Art history notes
- 1. Unit: Realism 1840s-1860s Romanticism was followed by positivism. Realism- scientific The rise of photography and the 19th century art photography was competition for painting because painting used to be the only means of imagery. William Henry Fox Talbot, The open door plate vi. 1844 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres He wanted to achieve information. It’s about representation of how the woman is. The artist has to ability to put extra information into the picture (before photoshop was made) whereas pictures couldn’t.
- 2. Children in photos always moved and messed up the picture, so the children either had to sleep or be dead. James Clerk Maxwell, Tartan Ribbon Movement began for pictures Honore Daumier Made political charicitures and studied photography since the beginning. He never was a painter. He began as an engraver political lithography Daumier, Gargantua. swallowing gold from the people. Daumier stopped making cartoons
- 3. because the politician saw the cartoon and threatened Daumier. Daumier, Council of War Great expression is shown without it being a painting. It shows what is in real life. Daumier also did sculpture, but none of his work was taken seriously, not even his political drawings. lithography- political drawings Daumier, Rue Transnonain Shows an actual event that happened. Realism= real. The displacement of the traveling acrobats Shows common people that no one else cares for
- 4. The laundress Shows the struggle of the laundry woman and her child. Damaged skin, lungs, back, and limbs. The third class carriage The people are poor. Because the husband is not shown, rather a grandma is shown, explains that the father of the child may not be there at all. Shows the difficulty of the third class. Jean-Francois-Millet First person to show the under class. Recognized as a painter
- 5. Millet, The Winnowner Shows a peasant shaking the grain. It’s backbreaking labor and shows that lower class people do hard labor. We’ll see people perform a labor in Millet’s painting and pictures, not portraits. Millet, The sower The artist is trying to distinguish a painting from a picture. the painting shows movement unlike a picture. The gleaners Shows that people in the background have done %99 of the work but the lowest of the
- 6. low working pick at what’s left and very hard to get. A very backbreaking, physically demanding. It doesn’t show beauty, it shows reality. Gustave Courbet Courbet, After dinner at Ornans. Uninteresting. Just another dinner that has peasants.
- 7. the stone breakers He’s showing what people don’t want to see in a painting, It’s undesirable.The faces aren’t important because they’re just people in a life where they live and die only to break stones hence the younger boy and the older man. The rocks are just as important as the people which helps define realism. We see someone sitting just as much as we see the chair they are sitting on. A painting would take away from the image to focus on the main subject. realists engage the viewers with what is there and real, romanticists engage the viewers to see the mythology and only the ideals. There is no triangle structure, no artificial structure, no item is placed anywhere specific to make the image look better. A Burial at Ornans The painting itself has about fifty life-size people. Never did a scene in painting have average people attend a funeral. It’s a normal scene, but he chooses to enlarge it to say that these people are real people although they’re unimportant. It’s a big transition from religious paintings. Arrangement of the figures is different. Order in the painting doesn’t matter. Originally, important people were up in front and genders may have even been separated but, in this painting, it doesn’t matter. They’re all over the place. One off thing is that the dog is up in front of the crowd. It’s new to people (of that time) but it is also modern.
- 8. The artist’s studio At the time, a painting this size (gigantic) was unheard of without it looking ridiculous. The painter’s friends are on one side and on the other there is the ‘people who made a living from debt’. It is socialists to throw critics, friends, models, painters, pets, and the poor into the same area. (Moving on from Realism) Impressionism (visionary realism) 1860-1875 Is the object in front of us always the same? Do other people see it differently than I see it? Manet
- 9. Self portrait Not the same as what he really looks like. Un Coin Du Salon New painters would present their paintings in the ‘salon’. Manet submitted works many more times throughout his career The spanish singer It is different from Velasquez, Three musicians where the singers are sitting in an ideal place and the spanish singer has a cigarette bud on the floor (trash) and an onion. People criticized
- 10. his paintings negatively. People were mad that Manet chose to paint a spanish singer rather than a beautiful man. Manet is showing realism by not painting the ideal person. The guitar is strum for right handed people but the singer is playing left handed. The old musician People are shown in real life randomly, not posed. It shows how people are not connected. People in a big crowd don’t look at each other. Music in the tuileries The painting is full but we should notice the random quality of the composition. Manet is going for the 360 degree effect. He is showing that art isn’t something that we think of. It’s something we live with. He puts chairs in the front and it’s a trick of leaving them there to make the viewers feel like they’re a part of the painting.
