{"id":2651,"date":"2024-04-30T23:26:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T23:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/?p=2651"},"modified":"2024-04-30T23:26:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T23:26:21","slug":"lecture-reflection-4-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/2024\/04\/30\/lecture-reflection-4-29\/","title":{"rendered":"Lecture Reflection 4\/29"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today’s lecture began with finishing the Expressionist movement. We compared two similar works of Analytic Cubism, Picasso’s Ma Jolie<\/em> (1911-12) and Braque’s The Portuguese<\/em> (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 C\u00e9zanne), lack of perceivable depth, and methodical brushstrokes. We also looked at Picasso’s Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass<\/em> (1912), which is an example of Synthetic Cubism. It was made using the technique of “papier coll\u00e9,” or, glued paper collage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then began to discuss Futurism, which officially started with the publication of Fillippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurist manifesto in 1909. The Futurists held soir\u00e9es 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<\/em> (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<\/em>, a sculpture capturing the “displaced space” of a figure in motion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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)<\/em> (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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modernism was brought to America in 1917 with Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase<\/em> (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<\/em>. Duchamp also produced Fountain<\/em> 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 H\u00f6ch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany<\/em> (c. 1919) and Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head (Spirit of the Age)<\/em> (c. 1920), respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> (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 <\/em>(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 Dal\u00ed’s iconic The Persistence of Memory <\/em>(1931). Dal\u00ed 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. Dal\u00ed’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 <\/em>(1921) and Meret Oppenheim’s Object (Luncheon in Fur) <\/em>1936. The Gift<\/em> 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<\/em> evokes a similar disgust, as one imagines the experience of using a saucer, cup, and spoon covered in fur. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2657,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions\/2657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}