Steven Grant

Art History 2600 The Modern Era

Final Exam Study Guide
IMPRESSIONISM
Mary Cassatt
o From Pittsburgh; went to PA School of Fine Arts
o Women Impressionists were more highly thought of than male
Impressionists
Painting the light was seen as more feminine. It was associated
with being flippant and incapable of painting anything more
serious or weighty.
o Initially she painted like Monet; but then she met and became friends with
Degas, who inspired her to use bright colors and introduced her to
Japanese prints, which influenced her use of dynamic backgrounds.
o Focuses on people/form more figure as the focus.
o Painterly brushstroke.
o Portrays women seriously.
Not objects of their sexuality theyre real people.
Five OClock Tea (1880)
Is emblematic of the subject matter/material painted quite often by Female
Impressionists: their sphere!
o Shows that women were confined to their domestic sphere.
Linda Nochlin: Her world was the world of women and their
children, a world of cultivated, well-bred, upper-class family
members, friends, and acquaintances a world private and
intimate in its relationships rather than public and heroic.
Painting shows Cassatts sister and a friend of hers in the interior of their home
o Its where Cassatt is comfortable!
Formal
o Tea Service is quite large.
Meant to evoke the idea that the women were in a claustrophobic
space theyre CONFINED.
Meant to refer to the confined lives of women.
Griselda Pollacks idea of space defined by meaning.
Linda Nochlin: Cassatt was resolutely anti-depth both literally
and metaphorically.
o Women are very close together.
Linda Nochlin: the ceremony of innocence
o They look modest not looking at the viewer, not expressing emotion.
i.e. idea from Degas that Impressionists paint objectively and dont
inject any feeling into their work.

o Patterns around the figures (i.e. in the background) remind you of the
flatness of the canvas.
Woman in Black at the Opera (1880)
Very feminist painting
o The woman is almost defying the male(s) to stare at her.
Shes voyeuristically looking out at something, and doesnt want
anyone to interrupt her enjoyment.
She has the power of the gaze!!!!!
Nochlin: Cassatts woman is all active, aggressive looking
o Woman is not gazing at us or trying to get our attention.
She completely hides her body.
We dont think of her as a sexual object.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Artists include Georges Seurat (Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande
Jatte), Paul Cezanne (Self Portrait), Gauguin and VINCENT VAN GOGH.
Not one unified movement.
o All artists are individualistic in their reaction to and transformation of
Impressionism.
Common Threads
o Disturbed by intense disillusion of form
o Want to bring back carefully constructed forms, sense of monumentality
and planning, and balance.
Vincent Van Gogh
Dutch!
VVG was born into a world of art (three brothers were art dealers).
Tried his hand at religion and failed
Became increasingly quiet and withdrawn.
Eisenman: Van Goghs art was dedicated to dialogue, expression, decisiveness,
and action in the world.
Congregation Leaving the Church in Nuenen (1885)
Still working in the Dutch genre tradition.
Wanted to give form to feelings.
Religious spirituality at work.
The Potato Eaters (1885)
Inspired by image of de Groot family light struck them.
VVG said that he witnessed daily human tragedy that needed to be expressed
through art. (Eisenman says it was almost anthropological in its perspective).
o Wants to capture the difficulty/harshness of their lives.

o Sympathetic image: Eating food with their hands hand that they dug in
the Earth with. Meant to look crude statement on human condition.
Synergy between form (not realistic-looking people) and
occupation (rough work on the Earth).
The family is humble and virtuous for having worked the Earth.
Moralistic purpose in painting it.
o Griselda Pollack says that VVG was aware of the association between
potatoes and peasants.
Ennobling the lower/working class.
Picture of the crucifixion in the upper left corner.
o Shapiro: Table is alter, Food is sacrament
o VVG wanted to capture the inner human spirituality: this human element
as more important than a Church/organization.
Use of color
o Experimented with color in order to be modern.
Color not related to subject material
Very little white lots of neutral colors
The white isnt really white its a mix up of reds,
blues, and yellows.

