Art1100 LVA 21-2 Modernism Online

Art 1100
Joan Jonas
“They Come to Us without a Word”
U.S. Pavilion,Venice Biennale, 2015

Modernism
Escape the inﬂuence of history.
Belief in cultural progress (linear history).
Belief in science as a virtue (objectivity).
Belief in universal truths that can be discovered.
Fascination with the “Primitive” or elemental.
In painting this was interpreted as “paint” being
independent from image thus “escaping” its role
as an imitation of life.
Motto:“Make it new!”

Impressionism
Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876.

Industrial Revolution
Kathe Kollwitz, March
of the Weavers, from
"The Weavers Cycle",
1897.
Steam Engines and Trains increased travel.
Photography and Film are invented.
Newspapers become the ﬁrst “mass media”.
Mechanized Production increased labor disputes
Creation of a commercial “middle class” and leisure time.

Daguerre,
Le Boulevard du
Temple, 1839.
Photography is Invented: The Daguerreotype
With the invention and popularization of photography in the mid
1800’s painting and sculpture had competition with representing
reality. Now they were frequently not as accurate as this machine.
For painting at least with Impressionism color and light became
more important than naturalism.

Claude Monet,
A Bridge Over a Pool of
Water Lilies, 1899.
Impressionism
About changing light and time.
Gives the visual “impression”.
Uses optical mixing because
of pointillism. (pixelation)
Depicts “bourgeois” or
middle class in leisure.
Modernism

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French 1841-1919). La Grenouillère, 1869.

•Painted mostly outside,“en plein air”.
•Mostly French landscapes and leisure activities
•Compositions inﬂuenced by Japanese prints.
•Strove to capture the very act of perceiving nature.
Late in life Monet focused almost exclusively on the
picturesque water-lily pond on his property at Giverny.
Impressionism
Claude Monet (1840–1926)
Key French Impressionist painter.
Led the way to 20th-century
modernism.

Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Lunch on the Grass, 1865
Impressionism

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, the Portal
and the Tower of Albane, the Morning, 1894.
Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral,
West Façade, Sunlight, 1894

The term Impressionism actually came from a critic who
wrote that Monet’s paintings seemed to be a mere impression
of a painting.
The Impressionists often painted the same scene at different
times of the day, or in different seasons to study how light and
color changed from one transient atmospheric effect to
another. It was important to work rapidly, before the transient
light could change.
Impressionism

Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Stack ofWheat (Thaw, Sunset), 1890/91

Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Stack of Wheat (Snow Effect, Overcast Day), 1890/91

Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Stack ofWheat, 1890/91

Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926, Palazzo da Mula atVenice 1908

Inner Shrine, Ise,
Early 1st century C.E., rebuilt every 20 years.
Shinto Religion :
Numerous deities
(kami) inhabit the
natural world.
i.e. trees, rocks,
mountains, waterfalls.
Local ritual practices
enlist the deities help
in everyday life.
Arts of Japan

Zao Gongen, Heian period
(794–1185), 11th–?12th
century Japan Gilt bronze
As Buddhism ﬁlters into
Japan from China,
depictions of Shinto
deities begin to take on
Buddhist characteristics.
Arts of Japan

Yamato-e: “Japanese Pictures”
Among the important cultural developments
of this time of internal cultural concentration
was a characteristically Japanese painting style.
•Hand scroll allowed for time-based story telling as
the scroll was unrolled.
•Hand painted and unique.
•Used “birds-eye” viewpoint with the roof removed.
•Uses isometric perspective.
•Used Rich color.
Reﬁnements of the Court: Heian

Illustration I from the “azamaya” chapter of TheTale of Genji, Heian
period, ﬁrst half of 12th century.
Reﬁnements of the Court: Heian

The Burning of Sanjo Palace, Kamakura period,
late 13th century.
Samurai Culture: Kamakura
http://www.metmuseum.org/content/interactives/kitanomaki/
legends.html

Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Shrine (KitanoTenjin Engi), Kamakura period (1185–
1333), 13th century
Samurai Culture: Kamakura

Zen and Japanese Art
Portrait sculpture of a
Zen priest, Muromachi
period (1392–1573),
14th–15th century
Japan
Zen Buddhism's
emphasis on simplicity
and the importance of
the natural world
generated a distinctive
aesthetic, which is
expressed by the terms
wabi and sabi.

