What is art?

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that
influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. It encompasses a diverse range
of human activities, creations, and modes of expression,
including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a
branch of philosophy known as aesthetics, and even disciplines such as history and psychology analyze its
relationship with humans and generations.

Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during
the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified
with religion and science".[1] Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.
ART APPRICIATION

Impressionism  Claude Monet 

 
c.1870-1890 1840-1926
Impressionism is the name given to a
colorful style of painting in France at the
end of the 19th century. The Impressionists
searched for a more exact analysis of the
effects of colour and light in nature. They
sought to capture the atmosphere of a
particular time of day or the effects of
different weather conditions. They often
worked outdoors and applied their paint in
small brightly coloured strokes which
meant sacrificing much of the outline and
detail of their subject. Impressionism
abandoned the conventional idea that the
shadow of an object was made up from its
colour with some brown or black added.
Instead, the Impressionists enriched their
colours with the idea that a shadow is
broken up with dashes of its
complementary colour. Among the most
important Impressionist painters
were Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste
Renoir,Edgar Degas, Camille
Pissarro, Alfred Sisleyand Henri de
Toulouse Lautrec.
Post impression

The Roots of Modern Art

 Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
View of Arles (Orchard in Bloom with Poplars) (oil on canvas, 1890)
Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

Post Impressionism was not a formal movement or style. The Post Impressionists were a few
independent artists at the end of the 19th century who rebelled against the limitations of
Impressionism. They developed a range of personal styles that focused on the emotional,
structural, symbolic and spiritual elements that they felt were missing from Impressionism.

The Post Impressionists

Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

The Channel at Gravelines, Evening (oil on canvas, 1890)
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Impressionism was the first movement in the canon of modern art. Like most revolutionary
styles it was gradually absorbed into the mainstream and its limitations became frustrating to
the succeeding generation. Artists such as Vincent Van Gogh,Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and
Georges Seurat, although steeped in the traditions of Impressionism, pushed the boundaries
of the style in different creative directions and in doing so laid the foundations for the art of
the 20th century. Their name was derived from the title of the exhibition 'Manet and the Post-
Impressionists' which was organised in London by the English artist and critic Roger Fry in
the winter of 1910-11. For historical convenience these artists have been labeled as Post
Impressionists but, apart from their Impressionist influence, they don't have that much in
common.

Paul Gauguin (1884-1903)

 The Yellow Christ
(oil on canvas, 1889)
Albright Knox Art Gallery

Cloisonnism, Synthetism and Symbolism were some of the terms associated with the Post
Impressionist paintings of Paul Gauguin in order to distinguish them from Impressionism.

The term Cloisonnism was coined by the critic Edouard Dujardin and refers to the jewellery
technique of inlaying metal surfaces with 'cloisonné' enamel colors (the word 'cloison' in
French means a 'border'). The decorative effect of this process resembled the bold outlines
and flat color of Gauguin's art.

In Synthesism, the artist's aim was to 'synthesize' his feelings with the elements of his
painting by simplifying its shapes and amplifying its color to increase its emotional and
expressive power. The result was seen as a symbol of the artist's thoughts and feelings and
consequently Gauguin's style of painting was also referred to as 'Symbolism'.

'The Yellow Christ' is a classic example of his style. It depicts some traditional Breton women
praying at a roadside grotto but it is not a documentary illustration of the scene; it is an
attempt to portray the spiritual vision that they experience in their prayer. In this painting
Gauguin was inspired by the naive simplicity of a wooden 17th century crucifix that he saw in
the nearby church at Tremalo and he uses its primitive form and autumnal yellow color as a
key to the work. He then simplifies his drawing, boldly outlines his shapes and exaggerates
his color to magnify the heightened emotion of the women's prayerful meditation.

 
 Tahitian Landscape 
(oil on canvas, 1893)
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis

Gauguin's work can be split into two phases: an early period spent painting around the rustic
town of Port Aven in Brittany; and a later period (post 1891) in search of the primitive lifestyle
in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. He fused his symbolic use of colour
with images of both environments to create a highly personal and expressive vision that
pushed art towards the exhilarating style ofFauvism.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Wheatfield with Crows

(oil on canvas, 1890)
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Vincent Van Gogh embraced the vivid color of Impressionism but discarded any Impressionist
ideas about the careful analysis and effects of color and light in nature. This was far too
scientific an approach for this temperamental Dutchman whose gut instincts were tuned to the
expressive power of color. When Impressionism was filtered through the heightened
 perception of Van Gogh's vision, the results pushed art towards Expressionism, an
exploration of the spiritual and emotional side of art.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Mont Sainte-Victoire
(oil on canvas, 1902-04)
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Paul Cézanne believed that the Impressionists had lost one of the classical hallmarks of great
art: a structured composition where the visual elements are carefully refined and balanced to
work in harmony with one another. He felt that the Impressionists' technique was naturally
limited, principally because they had to work so quickly to capture the fleeting effects of
atmospheric conditions. Cézanne wanted to make paintings whose compositions were more
tightly organised and "make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the
museums".

 
 The Château at Médan
(oil on canvas, 1880)
Burrell Collection, Glasgow

He called his pictures 'constructions after nature' in which elements from the three-
dimensional world were translated into patterns of shapes and colors arranged on a flat
canvas. The way that Cézanne structured and abstracted his paintings with carefully
modulated color pushed art towards the revolutionary style that wasCubism.

Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

 Detail from A Sunday Afternoon on the Île de la Grande Jatte
(oil on canvas, 1884)
Art Institute of Chicago

Georges Seurat's frustration with the limitations of Impressionism, particularly its lack of
accurate line and detail, drove him to develop the technique of Pointillism or as it was
otherwise called, Neo-Impressionism. This was a more scientific approach to the mixture of
color which was applied in small dots of paint that blended optically when viewed from a
distance.

 
 Study for A Sunday Afternoon on the Île de la Grande Jatte
(oil on canvas, 1884)
Harvard Art Museum

You often see works by Seurat that look more like Impressionism than Pointillism. This is
because he painted his sketches outside using an Impressionistic technique to quickly
capture the fleeting effects of natural light and color.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Île de la Grande Jatte

(oil on canvas, 1884)
Art Institute of Chicago

He would then take these preparatory sketches back to his studio and rework them using his
more methodical Pointillist technique. This allowed him to take a more considered and
classical approach to composition, using sharper lines and more clearly defined shapes while
still retaining the vitality of Impressionist light and color.

