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Similar to Art as representation, Art as Significant Form
Art as representation, Art as Significant Form
- 1. ArtasRepresentation “Imitation isbad; all art is imitative; therefore, all art is bad.” Plato banished poets from the Republic/Ideal state. He claimed that representative poetry and theater like that of Homer’s tragedy and comedy are bad for the spectators’s mind – retaining pity and fear. Instead he recommends that only poetry that praised the gods and tell stories of good men should be accepted. For Plato, emotions aroused in the minds of the spectator during a theatrical performance impede the due performance for everyday
- 2. Art as Significantform • Clive Bell (1881-1964), member of Bloomsbury Group • Reaction to revolutionary developments in post-impressionism, he developed a theory to substantiate/legitimate this current dev’t. as significant art; • Theory in support of CUBISM. In the turn of the 20th century: cubism by Picasso and Braque eschew the goal of accurate representation (time of Plato) – stylized and simplified, moving beyond the idea f representation
- 3. Pablo Picasso Guernica, 1937,Oil on canvas Cubism and Surrealism
- 4. Woman with aguitar, 1913, oil on canvas Georges Braque
- 5. Art as Significantform • If the cubist painter does not aim to reproduce reality then what is the essence of art?
- 6. Art as Significantform • SIGNIFICANT FORM – quality distinguishing art from other things; placement and relationship of lines and colors on canvas • AESTHETIC EMOTION – particular kind of feeling felt by the viewer after perceiving art with significant form
- 7. Significant form ispresent in Abstract and Figurative/Representational Painting and 3- Dimensional Sculpture and Architecture
- 10. Significant form ispresent in Figurative/Representational Art IF and ONLY IF The works artistic value is INDEPENDENT of their representational content as well as their ability to express emotion.
- 18. Art as Significantform “For to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions. Art transports us from the world of man’s activity to a world of aesthetic exaltation”
- 19. To appreciate awork of art we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and color and a knowledge of three- dimensional space. Before we feel an aesthetic emotion for a combination of forms, do we not perceive intellectually the rightness and necessity of the combination?
- 20. “Descriptive painting” painting inwhich forms are used not as objects of emotion, but as means of suggesting emotion or conveying information. Portraits of psychological and historical value, topographical works, pictures that tell stories and suggest situations.
- 21. Artist: Jacques-Louis David Dimensions:3.26 m x 4.2 m Location: Louvre, Paris Created: 1784 Genre: History painting Medium: Oil paint
- 25. Aesthetic emotion ispersonal • An art critic cannot claim that something is art. The percipient observer standing before the work should feel a peculiar emotion (aesthetic emotion). It is a matter of taste and subjective.
- 26. Something to ponderupon… • Ernst Fischer (1963:7-8): • Countless millions read books, listen to music, watch theatre, go to the cinema. Why? To say that they seek distraction, relaxation, entertainment is to beg the question. Why is it distracting, relaxing, entertaining to sink oneself in someone else’s life and problems, to identify oneself with a painting or a piece of music or with the characters in a novel, play, or film?... And if one answers that we want to escape from an unsatisfactory existence into a richer one, into an experience without risk, then the next question arises: why is our existence not enough… • Evidently, man (sic) wants to be more than just himself. He wants to be a whole man. He is not satisfied with being a separate individual … He longs to absorb the surrounding world and make it his own… to unite his limited “I” in art with a communal existence; to make his individuality social.
Editor's Notes
- #4 Source: Museo Reina Sofia, Malaga, Spain An accurate depiction of a cruel, dramatic situation, Guernica was created to be part of the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exposition in Paris in 1937. Pablo Picasso’s motivation for painting the scene in this great work was the news of the German aerial bombing of the Basque town whose name the piece bears, which the artist had seen in the dramatic photographs published in various periodicals, including the French newspaper L'Humanité. Despite that, neither the studies nor the finished picture contain a single allusion to a specific event, constituting instead a generic plea against the barbarity and terror of war. The huge picture is conceived as a giant poster, testimony to the horror that the Spanish Civil War was causing and a forewarning of what was to come in the Second World War. The muted colours, the intensity of each and every one of the motifs and the way they are articulated are all essential to the extreme tragedy of the scene, which would become the emblem for all the devastating tragedies of modern society. Guernica has attracted a number of controversial interpretations, doubtless due in part to the deliberate use in the painting of only greyish tones. Analysing the iconography in the painting, one Guernica scholar, Anthony Blunt, divides the protagonists of the pyramidal composition into two groups, the first of which is made up of three animals; the bull, the wounded horse and the winged bird that can just be made out in the background on the left. The second group is made up of the human beings, consisting of a dead soldier and a number of women: the one on the upper right, holding a lamp and leaning through a window, the mother on the left, wailing as she holds her dead child, the one rushing in from the right and finally the one who is crying out to the heavens, her arms raised as a house burns down behind her. At this point it should be remembered that two years earlier, in 1935, Picasso had done the etching Minotauromaquia, a synthetic work condensing into a single image all the symbols of his cycle dedicated to the mythological creature, which stands as Guernica’s most direct relative. Incidents in Picasso’s private life and the political events afflicting Europe between the wars fused together in the motifs the painter was using at the time, resulting both in Guernica itself and all the studies and ‘postscripts’, regarded as among the most representative works of art of the 20th century. Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention. This work is seen as an amalgmation of pastoral and epic styles. The discarding of color intensifis the drama, producing a reportage quality as in a photographic record. Guernica is blue, black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. This painting can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another. This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career." Some critics warn against trusting the political message in Guernica. For instance the rampaging bull, a major motif of destruction here, has previouse figured, whether as a bull or Minotaur, as Picasso' ego. However, in this instance the bull probably represents the onslaught of Fascism. Picasso said it meant brutality and darkness, presumably reminiscent of his prophetic. He also stated that the horse represented the people of Guernica. Guernica is a town in the province of Biscay in Basque Country. During the Spanish Civil War, it was regarded as the northern bastion of the Republican resistance movement and the epicenter of Basque culture, adding to its significance as a target. The Republican forces were made up of assorted factions (Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, to name a few) with wildly differing approaches to government and eventual aims, but a common opposition to the Nationalists. The Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, were also factionalized but to a lesser extent. They sought a return to the golden days of Spain, based on law, order, and traditional Catholic family values. At about 16:30 on Monday, 26 April 1937, warplanes of the German Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, bombed Guernica for about two hours. Germany, at this time led by Hitler, had lent material support to the Nationalists and were using the war as an opportunity to test out new weapons and tactics. Later, intense aerial bombardment became a crucial preliminary step in the Blitzkrieg tactic. After the bombing, Picasso was made aware of what had gone on in his country of origin. At the time, he was working on a mural for the Paris Exhibition to be held in the summer of 1937, commissioned by the Spanish Republican government. He deserted his original idea and on 1 May 1937, began on Guernica. This captivated his imagination unlike his previous idea, on which he had been working somewhat dispassionately, for a couple of months. It is interesting to note, however, that at its unveiling at the Paris Exhibition that summer, it garnered little attention. It would later attain its power as such a potent symbol of the destruction of war on innocent lives. Guernica, Picasso's most important political painting, has remained relevant as a work of art and as a symbol of protest, and it kept the memory of the Basque town's nightmare alive. While Picasso was living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, one German officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did." Guernica is an icon of modern art, the Mona Lisa for our time. As Leonardo da Vinci evoked a Renaissance ideal of serenity and self-control, Guernica should be seen as Picasso's comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that liberates every human being and protects the individual against overwhelming forces such as political crime, war, and death.
- #5 The mythical Minotaur—part man, part bull—was Picasso's alter ego in the 1930s and part of a broader exploration of Classicism that persisted in his work for many years. The Minotaur was also emblematic for Surrealists, who saw it as the personification of forbidden desires. For Picasso it expressed complex emotions at a time of personal turmoil. The Minotaur symbolized lasciviousness, violence, guilt, and despair.
- #10 Byodoin – Phoenix -
- #19 SIGNIFICANT FORM capable of shaking us out of our everyday life, to connect us with a deeper reality (quasi-religious significance)
- #23 The ambivalence and voluptuous curves of this figure of Hermaphroditos, who lies asleep on a mattress sculpted by Bernini, are still a source of fascination today. His body merged with that of the nymph Salmacis, whose advances he had rejected, Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is represented as a bisexed figure. The original that inspired this figure would have dated from the 2nd century BC, reflecting the late Hellenistic taste for the theatrical.
- #24 The modern history of the statue Discovered in Rome near the Baths of Diocletian in 1608, this statue was one of the most admired masterpieces of the Borghese Collection in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1619, Cardinal Scipione Borghese commissioned the Baroque Italian sculptor Bernini to carve the mattress on which the ancient marble now lies. In the same year, David Larique worked on the restoration of the figure of Hermaphroditos. The work came to the Louvre after it had been bought, together with the rest of the Borghese Collection, by Napoleon I from his brother-in-law, Prince Camillo Borghese. Although the figure of Hermaphroditos in the Louvre is the best known, three other versions of the ancient statue have sometimes been compared with it: that of Velletri (also in the Louvre), that in the Uffizi in Florence, and a third version in the Villa Borghese in Rome. The story of Hermaphroditos There is nothing improper in this work, but it still intrigues the viewer. Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, had rejected the advances of the nymph Salmacis. Unable to resign herself to this rejection, Salmacis persuaded Zeus to merge their two bodies forever, hence the strange union producing one bisexed being with male sexual organs and the voluptuous curves of a woman. Stretched out in erotic abandon on the mattress provided by Bernini, the figure sleeps. Yet Hermaphroditos has only fallen half asleep: the twisting pose of the body and the tension apparent down to the slightly raised left foot are indicative of a dream state.
- #25 An embodiment of Hellenistic taste This work is a Roman copy that was probably inspired by a Greek original of the 2nd century BC. Pliny the Elder cites a Hermaphroditus Nobilis by Polykles (Natural History, XXXIV, 80), but since he does not describe it, one hesitates to compare it with this sleeping Hermaphroditos. The subject reflects the taste for languid nudes, surprise effects, and theatricality, all of which were prized in the late Hellenistic period. The work is designed to be viewed in two stages. First impressions are of a gracious and sensuous body that leads one to think that the figure is a female nude in the Hellenistic tradition; this effect is heightened here by the sinuousness of the pose. The other side of the statue then brings a surprise, revealing the figure's androgynous nature by means of the crudest realism. This effect of contrast and ambiguity, indeed this taste for the strange that plays with the viewer's emotions, is the result of the theatricality of some Hellenistic art. This utopian combination of two sexes is sometimes interpreted as a half-playful, half-erotic creation, designed to illustrate Platonic and more general philosophical reflections on love.