Songs of the Day

“Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights from 1985 album Brothers in Arms

“Material Girl” by Madonna from the 1984 album Like a Virgin

Songs of the Day

“Land of Confusion” by Genesis from 1986 album Invisible Touch

“Don’t come around here no more” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the 1984 album Southern Accents

More strategies / tools for reading and analyzing art. Specifically, denotative / connotative understanding

Look at images in an art historical context to

understand the significance of history and social connections. Art does not exist in a bubble.

Today’s lecture helps to set up

Postmodernism / Contemporary Art (the primary focus of our semester)

Today’s Schedule

Assignments:

Exhibition Review #1

Directions are posted on d2l DUE: Tuesday, October 1st by midnight – in the

dropbox on D2L

Save your file as: yournameER1.doc Do not upload formats other than .doc

or .docx – any other formats WILL NOT BE GRADED) ex: TraciQuinnER1.doc

To Review

ELEMENTS  OF  ART  -­‐  The  elements  of  art  are  the  building  blocks  used  by  ar>sts  to  create  a  work  of  art.    

    1.  Shape 2.  Line 3.  Value (light and dark) 4.  Texture & pattern 5.  Color 6.  Space

To Review

KNOW THESE TERMS AND HOW THEY INFORM AN ARTWORK

PRINCIPLES  OF  ART  -­‐  The  principles  of  visual  art  are  the  rules,  tools  and/or  guidelines  that  ar>sts  use  to  organize  the  elements  of  art  in  an  artwork.    

1.  Balance 2.  Emphasis and focal point 3.  Proportion and scale 4.  Unity and variety 5.  Rhythm

         

   

Reading Images

Denotative meaning is the formal elements of an image – what can be described in FACTS. Denotative meaning refers what you Describe/ What do you see?

Denotation = Description Connotative meaning is the interpretive meaning that comes from social, cultural, and historical contexts. Connotative meaning brings to an image the wider realm of ideology, cultural meaning, and value systems of society. What ideas come to mind when you look at an image? What does it evoke?

Connotation = Interpretation / Content

get into small groups…

Denotative meaning is the formal elements of an image – what can be described in FACTS. Denotative meaning refers what you Describe/ What do you see?

Denotation = Description Connotative meaning is the interpretive meaning that comes from social, cultural, and historical contexts. Connotative meaning brings to an image the wider realm of ideology, cultural meaning, and value systems of society. What ideas come to mind when you look at an image? What does it evoke?

Connotation = Interpretation / Content

get into small groups…

Denotative meaning   Connotative meaning  

Medium, Balance, Emphasis and focal point, Proportion and scale, Unity and variety, Rhythm

get into small groups…

Lauren Greenfield, Thin, 2006  

get into small groups…

Denotative meaning   Connotative meaning  

Medium, Balance, Emphasis and focal point, Proportion and scale, Unity and variety, Rhythm

get into small groups…

Imran,  Quershi,  “And  How  Many  Rains  Must  Fall  Before  the  Stains  Are  Washed  Clean,”  2013  

Renaissance...

Modernism…

Postmodernism

Art History Vocabulary •  Era

•  Period

•  Movement

•  School

•  Style

Art History Vocabulary Era

–  Historically significant chunk of time such as 100-20,000 years

–  Geographically large

–  International

–  global

–  Distinguished by common, unifying characteristics

Art History Vocabulary Period

–  Historic chunk of time shorter than an Era

–  Geographically limited (usually a single country)

–  Distinguished by common, unifying characteristics

–  Not well-defined – could refer to the entire rule of a European monarch (i.e. “Victorian” period) or an individual artist’s phase (i.e. Picasso’s “blue” period)

Art History Vocabulary Movement

–  Historic chunk of time that is relatively short (months or years)

–  Geographically very specific

–  Distinguished by common, unifying characteristics

–  Group of artists banded together to pursue a specific objective (particular artistic style, political mindset, common enemy, etc.)

–  Benefits: •  Support each other •  Hold their own exhibitions •  Annoy the Art Establishment

Art History Vocabulary School

–  Sometimes refers to an actual educational institution and the artists who trained there

–  Often used as a synonym for movement – a group of artists in a specific place with common goals and a shared style – a sort of informal or grassroots school

•  Example: The Hudson River School – a mid-19th century American art movement carried out by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism.

Art History Vocabulary Style

–  Common look (form and/or composition) employed by an artist, school, or movement

•  Examples: Cubist, pointillist, photorealist, etc.

Pre-modernism = Renaissance (an era)

Some key ideas leading up to modernist art

Modernism:

Modern art (an era) was a reaction to what came before, such as The Renaissance.

Remember, we are setting up for…

Postmodernism (the primary focus of our semester)

c. 1

40

0

Lots of religious art, and a few other things

Timeline of Western Art

c. 1

40

0

c. 1

87

4

Renaissance

An era that saw many movements, periods, schools, and styles. (i.e. Baroque, Mannerism, Realism,

Rococo, Romantic)

Lots of religious art, and a few other things

Modernist Era

c. 1

40

0

c. 1

96

0

c. 1

87

4

Impressionism

Lots of religious art, and a few other things

Renaissance

An era that saw many movements, periods, schools, and styles. (i.e. Baroque, Mannerism, Realism,

Rococo, Romantic)

Modernist Era

c. 1

40

0

c. 1

96

0

c. 1

87

4

Lots of religious art, and a few other things

Post-modernism

Renaissance Impressionism

An era that saw many movements, periods, schools, and styles. (i.e. Baroque, Mannerism, Realism,

Rococo, Romantic)

From c. 1450-1870, ideas and techniques developed during the

Renaissance dominated Western art.

