On Monday, April 29th, we focused on art between the wars. Finishing up our discussion on Expressionism from last class, we talked about analytical cubism, specifically displayed in Pablo Picasso’s Ma Jolie and George Braque’s The Portuguese. Analytical cubism presents duller colors, methodical and simple brushstrokes, and straight lines, diagonal lines, or rounded lines. We discussed philosopher Henri Bergson’s public lectures and his idea that the perceptions are constantly changing for human beings, while the world consistently changes its multiplicity of perceptions.
Picasso’s works encompasses synthetic cubism, as he utilizes the technique of “papier Collé,” also known as just “glued paper.” I particularly like Picasso’s Guitar, as the guitar draws the viewers’ attention to the shape of a guitar, yet the curved wood on the left-hand side shows the obvious shape and form of the guitar. However, the guitar is composed of multiple minimal shapes. Next, we discussed the Milan train station depicted in Umberto Boccioni’s States of Mind I: Farewells, an abstract painting, in which ultimately portrays a black train heading down the center amidst the busy train station of bustling people.
Moving on to the second part of class, we focused on art following World War I. While surrealism arose in the wake of World War I, a unique and iconoclastic challenge to the staid values of a society in the midst of upheaval, post WWI continues the Surrealist and Dadaist movements, ultimately taking them to a greater level. While I have studied many other significant movements, artists, and works, in the interest of time, Dadaism and Surrealism represent changes from previous movements that reflect a rebellion against the strictures of centuries of Western art, as well as the consumerism, capitalism, and social restrictions of fine art and Western society.
We focused on many artists and works during the post war era, specifically the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Some of the works included Jean Arp’s The Entombment of the Birds and Butterflies, Hugo Ball, Hannah Höch and her Cut With the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, Max Ernst’s 1 Copper Plate 1 Zinc Plate 1 Rubber Cloth 2 Clippers 1 Drainpipe Telescope 1 Piping Man, Man Ray’s The Gift , Meret Oppenheim and her Object (Luncheon in Fur), and René Margritte’s The False Mirror. Two works in particular, though, I believe characterize the Surrealist and Dadaist movements: Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain and Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory. Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain represents a Dadaist poke-in-the-eye to the establishment figures of both the art and commercial worlds. Fountain exemplifies the Dadaist reveling in absurdism, as a direct response to the powers of commercialism and capitalism run amok. Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory. The Persistence of Memory suggests that time is illusory, portraying three warped clocks draped in a natural setting. Dalí brings to light a sort of eroticism, as the clock’s curves and time warping suggest sexual tension and perhaps a body’s objectification. Cartier’s Cartier Crash watch displays just this ethos. Reminiscent of Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, the Cartier Crash drips down one’s wrist like melting gold.