Author: Zoe Hoang (Page 1 of 3)

We covered Pop Art, a movement that involves the incorporation of preexisting popular materials, the recreation of this material (with methods that vary in degrees of intervention) to convey underlying messages involving societal involvement with the art. For Andy Warhol (arguably the most prominent figure of this art movement), his works centered around the relationship between the created popular media and human perception of famous figures (the Marilyn series) and with the mass-produced production of foods (as well as life, in extension). 

Following this, for the first time in this course, we examined an artistic movement that rejects the historical, linear concept of constant bettering of society. This sense of deconstruction is the foundation of a new manner of approaching arts. Instead of putting the highlights on certain leading figures of one movement, which more often than not overshadows the artists that, depending on their identities and the time period, does not have the privilege to work in the arts and garner success. Postmodern arts shift the focus on the variation of identities in the arts, which allows space for voices that historically would have not been heard. Additionally, as there was no more need for an us vs them narrative (between the free world and the communist world), the social landscape also became freer for its inhabitants. Themes, styles, and mediums were more diverse than ever. Installation arts – like Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, in which famous female figures were given a spot on “the table”, represented by various works of different mediums, including those that might not be considered “fine arts” – also emerged during this period. We see a separation between the artists and the artwork in terms of the process of creation itself. The focus now is on the philosophical underpinnings, the ideological stance of the work, rather than merely how it might be created.

We started this lecture discussing neo Plastic works, notably Piet Mondrien’s Composition en Rouge, Bleu et Jaune. This artist was also the first person to articulate the values and elements that would go on to define this movement. Working with a completely reduced color palette and content, we saw Mondrien’s full focus on the idealized balance of the composition, which stems from the radical and eutopic belief that everything in the world had an organic, underlying logic, and we can access it with the help of art. We see the influence this belief had most clearly within architectural works. Bauhaus is a German art school, first emerged in 1919, which operates with the form-follow-function, less-is-more mindset. Dominating works such as Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye and the American industrial buildings is a sense of striving towards pristine progress and modernity.

After the war, there was a distinct shift in the capital region of artistic works, from Paris to America, with the works of artists like Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky or Willem de Kooning starting gaining attention from the art community. Present in these artists’ (or more specifically, Pollock’s) work is the suggestion of the very process of artistic creation, leading to what would be called action paintings (or gestural abstraction). In these works, the process of creating themselves is part of the work. Other important elements are the usage of biomorphic forms, the uncertainty of space and distortion of foreground/ background. There were distinct tendencies that differed artists from each other: those that created gestural abstraction artworks and those that made chromatic abstraction artworks. One immensely important chromatic abstraction artist is Mark Rothko, whose way of applying paint creates a work that carries dimensions and a sense of development, just through the way it was perceived under certain conditions.

With the instability inherent in the contemporary social and political state, we saw an emergence of a form of art that, for the first time in history, was created with an aim to reject progress. The Dada movement comes from the recognition of the societal human of the destructive power of progress. We examined the Hugo Ball performance, which highlights the nonsensical nature of what is represented and what is representing it.  There were usage of texts within paintings, the works created were random, violent, and non-representational. Artists used a variety of mediums in manners that diverge completely from how they were used in past periods. This is apparent in, but not limited to, works of Marcel Duchamp, who coined the term readymade to indicate external materials which are placed in a structure with minimal modifications, or Max Ernst’s 1 Copper Plate 1 Zinc Plate 1 Rubber Cloth 2 Clippers 1 Drainpipe Telescope 1 Piping Man, which is simply an assemblage of materials that evoke certain emotions that could be felt by an individual. We saw the beginning of the interest in Freud’s concept of the human’s unconscious mind.

This was the foundation for the development of early Surrealism. Of course, we most frequently heard of Surrealism through the analysis of Dali’s Persistence of Time, which centers the distortion of time, space and figures organized in a highly chaotic composition. However, in contrast to how Dada uses its objects and colors arbitrarily, Dali gave a purpose to his work. In this sense, each element of the painting, including the name of the piece, goes together to create a coherent message. Oftentimes, these messages evoke a sense of emotional aspects, as they delve into the unconscious realm of the psyche. Works like The Gift by Man Ray, or Object (Luncheon in fur), which brought forward distinct sensations of awe and disgust, are clearly surrealist for this reason.

Fauvism and Expressionism represent the two distinct ways in which artists of the early 20th century approach creation and grapple with the progress of modernity. In André Derain’s Mountain at Collioure, we observed the artist’s attempts to subvert reality in the complete abstraction of space and depth, as well as the usage of color for its own enjoyment, rather than any intention to express any underlying message. This represents the spirit of Fauvism. Similarly, in Henri Mattise’s Le Bonheur de vivre, the arbitrary application of colors, organization of shapes, figures and space showcase the focus on conveying the idea, the feelings of the scene. There’s, however, a complete rejection of the previously existing artistic institution that links this movement with the next prominent groups of works seen in this period: Expressionism.

