ATH435

LECTURE #6
MODERN ART
 CHRONOLOGY
Generalization [based on chronology]
• < 20TH CENTURY = CLASSICAL
• >20TH CENTURY = MODERN
• >1950 = avant garde
• >1970 = post-modern
• Contemporary = art of today [pluralist culture]
 MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART

• Modern Art: Art from the Impressionists (say,

around 1880) up until the 1960's or 70's.
• Contemporary Art: Art from the 1960's or 70's
up until this very minute.
arthistory.about.com
 th
20 CENTURY ART
• FAUVISM c. 1905
• EXPRESSIONISM c. 1905
• CUBISM c. 1907
• FUTURISME c. 1910
• DADAISM c. 1915
• SURREALISM c. 1920’s
• ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM c. 1940’s
• POP ART c. 1950’s
 THEORY OF CLASSICAL AND MODERN ART

CLASSICAL MODERN
• Tradition Rejection of tradition
• Idealism Reality
• High culture Popular culture
• Genius De-humanization
• Skill & processes Ideas, chance
• Iconographic Iconoclastic
• Objective Non objective
• Autonomy Homogeneity
• Studio-based Public space/art
 TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY ART
• INDEFINABILITY
• POST ART
• ISSUES THAT EFFECT THE WORLD
• CROSSES THE BOUNDARY OF MEDIUM AND
METHODOLOGY
• MULTI DISCIPLINARY DISCOURSE
fAUVISM
 FAUVISM – historical background
The beginning of Modern Art marked by the exhibition of the
Fauvist artists in Paris at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. Their
style of painting, using non-naturalistic colors, was one of the
first avant-garde developments in European art.

The painter Gustave Moreau was the movement's

inspirational teacher, and a professor at the École des
Beaux-Arts in Paris who pushed his students to think outside
of the lines of formality and to follow their visions.
 FAUVISM- THEORY
In 'Fauvism,' the artists' expression to a subject matter involved painting
with blatant colors, directly from tubes and wild brush strokes. 'Fauvists'
abandoned their naturalist approach and added drama & emotion to their
paintings. They broke the lines of all formality and the perceptions of time
with their bold style. Their use of exuberant and vivid colors makes their
love for color very apparent. [ezinearticles.com]

• The Fauvists believed absolutely in color as an emotional force .

 FAUVISM- THEORY
• Why Paint?: When Matisse was asked in a 1942 radio
interview why he painted, he said:
"Why, to translate my emotions, my feelings, and the
reactions of my sensibility into color and design, which neither
the most perfect camera, even in color, nor the cinema can do.
... [Artists are] useful because they can augment color and
design through the richness of their imagination intensified by
their emotion and their reflection on the beauties of nature,
just as poets or musicians do."
Quote source: Matisse on Art, edited by Jack D. Flam, page
92.
 Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
……Henri Matisse (1869-1954), fought
to find the artistic freedom he needed.
Matisse had to make color serve his art.

IMPORTANT FAUVIST ARTISTS

Henri Matisse.

Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) and

André Derain (1880-1954)
…….color lost its descriptive qualities and
became luminous, creating light rather than
imitating it.
 FAUVISM – Formalistic aspects
• painterly qualities
• pure, deep color
• simplified lines, made the subject of the
painting easy to read,
• exaggerated perspectives
• brilliant but arbitrary colors.
• emphasized freshness and spontaneity over
finish.
 HENRI MATISSE
• Woman with a Hat
• Oil paint on canvas
• 1905.
• San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art
Henri Matisse, “Red Room ( Harmony in Red)”, (
1908-1909) Hermitage, St. Petersburg
 ANDRE DERAIN
Portrait of Henri Matisse
1905
Maurice de Vlaminck
Still Life with Oranges
1907
EXPRESSIONISM
 EXPRESSIONISM - Introduction
• Originating in Germany, Expressionism moves
beyond the limitations of objective subject matter
• concentrates on the feeling and impact derived from
the artist’s inspiration.
• Expressionist sought to reveal inner, spiritual and
emotional foundations of human existence, rather
than the external, surface appearances depicted by
the Impressionists. [wwar.com/]
 EXPRESSIONISM - THEORY

• Expressionists took their inspiration from primitive sculpture

and medieval art, reacting against what they saw as the
overly refined and unemotional art of the establishment of
the day.

