Chapter 32 The Modernist Assault
Ezra Pound: “Make it new.”
Modernist Art Cubism Futurism The fauvism Abstract sculpture Nonobjective art Constructivism
Features Revolt against the tyranny of representation Aimed to evoke rather than describe experience Marked by primitivism, abstraction, and experimentation
Cubism Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) His credo: “Art must be subversive.”
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso, 1907
Cubism (1) Analytical cubism: a multiplicity of viewpoints replaced one-point perspective (2) Synthetic cubism: emerged around 1912. A combination of painting and sculpture by means of collage.
Still Life with Chair-Caning, 1911-12, Picasso
Guitar, 1912-13, Picasso
Futurism Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Italian) Futurist Manifesto (1909): “We declare . . . that there can be no modern painting except from the starting point of an absolutely modern sensation . . . . A roaring motorcar is more beautiful than the winged Victory of Samothrace.” (Fiero 827)
Futurism Futurist Manifesto (1909): “The gesture that we would reproduce on canvas shall no longer be a fixed moment in universal dynamism. It shall simply be the dynamic sensation itself.” (Fiero 827)
Futurism Futurist painters multiplied the image, attempting to communicate the dynamic energy and the power associated with machines, using these as metaphors for modern life. http://personal.cityu.edu.hk/~entim/Professional/Courses/EN3524/Modernism/Modernist_design.html
Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913
Bella, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912
Giacomo Balla. Speeding Automobile. 1912
Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912.
Duchamp Descending a Staircase, Life Magazine 284, 1952.
Russian Constructivism Revealed the tendency towards abstraction and the quest for new methods of artistic representation characteristic of the early 20th century in Russia. First introduced by Tatlin in 1915, it began with a focus on abstraction through "real materials" in "real space."
The 3rd International Tower, 1919-1920, Vladimir Tatlin
Spatial Force Construction (1920-21), Liubov Popova
Aeroplane Flying, 1915, Kasimir Malevich
Black Square and Red Square, 1915, Kasimir Malevich
Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions, 1915, Malevich
Suprematist Composition,1915, Malevich
Abstraction Nonobjective art Suprematism De Stijl (The Style) Wassily Kandinsky Suprematism Kasimir Malevich De Stijl (The Style) Piet Mondrian
Wassily Kandinsky One of the most original and influential artists of the twentieth-century. His "inner necessity" to express his emotional perceptions led to the development of an abstract art. Kandinsky's compositions were the culmination of his efforts to create a "pure painting" that would provide the same emotional power as a musical composition. http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/
Wassily Kandinsky Beginnings: "Mother Moscow" 1866-1896 Metamorphosis: Munich 1896-1911. Breakthrough to the Abstract: The Blue Rider, 1911-1914 Russian Intermezzo 1914-1921. Point and Line to Plane: The Bauhaus 1922-1933 Biomorphic Abstraction: Paris 1934-1944.
Composition IV, 1911
Composition V, 1911 (The Deluge)
Composition VII, 1913 (The Resurrection, the Last Judgment, the Deluge, the Garden of Love)
Composition VIII, 1923
Composition X, 1939
Panel for Edwin Campbell #1, 1914
De stijl: Neo-plasticism Dutch art movement begining c.1916-17 centered mainly around artist Piet Mondrian often referred to as De Stijl after a magazine published by the group http://users.senet.com.au/~dsmith/constructivism.htm
De stijl: Neo-plasticism emphasized the geometrical, ordered, simplified and precise qualities of art and design as opposed to organic forms. Saw line and primary colors as important began as a pictorial based style like Cubism but became increasingly non-objective http://users.senet.com.au/~dsmith/constructivism.htm
Piet Mondrian at home
Red Tree, 1908, Piet Mondrian
Gray Tree, 1911, Piet Mondrian
Trees, 1912, Piet Mondrian
Composition II, Line and Color, 1911, Piet Mondrian
Composition with Color Planes and Gray, Lines 1, 1918
Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue,1920, Piet Mondrian
Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1921)
Red, Blue Chair, 1918, Gerrit Rietveld
Red/blue Table, 1923, Gerrit Rietveld
Schroder House, Gerrit Rietveld, at Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1924 to 1925.
The End