and social stigmas that were destroying the core of humanity. Before and during World War II, the Futurist movement allied itself with Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party. Giacomo Balla was at first a Neo-Impressionist, but after signing the Futurist Manifesto became interested in depicting motion, especially the motion of cars, typical of the period and movement. Abstract Speed + Sound includes dark green hills for landscape, white stretches for road, and blue for sky. All are intersected by a visual cacophony of motion and sound, with the frame included as part of the picture. Due to the composition, this painting is believed to have originally been the center portion of an uncompleted triptych suggesting cars' alteration of the landscape, representing both sight and sound. Futurist artists include Giacomo Balla, Umberto Bocioni and Gino Severini

The Moon-Woman. Jackson Pollock. 1942 C.E. Oil on Canvas.

Jackson Pollock, who exemplified Gestural Abstract Expressionism, portrayed his interpretation of the woman from the poem "Favors of the Moon" by Charles Baudelaire in his painting The Moon Woman. Using reds, golds, greens, and blacks, Pollock depicts the female in a Picasso-like manner, as if she had been x-rayed, as she gazes at the floral bouquet in the upper right corner. Pollock's portrayal gives the likeness of both frontal and profile views, two aspects to the woman, one peaceful and public, the other dark and personal. As in de Kooning's Woman, I, the distortions are disturbing but convey an otherworldly impression of the woman.

The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel (El Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel). Jose María Velasco. 1882 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Jose María Velasco used Mexican geography as a symbol of national identity in his paintings. El Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel was a representation of Mexican identity, both portraying the site of Mexico City and Tenochtitlan and patriotically connecting the past and future. The landscape features Lake Texcoco and the outlines of Mexico City and is near the place where Velasco grew up. The combination of two indigenous figures and the scenery reflects the relationship between the people and the land. This is especially significant after the war of independence from Spain in 1821, after which Mexico sought to find its identity. The combination of the indigenous, or the past, and the current city, or future, exemplifies national pride. This connection is similar to the joining of nature and religion in The Oxbow. The openness of the composition gives a peaceful nature to El Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel and contrasts with Impressionist painters like Monet. In his Saint-Lazare Train Station, Monet applied the paint in an agitated fashion that left brushstrokes, giving the painting a sense of energy and the atmosphere of urban life.

Composition VI. Vasily Kandinsky. 1913 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Kandinsky created a numbered series based on three categories he distinguished in his painting—Impressions, Improvisations, and Compositions. The names were derived from music terminology, a connection he wanted to emphasize. He felt music and art were similar, that sounds and colors could evoke images while having no subject. The beauty was in the arrangement of elements. The original title of Composition VI was Flood. Kandinsky created a mass of objects being destroyed by natural and supernatural forces, influenced by his metaphysical beliefs. He was an adherent of the school of mystical thought known as Theosophy. Today it is popularly believed that Kandinsky may have experienced a condition called synesthesia. Individuals with this condition can taste the colors they see or hear music when looking at images. Kandinsky wrote extensively about the musical and tactile qualities of painting; his work one exemplifies these qualities.

The Migration of the Negro, Panel no. 49. Jacob Lawrence. 1940-1941 C.E. Casein tempera on hardboard.

Lawrence was inspired by politically oriented art and found his subjects in everyday life of Harlem and African American history. The Migration of the Negro, Panel no. 49 portrays the segregation and discrimination experienced by African Americans specifically in the North, but widespread throughout the United States and enforced by Jim Crow laws as before the Civil Rights Movement. The Migration of the Negro, Panel no. 49 portrays a dining room segregated with a yellow barrier running down the center, with African Americans on the right and white individuals to the left. Lawrence's style reflects Cubist influence in the use of geometric shapes. The narrative in this work and others in the series is unified with bluish green, orange, yellow, and grayish brown. Lawrence captured the experiences of African Americans in the North and serve as a social history, much like Rivera's Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park.

Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building. Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Louis Sullivan (architect). 1899-1903 C.E. Iron, steel, glass, and terra cotta.

