Gardner’s Art Through the Ages,
13e
Chapter 35
Europe and America,
1900 to 1945
1
APAH250 – CA4
MODERNISM 1900-1945
Modernism allowed artists to assert their freedom to create in a new style and
provide them with a mission to define the meaning of their times..
Early 20th Century Art was influenced by…
• the beginning of the atomic age
• existentialism (Nietzsche)- “God is Dead” – 1844-1900
• the invention of psychoanalysis
• Freud-inner drives control human behavior 1856-1939
• Jung-collective unconscious 1875-1961
• The Russian Revolution – 1905, 1917
• The Great War (humanity’s inhumanity) 1914-1918
• The Great Global Depression 1929-1939
• World War II 1939-1945
• the rise of the “Avant Garde”
4
1905
FAUVISM
Compare the role of color in these portraits
DaVinci 1506
Fauvism is the style
of les Fauves (French
for "the wild
beasts"), a loose
group of early
twentieth-century
Modern artists whose
works emphasized
painterly qualities
and strong color over
the representational
or realistic values
retained by
Impressionism.
Delacroix 1824
Figure 35-2
HENRI MATISSE,
Woman with the Hat,
1905. Oil on canvas,
2’ 7 ¾” X 1’ 11 ½”.
San Francisco
Museum of Modern
Art., San Francisco
(bequest of Elise S.
Haas).
5
1907
ANALYTIC CUBISM
analytical cubism.
noun, ( sometimes
initial capital letters)
Fine Arts. 1. the early
phase of cubism,
chiefly characterized
by a pronounced use of
geometric shapes and
by a tendency toward a
monochromatic use of
color.
Figure 35-12 PABLO
PICASSO, Les
Demoiselles d’Avignon,
1907. Oil on canvas, 8’
x 7’ 8”. Museum of
Modern Art, New York
(acquired through the
Lillie P. Bliss Bequest).
6
1907
PHOTOGRAPHY
the process or art of producing images of
objects on sensitized surfaces by the chemical
action of light or of other forms of radiant
energy, as x-rays, gamma rays, or cosmic rays.
Figure 35-39 ALFRED STIEGLITZ, The
Steerage, 1907 (print 1915). Photogravure (on
tissue), 1’ 3/8” x 10 1/8”. Courtesy of Amon
Carter Museum, Fort Worth.
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1912
SYNTHETIC CUBISM
“Cubism has remained within the limits and limitations of
painting, never pretending to go beyond. Drawing, design
and color are understood and practiced in cubism in the
spirit and manner that are understood and practiced in
other schools. Our subjects might be different, because we
have introduced into painting objects and forms that used
to be ignored. We look at our surroundings with open eyes,
and also open minds. We give each form and color its own
significance, as we see it; in our subjects, we keep the joy of
discovery, the pleasure of the unexpected; our subject itself
must be a source of interest. But why tell you what we are
doing when everybody can see it if they want to?”
- Picasso
the late phase of cubism, characterized chiefly by an increased use of
color and the imitation or introduction of a wide range of textures
and material into painting.
Figure 35-18 PABLO PICASSO, maquette for
Guitar, 1912. Cardboard, string, and wire (restored),
1’ 1 1/4” x 1” x 7 1/2”. Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
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1913
FUTURISM
a style of the fine arts developed originally
by a group of Italian artists about 1910 in
which forms derived chiefly from cubism
were used to represent rapid movement and
dynamic motion.
Figure 35-24 UMBERTO
BOCCIONI, Unique Forms of
Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast
1931). Bronze, 3’ 7 7/8” x 2’
10 7/8” x 1’ 3 3/4”. Museum
of Modern Art, New York
(acquired through the Lillie
P. Bliss Bequest).
9
1923
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
Kathe Kollwitz
Worked almost exclusively
in printmaking and
drawing
Themes of inhumanity and
injustice
The plight of workers and
war victims
Son died during first week
of WWI
Kathe Kollwitz, The Survivors, 1923.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
German Expressionism refers to a number of
related creative movements beginning in
Germany before the First World War that
reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s.
1913
THE BLUE RIDER
Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider)
Another German Expressionist
movement that produced feeling as
visual FORM – not just color
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913.
Complete abstraction- non-objective work elimination of representation
Knew about music, literature, science (the
atomic theory) - material objects have no
structure or purpose
Orchestration of color, form, line, and
space- blueprints for an enlightened and
liberated society, emphasizing spirituality
Der Blaue Reiter, ( German: “The Blue
Rider”) organization of artists based in
Germany that contributed greatly to the
development of abstract art. Neither a movement
nor a school with a definite program, Der Blaue
Reiter was a loosely knit organization of artists that
organized group shows between 1911 and 1914.
The work of these artists was diverse, but it
generally reflected an interest in free
experimentation and spiritual expression.
