ART II Final Exam Review Sheet 60 multiple choice – 45 pts (.75 each) (Art Criticism, Elements and Principles, and Art History – Impressionism through Pop Art – be able to identify slide by artist and movement and know relevant style and facts about each art movement) 1 Essay – 25 pts (4 steps of Art Criticism) 2 drawings – 30 pts (value and observational drawing) You are required to have a #2 HB pencil and eraser to take the art final exam! Art Criticism If for any reason an image does not show up on your machine or printing, you can always google the artist and artwork! Step One:: Description What do you see? • The size of the work, the medium used, and the process used. • The subject, object, and details. • The elements of art used in the work. Step Two:: Analysis How the principles of art are used to organize the art elements of line, color, value, shape, form, space, and texture. Step Three:: Interpretation Explain or tell the meaning or mood of the work. Step Four:: Judgment You determine the degree of artistic merit. • Do you think the work is successful? Why? What is working or not working? THE ELEMENTS OF DESIGN Line:: A mark made by a drawing tool; a continuous mark which causes the eye to follow a path. Types of lines: horizontal, vertical, diagonal, wavy, zigzag. Categories of line: Contour line is an outline. Calligraphic line is a thick or thin line (it varies). Color:: Perceived due to reflected light. Three properties of color: • Hue – the name of a color, such s ‘red’ • Value – lightness or darkness of a color • Intensity-brightness or dullness of a color Tint – Add white to lighten a color Shade – Add black to darken a color Value:: Lightness or darkness of a color, line, or shape. Space:: An area that is occupied (positive space) or empty (negative space). Depth or closeness is achieved by various perspective techniques. Linear perspective: a system of parallel lines that creates the illusion of depth on a flat surface. Aerial or atmospheric perspective: far away objects appear softer and hazier than objects in the foreground. Shape:: Area enclosed by line or set apart by other areas. Two-dimensional. Two types: organic and geometric. Form:: Three-dimensional (having length, width, and depth), as in sculpture. Form may also apply to the illusion of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional plane. Texture:: The quality of a surface. Implied texture refers to whether it appears rough or smooth, shiny, dull, etc. Actual texture is how something feels. Impressionism The impressionists were interested in natural colors and landscapes that they painted outdoors. They realized that light had a tremendous effect on the color of objects. The color of the atmosphere at different times of the day changed the appearance of objects they were painting. The Impressionists painted color as they saw it with colored light even penetrating the shadows. Sometimes, solid form was lost was lost in the brilliance or mistiness of the light. The Impressionists wanted to express an immediate impression, not a detailed analysis. The name Impressionism was first used in jest when Monet exhibited a work called Impression: Sunrise in an 1874 show. The painting’s colored streaks and blobs on a pale blue ground represent what a person sees when taking a quick look at the a sunrise over a harbor. Critics derisively called the works impressions and not paintings. The title stuck, although several Impressionists did not like it. Impressionism was the first artistic revolution since the Renaissance. It gradually built up a following in Europe. It was especially popular in the United States. Impressionism lasted about 15 years before artists started following different directions. Monet, Rouen Cathedral, 1894, oil on canvas, 39” x 26” Monet simply painted the color he saw – a little blue square, an oblong of pink, a streak of yellow or green dots. Monet took dabs of yellow and put them next to dabs of green and did not smear them together. Instead he let the viewer’s eye blend them from a distance into a shimmering green. This technique, called optical mixing or the applying of broken color, was the basis for Impressionist theories of color and light. Monet became the leading force in the Impressionist movement, bridging the span from the Realist world to the contemporary world of abstraction. Monet loved to work outdoors and confront the environment he was painting. To analyze the change of color of a subject during various times of the day, he painted the west façade of Rouen Cathedral. One no longer sees the heavy stone, but rather the light and color reflected. Monet recorded the light and color changes on the church in more than thirty canvases. Manet, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1873, oil on canvas, 36” by 45” Manet wanted to make paintings that could be enjoyed for their color and arrangement and for the fact they were paintings and not imitations of nature. His early works had flatness new to the world of painting. This flatness