Transcript Document

Modernism
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Expressionism
Modernism
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Optimism
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Progress for humanity
Novelty
Uncertainty and rebellion
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Questioned Western ethics, religion, and
aesthetics
Aesthetic Threads of the 19th
century:
1800
Romanticism
1850
Post Romanticism/Verismo
1900
Expressionism
Late Romanticism
Impressionism
Modernism in Art and Music
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Replace Renaissance ideals
Representational to nonrepresentational
(abstract)
Novelty  Pluralism in the arts
Impressionism in Art:
1870s and 1880s
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Claude Monet (1840-1926)
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Impression: Sunrise, 1872
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“Impressionism” in 1874
Art that is intended to capture the
immediate, sensual impression of a
moments glance rather than produce
details
Art for art’s sake
Sensuous rather than emotional or rational
Changes of light in different atmospheric conditions. Ex.:
Monet’s painting of Rouen Cathedral
Rouen Cathedral: 1894
Impressionism and the influence of photography:
“Slice of Life”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Pont-Neuf (1872)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Moulin de la Galette (1876)
Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere
(1881-82)
Impressionism in Music
Music should humbly seek to
give pleasure….It is essential
that beauty be sensual, that
it give us immediate
enjoyment, that it impose
itself or insinuate itself into
us without our making any
effort to grasp it.
Impressionism in Music
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Sensuous rather than
emotional or rational
How to make music
that does not engage
the intellect or
emotions
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Tone color
Vague harmony
Meandering rhythm or
hypnotic rhythm
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Debussy’s “Nuages” (Clouds)
Postimpressionism 1880s-1900
• diverse individuals, with very diverse
styles, who came after Impressionism
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Georges Seurat
Paul Cezanne
Paul Gauguin
Vincent van Gogh
• greater psychological and emotional
involvement with their subject matter
Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-86
•pointillism
Van Gogh, SelfPortrait with a
Gray Hat, 1887
•35 self-portraits
in the last four
years of his brief
37-year life. Note
the thick tactile
effect of the paint,
lending intensity
to the portrait.
Van Gogh, SelfPortrait
•interested in
observing his
own psychological states of
being.
Van Gogh,
The Night Café
• Van Gogh wrote to Theo, "the picture is one of the
ugliest I have done. It is the equivalent, though
different, of The Potato Eaters. I have tried to
express the terrible passions of humanity by means
of red and green." "I have tried to express the idea
that the cafe' is a place where one can ruin oneself,
go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to
express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low
public house ... in an atmosphere like a devil's
furnace, of pale sulphur."
Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889
Van Gogh,
Portrait of Dr.
Gachet, 1890
Vincent was
moved to Auvers
• Vincent sold only one painting
(1890)
to
be
during his entire lifetime
treated
by
Dr.
• This one sold for $82.5 million
Gachet,
whom
in the spring of 1990
Vincent painted
“with the heartbroken expression
of our time”
Van Gogh, Irises
•This painting of Irises in the
garden of the Saint-Remy asylum
sold for $53.9 million in 1987.
Expressionism
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Edvard Munch, The Scream
An attack on the
senses
Extreme emotional
intensity- where
emotion gives way to
psychosis
Why have ugly art?
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art should purvey beauty and pleasure?
Sigmund Freud
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Viewed frustration and unhappiness as inherent in the
human mind
Classic order and control, romantic emotional
expression, and the sensual appeal of
impressionism amount to nothing but repression
of conflict and tension
The new aesthetic: art that vents conflict and
tension
Expressionism
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Fauvism - Paris (1905)
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Die Brücke (“The Bridge”) - Dresden,
Germany (1905)
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Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”)
Munich, Germany (1911)
Fauvism (Wild Beastism)
• Violent break from tradition
• “the wild beasts”
• Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse, The Dance
Matisse, Le bonheur de vivre
or The Joy of Life, (1906)
Die Brücke (“The
Bridge”) (19051913)
• Founded in Dresden,
Germany by painters
wanting to create a
“bridge” to all artists
of the Expressionist
persuasion
Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”) Movement
founded in Munich, Germany, 1911
Wasily Kandinsky, Der Blaue Reiter, 1911
Kandinsky,
Improvisation No.
