Cubism Essays (Examples)

In essence the Cubists were not only concerned with the development of new artistic techniques, but their experimentation was also concerned with the search for a new and more dynamic perception of reality. As one commentator notes; "The Cubists sought to create spatial abstractions" (the AESTHETIC).

As has been stated, Cubism depicts a new reality which was also in essence a form of protest against conventional ideas of both art and reality. In this sense Cubism was also extremely important for the development of art in that sense it started a process in art that led to other forms of experimentation. For example, the Dada and Surrealist movement were largely a result of the Cubist experimentation in painting and sculpture. (Art Periods: CUBISM). Cubist art was to develop from its early stages of experimentation in the first decade of the 1900s to "...the more complex and systematic style of 1910-12,…

" (Cottington, p. 4) Braque was to follow with an equally disjointed yet less controversial -- in subject -- breaking down of the elements of a "Violin and Candlestick" in 1910, and Picasso was subject to the same breaking-down as a subject of another Cubist's painting, Gris, in "Portrait of Picasso." 1912.

Douglas Cooper notes in his book, The Cubist Epoch, that the one common aspect of the many different artists whose work came to characterize the movement as that almost all of these artists were controversial in their day, given the harsh quality of Cubist art, particularly when rendering the human form. Yet these artists were not above reproach, even by other, liberal artists. David Cottington has noted that many criticized the 'Cubist salons' for shutting women out of the movement, except as pictorial subjects. (Cottington, p.17) Yet many have stressed the value to women and outsiders of the…

One of the most fascinating and well-known paintings that represents cubism is Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." Standing at more than eight feet tall, this painting represents five prostitutes waiting at the doors of a brothel (as evidenced by drawn curtains on either side). One of the prostitutes wears an African mask which some believe represents the scourge of venereal disease -- the masks would protect against them. Avignon is a street in Barcelona, Spain, that is noted for its brothels. What distinguishes this painting (painted by Picasso in Paris, France) as cubism is that in the painting the women's bodies are flat and two dimensional. While the nudity is evident, the curves of the hips and breasts have been flattened and appear jagged. In creating this masterpiece, Picasso was inspired by Iberian sculptures (the central two ladies), paintings by Paul Cezanne and El Greco, in addition to African culture. This…

Cubism emerged in the early twentieth century, and generally represented a deconstruction of visual forms. Other defining elements of cubism include the abandonment of perspective and the simultaneous denial of the importance of realistic depictions of the subject ("Cubism"). One of the hallmarks of Cubism was the artists' interest in rendering "the changing experience of space, movement, and time," ("Cubism"). Although much Cubist art is representational, many pieces veered toward abstraction and the movement may be credited with initiating an era of increased abstractionism and non-representational art. One of the most significant examples of Cubism is Picasso's 1907 painting Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon.

Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon

Pablo Picasso

1907

Cubism

Oil on Canvas

This is a seminal piece because it was one of the first examples of Cubism. Picasso depicts women in an unconventional manner by removing their stereotypical curvaceousness and instead using sharp lines and intense angularity. The women appear…

Cubist Ideas and the Modernist Arts

The cubist art work has certain attributes which define its construction and conception. These ideas, clustering around these works of art, were applied to other art forms with varying results. This examination will explore how these new and original ideas about cubism manifested themselves in the productions of art in other genres.

The Cubist style must be viewed as an extension of the anti-Romanic, anti-Impressionistic mood expressed by progressive artists in many creative genres in the fin de siecle period and later. As Cocteau wrote in his "Le Coq et l'Arlequin," the artists were sickened "by the vague, the melting, the superfluous"(82). It had its most intensely creative period between roughly 1908 and beginning of the First orld ar. The most important center for this "reaction" in all of the arts was Paris. Picasso and Braque are generally seen as the seminal artists in…

Cubism and Sculpture

Cubism as an artistic style and movement began as a revolt against the traditions and the artistic norms of previous centuries. Cubist painters and sculptors like Picasso rejected many of the formally accepted elements of art. These elements included texture, color, subject matter, light as a means of determining form as well as movement and atmosphere. The rejection of representation was also a major aspect of the reason for the development of Cubism as a style and theory in painting and sculpture.

Cubism is characterized by the fragmentation of the image plane and form. In place of conventional perspective and depth, Cubism tends towards depictions of shallow planes that overlap and which are even transparent. One of the essential characteristics of Cubism was its attempt to interpret visual reality form multiple points-of-view. This predilection for multiple and non-consecutive points-of-view was not only a rebellion against formal artistic…

His "rose period,' 1905-1906, is characterized by the use of a lighter palette and "greater lyricism, with the subject matter often drawn from circus life" (Picasso pp). Moreover, his studio in Paris drew the major figures of this avant-garde era, such as Matisse, Braque, Apollinaire, and Gertrude Stein (Picasso pp).

Picasso's 1907 "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," was a radical departure from traditional art and is now considered the "most significant work in the development toward cubism and modern abstraction" (Picasso pp). It is obvious that Picasso was greatly influence by Cezanne and by African sculpture as noted in "its fragmented forms and unprecedented distortions" (Picasso pp). This painting is considered to be the first phase of cubism, analytic cubism, 1909-1912, which is a "severe, intellectual style was conceived and developed by Picasso, Braque, and Gris" (Picasso pp). His "Female Nude," 1910-1911, is a representative painting of this style, and his "oman's…

The author sees these unseen texts as significant and a possible indication of the artist's private views and influences.