Zen Buddhism:
Emphasizes simplicity and the importance of nature.
Emphasizes personal meditation over deities and
scriptures.
Appreciates rustic beauty more that formal
perfection because it more closely resembles reality.
Without Zen, such ancillary arts as the tea ceremony
(chanoyu), ﬂower arranging (ikebana), the No dance-drama,
and the code of conventions and formal etiquette that
characterizes modern life in Japan either would not have
come into existence or would have taken very different
forms from those that prevail today.

Haboku:
“Splashed or Broken Ink”
Mimics Zen’s belief in a
ﬂash of insight.
Su Dongpo in Straw Hat and
Wooden Shoes, Muromachi
period (1392–1573), second half
of 15th century
Artist Unknown
Japan

Sessō Tōyō, Haboku-style landscape,
a hanging scroll painting
Japan
Muromachi period, 15th century CE
For the haboku style, the artist
uses no outlines, but instead
relies on areas of splashed ink
wash and layers of ink shading
to create the three-dimensional
impression of mountains, trees,
and rocks in a landscape.

Landscape of the Four Seasons, Muromachi period (1392–1573), early 16th century
Kangaku Shinso (Soami) (Japanese, died 1525)
Pair of six-fold screens, ink on paper

Screen painting
•Typically a single large image on panel.
•Chinese in origin but closely associated with Japanese art.
•Usually come in sets of two.
The Old Plum, Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1645
Attributed to Kano Sansetsu (Japanese, ca. 1589–1651)

Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons, Momoyama period (1573–1615), early
17th century
Kano School

Ukiyo-e:
Japanese Wood Block Prints
Used the same style asYamato-e
but for popular culture. Crow and Heron, orYoung Lovers
Walking Together under an Umbrella in a
Snowstorm, ca. 1769
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)
The great artistic event of the
Edo period was the popularity of
woodblock prints, a new art form
that made art available to
everyone. Prints transcended
their initial destiny as throwaway
souvenirs to become lasting
treasures of world art.
Japanese Art: Edo Period

• Simpliﬁed nature scenes
• Flattened, stylized shapes
• Large areas of color
• Cropped composition
• Strong use of diagonals
• Isometric (bird’s eye)
Perspective
Japanese Art: Edo Period
Crow and Heron, orYoung Lovers
Walking Together under an Umbrella in a
Snowstorm, ca. 1769
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)

Utagawa Toyokuni III (Kunisada) (side a) (Japanese,
1786-1864). Double-sided Key Block for Ukiyo-e
Print, ca. 1830. Cherry wood, 15 1/2 x 10 1/8 x 3/8
in. (39.4 x 25.7 x 1 cm). Brooklyn Museum,

Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese, 1760-1849
Publisher: Jihei Mori-Ya
Ukiyo-e woodblock
printmaking with
Keizaburo Matsuzaki
https://
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=t8uF3PZ3KGQ
Art for Everyone: Edo

The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from a Series of Thirty-SixViews of Mount Fuji), Edo
period (1615–1868), ca. 1831–33
Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849);

•Part of a suite of 36
scenes of Mt. Fuji.
Hokusai characteristically cast a traditional theme in a novel
interpretation. In the traditional meisho-e (scene of a famous
place), Mount Fuji was always the focus of the composition.
Hokusai inventively inverted this formula and positioned a small
Mount Fuji within the midst of a thundering seascape.
Foundering among the great waves are three boats thought to
be barges conveying ﬁsh from the southern islands of Edo.Thus
a scene of everyday labor is grafted onto the seascape view of
the mountain.

Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese, 1760-1849
Fuji from Kanaya on the Tokaido (Tokaido Kanaya no Fuji),
from the series Thirty-sixViews of Mt. Fuji (Fugaku
sanjurokkei), c. 1830/32

Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese, 1760-1849
A Mild Breeze on a Fine Day (Gaifu kaisei), from the series "Thirty-sixViews of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)", c. 1830/33

Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese, 1760-1849
The Tea Plantation of Katakura in Suruga Province (Sunshu Katakura chaen no Fuji), from the series "Thirty-sixViews of Mount Fuji
(Fugaku sanjurokkei)", c. 1830/33

Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese, 1760-1849
Shower Below the Summit (Sanka hakuu), from the series "Thirty-SixViews of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)", c. 1830/33

Otani Oniji II, dated 1794
Toshusai Sharaku (Japanese, active 1794–95)
Three Kabuki Actors [from right to left]: Iwai
HanshiroV (1776–1847), Segawa Kikunojo
(1802–1832), and Onoe Kikugoro III (1784–
1849), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1823
Utagawa Kuniyasu (Japanese, 1794–1832)

Chobunsai Eishi
Japanese, 1746-1829
In a Pleasure House in Shinagawa (Shinagawa no rojo), n.d.

After Japanese ports reopened to trade with the West in
1854, a tidal wave of foreign imports flooded European
shores.
This included ukiyo-e woodcut prints which transformed
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art by demonstrating
that simple, transitory, everyday subjects from "the floating
world" could be presented in appealingly decorative ways.  
 
Parisians saw their first formal exhibition of Japanese arts
and crafts when Japan took a pavilion at the World's Fair of
1867. But already, shiploads of Asian bric-a-brac—including
fans, kimonos, lacquers, bronzes, and silks—had begun
pouring into England and France.
“Japonisme”

Vincent van Gogh,
Japonaiserie: Bridge in the
Rain (After Hiroshige), 1887
Ando Hiroshige:“Oshashi Bridge
& Atake in a sudden shower”,
1856 - engraving on wood,
“Japonisme”: Art inﬂuenced by ukiyo-e printmaking

Hiroshige PLUM ORCH ARD, KAMEIDO
1857. From One Hundred FamousViews of Edo.
Vincent van Gogh JAPONAISERIE :
FLOWERING PLUM TREE, 1887.
“Japonisme”: Art inﬂuenced by ukiyo-e printmaking

Edgar Degas, Before the Ballet, 1890-1892.
“Japonisme”
Degas was among the earliest collectors of Japanese art in
France. Degas lengthened his paintings to imitate the shape of
Japanese scrolls.

Station of Otsu: From the Fifty-three Stations of theTokaido (The
"Reisho Tokaido"), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1848–49
Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
“Japonisme”

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas,The Dancing Lesson, 1883-1885
The qualities of the Japanese aesthetic: elongated pictorial
formats, asymmetrical compositions, isometric perspective,
spaces emptied of all but abstract elements of color and line,
and decorative motifs become central to Impressionism.

Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926,Waterlilies, 1914
Impressionism

Monet at Giverny
•He acquired the house and property of Giverny in 1890 and
built the pond for his water-lilies.
• In the years immediately following 1900, and after an illness,
Monet’s eyesight became considerably reduced.
• From 1908-1910, he had already been working on his ‘secret
cycle’ of Water-lilies from the pond in Giverny. Monet was
both gardener and designer of the garden, before becoming its
painter and interpreter.
•In the space of a few years in the 1920’s Monet had painted
about 50 paintings. In his eighties, he had built a new studio in
his garden at Giverny in which he worked on his largest
paintings on rolling easels.

