art history Discussion Board

Chap  32  –  Part  2  

Dada,  Modernism  in  America,  Russian   Construc:vism,  De  S:jl,  The  Bauhaus,  

Surrealism,  Harlem  Renaissance,  Rural  America,   Mexico  

Dada: Questioning Art Itself •  Beginning with the opening of the

Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, the Dada movement mocked the senselessness of rational thought. – It questioned art itself.

•  Dada means different things in different languages; for example, baby talk in German, “hobbyhorse” in French, or “yes, yes” in Russian.

Dada: Questioning Art Itself

•  Hugo Ball and the Cabaret Voltaire – Hugo Ball's performance Reciting the

Sound Poem, "Karawane" reflects the spirit of the cabaret. •  He recited the nonsense-sound poem

solemnly while covered in cardboard tubes.

HUGO BALL RECITING THE SOUND POEM "KARAWANE" Photographed at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich. 1916. [Fig. 32-29]

Dada: Questioning Art Itself

•  Marcel Duchamp – Dada spread from Zürich to New York,

Barcelona, Berlin, Cologne, and Paris. – Marcel Duchamp created readymades

that appealed to the mind rather than the senses. •  Fountain, a porcelain urinal turned 90

degrees and signed under a pseudonym, was the most controversial.

Marcel Duchamp FOUNTAIN 1917. Porcelain plumbing fixture and enamel paint.

Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania. Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection (1998-74-1) [Fig. 32-30]

Dada: Questioning Art Itself

•  Marcel Duchamp – The artist again challenged the French

art world with L.H.O.O.Q., a postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa with a mustache and beard drawn on her face. •  The phonetic sounds of the title translates

politely to “she’s hot for it,” adding a crude sexual innuendo to the cheapened image and spawning disgust from critics.

Marcel Duchamp L.H.O.O.Q. 1919. Pencil on reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa,

7-3/4" × 4-3/4" (19.7 × 12.1 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania. Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection.

[Fig. 32-31]

Dada: Questioning Art Itself

•  Berlin Dada – Kurt Schwitters used discarded rail

tickets, postage stamps, ration coupons, and other detritus to create visual poetry. •  Merzbild 5B in particular includes newspaper

scraps that comment on the postwar disorder of defeated Germany.

Kurt Schwitters MERZBILD 5B (PICTURE-RED-HEART-CHURCH) April 26, 1919.

Collage, tempera, and crayon on cardboard, 32-7/8" × 23-3/4" (83.4 × 60.3 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. (52.1325). [Fig. 32-32]

Dada: Questioning Art Itself

•  Berlin Dada – Hannah Höch concentrated on pointed

political commentary through photomontage. •  Cut with the Dada Knife through the Last

Weimar Beer-belly Cultural Epoch in Germany shows women physically cutting apart the German establishment through images and text from the popular press.

Hannah Höch CUT WITH THE DADA KITCHEN KNIFE THROUGH THE LAST WEIMAR BEER-BELLY CULTURAL EPOCH IN GERMANY

1919. Collage, 44-7/8" × 35-3/8" (114 × 90 cm). Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. [Fig. 32-33]

Modernist Tendencies in America

•  While some American artists did work in abstract or Modern ways, most preferred a more naturalistic manner until about 1915.

Stieglitz and the “291” Gallery

•  The Ashcan School featured artists grouped because of their interest in depicting scenes of gritty urban life in New York City.

•  Alfred Stieglitz chose a different approach in photographing New York in poetic images of romanticized urban scenes, such as in The Flatiron Building.

Alfred Stieglitz THE FLATIRON BUILDING, NEW YORK 1903. Photogravure, 6-11/16" × 3-5/16" (17 × 8.4 cm) mounted.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of J.B. Neumann, 1958 (58.577.37) [Fig. 32-34]

The Armory Show and Home- Grown Modernism

•  In 1913, the Armory Show exhibit landed in New York featuring more than 1,600 works. – Matisse and Duchamp displayed works

that caused a public outcry, wherein civic leaders called for a morals commission to investigate the show.