• They also took inspiration from artists such as Van Gogh and
the Norwegian Edvard Munch, whose works were full of
emotion.
 EXPRESSIONISM - theory
The point is not only the sensual or decorative style of the appearance,
but also the psychical, mental and social analysis.
It wants to convey the inner expression, and it does not matter if it
deals with landscapes, daily objects or persons.
www.museumonline.at/1997/schulen/weiz/expr_e.htm

Ernest Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) was the leader of the group and the
author of the manifesto. He wrote, “He who renders his inner
convictions as he knows he must, and does so with
spontaneity and sincerity, is one of us.” www.arthistory.net
 Formalistic aspects
• Intense and un-naturalistic colour
• the distortion and exaggeration of form for emotional effect.
• Spontaneity
• Expressive brushstroke
• To show motions as strong as possible by simplifications and pure, strong
colours.
• The object of art should not serve the aesthetic pleasure but the
elementary event.
• Deformation of the naturalness was a legitimate means of expression of a
critical attitude towards society.
 EXPRESSIONISM- Important artists

• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938),

• Wassily Kandinsky
• Franz Marc,
• Emile Nolde (1867-1956),
• Oskar Kokoshka,
Wassily Kandinsky
"Improvisation 28 (second version)". 1912
 EMIL NOLDE
Mask Still Life III
1911
Oil on canvas
74 x 78 cm
Nelson Gallery of Art, Atkins-Museum, Kansas City
Berlin Street Scene
1913
By Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Street, Dresden (1908)
CUBISM
 CUBISM - Introduction
• Highly influential visual arts movement of the 20th century.
• Forerunner to abstract art
• Cubism was initiated [in Paris] between 1907 and 1914.
Strong influence up to the 1st world war
• Most important artists are Pablo Picasso (Spanish,
1881–1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882–1963)
• Two main phases of Cubism – Analytic Cubism [1908 and
1912] and Synthetic Cubism [between 1912 and 1919]
 CUBISM – origin of the term
• The French art critic Louis Vauxcelles coined
the term Cubism after seeing the landscapes
Braque had painted in 1908 at L'Estaque in
emulation of Cézanne. He described it as "full
of little cubes",

• Vauxcelles first used the term "cubism", or

"bizarre cubiques"
 CUBISM – THEORY

• Rejects theories and normal conventions that art should imitate nature
• Prefers monocromatic or sombre color schemes
• Presented a new reality in depicting radically fragmented objects, whose
several sides are seen simultaneously.
• The key concept of cubism was to capture the essence of an object by
showing it from multiple viewpoints. www.megaessays.com
• In other words, an object is broken up, analyzed from many different
perspectives and reassembled in abstract form.
• In Synthetic Cubism, the collage technique involves incorporating the real
world object and material onto the canvas thus presenting a new reality.
 CUBISM – formalistic apects
• Flat space. The painting emphasizes the two-dimensionality of the picture
plane
• Cubist painters reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and
then realigned these within a shallow, relieflike space on canvas.
• rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening,
modeling, and chiaroscuro,
• Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and
space;
• Cubism presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically
fragmented objects
• Introduction of papiers collés [collage] technique in Synthetic Cubism
phase
• With this new technique papiers collés colored or printed pieces of paper
were pasted in their compositions.
PABLO PICASSO

Spanish painter and sculptor

considered the greatest artist of the
20th century.
He was unique as an inventor of forms,
as an innovator of styles and
techniques, as a master of various
media, and as one of the most prolific
artists in history.
He created more than 20,000 works and
paintings.
 Pablo Picasso, “ Les Demoisellesd’Avignon”, (1907)

• The stylization and distortion of

Picasso's ground-breaking Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon painted in
1907, came from African art.
• Picasso had first seen African art
when, in May or June 1907, he
visited the ethnographic museum
in the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris.
• Depicted are five nude female
prostitutes in a brothel on Avinyó
street in Barcelona.
 Analytic Cubism [1908 to1912]

• Analytic Cubism was based on reducing natural forms to their

basic geometrical parts. These three dimensional parts were
then reconciled on a two-dimensional plane using subdued
colors to the point where painting were nearly
monochromatic.
Arteest.org
Picasso
Portrait of Daniel-Henry
Kahnweiler, 1910, The Art
Institute of Chicago.

