Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Could the Dada movement have existed without the First World War? Please use specific art examples.


The dada movement was a reaction against everything that was going wrong in modern society, and aversion against its destruction was the central motivating force for this new type of art. There was a feeling that artists had gone mad and that the war was a product of rational, logical thinking. The Dada movement called for anarchy, irrationality, and following the intuitive. The Dada movement had a slim possibility of emerging without the dramatic events of the First World War. The movement was an intense and direct reaction to the spectacle and carnage of war, and the elements of explored imagery were expressed by the subconscious minds of the period.

The Dada movement is now part of our art history more in spite of, than because of, its original intentions. Originating in Zurich and New York on the brink of the First World War Dada quickly spread to Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, and Paris and, to some extent, Russia. As an anti traditional art movement Dada changed the way art was appreciated, and because of it surrealism became much more than an art movement and it thrust home Dada’s subversive attack on rational standards. Both in their own way helped change our modern consciousness. (Achive) In an ambiguous fashion the term Dada was arrived at by chance and this was mirrored in it style because of its lack of formal aesthetic. One of their first defining steps much like all our past art movements was to attack icons of the old culture, but this time it was less rebellion and more of a revulsion. There was a new breed of artists that revolted against the barbarities of war and chose not to take refuge in conventional beauty.

Far from being opposed to basic ideas of art Dadaist strove to find new ways to make new art in new ways. (Willette) Dadaists such as Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters used the technique of photomontage, using illustrations and advertisements cut out of popular magazines. (Achive) He painted Tatlin at Home in 1920 as part of the Berlin Dada movement. The idea of photomontage was as revolutionary as its content, and Dadaist were the first to use photographs as material to create different structures with often jarring and aggressive significance. To some this felt much like the tearing of flesh because their method possessed a propaganda power which their contemporaries had not the courage to exploit. This avant-garde group was deliberately anti-authoritarian and by definition could not have leaders. Aside from philosophy, Dada artists scattered across Europe after the Great War ended. (Willette)

Dada and Surrealism were both movements of writers, poets, artists as being part of a larger intellectual group fearlessly using old-fashioned techniques and subverting realism by painting dreams as if they were real. It can be said that both movements work with chance. Dada’s use of chance was radical and a complete disregard for laws assembling reconvening pieces as poetry. In contrast, Surrealist artists deployed a variety of games, from automatic writing or the exquisite corpse, to approach chance from another position. (Willette)The interest in Dada's historical role has continued to grow from the late forties to the present, despite desultory jabs in all directions. Dadaists did have several redeeming features.They were the first to consciously internationalize a major movement in the arts, and they did manage to develop the emerging techniques and provided a paradigm shift that clearly laid the groundwork for Surrealism and could also be seen as the beginnings of multimedia.

Dada may have been short lived, but it went on to form the basis of many other movements of anti-art. The concept of a movement that existed to reject and poke fun at the world struck a chord with many people. Movements that include surrealism, pop art, punk, post-modernism and abstract art are very different from each other, but what they have in common is their ability to shake people up and to force people into new ways of thinking, or to turn them away. These movements were not Dadaism, but they took and used some of its values. To them and us Dadaism is and was undoubtedly relevant.

Works Cited
Achive, The. Dada and Surrealism. 2012. 14 May 2012 <http://www.artchive.com/artchive/surrealism.html>.



Willette, Dr. Jeanne S. M. Art History Unstuffed: Comparison of Dada and Surrealism. 2011. 14 May 2012 <http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/comparison-of-dada-and-surrealism/>.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Analysis: Robert Delaunay and Marc Chagall







Robert Delaunay’s painting the Eiffel Tower was regarded as the ultimate symbol of the machine age. His experimentation with fragmentation of form has a rigid and recognizable motif. The Eiffel Tower shatters and planes merge with the forms of the surrounding buildings Delaunay frequently repeated the same subject many times, and this allowed him to explore new techniques. He believed light could be expressed as color independent of any objective content; and declared color alone is form and content. This idea ran counter to the Cubist ideas of Picasso and Braque, who were more interested in the analysis of physical form than in light. (Encyclopedia.com) This piece differs from analytic cubism because of the role that color plays. Delaunay disapproved the analytical period of the work of Picasso and Braque because of their rejection of color. In the image of the Eiffel Tower we see a real concern with color and its role created energy and movement. The use of color brings a deep expressive quality to the work and the chaotic fragmented structure emphases that physical structure is not so important.

Working from his memories of Paris, Delaunay showed the tower from many view points at once, suggesting movement through space and time and expressing a vision. He introduced an element of time and was able to synthesize several impressions of the tower, and the perpetual experience opens us to an inner awareness. Taking in the vast space the tower inhibits our vision begins to swing back and forth between foreground and background, shifting between its position as an autonomous three dimensional object and its part as an element of pattern in the picture surface as a whole. These optical effects become even more apparent in Delaunay’s later works from the Window series, which led him to a higher level of abstraction. (Cross)The Eiffel Tower series marks the beginning of Delaunay’s artistic deconstruction from in his earlier works; the fragmentation, shattered elements, energy, and immateriality of light become the essence of deep perception.