Louis Henry Sullivan experimented with the tall office building design, producing the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building, also known as the Sullivan Center, in Chicago between 1899 and 1904 for the retail firm Schlesinger & Mayer. This structure is divided into different zones based on the activities of the space within. Different decorative details distinguish the zones of activity for visual interest; an accretion of decorative floral detail marks the street-level zone, while the windows of the offices above are less elaborately patterned. The building emphasizes the horizontal aspect of the building through the repeated use of wide windows, anchored by the rounded corner near the city intersection. Unfortunately, interest in Sullivan's work peaked with the Carsons, Pirie, Scott & Company Building, and subsequently he produced only a handful of minor commissions. Sullivan's central architectural ideas regarding form and function would have a considerable afterlife in architectural theory.

Untitled. Donald Judd. 1968 C.E. Enamel on aluminum.

Minimalism emerged as a movement primarily concerned with sculpture. In reaction against the forms and philosophies of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalists sought to eliminate external references to subject matter and to the artist's subjective feelings in order to emphasize the materials and forms of the objects they were producing. Frequently, their sculptures are sparse and lack color and texture, reducing forms down to basic geometric shapes. Minimalist sculptors emphasize a symbiotic relationship, shapes as forms that fully inhabit the spaces for which they were created. Donald Judd was a Minimalist sculptor whose goal was to create pure forms in space that appealed universally and did not deceive through illusion. He stopped painting in the early 1960s because he believed that the aims of artists were best accomplished through creating objects, not painted forms. His Untitled is a unified form that exists as a complete form in space rather than a composition of interrelated elements. With its spare rectangular form, the work invites the viewer to walk around it, peer into its recessed upper surface, and touch and experience it as an object. His works encourage interaction and, in doing so, use forms that are easily engaged and have tactile qualities, enabling the viewer to engage in the space of the work by walking around the forms. Minimalist artists include Carl Andre, Donald Judd, and David Smith.

Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art. Honoré Daumier. 1862 C.E. Lithograph.

Nadar belonged to the bohemian circle of poets, critics, and painters in Paris that created modern art in the mid-19th century. Nadar was a novelist, journalist, balloonist, and caricaturist but received the most notoriety for his photography. Initially, Nadar's probing and sometimes-shocking photographs of celebrities found a ready audience. Soon the most important people in France, including artists, writers, and actors, flocked to his studio to have their portraits made. Nadar was the first photographer to take pictures from the gondola of a hot air balloon, and in the lithograph Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art, the illustrator Daumier does more than note that event. The caption alludes to the ongoing controversy concerning whether or not photography was an art. In depicting his opinion, Daumier makes a pun on the word "elevating." He also uses this bird's-eye view to illustrate the boom in photography studios, showing how the French word "photographie" appears all over the city. The photographic industry was considered the refuge of all the painters who couldn't make it, either because they had no talent or because they were too lazy to finish their studies. In photography's formative years, the public largely agreed with him. Traditional belief was that an artist was a person of talent who trained, but anyone could be a photographer. The argument is still unresolved.

Crystal Palace. Sir Joseph Paxton. 1851 C.E.

New materials, such as iron, encouraged a new style of architecture in the 19th century. Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace in London was an expression of patron and artist confidence in new building materials, including the widespread use of glass and a new sense of scale using iron, both future components of skyscrapers. Commissioned by Prince Albert for the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, the Crystal Palace was a huge greenhouse composed of iron and glass. The new design allowed for more light into the building. It also had relatively new amenities, like public toilets—fitting for a hall displaying industrial marvels. Built in 1851, the building was also temporary: once the exhibition was over, the Crystal Palace was greatly altered and moved to a new location, where it was destroyed by fire in 1936. The elaborate design and construction of the Crystal Palace showcased the material as if the material itself were the focal point, not the structure. The innovative design of the Crystal Palace would enable new possibilities for materials, leading to innovation, such as the Eiffel Tower.

Woman, I. Willem de Kooning. 1950-1952 C.E. Oil on canvas .