Example of Analytical
Cubism
 Synthetic Cubism [1912 to 1919]

• Synthetic Cubism grew out of the Analytic Cubism movement,

though it was more constructionist in intent rather than the
analytical and destructionist.
• Picasso pasted oil cloth onto canvas, incorporating the real
world onto canvas, in some of his Synthetic Cubism works
such as his "Guitar and Violin" masterpiece.
Arteest.org
Georges Braque,
Woman with a Guitar, 1913.
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, France

An early example of Synthetic

Cubism.
 Georges Braque.
Fruitdish and Glass,
papier collé [collage]and charcoal on paper,
1912
Example of Synthetic Cubism
RAYMOND DUCHAMP VILLON
Large Horse 1914, cast 1961
Le Grand Cheval
Bronze
object: 1000 x 987 x 660 mm
sculpture
FUTURISM
 FUTURISM - Introduction
• 1907-1944 - A modern art movement originating among
Italian artists in 1909 until the end of World War I.
• Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti produced a manifesto
called Manifesto of Futurism (1909), first released in Milan
and published in the French paper Le Figaro (February 20).
• Futurism was a celebration of the machine age, glorifying war
and under the influence of fascism.
• Expressing movement and the dynamics of natural and
man-made forms.
• Artists include: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla,
Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà and Gino Severini
 FUTURISM – historical background

• Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, and Luigi Russolo produced

two manifestos in 1910 of Futurist painting, to which
Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini were also signatories.
• The manifestos were concerned with the idea of conveying a
sense of movement, and this is one of the essential features
of Futurist painting. Sometimes movement was conveyed by
blurring forms or overlapping images in the manner of
high-speed multiple-exposure photography.
• Boccioni's death in 1916 and World War I brought an end to
the movement
 FUTURISM - THEORY
• Rejection of political and artistic traditions. To
object the traditional conventionalism and to wage
war against the art of the 19th Century
• Admiration of speed, technology and violence.
• The car, the plane, the industrial town were all
legendary for the Futurists. These items represented
the technological triumph of man over nature.
• The idea of modernisation and cultural revival of
Italy.
 FUTURISM - concept
• The Italian painter and sculptor Umberto Boccioni
(1882-1916) wrote the Manifesto of Futurist Painters in 1910;

“ We will fight with all our might the fanatical, senseless and snobbish
religion of the past, a religion encouraged by the vicious existence of
museums. We rebel against that spineless worshiping of old canvases, old
statues and old bric-a-brac, against everything which is filthy and
worm-ridden and corroded by time. We consider the habitual contempt for
everything which is young, new and burning with life to be unjust and even
criminal. ” Futurists dubbed the love of the past "pastism", and its
proponents "pastists" www.fineartsurrey.com
 FUTURISM – Formalistic aspects
• Usage of Cubist technique of depicting several views of an
object simultaneously with fragmented planes and outlines
• Rhythmic spatial repetitions of the object's outlines in transit
to show movement or motion
• Preferred subjects were speeding cars and trains, racing
cyclists, and urban crowds
• Futurist colour scheme was more vibrant than the Cubists'.
The fragmented forms of cubism and the bright, broken
colours of neo-Impressionism
• An effort to give formal expression to the dynamic energy and
movement of mechanical processes
encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com
Carlo Carrà
The Funeral of the Anarchist
Galli

1911
Oil on canvas
198 × 266 cm, 78 × 104.7 inches
Museum of Modern Art New York
City
The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli

