Final Exam

Bourgeoisie

Newly empowered French middle class

Minimalism

a movement in modern art that began in the 1960s that was focused in a near complete reduction of art into basic pure forms and raw materials.

Pictorialism

a movement in photography whose goal was to create painterly photographs and get photography recognized as a legitimate art form. These artists primarily pursued this goal by physically manipulating the camera or film during exposure or dark room process.

unexpected juxtapositions

a phrase used to describe a trait in surrealist art in which recognizable objects ads combined or altered in strange ways, often producing new and surprising psychological association.

Daguerreotype

"fixing" a photographic image, first accomplished by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, who immediately patented his technique and the resulting images.

Divisionism

(sometimes called Pointillism) the technique invented by Georges Seurat in which the painting is composed of tiny dots of pure colors that are meant to mix optically rather than being physically mixed on the palette or canvas.

The Armory Show

1913 a month long exhibit held in 1913, at a military barracks in New York City, which exposed the American public for the first time to cutting edge European avant-grade art, and has been credited with introducing modern art into the American culture.

Impressionism

A painting style in the late 19th Century in which artists attempt to capture the spontaneous optical experience of a changing moment. Characterized by fast and loose brushwork, a use of pure, unblended colors, and an interst in light, atmosphere, and movement.

Orientalism

A sub-category of Romanticism describing artworks dealing with subject matter from the exotic Near East. These were meant to incite the European imagination because of their exotic non-Western qualities. Politically, Orientalist art was often used as a means of justifying European colonialism.

Post-Impressionism

A term used by art historians to identify a broad reaction against Impressionism in avant-garde.

3) What is meant by the term Action Painting? Explain how this term applies to the work of artists like Jackson Pollock or Willem DeKooning.

Action Painting - a term coined by the critic Harold Rosenberg to describe one of the central tenets of gestural abstraction, the idea that the physical act of making a painting is more important than the final created object itself. This idea focused on the trance-like, meditative qualities of the painting processes of artists like Jackson Pollock. It also highlighted the idea that the final painting could be read as a physical record of the artist's actions.

American Scene Painting

An artistic movement in the 1930s that emerged as a reaction against modernism in all of its numerous forms, both artistic political and technological. The movement was a form of realism that embraced conservative values and attempted to depict distinctly American themes, conservatives naturally blamed left wing politics foe the Depression. Since abstract art was often associated with artists who held radical left-wing political beliefs, these conservative artists tended to shun abstraction in any form.

Abstraction

Art that is unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world. Abstract art often refers to or suggests objects or images from reality that have been simplified, broken down, or otherwise altered for expressive purposes.

plein-air painting

French for, "in the open air," refers to the Impressionist characteristic of taking the canvas outside and painting a scene on the spot (rather than making sketches and then going back to the studio to work on the painting) This was done in an attempt to spontaneously capture the artists' optical experience of the scene in front of him.

Japonisme

The incorporation of Japanese inspired elements in Western art

Dada

an anarchist movement that came about as a response to the brutality and destruction of World War I. Absurd humor was the central theme of Dadaism. The purpose of dada was to ridicule, to make fun of the meaningless of a modern world that had led to such a large scale catastrophe.

Readymade

prefabricated objects unaltered by the artist's hand, and presented as works of art.

ukiyo-e

"pictures of the floating world" became particularly influential to avant-garde European artists

Salon d'Automne

("The Autumn Salon"- an annual exhibition of radical art established by avant-garde artists as a counter-exhibition to the traditional Academic Salon, which was typically held in the spring.)

Photography

(from Greek, roughly translates to "drawing with light")

Analytical Cubism

A type of Cubism that involved carefully observing and analyzing the subject from many angles, translating those views into a series of flat abstract planes, and rearranging those planes on the canvas to be visually decoded by the viewer.

1) Briefly explain the propagandistic aspects of Jacques Louis David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps. In what ways does it borrow from Roman Imperial art to express Napoleon's power and authority?

