Impressionism

Impressionism

Context - Industrial Revolution

• Machines REPLACING human hands and workers → similar to how photography is taking out the human hand in art, leads to more leisure time

• Factores = more production, more leisure time

• more time → more travel → more interaction with diff cultures (Japan)

Emphasis on the MOMENT and the study of the transitory effect of light and how light affects color

HOW DOES THIS AFFECT ART

• experimentation + technology

• Subject - URBAN landscapes - modern day cities painted LIKE a landscape

• Architecture built with steel, iron, and glass (modern materials)

“The Saint Lazare Station” Oil on Canvas Painting; Monet; 1877; Impressionism

Painting TRAIN station → modern transportation

• hub of development because it was modern transportation, and transportation led to more travel and experience/interaction with other cultures

MODERN MATS

• Baren Haussmen -sick of old, classical, ancient stuff, wants something new and modern → renovates streets and neighborhoods using modern mats. → steel and glass

Series of 7 - to study the change of light

Triangle shape like a pointed arch → cathedral modern times → glorifies modern times and thought it should be documented

VISUAL → SYMBOLISM

Rapid brush strokes → represents the quick pace of the advancement of society and technology

Rapid brush strokes creates blurred edges -> shows the speed of train, further symbolizing how people should not stay in the past, but move forward

En plein air → capture mood/impression of the MOMENT

• completed in short time and is relatively small so that he could quickly CAPTURE THE MOMENT

TRADITIONAL

• sfumato

• triangle

• Parisian landscape style

INNOVATION

• Urban subject - train, steel, and glass

• En Plein Air - smaller

• Rapid/loose brush strokes

“The Coiffure” Mary Cassatt; 1840; etching with aquatint

Japonisme - Influenced by Japanese wood block prints

• thin black contour lines

• flat planes of color

• decorative pattern

• Voyeurism

A woman’s PRIVATE moment - shown NOT sexualized, as it was painted by a woman

• NO nipples and not interacting w/ viewer → not sensual

Candid/fleeting moment of time

Audience = the EVERYDAY person

• etching = mass production = lower prices = anybody can afford = more relatable art distributed to people to enjoy

• Domestic Genre Scene; vernacular

DIFFERENT - not ouside and no technology

• BUT it is a part of Impressionism because of Japonisme

“Burghers of Calais” Auguste Rodin; 1885; Bronze

Commissioned by City of Calais to show the elders who offered themself as sacrifice in the Hundred Year’s War in 1346

• However, Rodin shows the elders as defeated, prompting a bad reaction by Calais because it shows them as weak and easily defeated - like Y No Hai Remedio

Displayed in England AND France

• England - wants to show that they are benevolent and merciful because they spared the elders

• France - wants to honor their sacrifice

Shown EMOTIONAL and a RANGE of emotion (Lamentation), not ALL wanting to be sacrificed

Made look god-like because it is elevated on a platform. However, Rodin wanted to be on the same level so people can walk on the same level as the sculptures

12 casts - one in Calais and one in England in front of Parliament …”broke the mold”

• rule in France where if art was made from mold, there could only be 12 so that the value of the art does not decrease from the recreations, if any more were to be made the mold had to be broken

Connection = Lamentation (range of emotions) and Y No Hai Remedio (defeated heroes, bad reaction)

WHY IMPORTANT FOR LATER SCULPTURE?

Shifts AWAY from idealized human form in SCULPTURE (already done in painting)

New focus on EMOTIONAL impact and greater realism

Sculpture should be viewed form ALL angles because new emotions can be shown at different angles

Post-Impressionism

Stylized brush strokes - rough, choppy, geometric

HATED impression because they did not like the rushed look

PERSONAL art and PERMANENT

• symbolism for the artist’s personal mood and events

Individual ideas

Primitivism = Influence from “Non-Western/European” cultures (japan, africa)

Contrasting, complementary colors

“Starry Night” Van Gogh; 1889; Oil on Canvas; Post Impressionism

Color scheme = vivid (saturated), complementary (contrast) colors

• enhances his emotions of sadness through the blue night sky and the sense of wavy, swirling movement through → (next line)

ALMOST Pointillism- but drags out the points, creating short, choppy brush strokes that creates wavy, swirling movement. This also creates anxiety and makes the viewer uncomfortable, which would have been how he felt, as he was contemplating suicide.