Monet at Giverny

Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Waterlilies Green Reﬂection, Right and Left Halves, 1926
Impressionism

Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Waterlilies, 1926
Impressionism

Post-impressionism:
A blanket term for the diverse styles that come
after Impressionism. Stylistically the paintings
become more abstract and expressionistic.
Including artists like ...
Paul Cezanne
Vincent van Gogh
Paul Gauguin
Modernism

Paul Cezanne (1839–1906)
Begins to privilege things other
than “life-likeness” in order to
more accurately portray their
subjects.
For Cezanne this includes...
•Distorts linear perspective.
•Geometricizes the planes
that make shapes... shapes look
more boxy and fragmented.
Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism
Paul Cezanne,
Mont Sainte-Vistoire, 1902-04.

Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-
Victoire, 1902-1904. Oil on
canvas,
Cezanne also exaggerated color, but his was a unique concept.
Instead of ﬂattening space, he did the opposite. He actually
broke space up into geometric, solid forms: rectangular
landscape, pyramid-shaped mountain. His brushstrokes are also
geometric.A favorite subject of his was this mountain near his
home, which he drew or painted 75 times.
Post-Impressionism

Paul Cezanne,The Basket of Apples, ca. 1895 25 3/4 x 32 in.Art Institute of Chicago.

Paul Cézanne, Great Bathers, 1898-1905.
Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Son of a Dutch minister and a
bookseller's daughter.
Brieﬂy an art dealer and clergyman,
before deciding to become an artist
at the age of 27.
Only a decade-long career.
•Heavy energetic lines
•Brilliant color
•Peasant scenes from Realism.
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889

Post-Impressionism
Van Gogh was
academically trained
as a Realist painter.
It wasn’t until he
reached Paris that his
style emerged.
Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, 1853-1890
Terrace and Observation Deck at
the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre,
early 1887

In 1886, at age thirty-two,Van Gogh arrived in Paris,
"not even know[ing] what the Impressionists were."
By the time he left, two years later, he had cast off the
muddy palette and coarse brushwork that had
characterized his earlier efforts and embraced the latest
developments in painting.
Post-Impressionism

Self-Portrait with a
Straw Hat (verso:The
Potato Peeler), 1887
Vincent van Gogh
Post-Impressionism

The Flowering Orchard,
1888
Vincent van Gogh
In February 1888,Van Gogh
departed Paris for the south
of France, hoping to establish
a community of artists in
Arles. Captivated by the
clarity of light and the vibrant
colors of the Provençal spring,
Van Gogh produced fourteen
paintings of orchards in less
than a month, painting
outdoors and varying his style
and technique.

Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, 1853-1890
Madame Roulin
Rocking the Cradle
(La Berceuse), 1889

Oleanders, 1888, Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

A Corridor in the Asylum, late May or early June 1889
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)
Fearing another breakdown,Van
Gogh voluntarily entered the
asylum at nearby Saint-Rémy in
May 1889, where, over the course
of the next year, he painted some
150 canvases. His initial
conﬁnement to the grounds of
the hospital is reﬂected in his
imagery, from his depictions of its
corridors to the irises and lilacs
of its walled garden, visible from
the window of his room.
Post-Impressionism

Olive Orchard, 1889
Oil on canvas

Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889

In June, he produced two paintings of cypresses, rendered in thick,
impastoed layers of paint, likening the form of a cypress to an
Egyptian obelisk in a letter to his brother Theo.
Cypresses, whose association with death and immortality
preoccupiedVan Gogh, ﬁgure prominently in a landscape produced
the same month,Wheat Field with Cypresses In this work, the wheat
ﬁeld—sown and ultimately harvested—becomes a metaphor for the
cycle of life, asVan Gogh described wheat as "the germinating force"
in the cycle of life and the creative process.
Post-Impressionism

First Steps, after Millet, 1890
Post-Impressionism

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889
"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before
sunrise," the artist wrote to his brother Theo, "with nothing but the
morning star, which looked very big." Rooted in imagination and memory,
The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van
Gogh's response to nature. In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a ﬂamelike
cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below.The village
was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native
land, the Netherlands.

