ART 101 Unit 4 Exam Study

• Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of Horatii

• Neoclassicism

  • Neoclassicism = order, heroism, classical influence

• Traits:

  • Symmetry/order

  • Classical (Roman) subject

  • Idealized figures

• Promotes civic duty and sacrifice, reflecting Enlightenment values and pre-revolutionary political ideals.

What is Neoclassicism?

• Order, balance, symmetry

• Classical influence (Greece/Rome)

• Moral/heroic themes

What was Jacques-Louis David known for?

• Political, dramatic scenes

• Clean lines, controlled composition

• Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers

  • labor/class

• Realism

  • Realism = everyday life, harsh truth, no idealization

  • Traits:

    • Working class subject

    • No idealization

    • Gritty/harsh reality

• “Highlights the harsh reality of labor during industrialization as a social critique.”

• Considered to be the “father” of the Realist movement

• Painting was the “object of public derision”

• Criticized for abandoning the Academic Style

• Édouard Manet, Olympia

  • controversial realism

• Realism

  • Realism = everyday life, harsh truth, no idealization

• “Critiques modern society and challenges traditional representations of women.”

• intentionally mimicked the Renaissance composition

• According to some art historians, Manet is the artist most responsible for changing the course of the history of painting (regarding technique)

What was the Salon de Refuses?

• “Salon of the Refused”

• Art exhibition held in 1863 in Paris by command of Napoleon III

• For those artists whose works had been refused by the jury of the official Salon

• “Represents rebellion against traditional academic art standards.”

• Notable Artists:

  • Paul Cézanne

  • Camille Pissarro

  • Armand Guillaumin

  • Johan Jongkind

  • Henri Fantin-Latour

  • James Whistler

  • Édouard Manet

• Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair

• Realism

  • Realism = everyday life, harsh truth, no idealization

• “Depicts modern life while challenging gender norms in art.”

• panoramic scene of extraordinary power

• inspired by the Parthenon’s horsemen frieze

• Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic

  • medical realism

• Realism

  • Realism = everyday life, harsh truth, no idealization

• “Reflects pride in scientific progress and modern medicine.”

• most important American portrait painter of the nineteenth century

• stems from Eakins’s endeavors to become fully acquainted with human anatomy by working from live models and dissecting corpses

• depicts the surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross operating on a young boy at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia

What is Realism?

• Everyday life

• Unidealized subjects

• Social reality

What is Academic Art?

• style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies, particularly the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, dominating the 19th century

• “Represents institutional control and traditional artistic standards.”

• Characterized by idealized beauty, precise anatomy, and dramatic lighting, this style prioritizes technical mastery and a "finished" look

• favored high-minded subjects: history painting, mythological scenes, biblical scenes, and formal portraits

• Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise

• Impressionism

  • Light changes EVERYTHING

  • Loose brushstrokes

  • Painted outdoors (plein air)

• “Focuses on perception and modern life, influenced by industrial change.”

• most fervent follower of Impressionist techniques

• sharply criticized for its rejection of the Academic

  artistic style

• appeared at the first art exhibition “outside of

  a formal art gallery,” held at the Boulevard des Capucines in France

• Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral

• Impressionism

  • Light changes EVERYTHING

  • Loose brushstrokes

  • Painted outdoors (plein air)

• “Explores how light and time alter perception of the same subject.”

• harsh stone façade of the cathedral dissolves in a bath of sunlight, its finer details obscured by the bevy of brushstrokes crowding the surface

• He offers us his impressions as eyewitness to a set of circumstances that will never be duplicated

What was Claude Monet known for?

• Focus on changing light

• Same subject, different times

What is Impressionism?

• Light & atmosphere

• Visible brushstrokes

• Outdoor painting

• Georges Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

• Post-Impressionism

• Use of Pointilism

  • application of pigment in small dabs, or points, of pure color

  • A systematic method of applying minute dots of unmixed pigment to the canvas; the dots are intended to be “mixed” by the eye when viewed

• Traits:

  • Pointillism (dots)

  • Scientific color

  • Structured composition

• “Applies scientific color theory to bring structure to modern life.”

• The subject matter is entirely acceptable within the framework of Impressionism. However, the spontaneity of direct painting found in Impressionism is relinquished in favor of a more tightly controlled, “scientific”approach to painting

What is Pointilism?

• application of pigment in small dabs, or points, of pure color

• A systematic method of applying minute dots of unmixed pigment to the canvas; the dots are intended to be “mixed” by the eye when viewed

• Paul Cezanne, Still Life with Basket of Apples

  • credited with having led the revolution of abstraction in modern art from its first steps

  • structured

• Post-Impressionism

• “Seeks stability and structure beyond Impressionist spontaneity.”

• Cézanne did not paint the still-life arrangement from one vantage point

• Cézanne can be seen as advancing the flatness of planar recession begun by David more than a century earlier

• asserted the flatness of the two-dimensional canvas by eliminating the distinction between foreground and background, and at times merging the two

  • This was perhaps his most significant contribution to future modern movements

• Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night

  • associate him with bizarre and painful acts, such as the mutilation of his ear and his suicide

• Post-Impressionism

• “Expresses inner emotion and psychological intensity.”

• painted while hospitalized in an asylum at Saint-Rémy

• His characteristic long, thin strokes define the forms but also create the emotionalism in the work

What was Post-Impressionism?

• Reaction to Impressionism

• More structure OR emotion

• Individual styles

About Vincent Van Gogh?

