Week 14: Art is Nothing/Art is Everything: Modern Art and Colonial Encounters Flashcards
Pablo Picasso
A Spanish artist who spent most of his adult life in France.
Co-founder of the Cubist movement.
Picasso moves away from linear perspective and realism. Played with that art as an illusion instead.
Made art depicting multiple perspectives and human interactions. It depicts a mode of expression.
Henri Matisse
French artist known for his bold use of color and innovative compositions.
A leader of the Fauvism movement which broke traditional artistic boundaries.
Explorations of color and form greatly influenced modern art.
Kazimir Malevic
A Russian artist. He rejected the idea that painting should tell a story (black square).
Influenced modern movements like Constructivism and Minimalism by prioritizing pure artistic expression over realism.
Founded the Suprematist movement, emphasizing abstract geometric shapes.
Fauvism
A French word. Was an art movement known for bold, vibrant colors and simplified forms.
It prioritized expressive color over realism, influencing modern art.
Was a negative word used to describe the work of Matisse by an art critic. (means wild animal or wild beast)
Cubism
A style of art in which people, places, and things are simplified into flat, geometric shapes.
Takes a form apart into pieces like a puzzle.
Its core strategy is the idea that you should try to paint an idea from multiple perspectives.
eg. Picasso the guitarist (for reference)
Abstraction
Simplifying or distorting objects, figures, or scenes to focus on shapes, colors, and forms.
It emphasizes the artist’s personal expression and interpretation over realistic depiction.
(Picasso’s “The guitarist” is on the edge of abstraction)
Primitivism
An aesthetic movement in Europe characterized by fascination with tribal art around the world, but also characterized by fear and the other.
This speaks to the oppressiveness of the French academy, that Picasso would want to look outside his culture for work in his work “Bust of a Man”
How and why some early 20th century European artists chose to break with artistic traditions.
Early 20th-century European artists broke with tradition to explore new expressions and reflect a changing world.
Movements like Cubism and Surrealism emphasized abstraction, vibrant colors, and new perspectives, allowing artists to express individuality and respond to contemporary issues.
The Red Studio
(Artist, Date, Medium)
Artist: Henri Matisse
Date: 1911
Medium: Oil on canvas
The Guitarist
(Artist, Date, Medium)
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Date: 1910
Medium: oil on canvas
Face mask (ngontang)
Ngontang: a face of a white woman depicts male or female spirits.
These masks emerge in Africa in response to the changing political climate in Africa.
Artist: Fang tribe
Medium: Wood, kaolin, pigment
Bust of a Man
(Artist, date)
[[not explicitly on handout]]
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Date: 1908
inspired by the ngontang (refer to notes pg 64)
Guernica
(Artist, Date, Medium)
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Date: 1937
Medium: oil on canvas
Black Square
(Artist, Date, Medium)
Artist: Kazimir Malevich
Date: 1915
Medium: oil on canvas
