Modern & Contemporary Art in the 20 th Century

1. Modern & Contemporary Art in the 20th Century Abstraction – Neo-Expressionism

2. ABSTRACTION • Cubism • Analytical • Synthetic • De Stijl (The Style)

3. Cubism • Analyzing and simplifying reality into geometric shapes • Began in 1907 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque • Based on Cezanne’s ideas and technique • Concerned with surface design • Eventual elimination of emotion and personal feelings

4. Cubismcont’dAnalytical vs. Synthetic Cubism • Analytical Cubism • Subdued tonality, almost monochromatic • Angled shapes • Systematic and organized • Synthetic Cubism • “Collage Cubism” • Combination of actual, simulated, and invented textures

5. Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. 1907. Oil on canvas. Style: Early Analytical Cubism • Five fractured, nude figures with small still life • Primitive feeling, figures almost Egyptian • Angular shapes, muted colours • Generalized faces, African masks • Figures appear shocked by some unseen sight, emotion later rejected by Picasso in his work • Not technically cubist, but started movement

6. Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Ambrose Vollard. 1910. Oil on canvas. Style: Analytical Cubism • Monochromatic colour scheme • Single subject at a variety of angles • Each surface treated individually • Variety of textures

7. Pablo Picasso. Guernica. 1937. Oil on canvas. Style: Analytical Cubism • Used system of symbols to show suffering of people of Guernica, ex. bull = human irrationality, broken sword = defeat of people • Depicts bombing during Spanish civil war • Textures in background mimic newspaper clippings

8. Pablo Picasso. Still Life with Chair Caning. 1912. Collage of oil, oilcloth, and pasted paper simulating chair caning on canvas. Style: Synthetic Cubism • Similar to the analytical cubist style, with added actual textures, creating a collage • Use of depth; objects rest on chair

9. Georges Braque. Still Life with Violin. 1907-1910. Oil on canvas. Style: Analytical Cubism • Worked closely with Picasso • Difficult to tell their work apart • Still life was Braque’s favoured subject • Work depicts a violin in the corner of a room with the shattered perspective and monochromatic colour scheme

10. Georges Braque. The Clarinet. 1913. Oil, pasted paper, wood grain. Style: Synthetic Cubism • Monochromatic colour scheme of analytic cubism • Combines actual and simulated textures • Still life with cubist perspective • Musical reference

11. Fernand Leger. The Stairway. 1913. Oil on canvas. Style: Analytical Cubism • Also termed Machine Cubism because Leger referenced industrial environment in his work • Hard edges, heavy black outlines • Geometric shapes become 3-D forms through shading

12. Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending a Staircase. 1912. Oil on canvas. Style: Analytical Cubism • Brought cubism to the U.S. • Not well received • “an explosion in a shingle factory” • Fractured movement of a figure as it descends the stairs, series of movements stopped in successive stages – similar to stop action photography • Also considered Futurism for its machine-like quality

13. De Stijl (The Style) • Pronounced “day-shteel” • Flattening of natural formed to linear patterns • Natural colour eliminated • Non-representational style • Visual balance, no focal point • Careful calculations and mathematic precision • Also termed Minimalism

14. Piet Mondrian. Tableau. 1921. Oil on canvas. Style: DeStijl • Basic colour, line and shape • Primary colours • Static horizontal and vertical lines • Geometric shape

15. Piet Mondrian. Composition in Blue and Yellow. 1935. Oil on canvas. Style: DeStijl • Basic colour and line • Grid • Influenced by tonal qualities of jazz, connections between and colour and sound

16. FANTASY • Fantasy • Surrealism

17. Fantasy • Inspired by earlier tradition of Greek mythology, Medieval monsters and demons, personal symbols of symbolists like Munch • Explored fantasy world of human imagination

18. Marc Chagall. I and the Village. 1911. Oil on canvas. Style: Fantasy • Style rooted in cubism with fractured planes • Inspired by folklore and fairytales of native Russia • Paints dream-like memories • Series of personal symbols • “I do not understand them all.”

19. Marc Chagall. Paris at My Window. 1913. Oil on canvas. Style: Fantasy • Sadness, loneliness, figure is blue • Cat has a human face, symbolic of human contact • Paris cityscape

20. Giorgio de Chirico. The Enigma of the Day. 1913. Oil on canvas. Style: Fantasy • No interest in Impressionism, Cubism, or Fauvism • Disturbing cityscapes • Crisp, clean and strange • Small figures in an otherwise deserted city

21. Giorgio de Chirico. The Melancholy and the Mystery of the Street. 1914. Oil on canvas. Style: Fantasy • Unexplained shadowy figures • Figures are small and seemingly vulnerable • Work lends more questions than answers • Owned by Alfred Hitchcock

22. Surrealism • Emphasis on dream world • Getting beneath the realistic surface of life into a dream world of unreality

23. Salvador Dali. Persistence of Memory. 1931. Oil on canvas. Style: Surrealism • Most famous surrealist • Magical presentation of incredible craftsmanship • Best-known work • Soft objects usually hard and metallic • Natural setting, personal symbolism

24. Salvador Dali. The Invisible Man. 1929-31. Oil on canvas. Style: Surrealism • Elements are photographically realistic • Dali “hated” simplicity and abstraction • Mood is dream-like • Simulates the female reproductive system

25. Rene Magritte. Time Transfixed. 1939. Oil on canvas. Style: Surrealism • Juxtaposed realistically painted objects in strange combinations or environments • Like science fiction – plays with what is known and familiar

26. Rene Magritte. Listening Room. 1952. Oil on canvas. Style: Surrealism • Magritte also experimented with scale when juxtaposing images • Like Dali, objects are painted with photographic realism

27. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM • Abstract Pictorialism • Action Painting

28. Georgia O’Keefe. Black Iris. 1926. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Pictorialism • Organic abstraction, but remained a realist essentially • Close ups/magnification of objects, flowers, thinly disguised symbols of female sexuality • biomorphic – natural object that has been changed

29. Georgia O’Keefe. Red Canna. 1924. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Pictorialism • Sexual energy • “I’ll make them big like the huge buildings going up. People will be startled; they’ll have to look at them.”

