From the Eighteenth Century to the Present
The American Colonies and the Emerging
Nation
 Portraiture
 Landscapes
 Sculptures
In Europe this is the
Period of REALISM
And the Colonials who are
EUROPEANS
Mimic that art
John Singleton Copley (1738-1815)
Watson and the Shark (1778)
John Singleton Copley
Margaret Kemble Gage (1771)
Mrs. Daniel Rogers (Elizabeth Gorham Rogers) (1762)
John Singleton Copley
The Death of Major Peirson 6 January 1781 (1783)
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)
The Artist in his Museum, 1822
Portrait of George Washington, 1782
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)
Portrait of George Washington (1796)
Mrs. Perez Morton (1802)
Early Nineteenth-Century Art
 The Hudson River School and the Lure of the West
European artists turn away from realism 1800-1840 in
reaction against Industrialism, almost constant war and
the growing scientific attempt to rationally quantify
EVERYTHING. The Romantics emphasize FEELINGS!!
This same process happens in America – but with
AMERICAN themes and subjects.
The Hudson River School
► These artists captured the undiluted power of
nature
► Paint the nation’s most spectacular and
undeveloped areas [the new Garden of Eden].
► Nature was the best source of wisdom &
fulfillment.
► They created visual embodiments of the ideals of
the Transcendentalists.
* painting is the vehicle through which the
universal mind could reach the mind of
mankind.
* art is the agent of moral & spiritual
transformation.
Characteristics of the
Hudson River School
“A new art for a new land.”
1. Paint grand, scenic vistas.
2. Humans are an insignificant [even
non-existent] part of the picture.
3. Experiment with affects of light on water
and sky.
4. Symbol of the school --> a broken tree stump
Issues/Themes
Addressed by the
Antebellum Artists
► Transcendentalist thinking.
► Westward expansion.
► American nationalism --> What is America?
* creation of a national mythology
► Racism and Native Americans.
► Concern for political extremism.
► The price paid for progress and the
advances of civilization.
In Nature’s Wonderland
Thomas Doughty, 1835
Niagara – Frederic Church, 1857
View of the Catskills, Early Autumn
Thomas Cole, 1837
The Course of Empire: The Savage State
Thomas Cole, 1834
The Course of Empire: The Arcadian
or The Pastoral State - Thomas Cole, 1836
Kindred Spirits – Asher Durand, 1849
Watercolors by John Audubon
Stanley Hawk
Barred Owl
The Constitution in Boston Harbor
Fitz Hugh Lane, 1848-49
Fur Trappers Descending the Missouri
George Caleb Bingham, 1845
Neo-Classical Architecture:
U. S. Customs House, 1836
Jefferson Rotunda (Univ. of VA), 1819-26
The Capitol Rotunda
Horatio Greenough (1805-1852)
George Washington, 1840
Rescue, 1853
The Landing of the Pilgrims
Unknown Artist, 1830s
Washington Crossing the Delaware
Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1851
George Washington
Horatio Greenough, 1841
Our Banner in the Sky - Frederic Church, 1861
Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and
Pawnees - Charles Bird King, 1821
1. The “Noble Savage” Image
George Catlin (1796-1872)
From Indian Gallery, 1832
Mato-Tope – Karl Bodmer, 1830s
3. The “Demonic” Indian
Osage Scalp Dance – John Mix Stanley, 1845
Last of the Race – Tompkins Matteson, 1847
4. The “Doomed” Indian
Dying Indian Chief Contemplating the Progress
of Civilization – Thomas Crawford, 1857
Impressionism and the
Gilded Age 1880-1900
Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
Union Square in Spring, 1896
The South Ledges, Appledore, 1913
Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
A Fair Wind, 1876
The Gulf Stream, 1899
In Europe a short
revival in realism is
Also reflected in Amerca’s
Conservative in style,
they were revolutionary
in content.

Departure from the staid portraitures
and genteel landscapes of the late 19c.

The intent of the artists was not social
commentary.
Characteristics
of the Ashcan School
1. Gritty, urban scenes:
- find beauty in the drab
and ugly aspects of life.
“Eviction” - Everett Shinn, 1904
“Cliff Dwellers” – George Bellows, 1908
“A
Woman
’s
Work”
John Sloan,
1912
Characteristics
of the Ashcan School
2. Portrayal of urban
vitality.
“Madison Square”
Maurice Prendergast, 1901
“The Mall in Central Park”
“Recruiting in Union Square”
John Sloan, 1909
Characteristics
of the Ashcan School
3. Captured the spontaneous
moments in everyday life.
“Skating in New York”
William Glackens, 1910
“Sunday—Women Dying Their Hair”
John Sloan, 1910
Characteristics
of the Ashcan School
4. Illustrated the process
of Americanization.
