Impressions of the Avant-Garde

Art 237 Impressionism through Postmodernism

I’ve lived quite a long happy time without considering the avant-garde at all since I tend to be quite a traditionalist.  I’ve heard the word, of course, and associated it with those individuals on the edge of society- not just art but society itself.  Those who don’t actually produce art may be hangers on and associate themselves with artists as drug dealers, models or those who simply like the artist and any attendant drama, controversy, social events or excitement that may ensue.

The following description seems to take care of the stereotypes about avant-garde type(s) that I can think of offhand:  The avant-garde artist usually isn’t very social in spite of (above) hangers-on.  A more recent American type avant-garde artist can be male or female (is traditionally male), is rebellious in the sense that he/she doesn’t fit or conform to traditional ideals, lives in a bad neighborhood, chain smokes, uses alcohol or some other drug habitually, is young, looks older, often forgets to bathe (especially when in the grip of some artistic inspiration/project), may have lots of tattoos and piercings and isn’t usually fun to be around.  Yet… the quality that makes this person an Avant-garde artist is that he/she has noticed something about the world that others have missed and is attempting or has figured out a way to represent this thing or idea in visual or other media. 

If one looks at Art as a vast 3-D mosaic of works and ideas the avant-garde is that placing of tiles on the outside edges of the whole; it builds on what has gone before.  Any part of this mosaic can be seen by shifting the viewer’s perspective but the mosaic never can be viewed in its entirety from one point in time or space.   The older work can be hidden or highlighted by the new additions and anything new is destined to be built over in turn with the passage of time and the formation of new ideas.  Even terms such as avant-garde and Modernism change over time or can mean different things to different people at their inception.  The idea that a given artist or work is avant-garde can have a limited shelf life.  As time goes on this work is either forgotten or incorporated into the mainstream as society accustoms itself to the mew mode.  Sooner or later another idea will occur to some creative person and their work will gain the avant-garde title.

In Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass the 19^th Century viewer  is challenged by the painting’s size, lack of narrative in subject matter, modern nudity that doesn’t hide behind Mythological convention, bold, visible brush strokes, blocks of color and the direct, immodest stare of the nude female figure.  Manet introduced the concept of avant-garde before the name was coined by representing the idea that a painting need be only a painting and represent itself as such.  The size of the painting (7’ x 8’8”) announces it as an important work despite the convention that only historical, Biblical or Mythological subjects should merit such a large area of canvas.  Think of The Swing by Fragonard; it measures only 2’8 5/8” x2’2” and this might have been considered an appropriate size for Luncheon on the Grass.  The lack of a narrative is also new and makes one ask questions like:  is this an event that really happened?  Is this meant to be a portrait of real people?  Why is a nude woman with clothed men (and being ignored)?  What is the woman in the background doing?  Making people question the painter’s motivation is also an avant-garde concept.  The viewer must make an effort to find meaning or decide there is none.  This work also flouts the convention that female nudes should be soft, round goddesses lit with flattering illumination.  This woman looks -well- starkly naked because of the way she is lit.  She has shown herself to be modern by the clothing that she has discarded; she is no goddess from myth.  Manet also uses a non-Academic style of visible brush strokes, removal of some of the conventions about perspective and bold blocks of color instead of smooth blending because he wants us never to lose sight of the fact that this is a painting and not a window into heaven, history or reality.  That’s why this painting is considered one of the first avant-garde works.

It's Got to be Baroque

Week 10 Blog 9 for Art History 236

Baroque paintings have always appealed to me.  They have the attention to accurate anatomical detail in human and animal figures lots and of little details like recognizable plants: all the things I love to look at.  They also usually display considerable tenebrism and that dramatic contrast between light and dark along with the rich colors and the emotions and dramatic compositions make work done in this style particularly appealing.  The first people who saw the paintings done by Caravaggio must have been quite amazed and many critics rejected this style as too realistic.  Even today there is an argument that if something is depicted too realistically it somehow isn’t artistic or creative enough to be called art.  In the seventeenth century portraying a saint as a drunk with dirt on his face (even before conversion) was often seen as crude and undignified.

Nonetheless, Caravaggio’s style was greatly admired and copied (and sometimes still is) by other artists including two of my favorites, Artemisia Gentileschi and Diego Velazquez.  Artemisia’s Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting isn’t the most dramatic painting of this era but it does show how Artemisia seems totally unafraid of the truth of her appearance.  She depicts herself, in her middle thirties at this point, as a heavy, somewhat plain though richly dressed woman that might be passed in the street on any day without comment.  Her other works also show a realistic approach, possessing true Baroque drama and yet seeming non-idealized in the sense that the characters in the narrative of the painting seem to be displaying real, natural reactions to their story.  If I were to be tasked with depriving Holofernes of his head I might do it with about the same methods and emotions as Judith in the painting.  Her female perspective of life makes her work easy for me to identify with even from my vantage of several hundred years later.

I think that some of the most enjoyable works of Diego Velazquez were done early in his career.  He painted common people going about their daily lives in the Caravaggesque style such as the work Water Carrier of Seville.  Maybe these lives didn’t contain much drama in reality but it’s provided with his style of lighting and possible iconographic or allegorical meanings.  His fascination with surface textures render the glass and jugs of the water carrier as more real than the figures of the boy, man in the background or the water carrier himself.  He was probably Catholic but didn’t emphasize religious art which also appeals to me.  As a fairly long-lived and prolific artist Velazquez painted many types of subjects from patriotic (The Surrender at Breda [The Lances]) to portraiture to mass portraiture and including himself in Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor).  This painting is so multi-layered.  It seems at first to be a portrait of the princess- and indeed much of the light centers on her- but her maids, parents, pets and portraitist are all included.  Velazquez upholds the time-honored tradition of the artist showing him or herself as an equal member of the court circle by putting himself in a portrait with the noble class.  One other interesting element of the painting is the giant space of the rich, dark background.  The well-lit figures in the foreground dominate the work and don’t seem lost in it and yet the occasional details that emerge from the background space add mystery and drama to the piece in typical Baroque style.  As the Spanish court portraitist Velazquez was kept busy with projects involving the royal family but also found time to travel and illustrate mythological subjects like the Tapestry Weavers, or the Tale of Arachne (which I did a paper on for another class).  He seemed to like to return to his roots of painting common people whenever he could though they were likely to be placed in a much grander setting in his later works.