Final Flashcards Preview

• Stylistic diversity and range of subjects
  • emphasis on imagination and emotion (reaction to the Enlightenment)
• interest in nature
  • awesome, uncontrollable and unpredictable power of nature
  • man’s struggle against these powers/smallness in the face of nature
• interest in the individual and the subjective
• exploration of psychological and emotional states
• fascination with animals as forces of nature & metaphors for human behavior
• interest in exotic subjects
  • orientalism (imitation or depiction of aspects of Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures by writers, designers, and artists in the West)

• Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon at the Plague House at Jaffa, Romanticism. Oil on canvas
• Middle eastern setting - horseshoe arch, stripes Muslim/Islamic architecture
  • clothing - eastern “costume”
• architecture as structuralizing element - organize and separate different segments
• Napoleon - contrapposto pose - drawn from sculpture of Apollo
  • quasi-divine; healing like Christ

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, Romanticism. Oil on canvas

• elongated spine → pretty, sensual
• narrowness of upper body → delicate
• face, hair, etc drawn from Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Woman
• mood of luxury, sensuality of eastern unknown
  • ​orientalism
• use of primary colors - blue, yellow, red
• sharp, crisp outlines

imitation or depiction of aspects of Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures (Romanticism)

• c. 1840 to late 19th century
  • aftermath of 1848 revolution (February Revolution)
• Democracy in art
  • direct observation of modern world
  • rejected Neoclassical idealism, Romantic exoticism
  • subjects drawn from everyday life, common people
  • truthful; objective
• increasing emphasis on science, closely connected to direct observation and experience
  • only what could be seen was “real”
• emphasis on painting as pictorial construction

Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, Realism. Oil on canvas

• Ornans = rural community in France
• represents the clergy, family and friends (have a reaction to the funeral - weeping)
• village funeral - small community - range of attention and investment
• empty hole - no view of the deceased
• skull next to the grave
• plainness, matter-of-factness to people - rugged and unrefined features
  • ​criticized for portraying funeral as "ordinary"

Edouard Manet, Olympia, Realism. Oil on canvas

• rough and unfinished depiction of reclining female nude
• non-sensual
• straight eye contact - angle of view - blunt, blatant, aggressive
• harsh outline around the figure → calls attention to construction of the body, of the painting
• references to Titian’s Venus of Urbino - red couch, white cloth, green drapery, presence of small animal
• truthful, rather than romanticized view of female

Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos (The Caprices), Romanticism. Etching and aquatint

• title references Enlightenment ideals
• dream-like subject
• depiction of animals as representative of human emotions/behavior
• emphasis on psychology, emotion

• influenced by realism, photography, Japanese prints, scientific/industrial developments
• color
  • ​pure color; not blended on the palette - pigments placed in small dabs, eye does work of blending
• light and atmosphere
  • ​capture specific and momentary atmospheric conditions
• unfinished appearance
  • ​sketch-like
• modern subjects
  • ​landscape, still-life, genre scenes

• analytic interests
  • ​structural aspects of form, space, color, optics
  • pointillism - Seurat; separate color into component parts applied in tiny dots - optically blend pigment dots
• expressive interests
  • ​Van gogh
  • examination of emotive and expressive possibilities of form, color and composition

Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Countryside, Impressionism. Oil on canvas

• smooth, hazy color in sky - lines
• visible brushstrokes
• modern subject/scene - doesn’t depict nobility
• unbalanced composition inspired by Japanese prints
• cropping of horses and carriage = influence of photography

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, Facade, Impressionism. Oil on canvas

• foggy, hazy effect
• absence of black as shading pigment - uses optical ability to blend colors instead
• thick paint → texture
• en plein air - painting outdoors

Vincent van Gogh, Ravine, Post-Impressionism. Oil on canvas

• harsh visible lines
• little depth
• unnatural color scheme
• post-impressionism: line, form, shape → structure
• en plein air - painting outdoors

Paul Cézanne, Fruit and Jug on a Table, Post-Impressionism. Oil on canvas

• skewed perspective
• visible lines
• breaking down structure of forms
• accumulate pigments according to what he sees at a given moment
• experience of observing the objects/scenes - beginnings of cubism

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Cubism. Oil on canvas

• pre-Cubist work
• traditional subject matter - the female nude
  • Avignon - refers to a street in Spain - brothel
• influence from outside Western world - African art/masks
  • simplification of forms, angular features, geometric
• cubism - “dismissal of a system of perspective”
• combination of different angles of viewing
• limited color variation → unify composition

Georges Braque, The Portuguese, Cubism. Oil on canvas

• analytic cubism
• Portuguese musician playing in a café
• combine one spanse of time into a single moment
• painting rendered obsolete by technology? → new modes of representation
• creating a “truthful image” - do not concede to “the lies of optics and perspective”

Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Chair-Caning, Cubism. Oil, oilcloth, and rope on canvas

• synthetic cubism
• incorporates elements of analytic cubism
• illusion of glass café table
• experimenting with ideas of collage - mixed media

first phase developed by Picasso and Braque in which artists analyzed forms from every possible vantage point to combine the various views into one pictorial whole

later phase in which paintings and drawings were constructed from objects and shapes cut from paper or other materials to represent parts of a subject

• founded by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
• Manifesto issued in 1909
  • published in Paris
  • copies sent to leading figures in Italy
  • followed by manifestos on futurist, painting, sculpture, music, etc.
• precedent of extremism
• dynamism

Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, Futurism. Oil on canvas

• represent motion across time (multiple points in time at once)
• multiple legs, tails, etc
• view of motion, vibration, etc.

Otto Dix, Der Krieg (The War), Die Neue Sachlichkeit. Oil and tempera on wood

• arranged as a triptych with predella - mimic religious altarpiece
• physical, emotional, psychological damage of war

• The New Objectivity
• alternate translations: new resignation, new sobriety, new dispassion
• recurrent themes of horrors of war, social hypocrisy and moral decadence, plight of the poor, rise of Nazism

• formed in Holland in 1917
• main figures = Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg
• Utopian ambitions
  • unification of visual arts
  • expressions of perfect harmony
• total design (painting, architecture, furniture) → total integration of art and life

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, De Stijl. Oil on canvas

• complete abstraction - eliminate form → pure shape and color
• escapism