• The subject of the work is the

funeral of Italian anarchist Angelo
Galli, killed by police during a
general strike in 1904. The Italian
State feared that the funeral
would become a de facto political
demonstration and refused the
mourning anarchists entrance
into the cemetery itself. The
anarchists resisted; the police
responded with force and a
violent scuffle ensued.
BALLA, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912 (Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, New York)
 Umberto Boccioni,
Unique Form of Continuity in Space
1913
Bronze
126.4 x 89 x 40.6 cm
DADA
 DADA - Introduction
• Nihilistic movement in the arts [visual arts and cultural movement
including poetry, art manifestoes, art theory, theatre and graphic design] .
Most active between 1916 to 1920.
• It originated in Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire, in Zürich, Switzerland in 1916
and flourished in New York City, Paris, and the German cities of Berlin,
Cologne, and Hannover in the early 20th century
• Poets and artists of the Zurich Dada namely HUGO BALL, Emmy Hennings,
TRISTAN TZARA and RICHARD HUELSENBECK, HANS ARP, MARCEL JANCO
and HANS RICHTER. New York dadaists includes MARCEL DUCHAMP,
FRANCIS PICABIA, Marius de Zayas (1880-1961) and MAN RAY. German
dadaists namely JOHN HEARTFIELD, RAOUL HAUSMANN, HANNAH HOCH
and GEORGE GROSZ
 DADA – historical background
• Dada was a literary and artistic movement born in the horror of World War I.
• Most active between 1916 to 1920. It was born as a protest against the World War
I
• Due to the war, a number of artists, writers and intellectuals - notably of French
and German nationality grouped together in Zurich (in neutral Switzerland) to
establish Dadaist art and activities
• As a loosely bound art and literary movement, Dadaists used any public forum
they could to undermine and challenge nationalism, rationalism, materialism and
any other -ism which they felt had contributed to a senseless war.
• The Dadaists declares, “We, who are non-artists, will create non-art - since art
(and everything else in the world) has no meaning, anyway.”
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/dada.htm
 DADA – origin of the term

• Many believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from
the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words
da, da, meaning yes, yes in the Romanian language
• Literally, the word dada means several things in several languages: it's French for
"hobbyhorse" and Slavic for "yes yes".
• The term ‘dada’ in French means "hobbyhorse. In French the colloquialism, c'est
mon dada, means it's my hobby. " Various members of the Zurich group are
credited with the invention of the name; according to one account it was selected
by the insertion of a knife into a English-German dictionary, and was retained for
its multilingual, childish and nonsensical connotations. [http://www.answers.com/topic/dadaism]
• This term was selected by a chance procedure and adopted by a group of artists,
including Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Francis Picabia, to symbolize
their emphasis on the illogical and absurd.
•
 DADA - THEORY
• The movement grew out of disgust with bourgeois values and despair over World
War I.
• Ridiculed contemporary culture and traditional art forms.
• Dada artists produced works which were nihilistic or reflected a cynical attitude
toward social values, and, at the same time, irrational-- absurd and playful,
emotive and intuitive.
• Dadaists produced art objects in unconventional forms produced by
unconventional methods.
• Several artists employed the chance results of accident as a means of production.

http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/dada.htm
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/dada.htm
 DADA - concept
• Rejection of nationalism, rationalism, materialism and any
other -ism which they felt had contributed to a senseless war.
• Dadaist makes fun of serious art or challenges the nature of
art.
• Dadaists disbelieve all forms of reason and logic due of the
atrocities caused by World War I.
• Dada had only one rule: Never follow any known rules.
• Dada was intended to provoke an emotional reaction from
the view that art (and everything else in the world) has no
meaning
http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/dada.htm
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/dada.htm
 DADA – Formalistic aspects
• Art created during the Dada movement was to be interpreted
freely by the viewer and was not based on the formal
standards shown by earlier traditional artists.
http://www.students.sbc.edu/evans06/presentation.htm

• The movement criticized conventional ideas of the use of

mediums by utilizing prefabricated supplies, altering them
slightly in order to obtain a different view of the piece, for
example Marcel Duchamp’s readymade object called
‘Fountain’, 1917, which was a urinal presented under a
pseudonym R Mutt.
• Whimsical and bizarre imagery, for example Max Ernst’s
painting called “Celebes”
 DADA – Formalistic aspects
• Collage technique used by artists Hannah Hoch, Kurt Schwitters, and Jean
Arp
• Some of the works depend purely on chance displaying the notion of
escaping the rational world , for example Arp’s Collage Arranged
According to the Laws of Chance 1916
• Usage of Photomontage technique to create experimental, shocking,
humorous and satirical images.
• The extension of collage called Merz, explained as 'Psychological Collage'.
Most of the works attempt to make coherent aesthetic sense of the world
around the artist, using fragments of found objects. This led to three
dimensional collage called Merzbau (Merz Building) 1923 – 47 by Kurt
Schwitter
Marcel Duchamp
Fountain 1917
Porcelain urinal

