Midterm Flashcards
content
Subject matter and underlying meanings or themes - the “what”
form (formal properties)
The visual elements and the medium - the “how”
style
Characteristic methods of expression - the “what” + the “how” + the time period
fete galante
A type of painting depicting French aristocrats entertaining themselves outdoors. I.e. The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard
Rococo characteristics (form)
- Patel colors
- curvilinear, organic (shapes that come from nature)
- swirls and she’ll forms in decorative arts
- intimate scale painting (small scale)
- soft, feathery, loose brushstrokes
Rococo content
- erotic, lighthearted subject matter
- mythological subject matter
Hierarchy of genres
- History painting (story painting)
- Portraiture
- Genre painting
- Landscape
- Still life
* Fete galante falls in between genre painting and landscape
The swing
- Title: The Swing
- Artist: Jean-Honore Fragonard
- “Style”/category: Rococo
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Date range: 1767, mid 1700’s
Academy
An institution that trained artists in a traditional style of drawing and painting with a focus on anatomy and drawing from live models
Salon
Annual exhibition of academic paintings
History painting
Large scale painting depicting a mythological scene, biblical scene or historical event
Oath of the Horatii
- Title: Oath of the Horatii
- Artist: Jacques-Louis David
- Style: Neoclassical
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Date range: late 1700’s
Neoclassicism content
Liberty, civic virtue, morality and sacrifice
Neoclassicism form
- emphasis on drawing (design or disegno)
- symmetry and balance
- classical proportions, idealization
- linear perspective
- Meticulous handling of paint (artist trying to hide brushstrokes)
- high chroma (intense colors)
Neoclassicism context
Pompeii and Herculaneum
- renewed interest in antiquity unearthed Greek and Roman works of art
- grand tour
- French revolution: downfall of absolute monarchies and declining power of the church
- re-establishment of republics and democracies
- enlightenment + antiquity = “double dose” of rationality and logic
Orientalism
In art, stereotypical/fictional depictions of Eastern cultures by Western artists that help justify Western domination over the “Orient”
Grand Odalisque
Title: Grand Odalisque Artist: J.A.D. Ingres Style: Orientalism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1814
Neoclassicism in Napoleonic France
- 1789 French revolution
- 1804 Napoleon crowned emperor
- recalled grandeur of the Great Roman Empire
Orientalism context and content
- Edward Said, “as a Western style of dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the orient”
- sensuality, mystery, cruelty
- Voyeurism
- absence of the westerner
Third of May, 1808
Title: Third of May, 1808 Artist: Francisco Goya Style: Romanticism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1814
Romanticism
- Expressed personal melancholy emotions
- Rejected reason (reaction against the enlightenment)
- The revolutionary in politics
- antihero
- contemporary events
P in PINE
- Past, longing for the medieval past
- Pre-industrial
- Shakespeare and Dante
I in PINE
- Irrational/Inner mind/Insanity
- Depicts the human psyche and topics that transcend the use of reason
N in PINE
- Nature-longing for the purity of nature, which defies human rationality
- The Sublime-overwhelming emotion that makes you feel as if you are nothing compared to the world around you
E in PINE
Emotion/Exotic-favored emotion and passion over reason
-Exotic themes and locales did not adhere to European emphasis on rationality (Orientalism)
Spanish Romanticism
Francisco Goya
- Drama,action color
- rejects Academic painting (loose brushstrokes)
- revolutionary in politics
avant-garde
an innovative group of artists who generally reject traditional approaches in favor of a more experimental techniques
Raft of the Medusa
Title: Raft of the Medusa Artist: Theodore Gericault Style: Romanticism Medium: Oil on canvas Date Range: 1818-1819, early 1800's
Liberty Leading the People
Title: Liberty Leading the People Artist: Eugene Delacroix Style: Romanticism Medium: Oil on canvas Date Range: 1830, early 1800's
School
a group of artists who share the same philosophy, work around the same time, but not necessarily together.
The sublime
Any cathartic experience that cause the viewer to marvel in awe, wonder, or passion
The Slave Ship
Title: The Slave Ship Artist: JMW Turner Style: Romanticism Medium: Oil on canvas Date Range: 1840, early 1800's
Why is Goya’s Third of May, 1808 considered modern art?
He is depicting a contemporary event
Raft of the Medusa info.
- Shipwrecked vessel, Medusa, off Africa coast in 1816
- Raft with 150 people for two weeks- only 15 survived
- Rescued by Argus
- Depiction of the anti-hero-person of color is the hero
- an “X” and triangles in the composition
- shown at the salon for everyone to see
Liberty Leading the People info
- July revolution of 1830
- Charles X tried to abolish freedom of press
- Shows people trying to capture town hall
- Church of Notre Dame in the background, similar to Third of May, 1808 (convent in the background)
- anti-hero
- triangle in the composition
- Depiction of nature is the people rushing forward
Still Life in Studio
Title: Still Life in Studio Artist: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre Style: Modernist Art Medium: Daguerreotype Date Range: 1837
Luncheon on the Grass
Title: Luncheon on the Grass Artist: Edouard Manet Style: Realism Medium: Oil on Canvas Date Range: 1863
Romantic landscape painting
- independent and respected genre in Germany, England, and the U.S.
- the sublime in nature
- Hudson River School in the U.S.
How is daguerreotype similar to painting?
