2. There are many art movements during this period.
We will cover the most notable ones. Here is a list
of some main ones. This is one of the most
creative periods of art history! Aren’t you excited?!
• Fauvism
• Expressionism
• Cubism
• Futurism
• Dada
• DeStijl
• International Style
• Surrealism
• Art Deco
• Bauhaus
3. What’s happening?
• Europeans and Americans were optimistic that
society would advance through the spread of
democracy, capitalism, and technology
• Modern artists eagerly embraced new technologies
in the creation of their work
• New products and innovation = new art styles
• Political unrest and social upheaval didn’t prevent
modern art from flourishing (WWI, WWII, Great
Depression)
• Modern art was still mostly controversial and much
criticized for being either a publicity stunt, childish,
untrained, or politically subversive (most of these
criticisms were false)
4. • Extremely cultured and intellectual avant-garde patrons
support cutting-edge artists and help them flourish
(Gertrude Stein)
• New – patronage of museums: museums hire fine
architectural firms for expansion projects, museums
become works of art, museums commission art from
contemporary artists to be showcased in their public
spaces
• Armory Show introduces modern art to America (not
received well! Americans were horrified!)
• Gallery 291 displays photos w/ art (photos = art!)
• Modern art becomes even more international
(Mexico, Russia, etc.)
• Artists are outspoken – publish manifestos on their
artistic beliefs
5. Painting, sculpture, and
architecture are blended into
multiple movements in this time
period, so let’s learn about their
changes now (and see them
scattered around this chapter)
6. Painting:
• Color is used to evoke a feeling and challenge the viewer
• Perspective generally discarded/ purposely altered for
dramatic effect
• Compositions forcefully altered in dynamic ways
• ABSTRACTION featured in modern art – abstraction and
pure form have a meaning independent of realistically
conveyed representations
• FROTTAGE (like a rubbing) and COLLAGE techniques
introduced (previously thought of as child’s techniques)
• Paintings inspired by African cultures –
geometric, abstract, unconventional reality, freedom of
expression (primitive)
• Freedom of expression – rethink traditional representations
7. Sculpture:
• Adventurous exploration of form
• Artists use new materials (plastic) and new
formats (collages) to create dynamic compositions
• Create MOBILES: sculptures made of several
different items that dangle from a ceiling – moved
by air currents
• Artists use found objects and turn them into
works of art – called READY-MADES – “became”
works of art simply because the artist said they
were (we see this in the art movement called
DADA)
8. Architecture:
• Embraced new technological advances
• FERROCONCRETE construction (steel reinforced concrete)
allows for new designs with skeleton frameworks and glass
walls – resists building stress
• CANTILEVER helps push building elements beyond the solid
structure of the skeletal framework (a projecting beam that is
attached to a building at one end, but suspended in the air at
the other end)
• Avoid historical associations (we won’t see many
columns, buttresses, etc.)
• Like sleek, clean lines that stress the building’s underlying
structure
• Architecture emphasizes the impact of new machines and
technology
10. FAUVISM
• Started around 1905 in
Paris (only lasted 3 years)
• French for “the wild
beasts” – critics thought it
looked like paintings were
created by wild beasts
• Inspired by post-
impressionists like Gauguin
and Van Gogh
• Painterly surface with
broad flat areas of violently
contrasting colors
• Figure modeling and color
harmonies suppressed so
the focus could be on
expressiveness
11. Woman With a Hat
Henri Matisse, 1905
oil on canvas
• Conventional
composition/pose
• Violent contrast of
colors
• Energetic painterly
brushwork
• Exhibited in the 1905
Salon d’Automne in
Paris
• Matisse’s wife
12. Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life)
Henri Matisse, 1905-1906 oil on canvas
15. THE BRIDGE (“Die Bruke) 1905-1913
• An exhibiting group inspired by Fauvism
• Included Ernst Kirchner and fellow artists from Germany and other
areas in Europe
• Saw themselves as a bridge from traditional to modern painting
• Emphasized the same Fauve ideals (violent juxtaposition of color)
– roused the public
• Hoped “The Bridge” would be a gathering place for “all
revolutionary and surging elements” in opposition to the
dominant culture – which they saw was “pale, overbred, and
decadent”
• Liked nudes and nature
• Simple and direct style, includes PRIMITIVISM, which drew
inspiration from non-Western arts of Africa, Pre-Columbian
America, and Oceania – bold stylization was in contrast to the
sophisticated illusionism that Modern artists rejected
• Believe that non-Western art gave them access to a more
authentic state of being – uncorrupted by civilization
16. Masks
Emil Nolde, 1911, oil on canvas
• Garish colors
• Fevered brushwork
• Masks he sketched
in an ethnographic
museum
• VERY non-
traditional take on
still life painting
• Grotesque
17. Street, Berlin
Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner, 1913, oil on canvas
• Two prostitutes (feather
hats and fur coats) strut
past well-dressed
bourgeois men (potential
clients)
• Figures appear artificial
and dehumanized
• Masklike faces and stiff
gestures
• Bodies crowd together, but
are psychologically distant
– urban alienation
• Harsh colors, tilted
perspective, angular lines
18. Street, Dresden
Ernst Kirchner, 1908, oil
on canvas
• Uncomfortably
close encounter
with women on
street in
Dresden,
Germany
• Nonrepresentati
onal colors –
chosen to make
jarring impact
• Horrific facial
features, grim
surroundings
• Tilted
perspective
19. Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace
Paula Modersohn-Becker
1906, oil on canvas
• An independent
expressionist (not part of
The Bridge or Blue Rider)
• Unusual self-portrait –
nude!
