3. vrf reader: introduction to western art

8/4/2019 3. VRF Reader: Introduction to Western Art

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02/10THE ORIGINS OF MODERNISM

1. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND

2. Speaker: Helen Bowman

MMU Student Support Officer

3. Summary Writing 2


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RECAPSWho we are & our venue

Times & Protocols

Sign in and lateness

Packs, Handouts, Tutorials

Annotating your Handouts

Get a Box and a File

Unit 3 Schedule, 5 Maxims,

CT and Modernism types

STYLE ARTIST

Impressionism Salvador Dali

Abst Expressionism Leonardo da Vinci

Cubism Lord Leighton

Brit Art Jackson Pollock

Renaissance Damien Hirst

Classical Trad Pablo Picasso

Surrealism Claude Monet


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A STEPPING STONE TO MODERNISM

1500 1800 1900 2000

IDEALISM

The Classical Tradition

REALISM

Impressionism

MODERN ART

Many styles


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CHANGING WORLD - CHANGING ART

Before modern times, society and its art changed quite slowly

Most people kept to the rules and were quite satisfied with this

From around 1800 the Industrial Revolution changed all this

Everything became uncertain, as in life so in art


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THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGE

CHANGES EFFECTS THE EFFECTS ONTHE ART WORLD

SCIENCE

RULES

It explains the world (religion used to),making world-changing inventions

USE THE SAME METHODS -EXAMINE OUR WORLD

INDUSTRIAL

REVOLUTION

New materials and mass production

change every aspect of peoples lives

OLD WAYS ARE DEAD - FIND

NEW METHODS

NEW WORKING

PATTERNS

People become slaves of the machine,working all hours in mills and factories

A NEW REALITY -ART MUSTREFLECT THIS LIFE

URBANGROWTH

Communities migrate to cities that growwithout housing, sanitation, etc

A NEW LIFE -SHOW THISNEW, UGLY WORLD IN ART

MIDDLE CLASS

POWER

Factory owners and managers take

power from the upper class aristocracy

NEW BUYERS, NEW TASTE -

WANT NEW SUBJECTS

SOCIALMOBILITY

The railway revolution allows travel,new horizons and new experiences

SEE THE WORLD -A NEWVARIETY OF SUBJECTS


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Images ofChange

1

2

3

4

5

6


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CHAIN REACTION

1 - 7 These changes are felt in the

centre of the art world, Paris.

The turmoil that is theFrench Revolution (1789)pushes them even further -extreme times and feelings

So it is here that the modern

approach to art emerges

This happened very quicklyas a sort of chain reactionthat is set out here


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1. Propaganda

1800: the Classical Tradition isused by politicians to get overtheir message: its power andprestige is exploited by the

Revolutionaries and then byNapoleon (1805)

Thus the French lose their trust inestablishment art of the Salon (itlies) and look for an alternative artthat they can believe in


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2. The Art

Market 1805: the palaces are opened

up to all - the first galleries

This reveals a huge publicinterest in art - and this creates

the art press, critics andgalleries - our modern world

The print industry fuels thisnew craze with print copiesand print shops

Across Europe, art is boughtand sold as never before - andthis market makes the artistfree.how?


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3. Young Art

Rebels This is one choice:

1820s: a young generationof artists emerge who aredetermined to make art moremodern

Free from commissions,patrons and art rules, theydo their own thing (and try tosell it in the art market)

Gericault (& Delacroix) setthis pattern by using topicsthat shock the Salon and thepublic, and by adopting theromantic rebel pose


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4. Genre: a Popular Modern Art

This is the other way:

1830s: many artists see thatyou could exploit this newscene to become verysuccessful and rich

They soothe the new buyingpublic by making art soft -realistic but safe, moral andsentimental (soft realism)

This is genre, available to all

in print - popular and makingmany artists very rich


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5. The Avant-Garde

1840s: by now most young artrebels scorn the soft optionand looked for tough, realisticsubjects to reflect theirmodern age

They mostly took their leadfrom science - recording theharsh new world of citiesindustry and poverty

They organized into smallgroups when faced withpopular scorn against theirugly art - so art now had

avant garde groups


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6. Realism

1850s: this new modern art(and writing) is christenedRealism; be of your time

It has endless groupings, alltrying different ways tocapture our new modern life

Despite the publics disdain,Realism is influential: it is thefirst of our modern crossover

styles from theatre to novelsand to philosophy

Also called Positivism andMaterialism, Realism affectsall areas of design and arttoo.


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Realism: Nature analysed toinspire Design (Crossover)


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7. Impressionism

1860s: one group of realistswere determined to take theseexperiments even further

They used the discoveries ofoptical science to show howour eyes really see the world

This involved evolving a newstyle (not new subjects)

Its look was so different that itseemed insulting in 1874: amere impression said critics.


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THE DIFFERENCE OF IMPRESSIONISM

Thus Impressionism is the mostextreme version of Realism

Harmless looking today, this

version of Realism was the onethat had the most effect on laterstyles (and Modern Art)

From the 1860s to the1880s,Impressionism became more

and more experimental in itsmethods - and so it is the stylethat makes it so important


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Extreme ?

However the public couldnttake seriously these smalland unfinished pictures

Worse, their subjectsseemed ugly and hard tomake out

These mere sketches mustbe a joke of some kind..

But look how these littlepictures seem to break allthe rules of the ClassicalTradition


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Experimental

Methods?

Many Impressionists were more interested in their method than their subjects

They followed science and recorded, on the spot, unmodified sense impressions

They made quick, unimproved and un-beautified records of what they saw This produced a flat pattern of dabs or pixels that mixed in your eye (optical mix)

Like snapshots, their compositions seem unplanned and odd (see next)

But this looked fresh and honest - and achieved a greater realism and honesty


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Gallery


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Keywords for Impressionism

Asymmetrical

Visual brushstrokes

Flattened space

Optical mixing Cropping

Unmixed colours

Modern life

Portable

Aerial perspective (only) Snapshot


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Influential Its the new look of

Impressionism, the flatmosaic of bright colours andloose un-disguisedbrushstrokes, that dazzledand then inspired the nextgenerations of artists

But these artists, from 1880to 1910, used the elements ofImpressionism for manydifferent (post-impressionist)

effects and styles These are what we now see

as the start of modernart.


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Some Post-Impressionist StylesIdentify the elements taken further from Impressionism

STYLE ARTIST STYLE ELEMENT DEVELOPED

Pointillism

1880s

1 Seurat Brushstrokes into dots, applyingscientific theories

Post-Impressionism

1880s

2 Van Gogh Big brushstrokes, bright colour

taken further for emotional impact

Fauvism

1890s

3 Matisse Unreal colour exaggerated tosuggest emotional states

Expressionism

1900s

4 Heckel The unfinished effects exploited tomake personal and honest

Cubism

1910

5 Picasso The examination of how we seetaken onto a conceptual approach


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Five post-impressionist examples1

3

4

5

2


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Crossover Images 1900Architecture, posters, products, typography illustration, craftwork, photography andfilm - this urge to experiment with style crossed over into all areas of design: luckily

you do not have to research this topic for your VRF assignment


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FINALLY

Where to see? Try Valette inthe City Art Gallery (along withgenre)

Next: Cubism, your firstassignment style (VRF)

Register - have you signed in ?

Due in soon - SummaryWriting - 6 paragraphs

3. vrf reader: introduction to western art

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