ARTS 10 HANDOUTS

ARTS Module 1: Impressionism

“Impressionism: Origins of the Movement”

 The name impressionism was coined from the title of a work by French painter Claude
Monet, Impression, soleil levant (in English, Impression, Sunrise).
 The term precisely captured what this group of artists sought to represent in their works:
the viewer’s momentary “impression” of an image.
 It was not intended to be clear or precise, but more like a fleeting fragment of reality
caught on canvas, sometimes in mid-motion, at other times awkwardly positioned—just as
it would be in real life.

Impressionism: A Break from Past Painting Traditions

Color and Light

Impressionists painted with ….
 freely brushed colors that conveyed more of a visual effect than a detailed
rendering of the subject.
 used short “broken” strokes that were intentionally made visible to the
viewer.
 often placed pure unmixed colors side by side, rather than blended smoothly
or shaded.
 The result was a feeling of energy and intensity, as the colors appeared to
shift and move—again, just as they do in reality.

“Everyday” Subjects
Impressionists ventured into capturing ….
 scenes of life around them, household objects, landscapes and seascapes,
houses, cafes, and buildings.
 presented ordinary people seemingly caught off-guard doing everyday
tasks, at work or at leisure, or doing nothing at all.
 they were not made to look beautiful or lifelike, as body parts could be
distorted and facial features merely suggested by a few strokes of the brush.

Painting Outdoors
 the impressionists found that they could best capture the ever-changing
effects of light on color by painting outdoors in natural light. This gave their
works a freshness and immediacy that was quite a change from the stiffer,
heavier, more planned paintings of earlier masters.

Open Composition
 Impressionist painting also moved away from the formal, structured
approach
to placing and positioning their subjects.
 They experiment unusual visual angles, sizes of objects that appeared
out of proportion, off-center placement, and empty spaces on the canvas.

The Influence of Photography

 photography inspired impressionists to capture fleeting moments of
action, whether in landscapes or in the day-to-day lives of people. Whereas,
camera snapshots provided objective and true-to-life images
 the artists were able to offer a subjective view of their subjects,
expressing their personal perceptions rather than creating exact
representations.
 They also had the advantage of manipulating color, which photography at
that time still lacked.

Impressionism Painters: Works of Manet, Monet, and Renoir

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
 one of the first 19th century artists to depict modern-life subjects.
 He was a key figure in the transition from realism to impressionism,
with a number of his works considered as marking the birth of modern art.
His Paintings/ Artworks: The Monet Family in the garden and Argenteuil

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

 He is considered the most influential figure in impressionist movement.
 Best known for his landscape paintings, particularly those depicting his
beloved flower gardens and water lily ponds at his home in Giverny, France.
His Paintings/ Artworks: La Promenade and The Red Boats, Argenteuil

AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)

 His early works were snapshots of real life, full of sparkling color and
light.
 By the mid-1880s, Renoir broke away from the impressionist movement to
apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits of actual people and
figure paintings.
His Paintings/ Artworks: Dancer, Auguste Renoir and A Girl with a Watering Can

Two of the foremost post-impressionists:

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)

 French artist and post-impressionist painter.
 His work exemplified the transition from late 19th-century impressionism to a
new and radically different world of art in the 20th century—paving the way for
the next revolutionary art movement known as expressionism.
His Paintings/ Artworks: Hortense Fiquet in a Striped Skirt and Still Life with Compotier

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

 was a postimpressionist painter from The Netherlands.
 His works were remarkable for his strong, heavy brush strokes, intense
emotions, and colors that appeared to almost pulsate with energy.
 Van Gogh’s striking style was to have a far-reaching influence on 20th century
art, with his works becoming among the most recognized in the world.
His Paintings/ Artworks: Sheaves of Wheat in a Field and The Sower

ARTS MODULE 2- EXPRESSIONISM

“EXPRESSIONISM: A Bold New Movement”
Expressionist artists created works with …
 more emotional force, rather than with realistic or natural images
 use distorted outlines, applied strong colors, and exaggerated forms.
 worked more with their imagination and feelings, rather than with what their eyes saw in the physical world.
 highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression

Styles in Expressionist Art Movements

Neo-primitivism
 Art style that incorporated elements from the native arts of the
South Sea Islanders and the wood carvings of African tribes
 Artist: Amedeo Modigliani - used oval faces and elongated
shapes of African art in both his sculptures and paintings.
 Artworks: Head and The Yellow Sweater
Fauvism
 a style that used bold, vibrant colors and visual distortions.
 Derived from les fauves (“wild beasts”), referring to the group of
French expressionist painters who painted in this style.
 Artist: Henri Matisse
 Artworks: Blue Window and Woman with Hat

Dadaism
 a style characterized by dream fantasies, memory images, and
visual tricks and surprises
 Although the works appeared playful, the movement arose
from the pain that a group of European artists felt after the
suffering brought by World War I.
 Artists chose the child’s term for hobbyhorse, dada, to refer to
their new “non-style.”
 Artists: Marc Chagall and Giorgio de Chirico
 Artworks: I and the Village ; Melancholy and
Mystery of a Street

