Monster Review

Unit 10

John Everett MillaisOphelia 1852Oil on CanvasPre –Raphaelite

Pre-Raphaelites:-The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in

John Millais's parents' house on Gower Street, London in 1848. At the initial meeting, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt were present. Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts.

-they wanted to return to abundant detail, intense colors, and complex compositions -influenced by John Ruskin

-distaste for materialism and the modern industrialized world

-felt that everybody after Raphael created artificial, academic art-rejected contemporary scenes of real Life shown by the realists-fictional, historical, fanciful subjects in meticulous detail ***- Convincing illusions

- Some called the painter a “poet of meticulous detail”

Shakespeare’s Ophelia-Hamlet

-Ophelia drowns, oblivious in her madness-Had a friend model for it in a heated bathtub for hours at a time, and modeled the river off of a local river, allowing for meticulous detail

Claude MonetImpression: Sunrise 1872Oil on CanvasImpressionism

Monet once said to a student, “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you – a tree, a house, a field, whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you your own naïve impression of the scene before you.”

Monet said he wished he’d been born blind and then had suddenly gained his sight so that he could have begun to paint in this way without knowing what the objects were that he saw before him.

-This piece shown at the first Impressionist show in 1874

Gustave CaillebotteParis: A Rainy Day1877Oil on CanvasImpressionism

HAUSSMANNIZATION of Paris:George Haussmann oversaw the redesign of Paris (1852)

Caillebotte did not dissolve the image into broken color and loose brushwork like other Impressionists

He does utilize an informal, asymmetrical composition like other Impressionists

A snapshot of a rainy day in Paris, suggesting the ever-changing, transitory nature of the era

Pierre-Auguste RenoirLe Moulin de la Galette1876Oil on CanvasImpressionism

•Industrialization put in place SET WORKINGHOURS, allowing people to schedule LEISURE ACTIVITIES•Here, a popular Parisian dance hall

•Scene is dappled by sunlight and shade, creating an ATMOSPHERE of energy, dancing, tinkling glasses, laughter•Figures spread in all directions, in a casual un-posed placement of figures, which are cut off arbitrarily by the edges of the painting

•Viewer is a participant

•Classical art: showed universal, timeless themes / Impressionism: showed fleeting, candid scenes of a contemporary reality

Edouard ManetA Bar at the Folies-Bergere1882Oil on CanvasImpressionism

•Barmaid at a Parisian Café with music concerts•Barmaid looks back at viewer and café patrons, detached, disinterested, lost in thought

•Minimal modeling and perspective … rough, blurry brushstrokes•Visual discrepancies: angles of the mirror, the barmaid’s reflection, and the bar’s reflection are not in harmony with each other

•Again, Manet explores the pictorial structures of the two dimensional painting surface

Edgar DegasBallet Rehearsal1874Oil on CanvasImpressionism

•Degas, fascinated with patterns of motion•Painting frame cuts off the stairs, the windows at the top, and dancers on the right•Random arrangement of figures•Large, off-center empty space creates the illusion of a continuous floor•Viewer participation: perspective was chosen so that we could be standing on the same floor, in this room•Photography fascination•Composition inspired by Japanese woodblock prints

Edgar DegasThe Tub1886Pastel1’x11.5”Impressionism

A master of line, captured here in his pastel drawing

Major objects are outlined, then covered in hatching marks

Visual discrepancies: flat shelf, lack of pitcher foreshortening, 3d bather

James Abbott McNeill WhistlerNocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket)1875Oil on CanvasImpressionism

-John Ruskin accused him of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”

-Whistler sued Ruskin for Libel-Whistler won, but the court awarded him a penny and charged him court costs that ruined him financially

-felt that harmonies of color and form in art, paralleled harmonies of notes and chords in music

-more interested in showing atmospheric effects and color sensations than the details of a scene

Vincent Van GoghThe Night Cafe1888Oil on CanvasPost-Impressionism

“Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily so as to express myself forcibly.”-Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

-insisted on the expressive value of color-thickness, shape, and direction of his brush strokes add a tactile element to his work

-this scene was meant to convey an oppressive atmosphere – “a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime.”

