Post on 31-Oct-2014
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Songs of the Day
“Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights from 1985 album Brothers in Arms
“Material Girl” by Madonna from the 1984 album Like a Virgin
Songs of the Day
“Land of Confusion” by Genesis from 1986 album Invisible Touch
“Don’t come around here no more” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the 1984 album Southern Accents
More strategies / tools for reading and analyzing art. Specifically, denotative / connotative understanding
Look at images in an art historical context to
understand the significance of history and social connections. Art does not exist in a bubble.
Today’s lecture helps to set up
Postmodernism / Contemporary Art (the primary focus of our semester)
Today’s Schedule
Assignments:
Exhibition Review #1
Directions are posted on d2l DUE: Tuesday, October 1st by midnight – in the
dropbox on D2L
Save your file as: yournameER1.doc Do not upload formats other than .doc
or .docx – any other formats WILL NOT BE GRADED) ex: TraciQuinnER1.doc
To Review
ELEMENTS OF ART -‐ The elements of art are the building blocks used by ar>sts to create a work of art.
1. Shape 2. Line 3. Value (light and dark) 4. Texture & pattern 5. Color 6. Space
To Review
KNOW THESE TERMS AND HOW THEY INFORM AN ARTWORK
PRINCIPLES OF ART -‐ The principles of visual art are the rules, tools and/or guidelines that ar>sts use to organize the elements of art in an artwork.
1. Balance 2. Emphasis and focal point 3. Proportion and scale 4. Unity and variety 5. Rhythm
Reading Images
Denotative meaning is the formal elements of an image – what can be described in FACTS. Denotative meaning refers what you Describe/ What do you see?
Denotation = Description Connotative meaning is the interpretive meaning that comes from social, cultural, and historical contexts. Connotative meaning brings to an image the wider realm of ideology, cultural meaning, and value systems of society. What ideas come to mind when you look at an image? What does it evoke?
Connotation = Interpretation / Content
get into small groups…
Denotative meaning is the formal elements of an image – what can be described in FACTS. Denotative meaning refers what you Describe/ What do you see?
Denotation = Description Connotative meaning is the interpretive meaning that comes from social, cultural, and historical contexts. Connotative meaning brings to an image the wider realm of ideology, cultural meaning, and value systems of society. What ideas come to mind when you look at an image? What does it evoke?
Connotation = Interpretation / Content
get into small groups…
Denotative meaning Connotative meaning
Medium, Balance, Emphasis and focal point, Proportion and scale, Unity and variety, Rhythm
get into small groups…
Lauren Greenfield, Thin, 2006
get into small groups…
Denotative meaning Connotative meaning
Medium, Balance, Emphasis and focal point, Proportion and scale, Unity and variety, Rhythm
get into small groups…
Imran, Quershi, “And How Many Rains Must Fall Before the Stains Are Washed Clean,” 2013
Renaissance...
Modernism…
Postmodernism
Art History Vocabulary • Era
• Period
• Movement
• School
• Style
Art History Vocabulary Era
– Historically significant chunk of time such as 100-20,000 years
– Geographically large
– International
– global
– Distinguished by common, unifying characteristics
Art History Vocabulary Period
– Historic chunk of time shorter than an Era
– Geographically limited (usually a single country)
– Distinguished by common, unifying characteristics
– Not well-defined – could refer to the entire rule of a European monarch (i.e. “Victorian” period) or an individual artist’s phase (i.e. Picasso’s “blue” period)
Art History Vocabulary Movement
– Historic chunk of time that is relatively short (months or years)
– Geographically very specific
– Distinguished by common, unifying characteristics
– Group of artists banded together to pursue a specific objective (particular artistic style, political mindset, common enemy, etc.)
– Benefits: • Support each other • Hold their own exhibitions • Annoy the Art Establishment
Art History Vocabulary School
– Sometimes refers to an actual educational institution and the artists who trained there
– Often used as a synonym for movement – a group of artists in a specific place with common goals and a shared style – a sort of informal or grassroots school
• Example: The Hudson River School – a mid-19th century American art movement carried out by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism.
Art History Vocabulary Style
– Common look (form and/or composition) employed by an artist, school, or movement
• Examples: Cubist, pointillist, photorealist, etc.
Pre-modernism = Renaissance (an era)
Some key ideas leading up to modernist art
Modernism:
Modern art (an era) was a reaction to what came before, such as The Renaissance.
Remember, we are setting up for…
Postmodernism (the primary focus of our semester)
c. 1
40
0
Lots of religious art, and a few other things
Timeline of Western Art
c. 1
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0
c. 1
87
4
Renaissance
An era that saw many movements, periods, schools, and styles. (i.e. Baroque, Mannerism, Realism,
Rococo, Romantic)
Lots of religious art, and a few other things
Modernist Era
c. 1
40
0
c. 1
96
0
c. 1
87
4
Impressionism
Lots of religious art, and a few other things
Renaissance
An era that saw many movements, periods, schools, and styles. (i.e. Baroque, Mannerism, Realism,
Rococo, Romantic)
Modernist Era
c. 1
40
0
c. 1
96
0
c. 1
87
4
Lots of religious art, and a few other things
Post-modernism
Renaissance Impressionism
An era that saw many movements, periods, schools, and styles. (i.e. Baroque, Mannerism, Realism,
Rococo, Romantic)
From c. 1450-1870, ideas and techniques developed during the
Renaissance dominated Western art.