- 11. Luncheon on the grass critics were mad about the dressed men and the undressed women. The painter is looking into the history of art in how naked women are outside. He’s painting a contemporary version of the nude in landscape. the dead christ with angels What the painter is doing is bringing forth what is actually happening. Olympia The most scandal painting of the 19th century. She is
- 12. ‘erotically undressed’. Not fully undressed, necklace on, shoes, bracelet, and hair piece. She is full-on looking at the viewer. It is very ‘in your face’. The model isn’t diverting her gaze. The black cat symbolizes something more sinister. The model was well known around Paris as a prostitute. Manet submitted the painting to the salon and a lot of people recognized her. Totally scandal. The prostitute you slept with is now in a painting starring back at you. The fifer The sound a flute makes is very high and sharp, so for the background he choses a color that matches the sound. (Japanesse artist)The great wave of kanagawa Japan starts getting involved. The art from Japan goes against everything that European artists have been taught.
- 13. The races at long champ It shows the view from the race man's point of view. Everything gets blurred as you go faster. luncheon in the studio Manet, A cafe, ink Manet takes the reality that interests him, not what a typical realist does. A typical realist makes works about what everyone sees in reality.
- 14. contemporaneous- contemporary to the other old stuff Manet, the balcony Shows people in a daily circumstance. Manet chooses to show people he knows in different ‘snapshot’ moments. Manet, in the garden Usually, people in the garden in paintings don’t look at the viewer, this painting has the girl gazing at the viewer. Manet, Le Repos It is a modern condition. In a modern world, people are beginning to ‘tune-out’.
- 15. Artists begin to consider the lighting in the painting an element of its own. Manet, in the arcachon Manet, boating The gaze
- 16. Manet, a bar at the folies-bergeres In this restaurant in the painting, different classes mixed. It was a new invent of ‘music halls’. People began to mix. Now men could take their women out to a public place like this. The way she’s opening up her arms his suggestive as well as her bored face expression. some of the objects are modern so it relates to modernism with a modern set- up. Manet makes you feel like you’re in the painting (visionary realism). IMPRESSIONISM Birth of impressionism (1874)(remember the date) Motif- A subject that you paint repeatedly Art is no longer aimed at representation. No deep meaning Claude Monet, impression, sunrise Started the impressionist movement. Critics argue that it doesn’t look finished. ‘Looks like a child sketch’. Artists try to get rid of the grout. Starts showing individual impression.
- 17. Manet, monet working in his boat Manet is a realist and monet is younger (different type of artist) Monet is the main impressionist In the painting, monet is in his boat painting because impressionists were obsessed with lighting. Impressionists don’t use grout to make their paintings light and instead they put pigments next to each other so that the viewer’s eye mixes the colors. They didn’t use pure grey. It always had some other color with it. Claude Monet He died partially blind because of constantly looking at the sun (hence him being an impressionist painter)
- 18. Monet, haystack Made paintings during specific times of the day and went back later when the lighting changed. Monet, La Grenouillere public spaces are now open in France to the public. Impressionism is about individual vision from the artist. The pointing is showing different aspects of a scene Monet, la japonaise Shows the impression that Japanese art left on western european artists.
- 19. Monet, Argenteuil the impressionists were going straight out of the tube for painting. They did not mix colors. The plus for being an impressionist painter is being able to carry around the canvas and not having to mix the paints in jars, rather they were already in tubes Monet, Boating at argenteuil Paint brush strokes were loose and obvious Impressionism: Renoir, Bazille, Sisley, Cailebotte, Pissarro, Morisot
- 20. Pierre- Auguste Renoir He was a porcelain painter and was French Renoir, Dance at the moulin de la galette We know who each person is in the painting. He is showing modern Paris. Uses Impressionist style which is sketch like.Very much like Manet’s painting. Scale is also impressive Renoir, girl gathering flowers He’s showing his impression of the field.