Post Impressionism Notes

 The Post Impressionists were a few independent artists at the end of the 19th century
who rebelled against the limitations of Impressionism to develop a range of personal
styles that influenced the development of art in the 20th century.

 The art of Paul Gauguin was a major influence in the development of Fauvism

 The art of Vincent Van Gogh was an influence on Expressionism in the 20th century.

 The art of Paul Cézanne was an influence on the Cubists at the start of the 20th
century.

 The analytical method of Seurat's Pointillism influenced those artists who adopted
more calculated approach to painting, particularly in the development of abstract art.
 Cubism
 

Cubism - the first style of abstract art

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Factory, Horta de Ebbo (oil on canvas, 1909)
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges
Braques. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century
in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed. Cubism was an attempt
by artists to revitalise the tired traditions of Western art which they believed had run their
course. The Cubists challenged conventional forms of representation, such as perspective,
which had been the rule since the Renaissance. Their aim was to develop a new way of seeing
which reflected the modern age.

In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress
than in the previous four centuries. During this period inventions such as photography,
cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane heralded the
dawn of a new age. The problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the modernity of the
era using the tired and trusted traditions that had served art for the last four centuries.
Photography had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting the age and for artists
to sit illustrating cars, planes and images of the new technologies was not exactly rising to the
challenge. Artists needed a more radical approach - a 'new way of seeing' that expanded the
possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of
communication and travel. This new way of seeing was called Cubism - the first abstract style
of modern art. Picasso and Braque developed their ideas on Cubism around 1907 in Paris and
their starting point was a common interest in the later paintings of Paul Cézanne.

 
  

The Influence of Cézanne on Cubism

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Bibemus Quarry (oil on canvas, 1895)
Museum Folkwang

Cézanne was not primarily interested in creating an illusion of depth in his painting and he
abandoned the tradition of perspective drawing. Perspective, which had been used since
the Early Renaissance, was a geometric formula that solved the problem of how to draw three-
dimensional objects on a two dimensional surface. Cézanne felt that the illusionism of
perspective denied the fact that a painting is a flat two-dimensional object. He liked to flatten
the space in his paintings to place more emphasis on their surface - to stress the difference
between a painting and reality. He saw painting in more abstract terms as the construction and
arrangement of colour on a two-dimensional surface. It was this flat abstract approach that
appealed to the Cubists and their early paintings, such as Picasso's 'Factory at Horta de Ebbo'
(1909) and Braque's 'Viaduct at L'Estaque' (1908,) took it to an extreme.

The Cubist Vision

 Georges Braque (1882-1963)
Viaduct at L'Estaque (oil on canvas, 1908)
Pompidou Centre, Paris

The limitations of perspective were also seen as an obstacle to progress by the Cubists. The
fact that a picture drawn in perspective could only work from one viewpoint restricted their
options. As the image was drawn from a fixed position, the result was frozen, like a snapshot -
but the Cubists wanted to make pictures that reached beyond the rigid geometry of
perspective. They wanted to introduce the idea of 'relativity' - how the artist perceived and
selected elements from the subject, fusing both their observations and memories into the one
concentrated image. To do this the Cubists examined the way that we see.

When you look at an object your eye scans it, stopping to register on a certain detail before
moving on to the next point of interest and so on. You can also change your viewpoint in
relation to the object allowing you to look at it from above, below or from the side. Therefore,
the Cubists proposed that your sight of an object is the sum of many different views and your
memory of an object is not constructed from one angle, as in perspective, but from many
angles selected by your sight and movement. Cubist painting, paradoxically abstract in form,
was an attempt at a more realistic way of seeing.

A typical Cubist painting depicts real people, places or objects, but not from a fixed viewpoint.
Instead it will show you many parts of the subject at one time, viewed from different angles,
and reconstructed into a composition of planes, forms and colours. The whole idea of space is
reconfigured: the front, back and sides of the subject become interchangeable elements in the
design of the work.

The Cubists - Picasso, Braque and Gris

 Juan Gris (1887-1927)
Violin and Glass (oil on canvas, 1915)
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque conceived and developed Cubism but other artists also
adopted the style. The Spanish artist Juan Gris, who is often referred to as the 'Third
Musketeer of Cubism', was the best of these and he refined the Cubist vocabulary into his own
instantly recognisable visual language. Other notable artists associated with Cubism were
Fernand Leger, Robert Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Louis Marcoussis, Marie
Laurencin and Roger de La Fresnaye.

The Influence of African Art on Cubism

 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Left: Head of a Woman, (oil on canvas, 1907) Right: Dan Mask
www.zyama.com

The Cubists believed that the traditions of Western art had become exhausted and another
remedy they applied to revitalize their work was to draw on the expressive energy of art from
other cultures, especially African art. However, they were not interested in the true religious or
social symbolism of these cultural objects, but valued them superficially for their expressive
style. They viewed them as subversive elements that could be used to attack and
subsequently refresh the tired tradition of Western art. This inspiration to cross-reference art
from different cultures probably came from Paul Gauguin, the French post-impressionist artist,
whose paintings and prints were influenced by the native culture of Tahiti and the Marquesas
Islands where he spent his final years.

Analytical Cubism
 Georges Braque (1882-1963)
Violin and Jug (oil on canvas, 1910)
Kunstmuseum, Basel

Cubism had two distinct phases. The early phase which lasted until about 1912 was called
Analytical Cubism. Here the artist analysed the subject from many different viewpoints and
reconstructed it within a geometric framework, the overall effect of which was to create an
image that evoked a sense of the subject. These fragmented images were unified by the use of
a subdued and limited palette of colours.

 
 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Still Life with Chair Caning (oil on canvas, 1912)
Musée Picasso, Paris

Around 1912, the styles of Picasso and Braque were becoming predictable. Their images had
grown so similar that their paintings of this period are often difficult to tell apart. Their work
was increasingly abstract and less recognisable as the subject of their titles. Cubism was
running out of creative steam. In an attempt to revitalise the style and pull it back from total
abstraction, Picasso began to glue printed images from the 'real world' onto the surface of his
still lifes. His painting 'Still Life with Chair Caning', was the first example of this 'collage'
technique and it opened the door for himself and other artists to the second phase of the
Cubist style: Synthetic Cubism.