Sunflowers (1888)
Used color to convey longing for spirituality.
o ESPECIALLY Yellow.
o Went to southern France (left Paris), hoping for a more spiritual existence
and hoping that it would be a western version of Japan which he loved.
Eisenman: Japan as VVGs dream image of utopia.
Loved Japanese prints
Liked how Japanese didnt paint shadows.
Intensified colors, like in Japanese prints.
Likes large, flat patterns.
Emphasis on contours.
Meant to be hung in Gauguins room in VGs house in Arles.
Wants to lead the eyes around the canvas through the brushstrokes of the petals.
The Night Caf (1888)
Showing disappointment with less than ideal and lower than expectations
experience at Arles wanted it to be a spiritually transcendent experience, and it
was a disaster.
Unique in that it used color to CONVEY passions and expressions of humanity
(before, it had only been used to draw attention to (and not convey) emotion).
o Intensely contrasting colors.
o Expressing powers of darkness in caf.
Use of PERSPECTIVE

o Juxtaposition of perspective and flatness

o Makes world much longer and deeper. Distortions.
o Billiards table doesnt conform to vanishing point established = disturbing
Bedroom at Arles (1888)
More use of color to convey emotion
o Uses lots of BLUES to convey calm, sleep, and rest its stabilizing.
Reminds you of the flatness of the canvas.
Influence of Japanese prints work seems pressed into a
flat space: wall is short, bed feels elongated.
o VG felt he could use symbolic color to achieve synthetic effects.
Wanted to capture the mood of the image more than he wanted to
faithfully represent the image.
Color is to do everything suggestive of rest or sleep.
Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe (1888)
????
Eisenman: VG employed abstraction and objectivity to achieve the great simple
thing: the painting of humanity through portraiture.
Portrait of Dr. Gache (1890)
Gache was an amateur psychiatrist; he had VG stay with him in Auver, in
Northern France, as arranged by Theo.
VG capable of conveying things semi-naturally.
Infuses Gache with some of his own disturbances
Wave-like, curvilinear brushstroke
o Very activating.
o Uses brushstrokes to create an extraordinarily dynamic force of movement
Church at Auvers-sur-Olse (1890)
VG wrote that what he tried to do here was very similar to what he had done
before in other paintings.
Used color to convey emotion.
Paints his own dilemma
o Neither of the two paths seems to reach the Church.
o Paths are dynamic lines full of movement very disturbing.
Wheatfield with Crows (1890)
Frustration in life VG cant decide which path to take none seems to reach
the horizon. No fulfillment.
FAUVISM
1905 was the first landmark Exhibition in the 20th century.

o Vauxcelles (an even-handed critic) words were taken way out of

context he said that their worlds looked like that of wild beasts Fauv
in French.
Fauvist art was the art presented by these artists during 1905 and 1906.
o Fauvism was meant to be derogatory.
o Lasts 2 years but has a major impact.
o Artists were leftist in orientation.
Needed a technique of painting that would be as revolutionary as
their politics.
Essentially took Post-Impressionist techniques to their max
(according to Vlaminck).
Technique
o Paint spontaneously
o Wanted to return to the purity of means
Of brushstroke direct expression of feeling
thru rapid brushstroke, as opposed to
belabored, overly thoughtful strokes.
Book: Gives priority to the artists
interpretation of reality instead of
imitating nature.
Book: Reduction of non-essential
detail (Matisse).
Of color more intense, right out of the tube
Book: All Fauvists were committed
to exploring the expressive potential
of pure color.
Book: Color used both to capture
effects of light and for independent
expressive purposes.
Aiming at PURE colors. Not an
imitation of light, though, as they
rejected imitative colors.
They wanted, thru color, to create
light and make it emanate from the
canvas
Influenced by Nietzsche
Need to emphasize more of the Dionysian element
o Frenzy, extreme emotion, irrationality, and
distortions: Giving in to urges!
Artist as Super Mensch = Super Man.