• Presents two flowers, has
three more in her
hair, symbolic of fertility
and beauty
• Looks at viewer with
confidence, tenderness, h
umanity, and femininity
• Thick paint, primitive
feeling
20. Self-Portrait Nude
EgonSchiele, 1911
gouache and pencil on paper
• Independent Expressionist from Austria
• Conveys physical and psychological
torment
• Hard life (negative influences of
sex, suffering, and death at a young age)
• Emphasized the animal nature of the
human body
• Ambivilance toward sexual content in his
art and life
• Stares at viewer with anguished
expression
• Emaciated body in
stretched, uncomfortable pose
• No right hand – suggests amputation
• Unarticulated genitals – suggest
castration
• Missing body parts interpreted as his
self-punishment for indulgence in
masturbation, then commonly believed
to lead to insantiy (his father died insane
of untreated syphilis when Egon was 14)
21. THE BLUE RIDER (“DerBlaue Reiter”)
• Formed in Munich, Germany, in 1911
• Called “The Blue Rider” because of an affection the
founders had for horses and the color blue, of
course!
• Began to forsake representational art and move
toward abstraction
• Highly intellectual, full of theories of artistic
representation
• Saw abstraction as the way of conceiving the
natural world in terms that went beyond
representation
23. • Swirling shapes and dynamic composition – sweeping
movement, shapes of horses harmonize with landscape
• Emotional impact of blue color for horses – color draws horses
together as if in a common experience – homogenous unit
• Thought animals had a purer, more spiritual relationship to nature
than humans did
• Pure, strong colors = horses have an uncomplicated yet intense
experience of the world as Marc enviously imagined it
Marc was co-
founder of
The Blue Rider
Blue AND
Horses here!
24. The Blue Mountain
(DerBlaue Berg)
Vasily Kandinsky
1908-1909
oil on canvas
•References to
“primitive” society in
Russian folk culture
•Two horsemen in the
style of Russian folk art
before a looking peak of
blue mountain
•Kandinsky often painted
riders – had the
horsemen of the
Apocalypse in mind
26. • Movement toward abstraction, representational objects suggested rather
than depicted
• Title derived from musical compositions
• Strong use of black lines- vortex of color, line, and shape
• Colors seem to shade around line forms
• Painting is a response to his inner state rather than external stimulus
• Kandinsky wants us to look at the painting as if we are hearing a symphony
27. Improvisation 30
Vasily Kandinsky, 1913, oil on canvas
• A spiritual response
to the world
• Nonrepresentationa
l
• Emphasis of color
relationships, allove
r composition, and
formal elements of
design
28. CUBISM – 1907-1930’s
• Born in Pablo Picasso’s studio
• Picasso was inspired by African masks- wanted to break down
the human form into angles and shapes and achieve a new
way of looking at things from many sides at once
• Multiple views from multiple angles all at once!
• Dominated by wedge facets that are sometimes shaded to
simulate depth
• Three phases: Analytical, Synthetic, Curvilinear
• Analytical: highly experimental, shows jagged edges and
sharp multifaceted lines
• Synthetic: inspired by collages and found objects, flattened
forms
• Curvilinear: 1930’s – more flowing and rounded response to
flattened and firm edges of Synthetic
29. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Pablo Picasso, 1907, oil on canvas
• FIRST cubist painting
ever!
