Art1100 LVA 21-2 Modernism Online

Art 1100

Joan Jonas“They Come to Us without a Word”U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015

Modernism

Modernism Escape the influence of history.Belief in cultural progress (linear history).Belief in science as a virtue (objectivity).Belief in universal truths that can be discovered.Fascination with the “Primitive” or elemental.

In painting this was interpreted as “paint” being independent from image thus “escaping” its roleas an imitation of life.

Motto: “Make it new!”

Impressionism

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876.

Industrial Revolution

Kathe Kollwitz, March of the Weavers, from "The Weavers Cycle",

1897.

Steam Engines and Trains increased travel.Photography and Film are invented.Newspapers become the first “mass media”.Mechanized Production increased labor disputesCreation of a commercial “middle class” and leisure time.

Daguerre,Le Boulevard du Temple, 1839.

Photography is Invented: The Daguerreotype

With the invention and popularization of photography in the mid 1800’s painting and sculpture had competition with representing reality. Now they were frequently not as accurate as this machine. For painting at least with Impressionism color and light became more important than naturalism.

Claude Monet, A Bridge Over a Pool of

Water Lilies, 1899.

Impressionism About changing light and time.Gives the visual “impression”.Uses optical mixing because of pointillism. (pixelation)Depicts “bourgeois” or middle class in leisure.

Modernism

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French 1841-1919). La Grenouillère, 1869.

•Painted mostly outside, “en plein air”.•Mostly French landscapes and leisure activities•Compositions influenced by Japanese prints.•Strove to capture the very act of perceiving nature.

Late in life Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond on his property at Giverny.

Impressionism

Claude Monet (1840–1926)Key French Impressionist painter.Led the way to 20th-century modernism.

Claude Monet French, 1840-1926Lunch on the Grass, 1865

Impressionism

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, the Portal and the Tower of Albane, the Morning, 1894.

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight, 1894

The term Impressionism actually came from a critic who wrote that Monet’s paintings seemed to be a mere impression of a painting.

The Impressionists often painted the same scene at different times of the day, or in different seasons to study how light and color changed from one transient atmospheric effect to another. It was important to work rapidly, before the transient light could change.

Impressionism

Claude Monet French, 1840-1926Stack of Wheat (Thaw, Sunset), 1890/91

Claude MonetFrench, 1840-1926Stack of Wheat (Snow Effect, Overcast Day), 1890/91

Claude MonetFrench, 1840-1926Stack of Wheat, 1890/91

Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926, Palazzo da Mula at Venice 1908

The Arts of JapanChapter 19

Inner Shrine, Ise,Early 1st century C.E., rebuilt every 20 years.

Shinto Religion : Numerous deities (kami) inhabit the natural world. i.e. trees, rocks, mountains, waterfalls.Local ritual practices enlist the deities help in everyday life.

Arts of Japan

Zao Gongen, Heian period (794–1185), 11th–?12th century Japan Gilt bronze

As Buddhism filters into Japan from China, depictions of Shinto deities begin to take on Buddhist characteristics.

Arts of Japan

Yamato-e: “Japanese Pictures”Among the important cultural developments of this time of internal cultural concentration was a characteristically Japanese painting style.

•Hand scroll allowed for time-based story telling as the scroll was unrolled.•Hand painted and unique.•Used “birds-eye” viewpoint with the roof removed.•Uses isometric perspective.•Used Rich color.

Refinements of the Court: Heian

Illustration I from the “azamaya” chapter of The Tale of Genji, Heian period, first half of 12th century.

Refinements of the Court: Heian

The Burning of Sanjo Palace, Kamakura period, late 13th century.

Samurai Culture: Kamakura

http://www.metmuseum.org/content/interactives/kitanomaki/legends.html

Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Shrine (Kitano Tenjin Engi), Kamakura period (1185–1333), 13th century

Samurai Culture: Kamakura

Zen and Japanese Art

Portrait sculpture of a Zen priest, Muromachi period (1392–1573), 14th–15th centuryJapan

Zen Buddhism's emphasis on simplicity and the importance of the natural world generated a distinctive aesthetic, which is expressed by the terms wabi and sabi.

Zen Buddhism: Emphasizes simplicity and the importance of nature.Emphasizes personal meditation over deities and scriptures.Appreciates rustic beauty more that formal perfection because it more closely resembles reality.


