CHAPTER 19:
THE AGE OF EARLY MODERNISM
1871 - 1914
Important note: As we will be relying a great deal on the expertise of Sister Wendy Beckett in the area of Impressionism, you will need to listen carefully and take notes during the films.
IMPRESSIONISM: 1863
It seems that Édouard Manet (1832–1883) may have set out to point out the hypocrisy of his fellow Parisians. We see this in a number of paintings.
As Sister Wendy pointed out, “
But he was simply updating Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” (1538), an accepted Renaissance treasure.
Remember Giorgione’s Concert Champetre. c.1510-1511 ?
The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe), 1863 obviously followed its Renaissance original, but this time with real women instead of goddesses.
Much of the fundamentals of Impressionism can be found in the work of Manet, as well as reworked masters. Remember how Diego Velásquez’ “Las Meninas”
1656-57 put the audience in the painting?
“A Bar at the Folies Bergere” (1882), does the same thing.
But there is another element of Impressionism in “A Bar at the Folies Bergere”. Remember that cameras have now been invented. The camera inspired artists to try to capture a moment in time, just as a camera does. In a second or two, the girl at the bar will move and this picture will change.
“Bullfight” (1865) does the same thing in watercolor
In The Grand
Canal,
As time is fleeting, always on the move, Manet’s painting is not a detailed, photographic image, but almost a blur, a hurried attempt to capture a moment in time.
"The Monet Family in the Garden“ (1874)
“The Railway” 1873
“Boating” 1874
“Surprised Nymph,” 1861
“Nana” 1877
“Girl in the Garden
at
Manet, in these works, employs many elements of Impressionism: light and reflection, almost scientifically examined out of doors; time captured in flight, especially moments of beauty in people’s lives; a sense of artistic independence, even rebellion.
There is one more thing: Manet sets the stage for the future of art, by anticipation of interest in abstract forms rather than realistic images.
“Still Life”
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
“Impression,
Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867)
Magpie (1869)
Bathing at La Grenouill`ere, 1869
Regata v
Promenade, 1875
Zapadni portal, dull weather, 1894
Le Parlement, Effet de Brouillard (fog), 1904
Houses of Parliament,
Water Lilies (The Clouds), 1903
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
The Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881
Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876
The Umbrellas, 1883
A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876
The Bathers, 1887
The Bather (after the bath), 1888 (As Sister Wendy pointed out, Renoir
was a womanizer.)
The First Outing (at the theatre), 1877
The Great Boulevards, 1875
The Parisian, 1874
The Washer-Women, 1889 (The subject could be wealthy or poor. The artist followed his own instincts, not
those of convention.)
Frankly, I find the works of Renoir absolutely beautiful. You can find a terrific Renoir Gallery on the
Internet if you agree.
Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844-1926) self-portrait, 1878
Berthe Morisot (1841-1885), as painted in 1872 by
Manet
Women Impressionists
“At the Theatre,”
Mary Cassatt, 1879
Berthe Morisot, “Little Girl Reading”
1888;
Mary Cassatt “Playing at the Beach” 1884
Berthe Morisot, “Study: At the Water's Edge”
1864
Cassatt, Mary “Portrait of a Little Girl”1878 (Child of her friend Degas)
Berthe Morisot Marine (The Harbor at
Mary Cassatt “
Berthe Morisot “La lecture” (
Mary
Cassatt,
Summertime c. 1894
Berthe Morisot “Peasant Hanging
out the Washing” 1881
Edgar Degas (1834 –1917)
“Dance Class” 1874
“The Star” 1887
“The Blue Dancers” 1899
“The Tub” 1886
“The Absinthe Drinker” 1876
“Café Concert Singer” 1878
It would seem logical to move on to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
(1864–1901), who is similar to Degas, but let’s look at some other things
before we do “Post Impressionists.”
Psychoanalysis began with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who focused
man’s vision inward. Hey, what is Reality
anyway?
