art final exam review ch 21
Consider Kandinsky's Black Lines and Miró's Carnival of the Harlequin. Identify the movements with which each artist is associated. Discuss each artist's interest in abstraction and/or non-representation within the movement with which each is identified.
Black Lines by Vasili Kandinsky, organized the group Der Blaue Reiter, which sought to eliminate subject matter and employ a nonrepresentational style to communicate a formal language of line, form, and color. Kandinsky's intense arbitrary colors and wavering lines links it to Fauvism which employed the same bright colors, and mystical themes. Miró's painting, Carnival of the Harlequin, offered a Surrealist view of the famous painting Las Meninas, by Velasquez. Miró created a fantasy world of colorful, nameless abstract forms that participated in a swirling universe of lighthearted play and movement.
Consider Morisot's Summer's Day and Cassatt's The Boating Party. Discuss each artist's contribution to this art movement
Cassatt was an American ex-patriot artist who became a member of the Impressionist movement after Degas invited her to show with the group. Cassatt offered a woman's viewpoint of modern life and employed bold, simplified forms and broad areas of color, which reflected the influence of Japanese prints. Morisot was a founding member of the Impressionist group and, like Cassatt, depicted the social and private world of modern women. She took up open air painting and began exhibiting successfully in official Salon, nine of which were in the first Impressionist exhibit. Morisot remained a dedicated member of the group for the rest of her life.
Consider De Chirico's The Disquieting Muses, Dali's Persistence of Memory, and Oppenheim's Object (Luncheon in Fur). For each artist, identify the movement with which he or she is associated. Then discuss the differing approaches each artist took in these works to achieve the goals of that movement.
De Chirico was an innovative artist who believed for art to become truly immortal it must break the barriers of common sense and logic and enter the regions of childhood vision and dream. His fantasy painting, The Disquieting Muses, presents dream-like imagery of objects composed of fragments of Italy's past and presence--ancient, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution. Surrealism appreciated the logic of dreams, the mystery of the unconscious and the lure of the bizarre and irrational. Merit Oppenheim's Object (Luncheon in Fur) illustrates the concept of the poetic object, and the juxtaposition of incongruous elements with objects to provoke strangeness or disorientation. The fur-lined tea cup and saucer creates an uneasy image of using these as functional items. Possibly one of the most famous of Dali's Surrealist works is Persistence of Memory. Dali's art offers a fascinating paradox: a precise and meticulous rendering of limp watch forms, yet the forms could not possibly be real. He creates a fantasy landscape perhaps suggesting his triumph once and for all over time.
Discuss De Stijl and the Bauhaus, and their influence on early 20th century modernism, citing examples and artists/architects of each style.
De Stijl, "the style," refers to a movement founded in the Netherlands that was influenced by Russian Constructivism. The most famous painter associated with it was Piet Mondrian, who distilled his art to what he considered the most universal signs of human order: horizontal and vertical lines, and primary colors. To Mondrian, these formal elements radiated a kind of intellectual beauty that was humanity's greatest achievement. People surrounded by rational beauty would create a balance. Architecture reflected the De Stijl concept, as in the Schroeder house. Looking very much like a Mondrian painting, the house is like an inhabitable sculpture, with intersecting horizontal and vertical planes, primary colors, and symmetrical elements. Constructing with intersecting planes is also the principal behind Marcel Breuer's armchair. Breuer attended the Bauhaus, a school of design founded in Germany by the architect Walter Gropius. The Bauhaus was an ideal of collective artistic endeavor, and the student's education was designed to eliminate traditional divisions between painters, sculptors, architects, graphic and industrial designers. Literally "building house" the Bauhaus sought to "build" new guiding principles of design compatible with 20th-century technology.
Consider Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Describe the critical and public reception each of the works received upon first exhibit. Discuss the movements associated with each artist and indicate how earlier works of art influenced these works.
Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe was one of thousands of works rejected from the annual Salon in 1863. He wanted to join other artists in painting modern life and prove that modern life could produce eternal subjects worthy of the great masters. He incorporated the iconography from Titian's Fete Champêtre and Raphaels Judgment of Paris. The public reacted negatively perceiving that Manet was making fun of these master works. Manet, like the Realist Courbet, believed that modern life itself was the most suitable subject for modern art, and was associated with that movement. Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is considered a pivotal work in the development of 20th-century modern art. The entire composition is chopped up into planes, with no conventional modeling, flattening out the entire picture. The presentation of the female subjects with their angular, geometric shapes, and primitive mask-like faces caused discomfort to many people, although the painting proved as a significant beginning for his artistic journey in developing the movement known as Cubism.
Identify, describe, and contrast two of the Expressionist groups of the early 20th century. Refer to specific artists and works to illustrate your points.