What is clear is that this book differs in approach to cubism from the work by Karmel. Staller has amassed a wide range of information and contextual data, which includes many aspects of culture that could be seen as an inspiration and an impetus towards cubism. Karmel on the other hand has a very different perspective on the origins of cubism. In this work we encounter the artist not as impulsive and absorbed in social and cultural influences but rather as someone who is separate and objective and who searches consciously for balance and integration in the formation and creation of his work. Essentially, what Staller suggests is the Picasso was more immersed in his social and cultural context and that cubism emerges as a result of subconscious and innate motivations…

Art Movements

Cubism vs. Futurism

Futurism

Futurism was an Italian movement originated in early 20th century. It was artistic and social movement targeted to mass urban population. Futuristic was focused on transforming the mindset of society from political thinking to more rational, conscious and close to humanity mental perspective. Futurism movement has traces of modern life and comprehensive renewal of human sensibility brought by modern science. Futurist's art work is presented in every medium including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and gastronomy. The eminent figures of this movement were Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlocarra, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant' Elia, Tullio Crali and Luigi ussolo. Important work of this movement include Marinetti's Manifesto of Futurism, Boccioni's Sculpture, Unique form of continuity in space and Balla's painting. Futurism has also influenced other art movements like Art Deco, Constructivism,…

His clearest example of cubist-focused style is the Sea (1912), still in a Dutch style but increasing with the use of geometric shapes and interlocking planes.

When Mondrian looked at other cubist works, for instance, Picasso's famous Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, he would note that while it works as an abstraction, it is a bit "busy" and jumbled, something he would try to correct in the art world through his strict use of lines, spaces, and above all, austerity. He appreciated Picasso's use of coloration and timbre, and of his ability to juxtapose a number of scenes, emotions, and angled points-of-view within this work, but also found it to be a tad jumbled. Joking, he said, "I'm not sure how it makes me feel; there are numerous emotions rolling around in my head then I view this work, but I wonder if Pablo knew what he wanted to communicate, or…

Figures are created mostly by the contrast of colors. The use of drawing line is almost nonexistent, however the contours being very clearly defined. The colors contradict each other alternating bright cold shades of blue with warm ochre and pink. The vibration created by blue and white together brings cold atmosphere to the entire palette.

The structure breaks the laws of perspective. On the left side the composition brings a succession of straight figures, with tense rhythm. On the right the arrangement spreads, with characters in open position that draw attention to their caricature masks.

The figures are set in the world of unrealistic: there are no lights or shadows to display their volume. The bodies and background are flat and seem to melt with each other. There is no diversity of levels or third dimension suggested. The blue tones, contoured by white, accentuate the flatness of the piece.

The…

Tarsila Do Amaral

One of the most important razilian artists of the 20th century, Tarsila do Amaral, was born in Sao Paulo in 1886. She had a privileged childhood as the grandchild of a rich farmer. This brought with it various advantages, including an education that taught her to read, write, embroider and speak French (Damian, 1999). Finishing her studies in France and returning to razil, this artist left an impression on the Modernist movement in the country that remains to this day. With her husband Oswald de Andrade, Tarsila worked towards creating a unique artistic perspective for the razilian people. This perspective would not reject the European forms and images that had ruled the country's art world until the 1920s. Instead, these would be used and incorporated into traditional forms to create an entirely new and more inclusive perspective.

The Modernist movement came in the midst of a razil…

c. If we look at modern culture and modern technology, the first connection that can be made with Cubist culture characteristics is its populist nature. We are free to state that the modern culture has gained a populist reverberation and that it is created for the masses. It has lost its elitism and its way of addressing a specific, well-determined and well-defined segment of consumers.

If we look at art history from arzun's perspective, after the Renaissance, art and culture has gradually lost its elitism, its normality and sensibility. In the Renaissance, portraits were usually painted only on request from important persons who could afford one. Plays and performances had a limited auditorium. It was Shakespeare who started to produce the first mass shows and the process has gradually assimilated all other forms of manifestation.

As such, in the beginning of the 21st century, art and culture in general are…

Art

Asia and Africa in estern European Art

Globalization is generally associated as a modern phenomenon, however, it is a global movement that began with the Greeks and did not accelerate until the renaissance era. The est, going back to Alexander the Great, has a long history of interactions with Asia and Africa. Ideas and goods were consistently traded. This trend of globalization accelerated with the age of exploration in the 16th century when Europeans came into further contact with Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Driven by the quest for gold and natural resources estern European traders navigated the world. This had a profound effect back home, as Europeans developed an interest in the exotic. The interest blossomed during the 18th and 19th century, during the height of estern power and colonialism. Curiosity into the foreign permeated all levels of society. Artists incorporated Asian and African artistic styles into their…

In the tracks, one sees the plants and rocks that help make the tracks part of the environment, rather than having it stand out from the environment. Miro even makes the blades of grass stand out in the painting, helping demonstrate that they are equally important with the other features. One of the elements of the painting that is most interesting is that it displays the sun without depicting the sun. The entire painting is highly illuminated, which clearly references the sun, but there is no image of the sun in the painting. This detail highlights how detailism is romantic realism; in the mid-day, no sun is actually visible, so that artist depictions of the sun at that point during the day are necessarily a departure from reality.

Miro, the aggon Tracks. 1918.