was hard for his contemporaries to understand and accept. Manet was influenced by Japanese woodcuts that were popular imports in France. His Gare Saint-Lazare, done in mid-career, has a flatness that is fascinating. The woman’s face has little to no shadow, a stark contrast with the chiaroscuro of the Renaissance. The light source is probably behind the artist. The format of the painting is like a snapshot of a young woman and a girl at the train station. The dominant vertical bars are fresh and startling. Manet, like Monet, often worked outside. All four sides of the canvas seem to have been “cropped”, much as one would crop a snapshot. Manet’s work occasionally seems unfinished and casual, a stark contrast with Ingres and David and Neoclassicism. Degas, Blue Dancers, 1899, pastel on paper, 25” by 25” Edgar Degas shared the Impressionists interest in casual subjects and candid glimpses of people in action, but Degas more carefully considered design and the positioning of people and objects on the canvas. Degas was a master of line and drawing and was reluctant t o abandon it in favor of Impressionism’s soft contours. One series Degas spent much of his time on was the ballet. The views are from peculiar vantage points, such as from wings, balcony boxes or from below the stage. This enhances Degas’ candid glimpses of dancers working at their craft. Degas’ soft blending of costume into background is an Impressionist technique for showing light bouncing off of form. However, as a line around a foot or down a leg suggests, Degas only uses softness t express action or to describe the material. An asymmetric balance is often carefully used in the composition. Degas worked a great deal with pastels rather than with oils. He was the first artist to exhibit them as finished works instead of preliminary sketches for paintings. Cassat, Sleeping Baby, 1910, pastel on paper, 25” by 20” Cassatt studied with Degas. Mothers and children were Cassat’s favorite subjects. She worked in oil and pastel. Like Degas, Cassatt used line along legs and arms to strengthen the design and add solidity to the figures. Whistler, Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1: The Artist’s Mother, 1871, oil on canvas, 56” by 63” Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rock, 1874, oil on panel, 23” by 18” James Abbott McNeil Whistler was especially influenced by Japanese woodblock prints and the stark arrangements of Degas. He looked to simplification, realistic portraits, thin glazes of color and restricted palette, often of blacks and grays. Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket created much controversy. The painting is an impressionistic view of rockets bursting in the English night. Rodin, The Three Shades, 1881-86, Bronze Rodin transformed the instantaneity of Impressionism into powerful, three-dimensional forms. Rodin’s best works were caste in bronze, but were first formed with his hands in clay, plaster or wax. He loved the immediacy of these materials, which he could manipulate, push, stab and form. Impressionist paintings may seem unfinished but are complete. In the same way, Rodin often left his sculptures seemingly unfinished. Often the surfaces of his bronzes shimmer with light reflecting from his fingerprints and rough surfaces. Rodin’s work was not accepted during his lifetime, but has since his death been important to the history and progression of sculpture and modernist art. Post-Impressionism Artists who based their work on the color theory and techniques of Impressionism, but who developed their own unique styles, are loosely grouped together under the heading Post-Impressionists. The Post-Impressionists wanted to combine the color and light of Impressionism with the design and composition of traditional painting. Two directions emerge among these artists. Cezanne and Seurat looked for permanence of form and concentrated on design. Van Gogh and Gauguin emphasized emotional and sensuous expression. Post-Impressionism set the stage for the extreme range of individual expression that characterizes art in the twentieth century. Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte-1884, 1884-86, oil on canvas, 81 x 121” Color and light predominate in Seurat’s paintings, but they are the very opposite of a quick “impression”. Seurat used methodical and scientific techniques based on photography and the physics of light and color. Combing this knowledge with the techniques of the Impressionists, Seurat painted incredible paintings. In A Sunday on La Grande Jatte-1884 he placed figures extremely carefully. The color was applied in tiny dots, each about the size of a pencil eraser. From a distance the viewer’s eyes visually mix these dots together to create an array of hues and values. This technique is called pointillism. The people face sideways or are frontal and are almost Egyptian in their formality. This work is more solid that the fleeting glimpse of Impressionism. Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1904, oil on canvas, 28 x 35” Paul Cezanne, Still Life with Apples and Peaches, 1905, oil on canvas, 32 x 39” Cezanne was the leading painter of the 19th century in France and one of the most influential artists in Western painting. According to the standards of his time he was a failure. The Salon in Paris rejected all his impressionistic works. While the Impressionists used light to capture a fleeting moment, Cezanne’s light seems permanent and all encompassing. It illuminates colors and subjects, and shadows are often nonexistent. Cezanne did not want his paintings to imitate the realistic three-dimensionality of nature. He wanted them to remain as flat canvases with paint on them. Because he was concerned with the structure of the painting, he felt free to move objects and adjust relationships of color and form to produce the best design possible, even if this meant distortion. He discarded the traditional aerial and linear perspective and painted every part of the canvas in equal intensity-foreground, middle ground, background and sky. This lead to a compressing of space so that the canvas remained visually flat yet the colors seemed to indicate depth. A large mountain in Cezanne’s hometown, Aix, dominated the landscape. He depicts this in Mont Sainte-Victorie. Cezanne built up his painting by applying paint in flat, square patches or planes of color. The intensity of the color remains strong throughout so that the sky seems as close to the viewer as the foreground. Colors and values are distributed over the picture plane to produce a visual balance. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, 1892, oil on canvas, 48 x 55” Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge, La Goulue, 1891 Lautrec lived and worked in the artist’s district of Paris called Montmarte. He spent much if his time in the cafes, cabarets and theaters. He drew caricatures and portraits with great skill. He liked to portray dancers and circus people. Lautrec uses energetic lines in much of his work and there is a feeling of spontaneity in his paintings. Thin washes of color are often used in combination with a sure, dark line. Many of his paintings are of the night life of Paris. At the Moulin Rouge depicts a group of Lautrec’s friends around a table at the cabaret. Lautrec and his much taller cousin can be seen crossing the canvas in the background. The diagonal table and the woman on the right seem to move forward form the picture plane. They bring the viewer into direct relationship with the scene. Lautrec’s presentation of his lifestyle and social environment was very realistic. He knew it well, and painted the night life with rigor. He also lived it excessively, dying of alcoholism when only thirty-seven. Lautrec was the first artist to produce modern posters for commercial purposes. His caricatures adorned advertisements for many of the cafes and cabarets of the Monmartre. Paul Gauguin, la Orna Maria, 1891, oil on canvas, 44 x 34” Paul Gauguin, The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel),1888, oil on canvas, 28 x 36” Before Gauguin was a painter he was a successful European stockbroker. Convinced that European urban society was incurably sick, he began a long search for a better way of life. He traveled the world, living in remote regions of France (villages of Brittany) and the Tahiti islands. In his painting, he rejected the formlessness of Impressionism, the traditional Western style of naturalism, and realistic portrayal. He wanted to return to a primitive style of art with simple forms and symbolism rendered in a decorative and stylized way. Like Egyptian, medieval, and Oriental artists, he outlined his shapes. He even used Egyptian poses in several of his paintings. He flattened form into decorative shapes and combined brilliant colors to express his feelings. His color combinations were innovative. He used purples with oranges, and bright blues with yellow greens. The search for religious experience was important to Gauguin. In The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), he tried to show simple, direct faith of the peasants of Brittany. Instead of natural colors, Gauguin used stained-glass colors to depict the trance-like rapture of the peasant woman. Expressionism It is difficult to group artists according to style in the 20th c. Each artist was trying to develop an individual style different from all other artists. But certain characteristics do group artists together for the sake of organization and study. The term Expressionist art refers to an attitude or philosophy of art rather than a style, because artists of many styles can be expressionistic in their work. The expressionist artists working at the beginning of the 20th century were not interested in naturalism. They sought a means to express emotional states in their work as well as to portray the many stresses brought on by life in the modern world. Fauvism and German Expressionism dominate in Europe. In the Americas, Mexican artists developed their own sense of