Unit 4 Part 2 Flashcards
The Steerage Identifiers
Style: Straight Photography
Artist: Alfred Stieglitz
Location: America
Date: 1907
The Steerage Form
- diagonals and lines acting as framing elements (ladders, sails, steam pipes, etc.)
- repetition of shapes
- photographed the world as he saw it
- cubist-like arrangement of shapes/tonal values
The Steerage: Function
- to show photography as a fine art
- to show the social divisions of society
The Steerage: Content
- seerage: part of the ship reserved for passengers with the cheapest tickets
- poorest travelers on a ship from U.S to Europe
- some may have been turned away from entrance to the U.S, maybe artisans whose visas expired and were returning home
The Steerage: Context
- depicts social divisions in society
- 1902-1917 Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291: most progressive gallery in the US, photography showcased next to avant garde + modern works
- photography becoming its own form of art
- more focused on composition than subject matter
- shift from pictorialism to modernism
- published in 1911 Camera Work
The Kiss: Identifiers
Style: Art Nouveau
Artist: Gustav Klimt
Location: Austria
Date: 1907
The Kiss: Form
- little human form is actually seen
- bodies are flat and geometric forms (rectangles for male, circles for female)
- faces only part that is modeled
- bodies are suggested under sea of richly designed patterning
- part of symbolism
The Kiss: Function
- express passion and love
The Kiss: Content
- similar to religious icons
- both crowned with flowers
- rich patterns on clothes (angular patterns for the male, curvilinear patterns for the female)
- her face is calm and passive
- his neck shows physical power and desire
The Kiss: Context
- use of gold leaf reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics, influenced by his trip to San Vitale in Ravenna
- influenced by gold applied to medieval illuminated manuscripts
- part of a movement called the Vienna Succession, which broke away from academic training in schools at that time
- painted during his Golden Period, recalls Art Nouveau
The Kiss (2): Identifiers
Style: Modernist Sculpture
Artist: Constantin Brancusi
Location: France
Date: 1907 CE
The Kiss (2): Form
- one continuous block of limestone
- cubist rendering, simplified carving
- rough surface contributes to feeling of naturalism
The Kiss (2): Function
- to express a subject in its most pure form
- requested by John Quinn, Brancusi’s patron in New York, who admired the small plaster version of the The Kiss in the collection of the artist Walter Pach
The Kiss (2): Content
- intertwined figures with interlocking forms
- two eyes become one like cyclops
- shows the form of the limestone: raw and archaic, return to primitive form after renaissance and baroque
- rejecting the academy
The Kiss (2): Context
- Brancusi worked in Rodin’s studio
- fourth stone version of the subject
- romanian born french sculptor, outsider in the art world
- devoted to finding the simplest and most elegant way to express the essence of his chosen subject
The Portuguese: Identifiers
Style: Analytic Cubism
Artist: Georges Braque
Location: France
Date: 1911
The Portuguese: Form
- oil on canvas
- fractures forms: break down of objects into smaller forms
- cubism, monochromatic
- multiple perspectives
- clear edged surfaces at the front of the picture frame, not recessed in space
The Portuguese: Function
- to show all sides of a subject
- explore style of cubism
The Portuguese: Content
- neither naturalistic nor conventional
- not a portrait of a portuguese musician, but rather an exploration of shapes
- only realistic elements are stenciled letters and numbers
The Portuguese: Context
- Analytical Cubism (1907-1912)
- worked in concert with Pablo Picasso to develop this style
- highly experimental, jagged edges, sharp and multifaceted lines
Goldfish: Identifiers
Style: Fauvism
Artist: Henri Matisse
Location: France
Date: 1912 CE
Goldfish: Form
- oil on canvas
- bright, contrasting, complimentary colors
- thinly applied colors, white of canvas shows through
- energetic, painterly brushwork
Goldfish: Function
- to invite the viewer to indulge in watching the graceful movement and bright colors of the fish
Goldfish: Content
- still life
- symbolize tranquil state of mind
- two different views of the fish, from above and the side
- plants are distorted by the glass
Goldfish: Context
- goldfish recurring subject in his work
- introduced to Europe from East Asia in 17th century
- matisse visited Morocco for 4 months in 1912: noted how locals would daydream or hours gazing at the goldfish bowls, painted at home in his studio in Paris
- matisse influenced and was influenced by the Faves who used bright, unnatural , clashing colors
- admired lifestyle of Moroccans- meditative state of mind, paradise lost
Improvisation #28: Identifiers
Style: Der Blaue Reiter
Artist: Wassily Kandinsky
Location: Germany
Date: 1912
Improvisation #28: Form
- oil on canvas
- not quite abstract, some recognizable forms
- strongly articulated use of black lines
- colors seem to shade around line forms
Improvisation #28: Function
- try to associate painting with music
- synesthesia
Improvisation #28: Content
- battle scene: apocalypse, a moment in which the sins of the world are going to be washed away
- yellow: flood- cleansing the world of sin
- blue: cannons being fired
- Orange: manes of horses: 4 horsemen of the apocalypse? lead on horseback to the new world?
