Art Movements (sem 2)

Question 1

Define German expressionism. (All info)

Answer 1

• 1905-1914
• In Germany
• Consisted of two parts: Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter.
• Had an overarching interest in psychology as subject matter, in emotional content that “for its tragic power, laid bare the depths of a tormented personality.”
• Principal thing is personal feeling
• Inspired by Gothic world of expression
• Aim to connect perceptual and spiritual values
• Influenced by Munch, German Gothic art especially woodcuts, ethnographic carvings and romanticism.

Question 2

What were the differences in ideologies between the two parts of German expressionism?

Answer 2

Die Brücke - Focus on negative social commentary and bridging the gap between the classical past and their perception of art in the future.
Der Blaue Reiter - focused on inward spirituality, the world of nature, and abstraction.

Question 3

What were common visual stylistic elements of German expressionism?

Answer 3

• flat areas of unbroken colour
• simplification of form
• glowing, unmixed colour
• violent imagery
• emotional tension

Question 4

What were German Expressionist artists’ positions in society? (poorly phrased, apologies)

Answer 4

Socially, the artists were publicly protesting the hypocrisy and material decadence of those in power.

Question 5

What was German Expressionism’s subject matter?

Answer 5

Taken from everyday, working-class surroundings in Dresden - contemporary events

Question 6

Die Brücke aimed to _______ and find a new _______, which would form a bridge between __________.

Answer 6

reject the prevalent traditional academic style ; mode of artistic expression ; the past and the present.

Question 7

The founding members of Die Brücke were four ________.

Answer 7

Jugendstil architecture students.

Question 8

How did Die Brücke get its name?

Answer 8

It aimed to form ‘a bridge’ between past and present. In German, Die Brücke quite literally means the bridge.

Question 9

What older media did Die Brücke revive? What new media did they invent?

Answer 9

Woodcut prints.
Invented linocut.

Question 10

How did the group members reject their bourgeoisie backgrounds?

Answer 10

the group members initially isolate themselves in working-class neighbourhoods.

Question 11

Who were the founders of German Expressionism? Know at least the one important one.

Answer 11

Most importantly, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Fritz Bleyl
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Erich Heckel

Question 12

How did the Die Brücke (DB) members encourage sponteneity?

Answer 12

Group life-drawing sessions took place using models from their social circles, rather than professionals, and choosing quarter-hour poses to encourage sponteneity.

Question 13

What was the German Expressionist manifesto?

Answer 13

Carved on wood, the manifesto asserted a new generation “who want freedom in our work and in our lives, independence from older, established forces.”

Question 14

Where did the name Der Blaue Reiter come from?

Answer 14

It came from a painting by one of the founders of the movement, Kandinsky.

Question 15

What is Dadaism?

Answer 15

• A cultural movement that began in neutral Zürich, Switzerland, during WW1 and peaked from 1916 to 1920.
• It was a strong reaction against society
• no coherent style but were well known for being anti- everything, including themselves.
• considered to be an anti-art movement - ironic considering their impact on the modern art world!
• name originated in a random choice of a word in a Hungarian French dictionary
• all about randomness and nihilism

Question 16

What did Dadaism embrace?

Answer 16

Nonsense, randomness, nihilism, meaninglessness.

Question 17

Dadaism was a movement that _____ the war.

Answer 17

‘Protested against’
It was protest art

Question 18

What is surrealism?

Answer 18

• a cultural movement and artistic style founded in 1924 by André Breton,
• uses visual imagery from the subconscious mind to create art without the intention of logical comprehensibility.
• centred in Paris
• attracted many members of Dada
• influenced by psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung

Question 19

Surrealism was all about..?

Answer 19

Exploring and analysing the subconscious mind, interpreting dreams, etc.

Question 20

What is fauvism?

Answer 20

Art movement that was known for its spontaneous, exuberant colour and expressive brushstrokes.

WHERE?
France

WHEN?
1904 -1907 ( only 3 years )

WHO?
Led by Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck

Influenced by Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Neo impressionists

Influenced Cubism and German Expressionism

Question 21

What are the key characteristics of Fauvism?

Answer 21

• Spontaneous, exuberant colour and expressive brushstrokes.
• Flat compositions with simplified forms = drew attention to the inherent flatness of the canvas / liberated them from representational expectations.
• Pure colour and form = a means of communicating the artist’s emotional
  state eg a sky could be orange, a tree could be blue, and a face could be a combination of clashing colours; the end result was an independent product of the artist’s perception, rather than a faithful depiction of the original physical form.
• Individual expression ie the artist’s experience of his subjects +
  emotional response to nature AND intuition were more important than
  academic theory
• Compositional elements were built up through the placement of colour,
  rather than through perspectival systems or draftsmanship.