IMPASTO technique - thick layers of paint (it’s 3d and coming off the canvas) - emphasizes movement AND creates shadow

EMOTIONAL, NIGHT landscape

• typically, landscapes would have been during the day because there is more night, thus this painting is not well received by the public

View from the asylum room - he has an identity crisis

TRIED En Plein Air - problem = it is night time, so there isn’t enough light to study and capture the moment, and the asylum wouldn’t let him out during the night → view from asylum room

ASYMMETRICAL balance

• Cypress tree big on the left

Cypress Tree - connects the sky and the Earth, making it an Axis Mundi. Additionally, in order to get to the sky from the earthly realm, you had to die first. This conveys his thoughts about suicide

• Cypress tree = life after death

• Church also pierces into the sky, but it is smaller because he got kicked out, showing how the church wasn’t central in his life anymore

Proportion of the sky to the town = LARGE sky vs small town, showing the crushing weight of the universe

“Mont Saint-Victoire” Paul Cezanne; oil on canvas; 1902

Focus on Form and Structure

• 2 shapes= Triangle (stability and balance) and rectangle (order)

Focus on geometry, perpendiculars

Using color in a different way

• CONTRASTING WARM and COOL TONES to make the mountain look both big AND small

Perspective using contrasting warm and cool tones

Paul Gauguin

French and Peruvian descent

Moved to Tahiti to live “life like a savage,” which the Tahitian people took as an insult because he was calling them “Savages”

Enjoyed “primitive” art - art without European influence

“Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Paul Gauguin; 1897; oil on canvas; post-impressionism

Frenbch AND Peruvian descent, living in Tahiti

Painted after the death of his favorite daughter

Story of his life in REVERSE

• supposed to be read from right to left, and on the right, the first figure is a baby

Painted on rough sack-cloth (primitive)

Read from right to left, like ancient scrolls, such as Night Attack on Sanjo Palace

Figures float in space, almost dream-like

Complementary colors, but softened

Peruvian mummy, Tahitian deity

LIVES IN TAHITI → INCLUDES THE BLUE TAHITIAN DEITY

POST IMPRESSIONISM → PRIMITIVISM/JAPANESE (NON-EU) INFLUENCE

PERUVIAN DESCENT → PERUVIAN MUMMY (DEATH)

Tradition: oil on canvas; Christian context (figure on the center holding an apple, referencing Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit)

Innovation: Stylized figures, expressive colors, read from right to left, Tahitian deity, Peruvian mummy

“The Scream” Edvard Munch; Symbolism; 1893; tempera + pastel on cardboard

Focused more on what is felt rather than seen. Emphasis on emotion (sadness, scared) - not about realism, but intense feeling

• Elongated face - drawn out scream to make the fear bigger

• Swirling brush strokes, showing anxiety and fear

• Extreme loneliness - 2 other people in the back walking away

Synesthesia - SEEING sound - seeing the scream

• concept where stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to an involuntary response of another sensory pathway

Influence from Gauguin - primitive figure, departure from reality

1883 Krakatoa Volcanic Eruption - fear

Oslofjord - where sister was in a mental asylum

Several version exist until he created this final one

“The Fountain” Marcel Duchamp; Dada; 1917; FOUND OBJECT - urinal + paint

Disillusioned (disappointed/unhappy) with society post-war (WWI)

More about the concept and the meaning rather than the final product/art piece

Signed the name “Armut” - German for “poverty” - play on words

• Mutt = cartoon

• Mott = toilet company

“Readymade” ordinary object designated as art by an artist

Flips the urinal, paints a fake name (Armut), artistic setting, ironic title

CONTEXT

• Marcel is apart of the Society of Independent Artists who overthrows the Paris Salon

• Photographed by Stielgitz (made “The Steerage”)

EXPRESSIONISM

Thrived in Germany in the 1910s-20s

Unsettled by rapid urbanization and horrors of WWI

Influences - Munch (made The Scream), Van Gogh (Starry Night), Gauguin (Where do we come from?…)

More about the emotional experience rather than reality

Bold colors + exaggerated forms to symbolize inner turmoil

“Self Portrait as a Soldier” Ernst Kirchner; 1915; oil on canvas; expressionism

CONTEXT

Leader of Die Brucke; believed they were “the Bridge” between traditional and modern art

WWI → he was an unwilling volunteer into Germany army - dishonorably discharged for a mental break because of all of the inhumanity he witnessed

• does not agree with Germany invading countries, questions his identity

Influenced by Nietzsche - death of God (like Romanticism where artists questioned God’s existence)

Work declared degenerate by Nazis and taken out of museums → K commits suicide in Switzerland