Originally moving to the United States to paint murals at the 1939 New York World's Fair, Dutch-born artist Willem de Kooning became an integral figure in the American art scene, and his work is characteristic of Gestural Abstract Expressionism. Though de Kooning sometimes painted nonrepresentational works, his most significant pieces were a series of six paintings of female figures, created in the 1950s. De Kooning painted these women from advertisements and classical representations of women in art, basing each painting on several illustrations of women. In Woman, I, de Kooning depicts exaggerated features, including overlarge breasts, a sneering grin, and bulging, enlarged eyes, resembling the women of Byzantine and Akkadian art and having an almost prehistoric presentation. When he painted these figures, many people found the proportional distortions of the figures shocking, menacing, and frightening, leading some to accuse de Kooning of misogyny. De Kooning consistently stated that this was not his intent. Instead, these women were the product of his attempt to synthesize many cultural representations of women into each representation. His manipulation of shapes suggests Cubist influence, while his brushstrokes are reminiscent of Impressionism. Out of economic necessity, de Kooning used house paint just as Pollock did, if for different reasons. His brushstrokes themselves suggest the artist's intense physical engagement with the canvas as he painted, scraped away, and repainted several times over the course of two years; just as the subject matter is a synthesis of old and new influences, the painting itself is a product of change. The ragged, slashing gestures represents the artist's raw feelings.

Eiha ohipa (Not Working)). Paul Gauguin. 1896 C.E. Oil on canvas. and Nafea Faaipoipo. Paul Gaugin. 1892 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Paul Gauguin was a Post-Impressionist who explored the Symbolist style. Despite periodic sketching and sculpting, he was not serious about art until befriending Camille Pissarro. He lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as a stockbroker. When the stock market crashed in 1882, Gauguin was out of a job. He moved to Brittany, France, to lower his cost of living, leaving his wife and five children behind in Denmark, and heeded Pissarro's earlier instruction, discarding contemporary refinement and developing a primitivist style that simplified figures and exaggerated color to express meaning. Gauguin met Vincent van Gogh, and they quickly became friends. They viewed themselves as pioneers in painting, eschewed urban scenes, and agreed that art should come from "unspoiled sites". Always intrigued by foreign culture, Gauguin traveled to Tahiti and stayed there for several years to "be rid of the influence of civilization."

Through the Night Softly. Chris Burden. September 12th 1973, Main Street, Los Angeles

Performance artists replace traditional stationary artworks with movements, gestures, and sounds performed before an audience. The lack of accessibility for audiences has transferred performance art to being captured in photos, video, and streaming presentation. Sometimes, as was the case with John Cage's 4'33", members of the audience unknowingly participate in the performance. In 4'33", the performer appears, sits down at the piano, raises the keyboard cover to mark the beginning of the piece, remains motionless at the instrument for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, closes the keyboard cover, rises, and bows to signal the end of the work. The unplanned sounds generated from the audience are the art and music produced. Chris Burden's Through the Night Softly was a performance in which the artist crawled through fifty feet of broken glass on Main Street in Los Angeles. Burden purchased commercial advertising time, a portion of which was used to broadcast Through the Night Softly as one of four commercials intended to "break the omnipotent stranglehold of the airwaves that broadcast television had." Performance artists include Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Carolee Schneeman, and Jean Tinguely.

Illustration from The Results of the First Five-Year Plan. Varvara Stepanova. 1932 C.E. Photomontage.

Photography opened the door for the merging of artistic media and existed as another medium to express power. Varvara Stepanova, a Russian artist, used her photomontage Illustration from The Results of the First Five-Year Plan to celebrate the accomplishments of the USSR after WWII, specifically the five-year plan developed by the Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin, to speed up industrialization and growth in the Soviet economy. The montage was featured in USSR in Construction, a magazine used as propaganda for Stalin, as evidence of the success of the five-year plan. Stepanova was one of many artists who praised the USSR for changing the dynamics of the country, hoping it would end poverty and corruption. Stepanova's montage involves symbolism, specifically the color of the Soviet flag, red. The number 5 to the left in red specifically attests the support of the five-year plan. To the right the founder of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin, is above the horizon, looking toward an electrical tower, which symbolizes both the industrial revolution and the future, while masses of people celebrate below.

Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow. Piet Mondrian. 1930 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Piet Mondrian began as a Cubist and produced a series of paintings in which he broke down natural forms into a series of increasingly abstracted studies. Like Kandinsky, Mondrian was an adherent of the spiritual movement Theosophy and attempted to fuse his Theosophical and aesthetic persuasions. Beginning in about 1920, Mondrian arrived at a signature style that involved entirely geometric paintings, with colors reduced to the primaries and neutrals. Mondrian's philosophy of art pitted sensual and subjective reality (to be avoided) against a higher reality characterized as objective and rational. Mondrian represented this through geometrical, radically abstract work. Two factors drove Mondrian's art theory: that reality could only be expressed through the equilibrium of dynamic movements of form and color; and that pure means afford the most effective way to attain this reality. To Mondrian, pure means were simple horizontal and vertical lines and the most basic of color palettes. The balance of unequal opposites achieved through the right angle was a chief organizational principle, as displayed in Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow. The balance of horizontal and vertical represented an ideal balance of male vs. female, individual vs. collective, and other antithetical elements and was designed to communicate via a universal language.

Marilyn Diptych. Andy Warhol. | 1962 C.E. Oil, acrylic, and silkscreen enamel on canvas. | ©

Pop Art appropriated popular imagery to convey meaning. Andy Warhol had an early successful career as a commercial artist and illustrator, which exposed him to the world of advertising and mass media. Warhol's subjects reflected his infatuation with celebrity and icons of mass-produced consumer culture. In the four months after Marilyn Monroe's death, Andy Warhol created more than twenty silkscreen paintings of her. In Marilyn Diptych, he took the same still of the late actress and repeatedly silkscreened the image onto a canvas in varying colors and contrasts. As the images repeat, they vary slightly, become black and white, and then fade. Warhol's choice in subject is significant—Monroe was not only a highly sexualized pop icon, but her public persona, or image, was not a true reflection of who she really was. This was exemplified in the varied differences in each repetition of the image, and the fading was an allusion to her death.

Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? Richard Hamilton. 1956 C.E. Collage.

Pop Art celebrated consumerism as a reaction against the philosophical and nonrepresentational Abstract Expressionism that originated in Germany and culminated in the United States with the New York School. Pop Art artists were fascinated by popular culture and mass-produced goods. Richard Hamilton is considered the father of Pop Art. In 1956, he created the collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? The collection of images is a commentary on materialism, vanity, and advertising. The setting, taken from an advertisement for Armstrong floors, depicts a modern living room. The cover of the teen comic book Young Romance is framed and hangs on the wall, while a photograph of a cinema showing Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, the first film with synchronized sound, can be seen through the window. The term "Pop Art" originated with the giant Tootsie Pop held by the idealized, muscular husband. Pop artists of the 20th century include Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol.

Realism

Realism developed in France during a time of increased scientific emphasis. It embraced empiricism and positivism, believing that only what was seen was real. Realists portrayed the people and events of their own time, objecting to representations of historical and fictional subjects because they were neither visible nor present, and consequently were not real.

Self-Portrait as a Soldier. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1915 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Self Portrait as a Soldier expresses his fear of being sent into battle. He wears the uniform of his field artillery unit but depicts himself as an amputee with his right hand missing. His thin face is tired and emaciated, a cigarette dangles from his lips, and his eyes are dull and lifeless. The nude is a woman, possibly there to signify his impotence and his inability to draw and paint her. The pink swirl on the left is an unfinished canvas. Kirchner volunteered for military service in 1914, but after a year on the front lines, he suffered from a nervous breakdown and was discharged. His creative output declined after this and was never the same again.

Suprematist painting (with Black Trapezoid and Red Square). Kazimir Malevich. 1915 C.E. Oil on canvas, 40" × 24.4".

Several early 20th century art movements sought to represent utopian ideals through total abstraction. One of the earliest such movements was Suprematism, associated with the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich. Malevich produced a number of abstract, geometric paintings that represented a "supreme," or absolute, reality of feeling in art. He used the square, which he considered to be the supreme form, and the colors red and black on white because they appealed to him. Malevich painted Suprematist painting (with Black Trapezoid and Red Square) the same year he wrote his movement's manifesto, From Cubism to Suprematism. Its composition is pure geometry, composed entirely of shapes and lines in solid colors. While he stressed the nonobjectivity of his works and their ability to convey feelings and emotions that representational art could not, it has been suggested that Malevich's intention was to portray aerial views of buildings as seen from an aircraft, an early indication of the impact of the technological age on Russian art.

Supermarket Shopper. Duane Hanson. 1970 C.E.