The next painting examined is Mont-roig, Village and Church, which was painted in 1919. One of the…

Modernism in art triumphed from the 19th century onward and in the early 20th century virtually changed the way art came to be perceived. From the Abstractionists to the Cubists to the Surrealists to the followers of Dada, the modernists continually reinvented themselves with newer and wilder movements, firmly rejecting tradition and all its preoccupations. It was only fitting, however, that modern artists should break so completely with the past: modern society had split from the old world with the Protestant Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Romantic Era, all of which followed one on the heels of the other. This paper will trace the history of the final era -- the modernist -- by examining five works of five different painters of the modernist era: Franz Marc's "Fate of the Animals," Pablo Picasso's "Guitar and Violin," Marcel Duchamp's "found" artwork "Fountain," Salvador Dali's Surrealist masterpiece…

History Of Dada Art Movement

There is a long list of movements that were begun for the sake of art, for instance cubism and surrealism. These two movements experienced grave criticism as they touched nihillism. On the other hand, movements like Dada have been admired and honored by the majorities (Mobileeference).

If truth be told, the early 20th century brought a turbulent and disorderly change in the world. The First World War and the ussian evolution tainted people's understanding of their worlds in an overwhelming manner. This new mind set of people was strongly reflected in the early twentieth century art movements as well. They were all, if seen in technical terms, were boldly modern and groundbreaking. In order to look into and explore the structure of realization, these movements moved further than the unruffled surface of traditional painting. However, perhaps Dada must be looked for its most compelling explorations…

The objectification of the female form in The
Studio illustrates how as a mode of this period his increasing openness to
more traditional curvature and anatomy would merge with cubism to produce
an utterly unique but decipherable perspective on human sexuality.
Accordingly, "these appearances in works such as oman in an Armchair
and its related studies are mere snippets of anatomy within a Cubist
framework, yet they signal Picasso's uneasiness with Cubism." (Fitzgerald,
49) The uneasiness would not eliminate its presence but show cubism in the
light of surrealist themes. Its garish and unsettling proportions become
ultimately more organic and shocking in this way. To Picasso, this was not
a goal, but an acceptable end to art conducted appropriately. So he would
indicate "when, one day, someone said apropos of nothing in particular that
there can be no sense of shame in art, he answered that painting could
paint anything,…

Art

Along with Georges Braque, Fernand Leger and Pablo Picasso were firmly at the forefront of the cubist movement in modern art. Cubism sprouted from Picasso's experimentations with collage, along with Braque, but later morphed into an interpretive and expressive style of painting that heralded many related movements in abstract modern art including futurism. As Fitz puts it, Picasso used the cubist style to express the things he could not see, but which he knew were there; the things that everybody is "certain of seeing," but which are not depicted on a traditional canvas (228). As a result, Picasso reinvented painting, and reinterpreted what the function of painting was. Leger deserves credit also, for he too pursued the " quest for a means by which to accurately describe three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional canvas," (Spector). Leger and Picasso developed totally unique and distinct brands of cubism, even if their formative…

Music, Art, Literature Trends

From impressionism to pop art, jazz to hip hop, science fiction to beat poetry, artistic, musical, and literary expressions have varied considerably between 1870 and 2005. The period between the end of the nineteenth century to the current day can be generally described as the modern and postmodern eras. The beginning of the modern era, during the final decades of the nineteenth century, coincided with the Industrial evolution. Along with fascination with modern technology and optimism for the future came simultaneous disillusionment. However, modern technological advancements have made such widespread creativity possible. Social and political trends have also influenced creative endeavors, and vice-versa. Art, music, and literature are more accessible and more possible to create than they ever were in the past. The modern era has been characterized by an overall flourishing of the expressive arts, but some trends have a more lasting significance than others.…

Picasso's Las Meninas (After Velazquez)

Baudelaire, in The Painter of Modern Life, approached the modern element in modern painting by reminding us that everything old-fashioned was necessarily once in fashion: "every old master has had his own modernity; the great majority of fine portraits that have come down to use from former generations are clothed in the costume of their own period…If for the necessary and inevitable costume of the age you substitute another, you will be guilty of a mistranslation…" (Baudelaire 497). Yet what if the artist is attempting such a deliberate mistranslation? A mistranslation, of course, changes the meaning of a statement by attempting to make it more comprehensible. To some degree, though, I think that Picasso attempts in his 1957 painting Las Meninas (After Velazquez) precisely this sort of "mistranslation" -- the canvas itself a work of revision, or re-vision. Picasso uses Velazquez' 1656 court painting --…

Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art currently presents three fascinating special exhibits including one on cubism, another on enaissance tapestry, and a third on ancient Assyrian art. Each of these three special exhibits is different, and exciting in its own way. The exhibit on enaissance tapestry is entitled "Grand Design" and focuses on the work of Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Some of the tapestries are lavish and intricate, such as the "Seven Deadly Sins." Having never before encountered tapestries from this era, I was stunned at the workmanship and marveled at the amount of time it must have taken to weave these incredible patterns. As if on cue, the museum's curator had prepared several information panels informing viewers about the process of tapestry making, its history, and its relevance during the enaissance. Van Aelst had produced tapestries for Europe's elite, including the Medici family. This made me ponder the nature…

Old Guitarist

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain. His father was an art teacher and a painter. Although Pablo Picasso was classically trained, he would come to "break painting out of its mold" throughout his prolific career (Aviram and Hartnett 207). Picasso first started painting in Spain, and his ideas and techniques evolved first in Barcelona. After that, Picasso spent a large amount of time in Paris pursuing a career in art. When Picasso was in Paris, he helped revolutionize art by developing cubism, a philosophy and style of painting. Cubism has been called a "towering intellectual and artistic achievement that irrevocably altered the course of European art by shattering the spatial field and reassembling its component parts from different angles," ("Picasso, Pablo" 1781). Before he developed cubism in Paris, though, Picasso developed his style in Barcelona during what is usually referred to as his…