• Influenced by Cezanne
and African masks
• Represents five
prostitutes in a bordello
on Avignon Street in
Barcelona, each posing
for a customer
• Poses aren’t very
alluring –
awkward, expressionless
, uninviting
• Three figures on left are
more conservatively
painted, two on right
are more radical –
Picasso isn’t known for
his consistency
• Multiple views
expressed at the same
time
• No real depth
30. Analytical Cubism Example
• Subject matter AND
style are controversial –
very rebellious of
Picasso
• Women and their space
are flattened and
fractured into sharp
angles
• Even the fruit (symbol of
female sexuality) is hard
and dangerous looking
• Women are not the
gentle and passive
creatures men would
like them to
be, suggests Picasso
• Complete contradiction
of traditional erotic
imagery
• Even his friend Matisse
was horrified by this
piece – threatened to
break off the friendship
31. Houses at L’Estaque and Violin and Palette
Georges Braque, 1908-1910, oil on canvas
32. •Inspired by Picasso (a peer)
and Cezanne
•Reduced nature’s many colors
to basic browns and greens
•Eliminated detail to emphasize
basic geometric foms
•Pushed distant houses closer
to the foreground – forces the
viewer to look UP rather than
IN the canvas
•Rejected by the Salon in 1908
•Matisse dismissed it as “little
cubes” – where the name
CUBISM was born
•Braque became pals with
Picasso
Analytic Cubism
33. (Example of Analytic Cubism)
• Gradual abstraction of deep
space, recognizable subject
matter
• Items pushed close to picture
plane in a shallow space
• Shifting surface of forms and
colors
• Some things retain their
identity, but he fractured them to
integrate them into the whole
composition
Violin and Palette by Braque
34. Glass and Bottle of Suze
Pablo Picasso, 1912
paper, gouache, charcoal
• Example of SYNTHETIC
CUBISM
• Collage –separate
elements pasted together
• Tray or table supporting a
glass and bottle of liquor
with an actual label
• Jagged shapes, shallow
space
• Newspaper clippings are
about First Balkan War
(led to WWI) – comparing
the disorder in his art to
the disorder building in
the world
35. Mandolin and Clarinet
Pablo Picasso, 1913
wood, paint, pencil
• Introduced revolutionary
technique called ASSEMBLAGE
–sculptors can carve and
model as they did before, but
can also construct their workd
out of found objects and
unconventional materials
• Gaps and holes between
forms
• Reversed the traditional
concept of sculpture as a solid
form surrounded by a void
• Volume through contained
space rather than mass alone
Synthetic cubism
36. Guernica
Pablo Picasso, 1937, oil on canvas
• Painted for the Spanish pavilion of the 1937 Parisian World’s Fair
• A reaction to the Fascist bombing of the militarily insignificant town of
Guernica in northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War
• Killed more than 1600 innocent people and shocked the world
• Became a powerful symbol of the brutality of war
37. • Focus is on the victims
• Restricted colors – black, gray, and white – tones of newspaper photographs
that publicized the event
• Includes symbols (unusual of Picasso:
• Pieta on left with stigmata on child’s hands (Christ’s crucifixion wounds)
• Bull symbolizes brutality and darkness, but could also symbolize Spain itself
• Fallen warrior at bottom left holds a broken sword
• Woman with torch is an allegory of liberty – lantern reveals the event in all
its horror
38. • Horse in panic (symbol of betrayed innocence) tramples on everything and
everyone
• Women trapped in burning house, screaming at desolation and carnage
• Wounded figures on right rush in seeking shelter
• Figures in perspective on bottom recall dead figures in Ucello’sBattle of San
Romano
• Widely admired painting – Picasso used the language of Modern art to comment in
a heartfelt manner on what seemed an international scandal
• However, bombing civilians became a common strategy that all sides adopted
when WWII broke out
39.
40. FUTURISM (1909-1914)
• Italian artists celebrate the scientific and technological
progress of the modern world
• Glory of the machine and fascination with speed
• Influenced by Cubism – enjoyed prismatic effects of
representation – their work has a “shattered” look
• FilippoTommaso Marinetti published a manifesto that
advocated an artistic revolution – “Foundation and
Manifesto of Futurism” – in a Paris newspaper – an
outspoken attack against everything
old, dull, feminine, and safe – promoted exhilarating
“masculine” experiences of warfare and reckless speed
• Futurism’s goals: Free Italy from its pas and promote a
new taste for thrilling speed, energy, and power of new
technology and modern urban life
42. • Powerfully strides
forward through
atmosphere
• Illusion of movement
• Abstract forms fly
around armless figure
• Muscular body
• Velocity and vitality as
it rushes forward
• A symbol of the brave
new Futurist world
(includes WWI, which
the futurists
enthusiastically
supported
• Boccioni lost his life in
combat in WWI
43. Nude Descending a
Staircase, No. 2
Marcel Duchamp
1912, oil on canvas
• Part of an exhibit at THE
ARMORY SHOW in New
York in 1913 (held in the
Armory building) – a show
to introduce Americans to
the current trends in
European art
44. • The “succes de scandale”
at the Armory Show
• Futurist/Cubist painting
depicting an assumed
nude figure going down a
flight of stairs
• Influenced by motion
pictures, multiple-
exposure photography
• Limited color range
• Emphasis on
movement, forward/down
ward motion
45. PRECISIONISM
• Small movement
loosely organized
in 1920’s
• Stressed the flat
precision of
Synthetic Cubism
and interest in the
sharp edges of
machinery
46. Light Iris
Georgia O’Keefee
1924, oil on canvas
• Simplified monumental
shapes, organic forms
• Minimal
details, monumentality
of delicate flower
• Broad planes of
unchanging color
• Tilted perspective
• Erotic overtones –
female
sexuality, naturally
beautiful flower
blossoming
47. PHOTO-SECESSION
• An early 20th century movement
• Promoted photography as a fine art in general
• Controversial viewpoint – what is significant about a
photograph is not what is in front of the camera but
what the manipulation of the image by the
photographer achieves through his or her
subjective vision
• Movement helped raise standards and awareness of
art photography
48. Gallery 291 – most progressive gallery in the U.S. – showcased
photographs as works of art beside avant-garde European paintings
and modern American works (owned by photographer Alfred
Stieglitz) – on 5th Avenue in NYC, major role in Photo-Secession
Photo from 1906
49. The Steerage
Alfred
Stieglitz, 1907, photo
graph
• Stieglitz
photographed the
world as he saw it –
arranged little and
allowed people and
events to make their
own compositions
• Interested in
compositional
possibilities of
diagonals and lines
acting as framing
elements
50. • Diagonals and
framing effects of
ladders, sails,
steam pipes, etc.