Superrealists took advancements of Pop Art, including its increased availability and iconography, and expanded them to include extreme realism. Duane Hanson's life-sized sculptures of everyday people performing everyday activities commercializes the typical American in the same fashion Pop Artists did for the typical Americans' culture and interests. His molds are cast from actual people and made from fiberglass, to further expound their reality. Hanson created his sculptures from polyester resin, paints them to give the appearance of human skin, and adds hair, clothes, and accessories to show the humanity and humor of the common person. Supermarket Shopper presents a lifelike 1970s mom with her hair in curlers who is pushing an overflowing cart of groceries. Hanson pays close attention to his models' poses, portraying them in the most naturalistic and easy-to-read poses for his sculptures. Many of Hanson's lifelike sculptures are placed in areas that startle the unsuspecting public, who often believe them to be real people, as a way of engaging the viewer in his art. Superrealist artists include Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Lucian Freud, Duane Hanson, and Minor White.

The Two Fridas. Frida Kahlo. 1939 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Surrealism spread beyond Paris, throughout Europe and the United States. This group embraced the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, and they extended an invitation of membership to her. Kahlo responded dryly, "I never knew I was a Surrealist till André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was." Kahlo rejected the Surrealist label and the limits she saw in it: "I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality." She addressed the imaginative qualities of her art, saying, "I really do not know if my paintings are Surrealist or not, but what I do know is that they are the most frank expression of myself." Kahlo was born to a Mexican-born mother and Hungarian-Jewish immigrant father, and her work frequently explores this sense of separate cultural identities. Her dual role as a Mexican woman and a citizen of the modern world were explored in her self-portraits. Kahlo was injured in a horrific bus accident when she was 18, resulting in a broken spinal cord and a crushed and dislocated leg. In the accident, Kahlo was impaled on a pole in her lower abdomen, penetrating her pelvis and uterus and resulting in her inability to have children. This devastated Kahlo. The injuries Kahlo sustained-and the chronic problems they caused-shaped her life and art. Much of her symbolism is derived from folk magic, native beliefs, and traditional Christian and Jewish motifs. After recovering from her accident, she met the painter Diego Rivera, who was already something of a celebrity and socialist hero. He recognized her talent and helped her advance her career as a painter. They married in 1929 and had a tumultuous relationship, including divorce and remarriage, which was punctuated by affairs on both their parts. Her work The Two Fridas portrays two images of Frida seated side-by-side, holding hands and connected by a thin artery between their two hearts. The figure on the left, wearing a European-style dress, has severed the artery with surgical forceps, and the figure on the right, wearing a traditional Zapotec dress, connects the artery to a miniature portrait of her husband as a child. The deep emotional, psychological, and political implications of the painting exemplify why some considered her a Surrealist. However, these same associations with Surrealism caused Kahlo to consider herself apart from the group because she was portraying what she believed was her own reality.

Symbolism

Symbolist artists adopted the idea of symbolism as the guiding principle for their art as a whole, placing value on the subjective meaning of a painting rather than its fidelity to nature. Symbolist artists worked around 1885 to 1910, first predominantly in France, but later in other countries as well. Symbolist themes were mysticism, eroticism, and the imagination inspired by the Romantic movement. The work of Henri Rousseau represents the Symbolists' fascination with dreams and fantasy. Unlike his fellow Symbolists, however, Rousseau admired the works of academic artists and aspired to produce paintings that were accepted among their ranks.

A Guitarist. Boris Valentinovich Shaposhnikov. 1910 C.E. Oil on canvas

The 1890s were known as the fin de siècle, French for "end of the century." The attitude of decadence and self-fulfillment, contrasted with a growing sense of anxiety amid sociopolitical upheaval in Europe, characterized the period. Having challenged conventional moral certainties associated with political and cultural institutions the century before, fin de siècle artists and patrons favored art that either reveled in unbridled sensuality or expressed fear stemming from a loss of certainty.

Proun 93. Floating spiral. El Lissitzky. 1924 C.E. Pen, ink, watercolor on paper.