Today, many find humor in Freud’s ideas that sex is a major force in
life. For example, if you bite your
nails or smoke, it may be related to the fact that you were bottle fed as an
infant.
But the really important part of Freud’s work is this: if you dig deeply enough into your
background, you will find the causes for your present anxieties. Certain drives may be related to
childhood. A woman who doesn’t want children
may feel that way because of her own parents poor relationship; a man might
feel afraid of getting an important job because his powerful father made him
feel like a weakling as a child. Hints
of who you are can be found in who you were.
Once Freud’s work had become popular, it began to be reflected in all
kinds of art. Arthur Miller’s famous
play, Death of a Salesman, for example (1949) can be interpreted as a
Freudian mystery story: Biff never became a success because he stopped
believing in his father when he was a teenager.
Another important psychologist was Carl Gustav Jung 1875-1961, who took
Freud’s work even further.
Jung believed we could go further back into our past than our
childhood—we could go into the “Collective Unconscious,” and see how all people
are essentially alike, from the primitive to the complex.
And from these ideas, came the art of other cultures to give new meaning
to Western Art, as we shall see.
Artistic movements came and went rapidly in the modern age. Some movements focused on painting, as did
Impressionism, which others occurred mainly in literature, such as
Naturalism. The Decadent Movement
appeared in several fields, as did Expressionism. Let’s take them one at a time.
This quiet stretch of beach south of Daytona is known for having deadly
riptides.
In 1897, a group of four shipwreck survivors were caught in those Daytona
riptides. Billy Higgins, the strongest
and bravest of the four, was drowned.
Stephen Crane recounted the incident in “The Open Boat.”
The important part of the story is this: Fate isn’t choosey. The man most likely to survive died. This is NATURALISM: Humankind is adrift in an
open boat in an unfeeling universe. He
has no control over his fate. Consider
this famous poem:
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
(1899)
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
Émile
Zola (1840–1902) was a
Naturalist. In novels such as Nana
(1880) and Germinal (1884) it is disposition, not society that turns
people into drunkards or prostitutes.
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen
(1828
–1906)
wrote plays dealing with people in the throws of social issues. Among them were A Doll’s House (1879),
Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1888), and Hedda Gabler
(1890).
A Doll’s House was in
many ways the most important play in history.
Let’s watch the final scene. In
order to save her husband, Torvald’s, life while he
was sick, Nora forged some papers. A bad
guy is going to use the papers against her, so she is thinking of suicide in
order to save Torvald’s reputation.
Okay, that sounds like a typical melodrama, same as most plays of the
time with mustached villains tying girls to railroad tracks. But, suddenly there’s a big difference. The bad guy isn’t bad after all. He gives Torvald
the papers back and all is well---but is it?
That was the “doorslam heard ‘round the
world.” Opening night audiences,
expecting Nora to come back, just sat there, waiting for the next scene. When they finally left the theatre, they were
TALKING about the play. Ibsen had become
the “Father of the Modern Theatre.”
CHAPTER 19, PART TWO:
AND THEN THERE WAS
This isn’t in your textbook, but it’s an important part of the Humanities
and should be discussed. While Ibsen was
becoming the Father of Modern Theatre, America was developing its own
contribution to the world of culture, one that was uniquely American: The
Musical Comedy.
Although theatre was banned by several states, after the Revolutionary
War, it began to flourish, mostly with silly melodramas and English theatre
imports.
When some investors got together and put some songs and scantily dressed
women into one of those silly melodramas, they made a fortune with The Black
Crook, which opened in 1866 and toured for 25 years.
But the real heart of the American musical came from the 1840’s, and was
called MINSTREL SHOWS.
The Minstrel Shows began after a group of Austrian Singers toured the
White actors Dan Emmett, Frank Bower, Frank Pelham and Billy Whitlock
decided to stage a spoof of this group's concerts, using African-American
characters and calling themselves Emmett's Virginia Minstrels. Their
blackface revue premiered at
Originally, minstrels were all white actors, although after the Civil
War, a number of African-American performers joined them. Although these stage characters were racially
offensive, they produced some very important music.