• Shows the poorest
passengers on a
ship from the U.S.
to Europe in 1907
• Mostly rejected
immigrants to the
U.S. on the return
journey
• Allowed out for air
for a limited time
51. DADA (1916-1925)
• Europeans shocked by the length and brutality of
WWI, far worse than they imagined it would be
• New technologies used for massive casualties –
machine guns, flame throwers, fighter
aircraft, poison gas
• Propaganda campaigns, war profiteering disguised
as patriotism, and food rationing
• People are disgusted!
• DADA movement is a reaction against the WWI
slaughter and its moral injustices
• DADA questions art itself
52. • DADA = “hobby horse” (child’s toy)
• In Zurich, Cologne, Berlin, Paris, and NY
• Rejected conventional methods of representation and
the conventional manner in which they were exhibited
• Oil paint and canvas abandoned
• Presented READY-MADES as an art form
• Did work on glass
• Challenged the relationship between words and
images, incorporated words into their works
• Meaning behind a DADA work can change depending
on location or accident – Did it shatter? That is an
enhancement! – leaves art to chance
• Accepts the dominance of the artistic concept over the
execution……ok…….get ready for some DADA……..
54. •Duchamp created the
most shocking DADA
works
•Brought DADA to U.S.
after moving to NY to
escape the war in Europe
•Tried painting and gave
up (considered it
mindless)
•Believed art should
appeal to the intellect
rather than the senses
•Used READY-MADES:
manufactured objects
transformed into
artworks simply through
the decision of the artist
55. •“Fountain” was
entered in an unjuried
show, but the work
was refused for being
indecent
•Signed by Duchamp
as “R. Mutt” – a pun
on the Mutt and Jeff
comic strip and Mott
Iron Works (the
fixture’s
manufacturer)
•Title “Fountain” is a
pun –fountains spout
liquid, and a urinal is
meant to collect it
56. •“Fountain” is a
masterpiece of
philosophical investigation
•If a work of art is supposed
to be hand-made and
signed by the artist, this
work is neither
•Art is supposed to have
meaning? This is supposed
to catch urine
•Art is supposed to reflect
an artist’s training? This
reflects a trip to the
hardware store
•Duchamp’s radical gesture
was one of the most
important advances of
Modern art.
•Curious what else he
“made”?
58. L.H.O.O.Q
Marcel Duchamp
Pencil on reproduction of
Leonardo’s Mona Lisa
•Drew a mustache and beard on this
postcard and signed it with his name
•Called it an “assisted ready-made” –
artist takes a common object and
“assist” it with some alteration
•Challenges preconceived notions
with heavy irreverence
•Duchamp’s contribution to
civilization is to ridicule its hypocrisies
(How can artists make works of
beauty during the brutality of war?!)
•DADA was “born of disgust”
60. METAPHYSICAL PAINTING
•Italian movement 1910-
1920
•Humans (shown as
shadows or dummies) cast
in open and mysterious
plazas of infinite space
•Foreshadowed Surrealist
painting
•Viewer must interpret the
meaning based on
symbols, suggestions, and
impressions
61. Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
Giorgio DeChirico, 1914
oil on canvas
•Deep pull into desolate
space
•Shadowy, eerie forms that
create mystery and
foreboding
•Juxtaposition of large dark
spaces and open light vistas
•Empty van with nothing in
it
•Long shadows accentuate
every texture and
movement
62. SURREALISM (1924-1930’s)
• Inspired by psychological studies by Freud and Jung
• Wanted to represent an unseen world of
dreams, subconscious thoughts, and unspoken
communication
• Started with the theories of writer Andre Breton –
attacked the rational emphasis of Western culture
• Just as grumpy as the Dadaists before them (some
had been part of Dada)
• Argued that modern values
(science, progress, comfort, and success) were
pursued at the expense of other values
(fantasy, imagination, and play)
63. • Thought that coming face-to-face with one’s
inner demons in an art context might prevent
us from letting them loose in the real world
• Developed techniques for liberating the
unconscious (dream analysis, free association,
automatic writing, word games, hypnotic
trances….and I’m sure some drugs were
involved)
• Goal: help people discover the more intense
reality (“surreality”) that lay beyond the narrow
rational notions of what is real
• Surrealism went in two directions…
64. Surrealism direction #1: abstract tradition of
biomorphic (organic) and suggestive forms
Surrealism direction #2: veristic tradition of
using reality-based subjects put together in
unusual ways
Titles are puzzling – Surrealism is meant to
puzzle, challenge, and fascinate the viewer
Sources: mysticism, psychology, and the
symbolic (not meant to be clearly
understood, so don’t panic)
66. •Why is a nightingale out in
the daytime?