Expressionism. Fresco The Fauves (Fauvism) Diego Rivera, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, 1931. Fresco, 23’ by 30’ Rivera studied in Paris and knew Picasso and the rest of the artists in Paris creating the newest forms of visual expression (avant-garde). But, he returned to Mexico in 1921 to become actively involved in its politics. Influenced by simple outlined forms of Gauguin and his own cultural heritage of Mayan and Aztec sculpture, Rivera developed a powerful and unique painting style. Rivera revived the fresco technique, which had not been used extensively for centuries, and put his ideas on public walls for all to see. By the late 1920’s Rivera’s murals were well known in the United States. One of his numerous commissions was for a mural for the San Francisco Art Institute. The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City was executed from April to June 1931. The mural’s theme is the design and construction of the modern industrial city in the United States. The activities of workers and planners, both above and below ground, are seen through a scaffold that supports a fresco painter (Rivera himself) and his assistants. The large helmeted worker in the background is sovereign in this fresco. Rivera paints industry in an idealized setting where everyone works in harmony together. 1. Henri Matisse, The Red Studio, 1911. Oil on canvas 71 by 86” 2. Henri Matisse, Beasts of the Sea, 1950. Paper on canvas (collage), 116” by 60” In the early 20th c in Paris, young artists were greatly impressed by the freedom, color, and individual character of works by Cezanne, van Gogh and Gauguin The work by these young artists was called that of “wild beasts” by critiques. The French world for beasts is Fauves, and thus Fauvism. Henri Matisse felt the urge to paint while studying to become a lawyer. He used intense colors and he simplified complex subjects. Matisse wanted to express himself with simple color and shape rather than shading and perspective. In The Red Studio Matisse creates a German Expressionism flattened effect, enhanced by the lack of shadow and value changes. On the walls are a number of his Fauvist paintings from the previous years. Renaissance painting concepts are almost completely eliminated and a brilliant, personal quality emerges. In his later years (ill and confined to bed), Matisse experimented with collage-pinning and pasting brightly colored flat shapes on contrasting backgrounds. Two groups Die Brucke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Die Brucke rejected academic training in art and all traditional forms of expression. They revived avid interest in the woodcut and other graphic means of expression. They emphasized violent colors and distortion of features. They also studied African art in depth, especially the expressive masks and carvings. Der Blaue Reiter were not social revolutionaries, but these strong individual artists exerted a powerful influence on 20th century art. Kirchner, The Street, 1913. Oil on canvas, 47” by 35”. The leader of Die Brucke was Ernst Kirchner. He insisted, “art depends on inspiration and not on technique.” In his early paintings, such as The Street, he worked in flat color areas with bright hues and heavy black shapes. Sharp, angular shapes and vivid colors express the tension and agitation of the street. There is isolation and loneliness even in such crowded conditions. Franz Marc, The Yellow Cow, 1911. Oil on canvas, 55 by 74”. Franz Marc was part of The Blue Rider group. Marc painted many different subjects, but his animal paintings are of major importance. Marc used brilliant color in a symbolic and arbitrary way. He combined color with shape and rhythm to dramatize the integration of all creatures in nature. The Yellow Cow looks happy and fills the picture with powerful movement and an active shape. Abstract Expressionism Kandinsky, Study for Composition No. 2, 19091910. Oil on canvas, 51 by 38” Kandinsky was also part of The Blue Rider group. He is credited with painting the first completely nonobjective painting in about 1910. His early paintings were similar to the Fauves, with recognizable houses and trees painted in vivid colors. The Shapes in Study for Composition No.2 are already quite abstract, but many forms are still recognizable. Gradually, he simplified and abstracted these features until only shape, color and line were left. Certain kinds of lines and various colors had personal meaning to Kandinsky. He wrote that to him “blue is soft and round while yellow is sharp.” He developed his own personal language of color and shape to express his feelings. His influence became very strong in the Abstract Expressionist movement following WWII. Abstract Expressionism exploded in New York following World War II. AbEx got its title because it was abstract (emphasizing shape, color and/or line with no recognizable subject matter) and expressive (stressing emotions and individual feelings more than design and form). Partly as a reaction to the times they lived