The poet Apollinaire described Delaunay’s distinct style of work as Orphism in reference to the musician Orpheus in Greek mythology whose music had magical powers. Many famous abstract artists found strong links between music and their work because neither depended on the imitation of phenomena found in the natural world. (Encyclopedia.com) Delaunay epitomizes Modernism; all the paintings are dramatic portrayals, pulsating with energy and present an elusive visual. Unlike such other highly regarded artists of that period as Picasso, Matisse, and Kandinsky, he did not maintain the innovations that propelled him into the limelight in his youth into his later work. As a result, his body of work can seem uneven, but his wife's work as an extension of her husband's theories and early discoveries helped to establish his reputation as a significant painter of the 20th century. (Encyclopedia.com) He was an enterprising painter whose influence to the art world was much greater than his art. The paintings "Eiffel Tower with Trees" and "Eiffel Tower" currently rest at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, while "The Red Tower" is at the Arts Institute of Chicago.


Marc Chagall’s avant-garde painting Paris through the Window is a piece inspired by the orphic cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay. The overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky of the cityscape mimic Delaunay’s series of the Eiffel tower; both artists used Paris as a metaphor for modernity. (Blessing) Delaunay's "Eiffel Tower" and Chagall's "Paris through the Window" typify the revolutionary work of the Parisian avant-garde. Cubism certainly got to Chagall, as did the swirling disks of Robert Delaunay’s

Orphism. In fact, what Chagall mainly saw when he looked out of his window was a world with perspective shattered only to be reconstructed in planes and spheres. Marc Chagall forged relationships with several other pioneers of the modernist movement. Under the influence of Metzinger and Robert Delaunay, among others, he introduced fractured forms to his enchanted scenes of city life. Chagall’s parachutist seems to refer to a contemporary experience, because in1912 the first successful jump occurred. The painting is an enlarged version of a window view from the self portrait painted one year earlier, contrasting the artists birth place. Chagall didn’t prefer literal interpretations of his paintings, but instead thought of them as lyrical evocations. The two faced man is seen to mediate between two worlds; interior versus exterior space, past and present, the imaginary and the real. The green violinist evoked nostalgia for his homeland, and his cultural and religious legacy is illuminated by the figure of the violinist dancing in a rustic village. In a painting like this it is clear that the artist favoured life of the mind, memory, and magical Symbolism over realistic representation. (Blessing) Many artists from around the world saw the city of Paris as a symbol of culture, freedom, and modernity in the early part of the twentieth century. Artists’, sculptors, writers, and poets settled in the vibrant area of the city which was sprinkled with art galleries, residences, and cafés and it was there this group discovered each other’s work. (Art)There was a commonly held notion that Chagall remained a small town artist at heart much like the fiddlers in his paintings, even when he was associating with the Parisian elite.

Using shining colors, strange figures, and unusual composition this painting speaks volumes about a mysterious and indecipherable Paris where nothing or nobody is really what they appear to be.When we take a closer look we see a human headed yellow cat perching on a window sill; the Eiffel Tower looming above the many roofs, and a parachute jumper descending from the sky. An upside down train and two figures float past; a blue-faced, man lurks in a corner, holding a heart in his blue palm. The delicate flowers and subjects are saturated with full-spectrum colors, but what makes it truly memorable are the slashing Cubist inspired planes that slice and animate the images. (WILKIN) Through fine works in many mediums, we watch Chagall's characteristic imagery evolve. The reason this work is still powerful for us today is because we see the way he formed his distinctive identity in the many hued images of his famous motifs. “Chagall, of course, wanted to be loved, by the world he left behind and the world he eventually conquered with paint and brush. He said so in 1922, in the last lines of his memoir: "And perhaps Europe will love me and, with her, my Russia." Does anyone leave home for any other reason?” (Kennicott) The best thing about "Paris through the Window" is the vision it gives of Chagall working desperately to earn the love he craved and it's clear that Chagall had won the battle as he reached a level of visual metaphor seldom attempted in modern art.


Works Cited

Art, Philadelphia Museum of. Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle. 10 July 2011. 10 May 2012 <http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/401.html>.


Blessing, Jennifer. Guggenheim:Marc Chagall . 2011. 10 May 2012 <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?search=Marc%20Chagall&page=1&f=People&cr=3>.


Cross, Susan. Guggenheim: Robert Delaunay. 2012. 9 May 2012 <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?search=Solomon%20R.%20Guggenheim%20Founding%20Collection&page=1&f=Major%20Acquisition&cr=8>.


Encyclopedia.com, The. Robert Delaunay. 2004. 9 May 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Robert_Delaunay.aspx>.


Kennicott, Philip. The Washington Post: Chagall Through the Eyes of Paris. 4 March 2011. 10 May 2012 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030404924.html>.


WILKIN, KAREN. The Wall Street Journal: Beyond Fragile Fantasies. 4 May 2011. 10 May 2012 <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704517404576222631997971992.html#>.


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Fauvism and German Expressionism



Was Fauvism and German Expressionism a reaction to the upheavals of the world or were they next logical step in the progression of artistic expression?