“I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four citron-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most disparate reds and greens in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty, dreary room, in violet and blue.”-Van Gogh

Paul GauguinWhere Do We Come From, What Are We?1897Oil on CanvasPost-Impressionism

-moved to Tahiti to find more provocative subjects

-a summary of his artistic methods…color choices influenced by popular native color schemes; patches of pure flat color

-A tropical landscape populated by native women and children1. baby, and three young women : those who are closest to that eternal mystery

2. two women, talking

about destiny 3. A puzzled man

4. a youth plucking the fruit of

experience 5. A child eats the fruit, overlooked by an idol: emblem of our need for the spiritual

6. animals with whom we share the world: a goat, a cat, and kittens

7. a beautiful young woman broods, and an

old woman prepares to die

<-puffin, a symbol of the afterlife/the unknown

Georges SeuratA Sunday on La Grande Jatte1884-1886Oil on CanvasPointillism

OpticalColor Mixing

Paul CezanneMont Sainte-Victoire1902-1904Oil on CanvasPost Impressionism

-felt that impressionism lacked form and structure

-tried to show form and depth without chiaroscuro or perspective

-cool colors recede, warm color advance

-juxtapose yellow next to blue…one side will advance, the other will recede

-felt that everything in nature could be reduced to a cube, a cone, and a sphere

Edvard MunchThe Cry1893Oil, Pastel, and Casein on CardboardGerman Expressionist

-an “inner” cry…psychological-simplified man in foreground, simplified to an almost skeletal form, emits a primal scream

-curvilinear lines echo the curves of his mouth and face, making the scream reverberate

I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

Auguste RodinThe Burghers of Calais1953-1959Realism

-in 1347 the English seized Calais, France. Six of the citizens of Calais agreed to offer their lives in return for the English king’s promise to lift the siege and spare the rest of the populace.

-figures show quiet defiance, resignation, despair on their faces

-figures arranged “in the round”, appearing to wander aimlessly

-created without a base, so figures would be at the viewer’s eye level

-patron was offended; put it on a base, and off in a remote corner

33-1Henri MatisseWoman with the Hat1905Oil on CanvasFauvism

-The paintings included in this exhibit were simplified, with shocking unexpected colors. A critic called the artists there, Fauves or wild beasts.

-Like Van Gogh, they tried to liberate color from its descriptive function and use it as an expressive and structural tool.

-Matisse’s wife, Amelie-rejected colors that simply aim to imitate nature; used pure colors of high intensity to generate a stronger reaction

33-2Henri MatisseRed Room (Harmony in Red)1908-1909Oil on CanvasEarly 20th Century

-A maid in a warm, comfortable, dining room of a wealthy home

-Bright bold colors contrast intensely

-“Color was not given to us so that we may imitate nature. It was given to us so that we can express our own emotions.”

-Flat, simplified forms, resembling a rich luxurious tapestry

33-6Vassily KandinskyImprovisation 281912Oil on Canvas“Der Blaue Reiter” (the blue rider,Part of the German Expressionist Movement)

-Der Blaue Reiter formed in Munich; Name selected for Kandinsky’s andFranz Marc’s mutual interest in blue and horses

-Kandinsky’s interest in “non-representational” images was fueled by his interest in spirituality and music (which reject the material world)

-wrote “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, a treatise on using color, form, line and space to convey feelings

-Yellow: warmth, terrestrial, painful, aggressive-Blue: cold, celestial, calm-White: clarity, a silence full of possibilities-Black: obscurity, nothingness without possibility, death-Red: warmth, living, agitated, immense force, power

33-9Pablo PicassoLes Demoiselles d’Avignon1907Oil on CanvasCubism

-The young ladies of Avignon (Avignon Street in Barcelona, the red light district)-Originally included male clients-Picasso pushes Cezanne’s treatment of form and spaceto a new level-influenced by Iberian Sculptures he saw in Spain, and African Masks

33-10Georges BraqueThe Portuguese1911Oil on CanvasAnalytic Cubism

-invented by Braque and Picasso- Analytic Cubism is essentially the

fragmenting of three-dimensional forms into flat areas of pattern and color, overlapping and intertwining so that shapes and parts of the human anatomy are seen from the front and back at the same time.

33-12Pablo PicassoStill Life with Chair-Caning1912Oil on CanvasSynthetic Cubism

-Synthetic Cubism seeks to accomplish the same goals as analytic cubism, but with collage materials, adding an element of surface texture and low relief

33-19Giacomo BallaDynamism of a Dog on a Leash1912Oil on CanvasFuturism

-not painting a fixedobject in space, but the sensation of motion

- “a galloping horse has not 4 legs, but 20”

Futurism• Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything

old, especially political and artistic tradition. "We want no part of it, the past", he wrote, "we the young and strong Futurists!" The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists. They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation, praised originality, "however daring, however violent", bore proudly "the smear of madness", dismissed art critics as useless, rebelled against harmony and good taste, swept away all the themes and subjects of all previous art, and gloried in science.