in, artists turned against reason. Their work had a spontaneous and very fresh feel to it. It was meant to be grasped intuitively by the viewer rather than reasoned out. The movement lasted about fifteen years, but during that time it revolutionized the art world. America became the leader of the art world during this time and remains (arguably) the leader today. Willem de Kooning deKooning, “Easter Monday”,1950-1952, oil on canvas deKooning, “Woman I”, 1950-1952, oil on canvas De Kooning came from Amsterdam to the US in 1926. In the depression he actually worked as a house painter. This led him to use large housepainting brushes and enamel paint. After painting realistically for many years, he leapt into AbEx and became one of its leading exponents. His slashing brush covered large canvases with color and tremendous action that became his nonobjective subject matter. Because the emphasis is on the act of painting as part of the subject matter, such work was called Action Painting. In Easter Monday de Kooning used newspaper transfers and oils as the media of his nonobjective work. The painting is coincidentally strewn with E’s. DeKooning often used letters of the alphabet as part of his huge swinging-motion paintings. At the same time he was still very interested in the figure. His famous series of Woman paintings was inspired in part by advertising billboards. Woman I is an exciting painted made at top speed. Amid the interplay of colors and brushstrokes, the overall shape of the body is recognizable. There is an emphasis on the face with its wide, rather learning grin. Like other action paintings, the image comes into and out of focus. This is violent and very expressive painting. Jackson Pollock Jackson Pollock, “No.I, 1950 (Lavendar Mist)”, oil enamel and aluminum on canvas. In 1946 Pollock began his drip paintings. His new working technique completely freed him from the use of traditional brushes and opened the door to Abstract Expressionism. Laying his canvas on the floor of the studio so he could walk on it, he literally put himself into his work. With a can of paint in his hand, he moved about the canvas, freely dripping, spilling and throwing the color with apparent abandon. Pollock’s No.1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) is a complex interweaving of color and line that produces an overall web of texture Pollock intended the work to be flat; however, there is a sense of shallow depth. Lee Krasner, “Right Bird Left”, 1956, oil on canvas Lee Krasner progressed through realism and small abstractions. Eventually, she turned to much larger-sized canvases to fully contain her expressions. In 1965 she painted Right Bird Left. The resulting surfaces are rich in texture, color, movement, and overall unity. She was married to Jackson Pollock until his tragic death in 1956. Mark Rothko, “Blue, Orange, Red”, 1961, oil on canvas Mark Rothko developed a style based on soft edges and blending colors. His expression was not as harsh as deKooning. As his work became more simplified, the sizes of his canvases became larger. The color became less contrasting and less intense as well. He limited his large rectangular shapes to only two or three, as in Blue, Orange, Red The hazy edges give the feeling of shapes floating and vibrating in and out of the background color. Richard Diebenkorn, “Cityscape I”, 1963, oil on canvas. Richard Diebenkorn was part of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists. Many of these second-generation AbEx painters turned from complete reliance on abstraction to representational subjects and figurative painting, but with expressive overtones. Diebenkorn combined reality with the expressive power and technique of Abstract Expressionism. Cityscape I shows the influence of Abstract Expressionism in the brushstrokes and reliance on flat shapes. Pop Art In the early 60’s a group of artists burst on the scene. Their subjects were coke bottles, beer and soup cans, comic strip characters and hamburgers. Because these things were so common, or popular, their movement was labeled Pop Art. Pop Art was more an attitude than a style. All Pop Art works were reminders of supermarkets, movies, television and the comics. Unlike Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art expressed an impersonal attitude toward the work and subject and had a lot to do with the artists’ frustration with the art establishment. It incorporated a delightful sense of wit, satire and humor. Claes Oldenberg, Shoestring Potatoes Spilling from a Bag, 1966, Painted canvas, kapok, glue and acrylic, 107”x46”x42”. Claes Oldenburg used found materials to make sculptures and drawings of the objects he saw around him. TO help the viewer see the manufactured environment with new eyes, Oldenburg worked with various sculpture media. He enlarged ordinary household objects, such as a three-way electrical plug, to enormous size. He also developed the technique of soft sculpture, which added a surrealistic effect to his work. Shoestring Potatoes Spilling