Art

Fundamentals - Section 1

  • Goals: understand original contexts of work

Vocab

  • aesthetics: philosophical inquiry of nature and expression of beauty

  • art criticism: explanation of current art events to public via press

  • baroque: artworks produced late 16th - mid-18th centuries

  • chiaroscuro: dramatic contrasts of light and dark

  • draftsman: technical/blue print maker

  • frescoes: painting done in watercolor on a wall or ceiling

  • patronage: viewer access to work

  • static: unchanging, steady

Development of Art History:

  • fine art —> modern

  • Analysis

    • Formal Analysis:

      • Visual aspects; expectation of intentional choices from artist

    • Contextual Analysis:

      • Cultural, economic, social, and religious (broad) contexts

      • Patronage, location, cost, subject, order (time)…

    • Sources

      • Reproductions:

        • allow for direct examination (touching, close up) w/o fear of damage or loss

      • Documentation or Archived texts

      • Oral

        • interviews between artists and viewers

  • rose as an academic discipline ~18th century

  • Commentary over time

    • Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE, Rome, historian)

      • Natural History: analyze historical and contemporary art

    • Giorgio Vasari (1511-74, Renaissance)

      • The Lives of Artists: collection of biographies of great Italian artists

        • Changing roles of artists; development of artistic genius

    • Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68, German)

      • Enlightenment philosophy; shift from rigor to context

    • Modern

      • More inclusive

Western World

  • emphasized places of art study is often because the certain area has better preserved art (ex. west)

Ancient Civilizations

  • Old Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic Period)

    • Chauvet Cave

      • Composition: primarily black and red outlines of animals; hunting ceremonies/rituals

      • Southeast France, 30,000 BCE

    • Venus (Woman) of Willendorf

      • Composition: famous example small stone female figures

      • Fertility figures; exaggerated bellies and undefined face and limbs

  • Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Period)

    • Shift from cave-dwelling to rock shelters

      • cause: warming climate

      • Composition: introduced inclusion of human figures; animal figures; humans dominating animals

      • 7000 - 4000 BCE

  • New Stone Age (Neolithic Period)

    • Composition: rings of rough-hewn stones

    • Western Europe, 4000 BCE

    • megalithic: refers to the large size of the stones used

    • Stonehenge

      • Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England

      • heel-stone: at the center; marks the point the sun rises on the midsummer solstice

      • Composition: rings of indigenous blue stones and sandstone

  • Ancient Mesopotamia

    • Trouble: lacked natural protection (from invasions) = destruction; used perishable materials

    • South

      • Sumerians:

        • Composition: Religion (temples, sculptures); 4000 BCE; impressive

        • Ziggurats: stepped pyramids

      • Akkadian dynasty (2334 BCE):

        • cities of Sumers replaced —> art that emphasized monarchs

        • (2150 BCE): Neo-Sumerian rule back

      • Babylonians:

        • seperate city-states —> centralization; legacy + rules

        • Code of Hammurabi: stone stele

    • Assyrians:

      • most powerful in Near East (900-600 BCE)

      • relief drawings: battles, hunts

    • Neo-Babylonian:

      • Monuments: hanging gardens; Ishtar Gate, ziggurat of the temple of Bel

      • 600-500 BCE

  • Persian Empire

    • 540-330 BCE

    • Monuments: Persepolis (reflects Egyptian influence, made of stone, brick, and wood

  • Ancient Egypt

    • 3000-330 BCE

    • Monuments: Sphinx, great pyramids of Giza, life-sized statues of pharaohs, portrait of head of Queen Neferiti

    • Composition:

      • Hierarchical Scale: used sizes to depict different statuses

        • Palette of King Narmer: large king + smaller, defeated enemies

          • fractional representation: each part of figure is shown as clearly as possible; typical Egyptian art style for people

    • Preservation: excellent

      • Mummification, entombment,

        • tomb of boy king Tut

  • Nubia Kingdom

    • Africa, South of Egypt

Greek and Roman

  • Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean Art

    • precursors of Greeks

    • 3200-2000 BCE

    • Cycladic: simplified, geometric figures + decorated pottery; Aegean islands

    • Minoan: city in Crete (Knossos); legend of Minotaur; naturalist pictures, frescoes and pottery (supplanted Cycladic culture); flexible and organic palaces

