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Art in the Modern World, famous views edo japan, Italy, Katsushika Hokusai…

- - - - Hosoda Eisui, Wakashu with a Shoulder Drum, late 18th/early 19th century, woodblock print
        
        Wakashu is roughly translated to "beautiful youths", and is a word from the Edo period of Japan that describes young men who had reached puberty but had not yet attained full-fledged manhood and who were eligible for sexual relations with both women and men
        
        The Wakashu were/are sometimes called traditional Japan's traditional third gender
        
        The history of the wakashu in Japan has played an important role in recent years, enlightening the modern world about the gender fluidity present in traditional Japan.
        
        Female prostitutes often dressed as Wakashu, which brings up questions of gender and sexuality in their relation to modern life
    - - Shozo Shimamoto, Hurling Colors, 1956, Happening at the Second Gutai Exhibition, Tokyo
        
        Put on by the Gutai group of Japan
        
        The Gutai Art Association was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists. It was formed in 1954 in the wake of the second World War.
        
        This Japanese movement represented a radical and energetic approach to art-making that encompassed performance, painting, installation, and theatrical events, taking advantage of the freedoms available in their newly democratic homeland (post-WWII).
        
        This "exhibit", called Hurling Colors, consistied of artists smashing bottles of paint against a canvas on the floor
        
        It was meant to highlight the physical act and process of creating art.
- - - - South wall: Diego Rivera, “Mexico Today and Tomorrow,” History of Mexico murals, 1935, fresco
        
        Part of a series of frescos that Rivera painted for the National Palace in Mexico
        
        The National Palace sits on ruins of former Aztec empreror prior to Spanish invasion of Tenochtitlan
        
        A fresco is a painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries.
        
        These murals are informed by the history of Mexico as well as site itself
        
        The mural is jam-packed with different people, scenes from history and the present, and things happening.
        
        Specifically on this wall (the South wall), there are some very violent scenes depicted.
        
        There is a Swatisika mixed in with the crosses in the center of the painting, and right below that are more men in uniforms who are wearing gas masks and have guns drawn
        
        The symbolism in these Mexican works of art seem to be more obvious than the symbolism found in art from other regions of the world.
        
        For instance, Frida Kahlo's work has explicit symbols that are quite clearly and intentionally placed in the foreground of the painting.
        
        This is in contrast to other pieces of art, such as Duchamp's Fountain, where the meaning behind the piece is far from obvious.
    - - Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States, 1932, oil on canvas
        
        Kahlo’s interests were based in the examination of her own personal experiences and shaping her identity
        
        This image depicts Kahlo standing defiantly between the United States and Mexico.
        
        This might be to demonstrate that she herself is a product of both the modern world and ancient heritage.
        
        On the right side is the United States, depicted as being very industrialized with the power plant/factory building, the skyscrapers, and its modern inventions at the bottom righthand corner.
        
        On the United States' side, different types of machinery is present, instead of the plants like on Mexico's side.
        
        The wires from the U.S. seem to almost creep toward the plant's roots on the other side, as if to say that Mexico is also on its way to being industrialized, the natural landscapes and plant life soon to be replaced with industrial buildings and machinery.
        
        On the left is ancient Mexico, shown with the blooming plant life, examples of indigenous art, and Aztec iconography.
        
        The sculptures and fertility figures represent Mexico's ancient cultures and artistic traditions: Jalisco figure, Colima figure and a Totonaca stone skull.
    - - José Clemente Orozco, Destruction of the Old Order (detail), 1926, fresco (National Preparatory School, Mexico City)
        
        Depicts two figures in peasant attire who are watching some sort of structure crumble away, seemingly signaling the fall of the past.
        
        There are seemingly Cubist-inspired elements found here in Orozco's painting.
        
        The rubble from the crumbling structure that the two men are turned to face resembles the jagged, geometric shapes that are prominent features of Cubism
        
        The figures don't necessarily look like anything special, just like normal people, but it appears as though they might mean to represent a new age where the Revolution has liberated the masses from centuries of repression.
        
        One of almost two dozen paintings done by Orozco at the National Preparatory School.
  - - - Alexander Pétion is pictured on the left. He was a defected-French officer who formed a coalition between both former freedmen and planters
        
        Jean-Jacques Dessalines is pictured right. He was born a slave and was the leader of the insurrection in the Haitian Revolution
        
        This painting demonstrates a incredibly critical alliance between two very important leaders of the revolution
        
        The alliance of these two men was very important in respect to race.
        