VincentVan Gogh,
Portrait of Dr. Gachet,
1890,
Post-Impressionism

After nearly a year at Saint-Rémy,Van Gogh left, in May 1890, to settle
in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he was near his brother Theo in Paris and
under the care of Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopathic physician and
amateur painter. In just over two months,Van Gogh averaged a painting
a day.
However, on July 27, 1890, he attempted suicide in a wheat ﬁeld,
shooting himself in the chest; he died two days later. His artistic legacy
is preserved in the paintings and drawings he left behind, as well as in
his voluminous correspondence, primarily with Theo, which lays bare
his working methods and artistic intentions and serves as a reminder of
his brother's pivotal role as a mainstay of support throughout his
career.
Post-Impressionism

VincentVan Gogh, Wheatﬁeld with Crows, 1890,Van Gogh Museum,Amsterdam
Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism
Paul Gauguin,
Te Aa No Areoi ( The
Seed of Areoi), 1892.
Paul Gauguin
Flat areas of vivid color
Fled Paris for Tahiti
Pioneered “Symbolism”
and what would become
“Expressionism”.

Paul Gauguin,
TheYellow
Christ, 1889.

Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary), 1891
Paul Gauguin
Post-Impressionism
Although he began his artistic
career with the Impressionists
in Paris, during the late 1880s
he ﬂed farther and farther
from urban civilization in
search of an edenic paradise
where he could create pure,
"primitive" art.Yet his self-
imposed exile to the South
Seas was not so much an
escape from Paris as a bid to
become the new leader of the
Parisian avant-garde.

Paul Gauguin,The Day of the God (Mahana no Atua), 1894

Paul Gauguin,Where DoWe Come From?What AreWe?Where AreWe Going? 1897-1898
Post-Impressionism

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917),
French. 19th century Europe’s
most successful and influential
sculptor.
Early Modern French Sculpture
• Defiance of conventional expectations.
• Interest in emotional expressiveness.
• Vigorous, awkward figures.
• Brutal themes.

Auguste Rodin,Adam, 1880-81.

Auguste Rodin,The Thinker, 1880-81.
Auguste Rodin originally
conceived a smaller version of
this sculpture to sit atop his
monumental bronze portal
entitled The Gates of Hell
(1880-1917).The ﬁgure was
intended to represent Italian
poet Dante Alighieri pondering
The Divine Comedy, his epic
story of Paradise and Inferno.

Auguste Rodin,
The Gates of
Hell, 1880-1917.
www.googleartproject.co
m/collection/the-national-
museum-of-western-art/
artwork/the-gates-of-hell-
auguste-rodin/460063/

Auguste Rodin THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS, 1884–1889.

The Burghers of Calais
Commissioned to commemorate an event from the
HundredYears War. In 1347, Edward III of England offered to
spare the besieged city of Calais if six leading citizens (or
burghers)—dressed only in sackcloth with rope halters and
carrying the keys to the city—surrendered themselves to
him for execution.
Rodin shows the six volunteers preparing to give
themselves over to what they assume will be their deaths.

Into the 20th Century: Fauvism and Expressionism
“Avant-garde”: a military term for the ﬁrst soldiers
sent into battle. Meant that these artists were pushing
cultural boundaries and tastes in new directions.
Fishing Boats, Collioure, 1905 André Derain (French, 1880–1954)

Edvard Munch,The Scream, 1893.
The “Fauves”
(wild beasts) gained
this name through the
use of wild, subjective
colors.
Expressionism
Is a blanket term for a
style of painting that
incorporates....
Exaggerated color
Distorted proportions
Emotional content

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
French painter and artistic rival of
Picasso. Inaugurated the “Fauves”
(wild beasts).
•No more clear linear
perspective.
•Heavy use of patterns.
•Exaggerated color
His goal was to discover "the essential character of
things" and to produce an art "of balance, purity, and
serenity," as he himself put it in his "Notes of a Painter"
in 1908

Promenade among the Olive Trees, 1905–6
Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954)
Oil on canvas

