art history: dada to pop (ahis 216-winter)
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New ObjectivityTRANSCRIPT
Art History: Dada to Pop 1915-1956 (AHIS 216-Winter)
Thursdays, 2 pm to 5 pm Instructor, Danielle Hogan New Objectivity
The New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) emerged as a style in
Germany in the 1920s as a challenge to Expressionism. As its name
suggests, it offered a return to unsentimental reality and a focus
on the objective world, as opposed to the more abstract, romantic,
or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism. The style is most often
associated with portraiture, and its leading practitioners included
Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. Their mercilessly
naturalistic depictions, sometimes reminiscent of the meticulous
processes of the Old Masters, frequently portrayed Weimar society
in a caustically satirical manner. Max Beckmann Self Portrait with
ta Cigarette, 1923 Max Beckmann Self Portrait 1916-17 Otto Dix The
Mediterranean Sailor, 1923 Otto Dix Portrait of Mrs. Dix 1924 Otto
Dix Dr. Mayer-Hermann Berlin 1926 George Grosz The Poet Max
Herrmann-Neisse 1927 Bauhaus The Bauhaus, Dessau The Bauhaus looked
to unify art, craft and technology Key Ideas ~The motivations
behind the creation of the Bauhaus lay in the 19th century, in
anxieties about the soullessness of manufacturing and its products,
and in fears about art's loss of purpose in society. Creativity and
manufacturing were drifting apart, and the Bauhaus aimed to unite
them once again, rejuvenating design for everyday life. ~Although
the Bauhaus abandoned much of the ethos of the old academic
tradition of fine art education, it maintained a stress on
intellectual and theoretical pursuits, and linked these to an
emphasis on practical skills, crafts and techniques that was more
reminiscent of the medieval guild system. Fine art and craft were
brought together with the goal of problem solving for a modern
industrial society. In so doing, the Bauhaus effectively leveled
the old hierarchy of the arts, placing crafts on par with fine arts
such as sculpture and painting, and paving the way for many of the
ideas that have inspired artists in the late 20th century. ~The
stress on experiment and problem solving at the Bauhaus has proved
enormously influential for the approaches to education in the arts.
It has led to the 'fine arts' being rethought as the 'visual arts',
and art considered less as an adjunct of the humanities, like
literature or history, and more as a kind of research science.
Joseph Albers teaching at the Bauhaus Legacy of the Bauhaus The
Bauhaus influence travelled along with its faculty. Gropius went on
to teach at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University,
Mies van der Rohe became Director of the College of Architecture,
Planning and Design, at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Josef
Albers began to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina,
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy formed what became the Institute of Design in
Chicago, and Max Bill, a former Bauhaus student, opened the
Institute of Design in Ulm, Germany. The latter three were all
important in spreading the Bauhaus philosophy: Moholy-Nagy and
Albers were particularly important in refashioning that philosophy
into one suited to the climate of a modern research university in a
market-oriented culture; Bill, meanwhile, played a significant role
in spreading geometric abstraction throughout the world. Adolf
Hitler and Adolf Ziegler visit the Degenerate Art exhibition, 1937.
and they didnt only go after visual art. Jazz too! De Stijl or Neo
Plasticism Theo van Doesburg Arithmetic Composition
Theo van Doesburg Key Ideas Like other avant-garde movements of the
time, De Stijl, which means simply "the style" in Dutch, emerged
largely in response to the horrors of World War I and the wish to
remake society in its aftermath. Viewing art as a means of social
and spiritual redemption, the members of De Stijl embraced a
utopian vision of art and its transformative potential. Among the
pioneering exponents of abstract art, De Stijl artists espoused a
visual language consisting of precisely rendered geometric forms -
usually straight lines, squares, and rectangles--and primary
colors. Expressing the artists' search "for the universal, as the
individual was losing its significance," this austere language was
meant to reveal the laws governing the harmony of the world. Even
though De Stijl artists created work embodying the movement's
utopian vision, their realization that this vision was unattainable
in the real world essentially brought about the group's demise.
Ultimately, De Stijl's continuing fame is largely the result of the
enduring achievement of its best-known member and true modern
master, Piet Mondrian. 1899 Piet Mondrian Alberi, 1908 Piet
Mondrian Evening: The Red Tree, Piet Mondrian The Grey Tree, 1911
Piet Mondrian Neo Plasticism Still Life with Ginger Pot 1, 1911
Piet Mondrian Still Life with Ginger Pot 2, 1912
Piet Mondrian Composition with Oval in Colour Planes II, 1914
Piet Mondrian Composition in Colour A, 1917
Piet Mondrian Composition with Grid IX, 1919
Piet Mondrian Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray
and Blue, 1921
Piet Mondrian Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and
Black, 1924
Piet Mondrian Composition with Blue, 1937 Piet Mondrian New York
City I, 1942 Piet Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43
Piet Mondrian Victoriy Boogie Woogie, 1944
Piet Mondrian