Humanities 10 Questions

Unit II Hand-Out and Study Guide

Chapter 1 “Styles of Art”

Impressionism

This painting style began in the France around the 1860’s. A group of painters were not accepted into the main regular art exhibits which were judged by the French Academy jurors. The “Salon des Refusés” was an exhibit that displayed those works that were rejected. The style was not accepted when it was first exhibited. The artists who were part of the movement of Impressionism were interested in displaying how light shines upon a surface and they used pure color pigments instead of mixing the colors with darker tones and blended them together. Reflections were also important to these artists. The artists were interested in subjects such as flowers on a table, people and outdoor scenes.

Pointillism

The artist juxtaposes small dots of color, which blend to produce tones and shapes.

Expressionism

The artist expresses his or her feelings in terms of distorted lines and strong colors rather than trying to accurately represent the subject.

Cubism

The artist renders objects or persons in geometric forms.

Surrealism

The Artist produces paintings of the unreal which appear photographically real or fantastically abstract.

Op Art

The artist organizes lines and colors so that the eyes cannot find a stable pattern in which to focus.

Pop Art:

The artist creates or renders objects that reflect the age of consumerism, drawing attention to how much the mass media influences people’s interest, using popular culture as a subject.

Conceptual Art:

The artist produces art pieces or large-scale works or collaborative projects in which the idea is more important than the object. These works do not necessarily have a long material life.

Chapter 2 “Printmaking Methods”

Process or Method

Intaglio, Relief, Planographic, Stencil

“What Prints?”

Intaglio: Ink comes from below the surface in an intaglio print.

Relief process: Ink comes from the raised surface in a relief print.

Planographic: Ink comes off of the ink which is placed onto the stone by adhering to a waxy crayon type surface. The stone that is drawn on is of a very smooth surface.

Stencil: Ink goes through the openings of the silk in the Stencil method or process.

An edition is the prints that are the entire collection of the similar prints that are printed by an artist. All of the prints in an edition look the same. It can be a collection of any total number, but usually a round number such as a 20 or 50 or 100 is what is used by the artist. The artist prints 20 prints and numbers them if he wants to have 20 of the same. If he wants 100 of the same print, he will print off 100 of them and the edition would be considered to be an edition of 100. The prints are numbered such as 1/20 or 20/20 or if the artist does 25 prints it would be 1/25 or 25/25. The first and the last numbers are to be the best prints for collectors to collect even though the quality of all of the prints must be the same. In other words, each print has to be of good quality and of equal quality. The artist (printer) will print many prints that look alike. They usually select a number such as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 to print and that is called an edition.

WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE ARTIST?

The factors that influence the artist’s work are social, economic, religious and geographical. An artist is influenced by where he or she lives and who they were brought up by and where they were trained or educated. They are also influenced by their beliefs, value system and way of life. The area of the world where they live also will have a major impact on their work. Another major area of interest to some artists is their political bend. Artists’ works reflect their time and place in the world. That is why it is so important to study art since it helps us understand how people lived at a place and time. Art reflects how people thought and felt and what they believed in at a time in history.

Musicians such as Frederick Chopin (1810 - 1849,19th century, Polish) suffered from an illness which made it difficult to perform for large audiences. Listen to his music and you may hear a sound that makes you feel somewhat melancholy when you hear his piano musical compositions performed. Some of his pieces are called nocturnes (night music) and some are polonaises (pieces based on Polish folk dances). His music is considered to be Romantic in style. He developed tuberculosis and died at the age of thirty-nine in 1848.

Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606 - 1669, 17th century, Dutch) was a major painter known for painting portraits that showed the individuals personality. His work is unique and his paintings show contrast in light and dark areas. There are several stories that have been told about one of the most famous paintings that he painted called the “Night Watch” which is one of the most well-known masterpieces of all time. It is a group of individuals grouped together in a very interesting arrangement with the use of diagonal lines and circular forms with areas that look very detailed and decorative. The actual name of the group is the” Captain Frans Banning Cocq Mustering his Company”. Rembrandt exemplified the style which is called Baroque. The Baroque Period is the period of style that Rembrandt is placed in art history. Rembrandt was very poor when he died and the government took his paintings from him since he was unable to pay his taxes. Many of them such as the “Night Watch” are in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Holland (the Netherlands was also part of those boundaries and some books may use that name). Rembrandt was an outstanding printmaker as well as a Baroque painter. He left behind many etchings which are some of the best executed by any artist. He developed dramatic contrasts of dark and light areas which made them appear somewhat theatrical in nature. Prints are relatively inexpensive compared to paintings and during the 16th century the middle class became interested and able to purchase some type of art. Being able to sale prints became one way for artists to make some income from their art and sale to some of the merchant class.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890, 19th, Dutch) Vincent signed his name Vincent on his paintings so he would be considered to be a regular type of person. He wrote many letters to his brother Theo. Vincent was influenced by his father’s religion and tried to become a minister. His father was a Dutch Reformed minister. He went to art school but the way that he drew did not fit into the style or methods that the teachers thought students should draw therefore, he usually was told to leave. Sometimes he dropped out of the classes. He is known for painting the “Starry Night” which is a famous night outdoor scene. He is also known for painting many landscapes and self-portraits. He is considered to be a Post-Impressionist artist. He may have painted self-portraits due to the fact that he saw that another Dutch artist named Rembrandt painted himself over and over.

