Art History Quiz 2 Review
Georges Braque, The Portuguese
Analytical Cubism • Typically done in neutral tones to explore form over distraction of color • Subjects broken down then recombined through facets(many different sides) of abstract, geometric forms • This depiction suggest a simultaneous view of various aspects of subject • Volumes flattened; sharp angles replace curves • Overlapping form; dissolved edges
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avigon
Cubism- Flattened geometric forms • Born in Picasso's studio, eliminating classical innovations; merging of figure with ground without vanishing point, uniform lighting or academic figure drawing • Picasso was inspired by African masks- wanted to break down the human form into angles and shapes and achieve a new way of looking at things • To depict objects as the mind, not the eye sees them; an emphasis on pictorial composition over personal expression • Multiple views from many angles all at once, a radical departure from traditional composition • Fractured, angular figures intermingle with sharp triangular shapes in background, activating entire canvas • Two main styles: analytical and synthetic
hannah Hoch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany,
Dada A photomontage (an image made by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs) displaying political chaos of the time ● Conflict between Spartacists (far left wing communist group) and the Fry Court who were encouraged to attack people by members of the government; 1919 arrests and deaths incur ● Work portrays cross talk between political players; the fragmentation of the images defines the culture at that moment ● Commentary on the Dadaists incongruent of their philosophy and practice; female roles in society ● The government as machine and male dominated
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain
Dada Duchamp pioneered the "readymade" Found objects hand selected by artist. ● Visited a plumbing supply house called Mott and purchased the urinal ● Submitted by Duhamp on behalf of the American Society for Independent Artists and rejected by the juried American exhibition ● Object becomes something new simply by the selection of the artist who makes no consideration of good or bad taste ● Selected free from any aesthetic value; Can art be an idea, concept or pure theory? ● Challenged traditional standards of beauty or the dominant value set forth by the academy's ● Paved the way for Conceptual art that was in service of the mind as opposed to purely retinal art intended to please the eye
Jean (Hans) Arp, Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance,
Dada ● An element of absurdity; nonsensical ● Pessimistic and a disdain for tradition and convention ● Conjured a serious reflection on the premise and purpose of art ● Spontaneous and intuitive; Freud and Jung ● The use of chance and improvisation ● Object was restored it's primeval magic power, brought to original inception of being
Henri Matisse, Woman with the Hat
Fauvism • Critic referred to the artists as les fauves (wild beasts) due to simple design and shocking colors • Inspired by post impressionist Van Gogh and Gauguin • Looked to incite a directness of the subject with intense color as means of expressing and releasing internal feelings • Conventional composition/poses • Violent contrast of colors; carefree figures, lighthearted
Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity of Space
Futurism • Italian artist celebrate scientific and technological progress • Glory of the machine and fascination
Giacomo Balla. Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash
Futurism To convey the impression of dynamic movement ● Influenced by photography; Frame by frame shot of woman walking dog ● Principle of simultaneity or the rendering of motion by simultaneously showing many aspects of a moving object ● Looked to provoke audience, thought of that as being modern, as upsetting tradition ● They would hold Futurist events where they would recite poems, display art and have performances while shouting politically charged rhetoric ● Agitation and destruction would end status quo and rejuvenate Italy
Analytical Cubism
Georges Braque, The Portuguese
The Eight
Henri Moore, John Sloan,
Sculpture
Modernism Adventurous exploration form New materials are used (plastic) and new formats (collage) Creation of mobiles The use of found objects and ready-mades becomes works of art
Painting
Modernism Color used to evoke feeling Perspective and composition is discarded or purposefully altered
Architecture
Modernism Embraced new technological inventions Ferroconcrete construction- steel reinforced
George Grosz, The Eclipse of the Sun,
New Objectivity An indictment of the militarism and capitalism at the root of cause of global conflict ● Red German coin = darkness ● President of Germany w/ bloody sword & wreath of victory ● Puppet leaders
Max Beckmann, Night
New Objectivity Work emphasized horrors of war; society descending into madness ● A stark comment on society's condition ● Personal injection of his family in the scene ● Angularity of figures; roughness of paint surface ● Objects dislocated, contorted, illogical
Synthetic Cubism
Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning
George Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
Post Impressionism A work complete indoors following dozens of sketches outside • Interest in dividing color into components, optical mixture, a search for the perfect color • Creating a sense of luminosity, Parisians outside with sunlight streaming through trees
Van Gough, Starry Night
Post Impressionism Painted in 1889 a year before his death (self inflicted gunshot wound) • Mentioned only briefly in his letter to his brother as "study of night" or "night effect" • His brother a gallery owner was not impressed "your search for style takes away from the sentiment" • Following the end of his collaboration with Gaugin and the subsequent mutilation of his ear he committed himself to an asylum in the village of Saint-Remy • The style was inspired by the medieval woodcut, think outlines and simplified forms • It is made up of invention, remembrance and observation; thick impasto simple forms and contrasting colors
