Art history discuss( no reference)
Colonial Empires About 1900
This map is really important in understanding how non-Western cultures would have a profound impact on art of the early 20th century. Africa, in particular, was divided among many nations with France taking a huge chunk. Many items would be imported into Europe and would inspire artists like Picasso and Matisse, as you will see.
HENRI MATISSE, Luxe, calme et volupté, 1904-5
Fauvism:
Bold colors of Van Gogh, but used them as complete artistic expression; figure was secondary to color, form, and line; combination of subjective expression and pure optical sensation
Called the fauves by critics who thought the artists like Matisse painted like wild beasts
Combination of Impressionism’s love of nature with Post-Impressionism’s love of expressive color; influenced by African art
Impression upon other coming of age avant-garde artists who were trying to take what Cézanne started even further
Not an entirely cohesive movement as the artists all had their own personal agendas
Henri Matisse first studied law, but in 1891 enrolled in art school and studied under Bouguereau (whose idea later rejected) then studied with Moreau in 1892 who encouraged him to follow his own direction. Later he would experiment with non-descriptive color. He met Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck in 1900 who would also work in the fauvist style.
I’m showing you other works by Matisse so that you get a sense of how much he experimented during the first decade of the 20th century. This piece is a radical reinterpretation of French pastoral landscape painting. We have nudes who don’t have a care in the world, an idyllic female world. There are staccato brushstrokes and color straight from the paint tube applied in a rainbow of colors.
HENRI MATISSE, Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra, 1907
Influences of African art can be seen in the exaggeration of the female body, especially in the breasts and buttocks, and in the mask-like face. The extreme position of the body makes it look like the figure is composed of different people. The color is inherently Fauve in that it isn’t descriptive of nature. This is part of the odalisque tradition, but his painting isn’t seductive and erotic because Matisse believed that he was creating a picture, not a woman.
Figure 24-3 HENRI MATISSE, Red Room (Harmony in Red), 1908–1909. Oil on canvas, approx.
5’ 11” x 8’ 1”. State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
This painting is more abstract. The use of color is very unconventional and gives the painting a sense of flatness. It is more decorative in surface patterning; a new pictorial space is defined by color and line. Matisse is doing something important here: he’s tell you that you’re looking at a painting, not an actual view of the world. By emphasizing the flatness of the surface, he’s emphasizing that it is a thing in and of itself.
Figure 24-6 ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER, Street, Dresden, 1908 (dated 1907). Oil on canvas, 4’ 11 1/4” x 6’ 6 7/8”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
German Expressionism: Like the Fauves, the German Expressionists liked to use color in non-traditional, sometimes jarring ways; however, they used color to convey emotional expression
The first group is Die Brücke (The Bridge):
Saw themselves as a link between the past and future forms of art
They were very nationalistic and used a traditional German art form, the woodcut
They were also inspired by African and Oceanic arts
Jarring colors, slashing lines and distortion of natural form is characteristic of this group
Against academic art and Impressionism
Van Gogh and Munch were inspirations
They exhibited together and produced manifestoes
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was often referred to as the spiritual leader of the group. He created sculptures as well as paintings and prints. He was affected by Seurat’s color theories and by German Renaissance printmaker, Albrecht Dürer. Like most of Die Brücke, he liked and chose contemporary life for subject matter.
This painting portrays city life in Germany prior to WWI. There’s a sense of unease. People are missing eyes. The composition is tilted and severe. It is physically close, yet psychologically distant.
EMIL NOLDE, The Last Supper, 1909
Born in a rural community, Nolde had strong ties the land and its people. He studied woodcarving and created fantastical creatures in the German tradition. Nolde studied in Munich and Paris, and was affected by Manet, Daumier, and Impressionists. He often made use of violent and brilliant color. Nolde was invited to join Die Brücke in 1906, but left a year later to devote himself to a personal form of Expressionist religious paintings and prints. Eventually he became a Nazi – felt that Nordic people were superior. Ironicallly, his work was eventually banned, confiscated and destroyed by the party he supported. I choose this work instead of the one in your book because you have seen several Last Supper paintings already. What kinds of things do you notice about this painting that are different than the other ones? How does Nolde depict Jesus and his disciples?