Auguste Renoir (1841 - 1919, 1 9th & 20th French) was known for being an Impressionist and working alongside other great artists such as Claude Monet and Edouard Manet.

Auguste Renoir was a great artist from the Impressionistic Period who helped start that movement. Many of his paintings have a bright intense red orange color in them. He painted scenes of his friends at an outdoor café. He was an Impressionist artist.

Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828, 18th-19th, Spanish) was known as a painter and a printer. He is known as one of the greatest printers and left behind one of the greatest works ever painted about the inhumanity to man called, “The Execution of the Citizens of Madrid” or called “The Execution of the Third of May”. His etchings about the war were titled “The Disasters of War”. Goya is considered difficult to label but for the most part he is referred to as an artist who fits into the Romantic Period.

IMPORTANT ARTISTS

Giotto1276 - 1337 13th - 14thItalian

Giotto broke away from the type of painting mostly done at the time of the Middle Ages and started using perspective and showing some distance in his works. He was able to express human emotions in his paintings which was a new trend. In a famous set of frescos, he painted a series of paintings that told a story in on the walls of a church in Padua, Italy (the Arena Chapel).

Pieter Brueghel1525 - 156916thFlemish (Now the boundaries are different)

He painted people who were the workers who worked hard in the fields carrying out their daily activities. He wanted to show respect for their hard work.

Albrecht Durer1471 - 1528 15th - 16thGerman

He was a painter but is known as a superb master of printmaker as well. He did extremely detailed work with wooden plates. The type of prints were wood engravings and wood-cuts. He was a master of linear perspective.

Leonardo da Vinci1452 - 1519 15th - 16thItalian

He was an artist, scientist, engineer and a great thinker. He lived in Italy most of his life but when he died, he was living in France. The “Mona Lisa” was in his room in France when he died. That is why it is in the museum in Paris today. That museum is called the Louvre. He painted the mural (wall painting on dry wall) called the “Last Supper” which is in Milan, Italy. He also attempted to finish a huge sculpture but it was damaged and he was never able to complete it.

Raphel (Raphael Sanzio) 1483-1520 15th - 16th Italian

He was one of the three artists known as the three greats from the Renaissance Period. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael are referred to as the 3 greats.

He painted a famous work called the “School of Athens” which is about what the thoughts were in ancient Greece and that painting is in the Vatican down the hall from the Sistine Chapel area where the paintings by Michelangelo are. The title, school refers to thought and ideas of the Greeks.

Michelangelo (full name is Michelangelo Buonarrotti) 1475-1564 15th - 16th Italian

He is known as the artist who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel which is next to St. Peters in the Vatican. It is a tremendous set or series of paintings which tell the story of the creation of man. (from the Old Testament book called Genesis) These paintings were painted on the ceiling and when he painted them the plaster that he painted it on was wet. Since the plaster was wet when the pigment was placed onto the plaster, they are called frescos. He also painted a huge wall on the side of the Sistine Chapel where the altar is located called the “Last Judgment” which is based upon the story of the coming of Christ from the New Testament book, Revelations. It is also a fresco. As a child he studied with a student who was to become a pope named Pope Julius II. That is one reason why he painted at the Vatican where the Pope resided.

Michelangelo is famous for his sculptures as well as his paintings. He did the “David”,

The “Pieta”, and several sculptures for the tomb of the Medici’s.

Rubens (Peter Paul Rubens) 1577 - 1640 16th - 17th Flemish

He was known for his portrait paintings and his important set of paintings for the Luxembourg Palace on the topic of the arrival of the future queen of France, Maria de Medici. Peter Paul Rubens died at the age of sixty-three.