Art One-Point Linear Perspective in the enaissance

One-Point Linear Perspective in the enaissance

In the context of art, perspective is generally defined as "… the technique an artist uses to create the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface" (Essak). Perspective is in essence an illusion of depth and realism in the work of art. It is also an intrinsic part of human evolutionary makeup. As Edgerton ( 2006) states, "

Every human being who has ever lived from Pleistocene times to the present, has experienced in vision the apparent convergence of parallel edges of objects as they extend away from our eyes and seem to come together in a single "vanishing point" on the distant horizon… (Edgerton, 2006)

However, from an art historical perspective it is also true that linear or single-point perspective has not always been an accepted part of painting and artistic creation. It is in…

Picasso: The Image of Modern Man

Picasso came to Paris from Malaga, Spain, a town known for its bull-fighters. Picasso in his less experimental days he depicted these bull fights in a number of pencil sketches that captured the flare, dynamism and thrill of the arena. However, he never content to simply reflect in a realistic way the world around him. Society was changing the very first years of the 20th century: the modern world had lived through the Reformation, the Revolution and Industrialization. Now it was becoming a world where new socialistic and atheistic ideologies were competing with old world beliefs still being clung to by certain leaders (like Franco in Spain, for instance). Picasso saw the importance of fashion and trends in this new age of modern art. In the first years of the 20th century, he painted in blues -- then in pinks (the Rose Period) --…

Gertrude Stein

Indeed. Gertrude Stein wrote for "herself" for many years prior to ever being noticed as the marvelously talented and versatile writer that she was. That fact was a reality simply because she did not have the opportunity for many years to publish the work she was so tirelessly putting out. Meanwhile, her legacy today is that of an extraordinarily insightful and respected woman of letters, an innovator, an elite member of the artistic avant garde in Europe, a prolific poet and writer, a visionary, something of a rebel, and more. Although she died in 1946 (of intestinal cancer), her work is discussed, debated, dissected and analyzed like the work of few other poets/writers. It's almost as if she were alive today.

Thesis

Certainly this paper focuses on a gifted thinker whose poetic form is sometimes misunderstood, but rarely ignored. And it also delves into the life of a…

Marsden Hartley epitomizes the transition in American art towards abstractionism. In fact, Hartley was integral to fomenting the shift in American art, which had until then tended to lag behind its European avant-garde counterparts. Hartley spent more than a quarter of a century in Europe before and during World War One, in both Paris and Berlin, where he learned emerging techniques from cubism and abstract expressionism to fauvism. When Hartley returned to the United States, he retreated from the avant-garde styles and became known more as the "rooted-in-Maine American artist," (Slenske, 2014). Hartley's achievements lie as much in his versatility as in his encouragement of abstraction and experimentalism in American art.

Hartley was born in Maine and exhibited a predilection for visual art at a young age. He was formally trained and got his start exhibiting in Alfred Stieglitz's Gallery 291 in New York. Stieglitz gave Hartley an exclusive exhibition,…

Pissarro took a special interest in his attempts at painting, emphasizing that he should 'look for the nature that suits your temperament', and in 1876 Gauguin had a landscape in the style of Pissarro accepted at the Salon. In the meantime Pissarro had introduced him to Cezanne, for whose works he conceived a great respect-so much so that the older man began to fear that he would steal his 'sensations'. All three worked together for some time at Pontoise, where Pissarro and Gauguin drew pencil sketches of each other (Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre).

Gauguin settled for a while in ouen, painting every day after the bank he worked at closed.

Ultimately, he returned to Paris, painting in Pont-Aven, a well-known resort for artists.

X...for pic

Le Christ Jaune (the Yellow Christ) (Pioch, 2002) Still Life with Three Puppies 1888 (Pioch, 2002)

In "Sunny side down; Van Gogh and Gauguin," Martin…

In essence, this painting "mixes a toothpaste smile with the grimace of a death's head" and symbolizes the true work of an American "action" painter (de la Croix & Tansey, 774).

Another great example of an American abstract expressionist master is Mark Rothko (1903 to 1973), who emigrated to the United States in 1914 from Latvia with his family to escape Czarist Russia and its strict policies towards Jews. Although Rothko was a friend and contemporary of Pollack, Kline and de Kooning, his paintings exhibit none of the aggressive attack or slashing brushwork one finds in the works of these artists. Rothko's Four Darks on Red does not exhibit the usual traits of "action" painting, for it shows a calm and contemplative mood with soft color variations, yet it also shows "a mysterious effect of forms and images occupying an ambiguously-defined space," much like Kline and Pollack (de la Croix…

" (Adams et al.)

hat the report went on to show was how a decades long deception was practiced on a race that was viewed primarily as a guinea pig for medical science.

The Tuskegee Institute had been established by Booker T. ashington. Claude McKay had passed through there in 1912 to study agriculture (under the patronage of alter Jekyll, a man who provided the basis for Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror tale character). Around the same time that Eleanor Dwight Jones was striving to preserve the white race, the United States Public Health Service began the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. hat took place was a forty year analysis of the life of syphilis. The two hundred black men who had syphilis were "deliberately denied treatment" (Adams et al.) in what was just one more step in oppression and callous social engineering.