The Bolsheviks, members of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party led by Lenin, seized control of the government in Russia and became the dominant political power in the Russian Revolution in 1917. Artists influenced by Suprematism put their aesthetic ideals to work for the Bolsheviks. Aleksandr Rodchenko, his wife Varvara Stepanova, and five other Russian artists and theorists launched the Constructivist group in 1921. Rodchenko favored more functional endeavors encompassing industrial, graphic, and interior design; film; and theater to promote the revolution. Other artists used the nonobjective, universalizing language of Suprematism to further the aims of the revolution by inducing a more rational mindset in the viewer and to create a total separation from the past. El Lissitzky created prints, paintings, and installations that he termed Prouns. He used mechanical instruments to produce the precisely rendered Prouns, which is typical of Lissitzky's expansion of Constructivist style through the exploration of spatial elements, shifting axes, and multiple perspectives. Constructivist artists include Naum Gabo, Ed Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Vavara Stepanova.

Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament). | London, England. Charles Barry and Augustus W. N. Pugin (architects). 1840-1870 C.E. Limestone masonry and glass.

The Gothic elements in the Chartres Cathedral, including pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses, and the open floor plan, are evident in the English Perpendicular Gothic style of the Houses of Parliament and the Henry VII Lady Chapel in London, England. Both structures are an example of Gothic revivalism in Romantic-period architecture. In addition to the spirituality that the Gothic style was associated with, particular variations on the Gothic style in the Houses of Parliament had come to represent a national identity. The structures, which function as the meeting place of the supreme legislative body of England, were conceived to echo the Perpendicular Gothic style of nearby Westminster Abbey. Many Romantic theorists associated the Gothic style with integrity of craftsmanship, as opposed to the impersonal mechanized construction of the Industrial Revolution. The perpendicular Gothic style included previous elements of Gothic architecture but emphasized vertical lines. This is evident in the vertical segments throughout the exterior of the Houses of Parliament.

Henry VII Lady Chapel. London, England. ca. 16th century C.E

The Henry VII Lady Chapel , also built in the Perpendicular Gothic style, was initially intended to be a shrine and tomb of Henry VI. However, when he was not canonized, his successor and his wife were to be interred in the tomb. As a dedication to the Virgin Mary, Henry VII wanted a more elaborate structure to replace the simpler previous structure. This connection to the Virgin Mary and interment at a religious site underscored Henry VI's legitimacy as king and his legacy. The vertical lines are evident in the segments of the exterior of the Henry VII Lady Chapel. Inside, the pendant fan vault ceiling is highly elaborate, supported by rib vaults culminating in pendants.

The Scream. Edvard Munch. 1893 C.E. Tempera and pastels on cardboard

The Scream represents a Symbolist breakthrough by divorcing the use of line, color, shape, and composition from the representation of reality in favor of expressive feeling. Discontentment with the capitalist modern world and exploration of the human psyche were dominant themes of the movement. According to the artist's diary, the painting was meant to convey an experience he had on a walk through the city. Suddenly, Munch felt a "shriek pass through nature." Though there is Post-Impressionist influence in his work, Munch takes the Post-Impressionists' innovations in a completely new direction. Munch did not use line to describe form. Instead, his lines pulse with energy in order to convey the feeling of the painting and to disorient the viewer. The blue of the water and the red of the sky purposely are so strong that they overwhelm both the figure in the painting and the viewer, creating a claustrophobic, oppressive atmosphere. While the red of the sky conveys a sunset, Munch intended it to remind the viewer of blood. Munch used shape symbolically, not descriptively, in the painting. The contorted body of the central figure does not reflect the anatomy of the figure, but rather his terror at the crushing feeling that overwhelms him, giving evidence to the psychological impact of Munch's experience.

Palazzo Rucellai. Florence, Italy. Leon Battista Alberti (architect). c. 1450 C.E. Stone, masonry.

The façade of the Renaissance Rucellai family home, designed by Leon Battista Alberti, takes direct inspiration from classical antiquity. The elevation of the Palazzo Rucellai consists of three evenly proportioned stories, each clearly demarcated with architraves, capped by an overhanging cornice. The double windows are under round arches, and the texture of the stone on all three levels is uniform, creating a cohesive composition and disguising the ground floor's commercial function. Alberti's characteristic love of order reveals itself in the systematic divisions on the surface of the wall. In addition to the horizontal architraves, each window bay is framed with vertical pilasters, creating a rhythmic pattern of right angles. The capitals of the pilasters correspond to the Roman architectural orders—Tuscan on the ground level, composite on the second story, and Corinthian at the top—inspired by the façade of the Roman Colosseum.