1915
THE BRIDGE
German Expressionism
“Die Brucke” (The Bridge)
•Color is important, but equal to that of
distortion of images and violent
brushstrokes
•Movement centered in Dresden,
Germany and led by Ernst Kirschner
•Thought of themselves as bridging the
old age of art with the new
•Influenced by medieval craft guildslived and worked together equally
•Focused on the detrimental effects of
INDUSTRIALIZATION
Ernst Kirschner,
Self Portrait as a Soldier, 1915.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
http://www.bruecke-museum.de/englkirchner.htm
Die Brücke (The Bridge) was a group of German
expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905,
after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was
named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich
Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl SchmidtRottluff.
1924
SURREALISM
The Surrealist movement was founded in Paris
by a small group of writers and artists who
sought to channel the unconscious as a means
to unlock the power of the imagination.
Disdaining rationalism and literary realism,
and powerfully influenced by Sigmund Freud,
the Surrealists believed the conscious mind
repressed the power of the imagination.
Influenced also by Karl Marx, they hoped that
the psyche had the power to reveal the
contradictions in the everyday world and spur
on revolution. Their emphasis on the power of
the imagination puts them in the tradition of
Romanticism, but unlike their forbears, they
believed that revelations could be found on the
street and in everyday life. The Surrealist
impulse to tap the subconscious mind, and
their interests in myth and primitivism, went
on to shape the Abstract Expressionists, and
they remain influential today.
"Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually
distinct realities and draw a spark from their
juxtaposition." - Max Ernst
Figure 35-47 MAX ERNST, Two Children Are
Threatened by a Nightingale, 1924. Oil on wood with
wood construction, 2’ 3 1/2” x 1’ 10 1/2” x 4 1/2”.
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art
and literature that sought to release the
creative potential of the unconscious mind,
for example by the irrational juxtaposition
of images.
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Figure 31-28 GUSTAV KLIMT, The Kiss, 1907–
1908. Oil on canvas, 5’ 10 3/4” x 5’ 10 3/4”.
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere,Vienna.
1908
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI, The Kiss, 1916. Limestone,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (Louise and Walter
Arensberg Collection, 1950).
1916
Claes Oldenburg, The Closespin. 1976
14
1911
Figure 35-14 GEORGES
BRAQUE, The Portuguese, 1911. Oil
on canvas, 3’ 10 1/8” x 2’ 8”.
Kunstmuseum, Basel (gift of Raoul
La Roche, 1952).
“As a Cubist I want to express my
total visual understanding of the
paper coffee cup. I want more
than the Renaissance painter or
even Cézanne, I want to express
the entire cup simultaneously on
the static surface of the canvas
since I can hold all that visual
information in my memory. I
want to render the cup’s front, its
sides, its back, and its inner
walls, its bottom from both inside
and out, and I want to do this on
a flat canvas. How can this be
done?”
15
1912
HENRI MATISSE, Goldfish, 1912. Oil on
canvas
16
1912. Der Blaue Reiter
Figure 35-7 VASSILY KANDINSKY, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912. Oil on
canvas, 3’ 7 7/8” x 5’ 3 7/8”. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (gift of
Solomon R. Guggenheim, 1937).
17
1915
THE BRIDGE
German Expressionism
“Die Brucke” (The Bridge)
•Color is important, but equal to that of
distortion of images and violent
brushstrokes
•Movement centered in Dresden,
Germany and led by Ernst Kirschner
•Thought of themselves as bridging the
old age of art with the new
•Influenced by medieval craft guildslived and worked together equally
•Focused on the detrimental effects of
INDUSTRIALIZATION
Ernst Kirschner,
Self Portrait as a Soldier, 1915.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
http://www.bruecke-museum.de/englkirchner.htm
Die Brücke (The Bridge) was a group of German
expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905,
after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was
named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich
Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl SchmidtRottluff.
1917
Figure 35-27 MARCEL DUCHAMP, Fountain,
(second version), 1950 (original version produced
1917). Readymade glazed sanitary china with black
paint, 1’ high. Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Philadelphia.
Dada emerged amid the brutality of World
War I (1914–18)—a conflict that claimed
the lives of eight million military personnel
and an estimated equal number of civilians.
This unprecedented loss of human life was
a result of trench warfare and technological
advances in weaponry, communications,
and transportation systems.
For the disillusioned artists of the Dada
movement, the war merely confirmed the
degradation of social structures that led to
such violence: corrupt and nationalist
politics, repressive social values, and
unquestioning conformity of culture and
thought. From 1916 until the mid-1920s,
artists in Zurich, New York, Cologne,
Hanover, and Paris declared an all-out
assault against not only on conventional
definitions of art, but on rational thought
itself. “The beginnings of Dada,” poet
Tristan Tzara recalled, “were not the
beginnings of art, but of disgust.”
19
1920
Käthe Kollwitz, Memorial Sheet of Karl Liebknecht (Gedenkblatt für Karl Liebknecht), 1919-1920,
Woodcut heightened with white and black ink, 37.1 × 51.9 cm (Art Institute of Chicago)
20
1929
Figure 35-75 LE CORBUSIER, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France, 1929.
How did Le Corbusier
design a house as “a
machine for living”?