Without Zen, such ancillary arts as the tea ceremony (chanoyu), flower arranging (ikebana), the No dance-drama, and the code of conventions and formal etiquette that characterizes modern life in Japan either would not have come into existence or would have taken very different forms from those that prevail today.

Haboku: “Splashed or Broken Ink”Mimics Zen’s belief in a flash of insight.

Su Dongpo in Straw Hat and Wooden Shoes, Muromachi period (1392–1573), second half of 15th centuryArtist UnknownJapan



Sessō Tōyō, Haboku-style landscape, a hanging scroll painting

JapanMuromachi period, 15th century CE

For the haboku style, the artist uses no outlines, but instead relies on areas of splashed ink wash and layers of ink shading to create the three-dimensional impression of mountains, trees, and rocks in a landscape.

Landscape of the Four Seasons, Muromachi period (1392–1573), early 16th centuryKangaku Shinso (Soami) (Japanese, died 1525)Pair of six-fold screens, ink on paper

Landscape of the Four Seasons, Muromachi period (1392–1573), early 16th centuryKangaku Shinso (Soami) (Japanese, died 1525)Pair of six-fold screens, ink on paper

Screen painting •Typically a single large image on panel. •Chinese in origin but closely associated with Japanese art.•Usually come in sets of two.

The Old Plum, Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1645Attributed to Kano Sansetsu (Japanese, ca. 1589–1651)

Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons, Momoyama period (1573–1615), early 17th centuryKano School

Ukiyo-e: Japanese Wood Block Prints Used the same style as Yamato-e but for popular culture. Crow and Heron, or Young Lovers

Walking Together under an Umbrella in a Snowstorm, ca. 1769Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)

The great artistic event of the Edo period was the popularity of woodblock prints, a new art form that made art available to everyone. Prints transcended their initial destiny as throwaway souvenirs to become lasting treasures of world art.

Japanese Art: Edo Period

• Simplified nature scenes• Flattened, stylized shapes• Large areas of color• Cropped composition• Strong use of diagonals• Isometric (bird’s eye)

Perspective

Japanese Art: Edo Period

Crow and Heron, or Young Lovers Walking Together under an Umbrella in a Snowstorm, ca. 1769Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)

Utagawa Toyokuni III (Kunisada) (side a) (Japanese, 1786-1864). Double-sided Key Block for Ukiyo-e

Print, ca. 1830. Cherry wood, 15 1/2 x 10 1/8 x 3/8 in. (39.4 x 25.7 x 1 cm). Brooklyn Museum,

Katsushika Hokusai Japanese, 1760-1849Publisher: Jihei Mori-Ya

Ukiyo-e woodblock printmaking with

Keizaburo Matsuzaki

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=t8uF3PZ3KGQ

Art for Everyone: Edo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8uF3PZ3KGQ

The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from a Series of Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1831–33Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849);



• Part of a suite of 36 scenes of Mt. Fuji.

Hokusai characteristically cast a traditional theme in a novel interpretation. In the traditional meisho-e (scene of a famous place), Mount Fuji was always the focus of the composition. Hokusai inventively inverted this formula and positioned a small Mount Fuji within the midst of a thundering seascape. Foundering among the great waves are three boats thought to be barges conveying fish from the southern islands of Edo. Thus a scene of everyday labor is grafted onto the seascape view of the mountain.

Katsushika HokusaiJapanese, 1760-1849Fuji from Kanaya on the Tokaido (Tokaido Kanaya no Fuji), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei), c. 1830/32

Katsushika HokusaiJapanese, 1760-1849A Mild Breeze on a Fine Day (Gaifu kaisei), from the series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)", c. 1830/33

Katsushika HokusaiJapanese, 1760-1849The Tea Plantation of Katakura in Suruga Province (Sunshu Katakura chaen no Fuji), from the series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)", c. 1830/33

Katsushika HokusaiJapanese, 1760-1849Shower Below the Summit (Sanka hakuu), from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)", c. 1830/33

Otani Oniji II, dated 1794Toshusai Sharaku (Japanese, active 1794–95)

Three Kabuki Actors [from right to left]: Iwai Hanshiro V (1776–1847), Segawa Kikunojo (1802–1832), and Onoe Kikugoro III (1784–1849), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1823Utagawa Kuniyasu (Japanese, 1794–1832)


Chobunsai EishiJapanese, 1746-1829In a Pleasure House in Shinagawa (Shinagawa no rojo), n.d.


