Test 3

the “sublime”

awe inspiring experience (i.e. when we watch a horror film or get on a rollercoaster; you want to survive it but still experience it)

• irrational nature

• irrational consciousness: nightmares

• tragic events: shipwrecks, murder

• tragic heroes, martyrs

Theodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

• only about 250 of 400 people could fit into the lifeboats. Only 150 set adrift but only 15 people survived (BY CANNABALISM)

• SUBLIME: tragic story; cannabalism

• let romantic artists pose as tragic victims

• Celebrated as heroes, journalist interview

  ● Antihero (cannibalism) sublime (they ate each other)

  ● Life-size scale

  ● Full-scale rafts built and models got body parts from the morgue

  ● Parallel viewer's vantage point

• did PREPARATORY STUDY of corpses for painting

Gericault, Portraits of the Insane, “Envy,” 1822-23

Psychopathology (different kinds of obsessions)

● Monomania (obsessions)

● Physiognomic measurements (measurement of the parts of the face)

Sublime, portrait of irrationality (a portrait of mental illness), the painter is having a

sublime experience

Physiognomies measurement

Eugene Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1826

Ancient story, Mass suicide, irrational action, sublime

● Tenebroso (smoke, shadows) , sublime

Moment: MURDER

● Waiching deaths of other we watch someone having a sublime experience (watching the murder of everything he values)

● Red all over the painting, but Absence of blood (?)

● **Life scale painting

Delacroix, Medea, 1838

literary story: abandoned by her husband Jason and took revenge by murdering her two children by Jason

• Euripides (filicide motivated by insanity)]

Mythological story; sublime

● Foreground, viewers' vantage point, shadow over her face (a way of saying she has gone insane)

● Red, not blood

● Sublime

Caspar David Friedrich, Cloister in the Snow, 1810

the landscape as “sublime”

contrast of scale: human vs. nature

• humans are so small theyre vulnerable (and are not the main focus)

Caspar David Friedrich, Wreck of the “Hope”, 1824

William Parry's ships lost in North Pole expedition

● is the FRANKENSTEIN cover

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer, 1818

"sublime" nature

sublime experience: We watch someone having a
sublime experience

deep background space vanishing point

J.M.W. Turner, Burning of the Houses of Parliament series, 1835

Painted life during houses of parliament burning down

On 16 October 1834 the Houses of Parliament along the Thames River in London caught fire and burned down.

It burned for five hours and attracted massive crowds.

The painter J.M.W. Turner set up his easel and painted the event.

The "Sublime":

Monumental scale of fire

Reflection in water of fire

Turner, Slave Ship

1781:

ship: Zong; had 133 slaves,

133 slaves thrown overboard

lighten load collect insurance

coincided with meeting of British Anti Slavery Society

Turner included a poem he had written (wanted authories to take on an anti slave position)

Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed, 1844

the "sublime":

nature vs technology (human built bridge)

storm, mist VS. human-made:
bridge, locomotive:

Industrial Revolution

Bridge in picture

John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, 1817

Pantheism
"is the view that Nature and God are identical"
that God, the creator, is present in his creation, Nature

God-created:
clouds, trees, water, animals human-created using natural resources:
- boats,
- fences,
- bridges,
- dams,
- domestic
- animals

Tress in clouds, clouds in trees

birds in leaves (everything repeated, everything coming together)

Pantheism

"is the view that Nature and God are identical"
that God, the creator, is present in his creation, Nature

John Constable, The Haywain, 1821

Natural Resources

haywain: wagon for carting hay;

human inventions:
wheel mill: for harnessing water, domesticated animals

Constable, Clouds, 1821

cloud studies

sublime experience with Pantheism message

John Kensett, Morning on the Hudson, 1827

(American) Romanticism

Hudson River (Eastern US)

The Hudson River School
*a mid-19th c. American art movement
*a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism

*depict the American landscape as a pastoral setting, where human beings and nature coexist peacefully
*the beauty of the landscape and the possibilities of coexistence express sublimity

panorama: extended wide-angle view
monumental
scale
background
focus
- vanishing point
- infinity

Nature vs. human inventions

Pastoral: happy co-existence

Monumental scale: largeness of American landscape

The Hudson River School

*a mid-19th c. American art movement
*a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism

pastoral landscape

ex) shown in Morning on the Hudson

happy-coexistence

where human beings in nature coexist peacefully (the beauty of coexistence represents the sublime)

Expansionism

Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the pioneers/settlers were destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Pacific ocean. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed "that Expansionism was not only wise but that it was readily

apparent (manifest) and unavoidable (destiny)." American expansionism was promoted by John L. O'Sullivan in an essay which first used the phrase Manifest Destiny. In 1845, he published a piece entitled Annexation : in it he wrote it is "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent"

