Chapter 14: A Half-Century of “Isms” · The Fauves -“Wild Beasts” A group of artists...
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Chapter 14: A Half-Century of “Isms” 14.1 Expressionism
Transcript of Chapter 14: A Half-Century of “Isms” · The Fauves -“Wild Beasts” A group of artists...
Chapter 14: A Half-Century
of “Isms”
14.1 Expressionism
Artists and Groups The Fauves-Wild Beasts
Henri Matisse
Georges Rouault
German Expressionists
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Kathe Kollwitz
Die Brucke-“The Bridge”
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Emil Nolde
Der Blaue Reiter-“The Blue Rider”
Franz Marc
Wassily Kandinsky
Max Beckman
Italian
Amedeo Modigliani
Expressionism in the Americas
Jose Clemente Orozco
David Alfaro Siqueiros
Frida Kahlo
Points to RememberFrom Impressionism and Post-Impressionism grew a wide variety of styles, existing at the same time, that makes placing them in chronological order impossible.
Artists in Western European countries expressed deep emotions without much attention to naturalism or realistic representation.
The avant-garde art movements reflected a self-searching attitude from its artists.
Expressionism refers to an attitude of art rather than a specific style.
Expressionist artists concentrated on communicating emotional states of mind rather than naturalistic renderings of subjects.
Avant-garde refers to a style of 20th century art; also, any style of contemporary art in ay time period, being the newest form of visual expression and the farthest from the traditional ways of working.
Non-objective art is one that has no recognizable subject matter such as trees, flowers, people, etc. The actual subject matter might be colour of the composition design itself.
“Degenerate Art” is a term used by Nazi Germans in the 1930s for art that did not reflect the ideas of the Nazis. German artists whose work was considered “degenerate” were forbidden to work, and people the sympathized with them were fired from their jobs. Hitler called modern art “political and cultural anarchy”.
The Fauves -“Wild Beasts” A group of artists nicknamed as such because their work was characterized by vigorous brushwork, raw, bright, hot colours.
The group got its name from the work of Henri Matisse produced during this period
Matisse was influenced by Islamic art he saw in Munich and Morocco. He was influenced by sculptures, patterns on rugs and textiles.
He emphasized the idea that painting of three-dimensional space should remain true to the fact that a canvas is really two-dimensional.
Georges Rouault
Trained as a stained glass painter, he restored medieval windows on churches and cathedrals
He used his paintings to express his deep concern over the immoral conditions of poverty and war, especially the evils around him: prostitution, injustice and corruption.
His paintings show the influence of medieval stained glass windows with their bright colours and heavy black outlines
German Expressionism
Paula Modersohn-Becker Her paintings show the influence of Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh in the way she used simplified forms, exotic colour and heavier lines.
Her simplified portraits show her personal feelings about people.
Paul Gauguin
Vincent Van Gogh
Die Brücke - “The Bridge” Formed in Dresden in 1905, about the same time the Fauves working in France.
Admirers of Edvard Munch, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.
Rejected academic training in art and all traditional forms of expression.
Revived woodcuts as an art and other graphic means of expression for the boldness of the media.
Their paintings show violent colours and distorted features.
their work spoke out against the economic and social conditions in Germany before WW I
Their interest in african masks and carvings is evident in their work.
Edvard Munch
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
The early leader of Die Brucke
Like Van Gogh, he was emotional, sensitive, and suffered from depression.
His work was declared “degenerate” in 1937.
He believed that “art depends on inspiration and not technique”.
His work is characterized by flat, bright acidic colours against stark clack areas.
His style produces agitation and tension.
Emil NoldeBeing an older member of Die Brucke, he only remained a member for two years
His work was declared “degenerate” by the nazis and was forbidden to paint.
His style used slashing brushwork and acidic colours - not pleasing to the public.
His painting “Masks”, shows the influence of African culture.
He used masks to demonstrate his personal contempt for immorality, greed, avarice, lust and hypocrisy ins society.
Der Blaue Reiter - “The Blue Rider” Centred in Munich, germany between 1911-12
Two main artists were German-born Franz marc and Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky.
their work did not have the heavy revolutionary undertones. their work exerted a strong influence on modern art because of their strong individual styles and approach to the use of colour as symbols.
