art history

Abstract Expressionism (Late 1940s-1950s) First American avant-garde movement  Action paintings: artist drips or splatters paint onto a surface Color Field Painting (1960s) Lacks aggression of Abstract Expressionism  Relies on subtle tonal values; variations of a monochromatic hue  Pop Art (1955-1960s) Materials of the everyday world, mass popular culture, celebrities, reaction against Abstract Expressionism  Happenings (1960s)  act of performance initially planned, but involves spontaneity, improvisation, and audience participation Site Art / Earthworks (1970s-1990s)  Interacts with the environment 

DeStijl (1916-1925) Dutch Completely abstract Black lines shape rectangular spaces Only the primary colors are used Diagonal lines forbidden  Harlem Renaissance (1930s) African Americans migrated in great numbers to Harlem, New York City Movement began after World War I Themes include racial pride, civil rights, and the influence of slavery on modern culture Mexican Muralists (1917-1930s) Training in Fresco painting Large murals  Promoted political/social messages Promote to labor and struggle of working classes Socialist agenda 

Dada  (1914-1920s) Zurich, Cologne, Berlin, Paris, New York  Disillusioned by the useless slaughter of WWI Rejected conventional methods of representation Oil and canvas abandoned Challenged the relationship between words and images; put writing in their works  Characterised by ready-mades Surrealism (1914-1920s) Inspired by psychological studies of Freud and Jung Sought to represent dreams, subconscious thought, and unspoken communication Meant to puzzle, challenge, and fascinates Sources in mysticism, psychology, and the symbolic  Not meant to be clearly understood, not didactic  Constructivism (1907-1930s)  Experimented with new architectural materials Influenced by Cubists  No precise facades 

Fauvism (1905) Debut in Paris  Inspired by Post-Impressionism  Stressed broad flat areas of violently contrasting color  Died out in 1908  Color harmonies suppressed so expressive effects could be maximized Expressionism (1905-1930) Inspired by Fauvism  Germany, Dresden  Formed by Art Group known as The Bridge (considered themselves a bridge from traditional to modern painting)  Began to forsake representational art; abstraction  Highly intellectual; saw abstraction as a way of conceiving the natural world  Cubism (1911) Created by Pablo Picasso Influenced by simple geometries of African masks  Breaks down human form into angles and shapes Looking at the human figure multiple sides at once  Shaded to simulate depth  Jagged edges, sharp faces to a curvilinear and flowing style 

Time Period: 1900-1980 World War I and II, Great Depression  Intensely creative period, one of the most in history  Patronage of museums  One of the results of WWII is the abandonment of Paris as the art capital of the world; it was now New York because of the abundance of European settlers; unafraid of experimentation  Color was not only used to describe, but also evoke a feeling and challenge the viewer; perspective was discarded; dynamic compositions  Europeans stimulated by African art; inspired by geometric and abstract pieces Modern sculpture turned anything into a work of art Art Movements:  Fauvism (c. 1905) Expressionism (1905-1930) Cubism (1911) Constructivism (1907-1930s)  Dada (1914-1920s) DeStijl (1916-1925) Mexican Muralists (1917-1930s) International Style (1920s-1930s) Surrealism (1924-1930s)  Harlem Renaissance (1930s) Abstract Expressionism (Late 1940s-1950s) Pop Art (1955-1960s) Color Field Painting ...

Fauvism (c. 1905) Expressionism (1905-1930s) Cubism (1907-1930s) Futurism (1909-1914) Suprematism (1913-1920s) Constructivism (1914-1920s) Dada (1916-1925) DeStijl (1917-1930s) Bauhaus (1919-1933) Precisionism (1920s) Surrealism (1924-1930s) Art Deco (1920-1930s) Organic Art (1920s-1930s) Depression Era (1930s) Abstract Expressionism (40s-50s) Pop Art (55-60s) Color Field Painting (60s) Conceptual Art (60s) Performance Art (60s) Op Art (60s) Minimalism (60s) Site/Environmental Art (70s-90s) Feminist Art (70s- present) Postmodernism (75- present) Video/Computer/Digital Art (contemporary)

Time Periods: Post-Impressionism (1880-1890) Symbolism (1890s) Art Nouveau (1890s-1914) Post-Impressionism: While the Impressionists stressed light, shading, and color, the Post-Impressionists wanted to move towards abstraction and explore underlying structure, while preserving traditional elements such as perspective.  Symbolism:  Symbolists embraced a mystical philosophy in which the dreams and inner experiences of an artist's life became a source of inspiration.  Art Nouveau:  Developed mostly in Europe: Brussels, Barcelona, Paris, and Vienna  Seeks to eliminate the seperation among various artistic medias and combine them into one unified experience  Buildings usually designed, furnished and decorated by one artist or group of artists Relies on vegetal and floral patterns; complexity of designs; undulating surfaces Curvilinear; enjoyed use of iron