VASSILY KANDINSKY, Sketch for Composition II, 1909-10
The second group of German Expressionists is Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider):
Founded in Munich by Wassily Kandinsky (a Russian immigrant), Gabriele Münter, and Franz Marc in the winter of 1911-1912
No stylistic similarities, but they shared common ideas and theories on how painting should be done
Produced art, but also published the Blue Rider Almanac which featured the group’s theories on art and aesthetics
Vassily Kandinsky was the most influential of the group as he gave non-representational abstract expression theoretical validity. He believed in the relationship between color and spirituality and felt that color could attain a universal truth He wrote Concerning the Spiritual in Art in 1911 and believed that art should be connected more to the spiritual world than the material world.
All of this work, including this one, is often compared to music, hence the musical quality of his abstract works. Kandinsky was the first to work in complete abstraction, but you can still see figures, animals and other subjects in this work – hasn’t become completely non-representational.
Figure 24-7 VASSILY KANDINSKY, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912. Oil on canvas, 3’ 7 7/8” x 5’ 3 7/8”. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Still some recognizable subject matter, but more abstract than the last piece. He is focusing on pure color, line, shape and form.
VASSILY KANDINSKY, Composition VII, 1913
Kandinsky reached full non-representational abstraction at this point. The beauty of non-representational abstraction is that it doesn’t have to have meaning. For Kandinsky, this was his personal vision of spirituality. How does one paint the spiritual world? It’s going to be really individualistic since spirituality is a personal thing. Unlike so much of the work you’ve seen, this can just be appreciated for its color, line, and form.
STOP! Before you go any further, who do you think painted this? Why?
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Go to the next slide…
PABLO PICASSO, La Vie, 1903
You didn’t guess Picasso did you? So many people think they “know” Picasso. And they don’t! Whether you like Picasso’s art or not, he is the most successful artist in the history of art. He was extremely prolific creating art in virtually every medium: small-scale prints, sculptures, murals, paintings and could work in different styles simultaneously. His father was a painter/art teacher, and Picasso could draw like Raphael by the age of 8, so he’s definitely not going to want to create art the same way his entire life. Picasso entered Barcelona’s School of Fine Arts at the age of fourteen and was allowed to take advanced courses. He also went to school in Madrid where he suffered from poverty and was anxious to get to Paris after a brief stay in Barcelona.
He had very tumultuous personal life that often impacted the subject matter of his works. While he never liked talking about what his artworks were about or what they meant, we can glean meaning about them from understanding what was going on in his life at the time.
This work is from the Blue Period (1901-4) which happened after the suicide of his close friend Carles Casagemas. Picasso went into a more somber mood. Casagemas killed himself over a failed relationship – Picasso ended up having an affair with the woman Casagemas loved. Some think that this painting is a justification made by Picasso for being with his friend’s former lover.
PABLO PICASSO, Acrobat with a Ball, 1905
This painting is from the Rose Period (1905-6) when Picasso was preoccupied with acrobatic performers; his visits to the Cirque Médrano inspired him. These performers were the equivalent of modern artists who also existed on the margins of society and barely got by on their creative talents – this is the complete opposite of successful, bourgeois Academic artist of the 19th century. Picasso was a very poor artist, a true bohemian at this time.
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Figure 24-11 PABLO PICASSO, Gertrude Stein, 1906–1907. Oil on canvas, 3’ 3 3/8” x 2’ 8”. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
This is a portrait of the American writer and art collector who was one of Picasso’s biggest supporters. She introduced Picasso to Matisse. Stein sat 90 times for Picasso while he painted her portrait.