Responses will vary depending on selection of art work. Broadly, Expressionism arose as artists came to believe that the fundamental purpose of art was to express their intense feelings toward the world. The movement developed in Germany where the expressive idea had its greatest influence. Two Expressionist groups that emerged were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. The former's intense arbitrary colors and wavering lines links it to Fauvism and Munch; the latter was organized by Vasili Kandinsky, who employed the same bright colors, and mystical themes. Die Brücke believed that through their art they would build a bridge to an enlightened future, whereas Der Blaue Reiter sought to eliminate subject matter and employ a nonrepresentational style to communicate a formal language of line, form, and color.
Discuss the significance of the Harlem Renaissance as a cultural movement that included visual arts and various other art forms. Name several important artists and works from the Harlem Renaissance and explain the long-term effects of the movement on American art, society, and politics.
Responses will vary depending on selection of art work. In the period following World War I, the United States saw the flowering of art dedicated to building a better society. One of the most vibrant movements, the Harlem Renaissance, arose in an area of New York-- Harlem, which was home to many black Americans of all economic classes. Three experiences merged during this period: the rich heritage of Africa; the legacy of slavery; and the realities of modern life. During the decade of the 1920s Harlem served as a magnet to great talent in all the arts, such as music, visual art, theater, literature, in addition to the sciences. Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Aaron Douglas are just a few of the talented artists in residence during this period. The Harlem Renaissance lasted only a decade and ended with the 1929 stock market crash. Artists continued to have a vision of a better society and believed that the arts had a social mission during those difficult times.
Discuss the technological improvements, cultural developments, and aesthetic innovations that led to Impressionism and explain how the movement got its name, mentioning specific artists and/or works to support your statements.
Responses will vary depending on selection of art work. The painting by Claude Monet, Impressionism: Sunrise, caught the attention of an art critic who used the title to explain what the artists had in common. He titled his review "The Impressionists" and the name stuck. With Impressionism, art moved outdoors due to the new availability of oil paints in tubes. Artists were able to paint outside and experience the shifting light they wanted to depict. The "look" of their paintings became more of a recording of optical sensations, as little dabs, slashes, and flicks of paint were employed in to represent subject matter. Black was banished and replaced with blues and greens. Landscapes, a favorite of Monet, were popular subject matter and were meant to represent momentary action and capture the fleeting light. Renoir and Morisot found inspiration in depicting the everyday lives of people.
Discuss at least three of the artistic styles or movements of the early 20th century and explain how those movements and the artists associated with them reflected new attitudes, philosophies, and social and political transformations.
Responses will vary depending on selections. Consider Picasso's Cubism, which abstracted the forms of the visible world into fragments drawn from multiple points of view; Futurism, an Italian movement that expressed motion as the new glory of the 20th century as evident in Boccioni's sculpture; and Dada, which had the most lasting impact on American art with Marcel Duchamp's "ready-mades" that probed the border between art and life. The art of the early 20th century reflected the bold advances into uncharted territory, against the resistance of conservative forces.
Discuss the trend of 18th-century Romanticism, and give examples of the stylistic characteristics, selecting an artist and his or her artwork as an example.
Romanticism was not so much a style as a set of attitudes and characteristic subjects. The 18th century is sometimes known as the Age of Reason for its leading thinkers placed their faith in rationality, skeptical questioning and scientific inquiry. Rebelling against those ideas, Romanticism urged the claims of emotion, intuition, individual experience, and the imagination. Romantic artists gloried in mysterious or awe-inspiring landscapes, picturesque ruins, extreme events, and exotic cultures. Eugene Delacroix, the leading painter of the Romantic movement, was fascinated by the exotic cultures of North Africa, and created numerous paintings depicting scenes that were part of this "Oriental" realm. The imagery and subject matter of Women of Algiers displayed this sensuous, seductive exoticism. Other paintings focused more on barbaric splendor and cruelty. Delacroix's technique is freer and painterly; forms are built up with fully-loaded brushstrokes, contours are blurred, and the colors are broken.
Consider Duchamp's Fountain and Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Identify the movement(s) with which these artists are associated. How does each artist differ in his relationship to issues of technology and to the traditions of art?
The Dadaist with the most lasting impact on American art was Marcel Duchamp whose "ready-mades" probed the border between art and life. A ready-made is a work of art that is not made but designated. Fountain, an inverted urinal, raised philosophical questions regarding the art object. Duchamp thought that art and life could regularly trade places. Boccioni belonged to a group of Italian artists, the Futurists, who decided that motion itself was the glory of the new 20th century, especially the motion of the new machines. These artists strove to reflect this feeling of motion into their art. Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space represents a striding human figure as the Futurists imagined it would be in the light of contemporary science: a field of energy interacting with everything around it. Sculpture must give life to objects by extending them in space and making them palpable, systematic, and plastic.