Henri Matisse
Luxe, Clame et Volupte (1905)
Painted from the perspective of a child!
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o Identified himself with the child in the picture that is, the child who is
looking at the naked woman.
Could be Freudian desire to reconcile with mother
Intensity and saturation of color
o Squeezed paint straight from the bottle.
o Uses dots so theres a lot of white in and amidst the color.
Book: by showing so much of the white, the colors are given added
radiance.
o Very deliberate, carefully arranged juxtaposition of color (like Seurat)
Produced vibrato effect.
Interior at Collioure (1905)
Uses drawing a lot for his style. And represents it a lot in his images, too (i.e. on
the wall here).
o Flowing style. Uses brush like a pen/pencil
Color
o Uses a lot of flat areas of color
o Pure color = spontaneous
Decadent, pure daylight in color.
Color is not diluted all of the same intensity.
o Intuitively scatters the same colors around the composition.
Open Window, Collioure (1905)
Communications love for and importance of color
o Delight in linear play and coloristic rhythms.
Decorative image is fascinating! He went to the School of
Decorative Arts (not Fine Arts).
Combination of architecture and nature
o Creates a distinct harmony/dialogue between the two.
o Opens up French windows and allows the light to shine in.
o Domesticating nature ivy coming in.
Greens of nature seen inside, too reflection and well.
Madame Matisse, Woman with a Hat (1905)
Takes lots of liberties with color
o Warm colors where cool colors would normally be used and vice-versa.
VERY severely criticized.
o A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public.
Woman with a Green Stripe (1905)
Very much influenced by VGs self-portrait.
o An example of art for arts sake:

Whereas VG was trying to communicate with people and come to

terms with the world and himself, Matisse was just concerned with
the FORMAL EFFECTS.
Arbitrary use of large and flat color areas.
VIOLENT brushstroke.

Joy of Living (1905-06)

Based on Landscape at Collioure.
Formal
o Combines a lot of sketchy areas into large, flat areas of color.
Simplifying colors gets one large flat area of color (i.e. yellow
and red).
Parallels the simplicity of life.
o Curvilinear, flowing lines lead your eye around the painting.
Rhythmical and peaceful
Continued association of women with nature.
o Women in a state of primitiveness.
Matisse said he was aiming for an overall feeling of peace and tranquility
o Wants HARMONY.
o Expresses a delight in ALL THREE: subject matter, color, and technique
Delight in color and tactility of paint.
Painting subject matter that is sexual and sensual.
ART for ARTS SAKE: Painted only to achieve hedonistic delight.
Baudelaire: evocative of a fetus. Ha.
Influenced by Northern African Art.
o Wanted paintings to be quiet and respectful.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
Context of increasing German Nationalism
o The German national government tried to downplay religion in favor of
allegiance to the government.
o Artists rebel against this idea interested in creating individualistic and
spiritual art.
o RELIGIOSITY distinguished German Expressionism.
Found a lot to like in Nietzsche
o Nietzsche advocated irrationalism expression of creative drives.
Dionysian!
o Nietzsche wasnt opposed to reason; he was just opposed to the use and
exploitation of science and reason for the good of the German state.
o Artists see Nietzsche as a means of personal expression.
Arent stifled by the govt, but express themselves freely in art.
Die Brucke
Means The Bridge: as in, a bridge to a better state Nietzsche.