Synthetic Cubism
 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Still Life with Mandolin and Guitar (oil on canvas, 1924)
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Influenced by the introduction of bold and simple collage shapes, Synthetic Cubism moved
away from the unified monochrome surfaces of Analytic Cubism to a more direct, colourful
and decorative style. Although synthetic cubist images appear more abstract in their use of
simplified forms, the other elements of their composition are applied quite traditionally.
Interchanging lines, colours, patterns and textures, that switch from geometric to freehand,
dark to light, positive to negative and plain to patterned, advance and recede in rhythms
across the picture plain.

Beyond Cubism
 Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916)
Dynamism of a Soccer Player (oil on canvas, 1913)
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Cubism was born in France but emigrated across Europe and integrated with the artistic
consciousness of several countries. It emerged as Futurism in Italy (illustrated above),
Vorticism in England, Suprematism and Constructivism in Russia, and Expressionism in
Germany. It also influenced several of the major design and architectural styles of the 20th
century and prevails to this day as mode of expression in the language of art.

Cubism Notes

 Cubism was invented around 1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

 Cubism was the first abstract style of modern art.

 A Cubist painting ignores the traditions of perspective drawing and shows you many
views of a subject at one time.

 The Cubists introduced collage into painting.

 The Cubists were influenced by art from other cultures, particularly African masks.

 There are two distinct phases of the Cubist Style: Analytical Cubism (pre 1912) and
Synthetic Cubism (post 1912)

 Cubism influenced many other styles of modern art including Orphism,Futurism,

Vorticism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Expressionism.

Fauvism
 

A New Approach to Color in Art

 Paul Gauguin (1884-1903)
Vision After The Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel) (oil on canvas, 1888)
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

The Roots of Fauvism

Fauvism has its roots in the post-impressionist paintings of Paul Gauguin. It was his use
of symbolic colour that pushed art towards the style of Fauvism. Gauguin proposed that
colour had a symbolic vocabulary which could be used to visually translate a range of
emotions. In 'Vision after the Sermon' where Gauguin depicts Jacob wrestling with an angel,
he paints the background a flat red to emphasise the mood and subject of the sermon: Jacob's
spiritual battle fought in a blood red field of combat. Gauguin believed that colour had a
mystical quality that could express our feelings about a subject rather than simply describe a
scene. By breaking the established descriptive role that colour had in painting, he inspired the
younger artists of his day to experiment with new possibilities for colour in art.

Two Fauvist Artists: Matisse and Derain

 Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
The Roofs of Collioure (oil on canvas, 1905)
The Hermitage, St Petersburg

At the start of the 20th century, two young artists, Henri Matisse and André Derain formed the
basis of a group of painters who enjoyed painting pictures with outrageously bold colours.
The group were nicknamed 'Les Fauves' which meant 'wild beasts' in French. Their title was
coined by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles who was amused by the exaggerated colour in their
art. At the Salon d'automne of 1905 he entered a gallery where Les Fauves were exhibiting
their paintings. Surprised by the contrast with a typical renaissance sculpture that stood in the
centre of this room, he exclaimed with irony, "Donatello au mileau des fauves!" ( Donatello in
the middle of the wild beasts! ). The name stuck.

 
 Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
The Open Window, Collioure (oil on canvas, 1905)
The National Gallery of Art, Washington

In 1905, Matisse and Derain went to stay in the port of Collioure in the south of France and the
Fauvist pictures that they painted there revolutionised attitudes towards colour in art. The
sheer joy of expression that they achieved through their liberated approach to colour was a
shot in the arm for the art of painting. In Matisse's painting 'The Open Window, Collioure'
colour is used at its maximum intensity. The window frames, clay flower pots and masts on
the yachts have all been painted in a blazing red. These are a bold complement to the range of
greens that punctuate the painting. In order to arrange the various colours of the work into an
effective composition he creates a counterchange between the greenish wall on the left and its
reflected colour in the right hand window, with the purple wall on the right and its reflected
colour in the left hand window. To unify the interior/exterior relationship of space, the dense
spectrum of colours used inside the room is echoed more sparingly in the distant view
through the window.

At first glance, the apparent freedom of his style seems to deny any skill or technique, but
when you begin to analyse his effective use of visual elements you start to realise that there is
an instinctive sensibility at work. The key to his success in using such exaggerated colours
was the realisation that he had to simplify his drawing. He understood that if he intensified the
quality of colour for expressive effect, he must reduce the amount of detail used in drawing
the shapes and forms of the image. By applying the same kind of simplification and
spontaneity to his drawing and brushwork, Matisse was amplifying the sense of joy that he
had achieved through colour. He wrote, "We move towards serenity through the simplification
of ideas and form.......Details lessen the purity of lines, they harm the emotional intensity, and
we choose to reject them. It is a question of learning - and perhaps relearning the 'handwriting'
 of lines. The aim of painting is not to reflect history, because this can be found in books. We
have a higher conception. Through it, the artist expresses his inner vision."

André Derain (1880-1954)

Portrait of Henri Matisse (oil on canvas, 1906)
The Tate Gallery, London

In 1906, after the success of the Salon d'automne exhibition of the previous year, André Derain
was commissioned by Ambroise Vollard, the french art dealer, to create a series of paintings
about London. The subject had been previously tackled by Whistler and Monet who had
focused on the foggy atmosphere of the industrial city. Derain's vision was a radical departure
from this traditional view as he painted the capital in a palette more suited to a Mediterranean
holiday resort. Altogether he produced thirty paintings in what has become a very popular
series depicting many views along the Thames.

 
 André Derain (1880-1954)
The Pool of London (oil on canvas, 1906)
The Tate Gallery, London

Derain's manages to balance the expressive and descriptive qualities of colour in 'The Pool of
London'. He uses the conflict between warm and cool colours to express the noise and activity
of this busy dockyard. An illusion of depth in the painting is created by using stronger and
warmer tones in the foreground, which gradually become weaker and cooler towards the
background. This organised arrangement of tones in a landscape is called Aerial Perspective.
The drawing of the image is typically simplified into shapes and forms whose details can be
conveyed by unmodified brushstrokes of roughly the same size. This gives the painting an
overall unity that you would not expect in a composition of such conflicting colours.