30: On a
Warlike
Theme
(1913)
Kandinsky, Panel for
Edwin R. Campbell No. 3,
(1914)
Expressionism in Music
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Second Vienna School
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Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
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Wozzeck (1922)- an opera by Berg
Atonality (the absence of tonality) =
music that expresses emotional
instability
Pierrot lunaire (1912)
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Sprechstimme (speech-voice)
…a work of art can produce no
greater effect than when it
transmits the emotions which
raged in the creator to the
listener, in such a way they
also rage and storm in him.
“Decapitation” from Pierrot
lunaire
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The moon, a polished scimitar
Set on a black silken cushion,
Ghostly vast, menaces downwards
Through pain’s dark night.
Pierrot wanders about, restless,
And stares on high in death-agony
At the moon, a polished scimitar
Set on a black silken cushion.
His knees knock together under
him;
Swooning, he collapses abruptly
He fancies: let it whistle
punishingly
Already down on his guilty neck,
The moon, the polished scimitar.
“Night” from Pierrot lunaire
Gloomy, black moths
Killed the radiant sun.
A sealed book of magic,
The horizon rests, taciturn.
From the vapor of forgotten
depths
Rises a fragrance, killing
memory!
Gloomy, black moths
Killed the radiant sun.
And from heaven
earthwards
They sing with ponderous
oscillationsInvisible monsters—
Down to the hearts of
men…
Gloomy, black moths.
45
Wozzeck (1922)
Alban Berg
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Expressionist opera
Plot: psychosis of Wozzeck
Use of atonality and sprechstimme
Cubism (1908-1914)
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Pablo Picasso and George Braque
Depict objects from multiple viewpoints
A new approach to perspective
Show objects in two dimensional form but from
many different angles at the same time -“multiangular perspective.”
Squashed Down
Picasso, Les
Demoiselles
d’Avignon
(1907)
Braque,
Woman with a Guitar
Picasso, Girl with
Mandolin
Picasso, Man with a
Violin, 1911
Picasso, Guernica (1937)
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1936-39 Spanish Civil
War
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1937 Guernica
bombing
Guernica is a protest
against the war
Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937,
11’ 51/2” x 25’53/4”
Primitivism
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Used styles that
imitated presumably
primitive art in an
attempt to approach
the expression of less
refined and therefore
more genuine
feelings.
Gaugin, Mahana No Atua or Day of God (1894
Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring (1913)
The Rite of Spring:
Pictures of Pagan Russia
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Ballets Russes
(Firebird, Petrushka,
Rite of Spring)
 Sergey Diaghilev
 Igor Stravinsky
 Vaslav Nijinsky
How did Stravinsky recreate the
effect of primitive Russian music?
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Percussive
Dissonant (often atonal)
Fragments of folk-like melodies
“My one desire was to flee that room
and find a quiet corner in which to rest
my aching head.”
“I detested it; I still detest it.”
Pierre Monteux, conductor at the premiere of the Rite of Spring
Dada
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Fountain, 1917
Marcel Duchamp
1916 in Zürich
Mad art for a world gone
mad
An “anti-art” movement
A protest against
rationalist thought that
they believed was to
blame for war in Europe
(and other evils of
society)
Marcel Duchamp,
Bicycle (1913)
“found art”
Modern Architecture
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New materials
Iron
Steel Frames
Louis Henry Sullivan, Guaranty Building
(1895) Buffalo New York
Architecture
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Frank Lloyd Wright
Robie House (1909)
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Chicago
Fallingwater (1936-39), Frank Lloyd Wright
Reinforced Concrete
Bauhaus and the International style
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Walter Gropius
– 1919-1933
Stark simplicity
Geometric
austerity
Steel, concrete,
sheet glass
Bauhaus Building, Dessau, Germany
1926
Villa Savoye (1928-29),
Le Corbusier, International Style
1928 Ford model A
Nationalism and Neoclassicism
in Music
Two movements that remained connected to the audience
Nationalism
 Use of folk melodies, rhythms or harmonies identified with a
particular country or region
Can also use folklore as the basis for operatic or programmatic
works
Neoclassicism
A return to classical principles, with emphasis on clarity, order,
balance and clear form.
 A reaction against the confusion, dissonance and experimental
nature of Expressionism
Nationalism
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Aaron Copland
(1900-1990)
used American
hymns, folk songs,
children songs,
cowboy songs, etc.
Composed music for
film
“Appalachian Spring”
and “Fanfare for the
Common Man” two
famous works
Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
 Hungarian Composer
 Ethnomusicologist
 Adapted folk melodies for
use in his compositions,
while still retaining a
modern aesthetic
Neoclassicists
Sergei Prokofiev
“Symphony #1, “Classical”
Samuel Barber, “Adagio for Strings”
Surrealism
Fantastic visual imagery from the
subconscious mind.