Three important ones:
BEAUTY ILLUSION
RELIGIOUS / SECULAR THEMES
1. Beauty
Beauty in proportion The Golden Mean or The Golden Ratio
1:1.618034. . .
Iktinos & Kallikrates, Parthenon, 447-432 BCE, Athens, Greece,
Marble, 228’ x 104’
The ancient Greeks knew the golden ratio from their investigations into geometry. Studies have been devised to test the idea that the golden ratio plays a role in the human perception of beauty. Though inconclusive, a large body of beliefs about the golden ratio exist.
Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper , 1495-98 Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan
Golden Ratio
Beauty in aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.
Aesthetics change based on time and history Western medieval aesthetics Modern aesthetics Postmodern Aesthetics
Beauty in aesthetics
2. Illusion
observed Reality as a kind of Truth This was not always valued in art!
Perspective (within the artworks
themselves) • Atmospheric
• Linear
Perspective Atmospheric
– Objects in the distance are hazy or less well-defined than objects in the foreground (no sharp lines)
– Colors in the background are more muted; less contrast and smaller range of values
Raphael's Madonna of the Meadow, 1505, Italy, panel painting, 44 x 34"
Atmospheric perspective
Sfumato: a low-contrast style of painting – no extreme darks or lights
Perspective Linear: Objects appear smaller as their distance
from the observer increases
– Horizon line is depicted or implied
– Objects are foreshortened (dimensions along the line of sight are relatively shorter than dimensions across the line of sight)
– Parallel lines have a vanishing-point (a point somewhere in the distance where they will eventually meet)
Linear Perspective
Linear Perspective
Linear Perspective
3. Religious / Secular Themes
Religious Themes
The Church was arguably the largest supporter of the arts.
• Using images to speak to the public
– (many people were illiterate) Belief in the power of images to convey messages
Giovanni Bellini San Zaccaria Altarpiece 1505
Caravaggio The Incredulity of Saint Thomas 1601
Secular Themes
In addition to religious images, around 1400 (approx. time of the beginning of the Renaissance)
painters and sculptors began to depict:
• Average people • (portraits & genre paintings)
• Historical events • Everyday scenes
• (landscapes & home interiors) • Stories from mythology
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c.
1503-1505, panel, 30 x 21”, The Louvre,
Paris
Jan Davidsz de Heem (Netherlands), A Table of Desserts, 1640, oil on canvas, 59 x 80”, The Louvre, Paris
Thomas Cole, Landscape, 1825, oil on canvas
John Singer Sargent,
Beatrice Golet, 1890
Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784
Jacques-Louis David, Bonaparte Crossing the St. Bernard Pass, 1801
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814
Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1828
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830
We move from the era of the Renaissance to…
Modernism (another era)
The Modern Era
What major technological/social event in the 19th century changed the lifestyles of
most of the Western world?
the Industrial Revolution
The Modern Era
What major technological/social event in the 19th century changed the lifestyles of
most of the Western world?
Causes of change in art were social and technological, not aesthetic:
• Growth of cities
• New methods of transportation and communication
(i.e. internal combustion engine, railroads, lightbulb, phonograph, telephone)
• Change in political systems and structures; Increased democracy
• Secularization of modern society
• Availability of photography to general public
• Interest in our inner life (the psyche) – Freud et al.
Modernism
Modernism in a nutshell • New economic, social and political conditions of a
changing, industrialized world. (ideas, activities and creations of people who thought "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religion, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated)
• The traditions of the past (the certainty of
Enlightenment/Renaissance thinking) were cast aside in a spirit of experimentation (new ways of seeing, new ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art, embracing uncertainty)
• Affected many aspects of culture and society, not limited to visual art and artists
Beauty Illusion “realism” Secular Themes
Art as autonomous object
Five recurring themes in modernist art:
1. Seeing and perspective
2. Abstraction
3. Expression
4. Fantasy
5. Concept/idea
MEMORIZE THESE!
1. Seeing and perspective
New ways of looking at things; capturing new/unfamiliar aspects of familiar things
Claude Monet, Gare St-Lazare,,1877; French, oil on canvas, 32 1/2" x 39 1/9モ, Fogg
Museum, Harvard University; Boston, Mass.
Captures the experience of modernity, of being in the station: the smoke, the light, the sensations
Spontaneous sensations and impressions of modernity
Impressionism Accurate depiction of reality – historical record
William Frith, Paddington Railway Station, 1882, oil on canvas, 117 x 257 cm, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Surrey, England
Impressionist Painters • Interested in a new way of seeing – paintings not
meant to be analyzed or decoded logically & intellectually
• Preoccupied with change, impermanence, and instability - probably a reflection of the urban, industrial world that surrounded them
• They tried to capture spontaneity: “this very instant”
• Interested in depicting fleeting qualities of light
and color in nature • Made scenes of pleasure/leisure from their own
lives
Compared with the Academic painting that came before, it looked messy and unfinished.
Claude Monet, Waterlilies with Clouds, 1903, oil on canvas