Fauvism and Beyond

 Raoul Dufy (1877-1953)
Henley Regatta (gouache, 1933)
Private Collection

Henri Matisse and André Derain may be the two most important figures associated with the
Fauve movement, but other great artists such as Maurice de Vlaminck, Albert Marquet,
Georges Rouault, Raoul Dufy and the cubist Georges Braque all contributed their own
variations to the style.

André Derain (1880-1954)

Turning Road at L'Estaque (oil on canvas, 1906)
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Texas

Fauvism was not a formal movement with a manifesto of rules and regulations. It was more an
instinctive coming together of artists who wished to express themselves by using bold
colours, simplified drawing and expressive brushwork. 'Les Fauves' simply believed that
colour had a spiritual quality which linked directly to your emotions and they loved to use it at
the highest possible pitch.

Within a few years, Fauvist techniques were adopted and developed by the German
Expressionists and their various splinter groups. Fauvism was gradually subsumed into the
canon of modern art, but its influence liberated the use of colour for future generations of
artists, who ultimately explored colour as an abstract subject in its own right.

Fauvism Notes

 Fauvism was a style of painting developed in France at the beginning of the 20th
century by Henri Matisse and André Derain.

 The artists who painted in this style were known as 'Les Fauves'.
  The title 'Les Fauves' (the wild beasts) came from a sarcastic remark by the art critic
Louis Vauxcelles.

 Les Fauves believed that colour should be used to express the artist's feelings about a
subject, rather than simply to describe what it looks like.

 Fauvist paintings have two main characteristics: simplified drawing and exaggerated
colour.

 Les Fauves were a great influence on the German Expressionists.

Expressionism
 

The Spirit of Expressionist Art

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)

Davos under Snow (oil on canvas, 1923)
Kirchner Museum, Davos

Expressionism is a term that embraces an early 20th century style of art, music and literature
that is charged with an emotional and spiritual vision of the world.

The Roots of Expressionism

 Matthias Grünewald (c.1475-1528)
The Crucifixion Panel from the Isenheim Altarpiece (oil on wood, 1515)
Musée d'Unterlinden

Expressionism is associated with Northern Europe in general and Germany in particular. The
Expressionist spirit has always existed in the German psyche. Its embryonic forms can be
recognized in the physical and spiritual suffering depicted in Grünewald's ‘Crucifixion’ above,
in the tortured vision of Martin Schongauer’s engraving of the 'Temptation of Saint Anthony'
below.

 
 Martin Schongauer (1448-1491)
Temptation of Saint Anthony (engraving on copper c.1480)
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

At the end of the 19th century, this Expressionist spirit resurfaced in the paintings of two
awkward and isolated personalities – one was the Dutchman, Vincent Van Goghand the other a
Norwegian, Edvard Munch. While the Impressionists were admiring the colour and beauty of
the natural landscape, Van Gogh and Munch took a radically different perspective. They chose
to look inwards to discover a form of ‘self-expression’ that offered them an individual voice in
a world that they perceived as both insecure and hostile. It was this more subjective search for
a personal emotional truth that drove them on and ultimately paved the way for the
Expressionist art forms of the 20th century that explored the inner landscape of the soul.

 
 Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Sunflowers (oil on canvas, 1888)
National Gallery, London

Paintings like Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ (1888) opened our eyes to the intensity of expressive
colour. He used colour to express his feelings about a subject, rather than to simply describe
it. In a letter to his brother Theo he explained, ‘Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I
see before my eyes, I use colour more arbitrarily to express myself forcibly.’ His heightened
vision helped to liberated colour as an emotional instrument in the repertoire of 20th century
art and the vitality of his brushwork became a key influence in the development of both
the Fauves' and the Expressionists’ painting technique.

 
 Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
The Scream (oil, tempera and pastel on board, 1893)
National Gallery, Oslo

Munch’s painting of ‘The Scream’ (1893) was equally influential. It provides us with a
psychological blueprint for Expressionist art: distorted shapes and exaggerated colours that
amplify a sense of anxiety and alienation. ‘The Scream’ is Munch’s own voice crying in the
wilderness, a prophetic voice that declares the Expressionist message, fifteen years before the
term was invented. "I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun set. I felt a tinge of
melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, dead
tired. And I looked at the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black
fjord and city. My friends walked on. I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud,
unending scream piercing nature."

German Expressionism (circa. 1905-25)

Expressionism was a militant spirit. The German Expressionists saw themselves as
revolutionary shock troops with art as their weapon. They wanted to liberate themselves from
the repressive right-wing social and political establishment in pre WW1 Germany, but they
were also desperate to free their art from the shackles of French painting which had
monopolised modern art since Impressionism.

In 1912 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner wrote to his fellow Expressionist artist Emile Nolde, 'German
art has to fly on its own wings. We have a duty to separate ourselves from the French.....it is
time for an independent German art.' Paradoxically, they drew on the exaggerated colours and
simplified forms of Fauvism (a French movement) as an the main inspiration for their painting
style. They loved the primitive aggression of the Fauvist’s technique but found the Fauvist's
 ideas incompatible with the Expressionist mind-set. Fauvist art was an optimistic style that
celebrated the joy of life, but an Arcadian lifestyle sheltered from the problems of the real
world. Expressionist art confronted the world head on. It was essentially pessimistic about the
future of Germany and contemptuous of its contemporary conservative attitudes.
Consequently, the Expressionists looked to the past for their inspiration. They drew upon the
influences of medieval German Gothic art, folk art and ‘primitive art’, particularly African art,
as the unrefined and untutored qualities of these styles would provoke outrage from the
artistic establishment.

German Expressionism evolved into two main artistic factions: those who were more socially
and politically conscious were accommodated by Die Brücke, while those of a more spiritual
nature were drawn towards Der Blaue Reiter.

Die Brücke (The Bridge)

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976)

Madchen aus Kowno (Girl from Kowno) (woodcut, 1918)
Brücke Museum

Die Brücke was founded in Dresden in 1905 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) , Karl
Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976), Erich Heckel (1883-1970) and Fritz Bleyl (1880-1966). The
meaning of the name suggested they would build Die Brücke (the bridge) from the great
German artistic past of Dürer and Grunewald over the contemporary artistic bourgeoisie to a
new and better future. They even wrote a manifesto which Kirchner carved in wood
proclaiming, 'Putting our faith in a new generation of creators and art lovers, we call upon all
youth to unite. And being youth, the bearers of the future, we want to wrest from the
comfortably established older generation freedom to live and move. Anyone who directly and
honestly reproduces that force which impels him to create belongs to us.'

