MODULE 11: the rise of modernism: ModernS ART, Chapt. 28

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 Modules: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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The carnage of World War One disenfranchised any thought of maintaining the ordered world of the past. Anticipating the disasters of war, Picasso initiated the fragmentation of aesthetics in the arts. Cubism was a direct ‘slap-in-the-face’ to historic aesthetics. The denial of painting as a replication of a tangible world, Cubism initiated a new vocabulary of art. Dadaism sought to ridicule the rational excuses of authority. Surrealism sought to engage the subconscious drives outlined by S. Freud. At the same time, the Bau Haus School of Design, issuing forth a logical, practical and efficient Brave New World of order and efficiency of design, initiated an academic engagement of process, concept and pragmatic design. The International Style in architecture reflected many of the same ideas expressed in Bau Haus design.

Cubism-

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SLIDE:
Picasso “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907) Pl. 28-21

Seldom is there a moment in art history where a pivotal event changes that history, usually it is a trend that becomes a movement, then becomes an established school. With Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” there is just such a pivotal moment. He flattened the volumes, rotated the figures so you were given different planes of view, the faces of the women were either from archaic Spanish sculpture or a kind of African mask. Needless to say, his artist friends thought he was nuts. It was a couple of years before they reconsidered and engaged Cubism.

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SLIDE:
Picasso “Self-Portrait” (1901) Pl. 28-19

Picasso’s early experience of Paris was often painful. His constant hunger and poverty can be seen in his sunken cheeked self-portrait, painted in the blue palette of this morose period of his life.

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SLIDE:
Picasso “Glass and Bottle of Suze” (1912) Pl. 28-26

One of the important elements of early Cubism that is seldom discussed is the inherent social commentary that was a significant part of this radical aesthetic. The generally monochromatic character of the work focuses on the collaged wallpaper, newspaper, and printed textures elements that were meant to comment on the loss of the individual craftsman, the glut of manufactured but ersatz products, and the same bland effect of the news reported.

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SLIDE:
Delaunay “Homage to Bleriot” (1914) Pl. 28-29

It took a couple of years for many of Picasso's contemporaries to appreciate the value of Cubist ideas. Eventually other artists began to incorporate these ideas into their own art. Delaunay’s homage to air flight is one of these interpretations that are not a rehash of Picasso but are more reflective of the interpretation of style of a particular artist.

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SLIDE:
Boccioni “States of Mind: The Farewells” (1911) Pl. 28-31

Another example of appropriated Cubist ideals is the work of the Italian Futurists. Boccioni’s writhing images of a modern world charges headlong into a technologically optimistic future.

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SLIDE:
Leger “The Large Luncheon” (1921) Pl. 28-53

Leger’s mechanized scene of robotic women at leisure, a common theme from the past, in a Cubist patterned environment, presents another positive view of an unknown future.

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SLIDE:
Malevich “Suprematist Painting” (1915) Pl. 28-34

Russian Revolutionary ideals were reflected in Cubist influenced Russian Constructionist art. In an effort to create a new aesthetic language for the common proletariat, an art based on engineering principles and mathematics was thought to eliminate the inequities of elitist art of European bourgeois culture.

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SLIDE:
Mondrian “Composition with Yellow, Red and Blue” (1927) Pl. 28-49

By reducing art to what he saw as its essential elements, Mondrian gave Modern Art its singularly analytic character. Reductionist ideas entered into such diverse fields such as medicine, manufacturing, psychology and education.

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Dadaism-

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SLIDE:
Duchamp “Fountain” (1917) Pl. 28-63

The pivotal image of Dadaist irreverence, wry humor, and emphasis on ‘contextualizing’ the Modern Art statement, is his use of a common urinal as an aesthetic icon.

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SLIDE:
Hoch “Dada Dance” (1922) Pl. 28-61

Montaged photo-images are so much a part of our Contemporary Cultural mechanisms of communication, that we fail to recognized how radical this Dadaist innovation is. The principle mechanism of montage is that a particular sequence of different images adds up to a statement greater than the sum of the images.

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SLIDE:
Oppenheim “Object: Luncheon in Fur” (191936) Pl. 28-68

This piece by Oppenheim presents a common object removed from its generally accepted function. Even the naming of the object confers an implied limited function. Oppenheim’s humorous application of fur to the cup, spoon and saucer, also conveys a complex manifesto of linguistic relativity.

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Surrealism-

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SLIDE:
Dali “The Persistence of Memory” (1931) Pl. 28-67

The artist most identified with the Surrealist movement is Salvador Dali. His ‘sexual-paranoiac’ derived, intensely realistically rendered, optical illusionary, and highly personal vocabulary of Spanish landscape, melting watches, cavorting ants, and mystically Spanish/Catholic imagery, were provocative yet highly cryptic.

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SLIDE:
Ernst “The Horde” (1927) Pl. 28-65

Max Ernst’s use of unconsciously derived surface character allowed him to discover content that could be interpreted psychologically. This automatism or automatic writing would later be employed by Abstract Expressionists of the 1940’s and 50’s such as Jackson Pollack to develop intuitive imagery.

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SLIDE:
Kahlo “The Two Fridas” (1939) Pl. 28-86

Not a self-declared Surrealist, Frida Kahlo’s conflicted images of Mexican-Indian magical romanticism and European heritage, gave her work such a unique, candid, confessional character that for modern collectors she is the highest priced Latin American artist today.

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Bau Haus-

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SLIDE:
Gropius “Bauhaus Building” (1926) Pl. 28-58

The Bau Haus movement lasted only 10 years as a formal school, but its principles continue to dominate all forms of design today. Their ideas about the integrity of material and form determined by function, continue to guide design.

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SLIDE:
Brandt “Coffee and Tea Service” (1924) Pl. 28-56

Much of Bau Haus design went into architecture, craft and product design, some refer to these areas as applied arts. The Bau Haus movement focused on efficiency of production as well as efficient shape and form. Brandt’s coffee and tea service represents the kind of clean, unembellished, efficient product design typical of Bau Haus output.

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International Style-

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SLIDE:
Wright “Robie House” (1909) Pl. 28-39

Wright was influenced by a variety of sources- Japanese, German and Nature. His contributions are most identified with his respect for the natural characteristics of the architectural site and the use of natural materials and forms. With the Robie House Wright constructed cantilevered roof planes that framed both the landscaping and the horizontality of the building itself.

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SLIDE:
Wright “Falling Water” (1937) Pl. 28-83

One of the most iconographic of Wright’s work, Falling Water dramatically and problematically incorporates nature into the very structure of the house.

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