ART 1900-1945-ish

1905

EINSTEIN – Relativity FREUD – General Theory

The sub-conscious – the ultimate challenge to The Enlightenment

Modernism• emphasis on materials or expression

instead of illusion• a notion of progress & evolution.

“Make it new.“ – poet Ezra Pound

A hyper-acute awareness of the historical moment

TRENDS

ABSTRACTIONFLATTENING OF PICTORAL SPACEPRIMITIVISMEXPRESSIONISMCUBISMSURREALISM

PicassoLes

Demoiselle d’Avignon

1907

CUBISMPRIMITIVISM

Picasso, Guernica

detail

CUBISM

Braque, The Portuguese,

1911

CUBISM

Braque, GeorgesGlass, Carafe and Newspapers1914Pasted papers, chalk and charcoal on cardboard (24 5/8 x 11 1/4 in.)

SYNTHETIC

CUBISM

COLLAGE

Boccioni,Unique Forms of

Continuity in Space,1913

Bronze43 7/8 x 34 7/8 x 15 ¾ ins.

FUTURISM

DuchampNude descending a staircase,

1912

Not just to paint something moving, but the idea of something moving

Nolde, Dance Around the Golden Calf, 1910PRIMITIVISM

EXPRESSIONISM

Matisse,Seated Riffian,

1912-13

EXPRESSIONISM

FAUVISM

Matisse, The Dance II, 1909-10

Franz Marc, Fighting Forms

EXPRESSIONISM

EXPRESSIONISM

Marc, FranzBlue Horse I (Blaues Pferd I)1911Oil on canvas112.5 x 84.5 cm

Schiele, EgonSeated Girl1911Watercolor and pencil48 x 31.5 cm

EXPRESSIONISM

Schiele, EgonAgony1912Oil on canvas70 x 80 cm

EXPRESSIONISM

NOTE HOW COLOR &

LINE CONNECT

(AND CONFUSE)

BACKGROUND &

FOREGROUND

Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Surrealism

Meret Oppenheim, Fur covered cup, saucer, and spoon, 1936 (a.k.a. The

Object)

Surrealism . . . or furrealism?

Duchamp,La Boite en

Valide (L.H.O.O.Q.),

1919DADA“appropriation”

Surrealism

Duchamp – readymades: anti-art

Painting is "washed up," Duchamp said in 1912.

Fountain, 1917

Duchamp – readymades: anti-art

One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the "Readymade." That sentence instead of describing the object like a title was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal. - 1961

In Advance of a Broken Arm, 1915

Surrealism

The only thing that is not art is inattention. – Duchamp

A new difficulty: ONTOLOGICAL – Is it art? Why?

(Previous difficulties: modal, contingent, tactical)

MagritteThe Treason of

Images

1928

ABSTRACTION

Mondrian

Mondrian

Mondrian

The Cubists retained the three-dimensional space . . . their way of seeing remains deeply materialistic; my thinking on abstraction, on the other hand, rests on the belief that such a space must be destroyed; to achieve the destruction of the object I have reached the point of using surfaces.

-- Mondrian

Objective: Destroy the Object

Why? A universal language

We want concrete not abstract painting, for nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a color, a surface. Once they are liberated . . . they are on their way towards the real goal of art: to create a universal language.

-- Theo Van Doesburg

Mondrian – 1940s

BROADWAY BOOGIE WOOGIE, 1942-4350 X 50 in.

Modernism in Architecture:the International Style

• Design from the inside to the outside –

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION• Shuns ornamentation• features materials – glass, steel, concrete

Gropius – Bauhaus1926

1950Harvard

Mies van der Rohe Seagram Building 1957

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, 1936-7

SUMMARY – Modernism

• emphasis on materials or expression instead of illusion

• a notion of progress & evolutionpoet Ezra Pound: “Make it new." results in lots of “isms”

TRENDS

ABSTRACTION (ravel)FLATTENING OF PICTORAL SPACEPRIMITIVISM (stravinksy)EXPRESSIONISM (debussy)CUBISM (schoenberg)SURREALISM (schoenberg, berg)

MONDRIAN

PICASSO

PICASSONOLDE

DUCHAMP

Musical Trends

- Decreasing focus on structure and form over content.

- Expressionism, romanticism in Music, followed by…

- A Throwing-Off of traditional tonalities and practices entirely.

Ravel:Mother Goose

• Direct representations, reassertions of content over form

• Using new instrumental techniques, impressionism (listen for bird chirping noises, string harmonics)

Debussy:Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

• Absence of form, musical impressionism• Direct representation, program music• (Caused a riot in the Paris Opera House,

189-)• Abandonment of major/minor scales, using

whole tone and chromatic scales

AN ABANDONMENT OF TONALITY:Stravinsky:

The Rite of Spring• Primitivism, based on the sacrificial killing

rituals of ancient cultures.• Absence of tonal center, structure based on

major and minor scales.• Launches movement against tonality

Reassertion of TonalitySamuel Barber:

Adagio for Strings• When it was passe to be a tonal composer,

Barber stuck to tonality and was called backwards thinking.

• Platoon theme song, eh?

Music or Mathematics?Schoenberg:

Piano Concerto• 12 tone row: All 12 notes in tonality, never

repeated.• Grid mathematics: retrograde, inverse,

inverse retrograde of original themes as both melody and harmony

• Music or mathematics?

Mondrian – 1940s

BROADWAY BOOGIE WOOGIE, 1942-4350 X 50 in.

ABSTRACTION

PicassoLes

Demoiselle d’Avignon

1907

CUBISMPRIMITIVISM

Nolde, Dance Around the Golden Calf, 1910PRIMITIVISM

EXPRESSIONISM

Duchamp,La Boite en

Valide (L.H.O.O.Q.),

1919DADA“appropriation”conceptual

Gropius – Bauhaus1926

Modernism – Romanticism

intensified?Folk interest/exoticism primitivismDemons Subconscious? (inner demons)Artist as prophet Artist as prophet Artist as outsider/rebel Artist as outsider/rebel Nature NOWhat is new? What is New? Historicism?