Heavily influenced by Freud’s work on the
free association, dream analysis, and the
unconscious
Magritte: Reckless Sleeper
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A figure sleeps in a wooden alcove
above a dark cloudy sky. The way
into this space is barred by a
tablet embedded with everyday
objects, which are displayed as in
a children’s book. These objects
are presented as if dreamed by
the sleeper. As Magritte knew,
some or all of them could also be
read as Freudian symbols. This
combination of different possible
interpretations adds to the
painting’s suggestion of unease
and disorientation.
“The only difference
between me and a
madman is that I am not
mad.”
Salvador Dali
Persistence of Memory -- 1931
Abstraction
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Abstract art simplifies—a man becomes a stick
figure
Abstract artists capture the essence of reality in
a few lines and colors.
There is often symbolism in the lines, shapes,
and colors
It’s to be appreciated for its lines, shapes, and
colors, not what it’s supposed to represent
Cubism is also seen by some as a type of
abstraction
Kandinsky: Swinging
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Kandinsky was one of the
pioneers of abstract
painting and worked with
geometrical forms from
the mid 1920s. Although
it makes no reference to
the outside world, his
work summons up the
exciting rhythms of
contemporary life. The
title of this painting
conveys a sense of
dynamic movement.
Jackson Pollock: Summertime
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Pollock painted with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and developed
what was later called his "drip" technique.
He used hardened brushes, sticks and even basting syringes as paint
applicators. He would poke a hole in the bottom of a tin can of paint to get
an extended drip line.
With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means
of creating art, the paint now literally flying from his chosen tool onto the
canvas. By defying the conventional way of painting on an upright surface,
he added a new dimension to his paintings by being able to view and apply
paint to his canvases from all directions.
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No. 5, 1948
“My painting does not come from
the easel. I prefer to tack the
unstretched canvas to the hard
wall or the floor. I need the
resistance of a hard surface. On
the floor I am more at ease. I feel
nearer, more part of the painting,
since this way I can walk around
it, work from the four sides and
literally be in the painting.” -Jackson Pollack
“Abstract Expressionism”—
expresses emotions or ideas
using only color and form
Piet Mondrian
Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red;
Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue;
Composition with Red
Mark Rothko
Minimalism
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The work is stripped down to its most fundamental
features
1960s movement of young artists
an aesthetic sensibility of restraint
total abstraction -- the artists associated with Minimalism
believed that a work of art should be an independent
object in the world. Rather than imitating, symbolizing or
embodying something else, it should be defined by its
evident physical characteristics: materials, form and scale,
and structural principles.
The real-time experience of the viewer, physically present
in the space occupied by the work, was also central to its
meaning.
emphasis on geometry and mathematics, and on essential
qualities such as weight and surface
Donald Judd
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Judd began making stacks in the
1960s. Most consist of ten
elements. The stacks are all
ordered according to strict
principles: the gap between each
unit, and between the first unit
and the floor, should be equal to
the height of a single unit. Since
the units are all identical, their
significance derives from this predetermined geometric order rather
than from any individual features.
However, Judd's attention to the
sensuous qualities of his materials
prevents Untitled from being cold
or clinical.
Frank Stella (b. 1936) -- Sunset Beach, 1967
Minimalism in Music
 Movement in the 1960s as a
reaction to the complexities and
disconnect of expressionism
 Used an economy of materials
and relied on basic melodies and
repetitive rhythms
 Also referred to (negatively) as
“trance music”
 Phillip Glass (b. 1937) and Steve
Reich (b. 1936) are two
representative composers
 Influenced by non-Western
music
Pop Art
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one of the major art movements of the
twentieth century
characterized by themes and techniques drawn
from popular mass culture, such as advertising
and comic books, movies, music, etc.
Pop artists were interested in raising mundane
everyday things to heroic proportions
Roy Lichtenstein: Whaam!
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Whaam!' is based on an image from 'All American Men of War' published by DC
comics in 1962. Throughout the 1960s, Lichtenstein frequently drew on commercial
art sources such as comic images or advertisements, attracted by the way highly
emotional subject matter could be depicted using detached techniques. Transferring
this to a painting context, Lichtenstein could present powerfully charged scenes in an
impersonal manner.
Warhol