        For the first time, after Haiti is declared a "Black Republic" after the revolution, race is started to be seen as something political formation, as opposed to a biological one
        
        God is portrayed as the white, omniscient European version (also seen in both Pareja's and Caravaggio's works), exemplifying the influence that European art had even in a "New World" society and colony as far away as Haiti. Even as an individual artist, Lethière is still rather limited by Eurocentric tradition and convention
        
        Lethière seems to have included references to Dessalines' enslavement, as seen with the broken chains at the feet of the men
        
        With the context of the battle in the background, the chains at the feet of the men could also be representative of Haiti having become an independent republic
        
        It's interesting to see in this painting that Dessalines and Pétion are shown on equal planes, as in the American colonies at the time that this piece was painted, slavery was very much in "full swing"
        
        Guillaume-Guillon Lethière, The Oath of the Ancestors, 1822, oil on canvas, Palais National, Port-au Prince, Haiti
  - - - Lewis identified as Black and Indigenous, was one of the only female POC in the artistic world (most artists where white men)
        
        commemorated the abolition of slavery in the US in 1865
        
        shows a man and woman rising up, out of their shackles and towards their liberation
        
        the woman has her hands clasped in prayer and the man has his left arm extended
        
        The focus of both figures is upwards, and the sculpture's composition is defined by upward momentum
        
        Even though the woman is crouched on her knees, it's clear that she is also moving upwards with the flowing and drapery of her clothing (even though it is marble)
        
        It's interesting to see Lewis' take on marble sculpture, especially as she completed her work in Rome, and looking at her piece in its relation to how it has been done before by white, male, European artists, seen in David by Bernini.
        
        While both works clearly display figures who are mid-movement and have more realistic portrayals of their bodies (as compared to the "ideal" seen in Classical works, the positioning of the figures in Lewis' piece strikes me as more powerful
        
        I think the idea of "less is more" may be applicable to the comparison of these two works of art. While the poses of figures in Lewis' sculpture aren't as exaggerated as Bernini's, the symbolism behind the figures, their positioning, and what they represent seems to symbolize a more power topic than in Bernini's David
- - - - Here, the architecture (columns behind the figures) seems to frame the bodies. The scene is also almost divided by gender with the men on the left and women on the right.
        
        The men are posed very actively, with very defined muscles that look mid-motion, while the women are slumped over in mourning.
        
        This emphasis on the musculature of the men is very representative of the fascinations of culture at the time, as this painting was made during the Enlightenment when there was increased interest in understanding the systems of the human body and how they work together.
        
        In the scene, the three men (brothers of the Horace family) at the far left are shown taking an oath to defend their city. This was after being selected by the Romans.
        
        The boy in the corner with the women appears like he has his eyes being held open by the woman he is with, suggesting that this is an important piece of history that he needs to witness.
        
        Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784, oil on canvas
    - - Alexandre Cabanel, Birth of Venus, 1863
        
        Contains rather typical academic subject matter – female nude, drawn from myth, legible narrative
        
        Canabel was the most famous painter in France at this time
        
        This work competes head-to-head with Manet's LE DÉJEUNER SUR L’HERBE and wins the gold medal at the Salon (an official, state-sponsored exhibition of art held by the Académie des Beaux-arts)
        
        Manet's LE DÉJEUNER SUR L’HERBE is rejected.
        
        Could suggest that people at the time might prefer bright, narrative pieces as opposed to pieces like Manet's.
        
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        Depicts the Roman Goddess of Love's birth story, as she is born from the sea.
        
        The subject matter suggests that Roman Classical influences are still very present and accepted in France at the time
        
        Picasso's women in his work are portrayed completely opposite of Venus, in Cabanel's work
        
        In Cabanel's work, the female body of Venus is rather sexualized and representative of the "ideal" body of a woman with full breast, long flowing hair, and an assumingly pleasant demeanor, though in this specific image, Venus is posed vulnerably.
        
        This is the complete opposite of Picasso's portrayal of the women with misshapen features and their closed-off, stoic body language.
    - - Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas
        
        With both the sunrise and the seascape, the horizon line stays prominent, but the two deal with space and depth differently
        
        The term "impressionism" was first used to criticize this painting
        
        Impressionism doesn't describe a formal style, and there is an emphasis on artistic freedom and individuality when creating work under the "impressionist" umbrella
        
        Not super well-received by society
        
        Depicts an impressionist-style landscape painting of a sunrise over a body of water. There is a clearly visible small boat front and center of the painting, and there appear to be other structures creating dimension of the painting in the background.
    - - Henri Matisse, Woman with a Hat, 1905, oil on canvas
        
        This piece marked a stylistic change from Matisse's previous style of painting. Here, he uses unnatural colors and very "loose" brushwork to create a rather sketchy/unfinished look in the painting.
        
