In today’s class, we began to discuss art after the First World War. Our class began with a discussion of Pablo Picasso, who we have all heard of, but I had not formally studied before. Picasso unique style developed over time and has remained timeless. His paintings are just as engaging now as they were when he first created them. Analytical cubism, which he coined, has remained a concept that is discussed and even practiced. I have really enjoyed our discussion of cubism and its varying different styles. This style of abstract art is the most engaging to me as there is still very clear subject matter but it has diverged from the more realistic approach.

As the class developed, the lecture shifted to surrealism. Surrealism was particularly impressive as the artists were fascinated with depicting repressed feelings. This led to the art being rather profound and the subject matter being incredibly unique compared to anything else this course has covered.

In today’s class, we discussed analytic cubism and synthetic cubism. Analytic cubism is based on analysis in form. We looked at a very well-known example of analytic cubism, Picasso’s “Ma Jolie,” made from 1911 to 1912. The color scheme is reduced to earthy colors. The brushstrokes are repetitive, making the painting seem flat with no real landscape. There are mainly just straight lines: diagonals, vertical, and horizontal. The forms are broken down into specific shapes, which is influenced from Cezanne.

A synthetic cubism example we looked at was Boccioni’s “States of Mind I: Farewells”, made in 1911. Synthetic refers to bringing things together. Deconstructing what you look at comes from analytic cubism, whereas bringing it back together is though synthetic cubism. Boccioni’s artwork is about the Milan train station. Industrialization was very new to Italy, it did not really occur until after World War II. Boccioni is celebrating this new industrialization. He claims cars to be more beautiful than ancient antiquities. He is a fan of modern developments compared to ancient legacies.

Cubism went through three phases. The first was Analytic cubism. This is shown in Pablo Picasso and George Braque’s work, Ma Jolie and The Portuguese. Both are very similar as these two artists worked together closely. Both works showcase reduction. The colors are simplified only showing a small range. Also, there is no depth within the work. Lastly the things and people depicted in the works are broken down into geometric shapes.

The next phase was Synthetic Cubism. Guitar, Sheet Music and Glass was representative of this phase. Each of the three objects for which this work was named are shown through a collage with some representing the item literally like the sheet music while some are of an abstract form which represent the object.

For this class, we discussed cubism and art post-World War I. We looked at the two types of Cubism, Analytic and Synthetic. Analytic Cubism was an analysis of form. Forms were broken down into certain shape with a reduction of depth. These properties are evident in Braque’s The Portuguese and Picasso’s Ma Jolie. There was also a philosophical nature that of a simultaneity of experience created by Cubic paintings. Synthetic Cubism focused more on bringing pieces together, often in the form of a “papier collé”. We then looked at Futurism, which focused on avant garde art that was meant to shock the Bourgeoisie. Moving to post-war, we looked at Dada, which was characterized by its nonsensical nature. Influenced by the random destruction of war, Dada examines the mistrust of progress. Surrealism focused more on techniques to get the viewer in touch with the unconscious.

In today’s class we wrapped up our discussion of early 20th-century art, closing with a discussion of Analytical and Synthetic Cubism, looking at the works of Picasso, and also discussing the burgeoning movement of Futurism. We then shifted focus to Post-WWI, which involved a large amount of discussion on one of the more amusing art movements in history, Dada. This art movement exceeds all others in the absolute absurdity and bizarreness it entails, as Dada artists worked to push the boundaries of art farther than ever expected. This was highlighted greatly by Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, which is simply a urinal put on its side with a signature. Other works, like Man Ray’s The Gift, provide great amusement, as they are items that are used in everyday life which have been altered to remove all usability. We closed with a brief discussion of Surrealism, looking at works by Salvador Dali.

The senseless violence and seemingly random destruction of World War led to the creation of art that emphasized randomness and chance. The first post-war art movement was Dadaism and began among a group of artists in Zurich. Jan Arp was a member of this Zurich group and created the distinctive early Dada work, The Entombment of Birds and Butterflies. Arp created this work by cutting up pieces of paper and dropping them on the ground. Arp then took the arrangement of the pieces of paper as they randomly fell on top of each other and hired a carpenter to cut these shapes into wood. The title comes from the fact that Arp could slightly make out the abstract shapes of birds and butterflies, but otherwise, the work is entirely abstract. Arp is beginning to explore making art which was more about ideas than purely appearance.