“Winter, Washington Square”
William Glackens, 1907?
“6th Avenue Elevated at 3rd Street”
John Sloan, 1928
“Allen Street” - George Luks, 1905
“McSorley’s Bar” – John Sloan, 1912
“A Stag at Sharkey’s Place”
George Bellows, 1917
Characteristics
of the Ashcan School
5. These artists rebelled
against the sentimental
landscapes of 19c
storybook illustrations.
“Fire on 24th
Street”
Everett
Shinn, 1907
“Morning Snow on the Hudson”
George Bellows, 1910
“Washington Square”
Everett Shinn, 1910
American Impressionism
1880, United States
 American Impressionism, was a style of painting
related to European Impressionism and practiced by
American artists in the United States during the late
19th and early 20th centuries. American
Impressionism is a style of painting characterized by
loose brushwork and vivid colors.
 Self-portrait by Mary
Cassatt, c. 1878,
Expressionism
1900
 An Expressionist
wishes, above all, to
express himself... (an
Expressionist rejects)
immediate perception
and builds on more
complex psychic
structures...
 Mostly a German
movement, but
American artits were
influenced
In 2012: sold for 120,000,000
Twentieth-Century Art
 Artists in the twentieth century chose two distinct
ways to depict modernism and the excitement of
progress: realism and abstaction.
The 1913 69th Regiment Armory Exhibition
 Named for the building in New York City where this art
exhibition took place.
 Brought to the U.S. many of the new modern artists
who were launching into art as alteration with
boldness and intensity.
 This art exhibition found few admirers at the time due to
its radical departures from traditional painting.
 Unlike Van Gogh (and others in Post-impressionist
alteration) who began with the natural world and painted
it as they saw it, alteration for these modern artists sought
to impose something new on the world, something inside
themselves.
 AKA: THE EXPLOSION 1810-1930
The Explosion 1910-1930
 Experiments in
Dadaism: 1914-1930
2. Surrealism: 1900-1930
3. Cubism:
1.
1. Dadaism: 1914
corresponds to the outbreak of
World War I. For many
participants, the movement
was a protest against the
bourgeois nationalist and
colonialist interests, which
many Dadaists believed
were the root cause of the war,
and against the cultural and
intellectual conformity.
2. Surrealism
A style of painting that has recognizable figures and
shapes but these things are related to each other
as objects in dreamlike state.
“The Persistence of Memory,” 1931 By Salvador Dali
Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1986)
Two Calla Lillies on Pink, 1928
Pink and Blue II, 1919
. Cubism
“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” 1902,
By Pablo Picasso
American
Cubism
 Joseph Stella
American Cubist
1929
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
The Library, 1969
The Ironers, 1943
Cubism gives way
to Modernism
 The term modernism refers
to those artists who felt the
"traditional" forms of art,
architecture, literature,
religious faith, social
organization and daily life
were becoming outdated in
the new economic, social,
and political conditions of
an emerging fully
industrialized world
Modernism 1930- 1945
 embraced discontinuity, rejecting smooth change in
everything from biology to fictional character
development and filmmaking. It approved disruption,
rejecting or moving beyond simple realism in
literature and art, and rejecting or dramatically
altering tonality in music. Subtypes:
1. American Realism: 1930-1945
2. Harlem Renaissance (Only in America)
3. Geometric Abstractionism
4. Modern Realism
1. Regionalism 1930-35
 popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from
artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing
technological advances, to create scenes of rural life.
Thomas Hart Benton
“The enemy of Modernism”
“American Gothic,” 1930
By Grant Wood
Andrew Wyeth (1917--)
Cristina’s World, 1948
Master Bedroom,
Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
Cape Cod Morning, 1950
American Modernism
 American modernism in general was a trend of
thought that affirms the power of human beings to
create, improve, and reshape their environment, with
the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and
practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence
both progressive and optimistic.
2. Harlem
Renaissance
1920-1930
 Street Musicians (1939-1940),
by William H. Johnson.
3. Geometric Abstractionism (NOT abstract
Expressionism)
“Composition VIII,” 1923, Vasiliy Kandinsky
4. Modern Realism
“Nighthawks,” 1942, By Edward Hopper
Post Modernism 1945-1970
1. Abstract Expressionism: 1945-1960
2. Pop Art: 1960 – 1970
3. Minimalism: 1960-1980. The term minimalism is
used to describe a trend in design and architecture
where in the subject is reduced to its necessary
elements.
 1. Abstract expressionism was an American post–
World War II art movement. It was the first specifically
American movement to achieve international
influence and put New York City at the center of
the western art world, a role formerly filled by
Paris.
