Art History 111B Exam #3/ Final

German Expressionism

"Uses colors of fauvism and form of cubism, and creates art with burning emotion." Has to do with German politics/after World War I

Fauvism

"Wild Beasts". Works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism

DADA

(1916-1923) A movement when art was nonsensical, childish, and gibberish. It embraces the absurd in order to challenge the art world. It was a reaction against realism and logic. It was/is considered anti-art. It was meant to shock and offend.

Why did New York become the new center of the Western art world following WWII?

-Museum of Modern Art was established in 1929 (first museum that was exclusive to modern art) -European artists who were exiled from Europe spent their time in Europe -Peggy Gugenheim: wealthy art collector and gallery owner opened a gallery called Art of This -Century which only showcased avant garde artists from Europe and up-and-coming American artists -American artists soon constituted a "New York School" of abstract expressionist painters, completing the transfer of the art world's center of gravity to Manhattan.

Paul Cezanne

A French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th centur

What is meant by the term "Post-Modern"? How may works of the late 20th century be understood in these terms?

A body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. Movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, particularly involving video are described as post-modern.

Abstract Expressionism

A development of abstract art that originated in New York in the 1940s and 1950s and aimed at subjective emotional expression with particular emphasis on the creative spontaneous act (e.g., action painting)

What is Abstract Expressionism? What visual and ideological interests did Abstract Expressionists share?

A development of abstract art that originated in New York in the 1940s and 1950s and aimed at subjective emotional expression with particular emphasis on the creative spontaneous act. Abstract Expressionists shared an interest in using abstraction to convey strong emotional or expressive content. They were influenced by the style and the unconscious. (Examples: action paintings by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning's Woman Series, Mark Rothko's Color Field, Helen Frankenthaler's Mountain and Sea)

Surrealism:

A movement in art and literature that flourished in the early twentieth century that aimed at expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control

Minimalism

A school of abstract painting and sculpture that emphasizes extreme simplification of form, as by the use of basic shapes and monochromatic palettes of primary colors, objectivity, and anonymity of style

Color Field Painting

A style of abstract painting characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane

Action Painting

A technique and style of abstract painting in which paint is randomly splashed, thrown, or poured on the canvas

Degenerate Art

A term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe Modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German, Jewish, or Communist in nature

Performance Art

An art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance

What is Performance Art?

An art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance. Theatre-like. Is recorded through photography. (Examples: Chris Burden's Shoot, Marina Abramovic's Rhythm O, Joseph Beuy's Coyote)

Earth Works

An art movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked

Italian Futurism

An artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth, and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city

Cubism

An avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture

Pop Art:

Art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values. Pop Art was brash, young and fun and hostile to the artistic establishment

How many we characterize the art of Paul Cezanne? How did he build upon the work of Impressionist artists? What aspects of his art are evident in the work of Cubist artists, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque?

Cezanne would be characterized as a Post-Impressionist artist. Post Impressionism is characterized by an emphasis on the mystical, romantic, expressive, and often by the use of symbolic figures. He made it not about the subject, but how it appears to the viewer. His art relates to cubist artists in the sense where he doesn't use linear perspective. [He was a modern artist whose work was a precursor for Cubism and Fauvism. Compositions were usually dark in tone and he often chose to work inside rather than "en plein air". Style and technique was avant-garde. Thickly placed layers of paint and undefined forms attempted to simplify everything into a shape that could be broken down.]

How did the Conceptual artists eliminate the art object?

Conceptual artists reduced the material presence of the work to an absolute minimum, a tendency that some have referred to as the "dematerialization" of art. (The concept/ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns) They rejected Minimalism's embrace of the conventions of sculpture and painting as mainstays of artistic production. They created art that is about art, and pushed its limits by using minimal materials and even text.

Who invented Cubism? What formal elements characterize Cubist artworks?

Cubism is an art movement that made its debut in 1907. Pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, the style is characterized by fragmented subject matter deconstructed in such a way that it can be viewed from multiple angles simultaneously. Formal elements that characterize Cubist artworks, is that it eliminated detail, takes objects and breaks them apart.

What is De Stijl? What was Mondrian's role in the development of this movement?

De Stijl, which ambitiously means The Style, was conceived in 1917 in the Netherlands by a group of artists who centered around the idea to fathom the purity of form and the reality of nature, supposedly obscured by figuration. Having the time of its inauguration in mind, it should be clear that this urge to redefine, or even reinvent reality comes from a feeling of anxiety and disappointment caused by the First World War. Mondrian's role created the visual expression and was radicalized by a self-invented vocabulary that functioned according to its own system, consisting of orthogonal lines and primary colors as the most basic tools for non-verbal communication. about the emotion that their juxtaposition creates. De Stijl, was an art movement that focused on ultimate simplicity and abstraction through harmony and order. Mondrian, was associated with De Stijl since it was abstract paintings that creates a series of images and only uses primary colors, black, and white, and arranges colors to create balance, which is ideal for De Stijl. Mondrian uses this concept in his work to create a "dynamic equilibrium" in his work by carefully arranging shape, line and color grouped asymmetrically on the canvas.

Ready-Made

Describing art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects or products that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function

What visual interests typify Fauvism? How do Fauve artists use color?

