Abstraction: How did we get here? I don’t recognize anything!

1. Abstraction: How did we get here? I don’t recognize anything! http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/3/49

2. As you look at these works of art, ask yourself: • Is the artist using abstraction to… • explore the tension created between different shapes • deliberately deconstruct the act of seeing • construct a landscape of color (abstract expressionism—see Rothko and Frankenthaler) • dissolve linear perspective • create a “pure” image that focuses only on shape and color • create a collection of potent symbols • focus the viewer on the act of creation (gesturalist—see J. Pollack) • Is this abstract work referential? Does the artist use the ostensible subject as a jumping off point which allows him to… • focus the viewer on the color and pattern • use color to evoke a mood or emotion • evoke the dynamism of modern age

3. terms: referential decontextualized dynamism (energy and power and speed) gesturalist assemblage (when hoarders become artists!) ready-made

4. Paul Cezanne Mont Sainte-Victoire c. 1886

5. Vasily Kandinsky Der Blaue Reiter 1903 One of the founders of Der Blaue Reiter. Kandinsky hoped to awaken spirituality and to inaugurate “a great spiritual epoch” through the sheer force of color. He is considered the very first artist to paint completely abstract works of art.

6. Andre Derain Mountains at Collioure 1905 Stokstad writes that “Derain’s assertive colors, which he likened to ‘sticks of dynamite,’ do not record what he actually saw in the landscape but rather generate their own purely artistic energy” (1063). Again, the landscape—the subject—is used as an occasion for exploring the artist’s ideas about color

7. Vasily Kandinsky Ludwigskirche in Munich 1908

8. Gustave Klimt The Park 1909-1910

9. Gustave Klimt Apple Tree 1912

10. George Braque Violin and Palette 1909-1910

11. Pablo Picasso Ma Jolie 1911-1912

12. Vasily Kandinsky Landscape with Factory Chimney 1910

13. Vasily Kandinsky Composition V 1911

14. Vasily Kandinsky Composition VII 1913

15. Vasily KandinskyFragment 2 for Composition VII1913

16. Vasily KandinskyImprovisation No. 30 1913

17. Franz Marc Fighting Forms 1914

18. Robert DelaunaySun, Tower, Airplane 1913

19. Robert Delaunay Homage to Bleriot 1914

20. Umberto Boccioni The City Rises 1910

21. Umberto Boccioni States of Mind 1911

22. Giacomo Balla Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash 1912

23. Marsden Hartley Portrait of a German Officer 1914

24. Henri Matisse The Yellow Curtain 1915

25. Kazimir MalevichSuprematist Composition: White on White 1918

26. Kazimir MalevichPainterly Realism. Boy with Knapsack - Color Masses in the Fourth Dimension 1915

27. two one three

28. Piet Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogie 1942-43

30. Louise Nevelson Dawn’s Chapel IV 1959-1960

31. Louise Nevelson Royal Game I 1961

32. Jackson Pollack The She-Wolf 1943

33. Jackson Pollack The Key 1946

37. Willem de Kooning Woman I 1950-1952

38. Willem de Kooning Woman V 1952-1953

39. Willem de Kooning Woman and Bicycle 1953

40. Helen Frankenthaler Mountains and Sea 1952

41. Helen Frankenthaler Viewpoint II 1979

42. Helen Frankenthaler Crossing 1983

49. Galleries

50. Cy Twombly1971