The French artist Marcel Duchamp furthers the concept of art being about ideas with his ready-made. Ready-made where sculptures were made out of mass-produced objects that could be bought at a store. The artist elevates an object from an everyday item to art, simply because they deem it to be so. Fountain was Duchamp’s first ready-made, technically an assisted ready-made because he made some changes to the original object. The work is made from a urinal, which Duchamp rotated and signed with the fictional name “R. Mutt”. The title of Fountain is meant to be a satire on fountains traditionally being grand, ornate decorations for city centers in Europe, but here being something painfully mundane.

Today’s lecture began with finishing the Expressionist movement. We compared two similar works of Analytic Cubism, Picasso’s Ma Jolie (1911-12) and Braque’s The Portuguese (1911). Pablo Picasso and George Braque worked together in Paris at this time, so it is not surprising that they produced similar pieces. Notable features of Analytic Cubism include analysis of form, reduction of color (like Cézanne), lack of perceivable depth, and methodical brushstrokes. We also looked at Picasso’s Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass (1912), which is an example of Synthetic Cubism. It was made using the technique of “papier collé,” or, glued paper collage.

We then began to discuss Futurism, which officially started with the publication of Fillippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurist manifesto in 1909. The Futurists held soirées with provocative performances, aiming to shock the bourgeoisie and defy the conventions of academic art. We examined Umberto Boccioni’s States of Mind I: Farewell (1911), which loosely depicts a train station in Milan. This painting represents the impact of industrialization in Italy. A similarly “moving” piece was his Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, a sculpture capturing the “displaced space” of a figure in motion.

We then talked about Dada, a movement capturing the experience of postwar dislocation and confusion and newfound mistrust in civilization. Given that WWI was the first industrial war, “progress” lost its perception as an inherently positive force, as logic and rationality were held responsible for war and suffering. Thus, the Dada movement was driven by the nonsensical. Hugo Ball began his performances in Switzerland, a neutral territory, at the Cabaret Voltaire. Also displayed at the Cabaret was Jean Arp’s The Entombment of the Birds and Butterflies (Head of Tzara) (1916-17). To design this sculpture, Arp cut out pieces of colored paper and dropped them, noting the arrangement in which they fell. This exemplifies the importance of randomness in Dadaist art.

Modernism was brought to America in 1917 with Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (1912). This painting combined aspects of Cubism and Futurism, as well as combining space and time similarly to Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Duchamp also produced Fountain as a “ready-made”; or, an object already made, reducing the intervention of the artist. This piece was simply a urinal turned and signed “R. Mutt”, likely referencing a popular cartoon. We looked at examples of photomontage and assemblage: Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany (c. 1919) and Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head (Spirit of the Age) (c. 1920), respectively.

We then segued into Surrealism with Max Ernst. Ernst was from Cologne and began his career as a Dadaist. The first piece we looked at was 1 Copper Plate 1 Zinc Plate 1 Rubber Cloth 2 Clippers 1 Drainpipe Telescope 1 Pipping Man (1920). This painting evokes a dreamlike, nightmarish quality, wherein figures are turned into machines. Ernst was interested in the work of Sigmund Freud, which prizes dreams as revelatory of the human unconscious. We also looked at Ernst’s Die Ganze Stadt (1935-36). For this piece, Ernst employed automatism in the forms of grattage and frottage, believing that the resulting images were capable of jolting the unconscious. We then examined Salvador Dalí’s iconic The Persistence of Memory (1931). Dalí applied paint traditionally, as he wanted his paintings to be “hand colored photographs of the unconscious.” He focused on the three cardinal images of life: blood, excrement, and putrefaction. Dalí’s depiction of irrationality with precision contrasts the techniques of Ernst, demonstrating that Surrealism was a movement rather than a defined artistic style. Lastly, we looked at two strange objects: Man Ray’s The Gift (1921) and Meret Oppenheim’s Object (Luncheon in Fur) 1936. The Gift is a flatiron with 13 tacks; an otherwise useable object rendered useless and somewhat threatening. Considerably, the title adds a great deal of significance to the piece. Luncheon in Fur evokes a similar disgust, as one imagines the experience of using a saucer, cup, and spoon covered in fur.

