What is Art?
a new way of looking
Art comes in many forms:
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Painting
Drawing
Sculpture
Performance
Dance
Cartooning
Junk
Mixed Media
Etc…
Most of you recognize art as this:
• A Painting
• Something that looks real
– Realism
• Has great Perspective
– Three Dimensional
• Leonardo Da Vinci’s, Mona
Lisa
– Considered the world’s greatest
piece of artwork
– The most recognizable artwork in
the world
Art before the 1830s
• Art work are commissioned
by the wealthy
• Realism
• Artists told what to be
painted
• Art work is not free from
choice
Jan Van Eyck “The betrothal of the Arnolfini”
Modern Art
Art can be anything
– Oil painting
– Snowball melting
– Light turning on and off
Damien Hirst – The Physical Impossibility of
Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)
Marcel Duchamp – Bicycle Wheel
Do you consider these images to be Art?
Looking at Modern Art
Louis Bourgeois – Mamam (Spider) (1999)
Henri Matisse – the Snail (1953)
Breaking Away
Renoir – the Swing (1876)
Pissarro – Boulevard Montmartre at Night (1897)
Monet – Impression: Sunrise (1872)
Degas – Women on the Terrace of a Café (1877)
Colorful Views
Georges Seurat – A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884-86); oil on canvas, 81 x 120in
Grande Jatte (detail)
You can see the individual dots more clearly in this enlarged detail.
Sunshine and Flowers
Sunflowers detail
Vincent Van Gogh – Sunflowers (1888)
The Starry Night
Vincent Van Gogh, the Starry Night (1889); oil on canvas; 29x36in
Star-gazing
In this close-up of the
picture surface, you can
clearly see the lines in the
paint left by van Gogh’s
brush. A thick layer of
paint like this is known as
impasto, from the Italian
work for “paste”
Self-Portrait (1889); oil on canvas, 26x21in.
Running wild, Express Yourself
Serusier – the Talisman (1888)
Munch – the Scream (1895)
Derain – Henri Matisse (1905)
Franz Marc – Stables (1913)
Seeing things differently
Which image do you find
more attractive the one by
Cezanne or Peale?
Paul Cezanne – Still Life with Apples (1890)
Peale – Still Life with Fruit and Table top (1825)
Les Demoiselles
Picasso was inspired by
African carvings like these
ceremonial masks. He
admired their expressive,
simplified forms.
Pablo Picasso – Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon. Oil on canvas; 96 x 92in.
Bright lights, big city, into the
future, and shapes and colors
Delaunay – Red Tower (1911-12)
Brancusi - Bird in
Space (1923)
Malevich – Suprematism (1917)
Dreams
and
Conflicts
Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station at Smol, Macedonia 1916 (1919) – Stanley Spencer
Going to war
Otto Dix – The War: Assault under Gas (1924)
Eugene Delacroix – Liberty Leading the People (1830)
Mark Gertler – Merry-Go-Round (1916)
A World Gone Crazy
Giacometti – Man Pointing (1947)
Marcel Duchamp – Fountain (1964)
Salvador Dali – the Persistence of Memory (1931)
New Directions
Henry Moore – Reclining Figure
New York, New York
Jackson Pollack – Lavendar Mist
Mark Rothko – No. 14 (1960)
Being Popular
Andy Warhol - Marilyn
Roy Lichtenstein – Whaam! (1963)
Blake – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band (1967)
Anything Goes
Detail of Departing Angel from Five Angels for the Millennium (2001) – Bill Viola
Beyond the frame
INSTALLATION ART
PERFORMANCE ART
Robert Rauschenberg – Installation View
Sam Taylor-Wood - Pieta (2001); 35mm film/DVD
Performance Art
Installation Art
The Great Outdoors
Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (1971-95) by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Spiral Jetty, by Robert Smithson
Fame and Fortune
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What’s it worth?
Art and money
Award winners
Collector’s item
Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe
References
The Usborne Introduction to Modern Art by
Rosie Dickins.
Mark Harden’s Artchive http://artchive.com/ftp_site.htm