        This change in quality of painting shocked a lot of the viewers of the day and cause controversy.
        
        Depicts Matisse's wife, Amelie. She seems to be wearing a dress and elaborate hat of sorts.
    - - Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917, glazed ceramic with black paint (one of seventeen versions)
        
        The rejection of Fountain ignited a debate in the art world over the definition of art. This piece made the viewer and the world question, "What makes an object "art"?"
        
        Is simply a standard urinal (usually presented on its back for exhibition purposes rather than upright)
        
        Signed and dated ‘R. Mutt 1917’, which was a fake name that Duchamp used for the piece.
        
        One of Duchamp's first readymades, which were ordinary objects transformed and elevated by his choice to separate them from their mundane context and present them as art.
        
        Is an example of Dadaism (or Dada Art)
        
        Dada was an art movement that manifested the disillusioned mood of its time, as it was originally intended to make fun of WWII and the "pointless violence" that was occurring. The movement mocked the senselessness of rational thought and even the foundations of modern society.
        
        Gutai's Hurling Colors and Duchamp's Fountain both help to exemplify the how artists and their art reacted to the horrors of the Second World War.
        
        In both works, the artwork is left more open-ended, with its meaning up to the discretion of the viewer. They both represent conceptual art.
        
        Another example of conceptual art is that of Yoko Ono's art and poetry books that emerged in the 1960s (seen to the left) that focused on the idea of conceptual art
        
        Yoko Ono, Grapefruit, 1964
        
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        Conceptual art is art where the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a secondary affair.
  - - - Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas, MoMA
        
        This work marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective in painting.
        
        With the painting's use of compression and flatness of the space and its multiple viewpoints, it essentially marks the beginnings of Cubism
        
        Cubism is defined as a style and movement in art, in which perspective with a single viewpoint is abandoned and use is made of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes, and, later, collage.
        
        Depicts five nude women composed of flat, splintered pieces. The small area in which they are standing seems to consist of jagged pieces of the plane.
        
        Appears as though there is a sliced fruit (melon or grapes?) at the bottom of the scene.
        
        fruit is usually representative of female sexuality, but it doesn't come off as very welcoming in this context
        
        The Avignon of the work’s title is a reference to a street in Barcelona famed for its brothels.
        
        The faces of the women in Picasso's LES DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON were inspired by both Iberian sculpture and African masks, as seen in the comparison linked to this label.
        
        Picasso's inclusion of the African masks in his own cubist, abstract piece exemplifies the gravity that African art had on influencing other cultures
        
        As attitudes at the time towards "primitive cultures" were incredibly condescending, Picasso's inclusion of African and Iberian art within his own piece was seen as an act of cultural rebellion.
        
        The abstract and distorted way of portraying the female body could be a way to challenge the norm of paintings displaying an idealized version of women.
        
        The women here are not necessarily conventionally attractive. Their faces are hidden by masks, and their bodies are posed awkwardly, their features flattened and broken into sharp angular shapes. Their manner seems almost agressive.
        
        This goes against all precedent set by other artists, as the women here aren't the gentle and passive creatures that most men portray them as being, and wish for them to be.
        
        Both works have elements of cubism, as seen in the jagged, geometric-shaped pieces in each painting.
        
        This demonstrates the large spread of Cubist art and its influence on the artists in the Americas.
- - - - the mannequins are all wearing Dutch wax printed fabrics, which are similar looking to Indonesian fashion/fabric
        
        The viewer can still tell emotions of figures even without heads because of their gestures
        
        Modeled after the Berlin conference, in which Africa was split up by Europeans, and trying to give perspective as to what a devastating moment it was
        
        is an art installation that viewers can walk around but can’t really immerse themselves in the table discussion, similar to how African's may have felt after having Europeans decide everything for them
        
        an assortment of headless mannequins are seated around a table, posed as if they are in a debate
        
        Closer shot of Scramble for Africa
        
        Ono's Grapefruit and Shonibare's Scramble for Africa are perhaps almost complete opposites in their styles.
        
        Ono's piece is an example of conceptual art, where the meaning behind the piece of art is the most important factor, whereas Shonibare's piece focuses specifically on a certain event that it is metaphorically representing, and it execution is everything.
  - - - The image here on the right represents the actual African mask, cited above
        
        African art, such as masks like this one from Congo, was taken from France's African colonies and brought back to France to be put on display in museums. This is likely where Picasso first drew inspiration from it, though he did greatly admire the expressive power and unfamiliar formal qualities of African masks to the point where he bought several pieces from Parisian shops and kept them in his studio.
        
