Art history and theory

Art Qs

The United States became the focal point of the artistic and painting world following World War II, with the advent of the abstract expressionism school of painting. European paintings remained more tied to traditional roots and still typically depicted scenes, if even abstractly, but American painting moved more towards complete abstraction such as the action paintings of Jackson Pollack and others. The cultural and economic center of the world moved from Europe to the United States during the same period, and this perhaps led to a more intrepid sense of adventure in exploration in American painting, looking towards the new future, while Europeans still tried to make sense of the past that had been lost.

2)

Censorship has long been a major issue in the art world, from at least the time of the Catholic Church's dominance of world affairs if not earlier. In modern times, censorship still exists in regards to limiting the amount of sexuality that can be displayed in certain galleries and other public places, and also in terms of political statements and alternative points-of-view. Art has long been used as a tool for future change, and the expression of unpopular and/or controversial ideas through art has long been one of the checks on society and the measures of its freedom. Censorship in art limits this freedom and so the progress available to a given society.

3)

The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic movement beginning in the 1920s in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Harlem in New York City. Jazz music, new styles of painting, and evolving types of dance and other performance art all began fomenting in the culture of newfound semi-liberation among the African-American community, which was becoming increasingly urbanized after several generations of agricultural life following the end of enslavement in the South. Palmer C. Hayden and Laura Wheeler Waring were two of the painters of the Harlem Renaissance, and they focused on painting stylized portraits of prominent African-Americans and scenes of black life from a variety of perspectives.

4)

The dynamism of the machine age is exhibited not only in the engineered workings of inventions like automobiles and early airplanes, but also in the Futuristic paintings of the period. There is a blend of very strong geometry and straight lines that combine to create larger images of fluidity and movement that almost seems impossible when the smaller constituent elements of the painting are focused on. It is as though magic and passion are meeting science and cool logic, which is a way of describing things like the combustion engine as well. This period was a time when the world seemed to be moving in two directions, at once looking forward to the amazing progress that could be achieved with machines and yet being tied down and entrapped in new ways by the industrialization of the workforce.