Henri Matisse, Madame
Matisse (The Green Line),
1905.
Expressionism

Primitivism:
Assumes the superiority of Western art and
reﬂects the racism of European colonialism.
Believes “primitive” culture to be more “natural”
than civilized society. [Read as Romanticism].
Similar to Orientalism, it takes images and
patterns out of their cultural context.
Into the 20th Century: Expressionism and Cubism

The Arts of Africa
Chapter 18 (Part 2)

The Conical Tower in the Elliptical Building at Great Zimbabwe, between the Zambezi and Limpopo
Rivers, Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe
Arts of Africa

The ruins of this complex of massive stone walls undulate across
almost 1,800 acres of present-day southeastern Zimbabwe. Begun
during the eleventh century A.D. by Bantu-speaking ancestors of
the Shona, Great Zimbabwe was constructed and expanded for
more than 300 years in a local style that eschewed rectilinearity
for flowing curves. Neither the first nor the last of some 300
similar complexes located on the Zimbabwean plateau, Great
Zimbabwe is set apart by the terrific scale of its structure. Its
most formidable edifice, commonly referred to as the Great
Enclosure, has walls as high as 36 feet extending approximately
820 feet, making it the largest ancient structure south of the
Sahara Desert.
Great Zimbabwe

"When African nationalists were demanding independence in
the 1960s, the Smith regime actually sanctioned historians to
write a fake history on the origins of Great Zimbabwe, denying
its African origins.
This was not different from the accounts of the late nineteenth
century and early twentieth century antiquarians, which linked
Great Zimbabwe with Phoenicia, with Arabs, with the
Egyptians and the rest of the near East.We would call that, in
the scholarly world, 'antiquarian revisionism' - trying to use old
values to support a wrong cause altogether. "
- Dr. Innocent Pikirayi, lecturer in history and archaeology,
University of Zimbabwe.

• Unesco description
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=I1KRjQmFEIc&feature=plcp

Scholars have suggested that the birds served as emblems of
royal authority, perhaps representing the ancestors of Great
Zimbabwe's rulers.Although their precise signiﬁcance is still
unknown, these sculptures remain powerful symbols of rule in
the modern era, adorning the ﬂag of Zimbabwe as national
emblems.

Storytelling in African culture.
Histories and mythology were transmitted orally, in
performance and from one generation of specialists to the
next.
These required memory aids and teaching tools in the
form of...
1).Visual representations of history.
2). Depictions of important leaders.
3).Music and costumes to aid the performances.

Storytelling:Visual Representations of History
Memory Board (Lukasa), 19th–20th century
Democratic Republic of Congo; Luba
Wood
Lukasa:
A coded record of history used
by a class of storytellers within
the Luba people.

Storytelling: Depictions of important leaders.
Shrine Head
Ife people,Yoruba
The Ife Culture
AncientYoruba culture from 350
B.C.E. to 1000 C.E.
The Oni (king) was considered
to be a descendant of God.
Naturalistic sculpted faces,
meant to portray speciﬁc
individuals.

In the latter half of the ﬁrst millennium C.E., Ife
began to develop into a ﬂourishing artistic center.

Bust of Lajuwa,Terracotta, Nigeria, Ife Kingdom,
11th-16th Century
Head,Wunmonije Compound,
Ife, 14th-early 15th century.

The art-historical importance of Ife works lies in their highly
developed and distinctive sculptural style, described alternately
as naturalistic, portraitlike, and humanistic.These include
human heads and ﬁgures depicting idealized crowned royalty
and their attendants, as well as images of diseased, deformed,
or captive persons.The delicately rendered vertical facial
striations that appear on many of the sculptures may represent
scariﬁcation patterns.
InYoruba tradition, women are the clayworkers.They produce
both sacred and secular pieces and may have been the creators
of the archaeological terracottas. Men are traditionally the
sculptors of stone, metal, and wood.The production of bronze
cast works, involving both terracotta and metalworking, may
have been collaborative efforts

Lost-wax casting process: Molten metal is placed atop a wax
replica of the sculpture. The wax melts and escapes, leaving the
metal in place inside the mold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPgEIM-NbhQ
Lost-wax casting process
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbd4REmzzNU

Head of a King, from
Ife.Yoruba, c. 13th
century. Brass, life-
size.The British
Museum, London.