For expressionist artists, there is an even wider divergence against any intention to visually portray reality. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s painting, Street, Dresden, along with his print, Tribulation of Love, with sharp contrasts, a lack of coherent composition (with crowded space placed between completely blank spots), and clear, expressive brush strokes, are great representations of this movement. We sensed a sort of hyperfixation on creating structured yet chaotic images that reflects abstract ideas through the now-meaning-filled colors. There was also an emergence of different manners of artistic interpretation of the human’s psyche, with Freud’s psychoanalytic method and Rimbaud’s assignment of colors to emotions. This all accumulates into an artistic movement that puts forward the most important factor being the human’s emotions, ideas, and psychology.

As we looked at the arts of the Post-Impressionistic movements, there was a division between the approach to the instability of the time into artists whose focus was in form and those who placed first their own personal perspective. The first group includes artists like Paul Cézanne, who repeatedly painted a location (that he himself knew really well) to express the permanence and unchanging nature of his world. Here, we observed the gradual movement towards further abstraction of shapes, from blended outlines to flat colors being used to represent shadows, with clear and sharp outlines. There is also a lack of interest in capturing exactly the moment when the painting took place, as shown with the use of strong compositions and carefully-calculated choices i.e the reduction of realistic details. 

The second group of artists involves those who use art as a tool to express their individualism and their psychological world, including Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, both of whom take the reduction and abstraction of reality to an extreme. While Gaugin strives to return to the most “primitive artistic materials” for his artworks; Van Gogh was fully immersing himself in the meanings of colors and how each color represents an aspect of one’s psyche, as well as how colors play into how the artworks would be observed. Unrealistic values (highly saturated tones and pure colors) were used by both artists directly on the canvas to convey a sense of drama and emotional intensity. A strengthened sense of moralizing message was also important to this movement, as shown in Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, in which the psychological development of a human lifetime is depicted as a vision.

With the creation of the heliograph in 1827, photography as an artistic medium finally exists. There were a variety of artworks made using this new medium, along with the invention of constant new techniques, which reflects the constantly evolving technologies of the time, as well as the focus on automatic/ more convenient ways of creating/ acquiring arts. This also opens the door for the creation of photojournalism, with Timothy O’Sullivan’s A harvest of Death, allowing for the report of current, contemporary events. 

We then moved on to the start of Impressionism, the artistic movement that places utmost importance on, rather than naturalism, capturing the feelings and emotions of a certain moment. Rather than structured forms and clear, three-dimensional divisions of objects, we saw a focus placed upon the “impression” of reality, of colors and abstracted shapes. In Manet’s works such as Luncheon on the Grass or Olympia, we saw an artistic reference to the arts of Titian, with the naked figures placed against the dark background. There is even less suggestion of a spatial reality with the lack of shadows and any background setting details. With Manet, we observed an added interest to a modernization of art, of directly engaging viewers into the narrative (the model was looking towards the audience). This goes to show that the point of Impressionism was always to arouse emotions and a sense of closeness to the subjects of depiction. For artists like Renoir or James Whistler, it was even less about presenting shapes that resemble life, and more about the discovery of an abstracted form of reality.

In class, we discussed the distinct shift of focus in art towards the representation of reality in an accurate manner, which occurred in the latter half of the 19th century. This could be seen in some of Francisco de Goya’s art, with the distance created between the observer and the scene – a sense of intellectual observation of the event depicted. It’s understandable, then, that this movement started showing itself clearly in landscape paintings. We saw this tendency intensified with Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s work, View of Rome, which places the first and foremost attention to the reproduction of the real world, rather than relying on any emotional response for reaction. 

Jean Francois Millet showed a completely different approach to this movement, with paintings like The Sower, recreating the image of completely ‘base’ activities, actions which can be observed anywhere in the world of the average middle-class, rural working lives. This showcased the parallel in artistic depictions of reality and the current social conditions of the time, with revolutions as well as the overtaking of the monarchy happening. The “gritty” nature of these paintings, albeit completely true-to-life, also showed the artist’s partiality and sympathetic attitude towards the workers. An especially apt quote that fully encapsulates the spirit of “traditional” mediums of art for this time period is one of Piero della Francesca: “an abstract object, invisible or non-existent, does not belong to the realm of painting.” In other words: arts should be used as a tool to reflect reality, rather than trying to transcend it.

The ‘exotic’, style-based, unearthly spirit of Romanticism was discussed in this lecture through examining works by contemporary artists of this era, as well as its relationship with previous periods’ artistic styles. For example, Ingres’ Grande Odalisque were put into comparison with Titian’s nude paintings, paralleling the idealistic and erotic depiction of the female body, which evoke emotional response from its viewer. With the underlying unfamiliar subject of ‘woman in a Turkish harem’, we could also start to sense the beginning of an interest towards the strange and, again, exotic, perhaps rooted from the traveling practice of the previous era. 

