Art History: Dada to Pop
1915-1956
(AHIS 216-Winter)
Thursdays, 2 pm to 5 pm
Instructor, Danielle Hogan
Email: hogan_danielle @shaw.ca
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) emerged as a style
in Germany in the 1920s as a challenge to Expressionism. As
its name suggests, it offered a return to unsentimental reality
and a focus on the objective world, as opposed to the more
abstract, romantic, or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism.
The style is most often associated with portraiture, and its
leading practitioners included Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and
George Grosz. Their mercilessly naturalistic depictions,
sometimes reminiscent of the meticulous processes of the Old
Masters, frequently portrayed Weimar society in a caustically
satirical manner.
Max Beckmann
Self Portrait with ta Cigarette, 1923
Max Beckmann
Self Portrait
1916-17
Otto Dix
The Mediterranean Sailor, 1923
Otto Dix
Portrait of Mrs. Dix
1924
Otto Dix
Dr. Mayer-Hermann
Berlin 1926
George Grosz
The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse
1927
Bauhaus
The Bauhaus, Dessau
The Bauhaus
looked to unify art, craft and
technology
Key Ideas
~The motivations behind the creation of the Bauhaus lay in the 19th century, in
anxieties about the soullessness of manufacturing and its products, and in fears
about art's loss of purpose in society. Creativity and manufacturing were drifting
apart, and the Bauhaus aimed to unite them once again, rejuvenating design for
everyday life.
~Although the Bauhaus abandoned much of the ethos of the old academic tradition
of fine art education, it maintained a stress on intellectual and theoretical pursuits,
and linked these to an emphasis on practical skills, crafts and techniques that was
more reminiscent of the medieval guild system. Fine art and craft were brought
together with the goal of problem solving for a modern industrial society. In so
doing, the Bauhaus effectively leveled the old hierarchy of the arts, placing crafts on
par with fine arts such as sculpture and painting, and paving the way for many of
the ideas that have inspired artists in the late 20th century.
~The stress on experiment and problem solving at the Bauhaus has proved
enormously influential for the approaches to education in the arts. It has led to the
'fine arts' being rethought as the 'visual arts', and art considered less as an adjunct
of the humanities, like literature or history, and more as a kind of research science.
Joseph Albers teaching at the Bauhaus
Legacy of the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus influence travelled along with its faculty. Gropius went on to teach
at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Mies van der Rohe
became Director of the College of Architecture, Planning and Design, at the
Illinois Institute of Technology, Josef Albers began to teach at Black Mountain
College in North Carolina, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy formed what became the
Institute of Design in Chicago, and Max Bill, a former Bauhaus student, opened
the Institute of Design in Ulm, Germany. The latter three were all important in
spreading the Bauhaus philosophy: Moholy-Nagy and Albers were particularly
important in refashioning that philosophy into one suited to the climate of a
modern research university in a market-oriented culture; Bill, meanwhile, played
a significant role in spreading geometric abstraction throughout the world.
Adolf Hitler and Adolf Ziegler visit the Degenerate Art
exhibition, 1937.
…and they didn’t only go after visual art.
Jazz too!
De Stijl or Neo Plasticism
Theo van Doesburg
Arithmetic Composition
1929-30
Theo van Doesburg
Key Ideas
Like other avant-garde movements of the time, De Stijl, which means simply "the
style" in Dutch, emerged largely in response to the horrors of World War I and
the wish to remake society in its aftermath. Viewing art as a means of social and
spiritual redemption, the members of De Stijl embraced a utopian vision of art
and its transformative potential.
Among the pioneering exponents of abstract art, De Stijl artists espoused a
visual language consisting of precisely rendered geometric forms - usually
straight lines, squares, and rectangles--and primary colors. Expressing the
artists' search "for the universal, as the individual was losing its significance,"
this austere language was meant to reveal the laws governing the harmony of
the world.
Even though De Stijl artists created work embodying the movement's utopian
vision, their realization that this vision was unattainable in the real world
essentially brought about the group's demise. Ultimately, De Stijl's continuing
fame is largely the result of the enduring achievement of its best-known member
and true modern master, Piet Mondrian.
1899
Piet Mondrian
Alberi, 1908
Piet Mondrian
Evening: The Red Tree, 1908-1910
Piet Mondrian
The Grey Tree, 1911
Piet Mondrian
Neo Plasticism
Still Life with Ginger Pot 1, 1911
Piet Mondrian
Still Life with Ginger Pot 2, 1912
Piet Mondrian
Composition with Oval in Colour Planes II, 1914
Piet Mondrian
Composition in Colour A, 1917
Piet Mondrian
Composition with Grid IX, 1919
Piet Mondrian
Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue, 1921
Piet Mondrian
Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black, 1924
Piet Mondrian
Composition with Blue, 1937
Piet Mondrian
New York City I, 1942
Piet Mondrian
Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43
Piet Mondrian
Victoriy Boogie Woogie, 1944
Piet Mondrian