Form in Dresden in 1905 (first truly organized group of the 20th century)
o Wanted to achieve sympathetic, brotherly feeling thru art and architecture.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Street, Dresden (1907) and Berlin Street Scene
Street, Dresden = has pink in it; Berlin Street Scene = no pink
Very angular artwork: breaking away traditional canons of depicting the figure.
o Wants to get away from the all-conquering materialism and decadence of
Bismarcks Germany.
Rejection of industrialization and materialism.
Thought people living in cities were puppets of mechanized
society i.e. theyre just rapidly moving displays evoking the
rhythms of the large city. The people are all dressing and looking
alike (conformity); theyre devoid of/have lost their humanity.
o Expressed anger with and angst for society through distortions of the
figures in the works.
o Work evokes primitive/essential qualities of central Africa.
Used to express the desire for simplification in life.
Blue Riders
Organized their first exhibition in 1909.
Not as closely organized a movement as Die Brucke.
o More individuals, no manifesto/central studio.
Associated with Munich (Village of Murnau)
Gabrielle Munter
o Approach was ESCAPISM (i.e. into idyllic, romantic landscapes), not
distortion (so he was different from the Die Brucke artists).
o Art as expression of navet, beauty, and innocence.
Book: The movement was dedicated to displaying the manifold ways in which
artists could manifest their inner desires, not to propagating one precise and
particular pictorial style.
Book: The Expressionist emphasis on the subjects inner life constituted a valid
form of resistance to/protest of society.
Wassily Kandinsky
Very spiritualistic.
Background: raised by an aunt who loved the arts. Taught law but had a
synensthetic experience with a Monet and decided to study art.
Early on, interested in/aware of Impressionist/Fauv techniques but went in an
entirely different direction once he moved back to Munich.
In 1912, wrote On the Spiritual in Art
o Talks about color, and how its key to understanding his art
LOVES BLUE: Celestial creates atmosphere of calmness
solemn, super natural debt.

o Like in music, Kandinsky wants to help the viewer attain a spiritual

communion wanted to convey a spiritual message through his art with
psychophysical vibrations.
o Movement from representational to abstract art mirrors the desired move
from materialism to spirituality.
Book: Abstracting from nature involved simplifying forms and
intensifying colors to produce a heightened visual (and, resultingly,
emotional) effect on the viewer.
Book: Search for universal, essential forms was a fundamental idea
DISSOLVED the subject.
Impressions are directly evocative of nature.

Church at Murnau (1909)

Speaks to how he was influenced by VVG and the Fauvs.
Uses non-representational shapes very abstract.
Adopts a pseudo-primitive, almost childlike form.
o Bright Colors.
Improvisation V (Park) (1911)
Move toward complete non-representation.
o Listening to Wagner, Kandinsky had the same synesthetic experience he
had looking at Monet. Music made him think of COLORS.
Concluded that objects in a painting are superfluous and that the
story of a painting is irrelevant.
Subject matter detracted from the painting, he thought, and
precluded spiritual expression.
SOUNDS convey emotion/expression.
Impression V is almost a hieroglyph signs of reality.
o You can make out a figure on a horse and two hat-clad people walking
together and the rest is just impressions impressions of nature.
Improvisation 30 (Cannons) (1913)
Really distorted and changed.
Cannon is shooting out not bullets but abstract shapes of colors and lines.
o Expresses his inner mind/emotions.
o Referencing war.
o Lots of movement intersecting diagonals.
Study for Composition II (1910)
Based on Matisses Joy of Living, but much more disturbing.
Opera in Three Acts
o Starting in the upper left and working across:
Stormy sky, towers toppling over
Figures marching toward a strange shape
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Warm reds and yellow, evocative of happiness and gaiety.

Compares his compositions to symphonies
o Complex interplay of music and instruments as analogous to the complex
interactions of lines, colors, and shapes.

St. George (Cover for Blue Rider Almanac) (1912)

Horseman = a motif in Kandinskys work.
o Book: could connote the idea of a messenger or herald moving between
the material and spiritual realms
This is an image of St. George on horseback on the cover of the Blue Rider
Almanac.
Image is simplified.
Lots of blues, whites, blacks.
Curvilinear lines.
Composition VII (1913)
More art for arts sake, although Kandinsky never really engaged in art for arts
sake. Essentially, this is as close as he would get.
Move into abstraction = break from the recognized subject matter associated with
materialism.
o Sees art as a model for how society should break from materialism.
o Artistic Revolution as Spiritual Revolution
Man should turn his concern away from spirituality and instead
toward inner aspirations (like music and art).
o Madame Blavatsky and THEOSOPHY
Idea of religion as true inner teaching
Kandinsky thinks her ideas are very much aligned with his own
as in, she influenced him greatly and he applied these ideas by
making forms in paintings that express inner meaning.
Colors and Shapes given symbolic value
o Blue = Spirituality
o Yellow = Intellect
o Red = Passion
CUBISM
Pablo Picasso
CONSTANTLY CHANGING.
Breaking down forms into geometric shapes.
Old Guitarist (1903)
Subject of painting is gaunt and poverty-stricken.
o Picasso identifies with him.
o Devoid of flesh and fat (things normally associated with greed and wealth)
Part of Picassos Blue Period (1901-1904)
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o Picasso associated blue with sadness, loneliness, and isolation.