ANTI –ART
Challeging the definition of art. A work may be
exhibited or delivered in a conventional context
but makes fun of serious art or challenges the
nature of art. New thought for an object.
.
 KURT SCHWITTER
Merzbau in Hannover 1933
Alongside his collages, Schwitters also
dramatically altered the interiors of a
number of spaces throughout his life. The
most famous was The Merzbau, the
transformation of six (or possibly more)
rooms of the family house in Hannover

Most of the works attempt to make

coherent aesthetic sense of the world
around the artist, using fragments of
found objects.

Kurt Schwitters [1887 – 1948]

is generally acknowledged as
the twentieth century's
greatest master of collage.
Hans Arp
French, 1886–1966
Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged
According to the Laws of Chance)
collage of torn papers on paper

Skeptical of reason in the wake of the war,

dadaists turned to chance as an antidote.
The random and the accidental offered a
way of letting go of conscious control.
"The 'law of chance,'" Hans Arp wrote,
"can be experienced only in a total
surrender to the unconscious."
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2006/dada/techniques/chance.shtm
Hannah Höch Hannah Höch
Strong-Armed Men Balance
1931 http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutan 1925
dpaste/hoch_big2.html
Photomontage Photomontage
surrealism
 SURREALISM - Introduction
• Surrealism is a cultural movement and artistic style that was founded in 1924 by
the French Poet André Breton.
• Surrealism presented visual imagery from the subconscious mind
• To produce art without the intention of logical comprehensibility.
• Centered in Paris, and attracted many of the members of the Dada community.
• Influenced by the psychoanalytical work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung
• Traces similarities between the Surrealist movement and the Symbolist movement
of the late 19th century.
• Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Man Ray, René Magritte, Salvador
Dali.and many others.
• The Surrealist movement eventually spread across the globe, and has influenced
artistic endeavors from painting and sculpture to pop music and film directing.
http://www.surrealism.org/
 SURREALISM – Manifesto no.1
• The first Surrealist manifesto by the French writer André Breton in 1924
defines Surrealism as:
Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one
proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the
written word, or in any other manner -- the actual
functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in
the absence of any control exercised by reason
exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.
 SURREALISM – Manifesto no.2
Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1929)
• ‘These products of psychiactivity, as far removed as possible from the desire to
make sense, as free as possible of any ideas of responsibility which are always
prone to act as brakes, as independent as possible of everything which is not `the
passive life of the intelligence' - these products which automatic writing and the
description of dreams represent offer at one and the same time the advantage of
being unique in providing elements of appreciation of great style to a body of
criticism which, in the realm of art, reveals itself to be strangely helpless, of
permitting a general reclassification of lyrical values, and of proposing a key
capable of opening indefinitely that box of many bottoms called man, a key that
dissuades him from turning back, for reasons of self-preservation, when in the
darkness he bumps into doors, locked from the outside, of the “beyond,” of reality,
of reason, of genius, and of love.’
• ANDRE BRETON
http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/DadaSurrealism/DadaSurrReadings/Breton2Mnfsto.pdf
 SURREALISM - THEORY
• Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of
experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be
joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality
• Drawing heavily on theories adapted from Sigmund Freud, Breton saw the
unconscious as the wellspring of the imagination. He defined genius in
terms of accessibility to this normally untapped realm, which, he believed,
could be attained by poets and painters alike. http://www.surrealist.com/new/
• Pure psychic automatism
 SURREALISM – Formalistic aspects