David's main purpose was making Napoleon look imperial. It is considered Neoclassical because of Napoleons calm, rational, ordered, and tranquil force in a dramatic image full of movement. Napoleon is in the forefront leading his army over the Alps. Traditionally, images on horses were made to show authority and this painting was all about imperial authority. The size of the emperor is exaggerated to make them larger. A red cape blows in the wind, following the direction that Napoleon is pointing, as though he's forcing everything to go in the same direction. Directing the wind, a beautiful muscular figure, all idealized in appearance. His face implies that he is in control. The horse draws the lines of vision to Napoleon's face. Lots of different angles follow each other, guiding the eye through the painting.

Fauvism

Derives from the French word "fauves" meaning "wild beasts". An early 20th Century painting style characterized by the wild and arbitrary use of color.

7) What aspects of Impressionism did Paul Cezanne explore in radical new ways in his paintings? Why did Cezanne think this brought him closer to the "essence" of painting?

Fairly typical still life. Roughly painted. Space is rendered awkwardly due to the spacing of objects. The edges of the table/lines don't line up. The back edge of the table is also much distorted. Hard edged angling in folds of the cloth looks more like crinkled paper than soft cloth. The angle of the basket is a little too steep more apples should be spilling out. Flatness to renderings of round objects, due to lack of shadowing. The lines of cookies don't line up. The top two cookies look like they are popping up. These oddities are related to Cezanne's idea of ever shifting nature of human sight and vision. Like the Impressionists, Cezanne was interested in the ever-shifting nature of human vision. However if the Impressionists were interested in capturing this effect spontaneously, Cezanne was the exact opposite. He carefully observed scenes, analyzing color, shape space, etc. and then attempted to translate these analyses into experimental compositions. Here, he is analyzing a still-life from multiple angles, but painting them on the same canvas.

4) What are Happenings and how can they be said to have been inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock? Explain how Yves Klein's Anthropometries performances comment on (and parody) Abstract Expressionism.

Happenings are scripted events (performances) that take place over a predetermined period of time. Also called simply "Performance Art." Most creators of Happenings acknowledge a debt to Jackson Pollock and the way that he turned the work of art into a physical enactment—Action Painting. If Pollock used the dance-like movement of his entire body to create expressionistic two-dimensional paintings, Happening artists used their bodies in the spaces of the real world to create events. With Happenings, the event itself is the artwork. Any produced object is a secondary byproduct of the artistic act. The earliest creators of Happenings were very aware of the conceptual connection between their art and earlier Abstract Expressionism. A common subject in early Happenings was the tongue-in-cheek parody of gestural abstraction.

2) Why did American Scene painters like Grant Wood abandon abstraction during the Great Depression? How can a painting like American Gothic be said to reflect conservative American values?

In the early 20th Century, America was just begin get to become relevant in the context of the art world. As a result, many artists during the period became preoccupied with defining America. American Scene Painting was an artistic movement in the 1930s that emerged as a reaction against modernism in all of its numerous forms, both artistic political and technological. The movement was a form of realism that embraced conservative values and attempted to depict distinctly American themes, conservatives naturally blamed left wing politics for the Depression. Since abstract art was often associated with artists who held radical left-wing political beliefs, these conservative artists tended to shun abstraction in any form. This painting seems explicitly designed to reflect conservative American values, particularly in terms of gender roles, and suggestion of religious belief. The big point of debate is whether or not this image is meant as a parody of the kinds of people it represents, or whether it is paying homage to them. Gender roles: alludes to dominance of male figure. He has a direct gaze, makes eye contact, she stands behind him, and doesn't look at us. Clothed in a way that suggests their role. Him, his overalls and a pitchfork. She is wearing an apron, implies domestic caretaker. Apron feels like something that is handmade. Similar to cloth in the window. Speaks to her role as caretaker. Form of the pitchfork in his shirt, as though he is branded with his role. Arranged in the image next to the parts of the farm that they are associated with. Title refers to the architecture of the house. Style of medieval church architecture. Pointed arch window, a lancet, pointedness of the roof is steeple like. Dressed conservatively, strict Protestant inference. Steeple in the far background. Some abstract, repeated shapes and geometric relationships, emphasis on straight lines. Trees are rounded.very naturalistic scene. Geometry of house has lots of lines. Combined with the patterning of the cloth.

