Assignment
Learning Outcomes assessed in this assignment
Students should:
Demonstrate an ability to identify key information and issues from core lectures.
Analyse visual and textual material.
Show an understanding of the relationship between issues covered by drawing parallels and making connections.
Start to develop independant learning skills by researching core idea's further.
Task
This should be record for yourself f the information covered and should include your responses and reflections on the topic's. This might be in the form of evidence of further exploration of a particular idea/theme/artist and might include a record of further reading or research of associated artworks
From your file select 4 items or sections which will be assessed by a course tutor. Each section should be focus on a text or a piece of artwork, or an argument and develop it to show your ability to make connections between separate lecture's' different periods, different artists, text and artworks. Each section should consists of around 250 words written by you, but might also contain annotated notes, texts, articles and images.
Your analysis should be critical rather than descriptive - something which considers the questions behind the facts rather than just the facts themselves e.g why Braque decided to use a certain technique not just that he did; and why this was significant at the time he was working.
One of these four sections will form the basis for a presentation to the seminar group.
Section one
Fauvism (1904-1911)
Wild Beasts
Fauvism is a bold and colourful avant garde art movement that gained its name from an influential art critic Louis Vauxcelles, who viewed and remarked on works of Andre De rain and Henri Matisse at the salon d automne in March 1906 and said "Les fauves" meaning wild beasts. Even though this style of work was being executed by several artists years before the term "Les fauves" was coined.
This style of art was very rebellious to renaissance art, these well educated artists used un-naturalistic colour as a vehicle for of expression and emotion. However the brutalness of this colour application could be considered as modernistic attitude to a changing world, of which recent war had left its mark.
Van Gogh's post impressionism and elements of pointillism is what i feel are the most important elements of fauvism. Mattise friend of Derain persuaded De rains parents that he should give up his engineering studies and concentrate solely on art on which he attended Academie Julian.
De rain and Matisse visited a village in the summer of 1905 and returned to exhibit at the salon d automne later that year of which one of the paintings exhibited was De rains artworks Boats at Collioure Harbour.
Which is an excellent early example of their blend of styles and unrealistic use of colour.
Later in 1906 art dealer Ambroise Vollard sent De rain to go London and paint the city as his subject matter were he created 30 paintings. One of these paintings being London's Charing Cross Bridge as seen below.
This in my opinion is possibly the best single example of fauvist work.
Section two
Cubism (1907-1911)
Cubism was an avant garde art movement conceived by European artist mainly based in Paris. Cubist were mainly inspired by visual perception and mainly used restricted palettes of multi tones of a singular colour, although this element was not essential as others such as Pablo Picasso who used varied colours, some applied in in abstract block form arcing back to similarities of fauvist work.
The term cubism was believed to be originated from a critique Henri Matisse made of a work by George Braque namely l' estaque landscapes at salon d' automne, which Matisse said its just "little squares" and Louis Vauxcells later reiterated Matisse's critique "cubes" coining the term cubism.
It was believed Braque was influenced and inspired by attending a memorial exhibition for Paul Cezanne who's works clearly have similarities in style, for example Cezannes landscapes like the image below
You can see his composition of bold brush strokes varying in sizes. His later works were simplified with more emphasis on essential shape and form.And at Cezannes memorial exhibition he met Pablo Picasso were from then onwards Braque and Picasso became good friends and then went on to inspire each other greatly in there two distinctive different styles.
Cubism is not an art movement bound by one discipline, for example some of the artworks by Marcel Duchamp incorporated several disciplines into a singular artwork, e.g suitcase, which is a good example of cubist mixed media artwork like the image below
Marcel was an artist who explored and practised many different disciplines and produced varied works in other avant garde art movements.
Bauhaus 1919-1933
The Bauhaus was a art and design school in Germany, there aim was to combine fine arts and craft. There school first opened in Weimer in 1919 to 1925 and then Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and then in Berlin from 1932 to 1933. The school was founded by Walter Gropius who was an architect.
The movement was all about form function and essential lines. They integrated modern materials into their designs. I believe the reasons for this was the need to rebuild and make Germany bigger and better than before world war one. The call of war brought forward use and development of modern materials.
Interior design was one of these forms, it was a big break away from traditional interiors and even now some of these pieces are viewed as modern, although designed as much as a hundred years ago. For example this chair below,
by Mies Van De Rohe who was a teacher at the Bauhaus school, has a strong thin steel structure with simple minimalistic lines which has resulted in a piece of furniture that has beauty that lies within its simplicity.
The minimalistic functional form of design applied to architecture created some fantastic modern structures for example the farnsworth house below,
Designed by Mies Van De Rohe in 1945, This design again displays undeniable element of beauty in its clean lines and balanced form. Which has been emulated and reworked to produce what could be considered as today's ultra modern as seen below.
This being a up to date interpretation of these elements of architectral design.Many of the bauhaus school of designs are the embodiments of modern living.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1024&bih=541&tbm=isch&tbnid=y8p-V5d2YehCAM:&imgrefurl=http://www.interiorhomemagazine.com/sustainable-house-of-contemporary-architecture-in-brazil/&docid=Zi_VUjZztu4y4M&imgurl=http://www.interiorhomemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Sustainable-House-Design-Loft-Bauhaus.jpg&w=600&h=401&ei=j4XnUJW-IsmLtAakiIHwAQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=63&sig=107741573571008386669&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=185&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:88&tx=73&ty=71
Surrealism
Surrealism was another avant garde art movement of the 1920s. Some of the pioneering artists of this movement were Rene Magritte, Salvidor Dali, Max Ernst, Andre Breton, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and many more.
This movement was inspired by psycho analyzation , probing the sub conscience mind, which produced work that did not conform entirely to reality. To me some of these works could be conceived as visual representations of a troubled mind, however this may not necessarily be the case.
Surrealism is a definite result in the works and thoughts of Sigmund Freud's analyzesation and utilisation of sub-conscience mind activity on artistic individual.
Or could this thinking be reversed in as far as the artist visually representing darker more troubled workings of the mind in an exhibitionist style, this style could be considered as the means of maintaining the sanity of the conscience mind.
Take a look at this image below by Salvidor Dali
The great masturbator
Is this a representation of sexual deviance? Or is this more of a masturbation of the mind? Could this picture created merely be a product of this? I think a lot of Dali's works are a window to his private sub-conscience mind. Or is there any deeper meaning or insight into these works? Or are they just purely just a freedom of composition and random thought?
So my overall thoughts on the surrealist movement is the artist are inspired and driven to try and make sense of random sub conscience imagery, although there may be no sense to this at all.
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