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1945-CONTEMPORARY ART. INTERNATINAL SCENE. Post war Europe. 5 million died during WWII in Germany 6 million died in Concentration camps 20 million died in Russia Poland lost 20 % of its population By the end of WWII, 40 million people were displaced persons. First phase:. Figurative art.
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1945-CONTEMPORARY ART INTERNATINAL SCENE
Post war Europe • 5 million died during WWII in Germany • 6 million died in Concentration camps • 20 million died in Russia • Poland lost 20 % of its population • By the end of WWII, 40 million people were displaced persons
First phase: • Figurative art
Cow with a Subtile Nose • Art brut or raw art • Expressionism inspired by children and the insane (those uncontaminated by western civilization) • Disillusioned by western traditional notions • Used paint mixed with tar, sand and mud • Painted with his fingers and kitchen utensils • Purposefully crude and primitive ways • In the 1950’s he started using industrial enamels on top of wet oil paints resulting in a cracking fissured texture which appears organic
What was Dubuffet trying to achieve? • “the sight of that animal affords me an inexhaustible feeling of well being because of the aura of calm and serenity it gives off.”
City Square • Another disillusioned artist from Switzerland • Worked in a biomorphic surrealist/abstract mode until the end of the war • knowing the atrocities of WWII, Giacometti came to think that Abstract Art was fluff • Looked for a way to express his feelings about post war humanity • Figures he made were antithesis of classical ideal: thin, fragile and roughly textured
Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef • Self taught painter • After WWII, Bacon captured the horror of the world • Served as an air raid warden during the German bombing of London • His style was influenced by van Gogh and Edvard Munch • Used post renaissance Western art for inspiration • Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef inspired by Velazquez’s Pope Innocent X
But Bacon transformed the pope into a howling anguished insubstantial man • Shows the violence of life
Abstraction • Art Informal: • Origin of human art is in the simple , honest mark • (Dadaism and the two WW proved this to Wolfgang Schulze, founder of Art Informal) • Left Germany when Hitler came to power and became a photographer in Paris • When Hitler took over Paris, Schulze was deported and fled to Spain where he was arrested and deported once again. He wandered around southern France and lived in a refuge camp until the end of WWII
Returned to Paris and started painting using any kind of paint (dripping, thick, oil and enamel) with all sorts of utensils • He threw paint at the canvas, scraped it off and textured it with different tools
Resulting works resemble cells which in Schulze’s mind were as noble as any living on the planet (especially since human kind had such a horrendous run so far in the 20th century)
Composition • Artists started using all sorts of items on the canvas • Burri was a surgeon in the Italian army during WWII and was in an Texan American POW camp • He scavenged for materials to paint on and used just about anything • When he was repatriated, he returned to Italy and used burlap and red paint (symbols of bandages and blood) • It is said that Burri “is defiant in the face of chaos. He tries to face the wounds of Europe and heal them.
Abstract Expressionism • Exodus of European artists to the United States (especially New York City) • American Abstract artists were influenced by Max Ernst, Piet Mondrian, Ferdinand Leger, Salvadore Dali and Andre Breton and the Surrealists • Innovations in use of materials, methods of application, size of work and compositional structures • Sometimes called the New York School
Formative phase: • European artists followed the thinking of Freud where American abstract expressionists followed Jung who believed that all human share a collective unconsciousness: beneath one’s private memories lies a store of feelings and symbolic associations
Zambezia, Zambezia • Cuban (but Chinese, African American and Spanish descent) • Left Cuba to study in Paris and got to know Picasso as well as surrealists • When the Nazi took over Paris, he was forced to go home to Cuba. On his trip back to Cuba he met Breton • He became interested in his Cuban/Black heritage
The forms in Zambezia, Zambezia are reminiscent of Joan Miro • There are overlapping planes and shallow space • Forms are connected to the religious implements: the composite figure is of a deity called Santeria
Garden of Sochi • Took Cubist-surrealist to the next level: spontaneous improvisation • Armenian immigrated to US in 1920 after Turkey forced all Armenians off their land • Interested in surrealism and Jung’s teachings • Connected his memories of Armenia and his father’s garden called The Garden of Wish Fulfillment • Painting has exotic slippers, nude woman and suggests vital life forces and evokes his own past as well as ancient memories
Pollock is the most famous of American Jung- following Abstract Expressionists • He was in psycho therapy and because of his reluctance to talk, his therapist encouraged him to bring in his paintings and it was through his art that his therapist taught him about Jung and symbols…it did little to help his self destructive behavior • Male and Female is an example of automatism where the artist relinquishes cognitive control of his/her pencil or brush • Both figures contain feminine and masculine shapes and symbols
Large format, liberation of automatism • Improvisational • On the canvas was not a picture but an event • Composition lacks hierarchical arrangement: everything is equally energized
The Seasons • Studied with Hans Hofmann and was producing non representational works before Pollock • Had a hot affair and then finally married in 1945 • She painted tight little canvasses while being the supportive spouse to Pollock • When he died she took over his studio and started producing dazzling large art work • This work features bold sweeping curves and that reflected her new found liberation
Asheville • Less radical than Pollock • Asheville is a town near Black Mountain College in North Carolina • Still used brushes and easels • Urgent improvisation • Dominant rhythm are the black lines
Canadian painter who went to Paris to study and paint He squeezed paint onto canvas and used a palette knife to spread the thick blobs into areas of bright color Reminiscent of shards of glass in stained glass patterns and spidery black lines
Mountains and Sea • Lyrical version of Pollock’s work • Poured thin glazes of paint onto canvas • Worked on the floor • Used unprimed canvas • In Mountain and Sea, Frankenthaler poured thin paints onto the canvas and outlined the shapes with charcoal
Color Field Painting • Second of two types of Abstract Expressionism • Influenced by Lam and Gorky and the biomorphic surrealists • Used large flat areas of color evoking transcendent moods of contemplation
No. 61, Brown, Blue Brown on Blue • 2 to 4 soft edge rectangles of color hovering above another color • Represents the bringing together two divergent human tendencies: Dionysian and Apollonian: The rational and the inspirational • Modern individual is tragically divided just like his rectangles
VirHeroicusSublimis • Means Man, Heroic and Sublime • Monochromatic canvas with some vertical lines
Developed spontaneous handling just like painters • Fluid metal calligraphic sculpture • Meant to be seen from the front just like a painting
Abstract art in Five Tones and Complementaries • Based in Buenos Aries • Garcia was from Uruguay • Influenced by Pre Columbian art • Creator of his own style and founded several art journals and taught many students
