modernism's origins | ch. 1

AP art history notes on 19th century art

modernity: broad social formation beginning w the renaissance
modernization: process of arriving at the condition of modernity
modernism: art produced w/in 1850s-1960s

19th century france: 
-center of revolution in politics, culture, economics, etc.
-when modern art began
-end of feudalism
-challenged monarchy
-fought for social justice, equality, political rights
 ex. workers uprising, seneca falls convention, nat turner slave rebellion

• rise of "art for art's sake"
• independent artists, separate from patronage
• academy of fine arts= royal

-hierarchical (history > portrait > genre > still life > landscape)
-paris salon exhibitions: public space of culture; had to be academy member to show work

• "ideal" image from renaissance: one-point perspective, geometry, etc.

ex. Christ handing over the keys to st. peter, the last supper, school of athens

• neoclassical style showed power; enforced for centuries after renaissance

origins of modernism:

1. jacques- louis david

neoclassical style but revolutionary attitude
used history painting for revolution

showed art as a way of intervening w political positions

oath of horatii- jacques-louis david
1785
patriotism, propaganda, nation > family
emphasized oath to nation instead of monarch
vanishing point is the clenched hand
modern: abandoned representational “tricks”

death of marat, jacques-louis david
marat= radical journalist, murdered by aristocrats
painting was paraded down the streets
& during french revolution

2. industrial revolution

1760- 1840

increase in urban life, shift in relationship w environment

emphasis on time & space (railroad)

manual/stable/agricultural --> machine/mass production

rain, steam, & speed- j.m.w. turner
1844

3. photography

technology of images

access to optical unconscious

magnifying reality

4. gustave courbet

independent artist (was rejected from the exhibition so he created his own)

embraced idea of artist as bohemian/free agent

sympathetic to lower class

the stonebreakers- courbet

5. edouard manet

showed work in the salon of the refused

artist as "flaneur" ("stroller," "idler")

sympathized w urban class

painted the cast offs (ex. Olympia= prostitute, Ragpicker= homeless)

luncheon on the grass- manet
rejection of every rule
calls attention to flatness, "painting about painting"
contour lines influenced by japanese print
rejected by the salon

• modernism- thirst for originality, creativity, authenticity; "purified" the form of their work

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• challenging the modernist narrative: early 20th cent. avant-gardes

marcel duchamp, fountain, 1917
vladimir tatlin, monument to the third international, 1920

• challenging the modernist narrative: american scene painting & regionalism

grant wood, american gothic, 1930
thomas hart benton, the hailstorm, 1940
edward hopper, nighthawks, 1942

• challenging the modernist narrative: the harlem renaissance (battling multiple identities)

jacob lawrence, the migration of the american negro, panel 1, 1940
lois mailou jones

• challenging the modernist narrative: mexican muralism (embracing didactic language & artist responsibility to use work as political commentary)

jose clemente orozco
david alfaro siquieros
diego rivera

• challenging the modernist narrative: art informel (how artists register trauma of WWII, low culture/ high culture, primitivism)

jean dubuffet, volonte de puissance, 1946
wols, champigny blue
jean fautrier, head of a hostage no. 22
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when does modernism end?
-1960: rise of pop, minimalism, neo-dada
-use of non-art materials
-can be mass produced
-art moves out of museums & gallery & interacts w new environments
-ambiguity to work's meaning & artists' intention
 viewer brings meaning to the work of art