        This mask presents with the distinctive unique formation and style of African masks, including its symmetrical form, and distinct facial features
        
        The image here on the left is the recreated version of the African mask in Picasso's LES DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON
- - - - Here, Artemisia is using chiaroscuro, which is essentially the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting.
      - The paleness of the arms of the women also provide directionality, as they draw attention to the center of the painting, where they appear to "push/point" to.
    - - Juan de Pareja, The Calling of St. Matthew, 1660-61, Oil on Canvas
        
        Spanish Work of Art
        
        The scene appears to be an office of sorts, where Christ appears and calls on Matthew to follow him. Matthew, seen to the right of Christ, is shown seemingly raising his right hand to his chest.
        
        Pareja, Velázquez’s former slave, places considerable emphasis on the setting of this work and also includes himself in the composition. He is located on the left, proudly looking out at the viewer and holding in his right hand a piece of paper with his signature.
        
        Matthew, Christ, and the other men behind Chrsit (presumably the other Apostles) are shown with a star above their heads.
        
        This may be depicting Matthew's dedication to Christ, as he eventually became one of Christ’s most faithful followers, as well as an author of one of the four Gospels.
        
        Additionally, it would arguably make sense to have these specific figures be the ones with stars above their heads as almost a "status" symbol, or a symbol of power, in the eyes of the Holy
      - In Artemisia's work, the two women are struggling for power over Holofernes and eventually triumph over him. Power, in this case, is seemingly demonstrated with a literal, physical struggle.
      - In Pareja's work, he seems to demonstrate the power dynamic between figures by both their positioning and with the small stars above their heads, which draws attention to these specific figures in the painting.
        
        It's seen in the painting that almost all figures, excluding Pareja and the man next to him, have their focus on Christ; it is arguable that the figure whom the majority of other people are looking at holds the power, as he is calling for their attention. This also inadvertently shifts the viewer's focus also to Christ.
        
        Additonally, Pareja painted stars above Christ, Matthew, and the men behind Christ (presumably other disciples). These stars may be a way of Pareja subtly emphasizing certain figures and their power in contrast to the others.
- - - - Both Bernini with David and Artesmisia with Judith Slaying Holofernes draw inspiration from past works. The works also both demonstrate the story of a religious hero/heroine, which is David when he defeated Goliath, and Judith when she triumphed Holofernes.
        
        Bernini's David differs from Michaelangelo's as Bernini's figure is more clearly positioned in an active pose (as if David is mid-movement). The two works also differ in how they are meant to be viewed.
        
        Michaelangelo's work (seen to the left) demonstrates the traditional, very ideal set of physical attributes , is represented to a series of ratios (commensurability), and exemplifies contrapposto (counterpose), which is the idea that the figure should be very balanced in its dynamic manner. Bernini's work, however, shows the figure in a very active stance, as if he has the stone in his hand and is mid-throw; nonetheless, it appears that the figure is still very balanced.
        
        Additionally, Bernini's sculpture is also meant to be viewed from all angles and for the viewer to circulate it. This is unlike Michaelangelo's as his sculpture assumes a more frontal orientation.
        
        Michelangelo, David, 1501-04, Marble
        
        Artemisia's Judith Slaying Holofernes differ's from Caravaggio's (seen to the right) as it demonstrates female agency in a different, move active and assertive way. The two works are similar, though, with their use of chiaroscuro in order to emphasize certain figures.
        
        Caravaggio, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1598-99, oil on canvas
        
        Caravaggio's work (seen above) has Judith positioned away from Holofernes and closer to the maidservant, they look almost distant from the struggle with Holofernes, whereas in Artesmisia's, the women are clearly very engaged
    - - This was a largely unprecedented technique to use in the history of Western sculpting
    - - The portrayal of the figure in Sharaku's piece is different in that the figure doesn't have the most realistic features. This suggests that whereas European art may have favored a realistic (though still "ideal") portrayal of the human body, artists in Japan favored pieces that accurately portrayed the media they were about, and maybe even exaggerated that role's/character's features.
- - - - Here, Caravaggio is using certain techniques to highlight Christ's hand in its pointing to the men at the table.
        
        These techniques include the stark contrast between the dark and light colors in the painting (chiaroscuo), and diagonal bisecting lines that cut through the dark and light to direct the focus of the viewer.
      - The scene tells the story of Christ asking Matthew to follow him, the same one as in Pareja's The Calling of St. Matthew.
- - - - Seurat's style completely rejects the model of older artists who blended colors upon the canvas.
- - - - Because of its accessibility, it's likely that that was a contributor to the widespread reach of works like this one