American Progress, 1872

Manifest Destiny was the 19th
century American belief that the
pioneers/settlers were destined to
expand across the North American
continent, from the Atlantic
Seaboard to the Pacific ocean.
Advocates of Manifest Destiny
believed "that Expansionism was
not only wise but that it was readily
apparent (manifest) and
unavoidable (destiny)."
American expansionism was
promoted by John L. O'Sullivan in
an essay which first used the
phrase Manifest Destiny. In 1845,
he published a piece entitled
Annexation : in it he wrote it is "our
manifest destiny to overspread the
continent"

"This painting (circa 1872)
called American Progress,
is an allegorical
representation of the
modernization of the new
west.
The female represents the
United States, leading
civilization westward with
American settlers,
stringing telegraph wire as
she travels; and she holds
a school book.
The different economic
activities of the pioneers
are highlighted and,
especially, the changing
forms of transportation."

Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868

6 x 10 ft

traveled as propaganda for manifest destiny presents the "wild west" as peaceful, abundant, pastoral "sublime"

• Propagandizing Manifest Destiny

Frederic Church, Niagara Falls, 1877

the "sublime":
the power of nature absence of human rainbow monumental

Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, 1849

“show me an angel and I’ll paint on e”

After being rejected in the exhibition space of the Universal Exhibition held in Paris in 1850, Courbet organized a personal exhibition, in a building built at his own expense, which he called "The Pavilion of Realism".

life-size scale

event actually witnessed by Courbet

"One must be of one's time"

"contemporanelty":
- only events one can witness
- no mythological stories
- no religious historical events depicted

no drama, no key moment, or pivotal moment (just depicting exactly what he saw)

Dog: the "ordinary" boredom "slice-of-life"

Positivism

contemporaneity

““one must be of one’s time”

only events one can witness

no myhtological stories

no religious historical events depictured

Pavilion of Realism

After being rejected in the exhibition space of the Universal Exhibition held in Paris in 1850, Courbet organized a personal exhibition, in a building built at his own expense, which he called "____ ____ ___".

Jean Francois Millet, The Sower, 1850

"en plein air"

"In the open air: painting out of doors, painting by observing

"contemporaneity"

"act of sowing seed"
no face shown
- (not individualistic)
all body:
- focus on gesture

*not "heroic"
*not sublime

"factual"

"based on observation

Positivism

Millet, The Gleaners, 1857

"gleaning":
picking up the remains after a harvest

not "heroic"

all bodies, no faces: absence of the individual

not "sublime"

a scene without a narrative

Edouard Manet, Execution of Emperor Maximilian, 1867

Maximilian I of Mexico: born Archduke Maximillan of Austria proclaimed Emperor of Mexico, 1864

(many foreign governments, including that of the U.S, refused to recognize his government)

defeated, executed, after capture by the Liberals, in 1867

contemporary event

not a hero,
not a victim

photographic record of "split-second moment" of rifle firing

*puff of smoke
*delayed reaction

“en plein air”

Positivism:

motive for Realism

Hippolyte Taine: “the world is reducible to facts,” “facts can be trusted”

"a philosophical system, asserts that the only authentic knowledge is that which is based on the senses, experience and positive verification."

"reality is what one can see"

"optical realism":
Edouard Manet: provable with photography

"visuality"

optical realism

“reality is what one can see,” “visuality”

Edward Manet: provable (proving reality) with photography

Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863

Background: Manet's wife, Suzanne Leenhoff

Naked woman: his favorite model Victorine Meurent.

Right Man w/ Hand Out: Manet's brother Eugene Manet
(Instantaneous Moment)

Center Man: his future brother-in-law, Ferdinand Leenhoff

Cropping

Flash Effect:
in photographic sessions, magnesium flash powder ignited to produce a bright flash of light for illumination:
- Diminished Shadows
- In photographic sessions magnesium flash powder
- Ignited to produce a bright flash of light for illumination
- Painterly Brushstrokes
- "not things, but light reflections"

influences from photography:
- used a camera
- painted from the photograph,
*not "en plein air"
- instantaneous'moment
- cropping
- flash effect
- painterly brushstrokes:
* "light reflections"

Salon des Refuses
(Salon of the Rejected)

Influences from photography

instantaneous moment, “flash effect”

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1872

"light reflections"

"not things...not a harbor, not boats, not water, not fog, not clouds..

light reflected off of the boat,
light reflected through the water,
light reflected through the fog,
light reflected through the
clouds...at sunrise"

Impressions:
"painted light effects":
-color of light
(what pigments can represent the colors of light?)
-texture of light
(what brushstrokes can represent the texture of light?)
-adjacent blends for solid
-complementary contrasts for shadows, borders
- texture of light? painterly brushstrokes