6) Briefly explain what aspects of Eduoard Manet's Olympia make it a Modernist painting. Why was this modernized treatment of the female nude considered so obscene in its day?

It was a painting of a prostitute in a bedroom in a brothel receiving flowers as a gift from a client. Black cat arched and hissing, while she looks out at us while covering the goods. It inferred that the viewer was a customer. Rejected from traditional salon, it was also ridiculed by critics mercilessly. It was based on classic painting of a female nude. You can see where it is similar with Venus of Urbino.

5) How does the Dada art movement relate to World War I? What aspects of traditional art do Marcel Duchamp's readymades challenge? How did these objects change the way 20th Century artists viewed the creation of artworks?

It was an anarchist movement that came about as a response to the brutality and destruction of World War I. Absurd humor was the central theme of Dadaism. The purpose of dada was to ridicule, to make fun of the meaningless of a modern world that had led to such a large scale catastrophe. Dadaists digested their antics at the social institutions that were considered hallmarks of 'civilization" namely art literature music and theater. One thing all Dada artworks have in common is the artists desire to incite a reaction in the viewer often shock and anger.

6) How is a painting like Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte similar to, but ultimately very different from an Impressionist painting?

It was an outdoor scene, capturing light, showing a scene of modern life and leisure activities. The technique keeps it from being spontaneous recording. It was carefully staged. The artist was concerned with making color relationship making it look brighter. Divisionism (sometimes called Pointillism) the technique invented by Georges Seurat in which the painting is composed of tiny dots of pure colors that are meant to mix optically rather than being physically mixed on the palette or canvas. The effect of this optical mixing was supposed to create the illusion of brighter colors and a greater sense of light in painting. Non spontaneous... dots are carefully arranged. Seurat wanted to impose a more formal structural order on the color theories being experimented with by Impressionists like Claude Monet. He was interested in the latest breakthroughs of color theory and optics, and systematically tried to incorporate these ideas into his painting style. Because of his careful, structured approach, his style was distinctly non-spontaneous, and thus non-Impressionist.

2) Why were avant-garde artists drawn to the art-forms of so-called "primitive" cultures? Explain some aspects of Primitivism that can be seen in Henri Matisse's Blue Nude Memory of Biskra.

Modern artists were drawn to the forms of these cultures precisely because they were "pure and untainted" by Academic rules. For Europeans, these cultures were seen as raw, primal, and savage- the opposite of the "civility" of Western tradition, and a perfect fit of the radical ideals of the avant-garde. Most directly primitive work. Evoking the images, but then contrasting them. His image is cool colored, the body is rendered in icy blues and whites, not to evoke warm or softness but make it seem cold and repel. The arms and legs have exaggerated proportions that link to primitivism. Stops being visually appealing in an erotic way. Exaggeration of the turn of the body. She's almost blocking your view of her body.

3) Why was the landscape significant to Romantic artists? What are some ways Romantic artists like Joseph Mallord William Turner attempted to capture the "sublime" in their landscape paintings?

Most Romantic artists saw nature as ever-changing, unpredictable, more powerful than people, and indifferent to the troubles of man. This unpredictability was often seen as symbolic of the emotional moods of human beings.As a result of this idea, Romantic artists studied the landscape in great depth and used it frequently as a means of conveying certain emotions or types of poetic mood in their work.

1) What does it mean when an artist "dialogs with art historical tradition?" Explain how we can see this happening in a painting like Matisse's The Joy of Life.

Nude figures reclined in the landscape odd colors. Positions of figures are classic, as well as nude as well. The figures with instruments, grape vines are referencing allegorical figures who were engaged in pleasurable pursuits. Sexual activity, dancing, music, grapes infer drinking. Abstract elements color. There is nothing naturalistic about it. Shadowing aren't really shadows, as it is areas of color contrast. No shading or modeling to make them look 3 dimensional, they were flat figures with use of line as a clear element rendering figures. Proportions of figures and landscape are exaggerated there is a fluid curvature and lines. The whole landscape is undulating. Mean to feel full of movement.