33-20Umberto BoccioniUnique Forms of Continuity in Space1913Oil on CanvasFuturism

-applying the ideas of conveying movement to sculpture-included multiple views, like cubism

33-23Marcel DuchampFountain1950Ready-made glazed sanitary china with black paintDadaism

-DADA: a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922

-one of the pieces which he called ready-mades (also known as found art), because he made use of an already existing object—in this case a urinal

-”Whether Mr. Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.”

-Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation

33-29Marcel DuchampNude Descending the Staircase, No. 21912Oil on CanvasPhiladelphia Museum of Art

-NY Times called the exhibit “pathological” and demanded it be closed. Called it a “menace to public morality”

-a single figure in motion, resembling a series of overlaid film stills

-Cubist/Futurist

-“explosion in a shingle factory”

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33-41Kathe KollwitzWoman with Dead Child1903EtchingGerman Expressionist

-explored mother and dead child imagein depth**

-transformed image of Mary and Christinto a universal image of maternal mourning

-grace and reverence of the traditional religious image has changed

to animalistic passion

-Used her son Peter as a model-Peter was killed a few years later at age 21 in WWI

33-44Giorgio de ChiricoMelancholy and Mystery 1914Oil on CanvasSurrealism

-Showing the long shadows andsilent streets of an autumn afternoonin Italy

-Nietzshe: “Foreboding that underneath this reality in which we live and have our being, another and altogether different reality lies concealed”

Rene MagritteThe Treachery of Images1928-1929Oil on CanvasSurrealism

-The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe, which was Magritte's point:

- “The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe," I'd have been lying!” – Magritte

Magritte used the same approach in a painting of an apple: he painted the fruit realistically

and then used a framing device to deny that the item

was an apple

33-49Frida KahloThe Two Fridas1939Oil on CanvasSurrealism

-did not consider herself a Surrealist

-lifelong battle against illnessand tumultuous personal relationships

-two sides of her personality,linked by clasped hands and an artery (on one end forceps, on the other end a portrait of her husband Diego Rivera)-two sides of Mexico: Traditional dress and European (communist) dress-Exposed heart is a symbol of the Aztecs, the last independent rulers of Mexico

33-55Piet MondrianComposition in Red, Blue and Yellow1930Oil on Canvas De Stijl (The Style)

-Painting was a devotional experience for him.

Tenets of this doctrine:•Coloration must be in the primary colors of red, blue and yellow or the non-colors of black, gray and white. •Surfaces must rectangular planes or prisms. •Aesthetic balance must be achieved and this is done through the use of opposition. •Compositional elements must be straight lines or rectangular areas. •Symmetry is to be avoided. •Balance and rhythm are enhanced by relationships of proportion and location.

33-73Pablo PicassoGuernica1937Oil on Canvas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV-hdEsC7eY

Created for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris-Picasso’s ANTI-WAR response to the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica that same year

• The shape and posture of the bodies express protest. • Picasso uses black, white, and grey paint to set a somber mood and express pain and chaos. • Flaming buildings and crumbling walls not only express the destruction of Guernica, but reflect

the destructive power of civil war. • The newspaper print used in the painting reflects how Picasso learned of the massacre. • The Bull: either Franco , the horrors of Fascism or as general symbol of brutality and darkness• Tiny flower in front: regeneration and hope.• The light bulb in the painting represents the sun. • The broken sword near the bottom of the painting symbolizes the defeat of the people at the

hand of their tormentors.

33-78Grant WoodAmerican Gothic1930 Oil on BeaverboardRegionalism

-Gothic Revival style cottage with a distinctive upper window

-farmer standing beside a woman who may be his spinster daughter or his wife

-woman is dressed in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana

-couple is shown in the traditional roles of men and women

-man's pitchfork symbolizing hard labor-flowers over the woman's right shoulder suggesting domesticity

• Avant Garde• Art Nouveau• Industrialism• Color Theory• Hue• Saturation• Intensity• John Ruskin• Ready Made art• Dadaism• Futurism• Analytic Cubism• Synthetic Cubism• Suprematism• Natural Architecture• Regionalism• German Expressionism• Fauvism• De Stijl• Joseph Albers