There is only one of its kind
Characteristics of Modernist Art
- Depict ideas and images of their time
- critical reflection on art and aesthetics
- open acknowledgement of the illusions and artifices of art
- increasing independence from official exhibitions like the salon
- from around the 1860’s onward
Plein-air
painting in the outdoors to directly capture the effects of light and atmosphere on a given object
Burial at Ornans
Title: Burial at Ornans Artist: Gustave Courbet Style: Realism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1849
Characteristics of Realism
- disenchantment with Romanticism
- creating art for art’s sake (for fun)
- critical of new industrial way of life and greed of the wealthy
- sympathy for the working class
- desire to depict a truthful vision of modern life
- influence of photography
Influence of photography on realism
Artists begin to use more color and texture to compete with photography (b&w, flat)
Burial at Ornans info
- Ornans is Courbet’s hometown
- the painting depicts an ordinary scene on a large canvas. The Academy was angry with Courbet because large canvases are reserved for epic paintings
- Hole at the bottom of the painting makes the viewer part of the painting
- composition-wave of people
Salon de Refuse
- in 1863, the Salon rejected many works of art
- alternate salon created for rejected works of art to be showcased
Luncheon on the Grass Subject Matter
- depicts a nude woman
- the painting is controversial because the woman is a prostitute and does not have the ideal body type to be depicted nude
- syphilis was going around at the time
- woman is looking straight at the viewer confidently
Luncheon on the Grass formal properties
- loose brushstrokes
- flat background
- characters not painted to scale
Impasto
thick applications of pigment that give a painting a palpable surface texture
Impression:Sunrise
Title: Impression: Sunrise Artist: Claude Monet Style: Impressionism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1872
Impressionism’s key ideas
- brushstrokes seek to capture the dappling effects of light across a given surface
- interest in the transient, the quick and the fleeting
- shadows contain color
- times of day and seasons of the year affect appearance of objects
- subtle harmonies and stark contrasts of brilliant hues
- artists moved studios outdoor (invention of the aluminum tube)
- influence of photography
Japonisme
- French interest in Japan and its arts was greatest in 1872 and coined “Japonisme”
- interest in Japanese prints
- simplicity
- flatness (woodblock prints, broad areas of flat color)
- decorative elements
Le Moulin de la Galette
Title: Le Moulin de la Galette Artist: Pierre-August Renoir Style: Impressionism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1876
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
Title: A Sunday on la Grande Jatte Artist: Georges Seurat Style: Post-impressionism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1884-1886
Day of the Gods
Title: Day of the Gods Artist: Paul Gauguin Style: Post-impressionism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1894
Basket of Apples
Title: Basket of Apples Artist: Paul Cezanne Style: Post-impressionism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1895
Post-impressionism
-interest in light and color
-thick paint
-leisure subjects
influence of Japosnisme and photography
-reacted against what they saw as the ephemeral quality of impressionist painting, not interested in fleeting sensations of light and color
-preserve traditional picture making elements
-more distance (psychological) between subject and viewer
Primitivism
the incorporation in early 20th c. western art of the stylistic elements from the artifacts of Africa, Oceania, and the indigenous people of the Americas
Woman in the Hat
Title: Woman in the Hat Artist: Henri Matisse Style: Fauvism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1905
Improvisation 28
Title: Improvisation 28 Artist: Wassily Kandinsky Style: German Expressionism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1912
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Title: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon Artist: Pablo Picasso Style: Cubism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1907
Fauvism
- Les fauves=the beasts
- strong contrasting colors
- spontaneous and rough
- inspired by post-impressionists Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin
German Expressionism
- anti-impressionists
- looking within themselves to get ideas, painting from their own emotions
- emphasis on subjective emotions
- symbolic color and exaggerated imagery
Cubism
- led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
- cubists sought a new approach to space
- African and Iberian indigenous art (primitivism)
Characteristics of cubism
- fragmented forms
- depiction of multiple angles at once
- simplified direction of objects
- challenges viewers idea of reality and perception
Analytical cubism
- first phase of cubism
- analyzed form from every possible vantage point
- combined points into one picture
Synthetic cubism
- later phase
- paintings and drawings constructed from objects and shapes cute from paper and other materials
- breaking away from traditional oil on canvas
ready-made
a commonplace utilitarian object selected and exhibited as a work of art
Fountain
Title: Fountain Artist: Marcel Duchamp Style: Dada Medium: Readymade Date range: 1917
Dada
- “Dada”=hobby horse. nonsensical
- direct reaction to WWI
- defied all of the past traditions (academic painting, oil on canvas)
- showed their distrust of the modern world
- anarchy
Characteristics of Dada
- sense of humor and satire
- ideas about randomness and chance
- innovative materials such as found in objects, photography and sound
- new techniques such as collage, photomontage, and assemblage (sculpture)
The Armory Show
- international exhibition of modern art
- cubism, German Expressionism
- introduce America to current trends in European art
- “cousins to anarchist”
- “alien threat”
The Persistence of Time
Title: The Persistence of Time Artist: Salvador Dali Style: Surrealism Medium: Oil on canvas Date range: 1931
Surrealism
-influenced by Dada
-Sigmund Freud-Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
-world of dreams and subconscious thought
reaction of WWI
Characteristics of Surrealism
- realistic style and dreamlike imagery
- strange juxtapositions
- use of automatism to tap into subconscious (without automatically without thinking)
- provocative, often erotic imagery
- puzzles, challenges, fascinates