3) Briefly explain the various avant-garde elements of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. What aspects of the painting dialog with art historical tradition? How can this painting be seen as a challenge to "traditional" renderings of 3-dimensional space?

Picasso was experimenting with methods of composing when he did this rendering of brothel prostitutes in a primitive form. It still shocks people with abstraction, although it can be described as tradition. He uses mask like faces, elongated torsos, distorted limbs and prominent sexual features. The left three seem to be inspired by ancient sculpture but the right two are reminiscent of African tribal masks. Masks make people feel uncomfortable and make people look back to Archaic Greek art. It is a classic example of modernist idea of entering into an artistic conversation with past traditions using flat shapes, background and flat geometric shapes.

6) To what does the "Pop" in Pop Art refer? Why were artists drawn to this kind of material and imagery? What aspects of Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! could be considered ironic?

Pop art: a catch all term used to describe art that in some ways deals usually ironically, with mass produced imagery.and or consumer culture. Popular culture. Between 1955 and 1965 some artists attempted to connect their art to real life by borrowing mass produced imagery or using mass production techniques in their art in response to the growing presence of mass media in the post war culture. The nearly exclusive use if mass produced imagery and techniques gives pop art a slicker look than the other contemporary movements. See Lichtenstein's Wham! Comic book like painting.mimics the style of heroic WW II adventure comics that were popular for American children in the fifties and sixties.

Realism

a movement in mid-19th century painting in which artists committed themselves to depicting the harsh realities of modern life.

2) What are some characteristics of Romanticism? Explain why paintings like Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare and Francisco de Goya's Executions on the Third of May would be considered Romantic artworks.

Romanticism celebrated humanity's capacity for passion, imagination, emotion, and originality. Emotion was seen as the opposite of reason, and was often considered a weakness by Neo-classical thinkers. Romantics would argue that our capacity for passion and emotion was the most crucial part of human experience. Romantic artworks explored dramatic subject matter taken from literature, current events, the natural world, or the artist's own imagination, with the goal of stimulating the viewer's sentiments and feelings.

6) What was the Surrealist movement all about? Briefly explain some of the techniques Surrealist artists used to create imagery from "the subconscious" in paintings like Andre Masson's The Battle of Fishes or Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory.

Surrealism is an artistic style that seeks to set free and explore the imaginative creative powers of the mind. Surrealist imagery is generally not intended to be understood logically, bit to trigger unusual and startling psychological associations. They used things such as Automatism: describes techniques used by surrealists to attempt to release art making from the conscious control of the artist, and thus produce new and surprising forms. Another technique was Unexpected juxtapositions: a phrase used to describe a trait in surrealist art in which recognizable objects ads combined or altered in strange ways, often producing new and surprising psychological association.

1) Why was the Armory Show a historically significant "game changer" for the course of American art?

The Armory Show: 1913 a month long exhibit held in 1913, at a military barracks in New York City, which exposed the American public for the first time to cutting edge European avant-grade art, and has been credited with introducing modern art into the American culture. Reactions ranged from hostile to ecstatic. Many critics singled out Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase for particular scorn. To fans, the show was a watershed event and it immediately had a profound impact on American art. American realism quickly began to abandon. Finding and bringing out the abstracts in the subject became a goal in the subject became a goal of many American artists after the influential Armory show.

5) What is the Realist art movement all about? What kinds of subjects did Realists tend to gravitate towards? Briefly explain why paintings like Gustave Courbet's The Stonebreakers were considered controversial and avant-garde.

The Realist art movement was artists committing themselves to depicting the harsh realities of modern life. Realists viewed Neoclassical and romantic art as fantastical escapism. They believed that art should express objective, empirical, observable truths, and in order to do this, the artist must resist idealization and imagination and depict the world and its people honestly. Realists focused their attention on subjects that had long been deemed uninteresting or inappropriate for depiction as "high art" The most common subject was the working class poor. The ultimate goal of the Realist movement was to refocus art on the harsh realities of modern life. Courbet's work in particular highlighted the social injustices of modern society. He has been called the first Socialist painter. It was not art, it was political activism. It was particularly offensive to the people of France. Context: since the revolution, France never had a stable government, series of revolutions. Last happened the year before this painting was made. This was extremely offensive to the bourgeoisie (Newly empowered French middle class), who after years of revolutionary uprisings, finally controlled a significant portion of the French government.