VISUAL

Nude female symbolizing his traditional training (he is the bridge)

Missing hand symbolizes his personal feeling that he can no longer make art, thus making himself feel useless because he could neither support a country in war nor make art

Clothing = army outfit but is weird because he is NOT SEEN IN COMBAT

• he questions what he is doing because he is not helping a country in the war

JAGGED line → symbolize his emotional turmoil

• turn quickly

“Primitive” style (Non-Euro), considered more honest and direct

Unsettling colors - sallow (sickly) yellow skin (also seen in Gauguins, but less intense) and garish red

FUNCTION

Work through personal feelings surrounding recovery after military service

Explore personal fears

“Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht” Kathe Kollwitz; 1920; Woodcut; Expressionism

CONTEXT

• Kollwitz’s son (NOT PICTURED) died in German service of WWI - Kollwitz thinks its Germany’s fault

• Liebknecht (an activist) - Shot to death in Communist uprising against Socialist German government (the hero died) → see a range of emotion (like Lamentation)

• Nazis will also declare her work degenerate

VISUAL

Black and white - stark, emotional drama, mourful

Similar to Lamentation by Bondone (range of emotions as people mourns a dead person)

Jagged line thanks to woodcut technique, also allows for huge swaths (areas) of black

Cycle of poverty shown in the contrast between the youth and the age (Like Stone Breakers which was inspired by Karl Marx)

• baby shown very white, representing innocence and purity

FUNCTION

Show the hardships suffered by working class - their hero is gone (Karl Marx - Stone Breakers)

“The Kiss” Gustav Klimt; 1908; Art Nouveau; Oil and gold leaf on panel

Depicts Klimt and his long-term partner → represents the transcendence (thru the gold) of love

Gender shown contrasting through the rectilinear vs the curvilinear, and the color and the no color (like Oath of Horatii, Staff God)

Love is sacred

Inspired by visits to Ravenna Italy (Inspired by the Byzantine mosaics like Justinian I in San Vitale where they had a gold background to represent timelessness and divinity)

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

In the 1950s POST WW2 NYC

Large scale, non objective paintings (abstact)

All over composition - no central subject

Color and PROCESS (how its made) VERY important

“Improvisation 28” Wassily Kandinsky; Abstract Expressionism; 1912; Oil on Canvas

Abstract and Nonrepresentational

• communicates only through line and color; the lines look rough and fast

Composed like music, specifically improvisation as reflected in the title

Synesthesia - can SEE the music

Spiritual nature of art

Change in scientific theories of space and time by Einsten, Rutherford, and Planck (atoms - cant see)

“Woman I” Willem de Kooning; Abstract Expressionism; OIl on Canvas; 1950

Action painting - painted fast and furiously (led to some holes); created several layers of paint and several gashes

• did not paint with any preceding ideas, just let the idea form itself

Painting creates itself

SATIRE of a magazine portrayal of female (The Camel cigarette and ad-like smile; in magazines, sexualized females are shown in order to appeal to viewers, even if the product is unhealthy like the cigarettes → creates an unidealized female)

Challenges THE MALE GAZE

Jagged lines

Looks awkward and insecure

“The Bay” Helen Frankenthaler; 1963; acrylic on canvas

Color field painting, soak-stain (enjoyed hte process more → soak-stain technique where the paint would be dropped onto the canvas and form itself)

PROCESS over the product

Painting builds itself

Blurred edges, organic lines (natural), lack of space and depth

References nature = blue (water), green

Geographical names - similar to the natural formation of the painting itself

“Not nature, but a feeling per se” - What Helen said abt her painitng

SURREALISM

1920s-40s

Based on the psychological studies of Freud and Jung - focused on the unseen world, subconscious mind

Juxtaposition

Not necessarily meant to be understood - like

Andre Breton - Surrealist Manifesto - pure psychic automatism - let the subconscious mind make art

mixing of real and unreal

“Object” Meret Oppenheim; 1963; fur-covered cup

Juxtaposition - opposite elements placed together

Assemblage - collection of gather of real things (2+ objects) - LIKE “readymade” art used by Duchamp in “The Fountain”, but it was only ONE object, not 2+, so Duchamp’s is not assemblage

Anthropomorphic because it combines an animal feature, the fur, with a human-made objects (the tea cup)

References feminine domesticity - tea set (typically, only the females would engage in tea gatherings with each other while their husbands were away)

