--

1. TODAY’S
SUPERMASSIVE
QUESTIONS:
1. Why do talented painters who can
paint realistically sometimes
choose to paint abstractly?
2. Why do we associate genius with
youth?
3. Why did the most innovative
artists of the past tend to be
males?

2. PART 1:
Cezanne, the other father
of modern art.
(OR: Cezanne, the ugly
duckling)

3. Cezanne Picasso Mondrian Albers
ImpressionistsJapanese
Art

4. Cezanne
Modern art: Where was it going?
Picasso Mondrian Albers

5. Young Cezanne – not interested in Japanese prints, nor abstract art, nor
creating a new style of painting. He just liked to paint.

6. Trying to paint as realistically as he could (though he wasn’t great at it)

7. How young Cezanne
wants to paint:
How he does paint:

8. The Salon rejected
Cézanne's submissions
every year from 1864
to 1881. That’s 17
years.
In 1882, this one was
finally accepted.
Cezanne was 43.

9. Even though he wants to paint like
the Old Masters of the Renaissance,
his work is very flat. He thinks it’s a
flaw and tries for years to correct it.
How Cezanne
wants to paint:

10. … But he never does. Over time, the flatness becomes his signature.
He starts making interesting 2D shapes on the canvas. The subject is
only a starting point to get his paintbrush moving.

13. Side note: His style was to paint all over the canvas at once.
Because a color over there affects another color over here.
A painting is like a puzzle in which everything fits together.

15. All over the canvas at once.

16. All over the canvas at once.

17. He stops worrying about correct perspective …

18. … Or correct proportion.

19. And eventually he’s the one whom the
next gen of artists want to imitate
Cezanne wannabe

20. Cezanne wannabe

21. And eventually he’s the one whom the
next gen of artists want to imitate
Cezanne wannabe

22. And eventually he’s the one whom the
next gen of artists want to imitate Cezanne wannabe

23. Cezanne
1880s
Trajectory of modern art
Picasso Mondrian Albers
1910s 1910s 1950s
Where was it going?

24. Piet Mondrian

25. Piet Mondrian

26. Piet Mondrian

27. Piet Mondrian

28. Piet Mondrian

29. Piet Mondrian

30. Piet Mondrian

31. Interlude:
Cezanne’s Greatest Hits

35. Cezanne didn’t choose
to work abstractly. He
sort of fell into that
style.
But some artists who
are skillful realists do
choose to work
abstractly.

36. PART 2:
Why do some artists choose
to work abstractly?

37. Picasso– Age 24

39. Age 24

44. Picasso did his greatest work
when he was in his twenties.
Is that common among
genius artists?

45. PART 3:
Why do we associate
genius with youth?
Do the best artists burn
brightly when they’re
young, and then fizzle out?
(Based on the essay Late Bloomers by Malcolm Gladwell)

46. Common assumption:
“Poets peak young,” ---creativity researcher James Kaufman
“The most creative lyric verse is believed to be that written by
the young.” ---Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Lyric poetry is a domain where talent is discovered early, burns
brightly, and then peters out at an early age.” ---H Gardner

47. Assumption tested:
Huckleberry Finn written at age 49.
Robinson Crusoe written at age 58.
42% of Robert Frost’s best poems written after age 50.
Alfred Hitchcock’s best work directed between ages 54 and 61.

48. Picasso’s
greatest work
came early;
Cezanne’s
came late.

49. When Cézanne was
painting a portrait of
the critic Gustave
Geffroy, he made him
endure eighty sittings,
over three months,
before announcing
the project a failure.

50. Mark Twain was the same way. Galenson quotes the literary
critic Franklin Rogers on Twain’s trial-and-error method: “His
routine procedure seems to have been to start a novel with
some structural plan which ordinarily soon proved defective,
whereupon he would cast about for a new plot which would
overcome the difficulty, rewrite what he had already written,
and then push on until some new defect forced him to repeat
the process once again.” Twain fiddled and despaired and
revised and gave up on “Huckleberry Finn” so many times that
the book took him nearly a decade to complete.
The Cézannes of the world bloom late not as a result of some
defect in character, or distraction, or lack of ambition, but
because the kind of creativity that proceeds through trial and
error necessarily takes a long time to come to fruition.

51. Piet Mondrian – Age 27

52. Piet Mondrian – Age 37

53. Piet Mondrian – Age 39

54. Piet Mondrian – Age 40

55. Piet Mondrian – Age 45

56. Piet Mondrian – Age 46

57. Piet Mondrian – Age 49

58. PART 4:
Where are all the major,
groundbreaking female
artists?

60. Only 8% of the plays produced on Broadway were written by
women
--Guerilla Girls

61. Only 8% of the plays produced on Broadway were written by
women
--Guerilla Girls

62. Linda Nochlin, Art Theorist:
There are no women equivalents for Michelangelo or
Rembrandt, Delacroix or Cezanne, Picasso or Matisse . . .
Her biggest insight is that female genius doesn’t emerge unless
the environment is just perfect. And in the past, society wasn’t
set up to nurture and develop talented female artists.
That means there really weren’t more than a few female artists.
It’s not like museums are refusing to include females:
Female art curators probably outnumber male art curators, and
female museum guests probably outnumber male guests.
Nobody has reason to lock female artists out.

63. 99.9999% of people aren’t genius artists. The 0.0001% that are
genius artists have historically been men. Why?
___
Hypothesis 1 – The average man is smarter than the average
woman, and thus more male geniuses exist.

64. Hypothesis:
Men, on average, are
smarter than women.
How would you fact-check
this sexist claim?
(Hint: beware of
anecdotal evidence)

65. 99.9999% of people aren’t genius artists. The 0.0001% that are
genius artists have historically been men. Why?
___
Hypothesis 2 – Men have a more burning desire to win fame,
significance, and glory than women do. They’re more likely to
spend 10,000+ hours necessary to hone their craft, seek out
mentors, and do what it takes to attain fame and fortune.
(In other words: Men, on
average, work harder than
women over a lifetime.)
How would you fact-check
this claim?

66. Patrons

67. 99.9999% of people aren’t genius artists. The 0.0001% that are
genius artists have historically been men. Why?
___
Hypothesis 3 – Women historically had fewer opportunities to
train as artists, and they had fewer patrons. For these reasons,
women could not develop their talents, and those women who
would have been top artists never reached their potential.
( Patron = customer, esp. repeat customer )
How would you fact-check this claim?

68. 99.9999% of people aren’t genius artists. The 0.0001% that are
genius artists have historically been men. Why?
___
Hypothesis 4 – Every great thinker gets her/his ideas from
somewhere. Men, back in the day, had opportunities to mix
with scholars and thought-leaders, but women didn’t. Men got
to bounce ideas off each other, but women didn’t. That’s why
men came out ahead.
How would you fact-check this claim?

69. 99.9999% of people aren’t genius artists. The 0.0001% that are
genius artists have historically been men. Why?
___
Your Hypothesis?

70. PART 5:
What can we do about the
under-representation of
women in art?