In today’s class we extended our discussion of 20th century art movements. We started by looking at the work of Pablo Picasso. He worked in Analytical Cubism, named after its analysis of form. Analytical cubism focuses on reduction of color, with simplified brushstrokes and shapes. Picasso’s “Ma Jolie” is a great example of this and is extremely similar to Georges Braque’s “The Portuguese.” Another thing to note about these paintings is the words included, which allow reality to start to sneak into an otherwise simplistic composition. We also discussed Synthetic Cubism, a style that merged many themes into one image. “Papier Colle’”, or paper collages, were really popular for synthetic cubism as they allowed multiple different materials to be introduced and combined. Futurism started developing at the same time, aiming to shock the bourgeoisie. The two examples of Futurisk we looked at really focused on capturing motion, almost similar to Baroque instantaneous motion.

We then turned our discussion to art post WWI, starting with Dada. After WWI, there was an increase in nonsensical art based on the nonsensical death and destruction of the war. We discussed readymades and Marcel Duchamp. His piece “Fountain” was simply a urinal in an altered angle and signed R. Mutt. I found this piece especially interesting because of the references R. Mutt could be referring to, as well as the idea that a urinal was not in fact a fountain. We then ended class by discussing surrealism, specifically the work of Salvador Dali. His paintings are rendered very flatly so the emphasis is not on how the paint is applied but the imagery. He aimed to create “hand colored photographs of the unconscious” through really dream-like scenes. Dali also stated he painted “the 3 cardinal images of life: blood, excrement, and putrefaction.” Overall, I really enjoyed this lecture as we looked at a wide variety of pieces and styles they were both visually and intellectually compelling. 

Continuing our discussion of early 20th century art, we began class by looking at Pablo Picasso. Picasso freed himself from the representational functions and constructs of line, color, form, and voids to create his style of abstract art. Developing a style known as Analytical Cubism, which was an analysis of form, Picasso created Ma Jolie. The painting is a reduction for multiple aspects of art – color (brown earth tones), depth (all forms brought to same plane), brushstrokes (repetitive and consistent width), and lines (straight, diagonal, with a few curves). The abstraction of a woman utilizes multiple vantage points in one image to represent many views and create a more complete representation of the subject. Another branch of Cubism developed into Synthetic Cubism, bringing together multiple ideas or themes in one image. Popular for this style were “papier collé”, paper collages. This signaled real pieces of reality coming back into artwork. Around the same time, the avant-garde was working to shock to bourgeoise and resulted in the style of Futurism developing. Boccioni’s States of Mind 1: Farewells exhibited the style, focusing on capturing motion in a form of plastic art.

Post WWI, there was an emphasis on the nonsensical after the shocking death and destruction of the war. The Dada style developed during this time with an interest in returning to primitive, ignorant states and the abstract. The Entombment of the Birds and Butterflies (Head of Tzara) by Jean Arp was influenced by the carefree artistic style, created by randomly dropping paper on the ground to determine the sculpture’s composition. Marcel Duchamp was also a prominent Dadaist who created art through Ready-mades. Fountain represented a reduction in contemporary art by simply rotating a urinal and signing it R. Mutt. Other artists like Man Ray and Meret Oppenheim also used everyday objects to create art. Ray’s The Gift painted an everyday iron black and glued thumbtacks onto its flat side. Oppenheimer’s Object (Luncheon in Fur) covered a teacup, saucer, and spoon in fur, provoking a sensory disgust in viewers. These past two artistic creations can be categorized under Surrealism as they aimed to balance the reality of life with a strange, unexpected twist.

In today’s class we took a trip down to the Colby museum to view paintings in Landay’s gallery. All the paintings were from the Baroque period and we looked closely into each one to use for our take-home exam. The painting that stuck out to me was Jacques Courtois Bourguignon (1621–76). Battle Scene (with Castle in Background). I enjoyed the action and movement the painting had along with the bright blue school contrasting with the muted color tones of battle.