It is here that you can start to see the style that Picasso was developing. He was deeply influenced by African art (see the section in your book about Picasso and his African art collection) and figurines that were being excavated in southeastern Spain from the 6th-5th centuries BCE. Those figurines had almond eyes and angular features. We can see that influence in Stein’s eyes.
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Figure 24-1 PABLO PICASSO, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, June–July 1907. Oil on canvas, 8’ x 7’ 8”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Often called the most significant painting in the 20th century, and like the previous example, it was inspired by sculpture from 6th-5th century BCE Iberia (southeastern Spain) and from Africa. Picasso was also affected by Gauguin’s work of Tahitian subjects. There are five prostitutes from Avignon street in Barcelona (Picasso knew the area well) posed here. Picasso worked on this painting for six months redoing it, never sure as to how it should be. When he showed it to people, they thought it was ugly and even his close friends thought he was nuts. Georges Braque thought it was revolutionary. Picasso didn’t show it to the public until 13 years later and by that time Cubism had changed avant-garde art. Please watch: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/early-abstraction/cubism/v/picasso-les-demoiselles-d-avignon-1907
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GEORGES BRAQUE, Houses at L’Estaque, 1908
Braque grew up in Le Havre (famous Impressionist site) as the son and grandson of amateur painters. He went to the École des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, then followed in his family’s footsteps and became a house painter and decorator. Braque settled in Paris in 1900 and was influenced by Egyptian and archaic sculpture, but especially by the art of Cézanne. His work is much more reduced to geometric shapes. Matisse referred to this work as Braque’s “little cubes”, thus this had become the standard account for the birth of the term “Cubism.”
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Figure 24-13 GEORGES BRAQUE, The Portuguese, 1911. Oil on canvas, 3’ 10 1/8” x 2’ 8”. Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, Kunstmuseum, Basel.
Beginning in 1908, the relationship between Picasso and Braque was the most significant in the history of art. It is very much an anomaly for Picasso to work in a collaborative environment and it set the precedent for intense collaboration as they were in contact with each other almost daily. Their working relationship ended in 1914 when Braque was called into military service.
They worked so closely that it is very difficult for even the most trained eye to tell the difference between Picasso and Braque’s work. There are subtle clues as to what we are looking at here. Both Braque and Picasso would often incorporate letters in their works to form fragments of words or entire phrases. This is a portrait of a Portuguese man in a shipyard. If you look closely, you can see a rope tied to a post, letters on the side of a ship, and illusion of water. They never abandon material subject matter, even though it becomes more and more fragmented; it’s called Analytic Cubism.
Analytic Cubism: The first phase of Cubism, developed jointly by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, in which the artists analyzed form from every possible vantage point to combine the various views into one pictorial whole.
Figure 24-14 PABLO PICASSO, Still Life with Chair-Caning, 1912. Oil and oilcloth on canvas, 10 5/8” x 1’ 1 3/4”. Musée Picasso, Paris.
Still-life was often the subject for Cubist works by both artists, sometimes encoded with information about themselves. There was a move towards Synthetic Cubism with collage as a means for experiment and expression. The letters “JOU” refer to “journal” (French for newspaper), but also a pun as “jouer" is the French verb “to play” meaning this is all just a game. Picasso used oilcloth mechanically printed with the chair caning pattern in the composition – something that looks like it is real but is not and uses rope to frame the composition.
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GEORGES BRAQUE, Fruit Dish and Glass, 1912
This is Braque’s first papiers collé or pasted paper composition. He was spending time with Picasso when he came up with the idea and decided to wait until Picasso was gone to actually create it – Picasso was notorious for forging ahead with other people’s ideas. After he showed it to Picasso, Picasso did experiment with this technique. 1912 ends Analytic Cubism.
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PABLO PICASSO, Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass, 1912
Much more colorful and playful in his experiments with papiers collé, Picasso uses wallpaper for the background. The guitar is incomplete, but Picasso gives us enough clues for decoding the shapes presented in the composition. He used sheet music as part of the composition as well as a charcoal drawing of a wine glass. The newspaper clipping used in the composition may be in reference to the “battle” between Braque and Picasso in this new medium. The headline reads, “The battle has begun.”