Female (Pwo) mask. Chokwe peoples (Democratic Republic of the Congo).

The geometric type features of African masks in general influenced Picasso's transition to Cubism. The divided color areas in the mask do not conform to the contours of the mask's face. In a similar fashion, Picasso divided faces into stylized segments of shape and color. The two women on the right have striated facial features and bodies broken into unclear planes, as if viewed from multiple angles.

The Kiss. Constantin Brancusi. 1907-1908 C.E. Limestone.

The journey to abstraction is exemplified in Constantin Brancusi's The Kiss. He originally studied under Rodin and rejected academic classicism, stating "Nothing can grow under big trees." Brancusi specifically sought purity in forms, reducing them to sparse, geometric objects. He never joined an artistic movement, preferring isolation for his creativity. The Kiss portrays the unified forms of a couple joined in intimacy, symbolic of the emotional connection experienced and exhibiting tendencies toward an abstract, Cubist style. This exemplifies the primal intensity of the moment, symbolizing the connection of the lovers as flesh to flesh.

The Burghers of Calais.

The sculptor Auguste Rodin, a transitional artist between the period of Symbolism and Expressionism, defied both the idealized nobility of Neoclassicism and the emotional drama of the Romantic Movement. He emphasized the awkward, imperfect, existential loneliness of the human condition. At the turn of the century, during a period of rapid industrialization and growth of cities, the condition of anonymity became more recognizable. The cynicism toward cultural institutions left many feeling directionless. A commission that best illustrates Rodin's position as an artist at odds with establishment expectations is the creation, and rejection, of his Burghers of Calais. The story takes place during the Hundred Years War, when the English king announced that the city of Calais would be spared if six men would willingly offer up their lives in its place. The city of Calais expected an idealized monument reminiscent of Greek and Roman influence, they received something different. Rodin placed the sculpture at eye level. Many statues were still being put on pedestals, causing the viewer to look up to the figures as heroic. By putting the sculpture at eye level, the viewer was forced to confront humanized individuals. All stand or walk awkwardly, not in a heroic stance like the Roman propaganda of Augustus. The figure closest to the viewer is pigeon-toed. They are not youthful gods, but average men. Rodin took a story considered heroic by his patrons and portrayed its heroes as flawed mortals. The figures react to their fate with tragic or pathetic horror, rather than noble reserve and grandeur. Most of Rodin's sculpture was an intentional break with the past, particularly allegorical implications. Though the tale inspiring the sculpture was in the past, Rodin modernized the figures by giving them emotions one could ascribe to everyday people. The figures are not coordinated as a civic-minded group, but stand in a disordered assemblage, each to face his fate alone. Rodin takes apart the apparent solidarity of the past.

The Stone Breakers. Gustave Courbet. 1849 C.E. (destroyed in 1945). Oil on canvas.

The subjects immortalized in Stone Breakers were workers that Gustave Courbet met on a road. The older man and young assistant labor in what Courbet called a "complete expression of human misery." He painted from the hot roadside and used a palette of earth tones to re-create the dusty environment. Both men are turned away from the viewer to highlight their plainness and lack of individuality, and focus our attention on the "heroism of modern life." This allowed the viewer to identify with the subjects and to place themselves in the painting. The public of Courbet's day considered his subjects too crude for fine art; they lacked the sentiment of contemporary genre painting, the classical heroism of Neoclassicism, and the beauty of Romanticism. Realist artists include Rosa Bonheur, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, and Jean-François Millet.

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Paul Gauguin. 1897-1898 C.E. Oil on canvas.

The three questions posed in the title are represented from right to left as a pessimistic commentary on the inevitability of life and its cycles and the lack of human control in those cycles. Where Do We Come From? is symbolized on the right as a baby, the blue Tree of Knowledge, representative of the inception of and anguish in life. Where Are We? is symbolized by the middle figures, representing the mundane tasks of everyday life. Where Are We Going? is symbolized on the left by an elderly woman who is dying, while the blue idol behind her symbolizes "The Beyond."