• Some Surrealist works are realistic, irrational dreamlike fantasies, as in the

works of René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967), Salvador Dalí (Spanish,
1904-1988) and Yves Tanguy (French, 1900-1955)
• More towards abstraction in the works of Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983)
and Max Ernst (German, 1891-1976)
• André Masson (French, 1896-1987) who invented spontaneous techniques
exploited the psychotherapeutic procedure of "free association" to run
away from conscious control in order to achieve the imagery of the
unconscious mind. Also known as technique of automatic painting or
drawing, where the artist allowed his instrument to rove the canvas
without rationally thinking what he was doing.
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Brief-History-of-Surrealism,-Part-Two&id=1960917
 Realistic, irrational dreamlike
fantasies

The Museum of Modern Art

(MOMA) in New York once wrote,
“irrational, fantastic, paradoxical,
disquieting, baffling, alarming,
hypnogogic, nonsensical and
mad—but to the surrealist these
adjectives are the highest praise”
http://www.salvadordalimuseum.org/education/documents/cloc
king_in.pdf

SALVADOR DALI
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
 Giorgio de Chirico
The Red Tower (La Tour
Rouge) 1913

Realistic, irrational dreamlike fantasies

 towards abstraction
This early painting of a complex
arrangement of objects and figures
was Miró's first Surrealist
masterpiece.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Mir%C3%B3

Joan Miró,
The Tilled Field, (1923–1924),
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
André Masson
Automatic Drawing. (1924).
Ink on paper,
9 1/4 x 8 1/8" (23.5 x 20.6 cm).
Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Automatic drawing was developed by the

surrealists, as a means of expressing the
subconscious. In automatic drawing, the
hand is allowed to move 'randomly' across
the paper. In applying chance and
accident to mark-making, drawing is to a
large extent freed of rational control.
Hence the drawing produced may be
attributed in part to the subconscious and
may reveal something of the psyche.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_automatism
Abstract
Expressio
nism
 Abstract Expressionism [AE]
Introduction
• American post-World War II art movement. [during the mid-1940s ]
• It was the first American movement to achieve worldwide influence
• New York City became the centre of the art world by the fame and glory of
AE, a role formerly filled by Paris
• AE - American spirit in terms of form, content and context, a new
aesthetics in painting such as the concept of Action Painting or Gestural
Abstraction.
• Emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the
finished work or concern of its artist.
• Important artists include Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August
11, 1956) and Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997)
 AE – introduction
• In Abstract Expressionism the artist expresses himself purely through the
use of form and colour. Most often than not, it is non-representational
and non-objective art.
AE is also called Action painting and the New York school
• The movement can be more or less divided into two groups:
Action Painting, typified by artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Franz
Kline, and Philip Guston, stressed the physical action involved in painting;
Color Field Painting, practiced by Mark Rothko and Kenneth Noland,
among others, was primarily concerned with exploring the effects of pure
color on a canvas. http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/abstract-expressionism.html
 AE artists
Action Painters: Other Abstract Expressionists:
• Jackson Pollock • Elaine-de Kooning
• Willem de-Kooning • Arshile Gorky
• Franz Kline • Adolph Gottlieb
Color Field and Hard-Edge Painters: • Philip Guston
• Helen Frankenthaler • Hans Hoffmann
• Barnett Newman • Robert Motherwell
• Mark Rothko • Jean-Paul Riopelle
• Ellsworh Kelly • Clyfford Still
• Morris Louis
• Agnes Martin
• Kenneth Noland
• Jules Olitski
Jackson Pollock
1912-1956
Jackson Pollock
1912-1956
Willem de Kooning,
“Woman I”,
( 1950-1952)
MARK ROTHKO
No. 3/No. 13 (Magenta, Black, Green
on Orange), oil on canvas , 1949,
Museum of Modern Art.
 Barnett Newman

