Modern art final

August Renoir, Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876, Impressionism

Mary Cassatt, In the Loge, 1878, Impressionism

Picasso, Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, eary Picasso

Picasso, Study for Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, early Picasso

Braque, Violin and Palette, 1909, cubism

Picasso, Ma Jolie, 1911-12, cubism

Hans Arp, Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, 1916-17, Zurich Dada

Hugo Ball performing Karawane, 1916, Zurich Dada

George Grosz and John Heartfield, The Middle Class Philistine Heartfield Gone Wild, 1920, Berlin Dada

Hannah Hoch, Cut With the Kitchen Knife, 1920, Berlin Dada

Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral of Socialism (Bauhaus Proclamation), 1919, Bauhaus

Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau, Workshop Wing, 1925-6, Bauhaus

Palmer Hayden, Fétiche et Fleurs, 1932-33, Harlem Renaissance

Aaron Douglas, Into Bondage, 1936, Harlem Renaissance

Manet

Showed prostitute, acknowledged what wasn't talked about, took classic painting and modernized it in an essentially offensive way. Was a real person not an allegory or a mythological figure and addressed a real issue in society that wasn't discussed. Exposed the true nature of humanity and life at this time. It also took a famed and well loved painting and modernized it in a way that the salon was not yet ready for. Known as the beginning of modernism and impressionists but in reality he didn't really challenge political stuff he just kinda was neutral. wealthy women weren't really allowed to go outside without men, but there was tons of prostitutes but since wealthy women couldn't go outside without their husbands usually they didn't really know about prostitutes, so when they see Manets Olympia they're like wow what is that and they completely dont understand and their husbands are like wow I cant let my wife know about this. Caused so much controversy it had to actually be moved to an annex in the back. Even inspired political cartoon of people looking disgusted/shocked at the painting. Not just controversial in subject matter but controversial since its copying the excellent work of Titian.When its Venus its okay but when it's an actual person, especially a prostitute, it's completely unacceptable. No more plausible deniability.

Impressionism

Under Haussmanization, after all the war when like Paris is restored to “city of lights” which started a new commodity culture with department stores being a thing now, consumer commodity kind of started here, not just buying what you needed but kind of like a luxury good where you wouldn't have to go to get fabric and then to a tailor, etc. so now mass produced consumer goods, producing without a set consumer. With consumer culture, magazines created so they could advertise things and get customers/consumers so it was like basically a way to create a culture, and influence people to buy things New found isolation where you could kind of conceal your social class, nobody knows each other anymore, social norms are uprooted and completely messed up. Explosion in prostitution

Early Picasso

Educated on painting and knows that painting is the illusion of nature, art as imitation idea has been around pretty much forever.

Cubism

New painterly realism, Question of representation and abstraction conceptual challenge to this representation.

Fundamentally about what is painting

Very heavy influence from African sculpture, embracing the idea of the primitive that's opposed to European painting, once they've “freed” themselves from needing to imitate, they could turn to something else. Estrangement and concept of detachment.Analytical is chopped up bits, synthetic is the collage, buildup vs. breakdown.Cubism as a new realism vs. Cubism is an analysis of the pictorial problem, the idea of new realism, which showed more angles than what was visible to the naked eye from a one-point perspective. It captures the concept that if you can show more sides, you can show more reality.The tension at the heart of the painting is constantly being rehashed.Cubism is an attempt at a new realism that took into account recent advances in mathematics, physics, and philosophy. (analytical) Vs. Cubism is a critical engagement with the medium of painting and of pictorial representation itself (synthetic, like collage)

Zurich Dada

Not a sustainable way of making art but a violent and trauma response to the world, specifically WWI. More or less nihilistic about destruction and rejection. Making arguments against the creation of art and the idea that there is a person that could possibly make art, way of acting out. Continuation of the questioning and rejection of representation like in Cubism and Italian futurism, making it uncomfortable and weird for the viewers.The next step is to reject representation all together. Just like Russian futurism but differs on the events and violence they are responding to. Made as a reaction to the horror and violence seen in the war, a war that used technology in a way no one had experienced

Over the course of the 4 years of WWI, average amount of people died a day is 5000. First time death by enemy surpasses the amount of deaths from illness and lack of hygiene or water, instruments and tech of war were so efficient it was worse than lacking water and basic human needs, this is a change to what violence could be and what violence looks like. People prior saying oh war isn’t the worst idea because of how many border arguments there were and this would be a way to get over this, but people saw the reality and were so horrified by what they saw as an inconceivable example of horror in a society they could no longer be apart of.