The Armory Show and Home- Grown Modernism

•  Georgia O'Keeffe's famous flower paintings were described by critics as essentially feminine, vaginal forms, but she demanded that her work not be treated as caricature.

•  City Night marks O'Keeffe's shift to painting New York skyscrapers. – It is a celebration of lofty buildings

portrayed from a low vantage point.

Georgia O'Keeffe CITY NIGHT 1926. Oil on canvas, 48" × 30" (123 × 76.9 cm).

Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Gift of funds from the Regis Corporation, Mr. and Mrs. W. John Driscoll, the Beim Foundation, the Larsen Fund (80.28) [Fig. 32-36]

The Armory Show and Home- Grown Modernism

•  Red Canna reveals the hidden inner forms of the flower rather than depicting it the way it actually appears to the viewer.

•  Photographer Edward Weston emulated O’Keeffe’s abstract patterns in Succulent, which captured the subject of the flower from a straightforward camera angle.

Georgia O'Keeffe RED CANNA 1924. Oil on canvas mounted on Masonite, 36" × 29-7/8" (91.44 × 75.88 cm).

Collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson. Gift of Oliver James (1950.1.4) [Fig. 32-37]

Edward Weston SUCCULENT 1930. Gelatin-silver print, 7-1/2" × 9-1/2" (19.1 × 24 cm).

Collection Center for Creative Photography © 1981 Arizona Board of Regents. [Fig. 32-38]

Art Between the Wars in Europe

•  Artists responded to the destruction of World War I by criticizing the European.

•  Other artists focused on rebuilding from the loss of a generation of young men.

Utilitarian Art Forms in Russia

•  After socialist Bolsheviks turned to civil war during the 1917 Russian Revolution,

•  Constructivism – Alexander Rodchenko helped establish a

post-revolutionary group of artists who worked together for the good of the state.

Utilitarian Art Forms in Russia

•  Constructivism – Worker’s Club was a model designed for

ease of use. It made use of the Soviet wood industry

– Engineer El Lissitzky used Malevich's formal vocabulary to create "Prouns," some of which were early examples of installation art.

Aleksandr Rodchenko WORKERS' CLUB Exhibited at the International Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, Paris. 1925.

Art © Estate of Aleksandr Rodchenko/RAO, Moscow/VAGA, New York. [Fig. 32-46]

El Lissitzky PROUN SPACE Created for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. 1923, reconstruction 1971. Collection Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. [Fig. 32-47]

De Stijl in the Netherlands

•  Piet Mondrian led the De Stijl movement, which addressed two kinds of beauty: sensual and rational. – Composition with Yellow, Red, and Blue

shows his restriction of formal vocabulary to the primary colors and neutrals. •  He called it "dynamic equilibrium," and it

introduced a universal style with applications beyond art.

Piet Mondrian COMPOSITION WITH YELLOW, RED, AND BLUE 1927. Oil on canvas, 14-7/8" × 13-3/4" (37.8 × 34.9 cm).

The Menil Collection, Houston. © 2012 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International USA [Fig. 32-49]

The Bauhaus in Germany •  Gropius designed the building when

the Bauhaus moved to the city of Dessau. – Technology advances meant no need for

walls as structural supports, so he replaced them with glass panels on some sides.

•  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe directed the Bauhaus from 1930 on. – Adolf Hitler forced its closure in 1933.

Walter Gropius BAUHAUS BUILDING, DESSAU Anhalt, Germany. 1925-1926. View from northwest. [Fig. 32-52]

The Bauhaus in Germany

•  The Bauhaus was the brainchild of Walter Gropius and at first, it did not have a formal training program. –  Learning was rooted in doing.

•  The workshops were reoriented under Moholy-Nagy to create sleek, functional designs suitable for mass production. – An example is Marianne Brandt's Tea and

Coffee Service.

Marianne Brandt COFFEE AND TEA SERVICE 1924. Silver and ebony, with Plexiglas cover for sugar bowl.

Tray, 13" × 20-1/4" (33 × 51.5 cm). Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin. [Fig. 32-53]

Anni Albers WALL HANGING 1926. Silk, three-ply weave, 5'11-5/16" × 3'11-5/8" (1.83 × 1.22 m).

Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Association Fund. [Fig. 32-54]

Art and Its Contexts: Suppression of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany

•  A principal target of suppression was the Bauhaus school of art and design.

•  After Adolf Hitler came to power, the Bauhaus was forced to close for good. – Nazis attacked Modernist painters,

whose intense depictions of German soldiers were considered unpatriotic.

Art and Its Contexts: Suppression of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany

•  Nazi leadership organized the "Degenerate Art" exhibition intended to erase banned Modern works.

•  By the time World War II began, German authorities burned countless "subversive" works from throughout the country.

•  Many artists fled the country.

THE DADA WALL IN ROOM 3 OF THE "DEGENERATE ART" ("ENTARTETE KUNST") EXHIBITION

Munich. 1937. Art © Estate of George Grosz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. [Fig. 32-55]

Surrealism and the Mind

•  Initially formed as an off-shoot of Dada and born from the mind of André Breton, Surrealism reflected Freud’s theory of warring forces in the unconscious mind.

•  It was an escape from logic and an effort to improve a war-sick society.

Surrealism and the Mind

•  Automatism – This technique was the releasing of the

subconscious to create work without rational intervention.

– Max Ernst, who developed the automatist technique, created a nightmarish scene in The Horde.

Max Ernst THE HORDE 1927. Oil on canvas, 44-7/8" × 57-1/2" (114 × 146.1 cm).

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. [Fig. 32-56]

Surrealism and the Mind

•  Unexpected Juxtapositions – Salvador Dalí paints somewhat

recognizable figures and forms but in a style he called the “paranoid–critical method.”

– Key themes of Dalí’s work include sexuality, violence, and putrefaction. •  Birth of Liquid Desires illustrates all of these

without an aesthetic or moral purpose.

Salvador Dalí BIRTH OF LIQUID DESIRES 1931-1932. Oil and collage on canvas, 37-7/8" × 44-1/4" (96.1 × 112.3 cm).

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 1976 (76.2553 PG 100) [Fig. 32-57]

Surrealism and the Mind

•  Unexpected Juxtapositions – Meret Oppenheim produced the

disquieting assemblage, Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure) both to attract and repel the viewer.

Meret Oppenheim OBJECT (LUNCHEON IN FUR) 1936. Fur-covered cup, diameter 4-3/8" (10.9 cm); fur-covered saucer, diameter 9 3/8" (23.7

cm); fur-covered spoon, length 8" (20.2 cm); overall height, 2-7/8" (7.3 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York. [Fig. 32-58]

Surrealism and the Mind

•  Bimorphic Abstraction – Joan Miró, in contrast, silhouettes

shapes against a hazy background in Composition. •  Biomorphic curves evoke organic forms

with fluctuating identities.

Joan Miró COMPOSITION 1933. Oil on canvas, 51-1/4" × 63 1/2" (130.2 × 161.3 cm). Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut. [Fig. 32-59]

Modern Art in the Americas Between the Wars

•  The United States, as a large nation with diverse, multiple “identities,” encountered a need for a national visual identity separate from an Anglo-Saxon, male profile.

•  Works of art by women, African Americans, immigrants, and other outliers came to the fore.

The Harlem Renaissance

•  The Great Migration of agricultural Southern African Americans to the North prompted the "New Negro" movement.

•  The intellectual leader of the movement was Alain Locke, a critic and philosophy professor urging black artists and writers to seek their artistic roots in the traditional arts of Africa.

The Harlem Renaissance

•  James VanDerZee created positive, non-stereotypical images that proclaimed racial pride and social empowerment. – He depicted the "New Negro" man and

woman in Couple Wearing Raccoon Coats with a Cadillac.

James Van Der Zee COUPLE WEARING RACCOON COATS WITH A CADILLAC, TAKEN ON WEST 127TH STREET, HARLEM, NEW YORK

1932. Gelatin-silver print. [Fig. 32-62]

The Harlem Renaissance •  Aaron Douglas developed an abstract

style based on silhouetted figures from African art. – He limited his palate to subtle hues that

varied in value. – Aspects of Negro Life... intended to

awaken a sense of the African American's place in history. •  The heroic orator at center remains the

focus, encouraging continued efforts.