Fauvism was one of the first avant-garde movements in the early 20th century that flourished in France. The Fauve artists were the first to break away from Impressionism and other older methods of traditional perception. Their subjective spontaneous response to nature was expressed in the bold, undisguised, and vibrant brushstrokes often taken directly from the tube. The art movement led by Henri Matisse introduced new, vivid, and un-naturalistic colors and in the summer of 1905 while working on the Mediterranean coast in a small fishing port he developed this revolutionary style. Later his pictures were exhibited at the salon and a critic labeled artists like Matisse Fauves which meant “wild beasts “, and this term was later applied to the artists themselves. (Rewald) Fauves believed in their right to personal expression of their vision rather than art that catered to the public or academic tastes. Other important Fauvists were Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, Henri-Charles Manguin, Othon Friesz, Jean Puy, Louis Valtat, and Georges Rouault. These were joined in 1906 by Georges Braque and Raoul Dufy. (Rewald) For most of these artists this style was just a transitional phase and learning curve. By 1908 spurred by a renewed interest in Cezanne’s vision, caused many of artists to stray from the emotionalism of Fauvism and favor the logic of Cubism. This left Matisse alone in his course, achieving a brilliant balance between his own emotions and the world he painted. (Rewald)
The term expressionist was used to describe a wide range of 20th century French and German artists that rebelled against the impressionist tendency to focus on perpetual data. (Schmahmann) The German Expressionist movement tapped into a darker atmosphere as a response of the atrocities of World War I and World War II. The idea that art should be a materialization of subjective feelings, while still being a response to a mood of change seemed to fuel the German Expressionists. This contradiction can be explained by the artist’s belief that universal truths could be exposed through a revelation of creative individuality. The fact that German expressionist art rarely communicated a specific message complicates things, but even when work was completely abstract, the color and composition speak and elicits different reactions from its viewers. There are distinct differences between the term expressionism when it is applied to Fauvist art and the use of that word to describe German Expressionist work. While French art of the period 1905 to 1907 placed an emphasis on self-expression, formal considerations tended to outweigh emotional content. A further difference between Fauves and German Expressionist artists is that the latter were far more politically motivated. They desired to initiate an artistically inspired swing away from 19th century materialism towards a new spiritual era. (Schmahmann)

The German Expressionism and Fauvism movements began in the beginning of the 20th century. Both may be considered evolutions of the pervious movements and reaction to the world that they lived in. The Fauvist movement has been compared to German Expressionism, both projecting brilliant colors and spontaneous brushwork, and indebted to the same late nineteenth century sources, especially Van Gogh. The French were more concerned with the formal aspects of pictorial organization, while the German Expressionists were more emotionally involved in their subjects. (Rewald) Since both Fauvism and German Expressionism use color to communicate, it seems natural that this progression would occur. Each have their own take on exactly how to place the color and why, Fauvism for emotion not reality and Expressionism the same. Each equally as colorful, Expressionism leads its way into Abstraction and Cubism, which when done artistically seem to tone down the bright colors and visually balance them structurally.

I think the artists themselves considered their work the next step, even if not strictly based on what came before, and they certainly witnessed and knew what to compare themselves with. These short movements stemmed into what we recognize as modernism. Modernism puts forth the ideals of freedom, individual autonomy and an absolute rejection of the traditional past. This is its weakness, as art is not created in a vacuum nor can it be separated from the society and history of its origin. Art is a true reflection of the development of humanity and art work holds up a mirror so that the shape of society can be seen. Individuality and freedom are one of the greatest achievements of our modern culture.


Works Cited
Rewald, Sabine. The Metropolitan Museum of Art:Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . 2012. 8 May 2012 <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fauv/hd_fauv.htm>.

Schmahmann, B. The Art World:Art Movements in Art History - German Expressionism. 2012. 8 May 2012 <http://www.the-art-world.com/history/german-expressionism1.htm>.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

The Devil is in the Details: symbolic expression in photography….


My advice for using photography for symbolic expression is looking through the view finder as your new pair of eyes. In expressive photography, we rely on visual symbols to represent abstract ideas. A symbol stands for something with a larger meaning. And some of the most famous photographs endure because of their symbolism. In expressive photography, we rely on visual symbols to represent abstract ideas. Images like Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother,” and Joe Rosenthal’s “Iwo Jima”, symbolic photographs can trigger multiple meanings, depending upon who may be looking at it, because symbols can often mean different things to different people. Images that offer multiple meanings will often challenge the imagination of viewers in unexpected and provocative ways. Any image that encourages thought, moves the emotions, or stimulates the imagination can be a valuable experience. It all depends on how the photographer has used symbolization and how the viewer understands those symbols. Sometimes it is difficult to accurately present our feelings, ideas and thoughts, or even our mood, in a pure visual form. When photographing we want to exemplify key details and make sure the onlooker can really experience the emotions that accompany it. No naturalistic version of the scene could convey as much as expression, because viewer will notice the important details that constitute the atmosphere of the moment. I think when images strike that metaphysical cord within us that a lot of the time the image will strike others as well.