Additional Works - Nature Flashcards
Ao1, Ao2, Ao3 (13 cards)
Who painted ‘Rams Head, Little Hollyhock and White Hills’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Painted by Georgia O’keeffe
Location/: Painted in the American Southwest
(Beyond European Tradition)
Period: 1935 (Post-1850)
Style: Surrealism, blend of realism & abstraction
Themes: feminine connection to and reclamation of natural American landscape, skeletal/death with flora/life, endurance
Context:
- response to male dominated landscape tradition in art
- artist inspired a feminist movement, abstracted flowers alluded to feminine forms
- this work was influenced by her journeys across the hills, turbulent, challenging
- life in new mexico
Artist Influences:
Husband - Alfred Stieglitz
Paul Strand, taught O’Keeffe - photographic processes such as exposure/contrast could produce abstract passages
Who painted ‘Shipping at the mouth of the Thames’?
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: JMW. Turner
Location/date: Britian (European Tradition) 1807-09 (Pre-1850)
Period: Romanticism
Style: (human condition, supernatural, sublime) Romantic palette, dramatic realism
Themes: maritime atmosphere, sublime, man vs nature, explores natures indifference to human progress, fragility of man, romantic vision of the inifinate unknown (notion that nature shcoul be conquered) juxtapositions gaurdship with fishing boats (men of war, labour, class, status conflict)
Context:
- obsession with the power of nature (seas power/power of the elements)
- pushing the limits and boundaries of life was popularised and inspired in artworks
- Rise of British indulstrialism, so acts as a repsonse and reflection between progress and the natural world (turmoil and tension)
- capturing the brink of technolgoical advancesments, before the handover of sailing boats to greater technologies
- Blistering impact of Napoleonic wars / French revolution
- “A Disaster at Sea”. His work, like “Slave Ship,” also tackled the issue of the slave trade.
Who created Hanging Trees (Yorkshire Sculpture Park)
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Andy Goldsworthy (b. 1956)
Tradition: Within European
Period: Contemporary (1990s)
Style: Land Art, Environmental Art
Themes: Nature’s cycles, decay, human intervention, memory
Context:
Political: Subtle commentary on land use and history
Social: Interest in ecology, site-specificity
Technological: Natural materials only; hand-built
Visual Summary: Dry-stone wall enclosing roots of a tree; blends with landscape; hidden tensions between nature and structure
Who sculpted ‘Woman with her throat cut’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Alberto Giacometti
Location/date: Swiss (European Tradition) (1932)
Period: 20th century, Cubism, Surrealism, Exxpressionism (Post-1850)
Style: Cubist/surreal
Themes: Torture, maltreatment of human conveys malreatment of nature, suffering, organic agony, brutality, predator vs prey, violence/rape/murder, nature (and nature of mankind) is untamed and brutal
Context:
- aftermath of ww1, inbetween ww2, violence of the war, destruction of both man and nature
- tumultuous political climate
What is the Aztec work ‘Double-headed Serpent’ about?
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Period: Aztec Mexico (pre-colombian art) (1400-1521)
Style: Aztec, turquoise mosaic
Themes: nature as divine, duality, opposing forces, cyclical, renewal/birth and death, spirituality of south american aztec culture, mythical contexts
Context:
- mexica cosmology link
- nature and gods inseperable
- mythical reverence
Who created ‘Wintery Trees’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Wen Zhenming (1470–1559)
Tradition: Beyond European (Chinese)
Period: Ming Dynasty
Style: Literati painting (ink on paper)
Themes: Nature, solitude, scholarship, harmony
Context:
Political: Ming imperial stability, scholarly class
Social: Confucian ideals, literati culture
Technological: Mastery of brush/ink; no Western perspective
Visual Summary: Sparse, monochrome ink; gnarled trees in winter; calligraphy; minimal composition
Who created ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)
Tradition: Beyond European (Japanese)
Period: Edo period (c. 1831)
Style: Ukiyo-e woodblock print
Themes: Nature’s power, transience, human fragility
Context:
Political: Tokugawa shogunate, isolationist Japan
Social: Rising merchant class, domestic art market
Technological: Woodblock printing; Prussian blue pigment
Visual Summary: Towering wave, Mount Fuji dwarfed, stylized foam, strong diagonal composition
Who painted ‘Waterfall Line’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Richard Long (b. 1945)
Tradition: Within European
Period: Contemporary (1980s–present)
Style: Land Art, Minimalism
Themes: Nature, walking as art, human trace
Context:
Political: Environmental awareness
Social: Shift from gallery to landscape
Technological: Minimal tools, natural materials
Visual Summary: White stones arranged in a straight vertical line through nature; ephemeral; site-specific
Who created ‘Wheatfield - A Confrontation’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Agnes Denes (b. 1931)
Tradition: Within European
Period: Contemporary (1980s)
Style: Environmental Art, Conceptual Art
Themes: Nature vs industry, sustainability, urban critique
Context:
Political: Reagan-era capitalism
Social: Rising ecological activism
Technological: Use of traditional farming in urban land
- alludes to soviet realism, propganda, activism and agriculture (cold-war) she would have seen as child
Visual Summary: Golden wheat field grown on landfill in NYC; juxtaposition of nature vs skyscrapers
Who created the Angkor Watt Cambodian Temples
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Khmer architects under King Suryavarman II
Tradition: Beyond European (Southeast Asian)
Period: 12th century
Style: Khmer temple architecture
Themes: Hindu cosmology, divine kingship, celestial order
Context:
Political: Imperial expression of power
Social: Syncretic Hindu-Buddhist culture
Technological: Advanced stone construction, corbelled vaulting
Visual Summary: Moat, concentric galleries, lotus towers; intricate bas-reliefs
Who created ‘World Trade Centre Transportation Hub’
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Architect: Santiago Calatrava
Tradition: Within European
Period: Contemporary (opened 2016)
Style: Neo-Futurism, Expressionist architecture
Themes: Renewal, resilience, motion
Context:
Political: Post-9/11 redevelopment
Social: Public space, commuter hub
Technological: Steel and glass engineering feats
Visual Summary: White rib-like structure, evokes wings or skeleton; open, light-filled interior
Who painted ‘Rain, Steam & Speed’?
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What are the key contextual factors behind the work?
Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)
Tradition: Within European
Period: Romanticism
Style: Romantic, early Impressionistic tendencies
Themes: Industrial progress (steam train is advanced for the time), nature vs technology, speed, atmosphere, man is dark, nature is light, there is a Vs/juxtapositon, opposing forces, men emerges from the darkness
Context:
Political: Industrial Revolution, expansion of rail networks
Social: Changing landscapes, modernity anxiety
Technological: Steam engine; new mobility and modern power
Visual Summary: Blurred abstracted brushwork, train emerges through rain and mist; golden haze; indistinct forms evoke motion and energy, sublime/divinity associated with nature contrasts with the industrial progression of Britain at the time.- visibility is ambiguous so is our future
‘Waterlines’, Richard Long, 2003 all about…
Artist: Richard Long (b. 1945)
Tradition: Within European
Period: Contemporary
Style: Land Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art
Themes: Time, nature, movement, human trace, impermanence
Context:
Political: Subtle environmental consciousness
Social: Shift from studio to landscape; focus on experience
Technological: Made with natural materials—mud from River Avon
Visual Summary: Horizontal lines of river mud on gallery wall; dripping, rhythmic; evokes erosion, water flow, and passage of time
