ART304: Modern Test #3

Question 1

Answer 1

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

• the location is not specific. he wants it to be an american city and every american’s experience
• moments of isolation
• the effect of a city on its inhabitants
• figures seem alone and isolated even amongst a group

Question 2

Answer 2

Jacob Lawrence, The Migration of the Negro, No. 1, 1940-41

• “During WWI, there was a great migration north by southern African Americans.”
• Each has a text he writes for it that also can act as a title
• He does 59 of them based on: African Americans leaving the south and heading north & AAs finding a better environment for them in the north

Question 3

Answer 3

Diego Rivera, Man at the Crossroads, 1934

• included lenon and thus rockefeller had the mural destroyed
• he’s at a cross road of being able to understand the microcosmic parts of our society
• left hand side = capitalism. right hand side = communism

Question 4

Answer 4

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

• Regionalism
• family in front of their house
• kind of old
• the window is gothic
• in rural Iowa
• American gothic is referring to the background house style
• comments of the people and photography of the 1890: taking a portrait in front of a house - no smile because posing for photos took a long time
• plants on the porch. status symbol to bring things out and put them on your porch when getting portrait taken to portray status. a talented woman could keep her house plants growing even through the winter.
• his dentists and his sister are posed

Question 5

Answer 5

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley, 1935

• sponsored by the government
• semi posed

Question 6

Answer 6

Francis Bacon, Painting, 1946

• Abstract Expressionism
• slaughterhouse. dark and sinister figure, maybe neville chamberlain
• commentary on the savagery and the butchery of war
• “an attempt to remake the violence of reality itself”

Question 7

Answer 7

Jean Dubuffet, Apartment Houses, Paris, 1946

• Abstract Expressionism - Art Brute
• imposto - thick surface
• built up from plaster, glue, sand, and asphalt
• he loved the art of children, prisoners, and the mentally ill - art brute
• he thought these people have a pure and undisturbed art than those who were academically trained

Question 8

Answer 8

Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950

• Abstract Expressionism: modernism/formalism?
• stands in his work
• creates an all over quality. no focal point.
• about paint on a surface - what can the medium of paint do on a surface

Question 9

Answer 9

Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52

• Abstract Expressionism: moderism? formalism?
• scraping away the woman and starting again. could have painted around 200 women.

Question 10

Answer 10

Mark Rothko, Red, White and Brown, 1957

• Cromatic Abstraction
• interested in spirituality
• wanted people to sit in front of a canvas and feel something

Question 11

Answer 11

Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon, 1955

• pop art
• taxidermied bird
• 3D and 2D combined
• combine paintings: idea that he’s taking a ton of references and is combining them together

Question 12

Answer 12

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954

• pop art
• painted over newspaper with encaustic (wax)
• the question was what has he in fact made: he made a flag and not just a painting of a flag

Question 13

Answer 13

Claes Oldenburg, Floorburger, 1964

• pop art
• playing with scale to make it more noticeable

Question 14

Answer 14

Andy Warhol, Brillo Box, 1964

• pop art
• more expensive than the actual box because of his name on it

Question 15

Answer 15

Chuck Close, Big Self Portrait, 1967-68

• Hyper Realism or Photo Realism
• about the size of a wall.
• used a grid.
• abstract works.
• he can’t remember who people are.
• loved using a photo due to the depth of field