Cubism and Futurism

What's the difference between art and life? There is none according to the avante guard movement of the 1950s-60s

Final exam info:

Give arguments and works to support them to address overarching topics from modern art through this semester w essay question options

Name images and id’s of images w some comparisons and contrasts

Cezanne and Seurat set us off for form and Van Gogh and Gauguin set us off for color

Cubism and Futurism

Cubism:

-George Braque

-Pablo Picasso

-Artists abandon perspective & modeling of the body

-Emphasis on unity between depicted scene & surface of the canvas

-Paves the way for non-representational (abstract) art

-at a fundamental level cubism is interested in the tension between and the analyses of the 2D element of the canvas vs breaking apart the idea of an illusion of a 3D object “window to the world” how can we break apart a 3d object onto a canvas

1st Phase: Analytic Cubism:

-Deconstruction of objects

-Shown from various angles

-Related to changes in understanding of space & time

-muted colors

-Benal subject matters ex: portraits, guitars, still lives

2nd Phase: Synthetic Cubism:

-Construction of objects

-every day materials will be cut and glued together to construct object they are attempting to create

-Use of non-art materials (high/low)

-Play with abstract sign systems

Picasso background info: from the Catalan area of Spain  near Barcelona, traditionally trained in art at schools and academies, leaves Spain and goes to Paris, arrives in Paris w friend and is s starving artist, begins in gestural impressionist style

BLUE period- monochromatically blue works expressive purpose, melancholic subject, matter, existentialism, expressive work

Pablo Picasso, La Vie (Life), 1903 - painted in remembrance of his friend who committed suicide, unrequited love, newborn life and death enigmatic pairing future there never was

Picasso & Montmartre- epicenter of cabarets and cafes and nightlife, center for avant guard artists, happier times in poicassos life, artistic career starts sustaining, he has a partner

ROSE period- monochromatic pinks, oranges, and corals

Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905 - representation of Picasso on left, circus figures are representations of his chosen artistic family, feeling of outsideness of being an artist

☆Picasso, Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906- she asks for a portrait, she has to continue to sit for this portrait repeatedly for a long time, shes over it and so he puts it away and its unfinished, pulls it back out and then he paints her from memory depicting who he thinks she is as a person, stern, hunched scowl from where she was getting sick of sitting for him, geometric face- sculptural like dimensionality, planar no soft rounding between the features of her face, stylized, thinking abt iberian gothic sculptures and african art inspirations, body is a lot more realistic than the face w sense of softness and the gradations in her skin color, she takes up a lot of space - assertive and powerful

Gertrude Stein- hosts salons in her home, at the center of avante guard Paris at the time, a wealthy arts patron

At his epiphany with the Gertrude Stein portrait, Picasso thinking abt Iberian gothic sculptures and African art inspirations, thinking abt the expressive and stylized qualities, begins to break apart the body into angular forms with plans almost like a jigsaw, the faceted planes within the structure of the painting in relationship of the other faceted plans gives it meaning

Pablo Picasso, Two Nudes, late 1906

Pablo Picasso, Three Women, 1908- triangles everywhere forming the three womens bodys arms breasts faces etc and even in the leaves, collapse of the distinction between figure and form, only difference between a leaf and a breast is color

☆ Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Ladies of ’Avignon), June-July 1907- became a famous piece after MoMA bought it and displayed it in its galleries and was hidden away for a long time before that, at a transitional time between his expressive work and cubism, 5 female figures that are prostitutes, (originally the work had a storyline about a sailor and medical student male figures showing ethical or moral dilemma, sailor wouldve been a frequent client and hes in the center, the female figures look off to the side at the medical student maybe hes coming to study the nude body hes innocent and may or may not enter the scene)gets rid of the male figures and whole painting becomes about the prostitutes, disfigured disinformed and scarily depiction, no assertion of identity of self or a come hither, violent and aggressive w sharp angular shards and increasingly so towards the right of the painting, appropriates african masks- Pende Mbangu Mask, no space to enter into this painting pushed into foreground w flattened angular shards everywhere, villainizes the prostitutes because they carry STD’s and potentially death– death becomes woman, controversial so he decides to store it away from the public eye bc people thought it was too disturbing, pushing avant guard form, depiction of modern life moement, supposedly responding to Matisse’s Joy of Life, now no longer thought to be poicassos break thru cubist work and is more of a transitionary phase in between expressionism w topic with sex and violence dehumanizing the female figures and showing monstrous prostitutes woman is death in this image formally emergance of cubism bc of focus on shape and form with flatness and fractilized shapes

Scramble to Partition & Occupy African Territory

(1860-1914)

-Especially acute between 1870-1914

-Typically seen as an extension of the rivalry between industrializing European powers

-Important early events: French anger re: the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 & Congo Basin rivalry b/w France & Belgium

-The processes of colonialization were

already evident in Africa before this period

including the formation of formal colonies by

France & Britain

-Local trade rivalries exacerbated these

tensions and were becoming increasingly

ineffective in the face of European economic

pressures.