    • Mycenaean culture: elaborate burials/tombs = preserved; high level gold-smithing; relief sculptures; theorized to have ended the Minoans

  • Ancient Greek

    • Archaic Period

      • 660-450 BCE

      • Influence: Egyptian and Mesopotamian stone sculptures

      • Composition: More dynamic/realistic figures made of marble and limestone; Temples; Vases; red figures on black background

        • Doric and Ionic decorative styles: temples

        • Corinthian styles: vases painted with figures

        • Athenian style: vases with black figures

    • Classical Period (Athens)

      • Doric temple columns: strength, simplicity

      • Contrapposto: posing sculpture

      • Influenced: western art

      • Middle Classical: architecture (ex. Pantheon)

      • Hellenstic: Eastern/Asian influences

  • Etruscan

    • Transition: Greek to Roman

    • Clay, brick, and wood

  • Rome

    • Innovations: concrete; curved arch;

    • Works: the Colosseum; Pantheon

    • Composition: sculptures of victories; funerals; idealistic depictions

Byzantine and Medieval Art

  • Composition: Mosaic; Christian; Metalwork (German); Wooden ships (Vikings); barrel vault (tunnel arches for churches’ ceilings); aesthetic based; Gothic (ribbed vaults; flying buttress which added extra ribs to arches)

  • Conditions: civil strife, illiteracy, poverty

  • Works: Hagia Sophia (530 CE; one of the greatest architectures); Book of Kells & Coronation Gospels (manuscripts); Saint-Sernin (Romanesque church); Chartres Cathedral (Gothic, France)

Renaissance in Southern Europe

  • Transition:

    • Figure: Giotto Di Bondone (1270-1340) known for frescoes and started use of perspective

    • Changes:

      • Patronage (wealthy sponsor artists)

      • Greek and Roman reference

      • Great artists status ^^

  • Artists:

    • Lorenzo Ghiberti (1380-1460)

      • Designed: door panel with Greek reference

      • Works: “Gates of Paradise” in cathedral

    • Filippo Brunelleschi (1380-1450)

      • Work: dome of cathedral in Florence

      • Innovations: double-shelled dome design; linear (single) vanishing point perspective

    • Masaccio (1400-28)

      • Composition: Linear and Aerial perspective

    • Donatello (1390-1470)

      • Significance: founder of modern sculpture

      • Works: David

      • Composition: naturalism; expression/dramatics

    • Botticelli (1440-1510)

      • Works: The Birth of Venus (painting of female beauty)

    //High Renaissance

    • Leonardo da Vinci (1450-1520)

      • Innovations: locks for canals; machine models

      • Works: The Last Supper; Mona Lisa

      • Composition: sfumato (blended)

    • Michelangelo (1480-1560)

      • Works: David (huge sculpture); Moses, the Dying Slave, the Bound Slave (for Pope Julius 2nd tomb; cancelled); Sistine Chapel Ceiling (Pope Julius 2nd)

    • Raphael Sanzio (1480-1520)

      • Works: School of Athens (frescoes, homage to philosophers and scientists); Sistine Madonna (painting of Virgin Mary)

    • Giorgione (1480-1510)

      • Innovation: landscapes

      • Works: The Tempest

    • Titan Vecelli (1490-1580)

      • Composition: portraits of patrons; Venetian

      • Innovations: utilized backgrounds in portraits

    • Tintoretto (1520-90)

      • Composition: Venetian; Mannerism (distortion of perspective, scale, or color); chiaroscuro (dramatic contrasts of light and dark)

  • Events

    • Reformation: Protestant call for purification of Catholic Church

      • result: lessened religious imagery

    • Counter-Reformation: Church reaction

      • result: lavish religious imagery

      • El Greco: artist influenced by Tintoretto

Renaissance in North

  • Specializations/Differences:

    • Realism: oil painting; Italian influence > roman; engravings

  • Artists:

    • Matthias Grunewald (1480-1530)

