28 A Story Without End: The triumph of Modernism

Question 1

Identify, date, describe

Answer 1

Invisible ink, Kurt Schwitters, collage, 1947

Schwitters member of Hanover Dada group and is famous for his creation of “Merz,” a term he coined to describe his practice of making art from found objects and materials.

Question 2

Kurt Schwitters dates?

Answer 2

1887-1948

Question 3

Marcel Duchamp dates?

Answer 3

1887-1968

Question 4

Jackson Pollock dates?

Answer 4

1912-1956

Question 5

Identify, date, describe

Answer 5

One: Number 31, Jackson Pollock, 1950

Made by placing canvas on floor and dripping or pouring paint on it.

Satisfies two standards of 20th century art:

1) longing for child-like simplicity;

2) sophisticated interest in “pure painting”

These paintings done rapidly, like a spontaneous outburst.

Pollock had been Surrealist, but opted for abstract art.

Question 6

Identify, date, describe

Answer 6

White Forms, Franz Kline, 1955

Abstract Expressionist movement in New York.

Strokes give impression of spatial arrangement –lower half receding towards centre.

Kline’s works seem as though completed spontaneously, but were meticulously composed.

Question 7

Identify, date, describe

Answer 7

3 April, 1954, Pierre Soulages

Tachiste

Gradation of brushstrokes creates sense of texture. Movement towards exploring texture in abstract art.

Soulages is known as “the painter of black”, owing to his interest in the colour “both as a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens a mental field all its own.”

Term ‘Outrenoir’.

Question 8

What is Op Art?

Answer 8

Optical art – a style of visual art that uses optical illusions.

Emerged in the 1960s out of experiments of Constructivism and Bauhaus.

Question 9

Identify, date, describe

Answer 9

Agrigento, Nicolas De Staël, 1953

Evokes landscape, giving sense of light and distance without making us forget quality of the paint.

Exploring minimal conditions for landscape.

Question 10

What is Tachisme?

Answer 10

Mid-20th-century European art movement. From the French “tache,” meaning “spot” or “stain.”

Abstract and non-figurative with emphasis on spontaneity and intuition in painting.

Gestural Brushwork –Energetic and rapid brushwork, varying in thickness.

Texture: Significant focus on texture, often achieved with unconventional tools.

Prominent Artists: Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, and Hans Hartung.

Influence: Contributed to the evolution of abstract art and gestural abstraction, influencing movements like Abstract Expressionism.

Question 11

Identify, date, describe

Answer 11

Horseman, Marino Marini, 1947

Inspired by image from war of stocky Italian peasants fleeing from villages during air raids.

Contrast with usual heroism of equestrian statues.

Influence of Etruscan art.

Marini created almost only equestrian sculptures.

Question 12

Giorgio Morandi dates?

Answer 12

1890-1964
2 years younger than De Chirico

Question 13

Identify, date, describe

Answer 13

Still Life, Giorgio Morandi, 1960

Like Cézanne retreated from world to paint objects in studio.

Experiments with showing objects in different angles and lights.

Question 14

What was the rationale for Pop Art?

Answer 14

To bridge the divide that had emerged between serious and commercial art.

If pop music successfully engaged the masses, could not art do the same?

Question 15

What is action painting?

Answer 15

Action Painting is a dynamic abstract art style associated with Abstract Expressionism in US. Artists prioritize the creative process, using spontaneous, gestural brushwork to convey emotions.

Key figures are Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline.

Question 16

What are Gombrich’s five ideas explaining the current situation in contemporary art?

Answer 16

1 Sense of the march of ages –anything new is inevitable and to criticize it is to guarantee future ridicule (e.g., impressionism).

2 Art is like science, and requires experiments and new methods to progress. Led to ‘tradition of the new’.

3 Art is unreasonable and subjective and so the artist is free from all requirements to be technical proficient or understandable.

4. If art is not pretty, it is a reflection of stark reality, and helps diagnose our predicament. Beauty is escapism.
5. Art is taught at school as a form of self-expression, rather than technical mastery.

Question 17

Identify, date, describe

Answer 17

AT&T Building, New York, Philip Johnson and John Burgee, 1982

Caused a stir because departure from pure functionalism.

Harks back to ancient device of pediment.

Post-modern architecture –incorporates historicism.

Question 18

Identify, date, describe

Answer 18

Entrance to the Clore Gallery, Tate Gallery, London, James Stirling & Michael Wilford, 1982-6

Rejected austere aspect of Bauhaus in favour of light and colour.

Question 19

Identify, date, describe

Answer 19

Two plants, Lucian Freud, 1977-1980

One of series of ‘plant portraits’

Took three years to complete.

Reminiscent of Durer’s ‘Great piece of turf’ (1502)

Question 20

Lucian Freud dates?

Answer 20

1922-2011

Question 21

Identify, date, describe

Answer 21

Aquila degli Abruzzi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1952.

Confessed to ‘passion for geometry’.

Would wait patiently for precise moment to shoot and get composition he wanted.

Question 22

Identify, date, describe

Answer 22

My mother, David Hockney, 1982

Polaroid collage.

Reminiscent of Cubist paintings –captures different angles and movement of head.

Recognises that vision we have of a person or scene is composite, constructed in the mind.