The members of Die Brucke adopted a bohemian lifestyle and lived as an artistic community in
a working class district of Dresden, deliberately isolating themselves from the  'comfortably
established'. They believed that artists should have total freedom of expression, unrestricted
by social or artistic conventions.

Like many artistic movements they looked back to move forward. Gothic art, which had both a
German lineage and an appropriately dark temperament, became Die Brucke's natural
inspiration. Its jagged forms were easily fused with the primal visual vocabulary of the African
and Oceanic art that they had discovered in the Ethnographic Museum in Dresden.

The main artistic form that emerged from this fusion of styles was the woodcut. The woodcut
had been a traditional German print medium for narrative illustration. When fused with the
vocabulary of 'primitive' art, the medium became a powerful tool for personal expression. A
modern alterative to this traditional technique was the linocut, a medium invented by Die
Brücke.

Emile Nolde (1867-1956)

Crucifixion (oil on canvas, 1912)
Nolde-Stiftung Seebull

The Die Brücke manifesto was an open invitation to other artists with similar values to join the
group. Emil Nolde, whose painting was following a similar path to Die Brücke, joined in 1906.
However, Nolde only remained a member for a few months as the community lifestyle did not
live up to his expectations. He was older and had a more conservative nature than the young
Die Brücke activists.
 Nolde's favourite subjects were dark brooding seascapes that recalled the landscape of his
youth and biblical themes that reflected his strict religious upbringing. He was fascinated by
the expressive intensity of the Isenheim Altarpiece and created his own version: a nine section
polyptych of the life of Christ. The central Crucifixion panel above, obviously based on
Grünewald's masterpiece, is a classic piece Expressionist painting - a stylistic fusion of
primitive drawing with the exaggerated colour of the Fauves, held together by a German
Gothic composition.

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) was not exactly an Expressionist group, more a meeting of
diverse talents who contributed to the publication of an almanac 'Der Blaue Reiter'  and two
exhibitions of the same name.

Der Blaue Reiter (the almanac) was published in May 1912 by Wassily Kandinsky andFranz
Marc. The title was taken from a drawing of a blue horseman that was used for the cover of the
almanac. Kandinsky stated, 'We both loved blue: Marc - horses, myself - riders. So the name
invented itself.'

While Die Brücke artists adopted 'primitive' art as a raw style that would subvert the traditions
of the establishment, Der Blaue Reiter artists were attracted by the more mystical aspects of
the style, particularly its relationship with the spiritual and supernatural. Primitive art had a
certain purity that set it apart from the materialism and corruption of the time - 'a bridge into
the world of the spirit' as Marc put it.

Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions took place in Munich and preceded the publication of the
almanac. The first, an exhibition of paintings by Kandinsky, Marc, Auguste Macke and some
others, took place in December 1911, and the second, a graphics exhibition which included a
wider range of artists from further afield, opened in the spring of 1912.

The aim of Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions was to highlight the similarities in different approaches
to creating art, for example, finding common ground between the primitive and the
contemporary. They outlined this objective in the catalogue for the first exhibition, 'We do not
seek to propagate any precise or particular form; our object is to show, in the variety of the
forms represented, how the inner desire of artists realises itself in multiple fashion.'

Der Blaue Reiter came to an end after the deaths of Franz Marc and Auguste Macke during
World War 1.

Expressive Abstraction
 Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Composition IV (oil on canvas, 1911)
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen, Dusseldorf

Kandinsky's painting was moving away from the depiction of realistic forms into the more
spiritual realms of abstraction. Since childhood he had studied music, playing both the piano
and cello. He also had a highly developed sense of synaesthetic response (experiencing
colours in response to hearing sounds) and he recognised that colour could trigger our
emotions much in the same way as music touches our soul. This link between the visual and
the aural inspired his experiments with colour as an abstract element for the subject of a
painting. The idea was reinforced by a chance experience in 1908, 'I was returning, immersed
in thought from my sketching, when on opening the studio door I was suddenly confronted by
a picture of incandescent beauty. Bewildered, I stopped and stared at it. The painting lacked
all subject, depicted no identifiable object and was entirely composed of bright colour
patches. Finally, I approached closer and saw it for what it really was - my own painting,
standing on its side on the easel.....One thing became clear to me: that objectiveness, the
depiction of objects, needed no place in my paintings, and was indeed harmful to them.'

In his publication, of 1911, 'CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART' he states that 'Colour
cannot stand alone; it cannot dispense with boundaries of some kind ........A never-ending
extent of red can only be seen in the mind; when the word red is heard, the colour is evoked
without definite boundaries.'

His paintings of this period are attempts to release this psychic quality of colour by freeing it
from the task of describing physical objects. In moving towards abstraction by breaking down
the boundaries of realistic forms, Kandinsky tries to tap into the more expressive power of
colour as it exists in the mind. Although, as in the musically and abstractly titled 'Composition
IV' above, there are still vague references to figures and objects in the landscape, colour
emerges as an ephemeral force that energises the entire canvas.

Kandinsky was the first artist to push painting towards total abstraction. He is quoted as
saying, "Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to
draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you
be a true poet. This last is essential."

Beyond Expressionism
 After the disintegration of the more formal Expressionist groups in Germany, Expressionism
continued to evolve in a variety of ways through the work of individual artists like Paul Klee
and Max Beckmann. The Expressionist spirit resurfaced in art across the world throughout the
20th century: Francis Bacon in Britain, the Abstract Expressionists in the USA and eventually
returning to Germany in the form of Anselm Kiefer in the last quarter of the century.

Paul Klee (1879-1940)

Ad Parnassum (oil on board, 1932)
Kunstmuseum, Bern

The Swiss artist Paul Klee took part in the second Der Blaue Reiter exhibition. Through the
influence of Kandinsky, Marc and Macke, Klee became interested in the abstract use of colour.
Klee, like Kandinsky was a talented musician and the relationship between art and music was
a driving force in his art. The painting above illustrates this link between the arts.

The title 'Ad Parnassum' (towards Parnassus) refers to both Mount Parnassus (the home of
the Muses - the nine goddesses of the arts in Greek mythology) and 'Gradus Ad
Parnassum' (the Path to Parnassus - the name of a classic 18th century textbook on musical
counterpoint). The bold triangle at the top of the picture represents Mount Parnassus, the
orange circle symbolises the sun and the arch at the bottom indicates the door to the temple.
The most important element of this painting is the way that Klee uses colour to express a
musical idea. The underpainted patches of background colours are like the deep base chords
of a musical composition while the brighter mosaic-like surface of dots act like a counterpoint
to complete the harmony.

 
 Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
The Departure (triptych - oil on canvas, 1932-33)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Max Beckman continued Die Brücke's spirit of protest and relationship with the art of the past
in his disturbing allegories of victimisation and alienation. These powerful images, triggered
by his traumatic experiences of the trenches in the medical corps during WW1, often used the
religious format of a triptych for their composition, recalling Renaissance art like the Isenheim
Altarpiece.

 
 Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (oil on canvas, 1953)
Des Moines Art Center

Francis Bacon, the British painter, also used the triptych format in his convulsive images of
post-war angst and abandonment. While personally denying any Expressionist influence in his
art, his electrifying version of Pope Innocent X, (again recalling the art of the past as it was
based on the Velázquez painting of 1650), reinvents the original Expressionist prototype: 'The
Scream' by Edvard Munch.

Expressionism Notes

 Expressionism is a style of art that is highly charged with an emotional or spiritual

vision of the world

 The 'self expression' in the art of Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch inspired
Expressionist artists in the 20th century.

 German Expressionism also drew inspiration from German Gothic and 'primitive art'.

 German Expressionism was divided into two factions: Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter

 Die Brücke (The Bridge) was an artistic community of young Expressionist artists in
Dresden. Their aim was to overthrow the conservative traditions of German art. Their
'bridge' was a path to a new and better future for German art.
  Der Blaue Reiter was a publication of essays on the Expressionist art forms. The aim of
Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions was to find the common creative ground between these
diverse art forms.

 After the various Expressionist groups disbanded, Expressionism spread and evolved
in the work of many individual artists across the world.

Pop Art
 

The Art of Popular Culture

‘Whaam!’ 
(oil and Magna (acrylic resin) on canvas, 1963)
Tate Gallery, London

Pop Art was the art of popular culture. It was the visual art movement that characterised a
sense of optimism during the post war consumer boom of the 1950's and 1960's. It coincided
with the globalization of pop music and youth culture, personified by Elvis and the Beatles.
Pop Art was brash, young and fun and hostile to the artistic establishment. It included
different styles of painting and sculpture from various countries, but what they all had in
common was an interest in mass-media, mass-production and mass-culture.

BRITISH POP ART

 Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005)
‘I was a Rich Man's Plaything’ (collage, 1947)
Tate Gallery, London

The word 'POP' was first coined in 1954, by the British art critic Lawrence Alloway, to describe
a new type of art that was inspired by the imagery of popular culture. Alloway, alongside the
artists Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi, was among the founding members of the
Independent Group, a collective of artists, architects, and writers who explored radical
approaches to contemporary visual culture during their meetings at ICA in London between
1952 and 1955. They became the forerunners to British Pop art. At their first meeting Paolozzi
gave a visual lecture entitled 'Bunk' (short for 'bunkum' meaning nonsense) which took an
ironic look at the all-American lifestyle. This was illustrated by a series collages created from
American magazines that he received from GI's still resident in Paris in the late 1940s. 'I was a
Rich Man's Plaything', one of the 'Bunk' series, was the first visual artwork to include the word
'POP'.

 
 Richard Hamilton (1922- )
‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ 
(collage, 1956) Kunsthalle Tübingen

Some young British artists in the 1950’s, who grew up with the wartime austerity of ration
books and utility design, viewed the seductive imagery of American popular culture and its
consumerist lifestyle with a romantic sense of irony and a little bit of envy. They saw America
as being the land of the free - free from the crippling conventions of a class ridden
establishment that could suffocate the culture they envisaged: a more inclusive, youthful
culture that embraced the social influence of mass media and mass production. Pop Art
became their mode of expression in this search for change and its language was adapted from
Dada collages and assemblages. The Dadaists had created irrational combinations of random
images to provoke a reaction from the establishment of their day. British Pop artists adopted a
similar visual technique but focused their attention on the mass imagery of popular culture
which they waved as a challenge in the face of the establishment.

Richard Hamilton’s collage of 1956, ‘Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different,
So Appealing?’ is the ultimate catalogue of pop art imagery: comics, newspapers, advertising,
cars, food, packaging, appliances, celebrity, sex, the space age, television and the movies. A
black and white version of this collage was used as the cover for the catalogue of the 'This Is
Tomorrow' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1956. This show heralded a widening of our
understanding of what culture is and inspired a new generation of young British artists that
included Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Joe Tilson, Derek
Boshier, Richard Smith and R.B Kitaj.

 
 AMERICAN POP ART
Pop art in America evolved in a slightly differently way to its British counterpart. American Pop
Art was both a development of and a reaction against Abstract Expressionist painting.
Abstract Expressionism was the first American art movement to achieve global acclaim but, by
the mid-1950's, many felt it had become too introspective and elitist. American Pop Art evolved
as an attempt to reverse this trend by reintroducing the image as a structural device in
painting, to pull art back from the obscurity of abstraction into the real world again. This was a
model that had been tried and tested before. Picasso had done something similar forty years
previously when he collaged 'real world' printed images onto his still lifes, as he feared that
his painting was becoming too abstract. Around 1955, two remarkable artists emerged who
would lay the foundations of a bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. They were
Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, the forerunners of American Pop Art.

Jasper Johns (1930- )

‘Numbers in Color, 1958-59’ 

(encaustic and newspaper on canvas)
Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Jasper Johns early artworks question how we look at, perceive and make art. He does not
distinguish between subject and object in his work, or art and life for that matter. In his eyes
they are both the same thing. Johns believes that we should not look upon a painting as a
representation or illusion but as an object with its own reality.
Like the forerunners of British Pop Art, Johns was influenced by Dada ideas, in particular the
'readymades' (found objects) of Marcel Duchamp, whose bottle racks and bicycle wheels
challenged the definition of the art object.

However, it was not 'found objects' that Johns introduced as a subject for his paintings, but
‘found images’ - flags, targets, letters and numbers - and it was this iconography of familiar
signs that appealed to Pop. He saw them as "pre-formed, conventional, depersonalised,
factual, exterior elements."