Copper mask, Ife, Nigeria, 12th-13th century
Ife Nigeria, Head, 12th/15th century

Oba Ademuwagun Adesida II, the Deji (ruler) of Akure,Akure, Nigeria. 1959.

The palace altar to King Ovonramwen, Benin, Nigeria, c.1888-97.
The Benin Kingdom

The Benin Kingdom is another famous African culture, which
carries on to this very day under dynasties of rulers that date
back to the 1st century.The kings of Benin are viewed as
sacred beings which are to be dramatized and praised in art.
Traditionally, each king commissioned and dedicated an altar to
his father upon assuming ofﬁce.This altar is dedicated to a
ruler from the end of the 19th century.At the center is a brass
statue depicting a standing king ﬂanked by two attendants.
Hierarchical scale (size differentiation indicates status or
importance) symbolizes the king’s higher powers.This
symmetrical composition is at the center of the altar. It is
surrounded by ceremonial brass balls and sculptures, depicting
rulers, capped with elephant tusks carved in relief with royal
motifs.While individual objects like these can be viewed in
museums today, they were not originally meant to be seen in
isolation.

Edo, Benin Kingdom, Nigeria
Altar Group (Aseberia) with Oba
Akenzua I and Attendants, 18th century
Claims ancestry from the Ife.
Uses Ife bronze casting
techniques.
Their representations honor
their ancestor kings and give a
visual history of tribal events.
The Benin Kingdom

Ivory mask, Edo peoples, probably 16th century CE From Benin, Nigeria

Edo, Court of Benin 
Nigeria ,Oba's Altar Tusk, 1850/1888
The Benin Kingdom
Edo, Court of Benin Nigeria
Altar Head for an Oba (Uhunmwun Elao),
18th/early 19th century

Plaque: Portuguese with Manillas, 15th–
19th century
Nigeria; Edo peoples, court of Benin
Brass, iron
Most of the West African coast was
explored by Portugal in the period
from 1415 into the 1600s. African
exports consisted primarily of gold,
ivory, and pepper.
However, over 175,000 slaves were
also taken to Europe and the
Americas during this period. In 1600,
with the involvement of the Dutch
and English, the magnitude of the
slave trade grew exponentially

Edo 
Benin Kingdom, Nigeria
Portuguese Musketeer, 16th centur
The Benin Kingdom

Seated Male, 19th–20th century
Côte d'Ivoire; Baule
Bust of a Man, 1908
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)
African sculpture inﬂuences stylized treatment of the
human ﬁgure

Starting in the 1870s, thousands of African sculptures arrived
in Europe in the aftermath of colonial conquest and
exploratory expeditions.
They were placed on view in museums such as the Musée
d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris, and its counterparts
in cities including Berlin, Munich, and London.At the time,
these objects were treated as artifacts of colonized cultures
rather than as artworks, and held little economic value.

Reliquary Head (Nlo Bieri), 19th–20th century
Gabon; Fang,
Photograph, 1959–60, print 1997
Seydou Keita (Malian, 1921–2001)
Masks Patterns

Henri Matisse,
Harmony in Red,
1908-1909
Expressionism

These Expressionist artists, their dealers, and leading critics of
the era were among the ﬁrst Europeans to collect African
sculptures for their aesthetic value. While artworks from
Oceania and the Americas also drew attention, especially during
the 1930s Surrealist movement, the interest in non-Western art
by many of the most inﬂuential early modernists and their
followers centered on the sculpture of sub-Saharan Africa.
Expressionism

Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de vivre, (The Joy of Life), 1905-06.
Expressionism

Expressionism
This is Matisse's monumental landscape Le bonheur de vivre. Its
liberal and expressive use of color is characteristic of Fauvism, an
early modernist movement that also emphasized flattened space
and formal qualities such as line and brushwork. Matisse and
other Fauvists applied these innovative methods to many
traditional artistic subjects, including portraiture, landscape, and
the still life.
Deemed the "climactic" work of Fauvism by one critic, the final
version of Le bonheur de vivre painting features flat expanses of
color and a linear treatment of the figures.