o Soulful individual emaciated and spiritual. Hes sad and suffering.
o Picasso was rebelling against wealth during his Blue Period he was a bit
socialist his friends were political radicals Anarchists!
Family of Saltimbanques (1905)
Part of Picassos Rose Period (1905-1906)
o Brings in more colors
Especially pink!
More prevalent coloration and warmer hues.
Image depicts a bunch of circus figures/performers. Theyre wandering
entertainers, people on the margins of society.
Picasso establishes himself as the clown, Apollinaire as jester.
Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1906)
Demonstrative another one of Picassos radical breaks.
o Picasso loved the body he painted, but hated the face. So he wiped it out,
and repainted it without Stein there!
o Face is modeled on Iberian sculptures Picasso had seen
These sculptures influenced how he painted faces.
o Makes the leap to CONCEPTUAL PAINTING.
Painting from ones mind
Art creates reality as in, this is what she should look like.
Les Demoiselles dAvignon (1907)
INCIPIENT OF CUBISM.
Shows his distinctive depiction of women
o Ambivalence to women
In the middle are two bathing beauties (depicted as docile objects
of sexuality) while on the outside the women are active,
aggressive, and offensive (esp seen thru masks and distorted faces)
o Fear and hatred and attraction to them!
Morphological expressionism women as corresponding to the
Western European vision of Sub-Saharan Africans.
Superiority and Repulision
Women are strongly contrasted light and dark
Very angular. No voluptuous curves.
o Focuses on the threat they pose through their seductiveness.
Formal
o Figures appear to be cut out, almost collage-like flattening effect.
o Explicit confusion between figures and background.
o Faces
Emulating the motifs of facial features of Iberian sculptures and
African masks.
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Almond-shaped eyes; eyebrows running directly into nose.

Book: Picasso is using a generalized idea of Africa (in
keeping with his conceptual (i.e. from his mind) painting.
Book: Could be mocking European classicism.
Book: Jarring disconnect/break between the three Iberian
figures on the left and the two African figures on the right.
Picasso representing his own primitiveness.
Association of primitive past with people currently living in
those cultures. Idea of noble savage and sensuous
paradise.
Artistic technique as a way of escaping the conventional
ways of painting. Getting away from modernized, industrial
society in order to return to a slower, more authentic and
natural world.
Picasso thought Africans knew what it was all about! He
saw them as magical, powerful people able to exorcise evil.
o Money had Japanese prints; we had Africa.
Faces on the left seem tranquil; on the right, when masked, they
seem more violent and ferocious.
Breaking away from more traditional depictions of the
body very angular and awkward.

Woman With Pears (1909)

Picasso inspired by Braque to convert natural forms into cubes.
Breaks womans head down in this work into 3D rectilinear shapes. Very solid
At the same time Picasso was experimenting with sculpture and ceramics as a
way of working out his ideas on three dimensionality and cubist thought.
Girl With a Mandolin (1910)
Start of Analytical Cubism
Paintings from here up until Ma Jolie are transitional theres still an impression
of a solid geometric form.
Different planes/perspectives coming together and overlaying. Distortions.
o Transparency greater; constricted palette; chiaroscuro
o Ambiguity of space the farther up you go, the flatter she gets!
Ma Jolie (1912)
Totally Analytical Cubism at this point.
o Breaks the image down into interweaving web of shape, line, plane, etc.
Youre not really sure whats going on.
Writing establishes a visual plane.
No more quasi-geometric shapes.
o Playing with traditional techniques of illusionism
Two radical, and radically different (from other art) new devices
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Passage (pronounced PASS-age)

o Passing from one plane into another
Depth and surface very muddled. Cant
really tell whats in front of what!
o Transparency
Being able to see one level underneath
another level.
Interesting connection between Picasso and Einstein
o Just around the time that Einstein made his discovery of the theory of
relativity, Picasso was painting this kind of art with relative planes and
spaces seems too coincidental to be mere chance!
o Concept that art parallels society in some ways: Picasso, just like others,
was thinking about new ways in which to see time and space.