•How could such a lovely
bird firghten children, one
of whom has collapsed?
•What is the size
relationship between the
fence and the children?
•Who is the shadowy
figure in the house and
what is it holding?
•What will happen if the
figure presses the button?
•What does the level on
the house do?
•Good questions!!! ?????
68. •Huge empty spaces in this vast landscape
•Drooping watches set to different times
•Only life is the fly on the watch and ants on closed
watch
•Hallucinatory
•Barren and
uninhabited
landscape
69. •Visual ironies: Tree grows from a firm block, clock
hangs from a dead tree branch (time’s impact?)
•Dali said inspiration came from observing cheese melt
under the sun
•Melting clocks in a disjointed landscape – based on a
dream he had (face in the middle is the dreamer
himself)
•Rejection of time as a solid and deterministic influence
•Dali was fascinated with decay
•Contrast between hard and
soft objects
•Cliffs in background are
inspired by Catalonia, Dali’s
home
70.
71. Birth of Liquid Desires
Salvador Dali 1931-
1932
oil on canvas
72. •Woman in white gown embraces a hermaphroditic
figure (Dali’s works often deal w/ sexual urges)
•Figure half-kneels on
classical pedistal
•Foot in a bowl that is
being filled by partially
hidden figure
•Long loaf of French
bread on head
•Thick black cloud
emerges from head,
cabinet above it
•Nonsense phrase
inscribed – “Consign: to
waste the total slate?”
•Carefully wrote down his nightmares and painted them
•Read more on PAGE 1120-1121
74. •Biomorphic shapes set
on a series of simple
background colors
•Color harmonies softly
modeled
•Shapes suggest realistic
objects
•Shapes delineated by
solid black outlines
•Some shapes are
filled, some empty
•Amoeba-like shapes
•Playful, childish forms
interact in a free-
flowing pattern
76. •Juxtaposition of two self-
portraits
•Left: dressed as a Spanish
lady in white lace
•Right: dressed as a
Mexican peasant
•Inspired by stiffness and
provincial quality of
Mexican folk art
•Two hearts connected by
veins that are cut by
scissors at one end and
lead to a portrait of her
husband (artist Diego
Rivera) at the other end
•Painted at the time of
their divorce
•Barren landscape, wildly active sky
•Kahlo rejected the label of Surrealism
77. Lobster Tail and Fish Trap
Alexander Calder, 1939, steel wire and aluminum
•Mobile, hung from
ceiling
•Perfectly balanced
•Changes shape at
every breeze
•Primary and neutral
colors
•Biomorphic, flat forms
– suggest but don’t
directly depict reality
•Delicate wires suggest
thin fish bones
•Commissioned by the
MOMA in NYC
79. •Assemblage of china, spoon, and Chinese gazelle fur
•Said to have been done in response to Picasso’s claim that anything looks
good in fur
•Juxtaposition of very unlike objects: tea cup, saucer, and spoon covered in
fur
•Simultaneously attracts and repels the viewer
•Erotic overtones (supposedly…..but I’m just grossed out)
80. SUPREMATISM (1913-1920’)
•Thought nonobjective reality was greater than
anything that could be achieved by representation
•Artists like Malevich produced work that shows the
“supremacy of pure feelings”
•Forms float on white background, suspended in
thoughtful arrangements
•Limited use of color, geometric shapes, diagonals
•Communist Russia eventually ignored abstract art, so
the movement died
81. Suprematist
Composition:
Airplane Flying
Kazimir
Malevich, 1915, oil
on canvas
•Simple rectangles on
white
•Contemplate relationship
of shapes
•Pure idealism
•Malevich said he wanted
to “free art from the
burden of the object”
•Eliminated objects so we
can focus on the formal
issues – “liberate” the
essential beauty in art
83. ORGANIC ART
(late 1920’s – 1930’s)
•Uses basic shapes to
symbolize, rather than
depict
•Believe in honesty of
simple shapes
•Sleekness and roundness
of forms
•Simple, but show a great
understanding of the
nature of the materials
used
84. Bird in Space
Constantin Brancusi
1928, bronze•Figure soars upward from marble base
it is anchored to
•Not the IMAGE of a bird, but the
IMPRESSION of a bird sweeping into the
sky
•Shiny bronze surface, streamlined and
aerodynamic like a bird
•Famous trial over the importation of
this object – customs said it was a tool
(requires import duty), defendants argue
it’s a work of art (exempt from import
duty)
•Judge had to determine if it was a work
of art
86. •Moore did many
sculptures with a similar
theme/look
•Simplified forms with
emphasis on areas of
negative space
•Smooth stone
•Biomorphic forms
•Influenced by ancient
Mayan chacmool figures
•Made choices based on the location
of his sculptures
•This one was next to a low building
with views of gently rolling hills
•Saw this as a “mediator” between
modern building and ageless land
88. DEPRESSION ERA ART (1929-1939)
•Art addressed destitution and social issues/concerns
•Shows desperation of the public, especially in photos
•Shows social injustices
•City and country life depicted in unconventional ways
•Rejected Euopean abstract art
•“Harlem Renaissance” – part of this movement, named
after Harlem, NY, where many African-Americans moved