Adjacent Blends: blue/blue green/green blends represents (solid, continuous) light reflected off/through the water; blue/blue violet/violet also included

Complementary Contrasts:
Orange:
- light reflections on (and discontinuous with) the water - light (sun) rising within and separate from the fog

impressions

“painted light effects”

Impressionism

An artistic movement that sought to capture a momentary feel, or impression, of the piece they were drawing

"light reflections"

Optical Theory

facts about light
- transmission of colors
- absorption, reflection

• visual perception
  
  Incoming light has RGB to make white light
  Red apple skin - surface absorbs green and blue
  Red light is reflected, while the other colors are absorbed

Color Theory

- components of color
- color diagrams

How to represent:
colored light ->colored pigment

primary colors: red, yellow, blue

secondary colors:
- mixtures of two primary colors
- orange, violet, green

tertiary colors:
- mixture of a primary color with a secondary color

Color Science

facts of color interaction

Paint:
What are the relations between colored pigment?
*can blend, mix == adjacent blends"

*cannot blend, cannot mix == "complementary contra

adjacent blends

are colors that can blend or be mixed with each other

mixable
- solid
- surface

complementary contrasts

color pairs that have nothing in common with each other in the light spectrum pigment colors that cannot mix

red/green
yellow/purple
blue/orange

unmixable
- borders
- boundaries
- shadows

What does Realism and Impressionism have in common?

contemporaneity in content

influence from Positivism "optical realism"

Monet, St. Lazare Train Station, 1877

"Light, not things"

Detail

Only used blue and orange colors

"Dense light"

Adjacent Blends

Monet, Haystacks series, 1880s

painted "en plein air

different seasons,
seasonal light
times of the day
weather conditions

"Not things"
"Light reflections"

Accurate "Color Science"
Detail:
Homogeneous brushtrokes used:
- Painterly brushstroke, same size and shape
- contiguius color: paint applies adjacent next to each other
On the surface: "of light"

"law of shadows"
- shadows are not colorless, but are the refracted color of the light gathering in the borders/boundaries = shadows
- the complement (complementary contrasts) and primary

Seasons, time of day, weather..

homogeneous brushstrokes

Painterly brushstroke, same size and shape brushstroke

used in Haystack series by Monet

contiguous color

paint applies adjacent next to each other

used in Haystack paintings

“law of shadows”

- shadows are not colorless, but are the refracted color of the light gathering in the borders/boundaries = shadows
- the complement (complementary contrasts) and primary

used in haystack series

Monet, Rouen Cathedral series, 1894

Homogeneous Brushstrokes

really intense shadows

Monet, Waterlilies series, 1899; after 1908

Adjacent Blends=Solidness

Law of Shadows

Applying paint in layers

Glazing (after 1908)

Contiguous (after 1908)

Impressionism
"painted light effects"
"light, not things"
accurate use of Color Science to
represent light:
adiacent blends :
solidness of light
complementary contrasts
"Law of Shadows'

glazing

applying paint in layers on top of each other

Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Windmill of the cake

Impressionism:
- "painted light effects"
- light, not things
- accurate use of Color Science

Society of Irregularists:
- Light reflects in different patterns:
* staric things
* animated tuings
- irregular patterns

Woven color: contiguous color/glazing

Renoir, The Bather, 1878; 1886

"Things"
Impressions: "light reflectiosn not things"

"Woven color": mixing the application of paint with alternations of contiguous color (next to each other) and glazing (paint applied in layers)

Society of Irregularists; “woven color”

Neo-Impressionism

(late impressionism)

A late-19th century movement growing out of Impressionism. Though interested in capturing the effects of light and atmosphere, these artists also introduced the ideas of color theory and optics into their works. Pointillism was a common technique.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1886

"Chromo-
luminarism":
Color/Light
Neo-Impressionism:
Late Impressionism

Divide Brushstrokes
Inrervals

Optical Mixture

divided color
orange=yellow = red
green =blue + yellow
purple/violet=blue = red

Got idea of canvas from:
Magnification of rods and cones on retina

Color blindness test included same configuration

Color Science:
Goethe, color
diagrams; optical
perception, 1810

Eugene
Chevreul, 1839
about shadows

Ogden Rood,
Modern
Chromatics, 1879
divided color

Seurat, drawing from notebook

Charles Henry:
EQUILIBRIUM:
"RELAXATION"
* balance of
horizontal/
vertical lines

*balance of
descending/
ascending lines

Charles Henry

Seurat, The Models, 1887

Image Quotation (image inside image)

Inhibition: downward movement
* descending lines
* cool colors

Seurat, The Kick, 1890

Dynamogeny
*ascending lines
*warm colors

Divkded brushtrokes intervals

Georges Seurat, The Circus, 1891

Dynamogeny
*ascending lines
*warm colors

Dicide brushstrokes
Divided colors
Intervals

Detail of Frame: signed paintings with brushstrokes

Stephane Mellarme

"Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces"

Tried to get public open to new content

Effect: Light & Mood

Move away from things

Post-Impressionism

A late nineteenth-century style that relies on the Impressionist use of color and spontaneous brushwork but that employs these elements as expressive devices.