- By the end of the 1870s, Britain & France

were already in control of most of the West

coast & advancing inland.

-By the beginning of WWI, most of Africa was

under European rule.

Joy of life vs le damoissells davigon

Thesis: we are looking at two works depicting nude female figures with one focusing more on color and one focusing more on form. 

Similarities: nude female figures depicted in non-traditional way, shifting towards abstraction, expressive qualities, flatness, range of colors

difference : nymphs vs prostitutes, nymphs are a more acceptible subject matter w prostitutes being controversial to depict, modern moment/subject vs myth, tone one is opposite showing joy of life thru color vs showing 3 dimensionality through form, happy whimsical vs cynical aggressive and villainous, dream vs reality, soft and sensual u can graze across their bodies, curvilinear lines and forms vs straight diagonal angular lines aggression, sexuality is freeing and beautiful vs something to be feared and avoid pornographic and leading to death, can enter into and explore the space of the painting vs cannot enter 

In 1907 Cezanne Retrospective - Salon d’Automne

George Braque and Picasso become neighbors and they see this retrospective which moves them to cubism, they see how you cans ee multiple perspectives in the work ex Mont-Sainte Victoire

☆Georges Braque, Houses at L’Estaque, August 1908 - informed by seeing cezzanes work, skewed perspectives by rolling them out so we see multiple all at once, about the experience of the houses not just the experience e of them

☆Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910 - analytics cubism, gallerist for picasso and other avant guard artists at the time, can make out a face in upper half of canvas, no illusion of 3 dimensionality, flattened surface showing multiple sides of Kahnweiler, introduces concept of time into the canvas but picasso does not explore this, the relationship between figure and ground are one in the same, kalidoscopic fragmentation of the piece creating a sense of moving rhythm across the canvas

☆Georges Braque, The Portuguese (The Emigrant), 1911- does much of the same analytic cubism style stuff of picassos but introduced text into the conversation - reinforces the flatness, guitarist playing guitar, very very abstracted forms, collapse figure and ground

1911-1912 Picasso and Braque begin to incorporate everyday low materials into their works, turn towards synthetic cubism

☆Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 - transitional shift into synthetic cubism, half painting half other materials, pasted in chair caning wallpaper, rope around the edge, newspaper rolled up with first part of journal in text JOU, lemon/citrus with knife in left corner, at cafe table with view top down and through the table, maybe a glass top table, ovular canvas with rope wrapping like a porthole window type shape, different registers of looking/vision that picasso is playing with - playing with idea of painting as a window to the world, w the mass-produced chair canning wall paper offering the idea that an artists purpose is no longer to depict something realistic because now machines can- artist’s purpose is visual analysis/ say something new/ explore materials

☆ Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass, fall 1912 - collaged, wallpaper mimicking wood, decorative wallpaper, sheet music, constriction paper, part of a newspaper, synthetic cubism, collapsing of subject and background, playing with negative and positive space all at once, shapes relation to one another inform how they are perceived

Futurism

-Begins in 1909 project is cut short by the beginning of WWII

-Marinetti publishes the Futurist Manifesto in Le Figaro (French newspaper)

-Want to eradicate the past

-Celebrate the future (particularly through technology)

-later on take on some fascist overtones

-many of the futurist glorify war as a way to wipe out the past to bring the future

-Interested in light & movement

-take the geometric plans of cubism but introduce the concept of time and speed in their works

-Key concepts: simultaneity & dynamism

-See Cubism in 1911 at the Salon d’Automne in

Paris, changing the aesthetic course of the

movement

Main Artists:

-Filippo Marinetti

-☆Umberto Boccioni

-☆Giacomo Balla

-Gino Severini

-Carlo Carra

Futurist manifesto published in Le Figaro newspaper and Lashes out against

tradition: calls for the

destruction of museums,

libraries, and monuments

-Argues that agitation and

revolution will allow for a

clean-slate

-Internationalist impulse

☆ Giacomo Balla, Street Light (Lampada - Studio di luce), dated 1909 on canvas- representation of a street light, important piece of technology that helps to shape and reframe the city, emphasizes the “new future” of street lamp while it outshines the moon “old technology”, utilizing post impressionist styling of painting

Umberto Boccioni, The City Rises, 1910 - post impressionist type style, movement towards the future, tension between the mode of painting being “older” and move towards the future

Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (Leash in Motion),1912 - the movement of a dog on a leash, multiple moments in time and frames caught together

Muybridge, Marey, & time-lapse photography- studies is horses ever have all 4 legs off the ground, leads him into making many pieces showing movement and time, catch the eye of the futurists

Balla, Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913-14- wants to represent just speed and time and get rid of narrative elements and concrete subject matter, shows these thru form line and color

☆ Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 - man walking in space pushing against the wind and so dramatically that parts of him are billowing behind him, speed, human figure of faceted plans, machine-like body, aggressive overtones