Eroticism - soft fur over curved form; meant to be erotic

• references Freuds studies about subconscious sexualization

CUBISM - PICASSO

Spanish artist

Co-founded Cubism (with his friend George Braque) - analysis of shape and form

Influenced by Cezanne (geometry) and African masks (geometric)

Breaks art down into geometric shapes

“Les Demoiselles D’Avignon” Pablo Picasso; Cubism; Oil on Canvas; 1906

Influenced

Differing points of view, multiple perspectives (like in Las Meninas)

Geometric stylized faces from African and Oceanic masks

African masks (worn by the woman on the right side) included to reference the belief that the masks protect from bad spirits → the bad spirits were STDS because the women depicted were prostitutes

Picasso - Spanish immigrant to Paris

• woman = prostitute (likely posed for him but no empirical science and naturalism)

Called by Les Demoiselles (instead of The Prostitutes) by exhibitor for the nicer society, such as the Paris Salons

6 months studio preparation

Personal reflection on lust and anxiety from the fear of the STDs from the prostitutes

• angular shape and form to emphasize his fear to touch them, and masks to protect from the “bad spirits” (STDs)

Original contained a male med student but he painted over it with a fifth female to eliminate the male gaze/sexualization

Jagged line in the blue separating the European women (no masks) and the masked (African influence) women

• like the separation in The Steerage

“The Portuguese” George Braque; 1911; Oil and Canvas

Analytical cubism - more about abstraction

• breaking down into smaller forms

Monochrome, neutral colors to blend the foreground (front) and the background together

• creates a sense of confusion of what the viewer is seeing

Exploration of shapes

• supposed to be a portrait of a Portuguese musician

• elements of music = guitar (broken down into shapes)

Letters = might be a Playbill, a reference to Portuguese musician

• Letters look stenciled

• Playbill = list of names of what the musician will play, and they were often produced using stencil

Foreground and background interact as ONE

Super influenced by Cezanne and his focus on geometry

“The Kiss” Cubism; Constantine Brancusi; 1908; limestone

ALMOST symbolism - Much feeling scared and lonely

• Brancusi is also lonely due to unrequited love

Interlocked shapes to create the sense of ONE entity

Two eyes to represent how to halves make a whole

Smooth skin contrast with rough hair

• like Lamassu through this contrast of texture

Worked in Rodin’s studio

• during this time, he also made a version, but more NATURALISTIC, but this is not, this is more about the FEELING of love

3rd version used as a tombstone for his love interest who committed suicide; shows him and her together in after life (even though he’s the only one who has feelings)

“The Jungle” Wifredo Lam; Gouache on Paper on Canvas; 1942

Cuban artist highlighting Afro-Caribbean culture

Slaves importem to farm sugar can → slaves were viewed as a commodity and a means to an end (harvesting of sugarcane crops)

• Humans morphing into sugarcane to highlight slaves being seen as a commodity by becoming it

• Surrealism influence (juxtaposition of human and sugarcane)

• Cubism - geometric (Cezanne, Picasso)

Immersive -8’ x 8’, overwhelming, can’t see everything as a whole

Vibrant color

• and natural, but not quite → unsettling

Set in a jungle, but sugarcane does not grow in the jungle (juxtaposition)

• Santeria practiced their original African religion in secret because they are slaves and were at a place where their religion was not approved

• night also when spirits are active

Sharp contrast to tourist posters that served as propaganda to draw Americans to visit beach resorts

• more juxtaposition

• this beach and jungle that is not beautiful vs the “beautiful” untruthful portrayal of Cuba to America

“Migration of the Negro: Panel 49” Jacob Lawrence; 1940; Cubism

Flat portrayal of a restaurant - only includes the most essential imagery - it is angular, simplified, and flattened

Series of 60 - Great Migration 1910 (slaves move to North)

• African Americans - many moved North in hopes of less racism, but it wasn’t much better b/c they still experienced racism, not accepted, still viewed as subpar

• Migrated w/ optimism but found more racism and segregation

Directionality of white faces = away, showing their ignorance and non-acknowledgement of the situation

Jagged line separating (like Les Demoiselles); White vs. Black

Emotional response to historic events - such as summer race riots in 1919

• black teen was in beach waters, where even then black and whites were segregated, but ocean current moved him to the white side → beat to deaths by whites, sparking race riots in Chicago

• these riots create “Red Summer” in 1919 - the White vs Black Americans - Whites = mainly Irish because they are upset that African Americans were coming to “take” their jobs → creating competition (Irish came to America for jobs)