30. Abstract ExpressionismAction Painting • Began with artists living in NYC after second world war • Influenced by Existentialist Philosophy • Painting became a counterpart to life; an ongoing process of facing risk and overcoming dilemmas through conscious and unconscious action • Both Abstract and Expressive • Explored personal feelings and inner thoughts because of freedom of individual expression • Movement lasted about 15 years

31. Arshile Gorky. The Liver is the Cock’s Comb. 1952. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Expressionism/Action Painting • Organic, floating shapes, line, and colour • Everything appears to be transforming • Ambiguous, object resemble real life forms, but not quite

32. Jackson Pollock. Lucifer. 1947. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Expressionism /Action Painting • Interested in the action of painting, the interchange between the “will” of the medium (thickness of paint, speed, interaction of layers) and the force of the artist • Free of traditional painting methods • Energetic

33. Jackson Pollock. Blue Poles. 1953. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Expressionism /Action Painting • Emotionally and mentally immersed in work • Worked over top of canvas laid on floor, dripping and splattering paint • Process called Automatism where Pollock would empty mind of thought while painting

34. Clyford Still. 1958-d. 1958. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Expressionism • More controlled than Pollock • Involved modeling background, blending, and distinct shapes • Appears like a sky at night through torn drapery • Large scale pieces

35. Willem de Kooning. Woman II. 1962. Oil on canvas. Style: Abstract Expressionism /Action Painting • Started career as a realist • Furious energy, slashing brush • Work appears spontaneous • Emphasis on the act of painting • Abstract, primitive depiction of a woman

36. Francis Bacon. Pope Surrounded by Beef. 1954. Oil on canvas. Style: Expressionist • Not allied with the NYC group of Abstract Expressionists, but shares similarities • Combined several sources and borrowed imagery from other artists • Pope Innocent X by Velázquez • Pope surrounded by possessions, rotting beef reflects Pope’s inner self and consumption • Reference to Oedipus, eyes torn out

37. COLOUR FIELD

38. Colour Field Painting • Emphasis on colour; flat fields of colour • No emotion • AKA Post Painterly Abstraction, Hard Edge Painting • Often used acrylic paint, masking tape and fluids, large pieces, very geometric

39. Mark Rothko. Blue, Orange, Red. 1961. Oil on canvas. Style: Expressionism/ Early Colour Field • Colour Field movement inspired by Rothko’s work • Originally painted in the style of Gorky • Soft edges, feeling of floating colour • The more simple Rothko’s work became, the larger it became

40. Ellsworth Kelly. Blue Curve. 1972. Oil on canvas. Style: Colour Field • Pure colour, large, flat shapes • Simple design, usually two intense colours • Mural-sized • Hard edges

41. Frank Stella. Protractor Variation. 1969. Fluorescent-alkyd on canvas. Style: Colour Field • Varied colours carefully chosen for visual movement • Narrow negative space • Abandon rectangular format, shape of canvas became important

42. POP ART • Pop Assemblage • Pop Art • Pop Pictorialism

43. Pop Art • Return to recognizable forms and images as a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, frustrated with art establishment • Common items from the everyday environment, ex. Coke bottles, beer and soup cans, comic strip characters, hamburgers, etc. • Catered to popular tastes • Pop artists worked in many different directions • Hard edges, no or few brushstrokes, careful preparation, simplicity • Used wit, satire, and humour in their work

44. Robert Rauschenberg. Ace. 1962. oil, cardboard wood, metal, canvas. Style: Pop Assemblage • Bridged gap between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art • Mixed reality with abstraction • Combined everything and anything to achieve desired effect • Five panels • Worked with real, found object, items that were thrown away

45. Robert Rauschenberg. Retroactive. 1964. Photo transfer, water colour wash. Style: Pop Assemblage • Watercolour washes over photographic transfers • Solid piece that looks like a collage • Political, atomic cloud over JFK’s head, references to Cold War, arms race, space race, communism vs. democracy • Peaches = gluttony of the U.S. • Adam and Eve, expulsion from the garden of Eden

46. Jasper Johns. Target with Four Faces. 1958. Encaustic and collage on canvas with plaster casts. Style: Pop Assemblage • Originally used Abstract Expressionist techniques • Mixed media • Use of a target, considered to be a visual cliché • Two surfaces compared, faces (tactile) and bulls eye (flat)

47. Jasper Johns. American Flag. 1958. Encaustic on canvas. Style: Pop Art • Interested in presenting subjects that one looks at often, but seldom in detail • Recognizable, iconic image • Appears 3-D

48. Roy Lichtenstein. M-Maybe. 1965. Oil on canvas. Style: Pop Art • Interested in slick, multiple images of commercial art, mechanical techniques, and glossy colours • Worked in comic images including “Ben Day” printing dots • Large-scale images • Issues of female identity

49. Roy Lichtenstein. Okay Hot Shot. 1967. Oil on canvas. Style: Pop Art • Issues of male identity explored through the action hero • Explored sex-role rules

50. Andy Warhol. Dick Tracy. 1960. Oil on canvas. Style: Pop Art • Interested in American mass production • Recognizable, popular image repeated in a mundane sort of way, similar to stocked shelves at grocery store • Impersonal approach