Henri Matisse was told by Gustave Moreau, his teacher at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, "You were born to ________." a. be a lawyer b. simplify painting c. outdo me d. sell art, not make it e. bring joy with your paintings
b
Marcel Duchamp created a new art form in which the artist makes nothing, but merely labels an object as art. He called this art form a. the Machine Aesthetic. b. ready-mades. c. automatism. d. pointillism. e. instantaneous art.
b
Edouard Manet "borrowed" the composition of his painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) from a. Renaissance works of art. b. his friend, the painter Berthe Morisot. c. Eugène Delacroix. d. Neoclassical works. e. a popular advertisement of the day.
a
In their paintings, the Impressionists often focused on a. scenes of leisure involving the middle class. b. aristocratic pomp and splendor. c. religious subject matter depicted in everyday settings. d. symbolism and esoteric content. e. historical narratives.
a
The first art movement to be born in the 19th century was ___________, which arose as a reaction against Neoclassicism and Romanticism. a. Realism b. Impressionism c. Pointillism d. Fauvism e. Expressionism
a
Vasili Kandinsky became convinced that art should be free of representational subject matter when he a. mistook an upside-down painting of his for an unfamiliar work of spectacular beauty. b. was no longer able to sell any of his traditional landscape paintings. c. had a near-death experience in which he "saw" music and "heard" color. d. was fasting and meditating in a monastery and had a vision of the future of painting. e. None of these answers is correct.
a
A major influence upon European culture of the 19th century, one that gave rise to an expanding middle class, was a. the abolition of slavery. b. the Industrial Revolution. c. the crusades. d. the sexual revolution. e. the Second Iconoclastic War.
b
Eugène Delacroix was a leading practitioner of the a. Neoclassic style. b. Romantic style. c. Realist style. d. styles of Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism combined. e. None of these answers is correct.
b
The term Post-Impressionism refers to a. a splinter group composed of just a few founding members of Impressionism. b. a neutral term describing the varied directions of a few artists who both accepted and rejected some of the aims of Impressionism. c. a specific style of painting involving the use of tiny dots of pure color. d. the German art movement that admired and emulated Impressionist art. e. the musical equivalent of Impressionist painting, a late 19th-century movement.
b
Paul Cézanne's emphasis on structure in painting was a direct influence in the development of a. Expressionism. b. Dada. c. Cubism. d. American Romanticism. e. All these answers are correct.
c
Pointillism is a technique developed by a. Vincent van Gogh. b. Claude Monet. c. Georges Seurat. d. Pierre-Auguste Renoir. e. Pablo Picasso.
c
Romantic art stresses a. themes of flirtation, courtship, and marriage. b. ancient Roman ideals of proportion and harmony. c. drama, unbridled emotions, and complex compositions. d. clarity, stability, and precision. e. All these answers are correct.
c
Which of the following artists was a Realist? a. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres b. Eugène Delacroix c. Gustave Courbet d. Jacques-Louis David e. All these answers are correct.
c
_____________, who designed a famous armchair, was a student of the Bauhaus school of design in Germany. a. Kandinsy b. Tatlin c. Breuer d. De Chirico e. Mondrian
c
After the Russian Revolution of 1917 many artists believed that only the most revolutionary art could bring about a new movement, which was called a. Dadaism. b. Bauhaus. c. De Stijl. d. Constructivism. e. Cubism
d
How did Impressionism get its name? a. It was the winning entry in a contest to name the new movement. b. One of the artists of the group invented the name to describe her own painting process, and the rest of the group adopted it. c. The group appropriated the name from the title of a recent scientific essay concerning optics and human perception. d. A critic used the term to describe the movement after seeing the painting Impression: Sunrise, and it caught on. e. The group took its name from the title of a current photography journal.
d
If Fauvism's mission was to liberate color from its descriptive role, Cubism's initial aim was a. to reduce the role of color to a minimum. b. to invent a new system for depicting form and space on a flat surface. c. to find a way of representing the fact that human perception involves multiple viewpoints. d. all of these: to reduce the role of color to a minimum; to invent a new system for depicting form and space on a flat surface; and to find a way of representing the fact that human perception involves multiple viewpoints. e. None of these answers are correct.
d
The first national art museum opened in 1793. This museum, still in operation today, is a. the Museum of Modern Art in New York. b. the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. c. the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. d. the Louvre in Paris. e. the Tate in London.
d
The manufacture of oil paint in tubes made it possible for 19th-century European artists to make painting a portable activity. The spontaneity and directness of painting outdoors is evident in works by ________ artists. a. Neoclassical b. Romantic c. Bauhaus d. Impressionist e. both Neoclassical and Romantic
d
Which art movement was directly influenced by Sigmund Freud's theories of the unconscious? a. Fauvism b. Cubism c. Dada d. Surrealism e. All these answers are correct.
d
A good example of a Surrealist poetic object is a. L'Enfant Carburateur by Francis Picabia. b. Bottle Dryer by Marcel Duchamp. c. The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali. d. the Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer. e. Object (Luncheon in Fur) by Meret Oppenheim.
e
Which of the following is an American artist? a. Henry Ossawa Tanner b. Thomas Eakins c. Mary Cassatt d. George Caleb Bingham e. All these answers are correct.
e