Paul Gauguin, Vision after the Sermon, or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
Post Impressionism • Vision after the sermon depicts Sunday prayer in pontavenm Brittany France • The location has an artists colony, related to Rousseau's philosophy of natural man • In the expressive use of color, he separates the painting from having to b a mirror of reality
George Seurat, Bathers of Asniers
Post Impressionism Artists in the past painted bathers, it was common, timeless image of nudes bathing in water • Work is large with life-size figures • Working class figures, a bowler hat, straw hat and informality • Industrial scene in background, smoke stacks and buildings • Juxtaposed with a formal couple that are reduced in size • A rejection of spontaneity and informality of impressionists, it is thoughtful and academic • Painting as a critique of 19th century social structures • Presented the idea of leisure time, new way of living • Bringing science thought and rigor to impressionism with the use of cross-hatching/color theory
Kazimir Malevich, White on White
Suprematism ● Created during the Bolshevik Revolution which the artist supported ● Russia was corrupt with a terribly destabilized society in poverty ● Wealthy Russian collectors exposed Russian artists to current avant garde artistic practices ● Malevich did not think cubists had gone far enough ● Supreme reality = pure feeling or an idea of producing a new Utopia ● Bright shapes float against white background in careful arrangement. Shapes and colors always communicate. ● Understood by all; universality of symbols. Rejection of bourgeois culture. Focus on supremacy of shape and color over representation or narrative ● The artist is not the hero here but an accumulation of culture for that moment; giving it a voice and vision ● Viewer can sense weight of the single object, brushstrokes, fingerprints and tension between edges
John Sloan, Sixth Avenue and Thirteenth Street, New York City,
The Eight (Ashcan School) ● American artists were initially isolated from avant garde European artists. ● The Eight aka. The Ash Can School; under Henri Moore ● Realist artists who were encouraged to make "pictures from life." ● Harsh contrast to art portraying genteel society ● Armory show changed the face of American Art ● Some American artists had early European influence; Man Ray (see next slide)
Analytical Style
highly experimental, shows jagged edges and sharp multifaceted lines (created by both Braque and Picasso)
Synesthetic Style
paintings and drawings constructed from objects and shapes from papers or other material
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Noctume in Black and Gold
• American born, most early work completed in London of portraits considered to fall under realism • Later work shifts to avant garde impressionisms • Possibly a precursor to abstract expressionism • Friendly with Courbet and Monet, interest in musical harmony and its relation Impressionism
Van Gough, The Bedroom
• An exploration of the expressiveness of the formal elements to stand on their own as an idea or emotion • A representation of peacefulness and harmony • As simplicity of space different than the city or expectation of sophisticated Parisian, an immediate intimacy • A desire of finding a authentic experience separate of the city Post Impressionism
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril
• An exploration of the new medium of poster art • Result of the perfection of multicolor lithography in the late 1870's and printing presses to accommodate multiple sheet of paper • Borrowing from Degas, view from above, exaggerated foreshortening and cut off figures
Egon Schiefe, Nude Self-Portrait Grimacing
• Conveys physical and psychological torment • Artist had hard life resulting in negative influences of sex, suffering an death at young age • Emphasize the animal nature of the human body • Awkward, twisted and painted pose • Sharp contrast to the classical
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge
• Could be an image of any bar very late in the evening, a representation of Paris after dark • The Moulin Rouge was a popular bar, one of many located in Monte Marte, the hill above Paris where artist would mingle with the lower class • Toulouse-Lautrec was a regular here, it was viewed as being improper • Borrowing from Degas division of space with use of balustrade • The women are famous performers; rendering is grotesque/alien/caricatured • Production of intimacy within the underworld
Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal
• Depicted ballet dancers, singers, bathers • Gives a birds-eye view with cropping; privileged view • Fascinated by patterns of motion • Arrangement of figures • Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints where diverging lines organize space • Subjects aren't necessarily idealized
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street,Dresden
• Expressionism • Group within expressionism • The bridge "Die Burke" • Inspired by the Fauves • A bridge from traditional to modern paintings; in opposition to dominate culture • Violent use of color to rouse the public • Non-western art was access to authentic state of being • Independent expressionists Reconstruct into something new
Henri Matisse, Harmony in Red
• Fauvism o Objects are simple and forms are flattened o Front edge of table is eliminated o Image in the back could be a window with a view of a paining on the wall o Wallpaper and tablecloth are one
Andre Derain, Mountains at Collioure
• Fauvism • Color is used for compositional coherence • Color delineates space • Light and shadow indicated through contrasts of hue
The Blue Rider "Derblaue Reiter"
• Formed in Munich Germany 1911 • Affection for horses and the color blue • Moved from representational to abstract • Intellectuals that saw abstraction as a way to conceive of the world beyond representation
Modernism in Europe
• Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany • Global upheaval and radical innovation o WWI o The rise of communism, Fascism an Nazism o The Great Depression o Sigmund Freud o Wright Brothers o Einstein, theory of relativity • Rise of avant-garde "front guard" those ahead of the troops, visionary and forward thinking • Keep in mind that during this time, modern art was still very controversial and criticized (think of the critics of impressionist) most of the art was seen as a publicity stunt, childish, untrained or politically subversive • Artist are greatly influenced by the fundamentals of The Enlightenment where progress, reason and ideas challenged traditional notion about the physical universe structure of society and human nature
Pierre-August Renoir, Moulin de la Galette
• Impressionist chose to paint the urban middle class • Shows people at a popular outdoor café in pairs • Spontaneous brushstrokes and subject matter create cheerful atmosphere • Painting technique and scenes meant to evoke a world of beauty and pleasure Mixing of classes Impressionism
Japanese Art
• Increased contact with japan made Japanese prints, which appeared exotic to Paris upper and middle class, very appealing • The representation of space on woodblock prints, with broad areas of flat color inspired modern artist who were interested in their relationship with artwork • 1853 Japanese ports reopened trade with the west • First formal exposure was at a pavilion at the worlds fair 1867 • Prior to this items such as kimonos, fans, lacquers and skills had already flooded European ports • The subject matter, compositions, elongated pictorial formats, and aerial perspective were most influential to the impressionists
Bertha Morisot, The Mother and Sister of the Artist
• Interior domestic scene depicting her mother and sister • Engaged in typical hobbies for women reading or sewing • Young women appears sad, entrapped • Mother is in black, mourning • The sister who is the painter is non-traditional, commentary on the dynamic relationship • Open contours, unfinished Impressionism
Vasily Kandinsky, Improvisation
• Movement towards abstraction • Tile derived from musical compositions • Strong use of black lines-vortex of color, line and shape • Color shades around line forms • Painting is
Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral: the portal(in sun)
• One of thirty pantings depicting the effect of light to define an ephemeral quality of light • Exhibited for sale in 1895 in a private commercial art gallery • Selects a medieval cathedral whose subjects is divine light itself; nationalistic • Working with complexity of light and shadow • The building is shaped and reshaped the architecture is re formed
Henri Matisse, The Blue Window
• Overarching goal to arrive at the central character of things; reduced version of a view from window of his studio • Monochromatic canvas, subdued
Gauguin, Nevermore
• Painted during his second trip to Tahiti in search for untouched civilization • It was much more modern and developed than he had expected • Representative a classical nude • Not as passive and exposed or flirtatious • Dark contours, flattened decorative patterns; dreamlike state • The bright gold pillow accentuates this dreamlike state; clouds Post Impressionism
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase
• Part of exhibit at the Armory Show in New York 1913 • Limited color range; influence from Cubist • Influence by motion pictures, stroboscopic photography where sequential camera images show movement by freezing successive instances • Emphasis on movement; forward down motion
Van Gogh, Self Portrait dedicated to Paul Gauguin
• Radically new rendering of a portrait for the time • He painted approximately 36 self-portraits in the space of ten year • Creating volume with color alone, matted hair and heavy coat • Painted the same year he moved to Aries in south France to establish an art colony with Gauguin • With ideas that painting could be reinvented through the genre of portraiture, he encouraged an exchange of portraits Post Impressionism
Impressionism
• Reaction to the effects of industrialization and transformation of Paris • Built on innovations of realist depicting daily life • Exhibited together in eight impressionist exhibitions • Depicted modern subject matter • Artist had very individual styles yet united in rejecting the formal approach of the academy • An interaction between the objective and subjective
Post-Impressionism
• Rejection of the idea of capturing the essence of modern life • Stylistic characteristics include methods that are scientifically based and abstraction of form and color
Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise
• Shown in the first impressionist show 1874 • Painted en plein air, Monet exercised the investigation of light and the elimination of the distinction between sketch and formal painting • View of the harbor in the city where he grew up, it does not provide a optically accurate scene • It is an awareness of the paint and the canvas surface Impressionism
Symbolism
• Subset of post-impressionism • Library and artistic movement • Dreamlike and emotionally
Franz Marc, Large Blue Horses
• Swirling shapes and dynamic composition • Emotional impact of blue color for horses- color draws horses togve3ther as if in a common experience Gertrude Stein • Instrumental to the rise of modern art in Europe were two American, Leo and Gertrude Stein • Began collecting art in France in 1903; weekly meetings(salon) at her home of artists and writers
Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning
• Synthetic Cubism • Addition of color, texture, patterned surface and cutout shapes • Newspaper, sheet music
Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Countryside
• The attention is places on the infant, a moment in time • Cropping of the wagon wheel and horses legs • Large spatial gap with very small figures playfully placed throughout incongruities that would have been shunned by the academy • Historically upper class women did not nurse their own children, wet nurse • Social class apparent, the nurse and dog are accouterments • Shows artists embracing the real urban world of Paris
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street: Rainy Day
• Works use extreme perspective reflecting changes to pairs rapid urbanization • Napoleon III ordered pairs rebuilt • Placement figures, cropping of frames • Uses the subtly of light in the city after a rainstorm Open space in left hand corner and cut off figures on the right as if you were there An everyday moment impressionism
