art history

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

The Scream. Edvard Munch. 1893 C.E. Tempera and pastels on cardboard. E dvard Munch’s The Scream may be the most iconic human figure in the history of Western art. Its androgynous, skull-shaped head, elongated hands, wide eyes, flaring nostrils and ovoid mouth have been ingrained in our collective cultural consciousness.  Swirling blue landscape and fiery orange and yellow sky. The various renditions show the artist’s creativity and his interest in experimenting with the possibilities to be obtained across an array of media, while the work’s subject matter fits with Munch’s interest at the time in themes of relationships, life, death, and dread.  The Scream is in fact a surprisingly simple work, in which the artist utilized a minimum of forms to achieve maximum expressiveness.  The bridge, a landscape of shoreline/lake, and the sky, which is activated with curving lines in tones of orange, yellow, red, and blue-green.  Foreground and background blend int...