After Japanese ports reopened to trade with the West in 1854, a tidal wave of foreign imports flooded European shores.

This included ukiyo-e woodcut prints which transformed Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art by demonstrating that simple, transitory, everyday subjects from "the floating world" could be presented in appealingly decorative ways. Parisians saw their first formal exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts when Japan took a pavilion at the World's Fair of 1867. But already, shiploads of Asian bric-a-brac—including fans, kimonos, lacquers, bronzes, and silks—had begun pouring into England and France.

“Japonisme”

Vincent van Gogh, Japonaiserie: Bridge in the

Rain (After Hiroshige), 1887

Ando Hiroshige: “Oshashi Bridge & Atake in a sudden shower”, 1856 - engraving on wood,

“Japonisme”: Art influenced by ukiyo-e printmaking

Hiroshige PLUM ORCH ARD, KAMEIDO

1857. From One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.Vincent van Gogh JAPONAISERIE : FLOWERING PLUM TREE, 1887.


Edgar Degas, Before the Ballet, 1890-1892.

“Japonisme”

Degas was among the earliest collectors of Japanese art in France. Degas lengthened his paintings to imitate the shape of Japanese scrolls.

Station of Otsu: From the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (The "Reisho Tokaido"), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1848–49Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)

“Japonisme”

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, The Dancing Lesson, 1883-1885

The qualities of the Japanese aesthetic: elongated pictorial formats, asymmetrical compositions, isometric perspective, spaces emptied of all but abstract elements of color and line, and decorative motifs become central to Impressionism.

Claude Monet, French, 1840-1926, Waterlilies, 1914

Impressionism




Monet at Giverny

•He acquired the house and property of Giverny in 1890 and built the pond for his water-lilies.

• In the years immediately following 1900, and after an illness, Monet’s eyesight became considerably reduced.

• From 1908-1910, he had already been working on his ‘secret cycle’ of Water-lilies from the pond in Giverny. Monet was both gardener and designer of the garden, before becoming its painter and interpreter.

• In the space of a few years in the 1920’s Monet had painted about 50 paintings. In his eighties, he had built a new studio in his garden at Giverny in which he worked on his largest paintings on rolling easels.


Monet at Giverny

Claude MonetFrench, 1840-1926Waterlilies Green Reflection, Right and Left Halves, 1926

Impressionism

Claude MonetFrench, 1840-1926Waterlilies, 1926

Impressionism

Post-impressionism: A blanket term for the diverse styles that come after Impressionism. Stylistically the paintings become more abstract and expressionistic.

Including artists like ...Paul CezanneVincent van GoghPaul Gauguin

Modernism

Paul Cezanne (1839–1906)Begins to privilege things other than “life-likeness” in order to more accurately portray their subjects.

For Cezanne this includes...•Distorts linear perspective.•Geometricizes the planes that make shapes... shapes look more boxy and fragmented.

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism

Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Vistoire, 1902-04.

Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902-1904. Oil on

canvas,

Cezanne also exaggerated color, but his was a unique concept. Instead of flattening space, he did the opposite. He actually broke space up into geometric, solid forms: rectangular landscape, pyramid-shaped mountain. His brushstrokes are also geometric. A favorite subject of his was this mountain near his home, which he drew or painted 75 times.

Post-Impressionism

Paul Cezanne, The Basket of Apples, ca. 1895 25 3/4 x 32 in. Art Institute of Chicago.

Paul Cézanne, Great Bathers, 1898-1905.

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Son of a Dutch minister and a bookseller's daughter.Briefly an art dealer and clergyman, before deciding to become an artist at the age of 27.Only a decade-long career.

•Heavy energetic lines•Brilliant color•Peasant scenes from Realism.

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889

Post-Impressionism

Van Gogh was academically trained as a Realist painter.

It wasn’t until he reached Paris that his style emerged.

Vincent van GoghDutch, 1853-1890Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre, early 1887

In 1886, at age thirty-two, Van Gogh arrived in Paris,

"not even know[ing] what the Impressionists were."