from a Bag is made from painted canvas stuffed with soft kapok. The entire sculpture is soft to the touch. It sags humorously as it hangs limply from the ceiling. It is nearly 10 ft high! Oldenburg often produces ordinarily objects as monumental sized sculpture located in indoor and outdoor settings. Robert Rauschenberg, First Landing Jump, 1961, combine painting, found objects and oil paint on composition board, 89” x 81” Robert Rauschenberg acted as a bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art when he fastened such mundane objects as license plates, street signs and men’s clothes to his abstract canvases. He called them combine paintings. Rauschenberg mixed reality with abstraction. He created everything imaginable (from prints to stuffed birds and automotive tires). The sensation is often difficult for the public to comprehend. Titles like The First Landing Jump probably do not help either. But the artist makes the viewer look at ordinary things in a different context. The viewer is used to seeing tires on automobiles, not in “paintings”. Pop artists want the viewer to see the commercial environment in a new way. By juxtaposing usually unrelated materials, Rauschenberg has succeeded. Jasper Johns, Numbers in Color, 1959, encaustic paint on newspaper and canvas, 66”x49” Jasper Johns uses many Abstract Expressionist paintings techniques, but his subject matter is as common as the American flag, targets, numbers, beer cans, flashlights and maps of the US. Johns represents things that are often looked at, but seldom in detail. In Numbers in Color, he shows numbers. He forces the viewer to look at common things that they often overlook. The complementary colors of blue and orange cry out for recognition as they seem to vibrate forward from and backward into the canvas. The overall effect is one of texture and pattern, but within that context, the individual numbers are the subject matter. Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece, 1962, oil on canvas, 54”x54”. Roy Lichtenstein became one of the stars of Pop Art. Like other Pop artists, he wanted to play on the slick, multiple images of commercial art, its mechanical techniques and its glossy colors. Lichtenstein made giant cartoon-like paintings. He even simulated the ben-day printing dots used to color the Sunday comics. Paintings like Masterpiece look like they are cut from the comic page, but try to image this one 54 inches high. Often, Lichtenstein pokes fun at the melodrama of the comics and the national fascination with them. Some of his works have verbal messages. Andy Warhol, 100 Cans, 1962, oil on canvas, 71”x52”. Andy Warhol and Pop Art go hand and hand, it is hard to imagine one without the other. He zeroes in on the American mass production and its boring repetitions. The consumer goes into the supermarket and sees hundreds of cans of Campbell’s soup. The product is instantly recognized and found in nearly every market and home in the country. Warhol paints 100 Cans in a boring, unexciting way-just the way they are lined up on the market shelves. He even used the mechanical silkscreen process to apply paint to the canvas, and had other people do the work. This is how impersonal he became with the medium. Warhol is also known for images of Marilyn Monroe and other personalities. Primary Colors Secondary Colors Intermediate (Tertiary) Colors Neutrals Color Values Primary colors are not mixed from other colors and they generate all other colors. Red Yellow Blue By mixing two primary colors, a secondary color is created. Red + Yellow = Orange Yellow + Blue = Green Blue + Red = Purple red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blueviolet, red-violet Black, white, gray and sometimes brown are considered "neutral”. Color values are the lights and darks of a color you create Tints Shades Color Schemes Monochromatic Complementary by using black and white (‘neutrals”) with a color. This makes hundreds of more colors from the basic 12 colors of the wheel. color +white = tint color + black = shade Tints are lightened colors. Always begin with white and add a bit of color to the white until the desired tint is obtained. Shades are darkened colors. Always begin with the color and add just a bit of black at a time to get the desired shade of a color. Monochromatic, analogous, complementary, warm, cool “Mono” means “one”, “chroma” means “color”… monochromatic color schemes have only one color and its values. Complementary colors are opposite on the color wheel provided a high contrast Examples:: Red and green Blue and orange Analogous The analogous color scheme is comprised of colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel. This combination of colors provides very little contrast. Analogous colors also share a primary. Warm Cool They are colors found in fire and the sun. Warm colors make objects look closer in a painting or drawing. Red, orange, and yellow They are the colors found in snow and ice and tend to recede in a composition. Blue, green, and violet