      • Composition: religious depictions

      • Works: Isenheim Altarpiece, panels

    • Albrecht Durer (Reformation Germany)

      • Composition: naturalistic detail + Italian style, copper engravings and woodcuts

      • Works: written theories of art; The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, engraving

    • Hans Holbein Younger (1500-1540)

      • Composition: portraits, known more in England

      • Works: portrait of King Henry VIII

General Renaissance

  • Social: war between cities

  • Composition: simplistic, calm, static

Baroque Art

  • Composition: movement and energy; appeal to emotion and church (Counter-Reformation); rich colors and ornamental, dramatic; chiaroscuro; arouse emotions

  • Social: conflicts between empires; Church spread/conversions; ruling class via divine right —> class gap/ monopolization of wealth; patronage for artists

  • Artists:

    • Caravaggio (1570-1610)

      • Composition: caravaggesque: dramatic use of light and dark; provocative naturalism

      • Works: Virgin Mary and apostles portrayal as poor rather than noble folks (controversial)

    • Artemisia Gentileschi (1590-1650)

      • Composition: Caravaggio’s techniques

      • Works: self-portraits and Old Testament women

    • Gianlorenzo Bernini (1600-1680)

      • Significance: child prodigy; Pope acknowledgement

      • Work: Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, unique stained-glass window, detailed and flow-like sculpture

    • Peter Paul Rubens (1580-1640)

      • Works: workshop producing works that were models for artists

    • Rembrandt van Rijin (1610-70)

      • Composition: painter, print maker, draftsman; broke traditions (ex. equal emphasis on each person in paintings)

      • Works: The Night Watch / Sortie of Captain Banning Cocq’s Company of the Civic Guard

  • Versailles

    • pg 23

Rococo, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism

  • Rococo

    • celebration of happiness, romance, and frivolity. excellence and wit

    • light-hearted, gold and pastels

    • Jean-Antoine Watteau (1680-1720)

      • innovator of fete galante: painting style of elegant nobility leisurely in countryside

    • Francois Boucher

      • influenced by Watteau

      • classical myths w/ galante

      • fav painter of Madame Pompadour (Louis XV mistress)

  • Neoclassicism

    • bringing back democratic ideals, reviving classical Greece and Rome + Enlightenment philosophy

    • sharp outlines, unemotional, geometric

    • challenger to Rococo/aristocratic style

    • Jacques Louis David: earlier revolutionary ideals, then propagandist for Napoleon Bonaparte

      • Oath of Horatti: illustrated republican values

  • Romanticism

    • Eugène Delacroix

    • imaginative, dreamlike, Baroque

    • exotic, foreign themes

Realism and Impressionism

  • Realism

    • reaction to Neoclassicism and Romanticism

    • All features

    • Gustave Courbet, the Stonebreakers

  • Impressionism

    • from dissatisfcation with rigid rules

    • Monet, Picasso, Manet

Post-Impressionism (late 19th century developments)

  • Post-Impressionism

    • search for new colors, new application styles

    • Cubism, different perspectives

    • Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin

    • innovation: camera, chemically made paints (may paint outside), global exploration

  • Pre-Raphaelites —> Art Noveau

    • England group dissatisfied with Indistrual Revolution, bringing back pre-Renaissance art (romantic, moralistic, archaic)

    • flowy-styles of decoration and architecture

Emergence of Modernism (20th century) . unnatural styles

  • arbitrary color - unnatural colors chosen more for emotion, symbolism, or aesthetic than realistic representations

    • fauves: “wild beasts’, revolutionary French art style using indivdualisitc, simplistif, Post-Impressionist styles rejecting Impressionism

      • Henri Matisse

  • Cubism

    • breaking up figures into multiple overlapping aesthetics, shows different perspectives of people/human experience

    • Picasso, Braque

  • Die Brucke —> Expressionism

    • German group, combine intense Fauvist colors with intense Norweigean emotions

    • + Der Blaue Reiter, russian group —> total abstraction

    • De Stijl: dutch artist canvases of flat fields of primary color (modern art staple)