- using schematic means, depicts cataclysmic events on the left and a sense of spiritual salvation of the right
Improvisation #28: Context
- worried that if things were too recognizable we would lose our ability to respond to the color and form
- the way one would react to music
- used words associated with music in his title
- relationship to atonal music
Self-Portrait as a Soldier: Identifiers
Style: Die Brucke
Artist: Ernst Kirchner
Location: Germany
Date: 1915
Self-Portrait as a Soldier: Form
- oil on canvas
- part of Die Brucke: influenced by primitivism , unidealized nudes
- jarring bold colors: nonrepresentational but symbolic
- shallow picture space, titled perspective
- nightmarish quality
Self-Portrait as a Soldier: Function
- express psychological fears
- meant to be grotesque to show effects of war
Self-Portrait as a Soldier: Content
- in uniform in his studio, not the battlefield
- severed hand was not a literal injury but a metaphor: many artists depicting wartime amputees, injury to identity as an artist
- shows how soldiers were abandoned when no longer useful
- main figure has a drawn face, with a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips
- eyes unseeing and empty
Self-Portrait as a Soldier: Context
- volunteered to serve as a driver in the military
- declared unfit due to health issues and sent to recover
- painted during recovery, based on his personal fears
- Hitler persecuted artists who painted in styles outside of Aryan Ideal: organized The Degenerate Art exhibition to mock modern artists, two-thirds of Kirchner’s works were displayed
- died by suicide in 1938
Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht: Identifiers
Style: German Expressionism
Artist: Kathe Kollwitz
Location: Germany
Date: 1919
Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht: Form
- stark black and white of the woodcut used to magnify grief
- multiple copies to spread political messages
- three horizontal sections: Top: faces are the most modeled- focus on his followers. Figures close together
Middle: Has less details, emphasizing the crowd at the top
Bottom: The martyred leader
Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht: Function
- Family of Liebknecht asked Kollwitz to memorialize him
- acknowledge plight of working class
- political cause
Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht: Content
- assassination of communist leader
- focus is not on the man but his followers that put their faith in him
- women and children were a central concern for her work
Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht: Context
- Liebknecht was among the founders of group that became German Communist Party
- shot to death during a Communist uprising in Berlin Spartacus Revolt: military units captured leaders
- held to be a martyr in the Communist cause
- no political references in the woodcut
- emphasis of women grieving over dead children; her son died in World War I; the artist then became a socialist
Villa Savoye: Identifiers
Style: International Style Architecture
Artist: Le Corbusier
Location: Poissy-Sur-Seine France
Date: 1929
Villa Savoye: Form (Outside)
- on a large piece of land
- pilotis- slender columns: Raise the building off the ground & allow air to circulate
- ground floor is recessed and painted green: so that it look like the delicate pilotis support the house
- strip of windows makes the wall stay one single plane
Villa Savoye: Form (Inside)
- contrasts from outside due to its fluid and curved forms
- ramp leads seamlessly to the roof terrace
- desire to integrate landscape and architecture
Villa Savoye: Function
- his masterpiece
- represents refinement of his architectural system
- dwelling meant to maximise leisure in the machine age
- allowed family to spend time outdoors in the most efficient way possible
- a three bedroom country house with servants’ quarters on the ground floor
- built in suburban Paris as a retreat for the wealthy Pierre and Emilie
Villa Savoye: Content
- free plan
- free facade
- ribbon window
- pilotis
- roof garden
Villa Savoye: Context
- family had few requirements so he had a lot of freedom
- argued that machines could create highly precise objects
- admired systems of greek with refined mathematical proportions and efficiency of race cars, airplanes, and factories
Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow: Identifiers
Style: De Stifl
Artist: Piet Mondrian
Location: Netherlands
Date: 1930
Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow: Form
- oil on canvas
- squares and rectangles
- large red square balanced by small blue square
- varying shades of black and white
- only primary colors and neutral colors
Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow: Function
- To express his philosophical views
- to express modern life
- to show his commitment to relational opposites, asymmetry, and pure planes of color
Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow: Content
- interested in civilization that progressed by moments of tension and reconciliation between oppositional forces
- saw them as an expression of duty