Modern Art 2: Modernist Architecture, Dada and Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Figural Expressionism, Postwar Sculpture, Color Field

Modernist ArchitectureWalter Gropius

Director of Germany's Bauhaus school of design Conceived buildings in terms of 20th century technology with no

reference to the past Glass boxes Mass produced designs Used only Bauhaus , by Walter Gropius, at Dessau, Germany, 1919 to 1925.

Frank Lloyd Wright Drew layouts with continuity in mind so that walls, ceilings and

floors flow seamlessly just as room merge with each other and the outside environment

No posts or columns Insistence on natural forms and materials and respect for the

environment Wright, “Falling Water” 1936 Pennsylvania Falling Water This house seems to emerge from the rocks Built mostly of rough stone this houses form echoes the

native rock ledges Cantilevered terraces hover over a rushing waterfall House irregular spaces flow like the water Wright, Guggenheim Museum 1959, NY Curves for right angles, giant abstract sculpture

Dada Founded in Zurich in 1916 by a group of refugee from ww I Named after nonsense word Protested the madness of war- overthrown all authority and cultivate

absurdity Main strategy was to denounce and shock Awaken the imagination

Jean Arp Chance collages – made from random collage Experimented with new forms Characteristic works included playful egg like shapes suggest living creatures Arp, “mountain, table, anchors, navel” 1925

Marcel Duchamp Invented a new form of art called readymades

By mounting a bicycle wheel on a kitchen stool His most controversial readymade was porcelain urinal he signed R.Mutt Readymades opened the door for art that was purely imaginary rather than visual He changed the concept of art Duchamp, “Fountain” 1917

Surrealism 1920-1930,Founded by André Breton Grew out of Freudian free association and dream analysis Automatism – form of creating without conscious control to tap unconscious imagery Surrealism which implies going beyond realism used bizarre and irrational to express buried truths unreachable

through logic Two forms – improvised art and realistic techniques to present hallucinatory scenes

Joan Miro Worked spontaneously moved the brush over the canvas drawing squiggles in a

trancelike state Invented unique biomorphic signs for natural objects like the sun, moon and

animals evolved into pictograms Semi-abstract shapes stylized alluded to real objects Brilliantly coloured and whimsical Miro, “Dutch interior II” 1920

Max Ernst Dadaist and surrealist Tried to jolt the viewer to mental attention n with ambiguous titles “Two children threatened by a Nightingale” Invented frottage new method for generating surprising imagery Placed sheet paper over rough surface rubbed with a soft pencil, he then

elaborated on these images to produce imagery Ernst “Two children threatened by a Nightingale”1924 Derived from his pet cockatoos death when he was a child and that for years he

confused birds and humansSalvador Dali

Based his technique on critical paranoia – his own irrational fears Placed painting beside his bed, recorded hand painted dream photographs Represented his hallucinations with meticulous realism Distorted objects and placed them in unreal dream landscapes Dali, The Persistence of Memory” 1931 Limp watch and strange lump of flesh Watches appear to be decomposing, fly and ants swarm over them

Rene Magritte Painted disturbing illogical images with clarity

Placed everyday objects in congruous settings and transformed them into shock This disturbing juxtaposition of familiar sights is unnatural contexts compel a new vision of reality beyond logic Magritte, The False Mirror” 1928

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism was about encompassing as “art” not just the product of artistic creation but the process

of creating it Action painting – stressed energy, action, kineticism and freneticism Began late 1940’s early 50’s Partially in reaction to devastation of WWII Liberated themselves from geometric abstraction and the need to suggest recognizable images

Jackson Pollock Abandoned the paintbrush altogether, dripping, and pouring commercial

paints on to vast roll canvas on the floor Energy made visible in mural sized abstract paintings Also abandoned conventional artistic considerations like foreground,

background and focal point and perspective Expanded the very definition of what art was Pollock, No 1 (Lavender Mist), 1950

Arshile Gorky Pioneered automatic painting Freely brushed washes of glowing colour inside clearly outlined biomorphic

shapes Oval splotches of flowing primary colour Gorky, “Water of the Flowery Mill” 1944

Willem de Kooing Developed a style of slashing brushstrokes Known for a series of women paintings Frontal images appear to both dissolve into and emerge out of fiercely brushed

paint Characteristic – yellow, pink and buff colours De Kooing, “Woman I”1950-52

Franz Kline Converted to abstraction after viewing his normal sized sketches

blown up on a wall with a slide projector Black brushstrokes against white background Used housepainters brush on huge white canvases

Linear forms like trains and girders Kline, “Mahoning” 1956

Robert Motherwell Known for more than 100 paintings known as elegies for the doomed

Spanish republic Oval shapes wedges between irregular, vertical bands in black and

white and brown Motherwell, “Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 34” 1953-54

Figural Expressionism A few postwar painters kept figurative painting alive in the trend towards complete abstraction Believed in the modernist principle that art must express a truth beyond surface appearance

Jean Dubuffet “L’Art Brut” (raw or crude art)

– term he used to describe western art that was overthrown by the jungle, lavatory and mental institution

Believe that art was lifeless in comparison to the art of graffiti or turned out by mental patients and criminals

Jean Dubuffet “The Cow with the Subtle Nose” 1954

Frida Kahlo 200 fantasized self-portraits dealing with subjects seldom dealt with in western

art like childbirth, miscarriage, and abortion Kahlo, “ Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird ” 1940

Postwar Sculpture Worked with new materials like scrap metal , new techniques like welding, and

new forms of assemblages mobiles Abstraction and experimentation

Henry Moore Biomorphic shapes Also based his work on natural forms like shells, pebbles and

bones

Subjects – reclining figure, mother and child and family Minimized surface detail and simplified forms Forms have holes that are as important as the solid areas of his works Truth to material – respected the medium Moore, “Reclining Mother and Child” 1960-61

Alexander Calder Sculpture in motion – mobiles Suspended discs of sheet metal painted black, white and primary

colours from wires and rods Four dimensional drawings – always moving Intended to delight and surprise Calder, “lobster trap and fish tale” 1939

David Smith Invented chance and surprise to enter the process of creation believing sculpture

should pose a question no offer a solution Welding and riveting sheet metal Best known for cubi series of balanced stainless steel cubes and cylinders Smith, “Cubi X” 1963

Louise Nevelson Created a novel form of art Sculptured walls – cubicles full of carpenter s cast offs: newel posts,

balusters, molding Painted 11 foot high wall in one colour usually flat black, later white and

gold Nevelson “Sky Cathedral” 1958

Colour Field Vast expanses or fields of colour, canvas huge almost mural-sized

Mark Rothko 8 ft high paintings Interested in the relationship between one colour an another – large patches of

colour that seemed to hover within colour fields

Rothko, “Blue, Orange, Red” 1961

Barnett Newman Gave up texture, brushwork, drawing, shading and perspective for flat fields of pure

colour sliced by one or two off centre stripes Intellectual who wrestled with profound philosophic and religious issues tried to find

innovative visual equivalents Huge scale important to his meaning = scale equals feeling Newman “Voice of Fire” 1951-52

Helen Frankenthaler Combined Pollock's pouring and John Marins watercolours Thinned oil, poured from coffee cans onto unprimed sail cloth, guided flow with

sponges and wipers Stain paintings White fabric shines through irradiating colour with light like stained glass Frankenthaler “The Bay” 1963

Morris Louis Perfected the spontaneous yet composed method of stained canvas Poured diluted paint, titled canvas to guide the flow into

characteristic forms – veils, stripes and florals Produced paintings without single brushstroke Louis, “ Point of Tranquility” 1959-60