Favorite Art This Quarter

Week Ten: Post Nine

My Favorite Art This Quarter and Some Influences

I think that my favorite styles of art that we have studied this quarter and the styles that are most influential in my own art are the same.  First, I liked Realism for bringing new subject matter into the art world.  It’s strange to me that the bourgeois class felt so threatened by looking at a painted image of something they could have seen on the street or by the roadside at any time if their noses weren’t so far in the air.  I have an aversion to politics and yet I see it as my duty as a voter to keep up with developments and try to make good choices at election time.  Those who were well off in the early 18^th century were being reminded of their duty to the poor by the artists who used the Realist style and the bourgeoisie didn’t like it at all.   With communist and socialist ideas being explored it was time for artists to reflect the experimental politics of the era.  Realist artists wanted to portray an unembellished version of modern happenings and people.  Manet’s nudes (The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia) were unaccompanied by cherubs and often addressed the viewer with a direct stare.  Courbet’s laborers (The Stone Breakers) worked in ragged and dirty garb, not the latest style.  The artist analyzed the subject matter in quite a clinical way and presented what he/she felt would engender a reaction in the viewer even if that reaction was horror or disgust.  My version of realism is to draw what I see; this may be one of the traditional realms of a female artist but it is what I like to do.

Another favorite style of mine is Impressionism.  I like that it is in some ways a reaction to Realism.  Realists wanted to show the dirt and grime of the poor to change the priorities of the rich, then the pendulum swung a bit too far and artists ended up in high government posts during the time of the Commune.  It seems that even those with the highest ideals and the best of intentions can still be corrupted by power and destroy what they intended to improve.  Impressionists use non-threatening subject matter, bright colors and visible brushwork to create beautiful paintings and glide the viewer beyond the ugliness of the past with pleasing, indistinct images.  It is a type of art that celebrates, heals and renews the life of humans and of the Earth as it often depicts landscapes, parties and leisure time activities (Monet, Impression: Sunrise, Morisot, Summer’s Day).  Monet often didn’t include human figures in his work and I identify with his approach since I like to draw mostly botanical subjects.  Much of Monet’s later work was done in his own garden and this is also one of my favorite spots, along with the nearby woods and river. 

I also like the anything goes freedom of Post-modernism.  The work by Kehinde Wiley, Prince Tommasso Francesco of Savoy-Carignano (2006) references Anthony Van Dyck’s Prince Thomas Francis of Savoy-Carignan (1634) and I think of Jan Brueghel and other Dutch flower painters from the 17^th century and also 19^th century floral still lives when I draw plants.  My work is unlikely to go as far as that of Georgia O’Keeffe’s when it comes to seeing flowers in a new way but her work is also a good Modernist style to reference for me.  

Joseph Kosuth

Week Nine:  Late 20^th Century Art

I decided to research Joseph Kosuth because I felt that his One and Three Chairs (1965) was intriguing.  Since he was born in 1945 he is still alive and may still be producing art (if he hasn’t retired).  I thought that this work was very intellectually appealing and wondered about the direction of his art in the decades after 1965, which lead me to Titled (Art As Idea As Idea) “Green” from 1997.  This work consists of a 48” square of print which sports the dictionary definition of the word “Green” mounted on cardboard. 

We can see a logical progression here- starting in 1965 Kosuth produced a series of triads, or sometimes other odd numbered groupings:  the object (chair, table, clock, etc.), a photograph of the object and a printed definition of the object.  He considered the idea or concept behind his art more important than the actual objects so this type of conceptual art could be set up in several different locations simultaneously using different chairs, etc.  The artist would send the gallery or other location a certificate of authenticity, confirming that they were using his idea, and a set of instructions about how to set up the installation.  It wasn’t necessary for the artist to go to the site of any installation unless he had a need to control the setting up process.  Kosuth also used newspaper clippings arranged on a board to investigate specific ideas in the Dada tradition and in a more surprising media he created his word ideas in neon.  The neon works show a Pop Art influence as Kosuth puts his work of ideas and concepts into the media of advertising and beer signs.  His work is often pared down to just a definition of a word or idea from a dictionary printed large and mounted.  After I read a bit about the artist I thought that he probably had used the idea of defining a color as a concept for one or more of his artworks and sure enough I found it in “Green”.   This makes the artist somewhat predictable to me- but also understandable.

Kosuth is trying to get away from actual paint and canvas and fabricating his own works- as was Duchamp in his time.  The idea of printing the definition of “green” is related to painting an actual canvas green but takes the concept much farther into abstraction.  When we look at One and Three Chairs the steps into this abstraction are shown- from the actual concrete object, to the photograph, and then to a series of words without a picture.    Of course, “green” has more meanings than simply the color- such as unripe, new, or in a more modern sense, environmentally aware- so we may actually find more meaning in the definition than in a green canvas.  Language has a lot of built-in ambiguity and contextual references of course so the artist is never going to be able to keep individuals from interpreting his work in their own way.   Kosuth also is flouting Greenberg by saying that the intent and meaning of art is more important than art that exists only as art and that art critics should not dictate what constitutes art.  All we have to do is to picture the idea of green in our own minds and see what comes up. 