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Figure 24-17 PABLO PICASSO, Maquette for Guitar, 1912. Cardboard, string, and wire (restored), 25 1/4” x 13” x 7 1/2”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Cubist sculpture:
Traditional sculpture is usually noticed because it is a solid mass surrounded by space. In Cubism, forms are constructed out of unusual materials and contain space, rather than being solid surrounded by space. A great example of this concept is this constructed sculpture, or maquette (mock-up), for a sculpture to be made out of sheet metal (a highly unorthodox material for sculpture). It is an open construction, not a solid mass. Once again, Picasso was inspired greatly by African masks. This sculpture is also a reference of reality, not an exact replica of it.
By 1912, the experiments in Cubism done by Braque and Picasso had reached the larger art world in Paris and beyond. Books were being written, exhibitions were held, and artists were taking the principles of Cubism and adapting them to their own styles and subject matter.
Figure 24-16 PABLO PICASSO, Guernica, 1937. Oil on canvas, 11’ 5 1/2” x 25’ 5 3/4”. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.
When people ask me what my favorite work of art is of all time, this is it. While the subject is grim - this depicts the bombing of the town of Guernica - it is one of the most brilliant political paintings of the 20th century. It was made for the Spanish Republican Pavilion of the Paris World’s Fair, It took only two months to create, and many preparatory drawings were done prior to this.
Please read: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/early-abstraction/cubism/a/picasso-guernica
Figure 24-22 GIACOMO BALLA, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912. Oil on canvas, 2’ 11 3/8” x 3’ 7 1/4”. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
Futurism:
Born as a literary movement by the poet and propagandist, Filippo Marinetti in 1908; he announced his ideas in a series of manifestoes in 1909 and 1910
The writers and artists of the movement reacted against the prevailing traditions of Italian art, namely classical Renaissance ideas; Italy had not moved much more forward in art since the 16th and 17th centuries; called for the destruction of libraries, museums, academies and cities of the past
Extolled the virtue of war, revolution, speed and mechanized technology: “a roaring motorcar, which looks as though running on shrapnel, is much more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace”; celebrated progress, energy and change
Balla was the oldest of the group, he taught Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini. He was also affected by motion studies, and was preoccupied in how to render motion through simultaneous views of objects. The legs turn into wheels, motion is blurred.
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Figure 24-23 UMBERTO BOCCIONI, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast 1931). Bronze, 3’ 7 7/8” high x 2’ 10 7/8” x 1’ 3 3/4”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Boccioni was the best known and best liked of all the visual artists in the movement. He adapted the visual language of Futurism into sculpture very well. This sculpture has an armor-like anatomy, it’s aggressive and warlike. There is motion and mechanization. There is no human face which completely broke off from the grand Italian tradition of Classical sculpture.
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Figure 24-24 GINO SEVERINI, Armored Train, 1915. Oil on canvas, 3’ 10” x 2’ 10 1/8”. Collection of Richard S. Zeisler, New York.
Severini was more closely associated with the growth of Cubism than other Futurists – a link between France and Italy. This is an image showing guns and war. The Futurists sided with the Fascists love of war and violence. The artists were also very nationalistic and didn’t like anyone who wasn’t Italian and male – very chauvinistic.
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Figure 24-30 KAZIMIR MALEVICH, Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying, 1915 (dated 1914). Oil on canvas, 1’ 10 7/8” x 1’ 7”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Russian Suprematism and Constructivism:
19th century was a very creative century for the Russians: they excelled in music, dance and theater; modern art was brought to Russia via people who could afford to travel to Europe and by a publication called the World of Art; this publication would have a profound impact on artists and collectors alike (this is probably why the Russians have such an extensive and wonderful collection of early modern art)
Russian Revolution 1917 – the Soviets take over and look to the avant-garde artists to create images of the revolution, images that were very abstract and severed ties with Russia’s past traditions
The new Bolshevik government got rid of the middle class and everyone was to work together for the glory of the State; technology was the ultimate organizing principle in all areas of life
Malevich created pure abstractions after taking Cubism to its furthest limits. He broke Cubism down to its most basic geometry and primary colors. He, like many others in Russia, also designed sets for the stage.