William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616 16th- 17th English

Shakespeare was a writer of plays. He wrote 37 plays. Shakespeare was both a writer and an actor. In 1594 he began working with a theatrical group who performed for the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth. His famous plays known to us today are Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and King Lear.

Rembrandt van Rijn or Rembrandt 1606 - 1669 17th Dutch

Rembrandt learned to paint in a studio of Peter Lastman and was influenced by the dark and light (chiaroscuro) of the painter, Caravaggio. Caravaggio’s work was a great influence upon Rembrandt. The use of the dramatic light and contrast made Rembrandt’s works unique. His works are Baroque in style. He did many famous portraits and besides being a great portrait painter, Rembrandt was also a great etcher. The contrast of light and dark used by Caravaggio may be noticed in Rembrandt’s work.

A very famous work called “The Night Watch” is a large canvas located in the museum in Amsterdam called the Rijksmuseum. The painting was damaged but repaired. The name of the painting is not the original name.

Rembrandt did portraits of himself when he was a young man all the way up to when he was in his sixties right before he died. Rembrandt was born in 1606 and died at the age of 63 in 1669.

Johannes Vermeer1632 - 167517thDutch

Vermeer produced less than 35 painting in his life. He was able to reflect everyday activities through his art work. His art is representational and the texture that he used in his style looks very smooth. He ran a tavern to support his family of eight children. He died at the age of 43. He is a Baroque artist.

Honor Daumier 1808 - 187919thFrench

Daumier was a leading printmaker. He was employed by a paper called the La Caricature. He depicted a politician as a Gargantua devouring the heavy taxes of the people. He also painted. One of his famous paintings is of people riding in a carriage. (“The Third-Class Carriage”)

Jacques Louis David 1748 - 1825 18th - 19th French

David used themes from the history of Rome and wanted to reflect the ideals of fighting for one’s country. He was a Classical Period artist. He was very much influenced by Napoleon and politics. He painted a scene of a writer named Marat who was executed and was in a bathtub. He also painted a group with a father and his sons taking an oath to fight for their cause. Paintings: Death of Marat and Oath to the Horatii

Francisco de Goya 1746-1828 18th-19th Spanish

Goya was a famous Spanish painter and printer. He worked for several Kings and had to flee for his life upon occasion. He did not always try to make a person in the royalty look better or flatter them if he did not agree with their ideas or like them. He painted Charles IV’s family and he placed himself in the shadows in the back painting a large canvas. The painting became known as “We Are All Here” because the artist was also there.

Auguste Rodin 1840- 1917 19th 20th French

Rodin is known for being the sculptor who did the famous bronze sculpture called “The Thinker” He also did a famous work called the “Gates of Hell” which was a take-off on the famous doors in Florence on the cathedral called the “Gates of Paradise” which are by Ghiberti. Ghiberti was in a contest with an artist named Brunelleschi who lost the competition of the doors to Ghiberti. Later on Brunelleschi came back to Florence and designed the dome for the church, Santa Maria della Fiore.

Claude Monet 1840 - 1926 19th - 20th French

Monet is the artist who the name Impressionism came from since his painting called the “Impression Sunrise” is the painting that a reporter wrote was just an impression of a sunrise. There was an article which explained the work in a negative manner as something derogatory and that is how “Impressionism” as a style was named. Monet painted many years in Paris, France and then moved north to a town in France called Giverny and bought a house and built a small pond. In his later years, Monet painted large scale paintings of the lily flowers from the pond that he had planted.

Auguste Renoir 1841- 191919th - 20thFrench

Renoir was an Impressionist artist who painted the people eating at a restaurant. He suffered from extreme pain as he worked at the end of his life even though he suffered from arthritis. He continued to work just the same and had someone strap on his paint brushes to his hands, so he could continue to paint. He was an Impressionist painter and used a bright red-orange color in his outdoor scene paintings.

Edgar Degas1834-191719th - 20th French

Degas has been known as an artist who captured a moment in time and used dancers as his main subject. He was an Impressionist. He was a painter plus he also drew with pastels (chalk).

Mary Cassatt1844 - 192619th - 20th American

Cassatt was born in the United States and as a young woman she traveled to Paris, France. She liked Paris and remained there and met Edgar Degas and other Impressionist painters. She was influenced by oriental art and was a painter as well as a printer. She is known for painting children with their mothers. She did woodblock prints, paintings and drew with pastels. Her innovative printmaking style was influenced by the prints that were being imported from Japan.