7) What aspects of the human psyche does a painting like Rene Magritte's The Rape explore? How can that painting be seen as reflecting Freudian themes?

The Surrealists were particularly taken with the writings and psychological theories of Sigmund Freud. His focus on the subconscious mind as the underlying driving force behind human nature and psychological failings was profoundly influential to Surrealist experiments. Specifically, Freud's suggestion that deep subconscious sexual impulses affect human actions in the waking world became a regular subject for Surrealist artists. Freud's theories as a whole are typically referred to as psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic theory. In general, psychoanalytic theory attempts to reconcile adult psychological issues with suppressed memories of childhood trauma.

2) Explain the three main themes of Impressionism (as defined in class.)

The Three Main Themes of Impressionism 1. The optical experience of natural outdoor light. 2. The ever-changing effects of weather and atmosphere on a scene. 3. Casual scenes of modern city life and middle & working class leisure.

benday dots

a consumer printing technique in which small dots of color are juxtaposed to create the visual effect of smooth gradients. Lichtenstein carefully reproduced these by hand, sometimes using stencils to make sure he got the size and patterns correct.

4) What aspect of traditional art-making did Cubism originally set out to challenge? Explain how a Cubist painting like Georges Braques' The Portuguese Emigrant references, without directly representing, a three-dimensional figure in space.

The early 20th Century avant-garde art style is generally characterized by an abstract fragmentation of the visual space of the picture plane. The original purpose behind this development was to challenge the long-standing Western artistic tradition of the representation of 3-dimensional space through linear perspective. The Cubists saw linear perspective as only one of many possible methods for representing 3-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional surface. Cubism emerged as another possible way of representing space—albeit in a new visual language that viewers would have to learn to "read." The most advanced Cubist paintings utilized some of the most basic visual elements and principles of design to communicate visual information to the viewer in radical new ways.

4) What was the first popular use for photography in the 19th Century? Why didn't 19th Century thinkers consider photography to be art?

The first popular use for photography was portraiture. Photography opened up the ability to be able to afford someone to paint or draw their image through photography. It also opened it up to everyone, making it less prestigious. They thought of photography as science.

3) Briefly explain the social commentary on display in Eduoard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. How could the painting be seen as highlighting the trials of working women in late 19th Century society?

The woman is taking control of the situation, implies that we are a participant in bad behavior. Probably a male viewer, mirror, her reflection and the reflection of the viewer are in the wrong place. Shifted the reflection off to the side to show she's being approached by a male customer. It shows the fatigue on her face, indicating long hours and perhaps putting up with rudeness from male customers. She is wearing a low cut gown, with flowers attached to the front, maybe to try to get more tips.

5) Why were late 19th Century artists often drawn to the aesthetic forms of Japanese art (and other non-Western art forms) as a way to express "authenticity" in art? How can we see these forms in the work of Paul Gauguin?

These prints were admired for their exotic "otherness" and organic linear qualities, flat forms and figures, as well as their creatively cropped and poetically arranged compositions, which offered viewers a "privileged point of view" of the subject. Artists in the late 19th Century were constantly searching for new and so called "authentic" ways of expressing themselves. Established artistic conventions were seen as inhibiting creativity and thus artists increasingly turned to non-traditional sources for inspiration. Because Japanese art was a new thing in the West, and completely divorced from any European artistic traditions, it was of great interest to avant-garde artists.

4) What is the difference between Expressionism and Impressionism—why does the work of Van Gogh fall into one category and not the other? What makes the sculptures of Auguste Rodin expressionistic?

Unlike the Impressionists, who used color to express light and optical reality, Van Gogh chooses his colors with the intent of expressing his emotions our inner thoughts. An Gogh was not interested in capturing the optical "truth" of light or the changing landscape. (Dutch artist who created an artist commune in the country away from the city.) Expressionism is art in which conveying the intensity of an artists' feelings overrides the need to remain truthful to the actual natural appearance of things.