in the early 20th century – full artistic expression in
painting, music, writing, photoraphy
89. American Gothic
Grant Wood, 1930
oil on beaverboard
(a fiberboard
building material)
•Subject: Midwestern
people in rural Iowa
•Wood’s sister and
dentist posed in
conventional
Midwestern costumes
in front of a
“carpenter Gothic”
style house (meant to
represent father and
daughter)
90. •Long oval heads
•Narrow chins
•Sloping shoulders
•Look disapproving or
hostile
•Pitchfork design
echoed in farmer’s
shirt, symbolizes hard
labor
•Wood refused to
interpret the painting
•Some say it’s an
expression of pioneer
stubbornness
•Some say it’s a satire
on farmers
91. •Wood said he painted
the house and the
people as a cohesive
unit – “the kind of
people I fancied
should live in that
house”
•“daughter” is a
spinster, wears a
colonial apron (19th
century style)
•Flowers behind her
suggest domesticity
(women’s role)
•Hard labor = man’s
role (pitchfork)
94. Migrant Mother
Dorothea Lange
1935,
photograph•Lange photographed migrant
workers in a deserted pea-
pickers camp in California
(ever read “The Grapes of
Wrath?)
•Children turned away, frame
their mother’s face, cling to
her
•Mother is a mix of things:
despair, anxiety, strength, dete
rmination
•Poverty (basically dressed in
tattered rags)
•Documentary photo
95. •Mother’s name is Florence
Owens Thompson
•Husband died, she worked
in the fields and a
restaurant to support her six
children
•Migrated to California, had
three more
children, worked at a
migrant worker farm
•Picked hundreds of pounds
of cotton every day to make
a living
•Very famous photo, on a
U.S. postage stamp in the
30’s (uncommon – usually
you have to be dead at least
10 years to get on a stamp)
97. •We are the viewer outside, looking into the big plate glass window of a luncheonette with no
exterior door
•Three customers, no interaction (although the counterman seems to “listen”)
•City seems empty, deserted, middle of the night? – loneliness of modern life
•Simple, quiet composition, but with tension
•Forms are clearly painted
98. •Sharply angled street corner – allows him to display his subjects from a nearly frontal
point of view AND what’s behind them (we can see through 2 panes of glass)
•Dull colors, woman in red stands out
•Hopper was interested in light, especially manmade light at night (it spills out onto
the sidewalk)
99. Check out the movie “Pennies from
Heaven” and you’ll see it come to life
There are many parodies of this painting too…. Google it….
103. •One of a series of 60 paintings that depict the migration of African-
Americans from the rural south to the urban north after WWI
•Overall color unity in the series (next slide)
•Forms hover in large spaces
•Unmodulated colors, flat, almost like cut paper
•Little individuality in the figures, meant to represented the collective
African-American experience rather than individual people
Harlem
Renaissance
example
105. Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction
Aaron Douglas, oil on canvas
•Figures in silhouette, profile views with Egyptian-style frontal eye
•Organized colors into concentric bands – suggest musical rhythms or spiritual emanations
•Intended to awaken in African-Americans a sense of their place in history
•Celebrating Emancipation Proclamation, rights to vote, right to enlist in military
•KKK invades from left
•Heroic orator in center = focus of the composition – inspiring viewers to continue to
struggle against oppression
106. MEXICAN MURALISTS (20’s and 30’s)
•A sort of “renaissance” in Mexico – revival of fresco is
a Mexican specialty
•Artists who were trained in the old tradition of fresco
painting created large murals that all could see and
appreciate
•Murals usually promoted a political or social message
•Easy-to-read format, direct meanings
•Promote the labor and struggle of the working class
•Usually a socialist agenda
107. Diego Rivera was the most popular muralist. He was married to
Frida Kahlo. His work on Mexican government buildings influenced
the U.S. – U.S. federal government starts a program to hire
American artists to decorate public buildings with murals (“Federal
Patronage for American Art during the Depression” – see page
1116 in your book)
109. •Automobile industry
glorified with workers
at the Ford River Rouge
plant going through
their daily activities
•Honors the workers
and laborers
•Highly decorative and
colorful
•Large, grand figures
dominate the
composition
•Filled with anecdotal
incidents
•Horror vacui, right?
•Didactic painting –
meant to
teach/describe
111. Man, Controller of the Universe
Diego Rivera, 1934, fresco
•Center figure represents “man” – symbolically controls the universe through
manipulation of technology (clear-eyed, young, in overalls – working clothes)
•Crossing behind him – two large ellipses – represent microcosm of living organisms as
seen through the microscope, and macrocosm of outer space as viewed through giant
telescope (above his head)
•Fruits and vegetables grow from earth below = agricultural efforts
112.