- 21. renoir, the gust of wind He is trying convey the sense of touch and feel through an image. He wants to show the wind and its power. He shows it by the moving grass and trees. renoir, study torso sunlight effect Renoir was best with representation with light and representation of women Renoir, luncheon of the boating party They’re on a boat acting casual at a dinner. He sketched it
- 22. Pissarro Father figure for the impressionists. Pissarro, the house of monsieur Musy Manipulates the horizon line by manipulating the road. Pissarro, the vegetable garden with trees in blossom Singular brush strokes
- 23. Pissarro, Boulevard des italiens It is an impression since a street can’t be just three colors Sisley Landscape painter
- 24. Bazille Landscape painter known for lighting Bazille, Bathers Caillebotte
- 25. Caillebotte, Le Pont de l’Europe Sees a steel bridge and paints it as it is. Very depressing and boring with three men that dress darkly. Caillebotte, Paris, a rainy day Version 1 competes with picture images Version 2
- 26. Morisot (female painter) She goes beyond using people as motifs and uses a psychological strategy Impressionism: Series and cycles Cycles- painting something over and over again at different times of the day Monet, The pond at Montegron Paints the scene in different lights Monet did well at painting cycles
- 27. Edgar Degas Degas Bridge between realism and impressionism She is wearing a light dress that generates light and the man wears a tux that generates darkness He began painting before the impressionist movement but showed signs of the transition between realism and impressionism
- 28. Degas, Dance class Degas is interested in painting people. People were the perfect motifs because they showed perfect physical motion. Degas, Dance class at the opera He begins using space like Monet, putting chairs in the corner. Degas is known for doing dancers. Degas, a cotton office in New Orleans As time goes on, his paintings get more complicated. He, over time, removes the narrative elements in his works. The advantages is that he gets to show what he wants.
- 29. Degas, the dance lesson He shows horizontal motion. Degas, the little fourteen year old dancer Mixed media. Made with bronze cast and fabric. He is investigating the figure. This was his way of looking outside of painting
- 30. He seems to be peeling off the layers of reality. He observes things that are not normally displayed. He shows women in a way where it isn’t desirable. (non-instagram like) It’s new. END OF IMPRESSIONISM Neo- Impressionism (Divisionism, Pointillism) Divisionism- dividing the pigments Pointillism- pigments are being put in a pattern
- 31. Science coming together with painting. There was a rise with scientific uprise in books, art, experiment (19th century). There’s a development in artists developing in their subject’s actual looks (not changing it at all). The color wheel is made George Seurat Seurat, Bathing at Asnieres Nothing is a plain color. All are mixed. The artist uses the motifs (people) to show shapes and color. He isn’t trying to show an impressionist scene, rather just experiment with shape and color. His objective is to make the viewer exercise optically
- 32. because no pigments are mixed. The viewers are standing far enough away to make the pigments look blended. Seurat, sunday afternoon on the island of grande Jatte It is a “monumental” painting. It’s complete fabrication as long as 3 meters that experiments with shape and color. He places the people in groups of two or three. It’s a modern painting because classes are all sitting together on the same turf. He’s experimenting. It’s completely constructed because it is different than Monet’s painting of the same landscape. He did multiple sketches that were impressionistic. For composition’s sake, he changes around people’s looks to fit the composition, posture, color, and such. Paul Signac Post Impressionism
- 33. (1885-1907) Vincent Van Gogh Began working after impressionism and slightly in neoimpressionism Lived in poverty. Made 900 paintings but only sold 1 to a friend. Had malnutrition, blood disorder, and ate paint thinking it looked appetizing when he was extremely poor. Van Gough, At eternity’s gate Began with black and white waiting to master it before coloring Van Gough, the potato eater
- 34. He tries to convey the fact that the peasants use the same hands that they use to undig the potatoes. Tries to represent hard life. Van Gough, skull of a skeleton with a burning skeleton Van Gough practicing Van Gough, skull He discovers impressionist painting and his style of painting completely changes His brush strokes become an individual figure in the piece
- 35. Van Gough, self portrait with a straw hat experimenting with brush strokes. The brush strokes are very prominent Van Gough, the flowering orchard He is very influenced by japanese art. He is poor so he likes lifeless figures that he doesn’t have to pay. It has middle ground, background, and the tree to flatten it. All inspired by Japanese art. He moves to Arles
- 36. Van Gough, Orleanders Inspired by Japanese art and takes still life to make it something else. He’s using impressionism to show what he wants to shows (the orange outlines). Van Gough, shoes The shoes stands in for the artist himself. the shoes define van gough, rough, beaten up, poor condition. The shoe’s shadow is colored blue which is van gough’s pictorial decision but is odd. Van Gough, the sower different point of view, the sun looks like a head of cheese and van gough uses specific paint strokes to focus on the sun
- 37. Van Gough, Sower at sunset It’s representation and impressionism It’s painting Van Gough, the artist’s bedroom He is showing how happy he is in this bedroom. He’s describing the scene like food because he hasn’t had any for a while. It’s about sensation. Van Gough, the night cafe It’s a place where people go after everything is closed. He tries to express the powers of darkness. Lamps look like eyes, it’s late, people are falling asleep, the yellow is sharp. It may be visually offensive. Van Gough paints things as he feels about them.