The design was such that
every level could be used
even the space beneath
the floor and the top of
the house. Because the
skeleton supported itself,
the walls bore no
structural load; hence the
architect had complete
freedom to plan the
interior. This type of
design allowed the
architect to
provide for all the basic
human needs, physical
and psychological.
"The house is a box in
the air,..."
—Le Corbusier
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1930
PIET MONDRIAN, Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930, Oil on canvas, 1’ 11 ¾” X 1’ 9 7/8”. Museum of
Modern Art, New York. © 2008 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International, Warrenton, VA, USA.
de Stijl - An art
movement advocating
pure abstraction and
simplicity — form
reduced to the rectangle
and other geometric
shapes, and color to the
primary colors, along with
black and white.
22
1932
Varvara Stepanova, The Results of the First Five-Year Plan, 1932 (State Museum of Contemporary Russian History,
Moscow)
23
1936
Figure 35-51 MERET OPPENHEIM, Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure), 1936. Fur-covered
cup, 4 3/8” diameter; saucer, 9 3/8” diameter; spoon, 8” long. Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
The Surreal quality is a serendipitous magic and the juxtapositioning of opposites,
a teacup and fur, neither having a relationship in functionality.
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1939
Figure 35-79 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Kaufmann House (Fallingwater), Bear Run,
Pennsylvania, 1936–1939.
What are some innovative
engineering and stylistic
characteristics of Fig. 35-79?
Reference to
Wright's
"Prairie School"
and his use of
cantilever
structures. The
building molds
with its natural
surroundings as
a river runs
“through” it.
25
1939
Figure 35-69 FRIDA KAHLO, The Two Fridas, 1939. Oil on canvas, 5’ 7” x 5’ 7”. Museo
de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.
She has
documented her
life and struggle
with ill health,
the result of a
horrific bus
accident
26
1941
Figure 35-64 JACOB LAWRENCE, No. 49
from The Migration of the Negro, 1940–1941.
Tempera on masonite, 1’ 6” x 1’. The Phillips
Collection, Washington, D.C.
Another artist, Jacob Lawrence,
also worked in this “political”
vein as well. Lawrence’s work,
especially his The Migration
Series, details the invisibility
African Americans suffered
during the first half of the
twentieth century
What subject matter did Jacob Lawrence use in his work, and how was it significant?
27
1943
Wilfredo Lam, The Jungle, 1942-43, gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 94-1/4 x 901/2 inches / 239.4 x 229.9 cm (The Museum of Modern Art)
28
1948
Diego Rivera, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park
Fresco 1947-1948, 50 ft. long by 13 ft. high
29
1952
Figure 36-7 WILLEM DE KOONING, Woman I, 1950–1952. Oil on canvas, 6’ 3 7/8” x 4’
10”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism is the first major American
avant-garde movement. Abstract Expressionist
paintings are usually abstract and express the artist's
state of mind. Some Abstract Expressionists adopted
Surrealist improvisation methods and created works
that had a look of rough spontaneity and exhibited a
refreshing energy. Abstract Expressionism developed
along two lines: gestural abstraction, which relied on
the expressiveness of energetically applied pigment,
and chromatic abstraction, which focused on the
emotional resonance of color.
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1. Seagram Building – van de Rhoe
2. Marilyn MonroeBACK!
– Warhol
WELCOME
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YobrNAiGko
The Bay – Frankenthaler
4. Narcissus Garden – Kusama
5. Spiral Jetty – Smithson
6. Lipstick – Oldenburg
7. New Castle County House - Venturi
Break up into groups of 2-3
- Share one thing you did over break
- Fully identify your appointed work
- Identify ONE unique feature of the appointed work.
31
1958
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Mies van der Rhoe
The Seagram
Building, New
York.
1958
32
1962
POP ART
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962, acrylic on canvas, 2054 x 1448
mm (Tate) © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
2015
33
1963
POST-PAINTERLY ABSTRACTION
Figure 36-12 HELEN FRANKENTHALER, The Bay, 1963. Acrylic on canvas, 6’ 8
7/8” x 6’ 9 7/8”. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.
Post-Painterly Abstraction
developed out of Abstract
Expressionism and exhibits
a cool, detached rationality
with an emphasis on
pictorial control. The hand
of the artist is
conspicuously absent in
Post-Painterly Abstraction.
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1966
SITE SPECIFIC
Yayoi Kusama, Narcissus Garden, (1966), Steel, Dimensions various
35
1970
SITE SPECIFIC
Figure 36-72 ROBERT SMITHSON, Spiral Jetty, 1970. UTAH.
Site-specific art is artwork created to
exist in a certain place. Typically, the
artist takes the location into account
while planning and creating the
artwork.
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1974
MODERN SCULPTURE
Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick
(Ascending) on Caterpillar
Tracks, 1969-74, cor-ten steel,
aluminum, cast resin,
polyurethane enamel,
740 × 760 × 330 cm, Yale
University
37
1983
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Robert Venturi, John Rauch, and Denise Scott Brown, House in New Castle County, Delaware,
1978-83 (photo: © Venturi, Scott Brown Collection/The Architectural Archives, University of
Pennsylvania/Detail of photo by Matt Wargo)
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