Johns' depersonalized images provided an antidote to the obscure personal abstraction of late
Abstract Expressionism. His use of such neutral icons offered him a subject that was
immediately recognisable but so ordinary that it left him free to work on other levels. His
subjects provided him with a structure upon which he could explore the visual and physical
qualities of his medium. The results were a careful balance between representation and
abstraction.

Johns painted in encaustic, an archaic medium that dates from the first century which fuses
pigment in hot wax. He combined encaustic with newspaper collage to create a seductive
expanse of paint where his sensitive mark-making articulates the surface of the work. His
fascination with the overall unity of the surface plane in a picture places him in a tradition that
stretches back through Cubism and Cézanne to Chardin.

Johns' art plays with visual ideas that have layers of meaning and communicate on various
levels. It is both sensual and cerebral - an art about art and the way we relate to it.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925- 2008)

 ‘Retroactive 1’ 
(oil and silkscreen on canvas, 1964)
Wadsworth Atheneum

Robert Rauschenberg also used 'found images' in his art but, unlike Johns' images, they are
combined in a relationship with one another or with real objects. The work of both these artists
is often referred to as Neo-Dada as it draws on ‘found elements’, first explored by Dadaists like
Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters.

Inspired by Schwitters who created collages from the refuse he picked up on the street,
Rauschenberg combined real objects, that he found in his New York neighborhood, with
collage and painting. He said, “I actually had a house rule. If I walked completely round the
block and didn't have enough to work with, I could take one other block and walk around it in
any direction – but that was it.” He called these multi-media assemblages ‘combines’, which
“had to look at least as interesting as anything that was going on outside the window”.
Rauschenberg believed that “painting is more like the real world if it's made out the real
world”.

Collage was Rauschenberg’s natural language and he added to its vocabulary by developing a
method of combining oil painting with photographic silkscreen. This allowed him to
experiment with contemporary images gathered from newspapers, magazines, television and
film which he could reproduce in any size and color as a compositional element on a canvas
or print. He used these elements in a way that mirrors our experience of mass-media.
Everyday we are bombarded with images from television, newspapers and magazines,
disregarding most but retaining a few that relate, either consciously or subconsciously, to our
individual experience and understanding. Rauschenberg's paintings capture this visual 'noise'
in a framework of images whose narratives suggest some kind of ironic allegory.
 Rauschenberg was interested in our changing perception and interpretation of images: "I'm
sure we don't read old paintings the way they were intended." In 'Retroactive 1', Rauschenberg
plays with the way we have read paintings since the early Renaissance. The composition
recalls early religious icons where the central figure of Christ or a saint would have been
surrounded by some smaller narrative panels. An iconic image of the venerated President
Kennedy, the most powerful man in the world who was assassinated in the previous year,
holds the central position as he forcefully issues a warning. He points to the red image on his
right which looks deceptively like Masaccio's 'Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of
Eden' c.1432 from the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. With the symbolic association of 'red' and
the mushroom-shaped cloud hovering above the president's head, this could easily be
interpreted as a cold war reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis, ironically using a creation
allegory to represent the Doomsday scenario. However, Rauschenberg is not that simple. If
you look more closely you discover that the red image is not a section of Masaccio's fresco,
but a detail from a stroboscopic flash photograph for Life magazine (10/10/1952) by Gjon Mili
of a real life reconstruction of a painting by Rauschenberg's mentor: 'Nude Descending a
Staircase, No 2' (1912) by Marcel Duchamp.

While a single apple is a metaphor for Original Sin in Renaissance paintings of Adam and Eve,
in 'Retroactive 1' an astronaut parachutes back to earth only to land in an upturned box of the
'forbidden fruit' - a symbol of how man's potential for evil has multiplied in the modern world
(in Latin, the words for 'apple' and 'evil' are identical in their plural form: 'mala'). Rauschenberg
extends his metaphor by illustrating in the top right of the painting what the astronaut is
returning to: Eden after the Fall - a world polluted by industrialisation.

'Retroactive 1' is a very appropriate title for the work as it relates to a canon of images, events
and ideas across time.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

‘Marilyn Diptych ’ 
(silkscreen on canvas, 1962)
Tate Gallery, London
If there was one artist who personified Pop Art it was Andy Warhol. He originally worked as a
'commercial artist' and his subject matter was derived from the imagery of mass-culture:
advertising, comics, newspapers, TV and the movies.

Warhol embodied the spirit of American popular culture and elevated its imagery to the status
of museum art. He used second-hand images of celebrities and consumer products which he
believed had an intrinsic banality that made them more interesting. He felt that they had been
stripped of their meaning and emotional presence through their mass-exposure. Typically
subverting the values of the art establishment, Warhol was fascinated by this banality which
he celebrated in a series of subjects ranging from celebrities to soup cans. Whether it was a
painting of 'Campbell's Chicken Noodle' or a 'Car Crash', a portrait of 'Elizabeth Taylor' or the
'Electric Chair', Warhol's detached approach was always the same:  "I think every painting
should be the same size and the same color so they're all interchangeable and nobody thinks
they have a better or worse painting."  Warhol saw this aesthetic of mass-production as a
reflection of contemporary American culture: "What's great about this country is that America
started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the
poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks
Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is
a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner
is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the
President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." The obvious irony of this statement is
that the price of that Coke bottle hits the stratosphere as soon as Warhol signs it.

As Cubism stands on the shoulders of Cézanne, Warhol's art is dependant on Duchamp's

'readymades. He was really a Dadaist in spirit - an 'agent provocateur'. His many whimsical
proclamations about art were deliberately enigmatic and contrary, avoiding clarification and
forcing his audience to speculate on their meaning: "I'd prefer to remain a mystery. I never like
to give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I'm asked." Warhol's
evasive attitude was a strategy, the result of which was self publicity. He cultivated his own
image like a business model which was inseparable from his art. He said, "I started as a
commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. Being good in business is the most
fascinating kind of art."

Warhol was against the idea of skill and craftsmanship as a way of expressing the artist's
personality. He claimed to have removed both craftsmanship and personality from his own
art: "The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I
do and do machine-like is what I want to do.............If you want to know all about Andy Warhol,
just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There's nothing behind
it." His works were produced through the mechanical processes of film and silkscreen printing
or made by others in his studio which was called 'The Factory'.