- 38. His paintings are intense because of how he feels about each place he paints about, thus he becomes the father of expressionism. Van Gough, self portrait with bandaged ear He cut off part of his ear and was unstable at the time. This painting shows how he was feeling at the time Van Gough, the dance hall in arles Usually lush and thick with paint, his paintings but changes because he’s painting next to a friend. Van Gough was a slob and had personality differences. He at the time started developing phycological issues. He wanted to send part of his ear to a woman he loved (a prostitute). She was upset about it and Van Gough went on to check into a metal institute to try and heal himself
- 39. Van Gough, woman rocking a cradle He wanted to sing a lullaby in colors. Two colors that don’t work together, red and green. It is about creating a sensation based on color. It’s about expression Van Gough, olive orchard Painted while he was in an asylum. The paintings become more and more agitated while he himself becomes agitated. Van Gough, wheat fields with cypresses He tries to show a metaphor of life and death cycles. He saw wheat as a metaphor for life. The clouds are interpretations of his mood.
- 40. Van Gough, the starry night His vision is his fear of death but the feeling of immortality. We start seeing paintings as paintings not pictures. Van Gough, painter on the road Van Gough, wheat field with crows The painter represents how he’s feeling. He’s not doing well and he’s dying. He died with a gun shot wound that was shot by a teenage boy. He lied though and said he’ll take the blame and say he committed
- 41. suicide. The skies are dark blue and brush strokes are weak which represents his mood. Expressionism? Paul Gauguin Started primitivism. Wasn’t a happy person and included impressionism in some of his work but tried to make it something totally different. Gauguin, portrait of a child He’s an amateur and starts painting after having a family and paints landscapes. He’s a student of pissaro and is accepted into the salon.
- 42. Gauguin ,suzanne sewing He’s trying to find himself as an artist and is incorporating similar features from other artists. Gauguin, Mette gauguin in an evening Market crash happens and chooses to give up his family to paint
- 43. Gauguin, self portrait Becomes an independent artist Gauguin, still life with profile of laval When he hatches as an artist and grows a new style. It goes against the impressionism movement and doctrine
- 44. Gauguin, a seashore II Gauguin becomes sick with his friend. The paintings show progression and is unusual for an impressionist. He’s playing with the painting by breaking it off into sections and patterns and shapes. gauguin He invents synthetism. Bringing two together. Painting becomes something of its own. An image within itself Begins teaching others Says look at nature but to not copy it. He wants rather to deconstruct it and make it something else Gauguin, the vision after the sermon-jacob wrestling with the angel This a combination of fiction and reality (Synthesism). Painting is no longer representing anything real. In impressionism they paint from light and being there to see and paint. Realism is painting
- 45. something as it is objectively and expressionism is no longer representing or painting from something real. Gauguin, tribute to van gough Tries to cheer up van gough by painting yellow, his favorite color. Gauguin, self portrait It’s arbitrary GOOD LUCK ON THE TEST! :)