2.2 Forging New Technologies

Question 1

Answer 1

Gustav Eiffle, Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1889

• Commissioned for 1889 World Exhibition the largest iron structure in the world
• Use of arch emphasizes height; mediates weight from center to sides
• Lacy, light articulation. all skeleton. Hated by parisians
• Applied principles of bridge building to a vertical span
• Height made possible by elevator

Question 2

Answer 2

J.M.W. Turner, Rain Steam and Speed - The Great western Railway, 1844 (romanticism?)

• Dramatic sublime landscapes with sense of the tragic.
• railway most potent symbol of industrialization - transforms travel, industry
• speed - mechanical transport for first time
• nostalgia for what’s lost - contrast between rural & industrial england
• atmospheric effects, golden light, thick impasto, abstract to the point that 3/4 of painting is almost unreadable; rain creates unity, dissolves hard forms. only chimney of
• painterly style expresses emotion about changing times
• painting is about industrialization, but also about the act of painting - close to abstration of 20th c

Question 3

Answer 3

Caillebotte, Paris, A Rainy Day, 1877 (Impressionist?)

• modern paris, wide boulevards, fashionable middle class (but a mix of classes)
• large size and disquiteing 2 point perspective brings us into scene
• linear
• at odds w/ classical art: no one posed, central figures on lower right, almost cut off, but balanced, stable comp
• • “impressionist in name only”
• complex image of subtlety of light in city, but w/out loose open brushwork

Question 4

Cast Iron

Answer 4

During industrial revolution, architecture was transformed by cast iron, which was malleable, long-lasting, paintable material that could be cast into organic forms, rounded shapes, parabolas and domes. It also made it possible for buildings to be supported by skeletons, rather than walls.

Question 5

Napoleon III and Baron von Haussmann

Answer 5

Mid 19th C rennovation of Paris to better suit the advancements of modern life. The plan created a new sewer system, replaced old flammable houses with brick and stone apartments, and made long, wide boulevards. Through this reshaping of Parisian infrastructure, they reshaped city life, making it more appealing to the upper classes, and popularizing new pasttimes, such as walking in the streets.

Question 6

Wolfflin’s Principles of Art History

Answer 6

• Linear/Painterly
• Formed by lines/Formed by paint
• Planar recession/Diagonal recession
• Closed form/Open form
• Multiplicity of forms/Unity of forms
• Absolute clarity/Relative clarity

A means of distinguishing the Renaissance from the Baroque/Romantic.

Linear: Clear, calm, controlled, rational, harmoniously balanced

Painterly: Light and shadow, drama, movement, color, emotion

From linear (draughstmanly, plastic, relating to contour in projected ideation of objects) to painterly (malerisch: tactile, observing patches or systems of relative light and of non-local colour within shade, making shadow and light integral, and allowing them to replace or supersede the dominance of contours as fixed boundaries.)

From plane to recession: (from the ‘Will to the plane’, which orders the picture in strata parallel to the picture plane, to planes made inapparent by emphasising the forward and backward relations and engaging the spectator in recessions.)

From closed (tectonic) form to open (a-tectonic) form (The closed or tectonic form is the composition which is a self-contained entity which everywhere points back to itself, the typical form of ceremonial style as the revelation of law, generally within predominantly vertical and horizontal oppositions; the open or atectonic form compresses energies and angles or lines of motion which everywhere reach out beyond the composition, and override the horizontal and vertical structure, though naturally bound together by hidden rules which allow the composition to be self-contained.)

From multiplicity to unity: (‘Classic art achieves its unity by making the parts independent as free members, and the baroque abolishes the uniform independence of the parts in favour of a more unified total motive. In the former case, co-ordination of the accents; in the latter, subordination.’ The multiple details of the former are each uniquely contemplated: the multiplicity of the latter serves to diminish the dominance of line, and to enhance the unification of the multifarious whole.)

From absolute clarity to relative clarity of the subject: (i.e. from exhaustive revelation of the form of the subject, to a pictorial representation which deliberately evades objective clearness in order to deliver a perfect rendering of information or pictorial appearance obtained by other painterly means. In this way instead of the subject being presented as if arranged for contemplation, it avoids this effect and thereby escapes ever being exhausted in contemplation.)

Question 7

Name at least two new materials/technologies introduced in teh 19th C. How did they change the construction of new buildings and other art forms? How did the aesthetics for the buildings change?

Answer 7

The advent of cast iron, which was a malleable, long-lasting, paintable material: could be cast into organic forms, rounded shapes, parabolas and domes, as featured in Paxton’s Crystal Palace (1850). Also enabled new architectonics, where buildings could be supported by an exposed skeleton of iron, as in the Eiffel Tower. New techniques for production of plate glass: combined with iron skeletons, new glassworks made possible the first greenhouses.