And at the same time the Tuskegee experiment was…

Of course, he was not the only major Dutch artist involved it. In fact, Theo van Doesberg was the leading figure along with architect-designers Gefiit

Rietveld and J. .J. P- 0!d and Mondrian's fellow painter Georges Vantongerloo

The expressions of the art and architecture very much reflect Blavatsky's eastern influences. This is because of the expression of balance, just as the easterners would think of the Yin and Yang male and female aspects of humanity complementing each other and well as universal balance off against the individual. Old forms were obstacles to this new spiritual artistic realization and had to be eliminated. This school saw their work as unifying auguring against individual violence and irrationality in order to establish a universal order of peace and harmony, thereby appealing to the better angels of human nature behind the mindless primitive primate who we are, constantly at war with the world around…

" (Nora FitzGerald, 2002)

Bauhaus popularized functional design, a technique that focused specifically on the major functions of everything including buildings, textiles, tables, lamps etc. To make them more easily accessible and usable. Bauhaus artists were the first to understand the needs of the new urban breed of workers who were looking for cleaner and sleeker design in everything in order to make better use of space without feeling cramped. Gropius decided to combine Academy with the Weimar Arts and Crafts School to provide new and more comprehensive training in design. Two persons trained each student: an artist and an expert craftsman to develop "creative ambidexterity." (2)

While cubism, expressionism and Dadaism inspired early Bauhaus designs, the later designs rarely ever bore any resemblance to these art movements. The reason being that Bauhaus took birth in highly chaotic times and it took some time for the movement to gain momentum…

Like Picasso, Van Gogh (though with an old world soul) would find fullest expression once landing in Paris. After a year of being in the company of other Impressionists like Paul Signac -- and being in a city that itself so filled with history, Catholicity, and romance -- Van Gogh's soul brightened from its gloomier days in search of a Protestant mission: his 1886 painted bulbs are the reflection of a spirit that has found something fresh and intense. The orange-red bulbs are off-set by the pointillist backdrop of blue. The copper vase brilliantly brings the whole work to life, reflecting a seemingly new light in Van Gogh's life and style. Here in Paris he was at home. One need not wonder at the new light that is reflected here: according to "the painter Emile Bernard…Vincent was courting "La Segatori," the Italian owner of the Tambourin cafe on the boulevard…

1

THE ARTISTIC STYLES OF
PALO PICASSO AND SALVADOR DALI

The artistic styles of Pablo Picasso, best known for his high abstractions of the Cubist painting style, and Salvador Dali, one of the most important leaders of the Surrealist movement, have influenced a wide range of artists and are today considered as the quintessential examples of twentieth century art. Picasso as an artist was highly imaginative and original and borrowed heavily from many historical examples which aided him in developing new painting styles. Salvador Dali, like many of his Surrealist contemporaries, sought inspiration from a love for fantasy and studied the writings of Sigmund Freud regarding the human subconscious mind which inspired him to "systemize confusion" through his paintings.
The Cubism style of painting as practiced by Pablo Picasso is best represented by his Accordionist (1911, oil on canvas), a construction of large intersecting planes that suggest the forms of…

The term is said to have been coined by Marcel Duchamp in about 1914, and his ready-mades can be cited as early examples of the genre. Dada was the first anti-art movement, and subsequently the denunciation of art became commonplace -- almost de rigueur -- among the avant-garde

(Chilvers 22)

Duchamp also questions the boundaries of the visual arts. In fact, in The Green Box he poses the question whether the visual was not another limitation that art had to transcend. Furthermore, in 1916 he states that he was interested in "ideas" and not just in visual products. (Tomkins 9)

The Green Box, September 1934

The Green Box is basically a box containing collotype reproductions on various papers. It is more correctly known as The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box). The notes and papers in the box refer to a central work entitled The Bride…

" The image does not need to possess any deeper meaning, other than that which the viewer chooses to project onto it. O'Keefe's painting differs from cubism and other types of abstract art in its reliance on curvilinear shapes and forms. The sensuality of "Jack in the Pulpit" enables a wealth of interpretations, none of which will be correct. Unlike representational art, the subject matter does not matter.

bstract art also has the capacity to convey abstract thoughts, concepts, and ideas. In "Jack in the Pulpit," the motion of the swirls suggests an upward movement. The painting conveys spiritual or emotional upliftment. t the top of the canvas, a spash of white and gold suggests the sun, whereas the darker browns impart the soil. Its earthy tones and richly saturated hues are grounding, in contrast to the upward motion of the curves. The painting suggests balance between earth and sky,…

His use of expressionism is evident in the ways that he used his interior consciousness to realize his artistic objective. The Little Mountain Goats is a dizzying smear of motion and color. Its kinesthetic sensibility and paler color palate recalls Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase more than any of Gauguin's works, suggesting a new influence upon Marc's style. The triangular features of the goats, the geometric primary colors, particularly the unnatural yet earthy tones of the reds and pinks, along with the whites and greens clearly show an evolution in his philosophy, which must be also partially ascribed to the Fauves. Fauvist works used stirring and unusual colors and bold brushstrokes and lack the clearer and more defined lines of Gauguin. ather appropriately, given Marc's frequent subject matter, the word 'Fauve' in French means 'wild beast.'

Over the course of his career, Marc became personally acquainted with both Henri…

Thus, the invention of perspective by the artists of the Renaissance reflected the emergence of science and the mathematical ordering of man's observations of the physical world.

