Art History Modern Art Continued

• La Vie
• Picasso, 1903
• (Cubism)

-subject of his friend, Carlos Casagemas who shot himself

• -distinctive archetypes; young male who look uncommitted,
• naive woman in love, the madonna

-figures composed as if on a tarot card

• -each figure a
• different card

-enigmatic; mysterious



Rose Period, 1903-07

-brighter period

-gains following in Paris

-befriends youngest and brightest of artists, poets, etc.

-Apollonaire

-fallen in love

-making money

-subject matter; the young boy, circus clown, etc.

• Les Desmoiselles D' Avignon
• Picasso, 1907
• (Cubism)

-become disillusioned in love after two failed loves

-red light district in Barcelona

• -uses mask like faces from various indigenous cultures;
• African, Congo, Iberian

• -in relation to Matisse’s Joy
• of Life

• -takes the figure and looks at the aesthetics of the
• compositional structure

• -the architecture of
• the body

• -African masks are so closely aligned – figures in view with
• primal sexuality – primitive raw power – African makes made in order to enter
• into a different world and evoke a different relationship with a human being –
• wanted to pose this as a kind of totem – fetish construction

• -fighting with art history to make a name for himself and put
• a mark on it, and does that by putting in the aesthetics – the beauty of
• something – the truth of his feelings

• -shattered the male gaze – the illusion that men have power
• over woman

-shattered the renaissance representation realistic mirror

• -passage – new term for mark making – closed contour and open
• – an idea of a plane, gets coloured in to give flatness and presence in space
• and it becomes faded out – part of the body begins to emerge with the environmental
• realm- confuses you visually of what is solid and what is void – what is mass
• and form – dissolves that visual reminder of us being solid objects

-dematerialization of object and of space

- messing with reality

• -almost like a prophecy of the fact that we don’t understand
• the relationships and laws of the world

-posing ugliness where beauty was the ideal

• -shakes foundations of pictorial revolution by introducing
• relativity in space with matter

Analytic Cubism: breaking down things

Synthetic Cubism comes after 1912: building up

• Picasso and Braque continuously go back and fourth responding
• to each others pieces

• The Portuguese (The Emigrant)
• Braque, 1911
• (Cubism)

• ·
• Introduces signs ie. guitar like instrument

• ·
• Incorporates words

• ·
• Modulates colours: grey, black

• ·
• Shifting shapes and colours

Human figure as a pretext for an elaborate scaffolding - evident by descending diagonal lines that helps concentrate the geometric structure down the center of the picture

• "an emigrant on the bridge of a boat with a harbor in the background
• Guitar evident
• Words and letters stencilled in the top

• Still Life with Chair Caning
• Picasso, 1912
• (Cubism)

• ·
• Breaks all language

• ·
• Rope around the edge is real

• ·
• Reproduction of chair caning on oil cloth

• ·
• Paints on top of oil cloth and includes…

• ·
• “JOU” – newspaper, or to play

• ·
• wine glass

• ·
• utensils

• ·
• slice of lemon

• ·
• put together information for us so that we in
• our minds take everything together to see a still life to see that someone is
• sitting on a chair sipping a glass of wine – still life that has to be put
• together in your mind

• ·
• plays with the ability of perceptions

• ·
• we take our world in over time and space and it
• is taken in by fragments

• ·
• much more realistic portrayal

• ·
• has created an image that is confusing to the
• mind

• ·
• contemporary world to say that we are presented
• with so much reproduction and that the truth of our world that he suggests that
• kind of uncertainty in this painting

Cubism meant to shock and break conventions

Moving into Synthetic Cubism: Building up

• Guernica
• Picasso, 1937
• (cubism)

• ·
• murder, rape, bull – represents rap, screaming
• woman holding dead child

• ·
• corpse of a soldier holding a sword

• ·
• older woman holding a light

• ·
• younger child

• ·
• horse with wound

• ·
• flower held by warrior – little sign of hope

• ·
• this is in response to bombing of Guernica in
• Spain

• ·
• gives the idea of a news paper

• ·
• picasso’s response

• Self-Portrait on Her Sixth Wedding Anniversary
• Modersohn-Becker, 1906
• (Expressionism in Germany)

-different portrayal of woman

-baring breasts and pregnant belly

-desexualized

-confrontational

• -expressing her own vision of herself as woman expecting a
• child

• -Modersohn-Becker died in 1907, 18 days after giving birth to
• the child

• -tension comes from candidness of works; mothers with their
• children

• -woman no longer
• the object of a male desire

• -fullness and ripeness of woman in relation to child; able to
• give child what it needs

-technique recalls Guaghin

-background calms; domestic, non-sexualized

• -pleased with her life; she is embraces her stomach,
• celebrating her anniversary.

• -in early stages
• of pregnancy, not yet burdened by it

-necklace, celebratory; festive

• Street, Dresden
• Kirchner, 1908
• (Expressionism in Germany)

-Kirchner part of “the Bridge”

-Fauvist inspired

-large painting

-social commentary about people through use of colour

-people look garish, tacky

-oblivious to their tackiness

-figures have mask-like faces

-people have been isolated from society

-child is devilish; not playful; lurching along

-claustrophobia adds to anxiety

• Composition VII
• Kandinsky, 1913
• (Expressionism in Germany)

• -Kandinsky fascinated with colour; believed colour touches the
• soul

• -interested in spiritual, not material,
• life

-wanted to experience life beyond what we can sees

• -founded group
• Der Blaue Reiter; fundamental to Expressionism

-trying to evoke mood from colour primarily

-chaotic and varied colour; saturated like Fauves

-adds otherworldly aspect

-fantasy

• -dematerialization of representation; nothing is
• representational

• -credited with
• first purely abstract painting

-wanted to express emotion in painting like music did

-pioneered the abstract artist

• Last Supper
• Nolde, 1909
• (Expressionism in Germany)