Time Period: 1872-1880 Painters worked in plein-air; artificial atmosphere inhibited artistic expression; artists moved out to capture the effects of atmosphere and light  Relied on the transient, the quick, and the fleeting  Impressionist brushstrokes seek to capture the effects of light  Times of day and seasons affect the appearance of objects  Spectacular color range; stark contrasts to subtle harmonies  Concentrate on landscape and still life painting  Influence of Japanese art; imitated flatness; compositional qualities Anti academic and antibourgeois  Monet most important figure

Time Period: 1848-1860s Believed in painting things that one could experience with the five senses Lower classes and their environment  Shows basic honesty and sincerity missing among upper classes Subjects at one with the landscape; brown and ochre are dominant hues  Pieces:  The Stone Breakers. Gustave Courbet. 1849 C.E. (destroyed in 1945). Oil on canvas.  Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art. Honoré Daumier. 1862 C.E. Lithograph. Olympia. Édouard Manet. 1863 C.E. Oil on canvas. The Horse in Motion. Eadweard Muybridge. 1878 C.E. Albumen print. 

Time Period: 1848-1900 Movements:  Realism (1848-1860) Impressionism (1872-1880) Post-Impressionism (1880-1890) Symbolism (1890s) Art Nouveau (1890s-1914) Europe was shaken by revolutions in Sicily, Venice, Germany, Austria: sought to replace aristocracies with democracies.  Explored themes about human evolution and social equality; new inventions such as telephones, motion pictures, bicycles; opened communication to a wider audience  Artists used the past for inspiration, but rejected traditional subject matter; no more religious subjects, aristocratic portraits, mythological scenes or historical paintings.  Modernism prevailed: peasant scenes, landscapes, and still lifes The art gallery emerged; better than Salons; galleries carefully selected works of art European artists were greatly influenced by Japanese art; particularly prints of genre scenes and landscapes; broke European conventions, but still sophisticated and elegant  Japanese ...

House in New Castle County. Delaware, U.S. Robert Venturi, John Rauch, and Denise Scott Brown (architects). 1978–1983 C.E. Wood frame and stucco. Robert Venturi's New Castle County House offers a modest but instructive example of the Post-Modern style set in rural north Delaware; orthodox.  Modern architecture and city planning had run its course. Rather than copy a specific style, he borrowed freely, juxtaposing, collaging, and reinterpreting forms from distinct periods and places.  Classical in derivation yet slightly cartoonish, this somewhat awkward assemblage gives the house a simultaneously grand and whimsical appearance.  The painted arches in the vaulted music room, the quirky chandeliers, and perforated wall patterns exhibit a straight-forward craftsman-like quality; his buildings and critical writings helped propel late 20th-century architecture in a new direction.  This private residence remains a playfully challenging work expressing a refr...

Spiral Jetty. Great Salt Lake, Utah, U.S. Robert Smithson. 1970 C.E. Earthwork: mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, and water coil. Edge; intersection between land and water; dense with minerals; created opportunities for the land/water to meet each other; meant to be a piece that changed based on natural principles; Nazca lines; in nature; environmental issues, man and industry; art becomes part of the process of nature; meant to be regularly documented; sense of order to chaos; opens our eyes to the brevity of our lifetime.  Located in remote and inaccessible area; presence of bacteria creates red color; made with a tractor 

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks . Claes Oldenburg. 1969– 1974 C.E. Cor‐Ten steel, steel, aluminum, and cast resin; painted with polyurethane enamel. A monumental tube of lipstick sprouting from a military vehicle; visible space for the anti-war movement while also poking fun at the solemnity of the plaza.  The sculpture served as a stage and backdrop for several subsequent student protests. Oldenburg and the architeciture students never intended for the original Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks sculpture to be permanent.  In the Yale sculpture, the artist combined the highly “feminine” product with the “masculine” machinery of war. In doing so, he playfully critiqued both the hawkish, hyper-masculine rhetoric of the military and the blatant consumerism of the United States. In addition to its feminine associations, the large lipstick tube is phallic and bullet-like, making the benign beauty product seem masculine or even violent.  The jux...

The Bay. Helen Frankenthaler. 1963 C.E. Acrylic on canvas. Heaving, atmospheric painting; we see an imposing fluid blue promontory suspended in front of us. Its colors ranging from violet to indigo run into one another; Frankenthaler’s approach here was to use a soak-stain method with diluted acrylic paint. Acrylics gave her more flexibility with viscosity and movement than oils, and allowed her more control; as a substitute for the action of the brush, Frankenthaler would lift the canvas and tilt it at various angles so that the paint would flow across the surface.  She had to account for gravity and the ebb and flow of a liquid across a flat surface, so a fascinating aspect of Frankenthaler’s method is the blend of the artist’s control paired with the unpredictability of the forces of nature. Frankenthaler was inspired by the drip method of Jackson Pollock who began painting on the floor in the late 1940s, but she knew she wanted to work differently.  The color...