113. Man, Controller of the Universe
Diego Rivera, 1934, fresco
•Right: Lenin joins hands with workers of different races
•Left: decadent capitalists in a nightclub (below disease-
causing cells in the ellipse)
•Upper right: workers of the world embracing socialism
•Upper left: the capitalist world, which is cursed by militarism
and labor unrest
121. CONSTRUCTIVISM (1914-1920’s)
•Experimented with new architectural
materials and assembled them in a way
devoid of historical reference
•Saw Russia as an idealistic center removed
from historical reference and decoration
•Influenced by Cubists and Futurists
•Designed buildings with no precise facades
•Emphasis on dramatic use of materials
122. Monument to the
Third International
VladmirTatlin
1919-1920
wood, iron, glass
•Commemorates 1917
Russian Revolution
•Talin believed abstract art
represented a new society
built free of past associations
•Existed only as a model
(now destroyed) - would
have been made of glass and
iron
123. •If built, it would have been the
world’s tallest building at that
time
•Was going to be built in Moscow
as the headquarters for
propaganda for Soviet Union
•Axis intended to point to star
Polaris: symbol of universal
humanity
•Three chambers were going to
rotate around center axis inside a
tilted spiral cage – each chamber
housed a facility for a different
govt. activity and rotated at a
different speed (very “ministry of
magic”)
124. •Bottom: glass
structure for lectures
and meetings, rotated
once a year
•Middle: for
administration, rotated
monthly
•Top: information
center, rotated daily
•Seems to burrow into
the earth like a drill
•Lacks main facade
125. DeStijl(1917-1930’s) “The Style”
•Greatest artist: Piet Mondrian
•Completely abstract (even the titles make no reference to
nature). Nature encourages “primitive animal instincts”
•Representational elements are too subjective. No curved
lines because they are sensual
•Thought that there were two kinds of beauty:
sensual/subjective and rational/objective
•Mondrian likes rational/objective – says that’s the higher
“universal” kind
•White background, black lines, angular spaces (squares
and rectangles), three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow
(painted solid, no shading)
•NO diagonals. Only perpendicular lines.
126. Composition in Black,
White, and Red
Piet Mondrian
1936
oil on canvas
•Primary
colors, black, white
•Severe
geometry, only right
angles
•Grid-like
arrangement
•No shading of colors
127. Composition with Yellow, Red, and Blue
Piet Mondrian
1927
oil on canvas
•Primary colors and neutrals
•Horizontal/vertical lines –
two directions meant to
symbolize the harmony of
opposites (male vs.
female, individual vs.
society, spiritual vs. material)
•Beauty = resolved conflict
(“dynamic equilibrium”
according to Mondrian)
•Equilibrium achieved
through precise arrangement
of color areas of different
size, shape, and visual
“weight”
•Asymmetrically grouped
128. Composition with
Yellow, Blue, and Red
Piet Mondrian, 1937, oil on canvas
•Wanted art to create an
environment designed
according to the rules of
“universal beauty”
•Balanced, pure
•Thought he provided
humanity with something
we were lacking
•Thought that if beauty
were in every aspect of our
lives, we wouldn’t need art
(he hoped he would be the
last artist after launching
this style)
133. •Only building in complete DeStijl
style
•Mrs. Schroder wanted a smaller
house w/ her 3 kids after the
husband died
•Flexibility of space = no
hierarchical arrangement of
rooms in the floor plan
•Collapsable walls, partitions –
allowed kids to create an open
play space, or close walls to
create private bedrooms
•Bedroom standards: bed must fit
in two positions, each room
needs a water supply and
drainage, each room needs access
to the outdoors directly
134. •Coolest house EVER!!!!
•Looks like DeStijl paintings
•Geometric, grid-like façade, asymmetrical interlocking planes
•Private rooms (bedrooms) on bottom floor, public rooms on top
floor
•Interior can be modified – walls move, partitions open, things
convert….so cool!!!
•You can create new
spaces in seconds!
•EVERY element has
a purpose, even a
tiny shelf for the
owner to place her
watch on before bed
135.
136.
137.
138. BAUHAUS (1919-1933)
• A school of architecture and interior design
• Taught that all artforms should be designed as a
unit (architecture, objects, etc.)
• Embraced technology, taught students to
understand design as a coherent whole
• Influenced by DeStijl and Constructivism
• Simple, elegant designs based on geometric
harmony and expressive forms
• Marriage of art and technology in a creative and
experimental way
• BAUHAUS = “house of building”
141. •Building seems to float, as if it’s lifted off the ground
•Framed by long white panels on top and bottom
•Glass walls (curtain walls) reveal 2nd layer beyond them
(classrooms for architecture students)
•No embellishments or architectural motifs
142. Fagus Shoe Factory
Walter Gropius and Adolph Meyer, 1911-1916, Germany
•Represents the
evolution of modern
architecture – conceived
to function as a
building, not
demonstrate advances of
the 19th century
143. •Good engineering =
good architecture
•Purely functional building, no elaboration, windows flood interior with light
•Steel frame, slender brick piers along outer walls
•Curtain wall of windows, no corner piers needed because of the steel frame
skeleton
144. International Style (1920’s- 1950’s)
• Belief that a house should be a “machine for living”
• Influenced by clean lines of Bauhaus style
• Clean, spacious white lines in façade
• Strong skeleton structure holds building up from
within – allows for great planes of glass to wrap
around the walls using FERROCONCRETE
construction (steel reinforced concrete)
• No ornamentation, sculptures, or paint on exterior
146. •Three-bedroom villa (home) with servant’s quarters
•Boxlike horizontal design, an abstraction of a house
•All space utilized, roof is a patio (nice!)
