Four art articles, 1 page each
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2.docxHomework 2
Expressionism: Emotion Driven Art.
Below, you will find a set of readings and videos that will introduce you to artists and art movements that focused on expressing emotion. Fauvism and German Expressionism are both rooted in the first decades of the 20th century, and both movements have expressionist elements.
The Fauvist movement was a short-lived, lasting only about two years (1905-1907) but it was very influential. Fauvism was a French style, and it was strongly influenced by two of the artists we studied back in week 11: Van Gogh and Gauguin. Like those earlier artists, Fauvists used color to express emotion, but didn’t worry much about it accurately representing reality. One of the overall goals of the Fauvists was to create a kind of art that appeared fresh and un-labored, they wanted their paintings to retain the sense of spontaneity that sketches often have.
German Expressionism is a category of expressionism that was roughly parallel with the Fauvist style in France. German Expressionism lasted longer than Fauvism however, and it is also quite diverse, with many subgroups and trends within it. German Expressionists are also highly emotional, but in a different way than the Fauvists. They often focus on the self: the emotional world of the artist, and their interactions with the complex and sometimes frightening conditions of the Modern world.
Reading 1: This set of two articles will introduce you to the Fauvist style and explain its main characteristics.
Click here for the article A beginner's guide to Fauvism
Click here for the article Fauvism .
Reading 2: This set of articles and videos will feature several artworks by the leader of the Fauvists and its most influential member: Henri Matisse.
Click here for the article Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre
Click here for the article Matisse, Goldfish
Click here for the video Matisse, The Red Studio
Click here for the article Matisse, The Red Studio
Reading 3: This set of articles and videos will introduce you to expressionism as a general term, and then move on to introduce German Expressionist artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Click here for the article Expressionism
Click here for the article German Expressionism: Themes
Click here for the article Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Click here for the article Kirchner, Self-Portrait As a Soldier
Click here for the video Kirchner, Street, Dresden
Click here for the video Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Street, Berlin"
Reading 4: This set of articles and videos focusses on Austrian Expressionist artist Egon Schiele, and artist who died very young, but whose work has since become a hallmark of Expressionism.
Click here for the video Schiele, Seated Male Nude (Self-Portrait)
Click here for the video Schiele, Hermits
Click here for the article A Rebel’s Feverish Burst of Insolence
Click here for the article Egon Schiele: a graphic virtuoso rescued from the wilderness
Reading 5: German Expressionism had several phases and trends within it. Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Dix—the two artists introduced in this set of readings and videos—are from a slightly later generation of Expressionists in Germany. Both of these artists’ careers were strongly impacted by the rise of the Nazis, and so an article about art in Nazi Germany is also included below.
Click here for the article Käthe Kollwitz 1867–1945
Click here for the article Käthe Kollwitz, In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht
Click here for the article The Art of War, Otto Dix’s Der Krieg [War] cycle 1924
Click here for the video Dix, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden
Click here for the article Art in Nazi Germany
Reading 6: Not all Expressionism depicted recognizable figures or objects. Vasily Kandinsky is one of the most influential expressionists, and much of his work is fully abstract, and creates emotions with color and shape alone. The article and videos below will introduce you to his work.
Click here for the video Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912
Click here for the video Vasily Kandinsky, "Klänge (Sounds)"
Click here for the article How Kandinsky helped create abstract art
Begin by reviewing the below description of Cubism:
“As a Cubist, I want to express my total visual understanding of the paper coffee cup. I want more than the Renaissance painter or even Cézanne, I want to express the entire cup simultaneously on the static surface of the canvas since I can hold all that visual information in my memory. I want to render the cup’s front, its sides, its back, and its inner walls, its bottom from both inside and out, and I want to do this on a flat canvas. How can this be done?” (This comes from one of your required articles this week)
Now, create a “Cubist poem”! Here is how:
1). Set up a simple scene in your house (a pile of fruit on a table, or something like that) and then take a photo of it.
2). Describe the photo very very carefully in writing. Your description should be based on what you see in the photo and should include lots of details. It should be a strictly visual description: describe the shadows, colors, shapes, etc. It should be at least a full paragraph long.
3). Now, make your description into a written version of Cubism by rearranging all of the words and phrases in the same way that Cubist painters broke down and rearranged the scenes that they depicted. Arrange the words in a way that sounds and looks interesting to you, don't worry about preserving the original meaning.
4). Post your photograph, and the “Cubist poem” you’ve made, in the discussion area. Include a 3-5 sentence explanation at the end that discusses your work and explains if (and how) it changed your understanding of Cubism.
5). When you’ve completed and posted your assignment, review and respond to the work of at least two of your classmates.
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Grading Criteria The student completed and posted all three parts of the assignment (the photograph, the cubist poem, and the 3 sentence explanation): 25 points The student left substantive feedback for at least two classmates: 5 points |