Works Cited

http://library.artstor.org.ezp.lib.cwu.edu/library/printImage.jsp?imageur...

Kosuth, Joseph.  Intention(s).  Art Bulletin 78 (1996): 407-412.

Kotz, Liz.  Language Between Performance and Photography.  October 111 (2005): 3-22.

Zevi, Adachiara.  Joseph Kosuth: the Context is the Stuff of Art.  L’Architectura 45 (1999):382-384.

Styles Influenced by Cubism

Week Eight:   The Effect of War on Art

Post Seven

Most styles of art that came out after Cubism were influenced by it in some way.  Of course, there are also two branches of Cubism:  Analytic and Synthetic.  An Analytic work such as Ma Jolie by Pablo Picasso is showing an analysis of the visual elements of a subject.  Each element is shown in a flattened, geometric area; all the important bits are there but they are not necessarily assembled in the original spots or, even if they are, different sides of the same object may be shown in a flattened juxtaposed space.  The subject often has a dissected look because thought has been given to portraying all surface elements and sometimes some internal elements as well.   In Synthetic Cubism images or objects are built up by collage and/or assemblage; they still give a geometric effect and the thoughtful assembly of the work is the main point of this art.  Picasso’s Mandolin and Clarinet is an example of this type of Cubism.

I see a lot of Cubist influence in Salvador Dali’s work The Phenomenon of Ecstasy.  This photo montage recalls Synthetic Cubism in the practice of collaging which is used here.   Though the separate images are not joined together to form the main image the repeating elements create a fairly coherent message.  An even stronger influence might come from Analytic Cubism.  Dali loses the geometric effect of Cubism in works such as Metamorphosis of Narcissus but the idea of “analysis” given a Freudian influence directs the analysis to the inside of the human mind instead of the surface of an object.  Dali is analyzing elements of his own dreams and portraying them on his canvas.  Whether he interpreted visual imagery in the same light as Freud I don’t know but Freud was extremely obsessed with repressed sexuality and most of Dali’s art contains the sensual or overtly sexual content that were then thought to be the main subject of dreams.  Dream subjects are interesting since they show fragments of the psyche and are a way of dissecting what is going on in the human brain much like analytical Cubism dissected outer appearance.  Max Ernst also gives us some insight into the workings of his own mind when he uses random surfaces to give him ideas to express in his version of Surrealism- this works something like the famous ink blot test.

The influence of Cubism on Dada is felt in analysis:  Dada analyzes society- and in Synthesis :  Dada artists use collage and assemblage to make the point that society and art have become ridiculous when compared to the destruction of World War I.  Ideas such as this freed Marcel Duchamp to express himself-not in beautiful, nonfunctional things made from his own hands-but in objects “readymade” and made nonfunctional in basic ways.  Analysis of an object means that the artist may see something in it beyond its mundane use which tickles a weak spot in our own perceptions and reveals something about it we haven’t noticed before.

Cubism also influenced architecture.  Many buildings from around the turn of the century and beyond have the geometrical effect of broken-up surfaces as if the function and form of what makes a building has been dissected.  Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs have a Cubist look, as if, instead of being flattened, they slice their way through the air in a series of planes and angles stacked one on top of the other like an analytical work built in 3-D.

Matisse, Gauguin and Primitivism

Week Six Post Six (Gauguin and Primitivism)

Option Two

Henri Matisse painted The Blue Nude (Souvenir at Biskra) in 1907. Biskra is a city in northern Algeria (Africa) that was built around an oasis and has been known as a winter vacation resort spot for a long time.   In The Blue Nude Matisse uses the heavy black outlines and bright palette of the primitivists to convey the quality of light in a sunny desert oasis.  This painting is a study of light reminiscent of Impressionism in that the palms in the background are painted in much warmer tones than the shaded area in which the figure reclines.  Her hues vary from Caucasian flesh tones to cool blues and purples in an exaggerated play of highlights and shadows.  Matisse is referencing the orientalist style in that the figure is the lounging female typical of this mode while he is referencing primitivism at the same time.  Combining these styles is a difference and makes the work avant-garde.

Though we like to think of artists as liberal and open to new ideas they are bound to be influenced by their culture.  The Euro centric, andro-centric view of life shows up in the attitudes toward the “other” in works by both Matisse and Gauguin, especially when it comes to female nudes.  The hopes of European straight males to gain life experience by travelling to exotic locations where women run or lounge around naked all day (and are therefore regarded as sexually available) are raised by these depictions.  I’m of course seeing a resemblance between Gauguin’s Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching) and The Blue Nude both of which create a sleepy sensual mood mainly through color palette and subject matter.  Matisse is going a little farther by using less realism in color, the flattening of the picture plane, distorting the figure and also in showing frontal breasts to leave no doubt as to the gender of the figure.  There is also a parallel in the attitudes about primitive, simple locations.  Both Biskra (Matisse) and Pont-Aven, Brittany (Gauguin) were in truth resort towns where Europeans often went to escape winter weather.  True, they still held on to traditional ways of life and manners of dress, etc. in those places  but whether life there was really primitive or simple is open to debate.  I suppose Gauguin had the right to call Tahiti primitive and exotic but the resort towns were only a short train and/or ship ride away from Europe by the late 1800’s. 