Retrospective

a display of works from the span of his entire career (rather than just new work, which is what the Salon exclusively showed).

avant-garde

a group of artists or intellectuals who by way of radical breaks with previous tradition, seek out new styles or ideas, usually in hopes of changing or influencing society in some meaningful way.

1) How can the invention of photography be said to have influenced the development of Impressionism?

With the development of photography, which could supposedly capture a completely "true" 2-dimensional image of the subject, one of the traditional purposes of painting had been made obsolete. Thus painters after the invention of photography began to re-evaluate the nature of painting as a whole, and decided that in order to remain relevant as an art form, painting needed to be able to capture things that photography could not.This led to the birth of Impressionism. The looseness of the brush strokes are made to be unique. The texture of the paint is an important part of art making.

Romanticism

a 19th Century artistic philosophy that celebrated humanity's capacity for passion, imagination, emotion, and originality. Emotion was seen as the opposite of reason, and was often considered a weakness by Neo-classical thinkers. Romantics would argue that our capacity for passion and emotion was the most crucial part of human experience.

Pop Art

a catch all term used to describe art that in some ways deals usually ironically, with mass produced imagery. And or consumer culture.

Arcadian landscape

a common art historical subject in which an idealized landscape is populated with figures, usually allegorical, who portray mythological or poetic themes.

"Action Painting"

a term coined by the critic Harold Rosenburg to describe one of the central tenets of gestural abstraction, the idea that the physical act of making a painting is more important than the final created object itself.

Neo-Dadaists

a term used to describe artwork of artists who sought to combine everyday symbols and objects with ironically self-aware abstract expressionistic painting processes.

silk-screening

also known as screen printing an image transfer technique often used by pop artists like Warhol. The technique involved turning a photographic negative into a stencil, which would then be used to transfer a positive image onto the canvas.

Chromatic abstraction

also sometimes called "color field painting" these works are all about the expressive and contemplative qualities of color and our psychological responses to it. They are characterized by flat areas of solid color, a sense of Infinite expansion beyond the frame of the painting, an interest in meditation, and inciting a deep emotional response in the viewer.

Surrealism

an artistic style that seeks to set free and explore the imaginative creative powers of the mind. Surrealist imagery is generally not intended to be understood logically, bit to trigger unusual and startling psychological associations.

the sublime

an emotional response that can e described as a mixture of fascination, awe, and fear.

Primitivism

an interest in the artistic styles of so-called "primitive" cultures, like the tribal cultures of Africa or the Pacific Islands.

Straight Photography

another movement in photography in which the goal is to create artistically expressive photographs.

Expressionism

art in which conveying the intensity of an artists' feelings overrides the need to remain truthful to the actual natural appearance of things

Site-specific art

artwork created to exist in a certain place. The essence of site specific artwork is the idea of the works inextricable relationship to the place itself. See the Vietnamese Veterans Memorial.

Automatism

describes techniques used by surrealists to attempt to release art making from the conscious control of the artist, and thus produce new and surprising forms.

Odalisque

erotic images of Middle Eastern harem women. Cubism: An early 20th Century avant-garde art style generally characterized by an abstract fragmentation of the visual space of the picture plane.

camera obscura

essentially just a dark chamber or box with a lens in it, through which light passes, projecting onto the opposite wall or box side an upside-down image of the scene which an artist can then trace.

Modernism

is defined by a constant questioning of previously established ideas in pursuit of the new. This questioning is physically realized through artistic experimentation, both formal and conceptual.

Happenings

scripted events performances that take place over a predetermined period of time. Also simply called, Performance Art.

La belle epoque

the beautiful age. The optimistic first decade and a half of the 20th century in Europe, pre-1914.

Abstract Expressionism

the first distinctly American abstract art movement. An art movement in which the artist expresses their psyche/energy/creative will through his or her own characteristic abstract mark-making, which was supposed to be unique to each artist.

Gestural abstraction

these works are all about the spontaneous acts of creation and the artists unique creative gesture. These works were meant to emphasize the creative act of art making as the most important part of the artwork. They are, in essence, paintings about the act of painting.