Warhol's paradoxical statements such as, "I am a deeply superficial person"  or "art should be
meaningful in the most shallow way"  are echoed in his work. The left hand panel of his
‘Marilyn Diptych’ is a crudely colored photograph of the actress whose sense of 'self' is
degraded through the repetition of her image, whereas the right hand panel is a physically
degraded black and white image (as the printing ink runs out on the silkscreen) that reflects
the ephemeral qualities of fame. Their combined panels are a memorable discourse on the
nature of celebrity and its power to both create and destroy its acquaintances. The 'diptych'
format was originally used in medieval painting for religious images of personal devotion, an
appropriate choice considering Warhol's fascination for Marilyn Monroe. The work was
exhibited in Warhol's first New York exhibition at the Stable Gallery in November 1962, just
weeks after Marilyn's death from 'acute barbiturate poisoning'. The Marilyn Diptych, along with
his other famous Marilyn paintings, is based on a 1953 publicity photograph for the film
'Niagara' that Warhol purchased only days after she died.

 
 Roy Lichtenstein (1923- 1997)

‘The Artist's Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey)’ 

(oil, Magna (acrylic resin) and sand on canvas, 1973)
Walker Art Centre

Roy Lichtenstein developed a pop art style that was based on the visual vernacular of mass-
communication: the comic strip. It was a style that was fixed in its format: black outlines, bold
colors and tones rendered by Benday dots (a method of printing tones in comic books from
the 1950's and 60's). What actually changed through the development of Lichtenstein's art was
his subject matter which evolved from comic strips to an exploration of modernist art
styles: Cubism, Futurism, Art Deco, De Stijl, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

Roy Lichtenstein's early work had a hint of Americana - "Expressionistic Cubism ....of
cowboys and Indians" was how he put it - but it was still based on the painterly conventions
that he had been taught to respect. Bored with the glut of Expressionistfeeling that was
around at the time, Lichtenstein attacked this sagging tradition with paintings like 'Look
Mickey' (1961), a large scale cartoon image which "was done from a bubble gum wrapper" (a
detail of this work can be seen in The Artist's Studio No.1, 1973). His comic strip images had
an initial shock value, but like much of Pop they were quickly embraced by the galleries and
collectors. Lichtenstein remarked, "It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough
so that no one would hang it.......everybody was hanging everything. It was almost acceptable
to hang a dripping paint rag, everybody was accustomed to this. The one thing everyone
hated was commercial art; apparently they didn't hate that enough, either."

The hard-edged commercial style of Lichtenstein's comic book paintings was an antidote to
the incoherent splashes of late Abstract Expressionism, but it was not simply intended as an
act of Pop/Dada protest, "I don't think that Pop would have existed without Dada having
existed before it, but I don't really think that Pop is Dada. I don't think that I look on my work
as being anti-art or anything that's different from the mainstream of painting since the
Renaissance." Although there is an element of irony and humor in Lichtenstein's style, his
work lies within the classical tradition of control in the use of line, shape, tone and color as
compositional elements. The discipline of the work is cerebral with little left to impulse or
emotion or what he calls 'the character of art'. "My work sanitizes it (emotion) but it is also
symbolic of commercial art sanitizing human feelings. I think it can be read that
way........People mistake the character of line for the character of art. But it’s really the position
of line that’s important, or the position of anything, any contrast, not the character of it."
Lichtenstein does not exactly copy his comic book images; he subtly refines them, conscious
of their transformed appearance on a larger scale and aware of their aesthetic interpretation
within the context of the museum. (You can get an idea of this effect on David
Barsalou's Lichtenstein Project.) As his style developed he move away from using the imagery
of comics to interpreting modernist art styles, but still in his comic book vernacular.
Lichtenstein was able to maintain this singular style for over thirty five years, not simply by
varying his subject matter, but by viewing his art as an independent entity with an existence
and development that he controlled, "I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me."

Claes Oldenburg (1922- )
and Coosje van Bruggen (1942-2009)

‘Spoonbridge and Cherry’ photo: Mike Hicks

(alluminium, stainless steel and paint, 1985-88)
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Claes Oldenburg was the Pop Artist who gravitated towards sculpture more than any of his
contemporaries. At the start of 1960's he was involved in various 'Happenings': spontaneous,
improvised, artistic events where the experience of the participants was more important than
an end product - a kind of consumer art encounter for a consumer culture.

Oldenburg found his inspiration in the imagery of consumer merchandise,  "I am for Kool-art,
7-UP art, Pepsi-art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol Art, Dro-bomb art, Vam
art, Menthol art, L & M art, Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx
art, 9.99 art, Now art, New art, How art, Fire sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art,
Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art." In 1961 he opened 'the Store' where he
sold plaster replicas of fast foodstuff and junk merchandise whose crudely painted surfaces
were an obvious parody of Abstract Expressionism. He used the front shop of 'The Store' as a
gallery while he replenished his stock from his studio in the back shop.

Oldenburg's work is full of humorous irony and contradiction: on one hand he makes hard
objects like a bathroom sink out soft sagging vinyl, while on the other he makes soft objects
like a cheeseburger out of hard painted plaster. He also subverts the relative size of objects by
 taking small items like the spoon and cherry above and recreating them on an architectural
scale. He said, "I like to take a subject and deprive it of its function completely." By
undermining the form, scale and function of an object Oldenburg contradicts its meaning and
forces the spectator to reassess its presence. When you see his large scale public works in
their environmental settings, they have a powerful surrealist quality like Gulliver at
Brobdingnag.

Claes Oldenburg has collaborated with Dutch/American pop sculptor Coosje van Bruggen
since 1976. They were married in 1977. Coosje van Bruggen died in January, 2009.

Pop Art Notes

 Pop Art was a brash, young and fun art movement of the 1960's.

 Pop Art coincided with the globalization of Pop Music and youth culture.

 Pop Art included different styles of painting and sculpture but all had a common
interest in mass-media, mass-production and mass-culture.

 Although Pop Art started in Britain, its is essentially an American movement.

 Pop art was strongly influence by the ideas of the Dada movement.

 Pop Art in America was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism.

 The art of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg is seen as a bridge between
Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.

 The artist who personifies Pop Art more than any other is Andy Warhol.

 Warhol's paintings of Marilyn Monroe are the most famous icons of Pop Art.

 Roy Lichtenstein developed an instantly recognizable style of Pop Art inspired by the
American comic strip.

 Claes Oldenburg was the greatest sculptor of the Pop Art movement, creating many
large scale public works.

Greek arctuicture