Ap art history term 3 test 5

AP Art History

Test 5

Term 3

Fallingwater• 1937, Frank Lloyd Wright• Horizontal massing (prairie school)• Cantilever• Cast concrete• Ribbon fenestration• Site specific• Organicism• Hearth• Influences: Japanese, Arts and

Crafts, modern technology• Commissioned by Edgar Kaufmann,

a department store owner, to replace a summer cottage

• Declares war on the modern industrial city

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Bauhaus Building• 1925-26, Walter Gropius, Dessau,

Germany• “workhouse” = modern engineering,

curtain walls (no load bearing features)

• Functionality, craftsmanship• Counterpart to the total and rational

planning envisioned by the de Stijl group

• He admired the spirit of medieval building guilds

• Sought to revive and commit that spirit to the reconciliation of modern art and industry

• Frankly acknowledges the reinforced concrete, steel, and glass of which it is built

• Used asymmetrical balancing to convey dynamic quality of life



German Pavilion• 1929, Mies Van der Rohe• International Exposition, Spain• He was director of the Bauhaus• “Less is more.”• Great passion = subtle perfection of

structure, proportion, and detail• Relied on domino construction

system developed by Le Corbusier• Very simple• No references to the past



Villa Savoye• 1930, Le Corbusier, France• Big in purism, emphasizing purity of geometric form• Hated the crowded, noisy, chaotic cities• Envisioned a city of uniform style, laid out on a grid• Building strictly functional• Nature wouldn’t be neglected• Icon of international style• Culminated the domino construction system• Curtain walls on the exterior to provide freedom of design• Ribbon windows• Designed as a weekend retreat• “machine for living”• Brutalism: raw process by which it was made is shown



Schroeder House• 1925, Gerrit Rietveld, Utrecht, The

Netherlands• Two kinds of beauty: a sensual or

subjective one and a higher rational, objective kind

• Example of International style• Applied Mondrian’s principle of a

dynamic equilibrium • Radically asymmetrical exterior

composed of interlocking gray an white planes

• Commissioned by wealthy widow• House = ascetic experience • Walls slide



Man, Controller of the Universe• 1934, Diego Rivera• Commissioned by Rockefeller Family• In the lobby of the RCA Building • He was a communist and included Lenin’s face• The Rockefellers canceled his commission and had the mural destroyed• Recreated in Mexico city• Man controls the universe through manipulation of technology• Lenin on the right, capitalists on the left• Capitalist world cursed by militarism and labor unrest



Guernica• 1937, Picasso, Paris Universal Exposition• = synthetic cubism• Surrealism: horror• Victims of war throughout time• Timeless look at war• Made during the Spanish Civil War• Painted in Paris• = a stark, hallucinatory nightmare that became a powerful symbol of the brutality of war• Focused on the victims• Screaming horse = Spanish Republic• Bull = Franco or Spain



Vanna Venturi House• 1961-64, Robert Venturi, Chestnut

Hill, PA• Designed for his mother• Plays with complexity and confusion• Refers to past: Wright and classical• Beginnings in Mannerism• Ambiguity, paradox• Rejected the abstract purity of

International Style• Incorporated elements drawn fro

vernacular sources• “Less is a bore.”• Complexity and Contradiction in

Architecture• Building = simple and complex• Circles, triangles, rectangles



Guggenheim Museum• 1993-97, Frank Gehry, Bilbao, Spain• Used vernacular forms and cheap

materials• Developed a organic, sculptural style• Resembles a living organism• Pays homage to Wright’s famous

one in New York and attempts to outdo it in size and effect



Portrait of a German Officer• 1914, Marsden Hartley• Exhibited at the Armory Show• Pioneer of American modernism• Merged cubism from Paris with

expressionism of Kandinsky in Berlin• Tightly arranged composition of

boldly colored shapes and patterns, interspersed with numbers, letters, military imagery

• Speaks symbolically of Karl von Freyburg

• Black creates a funeral undertone



Migrant Mother, Nipomo, CA• 1936, Dorothea Lange• She was a leading RA/FSA

photographer• Pictures Florence Thompson• Captures fears of an entire

population of disenfranchised people• Image of a generation• Using photography as a moral,

reform sense to raise awareness



Aspects of Negro Life• 1934, Aaron Douglas• Developed an abstracted style influenced by African art as well as Art Deco• Used schematic figures, silhouetted in profile with eyes rendered frontally like Egyptian art• Limited palette• Concentric bands suggesting musical rhythms or spiritual emanations• Painted for the 135th Street branch of the New York Public library under the sponsorship of

the Public Works of Art Project• Intended to awaken in African Americans, a sense of their place in history• At the right, blacks celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation



Migration of the Negro• 1940-41, Jacob Lawrence• Influenced by Locke and Douglass• Devoted early work to depiction of

black history• Recounted through narrative painting

in dozens of small panels, each with a text

• Made of 60 panels• Chronicled the great 20th century

exodus of blacks from the rural south the urban North

• Boldly abstracted style suggests influence of both cubism and black folk art



Autumn Rhythm• 1950, Jackson Pollock• Interested in vast American west and

Indian art• Taught by Benton• American search for self• Pulsing foreground, middle ground,

and background• Giving vent to primal, natural forces• Took pleasure in the sense of being

fully absorbed in action, eliminating the sense of self-consciousness

• Shows harmony with oneself and the world



Mountains and Sea• 1952, Helen Frankenthaler• Among the second generation of

Abstract Expressionism• Used thin oil paints and applied them

in washes• Pollock saw her work as avant-garde



Canyon• 1959, Robert Rauschenberg• Combine painting• Featured in the “Art of Assemblage”

exhibition• Desired to work in the gap between

art and life• Chaotically mixes conventional

artistic materials with a wide variety of ingredients from the urban environment

• Challenges viewer to make sense of it



Just What Is It That Makes Today So Different, So Appealing?

• 1955, Hamilton, collage• Prominent member of the

Independent Group• He resisted the Institute of

Contemporary Art’s commitment to modernist art, design, and architect



Marilyn Diptych• 1962, Andy Warhol• Was a successful commercial

illustrator• Turned from conventional painting to

the assembly-line technique of silk-screening photo-images

• Borrowed the diptych format from the icons of Christian saints

• Symbolically treated her as a saint• He was fascinated with fame• Fame confers, as holiness, a kind of

immortality



Lipstick on Caterpillar Tracks• 1969, Claes Oldenburg• Proposed city monuments• Criticizes war• Cynical attack on Vietnam• Created at the invitation of a group of

graduate students in Yale’s school of Architecture

• Requested a monument to the “Second American Revolution” of the late 60’s (student demonstrations against Vietnam)

• Erotic overtones “make love, not war”• Addressed issue of “potency” both

sexual and military



Documents

Ap art history term 3 test 5