By the time he left, two years later, he had cast off the muddy palette and coarse brushwork that had characterized his earlier efforts and embraced the latest developments in painting.

Post-Impressionism

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (verso: The Potato Peeler), 1887Vincent van Gogh

Post-Impressionism

The Flowering Orchard, 1888Vincent van Gogh

In February 1888, Van Gogh departed Paris for the south of France, hoping to establish a community of artists in Arles. Captivated by the clarity of light and the vibrant colors of the Provençal spring, Van Gogh produced fourteen paintings of orchards in less than a month, painting outdoors and varying his style and technique.

Vincent van Gogh, Japonaiserie: Bridge in the

Rain (After Hiroshige), 1887

Ando Hiroshige: “Oshashi Bridge & Atake in a sudden shower”, 1856 - engraving on wood,


Vincent van GoghDutch, 1853-1890Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La Berceuse), 1889

Oleanders, 1888, Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

A Corridor in the Asylum, late May or early June 1889Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

Fearing another breakdown, Van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum at nearby Saint-Rémy in May 1889, where, over the course of the next year, he painted some 150 canvases. His initial confinement to the grounds of the hospital is reflected in his imagery, from his depictions of its corridors to the irises and lilacs of its walled garden, visible from the window of his room.

Post-Impressionism

Olive Orchard, 1889Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)Oil on canvas

Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

In June, he produced two paintings of cypresses, rendered in thick, impastoed layers of paint, likening the form of a cypress to an Egyptian obelisk in a letter to his brother Theo.

Cypresses, whose association with death and immortality preoccupied Van Gogh, figure prominently in a landscape produced the same month, Wheat Field with Cypresses In this work, the wheat field—sown and ultimately harvested—becomes a metaphor for the cycle of life, as Van Gogh described wheat as "the germinating force" in the cycle of life and the creative process.

Post-Impressionism

First Steps, after Millet, 1890Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

Post-Impressionism

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise," the artist wrote to his brother Theo, "with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh's response to nature. In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native land, the Netherlands.

Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Dr. Gachet,

1890,

Post-Impressionism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Dr._Gachet

After nearly a year at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh left, in May 1890, to settle in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he was near his brother Theo in Paris and under the care of Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopathic physician and amateur painter. In just over two months, Van Gogh averaged a painting a day.

However, on July 27, 1890, he attempted suicide in a wheat field, shooting himself in the chest; he died two days later. His artistic legacy is preserved in the paintings and drawings he left behind, as well as in his voluminous correspondence, primarily with Theo, which lays bare his working methods and artistic intentions and serves as a reminder of his brother's pivotal role as a mainstay of support throughout his career.

Post-Impressionism

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, 1890, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Post-Impressionism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatfield_with_Crows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Gogh_Museum

Post-Impressionism

Paul Gauguin, Te Aa No Areoi ( The Seed of Areoi), 1892.

Paul Gauguin Flat areas of vivid colorFled Paris for TahitiPioneered “Symbolism” and what would become “Expressionism”.

Paul Gauguin, The Yellow

Christ, 1889.

Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary), 1891Paul Gauguin

Post-Impressionism

Although he began his artistic career with the Impressionists in Paris, during the late 1880s he fled farther and farther from urban civilization in search of an edenic paradise where he could create pure, "primitive" art. Yet his self-imposed exile to the South Seas was not so much an escape from Paris as a bid to become the new leader of the Parisian avant-garde.

Paul Gauguin, The Day of the God (Mahana no Atua), 1894

Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897-1898

Post-Impressionism

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917),French. 19th century Europe’s most successful and influential sculptor.

Early Modern French Sculpture

• Defiance of conventional expectations. • Interest in emotional expressiveness. • Vigorous, awkward figures.• Brutal themes.

Auguste Rodin, Adam, 1880-81.


Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, 1880-81.


Auguste Rodin originally conceived a smaller version of this sculpture to sit atop his monumental bronze portal entitled The Gates of Hell (1880-1917). The figure was intended to represent Italian poet Dante Alighieri pondering The Divine Comedy, his epic story of Paradise and Inferno.