Question 22

What were the subjects/style of Fauvism?

Answer 22

The visual impact of colour took priority over any possible narrative or
symbolism - so their subjects are vehicles for observation and their active brushwork and non-naturalistic colour are a means
to lead the viewer into their inner, creative journeys.

Question 23

Fill in the blank:
Fauvism’s emphasis on the
________ use of _______________ helped
liberate painting from the ________ that
had dominated art in the 19th century.

Answer 23

expressive (or another synonym) ; colour, line, and brushwork ; representational expectations

Question 24

What was the aim of Fauvism?

Answer 24

To discover “the essential character of things” and to produce an art “of balance, purity, and serenity.”

Question 25

What was cubism?

Answer 25

An art movement that saw art as an intellectual problem - conceptual idea.
In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an
abstracted form. Instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist
depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a
greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles,
removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes
interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of
cubism’s distinct characteristics.

Question 26

When and where did Cubism begin? Who were its main people?

Answer 26

WHEN: 1907-
WHERE: Paris, France
WHO: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris

Question 27

What was the big question that fuelled cubism?

Answer 27

Question of how to translate the 3-d reality onto a 2-d surface.

• Einstein’s theory of Relativity : E = mc2
  Experience = length, width, height plus 4th dimension of time
• To accurately transfer this, the artist had to capture the scene from all around the subject, different moments and views were
  captured and shown - SIMULTANEITY:

“ An infinite number of momentary glimpses”

• The spectator was to be offered the sensation of actually walking around the subject, with different views at different times.
• 3-d form was analysed into flat planes of monochromatic colour, these
  planes having tonal values and directional brushmarks
• The flat, 2-d planar nature of the canvas was affirmed, becoming a number of overlapping and interlocking flat shapes.
• Abandoned colour, emotion, sensation - no comment on the subject

Question 28

What were Cubism’s influences?

Answer 28

Cezanne, Primitivism & Tribal sculpture

Question 29

What were Cubism’s 5 stages?

Answer 29

Developed through 5 phases:

Protocubism - Les Demooiselles D’Avignon
Cezannesque - Houses at L’Estaque
Analytical - Still Life with Violin and Palette
Hermetic - Portrait of Ambroise Vollard / Khanweiler
Synthetic - Still Life with Chair Caning

Question 30

What was abstract expressionism?

Answer 30

Abstract Expressionism is a term applied to a movement in the American painting that flourished in New York City after World War II, sometimes referred to as the New York School or, more narrowly, as action painting. The varied work produced by the Abstract Expressionists resist the definition as a cohesive style; instead, these artists shared an interest in using abstraction to convey strong emotional or expressive content. These artists moved away from European traditions of painting to create a distinctly American kind of art, which both acknowledged and
challenged the domination of early 20th-century giants such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Vasily Kandinsky.

Question 31

What was the social and economic context of abstract expressionism?

Answer 31

Abstract Expressionism emerged in a climate of Cold War politics and social and cultural conservatism. World War II had positioned the United States as a global power, and in the years following the conflict, many Americans enjoyed the benefits of unprecedented economic growth. But by the mid-1950s the spirit of optimism had morphed into a potent mix of power and paranoia. Fueled by the fear of Communist infiltration, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin unleashed a series of “witch-hunts” against alleged Communist
sympathizers. Abstract expressionism was
for many the expression of freedom: the freedom to create controversial works of art, the freedom symbolized by action
painting, by the unbridled expressionism of artists.

Question 32

Discuss the subject matter and styles of abstract expressionism.

Answer 32

Subject matter was seen as
apolitical, this escaped the
censorship of the McCarthy years.
Another aspect of the subject
matter is the expression of pain
emanating from the Second World
War. Where images are
recognisable, they are often
archetypal or universal. The aim
was to create an art of innocence
that was universal, profound and
spiritual.

Question 33

What was pop art?

Answer 33

Pop artists drew from new and
pervasive sources of advertisements,
billboards, comic books and mass
produced items. Their hard-edged and
brightly coloured works represented a radical shift in American art from the
Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s.
Consumer culture, mass production,
and advertising were all sources of
inspiration, as artists tried to get
people to look at the world around
them, paying attention to everyday
objects that might not normally be
noticed.