Improvisation 28 (second version). Vassily Kandinsky. 1912 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Vassily Kandinsky was one of the first artists to explore complete abstraction, and fueled his elimination of representational elements with his interest in Theosophy, the occult, and advances in sciences. Kandinsky believed that artists must express their innermost feelings by orchestrating color, form, line, and space. In Improvisation 28 (second version) different colors are intended to express varied emotions. Kandinsky believed that color directly influenced the soul like vibrations in sound, and paralleled this to music in his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

The Starry Night. Vincent van Gogh. 1889 C.E. Oil on canvas.

Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night was painted from the window of a sanitarium where van Gogh committed himself. Using heavy impasto, he builds rhythmic brushstrokes around each object in his starry sky, communicating his feelings about the vastness of the universe. The cypress trees, symbolic of death and humanity, and the small church appear small under the enormity of the night sky. This, along with the deep and dark colors, signifies van Gogh's reflection of life and death and his significance between. The low mountains on the right side provide a place of visual rest. Complementary yellow-orange and blue dominate the canvas, and the houses are given touches of yellow to represent signs of life. The church spire in the center bridges the starry heavens and the resting people in the houses below. Van Gogh's emotionally expressive depiction is evidence of his emotional state and disconnect with the specific landscape, contrasting with Velasco's realist depiction of the landscape. This attests to the sacredness of the Mexican land to Velasco and his desire to depict it with as much accuracy as possible.

The Jungle. Wifredo Lam. 1943 C.E. Gouache on paper mounted on canvas.

Wilfred Lam, a member of the Surrealist movement, used painting to address the history of slavery in Cuba, his home country. The Jungle portrays several slender figures with crescent-shaped faces that resemble masks of Africa and the Pacific, along with exaggerated buttocks, breasts, and feet exemplifying the Cubist influence of Picasso. The figures seem to be combinations of animals, plants, and humans, symbolic of the property-like nature they exemplify in the painting. In the background are vertical ridged poles that represent sugarcane, a plant that is not indigenous to the jungle landscape but cultivated in the Cuban fields. These elements indirectly address the history of slavery in colonial Cuba through a Surrealist, dream-like vision.

Woman with the Hat. Henri Matisse. 1905 C.E.

Woman with the Hat exemplifies Matisse's Fauvist style. Abstract patches of color frame the sitter, his wife. Complementary areas of red/green and blue/orange vibrate against each other, adding energy to the painting and drawing attention to her penetrating gaze. His wife was actually wearing black for the sitting, and the colors are intended to express how Matisse viewed her, colorful and full of life. Fauvist artists include André Derain and Henri Matisse.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum. Helen Frankenthaler. 1973 C.E. Acrylic on canvas.

Work typified by the appearance of individual brushstrokes on the canvas was defined as Post-Painterly Abstraction by Clement Greenberg in an exhibit he organized in 1964. Post-Painterly works dominated the next phase of Expressionism, in which artists discarded the mark making of expression in favor of the manipulation of paint to address formalist concerns. Similar to Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler laid her canvases on the ground. Differently, she experimented with paint on an unprimed canvas. The white surface was used as a positive compositional element instead of a surface to be covered reiterating Greenberg's concept of "flatness." In Nature Abhors a Vacuum, Frankenthaler poured the thinned paint directly onto the canvas for the paint to eddy and flow to stain the canvas to create the appearance of a watercolor. Frankenthaler also experimented with masking the surface to reserve areas of white. The composition represents experimentation with formal elements, not an emotional expression of the artist's inner psyche. Post-Painterly artists include Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Clyfford Still, and Frank Stella.

Narcissus Garden. Yayoi Kusama. Original installation and performance 1966. Mirror balls.

Yayoi Kusama did not use the earth itself to create her environmental installation, Narcissus Garden, but added elements to the earth to convey meaning. The initial installation at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966, a contemporary art exhibition that takes place every two years in Venice, Italy, was composed of hundreds of mirrored spheres outside. The choice of a mirrored sphere is significant considering the name Kusama chose for the installation—Narcissus was a figure in Greek mythology who was so obsessed with his own beauty that he fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water and, unable to leave it, drowned. Once the piece was installed on the lawn, Kusama began selling each sphere while dressed in a golden kimono. The organizers of the 33rd Venice Biennale eventually put a stop to her actions, and Kusama's intention was to offer a criticism of the mass-production and commodification of the art market. Narcissus Garden has had several installations, including one in Paris in 2010.