  • The Armory Show

  • Bauhaus

  • Surrealism

Abstraction

  • WW2 art standstill

  • Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg: NY critics

    • Abstract Expressionist: free from pictorial influences

      • Action Painting: dramatic brush strokes

      • Color Field Paintings: broad areas of simple, geometric forms

    • Naturalism

      • response to abstract expressionism, depiction of ordinary objects

        • set up for Pop Art

Pop Art, Minimalism, Photo-realism

  • Pop Art (1960s)

    • images of mass culture —> broke unspoken art rules

    • Andy Warhol

      • icon, used ordinary objects that mocked art world

    • Roy Lichtenstein

      • large-scale comic books with dots

    • Robert Indiana

      • stencils, like commercials

  • Minimalism

    • reduce art to bare essentials

    • Acrylic paint invented —> precise lines possible

  • Photorealism

    • photo-sharp art style

Earthworks, Installations, Performance

  • Context: art is less traditional, not limited to museums

  • Earthworks

    • Christo and Jeanne-Claude

    • used landscape as a medium (ex. moving big monuments/natural materials, wrapping monuments)

  • Peformance Art

    • Geurilla Girls: wore gorilla masks and uesd guerilla-warfare tactics to put up political posters, make speeches, challenging female stereotypes

  • Postmodernist

    • reaction to modernist styles

    • introducing traditional elements + exaggerating modernist styles

      • questions morals of current society

    • Philip Johnson (late 20th-21st century)

      • changed architecture from (function = form) to more artistic

Non-Western Art

Elements of Art

  • Positive Space: main subject/focus

  • Negative Space: empty background area

  • Hue: name of color

  • Value: darkness/lightness of color

  • Intensity: brightness/purity of color

  • Local color: color more naturally found

  • Optical color: special lighting color

  • Arbitrary color

  • Asymmetrical balance: visual balance through unlike objects

  • Solvent (ex. water or oil for painting)

  • Glazes: thin/transparent layers applied with slightly altering colors

  • impasto: process of laying paint thickly

  • encaustic: Egyptian practice when paintings are mixed with hot wax

  • gouache: water-based paint but higher quality and easier

  • reliefs: when 3D scultptures are carved with a flat, 2D background behind it instead of standing free

  • post-and-lintel construction: long beam placed horizontally between vertical posts

Techniques

  • Stippling: shading with dots

  • Relief printmaking: cutting away from surface of plate, ink remaining parts

  • Intaglio printmaking: opposite of relief (adding engravings)

    • Etching: wax and varnish then acid to expose lines on plate

  • Lithography

    • drawn with waxy pencil/crayon on plate

  • Fresco: paint on walls or ceilings, ancient practice

  • Tempera: water-based paint, really skilled

American Modernism - Section 2

Vocab:

  • Automatism: drawing/writing w/o a plan, popular with surrealists

  • Focal Depth: distance of pictured objects from lense

  • Pictorialism: int movement to get photography to be a fine art

    • Romantic, dreamy style

  • Surrealism: juxtapositions, uncanny imagery

Overview/Styles

  • Events: WW1, Stock Market Crash 1929, (jazz age, roaring twenties, machine age)

  • Academic System

    • National Academy of Design: powerful, older generation

    • Aschan School: modernist experimentation; NY

      • Robert Henri: unofficial leader

      • “The Eight”: Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Wesley Bellows, and George Benjamin Luks,Everett Shinn, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Arthur B. Davies

      • Represented: immigrant and working class

      • short lived

  • Armory Show of 1913

    • Barnes Foundation

    • first major showing of modern art

    • Difference from European avant-garde movements: less aggressive and formal; more naturalism

    • Oragnizers: Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, and Walter Pach

    • Work: modern and contemporary European and American art

      • Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism

    • Critics: “lawless art”

    • Support: John White Alexander (president of National Academy of Design) + inspired independent galleries and artists

  • Americanism style

  • New York Dada (how WW1 affected)

    • Dada: anti-war art movement beginning in Switzerland 1915, spread to NY via immigrants. from dissatisfied intellectuals and disillusionment from war

    • Duchamp

      • readymade: taking ordinary objects and making it into art through intention, not completely creating a new thing

    • conceptual art: idea > technique

      • nonsense, everyday life, randomness

  • Surrealism

    • Freud inspo

    • portarying inner-workings of mind

    • Salvador Dalí (1904–89), René Magritte (1898–1967),

      and Joan Miró (1893–1983).

