Leftovers Flashcards
Aaron Douglas
Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction
1934
Central figure holding up Emancipation Proclamation
NY public library
selective history, all things important to AA
art deco, African influence in style, form, abstract sense
Willem de Kooning
Woman 1
1950 - 55
felt Pollack had “broken the ice” by releasing line from its traditional role of describing form
dripping, scratched paint, loose, gestural
woman, sense of fertility?
John Steuart Curry
Baptism in Kansas
1928
large, critical acclaim, Whitney acquires in 1931, saw as a vision of America, rooted in rural experience, simple farmhouse landscape
strong religious undercurrent, family values, Dove symbol of spirit, strong light, authenticity
resonates with urban audience, feels America lost its way by 1930s, desperation after Depression, celebration of piety, rural life
Helen Levitt
New York
1940
documents NY street scenes
humanity to children, spirit of youth, capturing exuberant joy, ignoring reality of their life/hardships
Charles Sheeler
Self Portrait
1923
only see painted reflections of the interior, no depiction of the individual, ambivalent
promise of connection and sociability in the phone and open shade, instead lying there unused
Walker Evans
Subway Portrait
1938
taken anonymously, hid camera in his coat, wants to capture essence of subject without filters of pose and self presentation
William Glackens
Central Park, Winter
1905
leisure park scene
more about middle class over urban hardships
Man Ray
L’Homme
1918
(later titled Le Femme)
Dada surrealism
Martin Johnson Heade
Approaching Thunderstorm
1859
odd, water very black, selective reflection
Aaron Douglas
Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in an African Setting
1934
art deco
Jacob Lawrence
Migration of the Negro, #1: During the World War there was a great migration North by Southern Negros, 1940-41
Life in the South was bad for AA - Jim Crow, KKK, lynching, many migrated North to economic boom
first painting of the large series
migrants embarking on journey to big cities
most famous of series, 60 panels total, similar in palette, painted one color at a time in each panel, thinking about color/form and narrative as a whole, folk elements, flat perspective, no facial features
Mark Rothko
Number 10
1950
sense of canvas oriented as he worked, turning and twisting to create layers, subtle, complex
George Bellows
Tennis at Newport
1919
Lisette Model
Sailor and Girl in Sammy’s Bar
1944
life as lived rather as life as presentation, descriptive
Austrian immigrant, Guggenheim scholarship in 1966
Thomas Hart Benton
Susanna and the Elders
1938
subject done many times, updated for contemporary times
without title painting of nakedness but title makes it about nudity
idealized nude Americans can view without feeling guilty
Benton- Pollock’s teacher, celebrates region, rebel against “art for art sake” not good if general public can’t understand/access, needs to be familiar, democratic art, abstract art for elitists
John Henry Twatchman
End of Winter
after 1889
inspiration from land in Greenwich, CT
express emotional and spiritual comfort found there
seasonal transition, meditative quality
Lee Krasner
Abstract #2
1946-48
Benton would hate and call meaningless pattern, jealous this was the direction art was going and leaving him behind
Jacob Lawrence
The Tombstone
1941
dark work all around, emphasis on death, sullen figures
child in stroller reaching for white doll, all other figures AA
Childe Hassam
Allies
1918
Childe Hassam
Spring Morning in the Heart of New York
1890
Grant Wood
American Gothic
1931
sense of formality, types not individuals, stiff pose
statement of nationalism, portrayal of family and region
Charles Sheeler
Of Domestic Utility
1932
could not get back to work after wife died, view of house in Doyleston, PA that he rented with wife and Morton Schamberg
everyone who he had in his life disappeared
all works have photographic basis expect this one
pitcher is precariously balanced, hearth of fireplace has logs stacking in corner, kindling according to art historians Clancy says no
Marcel Duchamp
In Advance of a Broken Arm
1916
Dada
rejects traditional Western values, takes on artistic realm, forerunners to performance art
Blames middle class for ills and large cultural and social problems
consider reason and logic to be symbols of capitalist society
anti-art, against aesthetics, looks different in different countries - hard to pin down distinct style, doesnt want to fit a category
celebrates the machine - modern experience
Duchamp heads up NY dada group, meets artists through Stieglitz
work seen as violating trends
Jasper Johns
Flag
1955
newspaper, encaustic paint
Johns moves us out of the color field and action painters and is deliberately figural
seems to have narrative elements but complicates them by construction and process
newspaper up close can see images/text coming through
painting has a heavy, textual quality
Julian Alden Weird
The Factory Village
1896
Childe Hassam
Room of Flowers
1894
Jackson Pollock
Autumn Mist: Number 1
1950
no meaning, requires viewer to activate
overwhelmed, visual interest, meditative
canvas not primed, needs to de-acidify regularly, difficult to clean
Pollock doesnt worry about changes, creation not as a finished result but abou the artist’s process, spontaneous moment of creation
Charles Demuth
My Egypt
1927
Grain elevator - elevated to status of significant architectural achievement, placed in center looking up, revered object
Title refers to Egyptian period, how important pyramids were, cultures have architectural icons, grain elevator as last great monument of America, celebrating American ingenuity/industrial accomplishments