The manifestation of perspective can clearly be observed in the paintings of many Renaissance artists. For instance, da Vinci's masterpiece the Last Supper, rendered between 1495 and 1498 as a wall fresco, portrays the figure of Jesus Christ sitting in the center of the picture with his body framed by a central window in the background and a curved pediment, the only curve in the architectural framework serving as a halo, arching above his head which serves as the focal point for all the perspective lines/axis in the composition, a system not invented by da Vinci but one copied from earlier master painters.

Another earlier example is Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter by Perugino, rendered as a wall…

Laid on its side, auschenberg's "Bed" contains the same visual and tangible objects as a real bed. "Bed" seems like more than a representation of a bed; it could just as well be one especially given the use of actual bedding.

The expansion of the visual plane and the reworking of the canvas paralleled expansions of consciousness. Those transformations in consciousness and their impact on the art world were a result of historical and social change. During the 1950s when auschenberg worked, technology was growing in its relevance to the global economy. Advancements in science included quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. Medical marvels abounded. Culture was becoming less homogenous as the spread of ideas flowed across borders. Human sexuality and sexual freedom were also growing more liberated. Gender roles were changing and so were global political norms. Within the exciting environment of the 20th century arose conceptual transformations in the…

Saddling them with the idea that every work must have some kind of recognizable theory that speaks to the viewers may be too much for some artists to manage, and it could shut down their creative process. As another critic notes, "[I]n Western culture, after all, art is associated with the free expression of a unique vision or the pleasurable cultivation of individual tastes" (Williams 2004, p. 3). Thus, by branding a theory on a piece of art, the artist is pigeonholed into a certain genre, which reduces their "free expression," and the viewer is not as apt to enjoy the art according to their "individual tastes."

In conclusion, it is fine to have a theory when creating or admiring art, but that theory challenges creativity and the enjoyment of the piece. If a viewer or an artist is so busy attempting to figure out the theory of a piece…

All of these examples show that there is no linear narrative of art, rather the construction of even so-called periods between different nations and periods lies in the mind of the beholding academic, not in some universal truth of what is art's history. Critics also have their own abysses, and their own sands of what seems familiar and unfamiliar. Even art periodization is subjective as art, it is not a science, and thus periods should not be taught as absolute standards and markers of art history.

Furthermore, other nations such as China have had different histories and different conceptions of what constitutes making art altogether, as well as different forms of periodization as a result. Western art's periods have been much more dynamic, and more characterized by seismic revolutions in aesthetics, as opposed to other nations. There is more blurring between what art is, and what has a practical religious…

The New York skyline changed almost simultaneously with the opening of the show, and these two visual shifts coalesced into a change in the ways that Americans viewed art. Shortly after it opened, the oolworth's building opened for business and stood as a symbol of sleek, stylized American commerce. Until the construction of the Empire State Building it was the tallest building in New York City (Roeder 1987, p.61). Another criticism of the show is that it merely inspired reverence for Europe, and connoisseurship of European tastes, but the artists, such as Max eber, who were influenced by the show, fused a new sensibility with curiosity about the changing New York visual landscape. Although eber had studied European art and Picasso before the show, only after the Armory did eber fuse his style with his perceptions of the New York skyline.

This is evidenced in how Max eber did a…

(269)

It would seem that the artists and the press of the era both recognized a hot commodity when they saw one, and in this pre-Internet/Cable/Hustler era, beautiful women portrayed in a lascivious fashion would naturally appeal to the prurient interests of the men of the day who might well have been personally fed up with the Victorian morals that controlled and dominated their lives otherwise. In this regard, Pyne (2006) reports that, "hen scandalized critics attacked Rodin's nudes, Camera ork defended the drawings by a strategy of veiling the body with the soul, praising them as 'the perception of the mystery of surfaces.... The adventure of the mind in matter... The divinizing of the sensual and the materializing of the sensuous.' Stieglitz thus used a histlerian gloss of shadows and music to mystify the eroticism of Rodin's 'pagan' figures" (44).

The portrayal of women was even regarded as a…

This music certainly reflects current developments in politics (anti-Iraq war protests), socioeconomics (the poor in society), and technology (use of new instruments and recording techniques). The music affects our lives in so many ways, from enlightening us to social problems, to entertaining us, and even comforting us in times of stress, which makes it an important, even vital, element of the humanities.

Architecture - a relatively recent architectural work is the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. This magnificent building seems to be a series of shining free-form flowing sheets of molten metal and spheres, and yet, it is elegant and quite sophisticated. Architecture, like the other humanities, has changed and become much more bold and free flowing, as this building illustrates. Architecture is more than simply designing comfortable living and working spaces, architecture is pleasing to the eye and excites the senses, just as this building does. It…

"(Fitzgerald, 2) the image of personality, the "self as process" (Bloom, 189), parallels that of reality as process. Gatsby's own character is for its most part invented, dreamed up into reality, according to a plan he had made when he was nineteen. Fitzgerald's novel is thus an extremely subjective vision of the world, in which the author has a very important voice. As in all modernist novels, reality is obliterated by the artistic and scientific constructions. Fitzgerald tells the story of the American Dream, and the blind belief in idealism. As Breitwieser explains, Fitzgerald's intention is to define the modernist tendency of disconnecting from the real and dissolving into the artistic and the relativist view, just like in the jazz piece Nick listens to at Gatsby's party: "terminating expression, dissevering the conduit that makes things really real" (Breitwieser, 370)

orks Cited

Barrett, Laura. "Material without Being Real: Photography and the…

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

Let be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

The children gather around the curls of cream, to wonder at the miraculous substance and this ordinary, humble labor is made momentarily great by his trade, a European Emperor who can give and take at will, and thus also seems faintly sinister in his muscularity.