  • Alfred Stieglitz and 291 Gallery

    • Alfred Stieglitz: high regarded photographer and art critic

    • Pictorialism: global movement for photography to be a fine art

    • Impact: one of the first to display non-Western art, unconventional displays (neutral walls and spaces, like how galleries are now)

  • Bauhuas

    • school of design (modern)

    • reconciling industrial mass-manufacturing with aesthetics

Selected Works

  • I saw the Figure 5 in Gold, Charles Demuth (1928)

    • Charles Demuth:

      • Lancaster, PA, PA Academy of Fine Arts

    • I saw the Figure 5 in Gold:

      • “Portrait” of his close friend, poet William Carlos Williams, who’s imagism poetry style conveys clear, direct imaging (expressed in the art)

      • Shopping distract, advertising, sound fading away, rushing, commercial advertising art style

        • William’s poem The Great Figure (1921)

      • Geometric Abstraction: builds up using rigid lines and shapes w/o shading

      • Inspired by: Cubism (Georges Braque and Picasso)

      • Featured in: Stieglitz circle

        I saw the Figure 5 in Gold

  • The Lawrence Tree, Georgia O’Keeffe (1929)

    • Keefe

      • Wisconsion, School of Art Chicago

      • Influenced by Composition/east asian art (Arthur Wesley Dow)

      • Influenced by On Spiritual in Art russian expressionist (Vasily Kandinsky)

      • known for floral imagery + geometric abstraction

      • settled in Taos, Pueblo

    • Influences/Ideas:

      • Biomorphic Abstraction: use natural world to reference human body

      • Harmony w/ music and sound

      • Stieglitz (married)

    • The Lawrence Tree:

      • Tree named by: British novelist D. H. Lawrence who loved to write under there

        • O’Keeffe enjoyed lying under it; never met but liked his writing

      • Rushing, invisible but constant growth (tree),challenges traditional perspective( appears to be standing on its head)

      • The Lawrence Tree

  • Leaf Pattern, Imogen Cunningham (before 1929)

    • Cunningham:

      • Portland, Oregon then Seattle, Washington

      • University of Washington

    • Ideas: Scientific dev of photography —> photography needed scientists and technicians; pictorialism —> plants and New Objectivity (objective recording w/o manipulation or dramatic imagery)

      • shifting away from dreaming photos

      • New Objectvitiy: Albert Renger-Patzsch and Franz Roh

    • Group f/64: California-based photographers that used the “f-stop” (increased sharpness and focal depth) + new objectivity style + mechanical/precision focus

      • Mechanical photos > artsy/painting photography

      • Photos w/o inclination/narrative

    • Leaf Pattern

      • Modernist: high contrast, objectivity

      • Focus: shapes/forms of leaf, not leaf itself

      • Manipulations: arranging and selection (necessary middle)

      • Leaf Pattern

  • Rayograph, Man Ray (1922)

    • Ray:

      • russian jewish, learned drawing from Aschan artists (Henri and Bellows)

    • Traditional photography (comparative); Surrealism, specifically Automatism, Dada

      • Surrealism: juxtapositions, uncanny imagery

        • Dada focus on randomness

      • Automatism: drawing/writing w/o a plan, popular with surrealists

    • Rayographs: photos made w/o a camera/film but by exposing light-sensitive paper to bright light

      • famouse fort his

      • little detail, white shapes

      • White background —> Dark background; white shapes

      • Photogram (one of the oldest types of photography, traditional)

      • Inspired by: schadographs from German Dada artist Christian Schad

    • Rayograph

      • Bold shapes and juxtaposition w/o meaning

      • Recognizable materials: spring/thumbtacks, door hinge/hardware fitting, dart

Jazz Age City Life - Section 3

Vocab

  • Art Deco: style with geometric shapes, rich materials, modern sleek

  • Camp: over the top art/aesthetic + ironic tackiness

  • Sprezzatura: form of studied grace to seem natural and spontaneous

  • Zoning: laws that made cities more orderly (ex. buildings) and segregate industrial from residential areas (pollution)