vectors, overlapping planes, uses color to differentiate, basic geometric shapes, vectors emphasize monumentality
Andrew Wyeth
Christina’s World
1948
revival of tempera painting
Christina had polio, couldnt walk, house seems unreachable
narrative of struggle and difficulty
Ralston Crawford
Steel Foundry, Coatesville, PA
1936 - 37
sky painted differently than building, fence
reductive, simplified forms, no shading/shadow
no attempt to create space or window of reality, some perspective, no emphasis on real background
Charles Sheeler
Church Street El
1923
no visible brushwork, hard edges, clean lines, abstraction, solid blocks of color, geometric shape, overlapping vectors, close cropping
removes pictorial details, respect for the city
John Steuart Curry
Mississippi
1935
dustbowl - blamed on mechanized farming, plow tore up the land and caused erosion, runoff, ground couldnt absorb
Farming as the breadbasket of America, responsible for hardships
Charles Demuth
Steamship “Paris”
1920 - 22
celebrates the machine and architectural forms that are particular to the US, meticulously rendered, detail
distinctively American
Edward Hopper
House by the Railroad
1925
desolate, lonely, appears sinister
railroad is visual block that stops you
no trees, empty, strange, lonely world
Franz Kline
New York
1953
“I dont advance that I am going to paint a definite experience, but in the act of painting…”
Julian Alden Weir
The Laundry, Branchville
1894
Grant Wood
Parson Weem’s Fable
1939
Washington stops after 2 terms, immediately memorialized after death
Parson Weems - historian/folklorist who fabricated Washington Cherry Tree tale as appropriate mode of parenting, importance of honesty
Wood paints himself into painting pulling curtain back, somewhat colonial, celebration of America 1939 world fair
painting makes clear fables are inventions - small man child Washington, enslaved labor force in background- not the slave owner Washington people celebrated
Precisionism (The Immaculates)
No formal manifesto, consistent style/subject
reduced composition to simple shapes, geometric, clear outline, minimal detail, emphasis on abstract form of subject, overlapping planes, no evidence of artist hand, mechanical artistry, precise line
borrowed freely from European movements - cubism, futurism
celebration of technology, expressionism of speed
defined themselves as distinctively American artists, selected American landscape - industrial, urban, factories, mills
2views of machines place in contemporary America 1) utopian ideal of technology bringing order to modern world, enhancing with speed, efficiency, 2) dehumanizing effects of technology, replace workers, pollution, dominate landscaep in destructive way
Cubism/Futurism
deconstructing object
no philosophical impulses
addressing problem of painting - how do you show 3D object on 2D space, limitation
Charles Demuth
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold
1928
abstract portrait (not physical likeness) of friend William Carlos Williams, poet, titled derived from name of his poem
imagery from poem “The Great Figure” sights and sound of fire engine speeding down the street, intersecting line, vibrant urban energy
visual collage, cityscape, movement, flow, explosion, grabs attention, reminiscent of 1920s advertising, poster portrait
Regionalism
artists of the mid-West, American realists, reacting to European modernists
thinking about national themes understood by common man, nostalgin, engaging American identity
Benton, Curry, Wood, Hopper, Hartley, Wyeth
Edward Hooper
Early Sunday Morning
1930
reduced NY street to bare essentials, no human presence only suggestions - curatains at different levels, dark inside
long early morning shadows would have never appeared on 7th ave, runs North to South, unpopulated street, emphasis on simplified forms
no sense of setting, anonymous, lonely, frozen quality of time, momentary, mysterious
Edward Hopper
Nighthawks
1919
all night diner, 3 anonymous figures
expressive possibilities of light, flourescent, eerie glow, beacon on dark corner, unnatural environment
viewer shut out by glass, construction of zones
symbols of human isolation, urban emptiness
New American Abstraction 1940s - 1950s
Action Painting - gestural abstraction, relies on stroke, movement, articulation of voyage of the brush/paint, emphasizes physical act of painting
Pollock, Motherwell, Kline, Krasner, de Kooning
Color Field - large fields of flat color, spread across or stained on canvas, unbroken surface, consistiency of form
Rothko, Frankenthaler, Newman
Conclusions
painting to respond to unspeakable - heal the nation, depict heros
national identity - attempt to explain what is American
relationship btw. European and American art
issues of industrialization, shift in landscape, rise of the city
importance of shifting class, racial, gender identities, how they play out in art, perspective and paint can alter painting
moved through aesthetic trends - crisis in presentation, explore nature of painting, deconstruct painting to take on historical/traumatic events
American art on precedence of significant change, social circumstances being wrestled by artists, ways to convey what is happening inAmerica
Harlem Renaissance
1920s
evolved from series of cultural trends - economic boom, growing cities, mass migration (rural to urban), end of slavery, failure of reconstruction, period of dislocation, isolation
economic independence, racial pride, cultural/politcal activism, how to advance situation of American negro
change happens in Harlem, emblematic site for urban black culture, overflowing with black migrants, dominate population, sense that AA culture is having impact on shape of America, jazz