•Main part of house lifted off the ground by “pilotis” (thin
freestanding posts) – pronounced “pEE-oh-tee”
•Bottom floor with circular - enter house directly from the
car!
150. PRAIRIE STYLE (1900-1917)
• Architects working mainly in Chicago
• Frank Lloyd Wright is the most famous of them
• Most structures built in prairie state and inspired by horizontal character
of the prairie itself
• Historic styles? No way!
• Architecture should be in harmony with the site it’s built on
• Irregular plans, layouts mimic abstract shapes of contemporary paintings
(circles, squares, rectangles, triangles)
• Stylized botanical shapes
• CANTILEVER construction so porches and terraces can extend out from
the main section of a structure – give the impression of forms hovering
in space
• Organic qualities of materials considered beautiful – concrete w/
pebbles mixed in, sand-finished stucco, lumber, natural woods
• Horizontal emphasis, sprawling
152. •Horizontal emphasis (mimics flat expanses of the American
prairie)
•Long ground-hugging lines
•Cantilever construction, porches covered by long balconies
153. •Windows meet at corners w/ no piers to support them
•Roof angled to allow low winter sun to enter, keep out hot summer sun
•Not intended to have blinds or curtains – would ruin the effect of the
seamless windows
•Entrance hidden from view, not on our near the sidewalk (fortress-like)
154. •Organized around a central chimney (typical Prairie) – hearth = physical and psychological
center of the home
•Wright was inspired by Japanese domestic space- used partitions to separate space rather than
heavy walls
155. •Lighting and heating integrated into ceiling and floor, added built-in
bookcases, shelves, and storage drawers (all an effort to achieve unity)
•Wright designed the furniture too – modern, machine-cut designs, high backs
156. Lighting at the corners to
create an uninterrupted
intimate space
158. •Built after Prairie movement, but same style
•IN the landscape
•Built for a business man as a family summer
cottage, waterfall flows into pool where kids
played
159. •Built the house INTO the cliff over the pool
•Waterfall flows down and under the house
•Cantilevered terraces echo slabs of rock of cliff
•Wood and stone – harmony in nature
160.
161.
162. •Living room has glass curtain walls on three sides- views of the woods (OMG!)
•Floor and walls built from local stone
•Hearth = center of the house
•Architecture dominates the interior design
•Irregular and complex ground plan and design
163.
164.
165. ART DECO (20’s and 30’s)
• Refined appearance
• Focus on industry, the
machine, and
aerodynamics
• A sort of blend between
Art Nouveau and
machine stylization
• Stylized automobile
wheels and grills, cruise-
ship portholes and
railings, parallel lines
contrasting with zig-zags
166. The Chrysler Building
William Van Alen
1928-1930, NY
•Tallest building in the
world when built
(bigger than Eiffel
Tower)
•Streamlined
metalwork on façade
•Stainless steel on top
– shiny and
beautiful, and low
maintenance!
167.
168.
169. •Lobby has rich mix of marble, onyx, and amber, ooooo
•Car motifs dominate: symbols of metal hubcaps, gargoyles in the
form of radiator caps, car fenders, hood ornaments
176. VOCABULARY:
• ABSTRACT: works of art that may have form, but
have little or no attempt at pictorial representation
• BIOMORPHISM: a movement stressing organic
shapes that hint at natural forms
• CANTILEVER: a projecting beam that is attached to a
building at one end, but suspended in the air at the
other end
• COLLAGE: a composition made by pasting together
different items onto a flat surface
• DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY: a type of
photography that seeks social and political redress
for current issues by using photographs as a way of
exposing society’s faults
177. • FERROCONCRETE: steel reinforced concrete – the two
materials act together to resist building stress
• FROTTAGE: a composition made by rubbing a crayon or a
pencil over paper placed over a surface with a raised desing
• HARLEM RENAISSANCE: a particularly rich artistic period in
the 1920’s and 1930’s that is named after the African-
American neighborhood in NYC where it emerged – marked
by a cultural resurgence by African-Americans in the fields of
painting, writing, music, and photography
• MOBILE: a sculpture made of several different items that
dangle from a ceiling and can be set in motion by air curents
• READY-MADE: a commonplace object selected and exhibited
as a work of art (the artist’s choice)
• REGIONALISM: an American art movement form the early
20th century that emphasized Midwestern rural life in a direct
style