Stevens celebrated "the emergence from old ideologies in the form of what was rapidly becoming an aesthetic ideology," a form of "American home-grown" modernist abstraction that still had its roots in the concrete, the concrete nature of imagism, and also of plain, simple, profound American reality. Unlike other American modernists, like T.S. Eliot (who eventually became a British citizen and converted to Anglicanism) or Ezra Pound (a permanent expatriate)…

New York Art

New York's Post II Art Scene

After orld ar II, so many parts of Europe were in ruin. Economies were shattered, new governments worked to gain mandates for their authority and the people of Europe's countless and once rich cultural centers struggled to establish new identities. And following more than a decade of fascism, genocide and territorial war, many of the intellectually and culturally elite talents had departed the content for a context more hospitable to freedom and creativity. Relative to what they found in the spread of fascism, the United States would prove itself not just as the newly dominant military and commercial power in the world but also art center of the world. ith devastation persistent throughout the great cities of Europe, New York emerged as the capital of the modern art world and so many of the innovations that would extend there from in…

The painting begged me to ask of it why intermittent shadows struck its sides, why yellow-golden light graced its innards. I guessed that it must have been nighttime that Stella tried to capture, for at night the shining lights from the city would flicker against the bridge and bring out the character of the steel in ways sunlight could not. Sunlight was too harsh and strong; it would overpower the subtleties of steel. Steel appreciated the gentle caress of moonlight and streetlamp and the headlights of cars.

The more I questioned Stella's use of light in "Old Brooklyn Bridge," the greater the painting shone. I was starting to see colors where I had not previously seen. Rich and joyful blues complemented the blood red; yellows and greens accented the thick black background. Orbs of soft white light emanating from the underbelly of the bridge illuminated its sides proudly. Contrast between…

It wasn't until the 1920s and '30s that their blue-collar counterparts began to get paid vacations as well.

Americans in the late 20th century "worked more days per year than workers in other prosperous nations, such as those in Europe, yet on average, had less vacation time (Sabga, 2001)." Americans averaged two to three weeks off a year, in sharp contrast to many European nations which guaranteed up to six weeks a year. This is due to the fact "unlike in other countries, particularly Europe, vacations in the United States are not guaranteed by the government (Sabga, 2001)."

oles of Women

Women have played important roles in science and technology, however many times they have faced "social, economic, and intellectual obstacles (Kohlstedt, 2004)." In the early 20th century, the United States benefited from the efforts of "women of distinction like Anna

Botsford Comstock and Ellen Swallow ichards, while in Europe…

Modernism That Interests You

Gertrude Stein and Modernism

Gertrude Stein had been an American feminist, poet, playwright, writer, as well as, the means in the growth and expansion of modernism western art and prose. However, she had spent the majority of her life in France. If the term "modernism" stands for the need of an individual refusing earlier customs, as well as, by designing personal methods, creating compositions which have been unique and innovative to that particular artist, then, Gertrude Stein is clearly amongst the most creative writers of all times (ryce, 1995).

After being born in Pennsylvania, Gertrude Stein's family shifted to Vienna and subsequently to Paris whilst she had been only three years old. Coming back after approximately two years, she received her education in California and, in 1897, she graduated from Radcliffe College ensued by two years of studying medicine at Johns Hopkins School (ryce, 1995).

Subsequently,…

Symbolism first developed in poetry, where it spawned free verse. Forefathers included the poets Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud; practitioners included Laforgue, Moreas, and Regnier. The Swiss artist Arnold Becklin is perhaps the most well-known Symbolist painter; his pictures are like allegories without keys, drenched in melancholy and mystery. Other artists working in this vein include Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau. The Surrealists drew heavily on the Symbolists later on.

Catalan Artists

Catalan masters played a major role in the development of 20th Century modern art in many fields. For example, modernism expressed by Gaudi, Rusinol, Gimeno, Camarasa, Picasso, Nonell or Miro epitomized the efforts of the Catalan people. Still, most of them expressed their talents outside Spain in Paris where many of them lived and worked before going home to continue their expression. Like anyone honing a craft, they needed a foundation of knowledge for their art and Paris offered…

French omantic painter, Eugene Delacroix, is well-known from this period. Delacroix often took his subjects from literature but added much more by using color to create an effect of pure energy and emotion that he compared to music. He also showed that paintings can be done about present-day historical events, not just those in the past (Wood, 217). He was at home with styles such as pen, watercolor, pastel, and oil. He was also skillful in lithography, a new graphic process popular with the omantics. His illustrations of a French edition of Goethe's "Faust" and Shakespeare's "Hamlet" still stand as the finest examples in that medium.

Delacroix' painting "Massacre at Chios" is precisely detailed, but the action is so violent and the composition so dynamic that the effect is very disturbing (Janson, 678). With great vividness of color and strong emotion he pictured an incident in which 20,000 Greeks were…

Of course, the much shorter pleated skirt we now associate with modern Japanese school girls is also a chic look, and the carrying over of this simple design into a popular and often fetish-linked fashion for Western girls of modern times is an important note of timelessness.