Paul Gauguin1848 - 1903 19th - 20thFrench

Gauguin was originally a stockbroker who was friend of Vincent Van Gogh. Gauguin traveled to Tahiti after leaving his business. Gauguin’s art dealer was the brother of Vincent Van Gogh and Vincent’s brother was successful at helping Paul Gauguin make money off of his paintings. He was able to sale his paintings. His work was decorative with flat areas of color with patterns and shapes.

Vincent Van Gogh1853 - 1890 19thDutch

Van Gogh was the great painter known as the artist who cut off a part of an ear lobe who was not able to sale his work. Unfortunately, he suffered from depression or some unknown disorder. He did exquisite work and today his work is known for his use of color and texture. He was unable to sale his paintings. He was 37 when he died. His brother Theo tried to sale his work and since his brother was an art dealer it was a sad situation for his brother to have handle art work and sale other artists’ work and not be able to sale his own brother’s work. Vincent’s work was ahead of its time. The name of the last painting that Vincent Van Gogh did was named “Wheat Fields with Crows”.

It has been said that his brother died from depression. His brother Theo died 6 months after Vincent Van Gogh died and they were buried side by side.

Henri de Toulouse – Lautrec 1864 -1901 19th very early 20thFrench

Toulouse-Lautrec was from the family of the counts of Toulouse which was a family of royalty decent. He suffered from a disease that left his legs much shorter than they were supposed to be. One can see it in one of his own self-portraits that he painted of himself dressed in a suit and pants. In his thirties it became difficult for him to walk and he spent a lot of time painting in a cabaret (night club). He was a great printmaker and did prints for advertising the dancers who were to perform at the club. He created outstanding poster designs. In 1901 Henri became paralyzed and was taken home to live in his family’s estate. He never recovered and died in 1901.

Henri Matisse 1869 - 195419th first half of 20thFrench

Matisse’s art has been compared to children’s paper cutouts. He did human figures and plant designs. He was a friend of Picasso. When he became elderly, he was in a wheel chair and handed cutouts to a friend to paste onto the murals. Some of the same art dealers who sold Pablo Picasso’s art works encouraged art collectors to purchase Matisse’s art also. He is a Fauvist which is a style that the French called wild beast due to the bright colors used by artists that used colors like what Matisse used.

Edouard Manet 1832 - 188319thFrench

Manet was influenced by the art of Velasquez and Goya. He traveled to Spain and saw great Spanish art such as Velasquez and Goya. He also studied many paintings in the Louvre Museum in Paris. He is an Impressionist.

Kathe Kollwitz 1867 - 194519th - 20th Prussia

Kollwitz was considered an artist from a movement called Expressionist. She did paintings but is famous for her printmaking. She was very expressive in her work and the subjects dealt with death and war. Her work shows the suffering of mothers as they face the disease and death of their children. She said that doing her work never relieved her of her own pain that she felt after her own experiences of her loved ones passing away in the war.

Katsushika Hokusai1760 - 184918th - 19thJapanese

Hokusai means star of the northern constellation and he was born in 1760 in Japan. He supposedly had 50 names and lived in 90 houses. He was a major artist who did prints. He refused to open the money packet that he earned and so he did not pay rent. He did not believe in being materialistic.

Diego Rivera1886 - 195719th - 20thMexican

Rivera was born in Mexico. He was considered a social and political painter and at times had difficulty obtaining support to have his work shown because of his controversial subject matter. He worked in Detroit on a fresco which depicted the life of assembly plant workers at the Ford plant. He also did mural in San Francisco and Mexico City. He was married to Frida Kahlo another famous Mexican artist.

Vasily Kandinsky 1866 - 1944 19th - 20thRussian

Kandinsky was a law professor before becoming an artist. He is one of the first artists to actually paint without a subject. Non-objective art has not subject.

He was from Russia. He felt that sounds could be seen through colors.

Grant Wood1891 - 1942 19th - 20thAmerican

He was from Iowa and is a Regionist. He painted a famous work called American Gothic which depicts a couple who work hard to achieve what they need in life. The shape of the window is a pointed arch like that on a Gothic cathedral. The meaning of the painting is different for various people, but it can mean that working hard is something like being dedicated such as someone may be if they are a spiritual person and dedicated to their beliefs.

Andy Warhol1928 - 198720thAmerican

Andy Warhol was employed by Glamour magazine when he started his career. He became known as a pop artist. He is famous for his silk screens of Marilyn Monroe a movie star and for his soup cans. He drew attention to the way in which people sometimes see the package more than the content. (what is in the package) Andy was 59 when he died. He died of a ruptured spleen.