Aaron Douglas ASPECTS OF NEGRO LIFE: FROM SLAVERY THROUGH RECONSTRUCTION 1934. Oil on canvas, 5' × 11'7" (1.5 × 3.5 m).

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Art © Heirs of Aaron Douglas/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY [Fig. 32-65]

The Harlem Renaissance

•  Sculptor Augusta Savage was denied a scholarship at Cooper Union because of her race. – La Citadelle: Freedom portrays a female

figure balancing on her toes as a symbol of the promise of equality.

•  Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series narrates the exodus of African Americans to the north in 60 panels.

Augusta Savage LA CITADELLE: FREEDOM 1930. Bronze, 14-1/2" × 7" × 6" (35.6 × 17.8 × 15.2 cm).

Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. [Fig. 32-66]

Jacob Lawrence THE MIGRATION SERIES, PANEL NO. 1: DURING WORLD WAR I THERE WAS A GREAT MIGRATION NORTH BY SOUTHERN AFRICAN AMERICANS 1940-1941. Tempera on masonite, 12" × 18" (30.5 × 45.7 cm).

The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. [Fig. 32-67]

A Broader Look: Guernica

•  Pablo Picasso's 1937 painting commemorates the mass bombing of civilians in the Basque city of Guernica.

•  The restricted palette of black, gray, and white reflected newspaper photographs that publicized the atrocity.

•  Distorted victims evoke a heartfelt comment on an international scandal.

RUINS OF GUERNICA, SPAIN April 1937. [Fig. 32-63]

Pablo Picasso GUERNICA 1937. Oil on canvas, 11'6" × 25'8" (3.5 × 7.8 m).

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. On permanent loan from the Museo del Prado, Madrid. [Fig. 32-64]

Rural America

•  American Scene Painting, especially under the Regionalists, took sympathetic attitudes toward subjects. – Grant Wood, in his iconic American

Gothic, shows a pair with a pitchfork standing in front of a "Carpenter Gothic"-style house, a sincerely affectionate portrait of small-town Iowa.

Grant Wood AMERICAN GOTHIC 1930. Oil on beaverboard, 29-7/8" × 24-7/8" (74.3 × 62.4 cm).

The Art Institute of Chicago. Friends of American Art Collection, 1930.934. Art © Figge Art Museum, successors to the Estate of Nan Wood Graham/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY [Fig.

32-69]

Art and Its Contexts: Federal Patronage for American Art During the Depression

•  The Farm Securities Administration (FSA) began to hire photographers to document the problems of farmers and migrant workers in 1935. – Dorothea Lange collaborated, touched

by the struggles of the poor and unemployed; her most famous picture is Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California.

Dorothea Lange MIGRANT MOTHER, NIPOMO, CALIFORNIA February 1936. Gelatin-silver print. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. [Fig. 32-68]

Mexico

•  The Mexican Revolution of 1910 brought ten years of political instability.

•  Artists entered service of the state with several public building mural commissions.

Mexico

•  Prominent in the Mexican mural movement was Diego Rivera, who studied Synthetic Cubist style. – The Great City of Tenochtitlan was

painted for a mural cycle portraying the history of Mexico in the National Palace in Mexico City.

Diego Rivera THE GREAT CITY OF TENOCHTITLAN (DETAIL) Mural in patio corridor, National Palace, Mexico City. 1945.

Fresco, 16'1-3/4" × 31'10-1/4" (4.92 × 9.71 m). [Fig. 32-72]

Mexico

•  More private, introspective statements were made by Mexican artists on easel paintings. – Frida Kahlo presented a split ethnic

identity in The Two Fridas. •  Between the two Fridas (one dressed in

Victorian dress, and the other in Mexican clothing), an artery runs between them, beginning at a miniature portrait of Diego Rivera, whom she was divorcing.

Frida Kahlo THE TWO FRIDAS 1939. Oil on canvas, 5'8-1/2" × 5'8-1/2" (1.74 × 1.74 m).

Museo de Arte Moderno, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. [Fig. 32-73]