Matisse, unlike Gauguin does not seem to be deferring to any religious vision.  His work is more direct, decorative and therefore possibly less pretentious.  He is somehow closer to being primitive himself no matter the location that he travels toward to paint.  He seems to have a deeper understanding of simplicity than Gauguin and this may be because of his greater identification with the other and his own primitive side.   He is still depicting an idea and conveying a mood but in his nudes we get the sense that he (simply) doesn’t want to bother with painting clothes.  The Blue Nude has the colors of clothing on her body without the depiction of fabric.  Though I think he likes to glory in the colors of costumes and landscapes in deference to Impressionists and references primitivism and orientalism in subject matter he does combine these influences into his own style.

Modernity and Caillebotte

Week Five Post Five: Modernity and Masculinity in 19^th Century France

Option One

Caillebotte was a wealthy man from a wealthy family.  He supported Impressionists and exhibited with them and yet his works are different; he has obviously had formal art training and often employs academic techniques.  The brushwork is slightly Impressionistic- a bit looser than the strict academician might employ- but it’s his subject matter that usually drew the most disapproval from traditionalists.  As a modernist, Caillebotte painted what he saw around him.  Whether that’s a celebration of modern life or a critique of it depends not so much on the actual subject being depicted as it does on the attitude of the artist.  The artist creates a general mood through shifts in lighting, color and perspective but his real mindset is impossible to guess from the temporal distance of over 100 years after his death.

 We do, however, know some of the context in which we might place Caillebotte’s work.  In Luncheon (1876) Caillebotte may be showing the shift of his family’s dynamics after the death of his father in 1874.  His mother is placed at the top of the expanse of up-tilted table being waited on by a servant to display her authority.  Caillebotte’s brother appears to the left, absorbed with his food, and yet is in a more companionable place next to the implied presence of the artist behind his plate.  I don’t think this family is unusual for the time.  Everyone has their own place in the hierarchy and they don’t interact with each other all that much because the type of companionship in a family does not include the same type of interactions that occur among friends.  Family members expect to always be together, so connected by life-long association and blood lines that they don’t need or want interaction at all times.  This is a kind of isolation by choice that has been going on a very long time within family dynamics.  As recorded here by Caillebotte the modernist, it’s not the subject matter or even the lighting that tends to isolate the figures, it’s the perspective.  The artist may feel that his place is at the bottom of the table (read hierarchy) but he doesn’t seem to be protesting his place only showing us where he is. 

It is striking to compare Luncheon and a later work of 1879, Still Life, painted after the deaths of his brother and mother.  The same tableware appears as objects and subjects but with no people to use them.  This work seems almost cheery with its bright colors but placed in context with events in the artist’s life the lack of the family to use it makes the glassware look forlorn.  Caillebotte is being the modernist/realist again and painting what he saw on the table on a sunlit day during his time of mourning.  He may have called the work “Still Life” simply because his own life was at a standstill at this time or he may just not have liked to come up with fancy titles. 

A recurring theme in Caillebott’s work is the male figure looking out a window or from one type of space into another with some railing or barrier between.  This may be a more relevant subject when it comes to modern life and feelings of isolation.  As society became more industrialized more barriers arose between indoor, domestic spaces and the outdoors where all classes and kinds of people and animals might interact.  Indoor spaces could represent order and outdoor or other spaces chaos.  We might crave domestic safety but be bored and isolated in that space.  Hanging on that edge allows us the safety of the domestic while having a view of the more dangerous chaotic elements outside such as in Young Man at his Window from 1875.  When we feel too isolated we join the chaos for a while with the surety of the domestic sphere to retreat to for our more vulnerable moments like bathing.  Caillebotte’s outdoor subjects seem to have a more dynamic, stimulated feel than either his indoor subjects or those scenes painted from the viewpoint of a window.  In Pont de l’Europe Caillebotte has men, a woman a dog and a barrier one male uses to view from one type of chaos into another all incorporated.  All the human figures are depicted as living in their own space in the instant of time of the painting but there is room for interaction to take place in its future.  One man turns to talk to the woman, the man on the railing shouts to a friend below, the dog finds his master in one of the background figures, etc.

The inclusion of outsiders in the domestic space must have also been quite exciting to paint.  In Floorscrapers Caillebotte brings the chaos of interactions with the lower classes inside.  It’s no wonder this painting was treated by some critics as if the artist had suddenly introduced a herd of wild beasts into a dining room.  Modern workers enter a upper class home to do their work, temporarily destroying the order and safety usually to be found there and blurring that line between chaos and order.  The workers evidence the impact of their jobs on their bodies and do not conform to heroic academic specifications.  The perspective is again tilted and the lighting set so that the floor seems to be the real star of this show.  As a modernist Caillebotte again is painting what he sees and finding that mood of tension between outsiders and insiders, chaos and order to be his inspiration.  That the tension exists and is of enough interest to be painted leads me to think of Caillebotte’s paintings as a celebration of modern life even though he is seeing and representing both the up and down sides of Modernity.