Franz Marc Wassily Kandinsky
Franz MarcEvolved like most other artists from being a realistic painter to being a colour-oriented Expressionist and abstractionist.
A favourite subject - animals - were often painted with arbitrary symbolic colours. He combined colour with shape and rhythm to dramatize the integration of all creatures in nature.
Wassily KandinskyCredited with the first non-objective painting.
Believed that the “pure” artist expressed “inner and essential” feelings.
Early works similar to the Fauves, with recognizable subjects.
After seeing one of his paintings upside-down n his studio, He saw it as an abstraction. This inspired him toward a whole new way of painting.
He simplified and abstracted images until only shape, colour, and line were left. His subjects were no longer recognizable.
His ground breaking ideas about painting became strong influences on Abstract Expressionists.
His theories on colour included ideas such as “blue is soft and round, yellow is sharp”. He considered blue and yellow to be among the most spiritual. Colour had sounds too.
Max Beckman Began as may others as an Impressionist. After WW I, the Nazis labelled his work “degenerate” and forced him to leave his teaching position and Germany.
He moved to Holland where he was free to express his beliefs to warn the world about society’s cruelty, greed, lust, etc.
Society after WW I was often characterized as “decadent”
Beckman, like other artists commented on the downward spiral of a self-centred society and its consequences.
Amedeo Modigliani Born Italian, but spent most of his life in the centre of the art world, Paris.
He developed a unique style based on the elongated distortion of African sculptures, the design and brushwork of Cezanne, and the sketchy line and flat shapes of Matisse.
Expressionism in the Americas Artists like diego Rivera, Jose clemente Orozco, and David alfaro Siqeiros combined expressionist techniques with social protest.
Their work provided powerful political and social statements about the struggles of the common people of Mexico.
their work presented their ideas of social justice, mourning for the war dead, and the aspirations of the guerrillas.
Jose Clemente Orozco
Diego Rivera
Frida Kahlo Self-taught artist who’s paintings were psychologically mysterious.
Her personal expressiveness, psychological intuition and ability make her one of Mexico’s most respected artists .
Chapter 14: A Half-Century
of “Isms”
14.2 Abstract Art
Artists and Groups
The Futurists Joseph Stella
Umberto Boccioni
The Cubists Pablo Picasso
Georges Braque
Marcel Duchamp
De Stijl (The Style) Piet Mondrian
Points to Remember
Cubism, Futurism and De Stijl were three important early abstract movements that concentrated primarily on design.
Abstractionists were mainly concerned with the design of their compositions rather than with description of psychological states or realistic scenes.
Simultaneity: The technique of depicting objects from separate vantage points in one work of art.
Movements in art in the 20th century follow neither a unified nor sequential path.
The Armory Show: The 1913 Armory Show in New York was the first exhibition of modern French artists in America and was organized by American painters. The organizers were united in their opposition to the National Academy of Design, which had rejected their realistic paintings.
Futurism Futurism – A branch of abstract art that emphasized the lines of force or dynamism of objects.
Glorified industrialization in a positive expressive manner that was the opposite to the German Expressionists which saw mechanization as dehumanizing.
Futurism rejected traditional art.
Futurists were interested in the mechanized advancement of society and the destruction of all symbols of the past, including museums, academies, and large cities, because they held up progress.
Joseph Stella
Concerned with the design on the canvas and how various parts relate to one another.
He often relied on symmetrical balance on either side of a strong central balance to hold compositions together.
His Brooklyn Bridge, uses light, colour and line to relate to the viewer the tumultuous nature of the scene.
Stella, Battle of Lights, Coney Island, 1914
Stella, Battle of Lights, Coney Island, 1914
Umberto BoccioniBoccioni believed that objects have an emotional life of their own and react to their environment by “force lines”. He advocated the use of materials such as glass and electric lights and motors to create movement.
His sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity and Space, shows the idea of simultaneity in which a charging male figure caught in several aspects of walking at the same time.
Boccioni’s sculpture recalls Bernini’s sculpture of David which interacts dynamically with its surrounding space.
Cubism
Cubism is primarily concerned with surface design, not emotion and feelings.