Still Life with Chair Caning (1912)

Picasso reverts to more typical (and thus patriotic) (French) images critics had
associated his radical art with radical politics, and people in France had criticized
Picasso for being pro-German and anti-patriotic.
Pays lip service to tradition.
o Brings actual, real objects (rope) into it.
o Playing with notion of still life.
o Creating the illusion of wooden frame around the painting (i.e. like there
were in the Renaissance/Baroque artwork.
o JOU = Journal = Newspaper reference to popular culture.
Three Musicians (1921)
Synthetic Cubism (first seen in 1913): Picasso putting angles and shapes back
together again so that theyre recognizable.
o Legible subject matter.
o Signs put together in a system to produce a whole shape!
o This style is what Picasso stays with for the rest of his life.
Emphasizes stability and Frenchness
o Emphasizes clear construction of the shapes.
o Shallow, square room
Puts the characters in an interior = stability.
Apollinaire on left, Picasso in middle, Jacob on right
o Picasso makes this a dark, morose image due to the loss of his friends (A
died, J became a monk).
Girl Before a Mirror (1932)
Still using Synthetic Cubism but emphasizes lines (strong, black, and heavy).
o Even more so, he is emphasizing curvilinear shapes and lines
references nature and the organic here.
o Erogenous zones (breasts and womb) are circular, made to look like fruit.
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Lots of simultaneous POVs/perspectives.

o Face in profile, also frontal/three-quarters view.
Color: Yellow = knowledge, i.e. becoming aware of her sexuality.
Woman looking into a psyche mirror supposed to show her unconscious.

Guernica (1937)
Its HUGE the length of a wall, nearly 26 ft wide x 11.5 ft high.
Perfect example of Synthetic Cubism
o Many flat areas of quasi-geometric and simplified shapes.
Inspired by bombing of town of Guernica in the Spanish Pyrenees during the
Spanish Civil War.
o Bull (rampaging) = darkness and Franco.
o Showing people as victims of oppressive powers.
o Universal subject material and message message against destruction.
Amidst the destruction, chaos, and violence, there is a stabilizing
pyramidal shape
Tried to emulate the effect of newsprint in the look and color of the painting
This is how everyone would have heard of the tragedy.
Georges Braque
Takes certain devices from Picasso, despite his hatred of Demoiselles
o Simultaneous incorporation of two separate POVs/perspectives.
Houses at LEstaque (1908)
Creates an array of different planes in space.
o Through lots of light, shadow, and perpendicular lines, Braque breaks
down traditional space
i.e. spatial distinctions between roof and ground blend
Leads the eye around.
Focuses on quasi-geometric shapes (i.e. cubes and pyramids)
o Features made stronger with shading.
The Portuguese (1911)
Not as strong/drastic a contrast between dark and light as Picasso. But hes
basically doing the same thing that Picasso did in Ma Jolie.
BUT! Braque incorporated letters and numbers into his work: recognizable!
Draws the eye.
This is the closest either artist comes to painting abstractly.
NEO-PLASTICISM
Piet Mondrian
Moves into abstractism; uses Picassos cubism as impetus.
Went to Amsterdam in 1908 and was influenced by Theosophy.
o Thought that through color you could transcend subject matter.

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Uses curves and then goes to straight lines

o Emphasis on perpendicular lines (verticals and horizontals)
i.e. birth, death, life cycle. Sense of spirituality.
Oval as universe.
1914: Mondrian stayed in the Netherlands b/c of WWI and ended up staying
there for many years.
o Had reduced his paintings to shapes (which had evolved from the
perpendicular lines and intersections).
Book: Crucial idea in the shift from representation to abstract came
when the new abstractions were not analyzed down from more
complex shapes and motifs in nature, but were instead built up
from combinations of simple pictorial units.
Cross as construction of natures reality.
Emphasizing that to attain spiritual state you need to meditate on
certain forms and colors.
o Plastic = creative, formative (from Greek for to mold)
Methodology shows a new way to make/mold painting/art.
o Uses Theosophy in a utopian way reduces EVERYTHING to
essentials, both in terms of color (primary/B&W colors only) and shapes.
Wanted to promote internal harmony common to all that would
have a universal, peaceful focus
WWI he felt was caused by individualism and selfishness.
WWI led Mondrian and co. to desire to create a better
world.