Three important ones:

BEAUTY ILLUSION

RELIGIOUS / SECULAR THEMES

1. Beauty

Beauty in proportion The Golden Mean or The Golden Ratio

1:1.618034. . .

Iktinos & Kallikrates, Parthenon, 447-432 BCE, Athens, Greece,

Marble, 228’ x 104’

The ancient Greeks knew the golden ratio from their investigations into geometry. Studies have been devised to test the idea that the golden ratio plays a role in the human perception of beauty. Though inconclusive, a large body of beliefs about the golden ratio exist.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper , 1495-98 Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan

Golden Ratio

Beauty in aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.

Aesthetics change based on time and history Western medieval aesthetics Modern aesthetics Postmodern Aesthetics

Beauty in aesthetics

2. Illusion

observed Reality as a kind of Truth This was not always valued in art!

Perspective (within the artworks

themselves) •  Atmospheric

•  Linear

Perspective Atmospheric

–  Objects in the distance are hazy or less well-defined than objects in the foreground (no sharp lines)

–  Colors in the background are more muted; less contrast and smaller range of values

Raphael's Madonna of the Meadow, 1505, Italy, panel painting, 44 x 34"

Atmospheric perspective

Sfumato: a low-contrast style of painting – no extreme darks or lights

Perspective Linear: Objects appear smaller as their distance

from the observer increases

–  Horizon line is depicted or implied

–  Objects are foreshortened (dimensions along the line of sight are relatively shorter than dimensions across the line of sight)

–  Parallel lines have a vanishing-point (a point somewhere in the distance where they will eventually meet)

Linear Perspective

Linear Perspective

Linear Perspective

3. Religious / Secular Themes

Religious Themes

The Church was arguably the largest supporter of the arts.

•  Using images to speak to the public

– (many people were illiterate) Belief in the power of images to convey messages

Giovanni  Bellini  San  Zaccaria  Altarpiece  1505    

Caravaggio  The  Incredulity  of  Saint  Thomas  1601    

Secular Themes

In addition to religious images, around 1400 (approx. time of the beginning of the Renaissance)

painters and sculptors began to depict:

•  Average people •  (portraits & genre paintings)

•  Historical events •  Everyday scenes

•  (landscapes & home interiors) •  Stories from mythology

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c.

1503-1505, panel, 30 x 21”, The Louvre,

Paris

Jan Davidsz de Heem (Netherlands), A Table of Desserts, 1640, oil on canvas, 59 x 80”, The Louvre, Paris

Thomas Cole, Landscape, 1825, oil on canvas

John Singer Sargent,

Beatrice Golet, 1890

Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784

Jacques-Louis David, Bonaparte Crossing the St. Bernard Pass, 1801

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814

Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1828

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830

We move from the era of the Renaissance to…

Modernism (another era)

The Modern Era

What major technological/social event in the 19th century changed the lifestyles of

most of the Western world?

the Industrial Revolution

The Modern Era

What major technological/social event in the 19th century changed the lifestyles of

most of the Western world?

Causes of change in art were social and technological, not aesthetic:

• Growth of cities

• New methods of transportation and communication

(i.e. internal combustion engine, railroads, lightbulb, phonograph, telephone)

• Change in political systems and structures; Increased democracy

• Secularization of modern society

• Availability of photography to general public

• Interest in our inner life (the psyche) – Freud et al.

Modernism

Modernism in a nutshell •  New economic, social and political conditions of a

changing, industrialized world. (ideas, activities and creations of people who thought "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religion, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated)

•  The traditions of the past (the certainty of

Enlightenment/Renaissance thinking) were cast aside in a spirit of experimentation (new ways of seeing, new ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art, embracing uncertainty)

•  Affected many aspects of culture and society, not limited to visual art and artists

Beauty Illusion “realism” Secular Themes

Art as autonomous object

Five recurring themes in modernist art:

1.  Seeing and perspective

2.  Abstraction

3.  Expression

4.  Fantasy

5.  Concept/idea

MEMORIZE THESE!

1. Seeing and perspective

New ways of looking at things; capturing new/unfamiliar aspects of familiar things

Claude Monet, Gare St-Lazare,,1877; French, oil on canvas, 32 1/2" x 39 1/9ﾓ, Fogg

Museum, Harvard University; Boston, Mass.

Captures the experience of modernity, of being in the station: the smoke, the light, the sensations

Spontaneous sensations and impressions of modernity

Impressionism Accurate depiction of reality – historical record

William Frith, Paddington Railway Station, 1882, oil on canvas, 117 x 257 cm, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Surrey, England

Impressionist Painters •  Interested in a new way of seeing – paintings not

meant to be analyzed or decoded logically & intellectually

•  Preoccupied with change, impermanence, and instability - probably a reflection of the urban, industrial world that surrounded them

•  They tried to capture spontaneity: “this very instant”

•  Interested in depicting fleeting qualities of light

and color in nature •  Made scenes of pleasure/leisure from their own

lives

Compared with the Academic painting that came before, it looked messy and unfinished.

Claude Monet, Waterlilies with Clouds, 1903, oil on canvas