Playing with representation in works like Picasso that conceptually challenges representation vs. Arp using laws of chance, refusing to appeal to us as viewers, becomes a rejection of the idea of the artists as this exalted figure

If you reject western civilization, then the artist is one of the best, so they disrupt the ability to assert artists subjective, basically just another part of European society they can reject

If so morally opposed and grossed by war, how are they rejecting morality? Their moral compass does come from normal society so they are in some way products of their society. "There is no rational under war. “voicing our collective hatred of the inhumanity of war. This beginning of dada was really a humanitarian reaction against mass murder in Europe, the political abuse of technology” Dont use the language the media corrupted. If so corrupted, disrupt. Ball cuts off relationship between language and meaning which is why they have this stupid poem thing. Youre no complacent if you cant understand it.

Berlin Dada

Critiques how expressionism isn’t present of right now's struggle, art needs to reflect current life and expressionism isn't doing that, expressionism doing to benefit the soul but no you need to express what's going on, your work is so abstract you're not showing your views on the war so you're free of blame from your art being taken in the wrong way and if you're free of blame. Like the way post impressionists critique impressionists, not enough for you to be interested but you need to show your political views, how can you look on the internal when the external is so messed up? Almost calling them tone deaf for focusing on themselves at this time. You're using your spiritual investigation as a way to ignore the violence surrounding the time you're making this art, how can you focus on this and not the intense despair around you? they're looking at a state which claims to be working in the name of the people and democratic but allowing for these extreme anti democratic practices. Art as a method of political engagement, the expressionists thought they were doing it by focusing on authenticity and the spiritual since that was a resistance to social conformity but the Dadaists are saying that's just an excuse, the Dadaists are doing it in the name of Marxist politics

Deconstruct how we are technology after the war seeing the amputees and stuff. Hannah Hoch discusses this relationship between human subjectivity and tech through photo montage. Technique not just subject matter, came out of cubism, way of avoiding and escaping from the traps of artistic technique, specifically painting technique, avoid illusion, and also like arps work which removes subjectivity and intention.

Hoch not doing what Picasso does by using a pleasing tension between our perception of representation and also always seeing the material on the surface as the thing it really is, the newspaper is background and texture but we can still tell what it is, Hoch doesn't try to depict anything else and each image in the picture is itself, no compositional coherence.These weren't new photographs but reproductions from newspapers and magazines, creation of technology that allowed that: photographic reproduction, the constant and massive scale of photographic reproduction is an attempt to meet the public demand of documentation of reality, but that can be manipulated which is what Hoch and others using photography are saying, they are forcing this distrust in photography and distance from the automatic 1920 viewer belief in reality and documentation, by putting all these images of “real” photos with others forcing this question of reality. Art should be a way to engage with the present, create an art that inherently asks a viewer to be critical of what they see. Armed military groups in Dresden, bullet fired in the window of the Dresden art museum and hit a Rubens, so damages this amazing Rubens and Baroque piece, so Kokoschka sees this and pleads in an open letter to the people to keep the bullets away from monuments of culture, says you're going to forget these arguments in a year but we need this art forever, Dadaists are like what are you talking about art shouldn’t be this precious luxury detatched from society stop it, violence and chaos is good bc the world is so fucked up rn.