Surrealism
 a style that depicted an illogical, subconscious dream world beyond the logical, conscious, physical one.
 Its name came from the term “super realism,” with its artworks clearly expressing a departure from reality—as
though the artists were dreaming, seeing illusions, or experiencing an altered mental state
 Many surrealist works depicted morbid or gloomy subjects, as in those by Salvador Dali.
 Others were quite playful and even humorous, such as those by Paul Klee and Joan Miro.
 Artists: Salvador Dali and Paul Klee and Joan Miro
 Artworks: The Persistence of Memory; Fish Magic; The Farm

Social Realism

Social Realism
 expressed the artist’s role in social reform.
 artists used their works to protest against the injustices, inequalities,
immorality, and ugliness of the human condition.
 social realists have addressed different issues: war, poverty, corruption,
industrial and environmental hazards, and more—in the hope of raising
people’s awareness and pushing society to seek reforms.
 Ben Shahn’s Miners’ Wives, for example, spoke out against the hazardous
conditions faced by coal miners, after a tragic accident killed 111 workers in
Illinois in 1947, leaving their wives and children in mourning.
 Artist: Ben Shahn
 Artwork: Miners’ Wives, for example, spoke out against the hazardous
conditions faced by coal miners, after a tragic accident killed 111 workers in
Illinois in 1947, leaving their wives and children in mourning.
Artist: Pablo Picasso
 Artwork: Guernica
 has been recognized as the most monumental and
comprehensive statement of social realism against the
brutality of war.
 Filling one wall of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s
Fair in Paris
 it was Picasso’s outcry against the German air raid of the
town of Guernica in his native Spain.
 It made use of the exaggeration, distortion, and shock
technique of expressionism. At the same time, it had
elements of the emerging style that would later be known
as cubism.
(Bull’s Head in Pablo Picasso’s Guernica)

Abstractionism
 arose from the intellectual points of view in the 20th century.
 It involved logical and rational thinking, analyzing, detaching, selecting, and
simplifying.
 natural appearances became unimportant.
 Artists reduced a scene into geometrical shapes, patterns, lines, angles, textures and
swirls of color.
 depicting still recognizable subjects (as in the artwork on the left), to pure
abstractionism, where no recognizable subject could be discerned.
 Artist: Georges Braque
 Artwork: Oval Still in Life
Cubism
 derived its name from the cube, a three-dimensional geometric figure
composed of strictly measured lines, planes, and angles; a play of planes and
angles on a flat surface.
 the cubists analyzed their subjects’ basic geometrical forms, and broke them
up into a series of planes. Then they reassembled these planes, tilting and
interlocking them in different ways.
 Human figures is represented with facial features and body parts shown both
frontally and from a side angle at once; This gave a sense of imbalance and
misplacement that created immediate visual impact.
 characteristic feeling of dynamism and energy.
 Artist: Pablo Picasso
 Artworks: Three Musicians and Girl before a Mirror

Futurism
 the futurists created art for a fast-paced, machine propelled age.
 They admired the motion, force, speed, and strength of mechanical forms.
 their works depicted the dynamic sensation of all these
 Artist: Gino Severini.
 Artwork: Armored Train

Mechanical Style
 basic forms such as planes, cones, spheres, and cylinders all fit
together precisely and neatly in their appointed places.
 Mechanical parts such as crankshafts, cylinder blocks, and pistons
are brightened only by the use of primary colors.
 they are lifeless. Even human figures are mere outlines, rendered
purposely without expression.
 Artist: Fernand Leger
 Artwork: The City
Non-objectivism
 The logical geometrical conclusion of abstractionism came in the style
known as non-objectivism.
 works in this style did not make use of figures or even representations
of figures.
 Lines, shapes, and colors were used in a cool, impersonal approach
that aimed for balance, unity, and stability.
 Colors were mainly black, white, and the primaries (red, yellow, and
blue).
 Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.
 Artist: Piet Mondrian
 Artwork: New York City

“Abstract expressionism”
 characterized by gestural brushstrokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.
 The abstract expressionists were mostly based in “New York City” and also became known as the “New York school”
 art should come from the unconscious mind

Action Painting
 These were created through what came to be known as “action painting.”
 worked on huge canvases spread on the floor, splattering, squirting, and
dribbling paint with (seemingly) no pre-planned pattern or design in mind.
 The total effect is one of vitality, creativity, “energy made visible.”
 Artist: Jackson Pollock.
 Artwork: Autumn Rhythm

Color Field Painting

 “color field painters” used different color saturations (purity, vividness,
intensity) to create their desired effects.
 works were huge fields of vibrant color-as in the paintings of Mark Rothko
and Barnett Newman.
 Others took the more intimate “pictograph” approach, filling the canvas
with repeating picture fragments or symbols—as in the works of Adolph
Gottlieb and Lee Krasner.

Neodadaism
 It also made use of commonplace, trivial, even nonsensical
objects.
 the neodadaists seemed to enjoy nonsense for its own sake and
simply wanted to laugh at the world.
 Their works ranged from paintings, to posters, to collages, to
three- dimensional “assemblages” and installations.

Pop Art
 Their inspirations were the celebrities, advertisements,
billboards, and comic strips that were becoming commonplace at
that time. Hence the term pop (from “popular”) art
emerged.
 Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was an American pop
artist.
 During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper
Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he
became a leading figure in this new art movement.
 Artist: Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein
 Artwork: Manilyn Monroe ; Happy Tears