Who's Afraid of Red,

Yellow and Blue II
1967

Yellow Painting
1949
Pop Art
 POP ART – introduction
• A visual artistic movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in parallel in the
late 1950s in the United States
• International movement in painting, sculpture and printmaking. The term originated in
the mid-1950s at the ICA, London, in the discussions held by the INDEPENDENT GROUP
concerning the artefacts of popular culture. This small group included the artists Richard
Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi as well as architects and critics.http://www.answers.com/topic/pop-art
• The champions of Pop Art were Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Tom
Wesselmann.
• Pop art is one of the major art movements of the 20th century started in 1950s became
prominent over the next two decades.
• Usage of non-representational color and representational form to convey different
sensations.
• Pop art is widely interpreted as either a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract
expressionism or an expansion upon them.
• According to Allowayt it si the “art about popular culture”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/16572/Lawrence-Alloway
 POP ART – Theme and subject matter
• THEME - Pop Art celebrated simple every day objects such as soup cans, soap,
washing powder, pop bottles, and comic strips, and in effect, turned commonplace
items into icons. Subject matter from Popular Culture which includes,
• Movies and advertising
• Food
• Comics strips
• Industrial and household products
Andy Warhol is Pop Art’s most notable artist in that he brought the art form to
the public eye. He created numerous screen prints of Coke bottles, Campbell’s
soup tins, and film stars such as Marilyn Monroe
Pop Art brought art back to the material realities of everyday life, to popular
culture (hence "pop''), in which ordinary people derived most of their visual
pleasure from television, magazines, or comics
http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/pop.htm
 POP ART - THEORY
• Pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of Abstract
Expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.
• Pop art, aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing
the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony. It is
also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering
techniques.
• Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual
commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of Fine Art. Pop removes
the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for
contemplation. The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes
that led to it.
• Pop Art emerged in the mid 1950s in England, but realized its fullest potential in New York in
the '60s where it shared, with Minimalism, the attentions of the art world. In Pop Art, the
epic was replaced with the everyday and the mass-produced awarded the same significance
as the unique; http://forum.meebo.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=33789
• The gulf between "high art'' and "low art'' was eroding away
http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/pop.htm
 POP ART - THEORY
• Pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of Abstract
Expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.
• Pop art, aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing
the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony. It is
also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering
techniques.
• Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual
commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of Fine Art. Pop removes
the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for
contemplation. The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes
that led to it.
• Pop Art emerged in the mid 1950s in England, but realized its fullest potential in New York in
the '60s where it shared, with Minimalism, the attentions of the art world. In Pop Art, the
epic was replaced with the everyday and the mass-produced awarded the same significance
as the unique; http://forum.meebo.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=33789
• The gulf between "high art'' and "low art'' was eroding away
http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/pop.htm
 POP ART – formalistic aspects
• It was not a structured movement in the sense of a group putting on
collective shows, it does however have a certain coherence of formal
qualities and concept
FOR POP PAINTINGS AND PRINTS
• Bright, contrasting colours. These colours are not to show the emotive
force like the Fauvist or Expressionist
• Element of repetition and standardization
• Eliminating the traces of emotive gesture and brushstrokes
• Most painting are flat in terms of space
• Experimentation of medium and technique – silkscreen on canvas in the
case of Andy Warhol
 POP ART – formalistic aspects
FOR POP SCULPTURE
• Experimental medium and technique
• Gigantic ‘Soft Sculpture’ by Claes Oldenberg in
gallery exhibition
• Public sculpture depicting mundane object or
caption in gigantic size.
Andy Warhol
Style: Pop Art
Lived: August 6, 1928 - February
20, 1987
Nationality: USA
Turquoise Marilyn
1962
by Andy Warhol

Marilyn Monroe died in August 1962;

her image appears in every newspaper
and magazine.
200 Campbell Soup
Cans
1962
by Andy Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein
Whaam!, 1963
Acryllic on canvas
172 x 269 cm (68 x 106 in.) (two canvasses)
Tate Gallery, London
Claes Oldenberg, Floor Cake, 1962
Robert Indiana
‘Love’
Painted steel sculpture
The image was originally
designed as a Christmas
card for the Museum of
Modern Art in 1964, and
first exhibited as a
sculpture in New York City
in 1970
 th
CONCLUSION – Theory of 20 century
Art
• Fauvism – colour as emotional force
• Expressionism – inner spiritual feeling
• Cubism – fragmentation of form
• Futurism – speed, movement and violence
• Dada – anti-art
• Surrealism – subconscious world
• Abstract Expressionism – Action Painting
• Pop Art – popular culture/Neo-Dada