Auguste Rodin, The Gates of

Hell, 1880-1917.


www.googleartproject.com/collection/the-national-museum-of-western-art/artwork/the-gates-of-hell-auguste-rodin/460063/

Auguste Rodin THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS, 1884–1889.


The Burghers of Calais

Commissioned to commemorate an event from the Hundred Years War. In 1347, Edward III of England offered to spare the besieged city of Calais if six leading citizens (or burghers)—dressed only in sackcloth with rope halters and carrying the keys to the city—surrendered themselves to him for execution.

Rodin shows the six volunteers preparing to give themselves over to what they assume will be their deaths.





Into the 20th Century: Fauvism and Expressionism

“Avant-garde”: a military term for the first soldiers sent into battle. Meant that these artists were pushing cultural boundaries and tastes in new directions.

Fishing Boats, Collioure, 1905 André Derain (French, 1880–1954)

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893.

The “Fauves” (wild beasts) gained this name through the use of wild, subjective colors.

Expressionism Is a blanket term for a style of painting that incorporates....

Exaggerated colorDistorted proportionsEmotional content

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)French painter and artistic rival of Picasso. Inaugurated the “Fauves” (wild beasts).

•No more clear linear perspective.

•Heavy use of patterns.•Exaggerated color

His goal was to discover "the essential character of things" and to produce an art "of balance, purity, and serenity," as he himself put it in his "Notes of a Painter" in 1908

Promenade among the Olive Trees, 1905–6Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954)Oil on canvas

Henri Matisse, Madame Matisse (The Green Line), 1905.

Expressionism

Primitivism:Assumes the superiority of Western art and reflects the racism of European colonialism.

Believes “primitive” culture to be more “natural” than civilized society. [Read as Romanticism].

Similar to Orientalism, it takes images and patterns out of their cultural context.

Into the 20th Century: Expressionism and Cubism

The Arts of AfricaChapter 18 (Part 2)

The Conical Tower in the Elliptical Building at Great Zimbabwe, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe

Arts of Africa

The ruins of this complex of massive stone walls undulate across almost 1,800 acres of present-day southeastern Zimbabwe. Begun during the eleventh century A.D. by Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Shona, Great Zimbabwe was constructed and expanded for more than 300 years in a local style that eschewed rectilinearity for flowing curves. Neither the first nor the last of some 300 similar complexes located on the Zimbabwean plateau, Great Zimbabwe is set apart by the terrific scale of its structure. Its most formidable edifice, commonly referred to as the Great Enclosure, has walls as high as 36 feet extending approximately 820 feet, making it the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara Desert.

Great Zimbabwe

"When African nationalists were demanding independence in the 1960s, the Smith regime actually sanctioned historians to write a fake history on the origins of Great Zimbabwe, denying its African origins.

This was not different from the accounts of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century antiquarians, which linked Great Zimbabwe with Phoenicia, with Arabs, with the Egyptians and the rest of the near East. We would call that, in the scholarly world, 'antiquarian revisionism' - trying to use old values to support a wrong cause altogether. "

- Dr. Innocent Pikirayi, lecturer in history and archaeology, University of Zimbabwe.

• Unesco description

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1KRjQmFEIc&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1KRjQmFEIc&feature=plcp

Great Zimbabwe

Scholars have suggested that the birds served as emblems of royal authority, perhaps representing the ancestors of Great Zimbabwe's rulers. Although their precise significance is still unknown, these sculptures remain powerful symbols of rule in the modern era, adorning the flag of Zimbabwe as national emblems.

Storytelling in African culture.

Histories and mythology were transmitted orally, in performance and from one generation of specialists to the next.

These required memory aids and teaching tools in the form of... 1).Visual representations of history.2). Depictions of important leaders.3).Music and costumes to aid the performances.

Storytelling: Visual Representations of History

Memory Board (Lukasa), 19th–20th centuryDemocratic Republic of Congo; LubaWood

Lukasa:A coded record of history used by a class of storytellers within the Luba people.

Storytelling: Depictions of important leaders.

Shrine HeadIfe people, Yoruba

The Ife Culture

Ancient Yoruba culture from 350 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E.

The Oni (king) was considered to be a descendant of God.

Naturalistic sculpted faces, meant to portray specific individuals.

In the latter half of the first millennium C.E., Ife began to develop into a flourishing artistic center.