Even historical subjects are treated differently in this period, as artists seem to put more and more interest into expressing and invoking emotions, rather than stoically presenting an event in a matter-of-fact and/or moralizing manner, which artists of the Neoclassicism movement probably would have done. In Géricault’s Charging Chasseur or Gros’s Napoleon at Jaffa, we sense an otherworldly, somewhat exaggerated depiction of reality, with the artists, intentional or not, elongating or composing the figures in unnatural ways, stark contrast of light which intensify the scene. In Gros’s case, this painting also had underlying messages to it: The artist, and in relation, the commissioner, was comparing/ or equating Napoleon, to the king of France, with him having the ability to dispel an illness just by touch.Perhaps the most important, and impressive piece of art made during this era for me was Géricault’s The Raft of Medusa. Gros managed to capture the chaotic, somewhat theatrical atmosphere of the moment when the raft’s passengers realize that there is a (albeit very slim) chance for them to be saved, with the mixture of despair and unbridling hope. With the knowledge that this is done through extensive research with the real survivors of the incident, as well as the fact that Gros was an abolitionist, we could see the intentionality behind the initial pile of mesmerizing chaos of the world depicted under his brush.

In this class, we discussed the change of ideologies during the enlightenment period, which brought to the art scene the world through the lens of logic and reason, reflecting the shifting landscape towards rationalistic approach to all aspects of life and arts during the 18th century. The two central themes discussed in this period were that of logic and morality. With this rise, the emergence of “The Grand Tour”, wherein privileged young men set off to travel around Europe as the final part of their education – here, we could see the focus on real experience and a set of unique and specific actions, both in terms of places to visit (and appreciate) and what knowledge to bring back from said experience. 

In paintings of Anton Raphael Mengs, such as Parnassus, we observe a distinct change in composition (being incredibly centered and symmetrical) and approach to ideas, materialized by the usage of primary and secondary colors as the main tones of the piece, as opposed to the pale tones used in previous eras (Rococo or Baroque). In the logical and rational spirit of the Enlightenment, we see a shift from the painterly manner of painting to a more structured, simple, and linear manner of creating paintings. Contrastingly, however, in Thomas Gainsborough’s Portrait of Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, we sense a more relaxed approach to art, with the clear brushstrokes as well as the general integration of the human figure into nature. The fashion is interesting as well, a Grecian, toga-inspired garment that evoke a sense of serene freedom, while still maintaining a classic mood to the artpiece. 

More than anything, we could observe most apparent the change in style from the Baroque era to the Neoclassical period through architecture, with the focus being shifted from an outward, ostentatious display of luxury and abundance to a more simple facade, covering a luxurious interior design. Additionally, in buildings like the Chiswick House, we see architects reverting to the simple and perfect geometric shapes, similarly incorporated in Classic buildings. These elements of exterior/ interior differences can be seen in Robert Adam’s Kenwood House, with a twist being the color palette that very much reminds one of the Rococo era. Many of these classical elements are given a slight modification that reflects the influence of the previous eras on the time. In general, Neoclassicism reflects the time when artists, along with intellectuals, embrace the rational order which is very much expressed through the reference and appreciation of the antiquity.

In this class, we discussed how the spirit of the Rococo period still echoed aspects of the Baroque era, with the focus on decorative elements. However, architecturally, this had shifted from the exterior ornaments to indoor/ private luxury. In some sense, this new version of luxury is less heavy and oppressive, perhaps representing the condition of that era, with the death of the King and the nobility taking over the ruling power. This is shown quite clearly in the plain facade, elaborate interior design of Hôtel Particulier owned by these people.

Another aspect of the period that came to represent the arts of the Rococo period is the general triumphs of Rubenists over Poussinists in their influence on the artistic landscape. Paintings of this time are painterly, emotional, sexual, and expressive. We looked at the infamous Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing, which, on top of the pale color palette and expressive figures, held an underlying sexual tension, both shown and kept hidden from the audience. This form  of subject matters hold an important space in this era, as many artworks were created with a purpose of offering escapism to their viewers. On the flip side, there were also works that were used as a tool to teach moral lessons and impose threats on individuals that society deems as unrighteous, such as Greuze’s The Village Bride which depicts an idealistic portrait of a morally upstanding family structure, or William Hogarth The Rake’s Progress and The Harlot’s Progress series , which respectively creates a continuous story of a downfall of a young figure corrupted by hedonistic activities under an exaggerated, “theater-like” light. Interestingly, animals were sometimes used as a tool to tell these narratives – perhaps as Rousseau, many believed that animals carry an idealistic image of how to be a righteous human, and that there’s an indestructible concept of morality and social condition that all individuals carry.