Suprematism: A type of art formulated by Kazimir Malevich to convey his belief that the supreme reality in the world is pure feeling, which attaches to no object and thus calls for new, nonobjective forms in art - shapes not related to objects in the visible world.
KAZIMIR MALEVICH, Black Square, 1914-15
Malevich stated, “In the year 1913, in my desperate attempt to free art from the burden of the object, I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field.”
He had a habit of dating things earlier than when they were created – it wasn’t until 1915 that he unveiled these nonrepresentational paintings.
Suprematism was spiritual in that feeling took precedence over fact. He felt that this kind of work corresponded to the social transformation taking place in the years before the Russian Revolution. Important point: this kind of nonrepresentational abstract art was founded by two Russians, Kandinsky and Malevich, both of whom felt that the art was spiritual and connected with the traditions of Old Russia.
KAZIMIR MALEVICH, Suprematist Composition: White Square on White, 1918
With basic shapes and absence of color, Malevich announced the end of Suprematism after this work.
Figure 24-32 VLADIMIR TATLIN, Monument to the Third International, 1919–1920. Reconstruction of the lost model, 1992-1993. Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf.
Constructivism was a utilitarian art movement that sought to reinforce the Revolution’s ideas and principles. It was also influenced by Cubism.
It took Tatlin 18 months to perfect the design of a spiral structure that would rise 1300 feet into the sky above Moscow; three glass buildings would be housed inside the structure: the top, a sphere that would rotate once an hour and broadcast radio, telegraph, and loudspeaker messages as well as project giant images onto the clouds; the middle building, a cube housing office space rotating one a month; the bottom building a cone rotating once a year and would house assemblies and congresses. It was never built but the model symbolized the aspirations of the Soviet government.
MARCEL DUCHAMP, In Advance of a Broken Arm, 1915
Dada:
Founded in 1916 by artists and writers living in Zurich, Switzerland - they escaped WWI to a neutral country
Meetings were held at the Cabaret Voltaire
Through their performances, poetry and visual forms of art they professed their utter horror of what WWI had done to Europe
They believed that logic and reason were responsible for the war and its end result and they also questioned art and aesthetics of the middle-class; they felt that bourgeois art didn’t have a place in the world as it was
The artists created anti-art with no stylistic similarities whatsoever
Dada means child’s rocking horse or hobby horse and was supposedly chosen at random by flipping through a dictionary
Marcel Duchamp is the most well-known Dada artist, he called his anti-art “readymades”: found objects that were placed in a gallery setting were suddenly art. The concept of what makes art “Art” overshadowed the uniqueness of the art object as art.
Did you think this was a spatula? That’s how I know you’re Californian. This is an ordinary snow shovel that he hung in a gallery. His title is clever as shoveling snow can lead to breaking one’s arm. He’s challenging the notion of what we consider to be art in his works. Why not a shovel as art?
From France, but he lived in New York and his ideas were supported by the photographer Alfred Stieglitz who helped to get avant-garde works to America (this will be discussed later in the chapter).
Assemblage: An artwork constructed from already existing objects.
Figure 24-26 MARCEL DUCHAMP, Fountain, (second version), 1950 (original version produced 1917). Ready-made glazed sanitary china with black paint, 12” high. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.
This is a urinal turned on its side. He signed it “R. Mutt” and dated it “1917.” When it was displayed in an art exhibition, people were offended. The original is lost, but he’s reproduced it a few times.