Court" Fashion for Japanese Males, Asuka Period (593-710):

Eastern influence is not reserved for Westerners alone, as one can see in Asuka and Nara period clothing designs from Japan. Chinese influence was strong during this time period for clothing styles in Japan between 593 to 794 AD. uddhism and Chinese culture design was popularized by the imperial court members that wore clothing of this kind. The hakama trousers remained intact, but without the binding ties below the knee that earlier periods had emphasized. The upper garment of this period, the "ho" ("Japanese Dress in Former Times...") was less form fitting than previous designs,…

hey created art that was unusual and unique, but they also created art that made statements about who they were and what they believed. Again, this has continued throughout the 20th century. Many critics and experts feel that other more modern examples of avant-garde work include the music and art of John and Yoko Ono, and the arrival of digital media in the art world.

Each of the avant-garde artists wanted the art world to accept their work too, no matter how different or unorthodox it might be. Pissarro, Manet, and Cezanne all were Impressionists at a time when art was more natural and lifelike. heir art was not accepted for years, and they struggled with their style while others simply conformed to what was in style at the time. hat is another mark of the avant-garde in the art world. hey do not conform, rather, they dare to be…

evolutionary history of Mexico [...] interrelationships of art and events in Mexico for the revolutionary period. It seems that revolution in a country also breeds artistic development and reform. As freedom beckons, so does the creative process and the need to document the events of the revolution. This is certainly the case in the history of the Mexican evolution and the resulting onslaught of artwork and creativity that resulted. Some of Mexico's most famous artists, such as Diego ivera, came out of the revolutionary period, and their influence on world art cannot be denied.

In the case of the Mexican muralists, the art directly reflected the events of the period; in fact, many muralists like ivera used real revolutionary figures and events as part of their subject matter. ivera painted a modern, cubistic Zapatista Guerrilla in one of his most famous paintings, and he did several murals depicting the history…

jazz and the culture industry? Is Adorno simply an elitist or is there something useful you can appropriate from his argument? What connections can you draw from Benjamin and the "Andalusia Dog?"

Theodor Adorno was clearly inspired by Walter Benjamin, from whom he founded his philosophy of modern art, versus fine or popular art. Adorno constructed a theory of the modern art movement, as embodied in such early surrealist films as "The Andulasian Dog," that stressed that fine art was primarily characterized by a sense of formal autonomy within its structures. This is unlike modern art, which was the social antithesis of society. Jazz, for example, in its ideal form, is atonal and improvisational in its nature. It is of the moment, and of the individual artist's creation, rather than a creation of formal structures purely and calculatedly designed to please the larger populace. In its purest form, jazz is…

The men had returned from the war, Americans were buying homes and putting all their energies in to building a nest for the family filled with all sorts of creature comforts. The female form reflected these comforts: it was round and healthy. On the other hand, the 1960s and 1970s signaled the rampant winds of change; while some people attribute it primarily to the debut of Twiggy, the skinny supermodel of the era other reasons are relevant to examine as well: "popular during the 1960's because of the increasingly popularity of self-expression and women's rights movements during this time that allowed women to shed clothes and bare more body. Being thin allowed them to comfortably wear clothes like the mini-skirt, which maybe at that time stood for some sort of freedom and self-expression. Being thin and shedding weight may have given some women the ability to feel better about themselves.…

Looking at one of Kulkarni's pieces, a Peasant in the City, oil on canvas done sometime in the 1960s, we see a trend in modern Indian art in which the protagonist is featured as a part of an abstract background. Literally, the piece is a snapshot of a man and a beast, at night in a large urban area. The man is downcast, downtrodden, with no discernible ethnicity or age. He is a mixture of gray, and his elongated facial features suggest that he is, or has been, weeping. The single animal by his side could be a dog, a cow, or a representation of simply an "animal." The animal's front leg is extended, ostensibly onto the fence in which the man is leaning. The houses are abstract, made up of geometric lines and some color, designed it seems to indicate that they are lit. The moon is full, but…

DYNAMICS BETWEEN AT & TECHNOLOGY

Art & Technology

From the earliest moments of human history until the present and certainly into the future, the relationship between art and technology will be a dynamic one. Technology has directly impacted art forms such as architecture, photography, sculpture, and painting. Painting, sculpture, and architecture are much older art forms than photography, whose roots come from the latter portion of the 19th century. Nonetheless, each of these forms has changed technology and has been changed by technology. In numerous cases within each art form, technological developments in other industries, not related to art, influenced developments in each art respectively. The paper will discuss and consider connections between technology and art including culture and gender.

The great industrialization at the turn of the 20th century changed the world and every industry. The 20th century made possible the further development of existing industries and made possible…

Matisse and O'Keeffe: Modern Artists with Talent and Connections

hat Paul Johnson calls fashion art in the 20th century grew out of the experimental and impressionistic work of the late 19th century. It may be said to have originated with Picasso and Braque and Cubism, which helped launch a number of techniques and movements, such as Abstractionism and Surrealism. Like Picasso and Braque, Henri Matisse had connections with the rich American art patron in Paris, Gertrude Stein. (She purchased Matisse's La Femme au chapeau (oman with a Hat) and sat for Picasso) (Johnson 657). The American painter Georgia O'Keeffe was not connected to Stein, but she did study fashion art and transpose it (after a series of skyscraper works) onto the natural world. Matisse and O'Keeffe, though disconnected by the Atlantic, both found support from the art establishment (Matisse through Stein, O'Keeffe through her husband Alfred Stieglitz, "the owner of…