Pablo Picasso1881 - 197319th - 20thSpanish

Pablo Picasso’s father was a professor of art. Pablo Picasso learned to draw and paint at an early age and was taught by his father. Picasso made his first trip to Paris in 1900. This experience had a major influence upon him and his style of art which he developed. One of the first types of art that he developed and went through is now referred to as the “Blue Period”. Picasso also developed a style called Cubism. Picasso was influenced by his family and the death of his sister who he never forgot about and some historians say that the reason that he painted young innocent women was because he was remembering his sister. For Picasso, the bull represented the horror of war and agony. A famous work about the horrors of war painted in black, white and grey is called “Guernica”. He purposely left out the element of color so that the shapes would be more noticeable.

Salvador Dali1904 - 1989 20thSpanish

This Spanish artist is considered a Surrealist. He was 84 when he died. He was a painter and printmaker. He was also known as a filmmaker. Dali did not talk much about his work and would not explain the meaning of his famous paintings to reporters. Two famous paintings of his are “The Persistence of Memory” and an interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”.

Louis Armstrong1900 - 1971 American

In 1922 Louis left for Chicago with his cornet in one hand and a trout sandwich that his mother had made for him in the other. He changed the sounds of musical big bands and jazz. He was sent to a reform school at an early age for shooting off a gun into the air. He said later in his life that the reform school helped him in some ways because that is where he learned to play the cornet. He became a world traveler and an ambassador spreading American ideals around the world. He developed new trends as he played his trumpet. The cornet is a little shorter than the trumpet but the trumpet and the cornet sound very similar and play the same sounds (pitches) and play the same notes (music).

Georgia O’Keeffe1887 - 198619th 20th American

Georgia married a famous photographer named Alfred Stieglitz and lived in New York City for part of her adult life. However, most of her life was spent in New Mexico where she painted subject matter: desert, bones and flowers. She was born in Wisconsin, but her work represents mainly the surroundings of the Southwest.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock 1934 - 1980 20thBritish

Alfred Hitchcock was a filmmaker who is considered to be a “master of suspense” since he was able to create films in which the audience became scared and filled with emotion. He is known for his films such as Psycho, The Birds, North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock was born in England but died in California.

Jackson Pollock1912 - 1956 20th American

Some people still call Pollock the dripper. That is somewhat derogatory in nature. Jackson Pollock is famous for helping initiate a movement called Abstract Expressionism. That movement is important in the history of art in the United States since it is the first one that actually was born here in the United States.

Pollock was born in Wyoming and lived in New York and worked on murals with his teacher Thomas Hart Benton for some time. He married a painter named Lee Krasner and they exhibited their work. His work does not represent any particular place or thing since it is supposed to be just lines, shapes and color for the sake of lines, shapes and color.

Anna Marie Holmes 20th - 21stCanadian

She was the first ballerina to perform in Russia who was from North America. She was invited to dance with the Kirov Ballet. She was also invited to Cuba. For some time she was married to a choreographer named David Homes. They made a documentary film called Tour en l’air which showed how dancers travel and find work.

Zubin Mehta20th - 21stIndian from Bombay, India

Zubin Mehta was born in Bombay, India. His father taught him music and Zubin was always talented in music. He was a good student and went to Vienna to study. When

he left home he was supposed to study medicine but, on the side, continued to study his music. He became one of the youngest conductors of any major symphony orchestra. His major positions were with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Frank Lloyd Wright 1869 - 1959 19th – 20thAmerican

The museum called the Guggenheim in New York City was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. He was also the architect of the Dallas Theatre Center. A home built for the Kaufmanns in 1936 is called Fallingwater and is in Bear Run, Pennsylvania.

Sir Henry Moore 1898 - 1986 20thBritish (English)

Sir Henry Moore was born is England in Castleford. He was a student at the Roal College of Art in London. He works were influenced by the Stonehenge and images from the Mayan Culture. His work has organic shapes and they are not of anything. They are just shapes for the sake of shapes.

Christo and Jeanne Claude1935 both born on June 13th Jeanne Claude died in 2009

Jeanne Claude died in 2009 from complications of a ruptured brain aneurysm. They were born on the same day. Christo was born in Bulgaria. Jeanne Claude was born in Casablanca. She was a photographer and Christo is considered to be an artist who paints, draws, does prints and large scale collaborative projects. The work that they created has been called “Conceptual Art” since in “Conceptual Art” the idea is more important than the object. They did the Valley Curtain in Colorado in 1972 and three years later they did the Running Fence in California. They also wrapped buildings during their career.

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