One of the most problematic things about this work is that it may not have been his idea. Please read: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/was-marcel-duchamps-fountain-actually-created-by-a-long-forgotten-pioneering-feminist-10491953.html
and
http://old.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Did-Marcel-Duchamp-steal-Elsas-urinal/36155
Figure 24-27 MARCEL DUCHAMP, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23. Oil, lead, wire, foil, dust, and varnish on glass, 9’ 1 1/2” x 5’ 9 1/8”. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.
The glass’s transparency captures the chance environment of its surroundings. What it is showing is a mating ritual of the machine-like bride in the upper half and below are the uniformed bachelors who are not emitting semen or “love gasoline” as Duchamp called it, that the chocolate machine constantly grinds up (that propeller looking device is an old-fashioned chocolate grinder). What this is meant to represent is an exercise in pointless erotic activity symbolized by machinery.
Duchamp allowed dust to settle all over it when he kept it under his bed. Man Ray photographed it and called it “Dust Breeding.” When it broke in transit, Duchamp commented that it was complete. Please watch: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/wwi-dada/dada1/v/duchamp-largeglass
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Figure 24-26A MARCEL DUCHAMP, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919
Look who shows up again in the 20th century! This is a cheap print that Duchamp purchased. He bought 35 and this is number 15/35. He added a goatee and the letters “L.H.O.O.Q.” When you pronounce them in French, they seem to sound like a French phrase that gets translated to in English, “She has a hot ass.” One of my favorite things about Duchamp is his wonderful sense of humor.
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Figure 24-28 HANNAH HÖCH, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, 1919–1920. Photomontage, 3’ 9” x 2’ 11 1/2”. Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
Dada traveled to many different places, especially within Germany, the aggressors and hardest hit country in the war. When Dada went to Berlin, the members made it very political; many members were Communist.
Höch was a Berlin Dada member who pioneered photomontage. Through this technique, Höch severed the photographs ties to being an accepted document of fact as she used cut up images to propel her own ideas and ideological concerns.
Please watch: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/wwi-dada/dada1/v/hannah-h-ch-cut-with-the-kitchen-knife-1919-20
Photomontage: A composition made by pasting together pictures or parts of pictures, especially photographs; a form of collage.
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Figure 24-47A GEORGE GROSZ, Fit for Active Service, 1916–1917. Pen and brush and ink on paper, 1’ 8” x 1’ 2 3/8”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
After enduring service in WWI, Grosz offers an insiders view of autocracy and corruption. He joined with John Heartfield in publications (the magazine AIZ)of their political views. It was full of scathing political satire, which got them thrown into prison occasionally. In this cartoon, a fat military doctor is pronouncing this desiccated cadaver as fit for duty in the army, which is ridiculous. There is no doubt in Grosz’s experience he had seen people sent to fight the war who were in no condition to do so.
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JOHN HEARTFIELD, Adolf the Superman Swallows Gold, Spouts Junk, 1930s
Even though Heartfield is not mentioned in the textbook, I feel his work is of the utmost importance during this time period. I also think we can learn what powerful political art can look like. We are certain to see more in the coming months and years. John Heartfield was born Helmut Herzfelde of socialist-minded parents and abandoned as a child. He studied painting in Munich and Berlin. When war broke out, he worked with the emerging peace movement and changed his Germanic name, Helmut Herzfelde, to the Anglicized John Heartfield in response to the growing anti-British sentiment in Germany; a common greeting in Germany was “Death to the English.” He was a close friend of George Grosz and together they became Communists who used their art to fight growing Fascism. As a photomonteur, Heartfield's works did not hide their meaning. Instead his work takes the ideology of Fascism and shows it for what it truly is. Heartfield gives us the x-ray vision into seeing what makes Hitler tick: it is the power that money reinforces; a culture of fear will finance the fürher’s party.
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JOHN HEARTFIELD, Hurrah the Butter Is All Gone!, 1929
Reich official Hermann Goering stated: “Iron always makes a country strong, butter and lard only make people fat.” Heartfield plays on this quotation and shows a German family under the Nazi regime eating metal guns and machinery instead of butter. The oddity of seeing people devouring metal instead of food is an effective means to Heartfield’s end.