• associate him with bizarre and painful acts, such as the mutilation of his ear and his suicide

• With these events, as well as his tortured, eccentric painting, he typifies the impression of the mad, artistic talent

• Van Gogh also epitomizes the cliché of the artist who achieves recognition only after death: just one of his paintings was sold during his lifetime.

• Edvard Munch, The Scream

  • Norwegian painter

  • one of his most famous

• Traits:

  • Distorted forms

  • Emotional intensity

  • Bold/unreal color

• Expressionism

• “Represents psychological anxiety and alienation in modern society.”

• portrays the pain and isolation that became his central themes

About Expressionism

• Emotion > realism

• Distortion

• Psychological focus

• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

• Analytic Cubism

• “Rejects traditional perspective and reflects influence of non-Western art.”

• fragmentation, distortion, and abstraction of form

• depicts five women from Barcelona’s red-light district

• They line up for selection by a possible suitor who stands, as it were, in the position of the spectator

• faces of three of the women are primitive masks, while the facial features of the other two have been radically simplified by combining frontal and profile views

• bodies of the women are fractured into geometric forms and set before a background of similarly splintered drapery

• the right leg of the leftmost figure, the limb takes on the qualities of drapery, masking the distinction between figure and ground

• Pablo Picasso, Guernica

• painted for the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris International Exposition of 1937,

• Analytic Cubism

  • Analytic = broken apart

  • Multiple viewpoints at once

• “Condemns violence and suffering caused by war.”

• broadcast to the world the carnage of the German bombing of civilians in the Basque town of Guernica

• Picasso expressed, in his words, the “brutality and darkness” of the age

• Georges Braque, The Portuguese

• Analytic Cubism

  • Analytic = broken apart

  • Multiple viewpoints at once

• “Explores multiple perspectives through analytical fragmentation.”

• only a few concrete signs of its substance

  • dropped eyelids

  • a mustache

  • the circular opening of a stringed instrument

• Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase

  • Dada artist but not fully a “member”

• Hybrid (Futurism + Cubism) but mostly Analytic Cubism

• Traits:

  • Motion/speed

  • Fragmentation

  • Controversial

• “Challenges artistic norms by combining motion with Cubism, provoking controversy.”

• “Rejects traditional art in response to the chaos of World War I.”

• Analytic = broken apart

  • Multiple viewpoints at once

• work includes some Futurism as well

• Even though the New York Times art critic Julian Street labeled the painting “an explosion in a shingle factory,” it symbolized the dynamism of the modern machine era

About Marcel Duchamp

• Influential, anti-traditional

• Associated with Dada

• Inspired Pop Art

• Pablo Picasso, La Bouteille de Suze (Bottle of Suze)

• Synthetic Cubism

  • collage (papier collé)

• “Blurs boundaries between art and reality through collage.”

• What makes it different from Analytic Cubism?

  • the emphasis is on the form of the object and on constructing, instead of disintegrating that form

• Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

• Futurism

  • dynamism

• “Celebrates speed, movement, and technological progress.”

• conveys the elusive surging energy that blurs an image in motion, leaving but an echo of its passage

• Georgia O’Keefe, White Iris

• Abstraction

• “Emphasizes abstraction and personal interpretation of natural forms.”

• magnified and abstracted the details of her botanical subjects

• flowers have a yearning, reaching, organic quality, and her botany seems to function as a metaphor for zoologyher plants are animistic

• they seem to grow because of will, not merely because of the blind interactions of the unfolding of the genetic code with water, sun, and minerals

• Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory

• Surrealism

• Traits:

  • Dream imagery

  • Distorted reality

  • Symbolism

• “Explores the subconscious mind through dream imagery.”

• conveys the world of the dream, juxtaposing unrelated objects in an extraordinary situation

• enhanced by trompe l’oeil technique

About Salvador Dali

• Not Modest

• One of the few “household names” in the history of art

• Jackson Pollock, One (Number 31, 1950)

• Abstract Expressionism

• Traits:

  • Action painting

  • Emotional intensity

  • Large Scale

• “Expresses emotion and freedom in the post-war era through action painting.”

• Reflects spontaneous and dynamic application of paint.

• Action Painting

  • Movement

• Mark Rothko, Magenta, Black, Green on Orange

• Color Field Painting

  • emotion

• “Uses color to evoke deep emotional and spiritual responses.”

• Focuses on large areas of color, creating an immersive experience.

• Robert Rauschenberg, The Bed

• Pop Art

• “Combines everyday objects with art to challenge boundaries.”

• Combines

  • items like stuffed animals, bottles, articles of clothing and furniture, and scraps of photographs are attached to the canvas

• create a multidimensional artwork that blurs the line between art and everyday life.

• Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles

• “Highlights mass production and consumer culture in modern society.”

• Pop Art

  • explores consumer culture and mass production through vibrant and iconic imagery.

• Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing

• Pop Art

• “Critiques consumerism and mass media culture.”

• functions as a veritable time capsule for the 1950s, a decade during which the speedy advance of technology finds everyone buying pieces of the American dream

  • What is that dream? Comic books, TVs, movies, and tape recorders; canned hams and TV dinners; enviable physiques; Tootsie Pops; and vacuum cleaners that finally let the “lady of the house” clean all the stairs at once

What was Pop Art?

• Consumer culture

• Mass production

• Irony

• Audrey Flack, World War II (Vanitas)

• Photorealism

• “Reflects on mortality and historical memory through hyper-real imagery.”

• an art movement where paintings and drawings are created to resemble high-resolution photographs, emphasizing detail and realism.