    • pyramidal towered skyscrapers: modern fashion + Art Deco

Overview/Trends

  • Population Shift

    • Rural —> Urban

    • The Great Migration: African Americans rural South —> cities all over

    • Immigrants

  • Infrastructure/City

    • Progressive Era: govt intervention, specialized education up, zoning laws

Selected Works

  • Chrysler Building, William Van Alen, (New York, NY; 1928-30)

    • Alen

      • New Yorker

      • Pratt Institute and Paris School of Fine Arts

        • greek, roman, and renaissance works

    • Skyscraper

      • Tallest building before the Empire State Building

      • Urbanization, United States staple

    • Process

      • late 1920 s -→ crash

      • historical styles —> modern

      • Commissioned by automotive tycoon Chrysler

        • advertisement for the cars; not headquarters

    • Art Deco, luxury

      • Seven arch crown feature, gargoyles, luxury materials, lightning bolts, dynamicism, progress

      • Inspo: luxury mobiles, Statue of Liberty (crown), Egyptians

  • Woman on Sofa, Guy Pene du Bois (1922-27)

    • du Boise

      • NY

    • Influence/Ideas:

      • “New Women”: advanced education and public roles = independence + feminism (usually white); more free-spirited and into like public transportation and places

        • Gibson Girl: rich, European american women chic and into sports

        • Aschan artists: depict more middle class women

        • Flappers

    • Notes: confidence, intimacy, and power

      • Bold pose + direct gaze + flapper figure

  • Spring Sale at Bendel’s, Florine Stettheimer (1921)

    • Stettheimer:

      • NY, little formal training

    • Artist style: camp; vulgar subjects (ex. ads, bands, pageants… 1920s fun); no traditional training

    • Context: consumer culture ^, fashion faster + widespread/inclusive

    • Spring Sale at Bendel’s

      • parody of frenzied fashion consumer culture

      • art history references

      • Persian miniature painting, flapper, Mughal prince

  • Couple, Harlem, James Van Der Zee (1932)

    • Zee

      • middle-class Black family in Massachussets then move to NY

      • retouched photos

    • Context: Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, New Negro Movement

      • New Negro Movement: the new affluent, educated Black population as opposed to the older population subjected to racism and poverty

    • represents wealthy, relaxed black urban Americans

    • Notes: sprezzatura, Cadillac, fashion; retouching + flattering pictures

  • Saturday Night, Archibald Motley Jr (1935)

    • Motley Jr:

      • New Orleans —> Chicago, traveled to Paris

      • Lower middle class, Mom is teacher and Father at railroad

      • discussed South racism

      • Art Institute of Chicago; historical reference beginnings

    • Focus: Black communities of varying skin colors; positive and negative

      • possible Colorism but he did include many differents

    • Style: natural —> saturated color palette; dance/jazz aesthetic

    • Saturday Night

      • new urban entertainment (blues, jazz); lively

      • cross culture, different audiences (white, black…)

  • America Today: City Activities with Dance Hall, Thomas Hart Benton (1930-31)

    • Benton:

      • Missouri, Chicago Institute to New York

      • Socialist despite conservative family

    • style: large murals; american, representing social history of regular people

    • context: Prohibition —> bootlegging

    • America Today: City Activities with Dance Hall

      • dramatic representation of Prohibition Era

      • social changes: new women, changing art, bootlegging, chaotic

Global Connection - Section 4

Vocab

  • “Lost Generation”: originally referred to generation w/ uncertainty after WW1; later turned to generation of writers and artists chasing after an artsy society

  • Folk Art: art of everyday objects by artists w/o formal training; self-taught art from the common man

    • causes: isolationist & nationalist opposition to European influence + escapism (simplifying modern world)

  • Primitivism: when urban, affluent artists take inspo from “primitive” artists

    • simplifying modern world

  • Slip: a viscous mixture of clay and water that adheres to the molded surface

Overview/Trends

  • Post WW1 rebuilding of Europe: pushing Modernization and Financial Growth

  • American

    • Influences: jazz, blues, ragtime, Hollywood, drinking

    • Moving to Paris

  • Pan-African Movement: African art that mixes shared heritage of African diasporic people in the US and Caribbean