Bust of Lajuwa, Terracotta, Nigeria, Ife Kingdom, 11th-16th Century

Head, Wunmonije Compound, Ife, 14th-early 15th century.

The art-historical importance of Ife works lies in their highly developed and distinctive sculptural style, described alternately as naturalistic, portraitlike, and humanistic. These include human heads and figures depicting idealized crowned royalty and their attendants, as well as images of diseased, deformed, or captive persons. The delicately rendered vertical facial striations that appear on many of the sculptures may represent scarification patterns.

In Yoruba tradition, women are the clayworkers. They produce both sacred and secular pieces and may have been the creators of the archaeological terracottas. Men are traditionally the sculptors of stone, metal, and wood. The production of bronze cast works, involving both terracotta and metalworking, may have been collaborative efforts

Lost-wax casting process: Molten metal is placed atop a wax replica of the sculpture. The wax melts and escapes, leaving the metal in place inside the mold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPgEIM-NbhQ

Lost-wax casting process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbd4REmzzNU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPgEIM-NbhQ

Head of a King, from Ife. Yoruba, c. 13th century. Brass, life-

size. The British Museum, London.


Copper mask, Ife, Nigeria, 12th-13th centuryIfe Nigeria, Head, 12th/15th century


Oba Ademuwagun Adesida II, the Deji (ruler) of Akure, Akure, Nigeria. 1959.

The palace altar to King Ovonramwen, Benin, Nigeria, c.1888-97.

The Benin KingdomStorytelling: Depictions of important leaders.

The Benin Kingdom is another famous African culture, which carries on to this very day under dynasties of rulers that date back to the 1st century. The kings of Benin are viewed as sacred beings which are to be dramatized and praised in art.

Traditionally, each king commissioned and dedicated an altar to his father upon assuming office. This altar is dedicated to a ruler from the end of the 19th century. At the center is a brass statue depicting a standing king flanked by two attendants. Hierarchical scale (size differentiation indicates status or importance) symbolizes the king’s higher powers. This symmetrical composition is at the center of the altar. It is surrounded by ceremonial brass balls and sculptures, depicting rulers, capped with elephant tusks carved in relief with royal motifs. While individual objects like these can be viewed in museums today, they were not originally meant to be seen in isolation.

Edo, Benin Kingdom, Nigeria

Altar Group (Aseberia) with Oba Akenzua I and Attendants, 18th century

Claims ancestry from the Ife.

Uses Ife bronze casting techniques.

Their representations honor their ancestor kings and give a visual history of tribal events.

The Benin Kingdom

Ivory mask, Edo peoples, probably 16th century CE From Benin, Nigeria

Edo, Court of Benin Nigeria ,Oba's Altar Tusk, 1850/1888

The Benin Kingdom

Edo, Court of Benin NigeriaAltar Head for an Oba (Uhunmwun Elao), 18th/early 19th century

Plaque: Portuguese with Manillas, 15th–19th centuryNigeria; Edo peoples, court of BeninBrass, iron

Most of the West African coast was explored by Portugal in the period from 1415 into the 1600s. African exports consisted primarily of gold, ivory, and pepper.

However, over 175,000 slaves were also taken to Europe and the Americas during this period. In 1600, with the involvement of the Dutch and English, the magnitude of the slave trade grew exponentially

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/apiv/hd_apiv.htm

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/slav/hd_slav.htm

EdoBenin Kingdom, Nigeria

Portuguese Musketeer, 16th centur

The Benin Kingdom

Modernism

Seated Male, 19th–20th centuryCôte d'Ivoire; Baule

Bust of a Man, 1908Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)

African sculpture influences stylized treatment of the human figure

Starting in the 1870s, thousands of African sculptures arrived in Europe in the aftermath of colonial conquest and exploratory expeditions.

They were placed on view in museums such as the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris, and its counterparts in cities including Berlin, Munich, and London. At the time, these objects were treated as artifacts of colonized cultures rather than as artworks, and held little economic value.