Franz Kline: Painting Number 2: 1954
1. Abstract Expressionism
“Greyed Rainbow,” 1953, By Jackson Pollock
2. Pop Art
“Campbell’s Soup 1,” 1968,
By Andy Warhol
“Beethoven,” 1987, By Andy Warhol
“Elvis,” 1964
“Ugly Americans,”
by Duane Hanson
“Knife Ship II,” 1986, By Claes Oldenburg
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
3. American Minimalism: 1960-80
 Minimalism argued that extreme simplicity could
capture all of the sublime representation needed in
art.
 Frank Stella (remember the Brooklyn Bridge
paintings?) has refined his art to the bare minimum.
Modern Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the three
major architects mentioned in TABH
sought to bring balance between
form (art), function (use) and the
environment. He pushed the notion
that “form follows function;” an idea
that the needs of a building’s use
come first before any artifice (form)
should be applied. Buildings should
blend with the environment and not
overwhelm it. Where necessary, a
building should shield the building’s
user from harsh and unattractive
outside influences.
To the Left: “Falling Water,”
built for the private use of
the Kaufmann family in
Ohiopyle, PA.
Frank Lloyd Wright
The Guggenheim Museum, New York
Built with thick walls to shut out urban noise and suffused with
indirect lighting, Wright sought to create a “quiet oasis” for the
viewing of other works of human creativity (modern art).
“ISM’s”
Chronological









Moralism
Pragmatism
Romanticism
Realism
Regionalism
Naturalism
Symbolism
Deconstructionism
Phenomenologism
Features
 Reflected in Social, Economic, Political, and Literary
Development
 Cumulative and Filtered
 Designated in Retrospect
Moralism 1620-1730
 Contest Between Good and Evil
 Life Interpreted in Moral Terms
 History Illustrative of Morality
 Literature as Moral Instruction
Religious Tracts, Sermons, Diaries, Letters
Jonathan Edwards, William Byrd, Cotton
Mather
Pragmatism 1730-1820
 How the World Works
 Reason as Basis
 Literature as Pragmatic Instruction
Science, History, Biography, Political Tracts
Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Paine
Romanticism 1830-1860
 Imagination Over Reason
 Extraordinary, Remote, Exotic
 Glorification of Individual and Past
 Idealization of Nature
 Truth of the Human Heart
 Literature as Entertainment
Fiction, Poetry, Drama
 Hawthorne, Melville, Poe,
 A sub-type were the TRANCSENDETALISTs
 Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman
Realism 1860-1920 (from this
came Regionalism and
Naturalism)
 Verisimilitude
 Truth Verified by Experience
 Focus on Common, Everyday, Average
 Emphasis on Immediate, Here, Now
 Literature of “Honesty” and Character
Novels, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories
James, Howells, Twain, Harte, Jewett
Regionalism 1865-1900
 An outgrowth of Realism, Regionalism in literature is
the tendency among certain authors to write about
specific geographical areas. Regional writers like Willa
Cather and William Faulkner, present the distinct
culture of an area, including its speech, customs,
beliefs, and history. Local-color writing may be
considered a type of Regionalism, but Regionalists,
like the southern writers of the 1920’s, usually go
beyond mere presentation of cultural idiosyncrasies
and attempt, instead, a sophisticated sociological or
anthropological treatment of the culture of a region.
 Twain, Hamlin, Chopin
Naturalism 1920-1940
 Scientific Determinism
 Humans as hapless victims
 Mechanistic Universe
 Earthy Qualities and Techniques
Expose Novels, Short Stories
Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair, Jack London
Modern Age: 1915-1946
 An age of disillusionment and confusion—just look at
what was happening in history in the US during these
dates—this period brought us perhaps our best
writers. The authors during this period raised all the
great questions of life…but offered no answers.
Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Frost
are all examples.
Harlem Rennaissance: 1920-30
 Part of the Modern Age, The Harlem Renaissance,
which occurred during the 1920’s, was a time of African
American artistic creativity centered in Harlem, in
New York City. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
include Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer,
Langston Hughes, and Arna Bontemps.
Symbolism 1940-1960
 Search for Meaning
 Rebellion Against Mechanic Universe
 Value of Place
 Dignity of Individual
 Literature of Depth
Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Drama
Faulkner, Warren, Ellison
Deconstructionism 1960-1980
 Central Truth Not Knowable
 Not One But Many Interpretations
 Attacks on “Accepted” and “Correct”
 Linguistic Instability
 Literature of Experimentation
Edward Albee, John Barth, Joyce Carol Oates
Phenomenologism 1980-2006
 Reader Perception Most Important
 Work Exists Only After Actualized by Reader
 Personal and Anecdotal
 Literature as Media
 Diversity in Literature
Isabel Allende, Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan,
Toni Morrison