  • Indigenous

Selected Works

  • Watch, Gerald Murphy (1925)

    • Background: Boston-born, Yale, WW1 Signal Corps, “Lost Generation”: from young men uncertain after WW1 to youths in search of society (comfort fun for cheap) famously lavish

    • Purism: postwar return to basics of art; clean lines without shading; modern subjects (tech) (Leger, artist influencer)

    • Depicts Clock inside: geometrical, movement, perpetuality

  • Ethiopa Awakening, Meta Warrick Fuller (1921)

    • Fuller:

      • Philly, learned sculpture in Paris

    • 67 inches tall sculpture, Black modernism, Pan-African, African pride; two versions: bronze and plaster (black) to interpret figure’s race

    • commissioned by NAACP

    • nemes: typically Egyptian folded linen headdress

    • Egypt and Ethiopia: example of Egyptian and African mix (addressed the previously diminished black identity of Egyptians), close in history

    • modern Ethiopia: resilience to slavery

    • nemes: folded headdress

  • Boy Stealing Fruit, Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1923)

    • Kuniyoshi:

      • Born in Japanese, sometimes disadvantaged from foreign-born status. against nativism; lived in NY

    • ambiguity + Japanese aesthetics + American folk art (nostalgia + nationalism) + primitivism +

    • folk art: about everyday thingsw/o formal training + escapism from political topics

    • Museum of Modern Art

  • Ennis House, Frank Lloyd Wright (1923-24)

    • Background: famous American architect; Midwest; didn’t admit to his influences; born in Wisconsin

    • Pioneered:

      • Prairie Style: dedication to local materials

      • textile blocks: geometrically inscribed/designed tiles made from concrete

      • “Romanza”: romanticized representation of Mesoamerican ruins

    • Los Angeles, California; referenced ancient pyramids and jungles; interior custom metal work; Mayan, Mesoamerican and Latin American inspo; structural problems

  • Bowl and Plate, Maria and Julian Martinez (1925-30)

    • Married couple; Maria: clay; Julian: 2D design; joined arts with crafts; uncommon for Pueblo cultures to sign works (meant to stay in community); easily recognizable; Sante Fe, New Mexico

    • Innovation: black-on-black ware

    • “Indian Craze”: popularity of Native American works

    • Large plates; repeating feathered design: eagle claw motifs, lively organic designs, thunderbolts; like water jars

Social Conflicts - Section 5

Vocab

  • Spirituals: songs developed by enslaved community about Bible

Overview/Trends

  • Industrial Labor (Great Depression, Progressive Era, Machine Age)

  • Political Activism

    • Ashcan School display

Selected Works

  • Charles Sheeler, Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company (1927)

    • Sheeler:

      • Philly, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

      • Vogue, Vanity Fair

    • Precisionism: photorealist painting style celebrating modern tech

    • Represents: Ford automative plant; its complexity from a low angle; Fordism: dominating automobile indsutry; scientific methods

  • Hands Resting on a Tool, Tina Modotti (1927)

    • Modotti:

      • born in Italy, to NY

    • Dedicated to workers causes; Italian American urban; protests labor conditions and poor treatments of Indigenous workers in Mexico

    • Represents worker labor, indigenismo (new Mexican interest in Indigenous life and heritage); connection between machine and human

  • Let My People Go, Aaron Douglas (1935-39)

    • Douglass:

      • Kansas, University of Nebraska

    • civil rights, political early work (NAACP), large murals of Black history, Pan African, Art Deco, Egypt

    • Aaron Douglass’s ‘The Cruxification’

    • response to lynching and black violence

    • spirituals: songs developed by enslaved community with biblical references

    • depicts: salvation, connection between biblical and black history, Moses, address brutality

      • focal point: man with outstretched arms

      • colored painting of black and white illustration

    • three pyramids, purple and yellow, sunlight and lightning and clouds, large to dramatize violence/salvation, soldiers