Narcissus Garden. Yayoi Kusama. Original installation and performance. 1966. Mirror balls. Kusama is a self-taught artist who now chooses to live in a private Tokyo mental health facility, while prolifically producing art in various media in her studio nearby.  Her highly constructed persona and self-proclaimed life-long history of insanity have been the subject of scrutiny and critiques for decades. The tightly arranged 1,500 shimmering balls constructed an infinite reflective field in which the images of the artist, the visitors, the architecture, and the landscape were repeated, distorted, and projected by the convex mirror surfaces that produced virtual images appearing closer and smaller than reality.  When gazing into it, the viewer only saw his/her own reflection staring back, forcing a confrontation with one's own vanity and ego. Originally intended as the media for an interactive performance between the artist and the viewer, the objects are now regarded ...

Marilyn Diptych. Andy Warhol. 1962 C.E. Oil, acrylic, and silkscreen enamel on canvas. Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych is made of two silver canvases on which the artist silkscreened a photograph of Marilyn Monroe fifty times.  At first glance, the work—which explicitly references a form of Christian painting in its title—invites us to worship the legendary icon, whose image Warhol plucked from popular culture and immortalized as art.  This image is a carefully crafted critique of both modern art and contemporary life. True to form, the actress looks at us seductively from under heavy-lidded eyes and with parted lips; Warhol’s use of the silkscreen technique further “flattens” the star’s face.  By screening broad planes of unmodulated color, the artist removes the gradual shading that creates a sense of three-dimensional volume, and suspends the actress in an abstract void. In this way, the painting suggests that “Marilyn Monroe,” is merely a one-dimensional ...

Seagram Building . New York City, U.S. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson (architects). 1954-1958 C.E. Steel frame with glass curtain wall and bronze. One of the most important buildings in the history of architecture in the United States; buildings like these designed since the 20s; never had designed an office building before; end of war, the depression; largest liquor company at the time; bronze; based off Greek architecture; symmetrical, disciplined aesthetic; looking to balance old and new; play of light and shadow; textured; Mies constantly referenced antiquity; new architectural experience for the people of New York; is it alienating or welcoming?  Reflection of Minimalist movement in painting; simplicity, geometry, elegance; reflective surface; interplay of vertical and horizontal accents; steel and glass skyscraper, common after WWII

Woman, I. Willem de Kooning. 1950–1952 C.E. Oil on canvas. Took a number of years; surface consists of layers and layers; many textures; drippy/thin, thick/matte; his objective was not a finished product; process; quick brushstrokes; brushwork calligraphic, muscular, tough; garish colors; brilliant oranges, pinks, yellows; olive green feels really dissonant; artist is one of the central abstract expressionists Sacred art brought back to the 20th century, made profane; takes eroticized/sexualized images of women; overwhelming in size, fills canvas; artist had been trained in a traditional way; aggressive and energetic; bulging eyes, bared teeth; improvisation.  Great fierce teeth, huge eyes; blank stare, frozen grin; ambiguous environment; thick and thin black lines dominate; influenced by all kinds of female nudes Large bulbous breasts; satire on women; slashing of paint onto canvas; jagged lines create an overpowering image 

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park . Diego Rivera. 1947–1948 C.E. Fresco. In Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central Park, hundreds of characters from 400 years of Mexican history gather for a stroll through Mexico City’s largest park.  A confrontation between an indigenous family and a police officer; a man shooting into the face of someone being trampled by a horse in the midst of a skirmish; a sinister skeleton smiling at the viewer.  A scene composed of disparate historical personages, including Hernán Cortés (the Spanish conqueror who initiated the fall of the Aztec Empire), Sor Juana (a seventeenth-century nun and one of Mexico’s most notable writers), and Porfirio Díaz (whose dictatorship at the turn of the twentieth century inspired the Mexican Revolution).  Perhaps the most striking grouping is a central quartet featuring Rivera, the artist Frida Kahlo, the printmaker and draughtsman José Guadalupe Posada, and La Catrina.  Chin...

The Jungle. Wifredo Lam. 1943 C.E. Gouache on paper mounted on canvas. 1934 C.E. Wifredo Lam remains the most renowned painter from Cuba and The Jungle remains his best known work and an important painting in the history of Latin American art and the history twentieth-century modernism more broadly. Lam’s consciousness of Cuba’s socio-economic realities; his artistic formation in Europe under the influence of Surrealism; and his re-acquaintance with Afro-Caribbean culture. This remarkable collision resulted in the artist’s most notable work, The Jungle. The Jungle, currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has an undeniable presence within the gallery: the cluster of enigmatic faces, limbs, and sugarcane crowd a canvas that is nearly an 8 foot square. Plays with perception. The artist haphazardly constructs the figures from a collection of distinct forms—crescent-shaped faces; prominent, rounded backsides; willowy arms and legs; and flat, cloddish hands...