Bauhaus

Combine this big school with the craft school in it, should all be one because you shouldn’t make art in isolation. Saying art exists in isolation and that's bad even though critics like how if a painting is just a painting and only doing its job as a painting its purest form but Gropius is saying by being isolated its useless and irrelevant. No formula to create it, you need to have it in yourself, art is not done in isolation and craft is best art because it’s combining different things. Art is something we can’t define and it’s maybe transcendent or spiritual, but what we can do is teach skill and when you teach skill the potential is empowered but just the skill isn't enough. Saying let us then create a new guild that doesn't separate artists and crafters, and this unity is best, you will be rewarded by working this way. Combining transcendent purpose that will manifest in concrete materials and cooperation, attempt to combine these ideas of both spirituality and the work of it. Makes this school pretty much free and anyone can come as long as you can pay this small amount. Art should not be reserved for the elite and art should be used for unification, like how many different types of art going into a cathedral. Stop separating craft from more traditional art this is an arbitrary difference for no reason which leaves artist with no training in skill. Feininger’s illustration to the manifesto. People working on a cathedral all work together. Art can’t be taught so teach material and trade skills, so they can be empowered to receive inspiration new school for both craft and art skills. Before protestant reformation, capitalism and industrialization people unified in purpose fo religion to make cathedral so lets do that just take out religious part, solidarity work outside of religious reasons, common purpose idea. Bauhaus is named after the medieval guild. 1923, people think this is the future so no more looking to the imaginary medivel past, same critiques to expressionists to these romantic meedivelatis, so pressure form outside to bauhaus saying commit to industry and technology, so 1923 Gropius fired former head of the intro course, Itten who was like weird modern religion who forced students to starve and meditate, Mazdaznan, so bring in this more Marxist and material art, Itten replaced by constructivist László Moholy-Nagy, industrial engineer vs. robes and meditation, precise geometric works vs. this meditative works of random color and shapes. Promote to collaborate with industries so metal workshop does prototypes for factories. No more cathedral look, now changes to this Dessau workshop look with modern no ornamental and transparent way of building, rejecting association with medivel and decorative of early Bauhaus.

Harlem Renaissance

Great migration leads to many black people moving away from southern and rural areas, so influx of Black culture and also rising emphasis on this idea of Pan Africanism. Reshaping the understanding of primativism and that African art was just as valuable as this ancient Egyptian style which is seen in tons of sculptures. Carl Einstein through a formal analysis details the types of African sculptures and used it as a way of proposing a universal value between these cultures of extremely formal analysis, both messing with the same ideas of representation not saying that African art was just primitive and didn't care, but that they were analyzing the same things. African art was not anti aesthetic but had their own aesthetic. Need an art about our experience and our future, express our trauma and create a new future. As clearly shown in Douglas’ work pave the way for this new future while still acknowledging the past trauma, face our past and this new future for us. Huge identity formation through migration to cities. Growing fascination with and acceptance of African American cultural forms like Jazz, ragtime and dance.This is an opportunity to take the popularization of these things and use for their purposes. Artists using African art to challenge European art because they’re more “pure” since they are underdeveloped but artists like Hayden are claiming these arts as something they can identify with as a heritage to be built upon, relating to the same objects but in a different way. Through African heritage Black people can claim a history they have denied to before. Haydens using this carved figure not in a way to destroy this history but an attempt to locate themselves in this history. Saw white American fascination with Jazz and other Black art as an opportunity, not so much as an embrace of their cultural forms but as a way to claim space in elite culture, so you like this culture and Jazz well its actually us so now you have space for us in your elitist society. In Douglas’ work you see combination of modernist challenges to form and representation like the silhouette and turning them into partially decorative forms and challenging with repeating shapes that in some ways its representational, we see ships and chains and can read this as a story but he doesn’t use illusion, disrupts illusion to make the narrative have more impact. Douglas sees this as serving the problem of what Black American art can be, this thought of address past while making future, what art should do and the experience behind the artists, transcendent but based in experience. Despite emphasis on uplift at least in part you need to address the hard parts like enslavement shown in Into Bondage. tension between Douglass idea of what a future should look like and Hayden is bristling against this idea that he can't represent something ugly and that everything has to be perfect, representing the racism he's experiencing isn't supposed to be included in this new uplift model like Douglass saying and Hayden pushes against this. Idealized image of past (Fuller) vs. visceral representation of anger of misrepresentation and racist way by people supposedly supporting him (Hayden). Hayden to the Harmon foundation and how they posed him as just a janitor who does art despite winning so many awards and being a professional artist, including harmon foundation prize twice. Used stereotypical ideas of racism in his work to show his annoyance.