Fauvism means "wild beast" (wild beasts of color). Fauvism artists took the French tradition of color and strong brushwork to new heights of intensity and expressive power and entirely rethought the painting's surface. Fauvism is commonly associated with landscapes, cityscapes, and has a small category for figure. Fauvists use wild colors and don't really match them with reality. -A radical use of unnatural colors that separated usual representation and realistic role, giving new emotional meaning to the colors. -Color was allowed to exist on the canvas as an independent element. -Color could project a mood and establish a structure within the work of art without having to be true to the natural world. -Simplified forms and saturated colors drew attention to the inherent flatness of the canvas or paper within that pictorial space. -Visual impression of the work is strong and unified -The artist's direct experience of his subjects, emotional response to nature, and intuition were more important that an elevated subject matter.

How did Picasso's Guernica function as social protest?

Guernica is Picasso's visual response, his memorial to the brutal massacre that was the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican forces sent Guernica on an international tour to create awareness of the war and raise funds for Spanish refugees. Rather than the typical celebration of technology people expected to see at a world's fair, the entire Spanish Pavilion shocked the world into confronting the suffering of the Spanish people.

De Stijl

Means "the style" in Dutch; A circle of Dutch abstract artists who promoted a style of art based on a strict geometry of horizontals and verticals

What is Pop Art? How does Pop Art engage with commodity culture? How does Pop Art differ from DADA and NEO-DADA in its use of commercial products?

Pop Art is art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values. Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of everyday life, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art. Dada is an expression against industrialization. Dadaists felt that with mass production, art had lost its place in life. Human society was heading towards complete mechanization and pure logical thinking. The artist rebelled against this idea through nonsense and drawing beauty out of what may seem like chaos.

How did the activism of the 1960's influence art?

Redevelopment and urban renewal became the focus of cities around the country. The federal government gave tax incentives that aided in the demolition of neighborhoods and the displacement of huge numbers of poor people. Minorities made up 75% of people displaced nationwide due to urban renewal projects. This became a rallying cry for artists. They created work that spoke to their struggles. Many other artists threw themselves in with dedication, feeling that they had to do something.

How is Surrealism different from DADA?

Surrealism is something that doesn't feel real. No external experience more positive (dream-like). Surrealism deviated from reality and was regressive in nature because people wanted to forget the atrocities of the war. Surrealist artists attempted to tap into the dream world of the subliminal mind, visualizing its secrets and mysteries. (It makes the familiar, unfamiliar). In contrast, Dada wasn't an art style but a view/movement. For everything art stood for, Dada meant the opposite. Repudiating and mocking artistic and social conventions and emphasizing the illogical and absurd. DADA artists created strange and irrational art/nonsense. DADA was meant to challenge art, and was even thought as anti-art that purposely tried to offend people.

Why was the early 20th century a period of such intense creative development? What scientific, technological, and intellectual developments motivated the creation of so many different forms of visual expressionism?

The birth of motion picture, the first publication of Freud, wired telephone and telegraph, and x-rays. WWI and WWII went on at the the time, which called for many artists to respond to these events, this was both in positive and negative ways. From this many artistic movements began. For example, WWI gave birth to the first Technological warfare, such as rapid power machine guns, poisonous gas, and overall WOD (weapons of destruction). This also causes for new intellectual movements such as rappel a l'orde (return to order) which was the idea of returning to classic humanist themes and reject this new abstract art. (This lasted until WWII).

Analytical Cubism

The early phase of cubism, chiefly characterized by a pronounced use of geometric shapes and by a tendency toward a monochromatic use of color

What is "modern" about the sculpture of Auguste Rodin?

The fact that his art was decorative, formulaic, and highly thematic. His most traditional work departed from classical or mythological themes and focused more on the sculpture as an individual. He also anti-idealized his figures, which was something not done in classical art. [Most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality. Character and emotion represented through body detail, textured surfaces, and the interplay of light and shadow].

Synthetic Cubism

The late phase of cubism, characterized chiefly by an increased use of color and the imitation or introduction of a wide range of textures and material into painting

Discuss the impact of World War I on the development of art in Europe and North America.

The machinery and technology in the war was incorporated into artworks. Artists also began to portray the emotions and trauma of the war. Since this was the first deadliest war, there were many negative emotions that were never felt before to a wide variety of people. The war also resulted in darker themes and nontraditional methods in artist's works. Many depictions of the war began to emerge, such as death and nationalism. DADA was an artistic/literary movement that rose as a reaction to WWI and the nationalism that many thought had led to the war

What innovations did early 20th century architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, introduce in his buildings?

The restrained delight in the simplicity of a single mass gave way to his passion for passages of continuous, flowing spaces; he burst the enclosed, separated spaces of classical architecture, removed the containment, the sense of walls and ceilings, and created single, continuously modified spaces, which he shaped by screens, piers, and intermittent planes and masses that were disposed in asymmetric compositions. His designs engaged a lot with nature.

What is meant by the term "Modernism" in art? What interests do modern artists share?

The term means a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts, social change, and the desire to break from the classic interpretation of how art should be. [Experimental, new process. Think industrial revolution. Rejected religious and enlightening thinking.]

Appropriation

The use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them

Primitivism

Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples