590 likes | 768 Views
Contextual Studies 6 Subject Matter & Content. Fauvism & Cubism Expressionism(New Objectivity) & Surrealism. Monet, Poplars at Giverny , 1888. Seurat, study for Bec du Hoc , 1885. Matisse, The Red Studio , 1911. Matisse, The Pink Studio , 1911. Matisse, The Green Stripe , 1905.
E N D
Contextual Studies 6Subject Matter & Content Fauvism & Cubism Expressionism(New Objectivity) & Surrealism
Monet, Poplars at Giverny, 1888 Seurat, study for Bec du Hoc, 1885
Matisse, The Red Studio, 1911 Matisse, The Pink Studio, 1911
Matisse, The Green Stripe, 1905 Matisse, Femme a la Violette, 1927
What is Matisse’s attitude to subject matter? • Why is composition so important? • 3. What is art about, and why? • 4. What is his attitude to nature?
Henri Matisse, ‘Notes of a Painter’ (1908) in Art in Theory, pp69-75 ‘What interests me most is… the human figure. It is that which best permits me to express my almost religious awe towards life. I do not insist upon all the details of the face…’ p.73/26-8 ‘I will condense the meaning of the body by seeking its essential lines.’ p.71/17-18 ‘What I am after above all, is expression… The place occupied by the figures or objects, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything plays a part… Everything that is not useful in the picture is harmful.’ p.70/23-37 ‘A work of art must carry within itself its complete significance and impose that upon the viewer even before he recognises the subject matter. When I see the Giotto frescoes at Padua I do not trouble myself to recognise which scene of the life of Christ I have before me, but I immediately understand the sentiment which emerges from it, for it is in the lines, the composition, the colour.’p.73/33-6
‘What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of any troubling subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters …a soothing, calming influence on the mind…’ p.73/38-41
‘I cannot copy nature in a servile way… I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. When I have found the relationship of all the tones, the result must be a living harmony of tones, a harmony not unlike that of a musical composition.’p.72/33-6
Braque, Clarinet and a bottle of rum on a Mantelpiece, 1911 Picasso, Le Torero, 1912
Extracts from Georges Braque ‘Thoughts on Painting’,1917 in Art in Theory, p214-5 3. The charm and the force of children’s paintings often stem from the limited means employed… 4. New means, new subjects. 5. The subject is not the object; it is the new unity, the lyricism which stems entirely from the means employed. 6. The painter thinks in forms and colours. 7. The aim is not to reconstitute an anecdotal fact but to constitute a pictorial fact. 9. One must not imitate what one wishes to create. 10.One does not imitate the appearance; the appearance is the result. 11.To be pure imitation painting must make an abstraction of appearances. 12.To work from nature is to improvise. 14.The senses deform, the mind forms.
Braque, Violin and Sheet Music on a Table, 1913 Braque, Musical Forms, 1913
New Objectivity George Grosz & Otto Dix
According to the text by Grosz: • What is the role of the artist? • What style of art is he arguing for?
George Grosz, ‘My New Pictures’, 1921 in Art In Theory pp 272&3 You can’t be indifferent in this trade, about your attitude toward the problem of the masses… (p272 l.3&4) All this painted nonsense certainly can’t stand up to reality. Life is much too strong for it. (p273 l.21&22) I am again trying to give an absolutely realistic picture of the world. I want every man to understand me. (p273 l.30&31) I am suppressing colour. Lines are used in an impersonal, photographic way to construct volumes. (p273 l.43&44)
John Heartfield (formerly Herzfelde), Adolf the Superman Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk, 1932
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1932 Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War, 1936