Modern Art Flashcards
1
Q
Modern Art 1900-1920
A
- photography replaced painting totally in the faithful reproduction of reality
- value of art -> creativity and originality
- artists were united by an attitude, not by style
— avant-garde -> standing at the most advanced position
— age of “-ism” -> transgressing limits of established art forms - major approaches to artistic creations
— turned to exotic cultures for inspirations
— explored machine aesthetic - total trust in technology
— explored formal qualities of art through abstraction
1
Q
Major current (1900-1920)
A
- fauvism (1905-10) paris
- cubism (1908-1914) paris
- german expressionism (1905-1917)
- futurism (1910-1914) italy
2
Q
Fauvism
A
- Les Fauves - the wild beast
— in an independent exhibition of 1905, an art critic commented on a Neo-Renaissance sculpture surrounded by boldly coloured, violently brushed canvases as “Donatello among the wild beasts!” - returned to the purity of artistic means, namely colour and form
- a bold release of internal feelings in order to awake the viewer’s emotions
- colour - became expressive and structural, emancipated from its role of describing physical reality
- juxtaposition of unblended “savage colours” to create clashing, shocking effect to communicate the artist’s emotion directly
- form - stylized and abstract, learnt from exotic art, especially african
3
Q
Henri Matisse
A
- Fauvism
- early works in conservative academic style
- befriended paul Signac and adopted the pointillist technique and a bright colour palette
- started the first avant-garde movement of 20thc with bright colours and energetic brushwork
- other fauvism artists
— andre derain
— maurice de vlaminck
— kees van dongen
4
Q
Henri Matisse - Woman with a hat
A
- sitter: the painter’s wife, Amelie matisse, in a rather conventional composition
- complete freedom in the use of colour and brushstrokes
- colour - not to imitate the nature, but produce a reactionin the viewer
- juxtaposition of patches and splotches of colour - arbitrary but powerful
- references from an african sculpture
— Mask of the Dan tribe
— Matisse collected African sculpture and got inspirations from exotic art for his works
— emphasizes liftings and contours of the physiognomic features of the figure - leading to further simplification and abstraction
5
Q
Henri Matisse - Le Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life)
A
- an arcadian theme drawing inspirations from classical art, prehistoric cave paintings, Persian painting(colour) and African sculpture (exaggerated limbs and body curves)
- content - a utopian landscape with things conceived independently but arranged together arbitrarily
- composition
— ingres on the left
— greek art - folk dance group; 9 muses in the middle
— reclining venuses in middle
— cave painting in left
— titan in lower right corner - details
— lines -> fluid lines, create a curvilinear rhythm
— from -> powerful plasticity of forms, exaggeration of breasts and buttocks (African influence)
— colour - intense, brillant colour taken fromPersian art and Neo + Post Impressionism
6
Q
henri Matisse - Harmony in Red (The Dessert)
A
- flatness of space - table has no edge
- ambiguity of “real” objects and decorative pattern blended with a single unmodulated area of red
- arabesques of plant forms - from an islamic carpet in matisse’s collections
7
Q
Cubism
A
- complete dismissal of pictorial illusionism
- based on Cezanne’s analysis of form, Cubists dissected objects and disintegrated geometric forms into fragments, and then recomposed them with overlapping, juxtaposing and interlocking planes and lines to create a new reality/solidity
- artists
— pablo picasso
— georges braque
8
Q
Pablo Picasso
A
- Cubism
- childhood - learnt art from his father, an art teacher
- 1895 - went to Barcelona’s school of fine arts
- 1897 - stayed in Madrid, learnt from collection of Pardo museum
- 1900 - stayed in Paris, suffered from Poverty
- 1901-04 - Blue Period
- 1905-06 - Rose Period, influenced by Matisse, started to collect African sculpture
- 1908 - started Analytic cubism with Georges Braque
- 1912 - started Synthetic Cubism, created collage
- late 1920s began surrealist period
9
Q
Pablo Picasso - La Vie (Life)
A
1.gloomy painting of his blue period
2. expresses human misery, hunger and cold, death of a good friend, hardships he experienced as he was trying to establish himself
3. right - adam and eve
left - virgin and child
10
Q
Pablo Picasso - family of Saltimbanques
A
- acrobatic performers depicted during moments of rest or quiet contemplation
- favourite subject of his Rose Period
11
Q
Pablo Picasso - Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
A
- 5 prostitutes in a brothel in Barcelona’s red light district, Avignon street
- african-influence period
- Egyptian art, classical beauty, african masks, multiple perspective
12
Q
Pablo Picasso - Medical student, sailot and five nudes in a Bordello (study for les demoiselles d’avignon)
A
- earlier version including 2 men and 5 female nudes with still life
- in the final painting, picasso reduced the number of figures to focus on the space - jagged planes of drapery and empty space
13
Q
Primitivism in Picasso’s art
A
- example of an Iberian sculpture
— use of features of per-roman iberian (spain and portugal)
— sculpture - big almond-shaped eyes, triangular nose, elongated decorative ears
— established a connection with his racial rotos - Primitivism - an attitude to liberate art from its western tradition and adopt stylistic elements of tribal objects and other non-western art forms
- goddess Hathor and King Sety I
— in egyptian art, figures are represented in multiple perspective
— head and feet - in profile
— eye and torso - frontal - examples of African sculpture, figures with nails, figure of a male ancestor
— disproportioned
— powerful, curvilinear rhythm
— exorcist function in their culture
14
Q
Pablo Picasso - Ambroise Vollard
A
- belongs to “analytic cubism” (1901-1911)
- forms are analyzed, broken down and merged again on different perspectival planes arranged in grids and diagonals
- Femme Isant by Georges Beaque
— originator or co-founder of Analytic Cubism