Trees by the Gein at Moonrise (1907-08)

Initially painted in the traditional Dutch manner (i.e. landscape) and experimented
more with color blues and greens.
Made composition much more rigid Gets rid of diagonals, just verticals and
horizontals.
Warmer palette.
Naturalistic but concerned with linear patterns
o Curvilinear blobs that make up the tops of the trees, too, form lines.
Red Tree (1908)
Combined reds and blues (influenced by Theosophy).
o Steiner wrote and spoke about it.
Pictorially influenced by VVG.
Oval Study of a Tree (1913)
Still some naturalistic representation.
Oval as universe.
Composition No. III (1921-25), Composition No. II with Red and Blue (1925-1929)
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NOTE: Composition III has yellow in it, the other one doesnt.
Equilibrium required large space and little color
o the proportions of the shapes and colors and lines etc. and the way in
which they are placed and interact with each other creates a living rhythm.
Symmetry Excluded
Balance thru equivalence of nature and mind.
Model for a better world. Eliminated reference to external or
superficial appearances (i.e. its a homogenous society), and
doesnt title his works anything but Composition b/c he doesnt
want to refer to anything in the world.

Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43)

Fled Holland at the start of WWII and relocated to London and then to New York.
o Canvas becomes more decorative.
o Begins to use tape (a la commercial artists)
o LOVED New York. Inspired by it jazz, neon lights, etc.
Art work matches the dynamism.
DADA
Emerged at the same time as Neo-Plasticism.
Artists were anarchists, leftists, who moved to neutral Switzerland (Zurich) where
they felt they would be safe.
Didnt want to create a model for a better world. They protested negatively the
irrationality and stupidity of the world.
o Expressed anger at the materialism, greed, and selfishness of individuals
and countries that allowed the world to go to shit and devolve into the
destruction of WWI.
o They expressed these emotions by creating a NON-ART that would reject
everything in western culture. Destroying convention.
Rejection of logic and reason acceptance of the illogical and
anarchy (the political analog for these thoughts)
Reject planning and rationality in art acceptance of chance.
o Art meant to SHOCK.
o Anything could be art as long as it had the stamp of the artist.
SURREALISM
Put a more positive spin on Dada
Desire to express the real functioning of the mind.
o Dictation by thought.
o Based on belief of superior reality.
o Focus on DREAMS and undirected thought.
Rejection of conscious control of creativity.
LOVE FREUD.
o Goal was to RELEASE the unconscious.
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Allow desires and inhibitions to be expressed.

Accessing the subconscious in order to live a harmonious life.
Pure psychic automatism.

Technique
o Accidents seen as work of the unconscious.
o No conscious restraints inhibitions. They just did it.
Dalis Persistence of Memory
o Strange, impossible juxtapositions things out of scale, transformations
of people into animals, watches into amoebas, etc. Only in dreams!
o Impossible world referencing real objects.
Preoccupation with mythology.
o Mythology (from Jung) was seen as representative of the universal
subconscious.