• -Nolde a brief member
• of Die Brucke

• -portrays moment where Jesus tells them one of them will
• betray him

• -apostles are
• distraught at this

-Judas extends his hand to dish

• -ugliest moment in Christ’s life; moment where he accepts
• death, to pay for mankind’s sins

• The Tempest
• Kokoschka, 1914
• (Expressionism in Germany)

-Kakoschka joined Munich Succession

-based on dante’s inferno

-turbulent relationship of Paulo and Francesca

• -expresses faith
• in one another

• -painted during affair with Alma Mahler; diva-esque character
• linked to many artists such as Munch

• -speaks to underlying feeling of anxiety of a vulnerable
• relationship

• Paris Through the Window
• Chagall, 1913
• (European Response to Cubism, Futurism, Dada...)

• ·
• Freely uses his imagination and visual language
• he has developed

• ·
• Evocative of styles
• seen before: cubist – buildings and background

• ·
• Red pulls forward and blue falls back

• ·
• Red and yellow looks to be closer than the
• window if not at the same distance

• ·
• Playing with colours so that they harmonize so
• that they make a vision that is forming its self for arts sake

• ·
• Two faces – janus figure – god of beginnings –
• god of gates – god of doors- transition figure

• o
• One side blue and one yellow

• § Representing
• day and night/ past and future

• § God
• of moon and sun

• ·
• Cat sits on window sill – known as servurus –
• human looking head

• ·
• Symbols that are identified but are in such a
• fantasy world

• ·
• Upside down train

• ·
• Parachutist

• ·
• Chagall’s work is iconic

• ·
• Highly structured with tremendous fantasy

• The Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
• De Chirico, 1914
• (European response to Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism, constructivism and dada)

• ·
• Interested in metaphysical

• ·
• Outside of logic and irrational

• ·
• Seeks a fantasy world

• ·
• Created a dream like fantasy world in this
• painting by

• o
• No figures just shadows

• o
• Two conflicting perspectives that the shadows
• play into

• o
• Perspective view is out of line in terms of the
• authoganals

• o
• Two view points

• o
• Threatening image

• o
• Caravan looks like circus

• o
• Haunting image

• o
• Simplicity

• o
• Dream like, static architecture

• The City Rises
• Boccioni, 1910
• (European response...)

• ·
• Response to cubist movements and fauves

• ·
• Futurist manifesto

• ·
• Work spread like wild fire

• ·
• Essential to rebel agains harmony and good taste

• ·
• Movement and light destroy the materiality of
• our universe

• ·
• Horses are used as a metaphor – powerful – for
• movement – horse power

• Hugo Ball Reciting a poem at Cafe Voltaire
• Ball, 1916
• (European Resonse)

• ·
• Dadaism – trying to
• get rid of this hole notion of higher muse to inspire art

• o
• Art could happen by chance

• ·
• Wanted to compose works of art that happened by
• chance

• ·
• Surrendering control over the form of art

Dada movement was the most aggressively radical movement

• ·
• bird cage surrounded by roaring lions

• ·
• victory and defeat have lost their meaning

• ·
• whole sale slaughter on grand scale over
• extended period of time in great battles

• ·
• Started in 1916 –dada movement

• ·
• Non sense poems – in café – hoped who ever read
• them with put scents on them

• ·
• Ends up in chaos- wanted disruption – central to
• program at that time

• ·
• “Dada” – Romania for rocking house

• o
• disdain and the idea of turning things upside
• down to the point where it loses sustainability and becomes hilarious

• Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance
• Arp, 1916-17
• (European Response)

• tore up a drawing that displeased him and dropped he pieces on the floor, then suddenly say in the way they landed the solution to the problems with which he had been struggling.
• Liberated from rational thought processes the laws of chance
• Felt more in tune with the workings of nature
• Was distancing himself from the creative process

• Bottle Rack & Fountain
• Duchamp, 1917
• (European Response)

"manufactured objects promoted to the dignity of art through the choice of the artist

• selection of found objects
• Guided by visual indifference or "anaesthesia" and the absence of good or bad taste

Demonstrated that art could be made out of virtually anything and that it required little or no manipulaito by the artist

• Bicycle Wheel (3rd Version)
• Duchamp, 1913
• (European Response)

An assisted ready made also required some intervention by the artist, as when Duchamp mounted an old bicycle wheel on an ordinary kitchen stool.

Made few a year due to the easiness - said it was more for the view than the artist

"Since the tubes of paint used by an artist are manufactured and readymade products we must conclude that all paintings in the world are assisted readymades"

Limited readymades that that their original concept would not lose its impact

"discover" concept is what made a work art, not the uniqueness of the object

• Composition, 1921, Tableau No. II
• Mondrian, 1921-25
• (European Response)

Neoplasticism

Palette of red, blue, yellow, black, and two shades of gray

Structure is emphatic, not simply containing the color rectangles but functioning as a counterpoint to them

Red and Gray areas are divided into larger and smaller rectangles with black lines

Black rectangles, transpositions of lines to planes, act as further unifying elements between line and color.

Edges of painting are left open, along the top and i the lower left corner the verticals do not quite go to the edge, with the consequence that the grays at these points surround the ends of the lines. Only in the lower right does the black go to the edge

Result - an absolute but dynamic balance of vertical and horizontal structure, using primary hues and black and white

The painting is not flat, everything is held firmly in place but under great tension