Paul Cezanne, Self-Portrait, 1879; 1879

Rejected early painting, accepted late

Late 1879:
- "realization of the motif"

*Mallarme: "Paint not the thing itself, but the. effect it produces to paint the wallpaper in the face and the face in the wallpaper

* to paint the wallpaper in the face and the face in the wallpaper

* "equivalence": comparison, substitution
* wallpaper pattern = face

- motif = pattern
- "to realize" = "to achieve"

in colors, textures

Cezanne, Mme. Cezanne in a Red Armchair, 1893

"realization of the motif"

Stephan Mallarme:
"Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

"equivalence": comparison, substitution

"equivalence":
woman=coffeepot
woman = teacup with spoon
hands =gesture of hands on tablecloth

Cezanne, Mme. Cezanne with a Coffeepot, 1898

Cezanne, Still-life with compotier, 1882

"equivalence"

"the folded napkins looked like snowy mountains"

* napkin=mountains

multiple view points

- parallel view point

- high view point

"duration of time"

homogenous brushstroke:

square

still-life:

"the folded napkins looked like snowy mountains"

mountains->landscape

napkins->still-life

Cezanne, Mt. Ste.-Victoire series, 1872; 1880s; 1902-1904

'...I found the mountain in the sky and the sky in the mountain"

rock=mountain

rock=sky

equivalence:
"mountain" shaped brushstroke

Cezanne, The Large Bathers, 1906; Bathers series, 1890-1906

Black/white scan or Cezanne

"equivalence":
- landscape =portrait
- tree trunk = hair
- clouds = eyes

arbitrary colors:
- not descriptive
- not imitative

"The landscape thinks itself through me and I am its consciousness."

Stephane Mallarme: "Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

"equivalence":
"finding the face in the landscape
and the landscape in the face"

Edgar Degas, The Tub, 1886

Equivalence

Multiple View Points

Low View

Mary Cassatt, The Bath, 1892

Stephan Mallarme:
"Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

"equivalence"

"embracing line":
maternal, protective

Mary Cassatt, Boating Party, 1894

Vincent Van Gogh, The Night Café, 1888

Mallarme: "Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

"equivalence"

"I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of blood red and green, " Van Gogh wrote.
"Everywhere there is the clash and contrast of colors....the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime.....a place of nausea."

glazing:
- red on top of green - dark
- yellow on top of purple - light
- complementary contrasts:
do not mix;
separate = (dizziness) nausea

Makes owner ghost like

Vincent Van Gogh, Bedroom at Arles, 1888

Van Gogh:
"This could as well be my self-portrait.

"equivalence":
self-portrait: "Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily so as to express myself forcibly."

Included is actual painting of him and his brother

Viewer's Vantage Point: high
Floor: Glazing

Absence shown in bed

Stephane Mallarme: "Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

Van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

equivalence: continuously dynamic brushstrokes

equivalence: "the tree.....like flames"

Van Gogh, Crows over the Wheat Field, 1890

equivalence: crows, flight of crows = patterns in wheat

Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm, 1888

"my art...the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self"

equivalence

Edvard Munch, The Cry (The Scream), 1893

"I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood."

"I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fiord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature"

equivalence:
- scream
- blood red = sky
- skull: death's head
-(sound wave) patterns, colors.

planimetric separation:
- foreground (engaged eye)
- middle ground (protagonist?)
- background (sound wave)

arbitrary colors:
- The Complementary Colors (opposites)
- blue/orange
- glazing

Stephane Mallarme: "Paint not the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

Edvard Munch, The Dance of Life, 1899

*a series called the Frieze of Life.

Munch wrote:
"Through them all there winds the curving shore line, and beyond it the sea, while under the trees, life, with all its complexities of grief and joy, carries on 'The three major themes of
Love
Anxiety
Death"

Munch: "shadows and rings of color emphasize an aura of fear, menace, anxiety, or sexual intensity"

L->R:
- "the virgin" - black glazed with white, "vibrating"
- "the sexually mature woman" - black glazed with red, "puddling"
- "the widow" - red glazed with black, "sharp, painful"

"equivalence":
-colors for ages
-brushstrokes for moods