Reliquary Head (Nlo Bieri), 19th–20th centuryGabon; Fang,

Photograph, 1959–60, print 1997Seydou Keita (Malian, 1921–2001)

Masks Patterns

Henri Matisse, Harmony in Red, 1908-1909

Expressionism

These Expressionist artists, their dealers, and leading critics of the era were among the first Europeans to collect African sculptures for their aesthetic value. While artworks from Oceania and the Americas also drew attention, especially during the 1930s Surrealist movement, the interest in non-Western art by many of the most influential early modernists and their followers centered on the sculpture of sub-Saharan Africa.

Expressionism

Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de vivre, (The Joy of Life), 1905-06.

Expressionism

Expressionism

This is Matisse's monumental landscape Le bonheur de vivre. Its liberal and expressive use of color is characteristic of Fauvism, an early modernist movement that also emphasized flattened space and formal qualities such as line and brushwork. Matisse and other Fauvists applied these innovative methods to many traditional artistic subjects, including portraiture, landscape, and the still life.

Deemed the "climactic" work of Fauvism by one critic, the final version of Le bonheur de vivre painting features flat expanses of color and a linear treatment of the figures.

Henri Matisse, Music 1910

Henri Matisse, Dance II, 1910

Henri Matisse, Goldfish, 1911

Expressionism

Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River, 1916

Expressionism

Henri Matisse, Decorative Figure in an Oriental Setting, 1925.

Expressionism

Matisse like many other Fauvists, Cubists and Expressionists incorporates non-Western patterning, flattened space and geometric shapes into their images.

Henri Matisse, Decorative Interior with Egyptian Curtain 1948.

Expressionism

Pablo Picasso, First Communion, 1895-96.

Pablo Picasso(1881-1973) was a prodigy at an early age. These two paintings are from when he was 15.

Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait,

1896.

Picasso and Expressionism

Pablo PicassoThe Old Guitarist, late 1903–early 1904

Picasso dabbles with the various styles of Post-impressionism and Expressionism.

Here from his “Blue Period” Frequently he depicted solitary figures set against almost empty backgrounds, the blue palette imparting a mood of melancholy to images of dejection, poverty and despair.

Gertrude Stein, 1906Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)

Picasso and Cubism

Picasso's experiments with expressionism were influenced by a new fascination with African and Oceanic art.

Picasso reworked her image into a mask-like manifestation stimulated by primitivism.

Pablo PicassoHalf-Length Female Nude, autumn 1906

Cubism

Pablo PicassoNude with a Pitcher, summer 1906

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/61612

Woman in an Armchair, 1909–10Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) Oil on canvas

Cubism

Cubism Fragmented solidsMultiple viewpointsAfrican influences

Pablo Picasso,Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

Cubism:

• Angular planes and well-defined contours that create an overall sculptural solidity

• The figure-ground begins to flatten and meld together.

• Form is fragmented like diamond facets to present multiple viewpoints, not one viewpoint as in linear perspective.

Cubism

Cubism attempts to depict things as we experience them, not necessarily just as we see them. (at least not from a

single viewpoint)

Georges Braque, Le Portugais (The Emigrant), 1911-1912. Oil

on canvas

Picasso’s partner in this movement was Georges Braque. Their styles became so closely intertwined that they even ceased signing their works for a brief time. Following Cezanne’s advise, they reduced forms to the cube, cylinder and cone. They also restricted color to gray, ochre and green. As Cubism progressed they added stenciled letters, newspaper and fabric elements, creating collage. While these two artists worked hand in hand, Picasso received most of the credit.

Cubism

Pablo Picasso, Man with a Violin, 1911.

Detail of Pablo Picasso, Man with a Violin, 1911.

Cubism

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937.

Picasso and Cubism

Following the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain in 1936, the subsequent nationalist victory, and the Franco era, Picasso never again returned to Spain. During this period dominated by the creation of Guernica, he lived with Dora Maar in Paris.

In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques opened in Paris. For the Spanish pavilion, Picasso painted the immense composition Guernica in the style of a fresco. The intention was to portray the way the Spanish people had been torn into two opposing factions.

The painting was inspired by the bombing of the small town of Guernica. An massive Minotaur with human eyes, screaming women brandishing their murdered children, and broken horses tensed in their last breath are tangled together in misery.

Picasso and Cubism

Dora Maar: Guernica: State I, photograph from a chronicle of Picasso’s work on the creation of Guernica, 1937

Picasso and Cubism

Pablo Picasso, Untitled, 1967

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Art & Photos

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