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
In America!
Regional painting was considered emblematic of US conservatism in terms of
isolationism.
o Gave a positive view of the idyllic American scene: agrarianism, the
plains, boomtowns, etc. very optimistic image of America.
Social Realism was the other group
o Signified a focus on the social reality: reality of injustice in society.
o These artists were radicals/liberals but quickly got fed up with
communism and its awfulness.
Manifesto Toward a Free Revolutionary Art
Idea that artists should realize that they could be liberal in
their politics and NOT be beholden to any political party or
government.
Artists should be free to create revolutionary art and that this
kind of true art is best when it is abstract! For realistic art was
associated with totalitarian regimes.
Greenberg: If youre a liberal thinker, you shouldnt paint real
stuff you should be free to paint from within.
o Artists saw a connection between Kandinskys abstract work and the
Surrealists emphasis on the subconscious.
This gave Americans an escape from the Realism that had
dominated the traditional art scene.
These artists wanted to create something new, liberal, and not
kitsch (i.e. not representative of an image).
Jackson Pollock
Going West (1934-38)
Pollck was mentored by Thomas Hart Benton and this work represents THBs
influence on Pollock.
o Represents idealist view of American agrarian farm life.
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o Project was undertaken was a part of FDRs WPA program for artists
Strongly encouraged artists to paint pro-American works.
Technique evolving, though
o Rhythmic pattern of curvilinear lines and strong dark and light contrasts
create a pattern.

Pasiphae (1943)
Jackson had serious psychological problems, due in part to alcoholism.
o Had a Jungian psychoanalyst in 1937 who encouraged Pollock to release
images from his subconscious.
o Doodled a lot and then, like Masson, went back and filled in the images
wit conscious things to complete the work.
In Pasiphae, Pollock was looking to Surrealism for a way out of the painting style
of American artists.
o Emphasis on story of Pasiphae from mythology.
o You can decipher parts of the body.
Started to veil the figures I the painting with patterns series of
colored, jagged, curvy lines.
No. 1 1948 (1948)
Pollocks classic work of pouring, dripping, and throwing paint.
o Used various tools to drip/pour paint on the canvas.
Brushes as sticks
Painted on the floor of his studio.
o Feels more a part of the paintings
Literally be in the painting
Hand Prints on the canvas represent the fact that Pollock was
literally IN the painting.
Representative of TOTAL PHYSICAL AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL INVOLVEMENT.
o Able to move around.
Marrying the conscious and unconscious
o When painting he has the general idea but hes spontaneous. He doesnt
plan it out in advance. He knows what hes doing because as he is doing it
he is deciding.
o Life of the painting is dependent on contact with and immersion in his
psyche.
o Paintings become an expression of where he is mentally.
Concept of Universality.
o Very Jungian
o Pollock is trying to bridge the gap between the two parts of the
subconscious: the universal subconscious and the repressed personal
expressions and fears.
o Universal message of anti-war, anti-suffering (like Guernica).
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POP ART
Pop Artists didnt really give a reason for their art in interviews.
Critics initially saw Pop artwork as very affirmative (of popular culture and
expressions of mass media and society in America), but later (1970s) came to see
it as very ironic.
o Dont express artists personality or views, really.
o Derivative from ads, comic books, etc.
Andy Warhol
Plane Crash (1963)
A reproduction of the cover of the New York Mirror depicting the crash of Air
France Flight 007.
o Inspired by Duchamp to take an already-made object and sign it.
Elevates the role of the artist elaboration/glorification.
His first disaster painting
o Idea that were immune to the horrors of life and to the horrors depicted
by the media. If you see gruesome images over and over again it really
doesnt have an effect.
o Mechanization has brought to the world gruesome disasters.
Campbells Soup Cans (1962)
Studied advertising at Carnegie Tech, was very good at it.
Moved to low culture in his art.
Explicitly tried to confuse his viewers.
o Projection of America: practical but impermanent statements of pop
culture. Critiquing mass consumerism, mass media advertising.
The Artificial fascinates me
Loves America ironically.
Reflecting in his art the very things he is critiquing he reflects
the medias images, not the real images.
Idea that people only care about LABELS and exteriors
the superficial appearances and signs.
Marilyn Monroe (1964)
Focus on the tragic.
Shows Monroe as a Norma Jean kind of person wholesome, normal girl. But
shes been transformed into a mask: an artificial image of bleached hair and red
lipstick. Shes been turned into a commodity to be marketed and sold to the public
by her managers.
o Tragic loss of individuality.
Warhol represents the end of the modern era of art: through his mass
production/duplication of his work Warhol is moving away from the goal of
creating something by hand that is unique and original.

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