Henri Matisse,
Goldﬁsh, 1911
Expressionism

Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River, 1916
Expressionism

Henri Matisse, Decorative
Figure in an Oriental Setting,
1925.
Expressionism
Matisse like many other
Fauvists, Cubists and
Expressionists
incorporates non-
Western patterning,
ﬂattened space and
geometric shapes into
their images.

Henri Matisse, Decorative
Interior with Egyptian Curtain
1948.
Expressionism

Pablo Picasso, First Communion, 1895-96.
Pablo Picasso
(1881-1973) was a prodigy
at an early age.These two
paintings are from when
he was 15.
Pablo Picasso,
Self Portrait,
1896.
Picasso and Expressionism

Pablo Picasso
The Old Guitarist,
late 1903–early
1904
Picasso dabbles with the
various styles of Post-
impressionism and
Expressionism.
Here from his “Blue Period”
Frequently he depicted solitary
ﬁgures set against almost
empty backgrounds, the blue
palette imparting a mood of
melancholy to images of
dejection, poverty and despair.

Gertrude Stein,
1906
Pablo Picasso
(Spanish, 1881–
1973)
Picasso and Cubism
Picasso's experiments
with expressionism
were inﬂuenced by a
new fascination with
African and Oceanic art.
Picasso reworked her
image into a mask-like
manifestation stimulated
by primitivism.

Pablo Picasso
Half-Length Female Nude, autumn 1906
Cubism
Pablo Picasso
Nude with a Pitcher, summer 1906

Woman in an Armchair, 1909–10
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)
Oil on canvas
Cubism
Cubism
Fragmented solids
Multiple viewpoints
African inﬂuences

Pablo Picasso,
Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon,
1907

Cubism:
• Angular planes and well-defined contours that create
an overall sculptural solidity
• The figure-ground begins to flatten and meld together.
• Form is fragmented like diamond facets to present
multiple viewpoints, not one viewpoint as in linear
perspective.

Cubism
Cubism attempts to depict things as we experience them,
not necessarily just as we see them. (at least not from a
single viewpoint)

Georges Braque, Le Portugais
(The Emigrant), 1911-1912. Oil
on canvas
Picasso’s partner in this movement
was Georges Braque.Their styles
became so closely intertwined that
they even ceased signing their
works for a brief time. Following
Cezanne’s advise, they reduced
forms to the cube, cylinder and
cone.They also restricted color to
gray, ochre and green.As Cubism
progressed they added stenciled
letters, newspaper and fabric
elements, creating collage.While
these two artists worked hand in
hand, Picasso received most of the
credit.

Cubism
Pablo Picasso, Man
with aViolin, 1911.

Detail of Pablo Picasso, Man with aViolin, 1911.
Cubism

Pablo Picasso,
Guernica, 1937.
Picasso and Cubism

Following the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain in 1936, the
subsequent nationalist victory, and the Franco era, Picasso never
again returned to Spain. During this period dominated by the
creation of Guernica, he lived with Dora Maar in Paris.
In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Exposition Internationale
des Arts et Techniques opened in Paris. For the Spanish pavilion,
Picasso painted the immense composition Guernica in the style of a
fresco.The intention was to portray the way the Spanish people
had been torn into two opposing factions.
The painting was inspired by the bombing of the small town of
Guernica.An massive Minotaur with human eyes, screaming
women brandishing their murdered children, and broken horses
tensed in their last breath are tangled together in misery.
Picasso and Cubism

Dora Maar: Guernica: State I, photograph from a chronicle of Picasso’s work on the creation of Guernica, 1937
Picasso and Cubism

Pablo Picasso,
Untitled, 1967
Daley Plaza, Chicago

Art1100 LVA 21-2 Modernism Online

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