Began in 1907 by Pablo Picasso
Picasso joined with Georges Braque to paint using Paul Cezanne’s ideas and his way of building up the surface with small square brushstrokes.
They launched a new way of seeing and painting the world.
Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is considered the beginning of Cubism through its relationships of shapes and colours to each other. These relationships became more important than the figures themselves in the painting. For this reason it had changed painting and art.
Picasso began the painting as an allegory. Originally he was to have a man seated on the right, surrounded by fruit and women representing Vice. There was to be a man on the left holding a skull representing Virtue. In the finished painting, the head of the figure on the right resembles a mask from Itumba, the area once known as the French Congo. The other head was influenced by a mask from the Ivory Coast.
Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Pablo Picasso
What the viewer now sees are five fractured, nude figures and a small still life.
The interplay of geometric shapes is what led to Cubism. The crisp facets and nearly monochromatic hues were used because bright colour would detract from the design.
The shattered pattern of translucent geometric features are broken apart and reassembled in a new a unique way. This new way of working was called Simultaneity: The technique of depicting objects from separate vantage points in one work of art.
Pablo Picasso
Guernica is not strictly a Cubist painting. It is a result of his experiences during his Cubist phase and his later Classic style with Expressionism.
The painting is considered his most powerful painting and one of the most devastating social protest pictures ever composed.
It was commissioned by the Spanish government to exhibit at the Paris Exposition of 1937.
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica
Picasso insisted that it not be shown in Spain until that country ended Facism. In 1981, Guernica was sent to Madrid.
The protest was against the bombing of the small Basque town of Guernica, which was the centre of resistance in the ongoing civil war.
In it he used flat, symbolic figures to express extremes of suffering not possible with realistic representation.
The horse expresses the agony, horror and suffering over the senseless slaughter of innocent people.
The bull is a Spanish symbol of human irrationality.
It is painted in black, white and gray to place visual emphasis on the message and to create a sombre mood.
De Stijl - “The Style”
A coldly intellectual approach to design was pioneered by another Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian.
The basic idea of this movement was the complete reliance on design and the elimination of all feeling and emotion.
It was the complete opposite of Expressionism.
20th Century Sculpture
14.3 Sculpture
20th Century Sculptors
Constantin Brancusi
Alberto Giacometti
Aristide Maillol
Ernst Barlach
Points to Remember
In the early 20th century, many sculptors for the first time dared to abandon strict representation in favour of innovative explorations of mass and space.
Sculptors vigorously challenged traditional interpretations of mass and space.
Sculptors became interested in reducing representational images to their elemental or basic forms.
Constantin Brancusi
Brancusi wanted to reveal the essential shape hidden in everything we see.
Brancusi’s limestone carving The Kiss, shows his interest in simplification and elimination of detail, a characteristic of African art that he admired.
He was the first sculptor of abstract forms to completely eliminate normal representational reference and to emphasize the form itself.
Constantin Brancusi
His Bird in Space is not a sculpture of a bird, but of the essence of flight made visible and touchable.
He never really departed from working with the figure (person or animal), and his themes were few, but he affected and influenced most of the major sculpture trends treat followed him.
Alberto Giacometti
The figures in his sculptures are recognized by their emaciated and elogated and stick thin forms.
His figures have come to be recognized as a powerful symbol of the loneliness and alienation of humanity in the 20th century.
His work fits into the realm of Expressionism even though he was not formally associated with any of the groups members.
Chapter 14.4 Fantasy Art,
Surrealism, and Dada
Artists & Movements:Marc Chagall – Fantasy Art
Giorgio de Chirico – Fantasy Art
Paul Klee – Fantasy Art
Max Ernst – Surrealism, Dada
Kurt Schwitters – Dada
Jean (Hans) Arp – Dada
Salvador Dali – Surrealism
Joan Miro – Surrealism
Rene Magritte – Surrealism
Meret Oppenheim – Surrealism
Overview:Out of frustration at society and World War I, and in protest of traditional art forms, a movement called Dada developed which made fun of all types of art and even life itself. The Surrealists attempted to visualize the inner workings of the mind as they followed the path laid out by psycho-analyst and father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud. A result of this continued variety of artistic expression was a widening gap between the art world and the public – a polarity of views. The artists were demanding the freedom to express themselves in any way, form, style; the public began to rely more and more on traditional styles which they could better understand.