Question 34

Where did pop art originate and when?

Answer 34

Britain, 1950’s.

Question 35

Fill in the blanks (pop art):
___________ replaced inner
vision, ________ substituted for high
seriousness, and the _______
subsumed ________.

Answer 35

Surface appearance replaced inner
vision, humour substituted for high
seriousness, and the impersonality of
silk screen and the benday dot
subsumed painterly expression.

Question 36

One of the earliest Pop artists
defined the qualities desirable for
art as being?

Answer 36

transient,
popular,
low cost,
mass-produced,
young,
witty,
sexy,
gimmicky,
glamorous and BIG business.

Question 37

Why did pop art begin?

Answer 37

Pop Art developed in the years
from about 1955 to 1966 and may be
seen as a reaction against the extreme
subjectivity and high seriousness, the
introspective and rarefied sensibility of
Abstract Expressionism.
America in the 1950’s had the money
and the manufacturing productivity to
create an environment in which
popular consumerism flourished. The
medium that became the dominant
marketing machine of the age was the
television.

Question 38

What was Polly street?

Answer 38

The Polly Street Recreational
Centre was an Art Centre and training ground for a whole generation of artists, no matter their race. In Johannesburg(1940-1970) was started by a ‘liberal’ white
Johannesburg City Council to provide a recreation facility for black men in the evenings after work.

Question 39

Who was the director of Polly Street Recreational Art Centre?

Answer 39

Cecil Skotnes

Question 40

Polly Street attempted a …?

Answer 40

Polly Street attempted a romantic
re-connection to Africa

Question 41

Who did Cecil Skotnes gain the support of?

Answer 41

Black students, some white artists, the Johannesburg City Council, companies which made donations, the churches, and the commercial galleries.

Question 42

What is Cecil Skotnes’ relevance as director of PSRAC?

Answer 42

Skotnes enabled some black artists to overcome in part the shortcomings of limited educational resources and also enabled a few white artists to gain a new insight into black experience.

Question 43

What did the PSRAC teach and offer?

Answer 43

All the standard Western art exercises, such as still-life painting, life drawing, landscape studies, and abstract design, were included.
Offered different media such as charcoal, pencil, watercolours, gouache and/or oils.

Question 44

The art produced at Polly Street can be
broadly divided into two distinct streams, which are…?

Answer 44

a township style and

a neo-African style (sculpture and
graphics inspired by traditional African
sculpture)

Question 45

How did the central PSRAC studio come to an end?

Answer 45

The continued growth of the Polly Street Art Centre was curbed by the policy of separate development, thus destroying a significant meeting place for artists.

It became policy to provide facilities in the townships (such as the Mofolo Art Centre in Soweto and the Katlehong Art Centre in Katlehong) but this happened at the expense of a centrally located, easily accessible facility.

Question 46

What two orientations does South African art of the 60’s and 70’s show?

Answer 46

One was an attempt to reflect social reality and the repression of the 1960s.

Two, an art that celebrated the beautiful and the mystical

Question 47

What emerged after the end of PSRAC?

Answer 47

Rorke’s Drift

Question 48

How was Rorkes Drift formed?

Answer 48

The ELC (Evangelical Lutheran Church) Art and Craft Centre in Rorkes’s Drift was started in 1962 by Peder and Ulla Gowenius from Sweden.
This arose out of a committee formed in 1961 in Stockholm, Sweden, for the advancement of African art and craft.

As a result of this initiative Peder and Ulla Gowenius were sent to South Africa to work at the Ceza Mission Hospital, Zululand.
Interaction between the Swedish and South African teachers and the black South African students at the ELC caused a complex set of artistic exchanges and cross-cultural influences.

Question 49

What were the aims of Rorkes Drift?

Answer 49

• To nurture the unique artistic heritage of Africa and to extend this heritage with new influences so that it will find its rightful place in an evolving and changing society.
• To ensure that it develops with the changing society and that its arts and crafts will find increasingly profitable outlets thereby assisting in raising their standard of living by extending its teaching influence
  through its students and by giving local people work and an income.

Question 50

How did gender play a role at Rorkes Drift?

Answer 50

Certain practices were done exclusively by specific sexes:
- weaving done by women (apart from some designs by men)
- fine art by men (apart from a few women)
- ceramic workshop: where both men and women worked BUT where two approaches developed:
WOMEN: the female tradition of making pottery by the coil method
MEN: used the kick-wheel.