Fantasy Art
Fantasy art concerned itself psychological fantasy to express themselves. This continued the tradition of creating art that is inspired by mythology, Medieval demons and monsters, nightmares from the human imagination.
La Danse, 1950, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall:
His style is based on Cubism with its fractured planes, but his subjects and presentation is purely personal.
He was inspired by two sources: the Jewish life and folklore and the Bible.
Although hailed as a precursor to Surrealism, he insisted he painted actual memories, not dreams
I and the Village, 1911
Giorgio de Chirico:
He began painting nightmare fantasies 15 years before Surrealism existed.
He relied upon irrational childhood fears for his subjects.
He is known for his eerie cityscapes with empty arcades, low angled light, and ominous shadows.
His perspective is exaggerated, and spaces are deserted only inhabited by tiny figures.
The feeling is of loneliness, despair and impending doom.
The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914
Paul Klee:
He consciously imitated children’s dreamlike art by reducing his forms to direct shapes full of ambiguity. He is quoted as saying, “I want to be as though newborn,” “to be almost primitive.”
He mistrusted rationality, which he felt got in the way and could even be destructive.
He searched for a deeper truth found in the subconscious mind.
He studied symbols, hieroglyphics, and cave markings because he felt they had the power to evoke nonverbal meanings.
Twittering Machine, 1922
DadaIts main strategy was to denounce traditional art and to shock the public, but also to awaken the imagination.
Max Ernst:
Referred to himself as “the male mother of methodical madness.”
He first experienced hallucinations during a bout with childhood measles. He found he could induce similar near-psychotic episodes, to inspire his artwork, by staring fixedly until his mind wandered into some psychic netherworld.
One technique his used, called “frottage”, involved placing a sheet of paper over rough surfaces like wood and rubbed with a soft pencil. He then elaborated on these patterns to produce fantastic, sometimes monstrous imagery.
Fruit of a Long Experience
Jean (Hans) Arp:
He created accidentally arranged collages by floating pieces of cut paper to the floor. Where they landed, he glued them to the sheet of paper.
This unplanned process was a protest against design and emotional expressions of earlier work.
Birds in an Aquarium, 1920
Kurt Schwitters:
When asked, “What is art?” he answered “What isn’t?”
He incorporated junk and found materials into his art.
He combined this junk into assemblages he called “merz”.
He recycled the garbage from society he was demeaning into works of art for that same society to see.
Construction for Noble Ladies, 1919
Surrealism
The movement began in literary circles.
It grew out of Freudian free-association and dream analysis.
Poets and artist experimented with automatism – a form of creating without conscious control – to tap into unconscious imagery.
Two groups of surrealists existed: 1) practiced improvised art using this automatic technique – artist such as Joan Miro & Max Ernst; 2) used realistic techniques to present hallucinatory scenes that defied common sense – artist such as Salvador Dali & Rene Magritte
Joan Miro:
Constantly tried to banish reason and loosen the unconscious.
He worked spontaneously in a trancelike state
He invented biomorphic signs for natural objects like the sun, moon, and animals, always recognizable
His works were brilliantly coloured and whimsical dream imagery
Woman at Sunrise, 1946
Rene Magritte:
Painted disturbing, illogical images with startling realism.
He placed everyday objects in logic defying settings that shocked viewers.
Time Transfixed, 1938 shows a steam train emerging from a fireplace while suspended in mid air as a mantle clock tells the time.
Time Transfixed, 1938
Salvador Dali:
The most famous surrealist painter
His work is painted in magical presentation of incredible draughtmanship and illusion of space
His paintings demonstrate many of his obsessions and fears like insects, crossing streets, of trains, boats, and airplanes , and even exposing his feet in public. He carried a piece of driftwood in his pocket to ward off evil spirits
Salvador Dali: In The Persistence of Memory, 1931, Dali painted in extreme precision, grotesque and distorted objects in a dreamlike landscape including limp watches, giant ants and a partial face.
Later works took on a religious subject matter but with surreal settings –Sacrament of the Last Supper, 1955, Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951.
The Persistence of Memory, 1931
Salvador Dali
Sacrament of the Last Supper, 1955
Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1955