Among the songs introduced by Minstrel Shows were:
“Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn)”
“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”
“The Old Gray Goose”
“Oh Susannah”
“Old Dan Tucker”
“Possum Up
a Gum Tree”
“
“Polly Wolly Doodle”
and my
old favorite, “The Parson and the Bear”
Stephen Collins Foster (1826 –1864), known as the "father of
American music," wrote just about all his songs for Minstrel Shows,
including Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races",
"My Old Kentucky Home", "Old Black Joe", "Beautiful
Dreamer" and "Swanee River“.
Not happy with the more degrading aspects of Minstrelsy, Stephen Foster
wrote. "Nelly Was a Lady," the first song of its type to portray an
African-American couple with dignity and compassion. Even the song's title
demonstrates its unusual sensitivity by using the term "lady," which
at that time was reserved for upper-class white women.
Down on the
Long time I travel on the way,
All night the cottonwood a toting,
Sing for my true love all the day.
Nelly was a lady,
Last night she died,
Toll the bell for lovely Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.
Now I'm unhappy, and I'm weeping,
Can't tote the cottonwood no more;
Last night, while Nelly was a sleeping,
Death came a knockin' at the door.
CHORUS
When I saw my Nelly in the morning,
Smile till she open'd up her eyes,
Seem'd like the light of day a dawning,
Jist 'fore the sun begin to rise.
CHORUS
Close by the margin
of the water,
Where the lone weeping willow grows,
There lived Virginny's lovely daughter;
There she in death may find repose.
CHORUS
Down in the meadow, 'mong the clover,
Walk with my Nelly by my side;
Now all those happy days are over,
Farewell, my dark Virginny bride.
CHORUS
Eventually, minstrelsy became a steppingstone for African Americans to
perform on the stage. (It was not the
first time Afican Americans wanted to perform in
public. In the summer of 1821, William Henry Brown (a black West Indian
and former ship's steward) opened a "pleasure garden" in his backyard
at
As blacks were barred from every theatre in town, Brown drew capacity
crowds. He soon built the American Theatre on
But minstrelsy was another thing indeed.
Let’s let Glynn Turman explain it in “
An interesting comment by Ben Vareen
For more information on blackface let’s hear Jada
Pinkett Smith in Spike Lee’s brilliant “Bamboozzled,” with Tommy Davidson and Savion
Glover.
“Bambozzled” shows that even in the vile, racist
format of the minstrel show, TALENT, when given a chance, will survive any prejudice.
As African American talent allowed blacks to produce their own minstrel
shows, they started to incorporate a different style of music, based more on
Gospel and a rhythmic style which would be called “jazz.” Here’s an example from “Minstrel Man,”
When Minstrel groups met each other on the road, they often had a
friendly duel of music, something like the film, “Drumline.” This next clip shows the difference between a
minstrel show produced by white men and one produced by black men (although
both have African American performers.)
And, eventually, sometime after the turn of the century, this happened .
. .
The man most responsible for this kind of music was Scott Joplin
(1868-1917). The music celebrated by
young people all over the country was called RAGTIME.
“The Entertainer” (1902)
In 1910,
Sadly, the world had to wait for its first opera based on African
American musical styles until 1934, when George Gershwin composed “Porgy and
Bess.”
The use of Blackface continued onstage even through the fifties. The most famous blackface singer was Al Jolson (1886-1950)
Jolson was not a racist in any way. In
fact, he was well known for going out of his way to fight racism whenever it
affected African American performers.
When he passed away, Noble Sissle, president
of The Negro Actors Guild attended his funeral in the name of his people.
Before they became famous, the song-writing team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake were
refused service at a
When they refused to start trouble, Jolson took
them to a Jewish delicatessen, bought pastrami sandwiches, and spend the evening becoming lifelong friends. Years later, Jolson
had a huge hit singing one of their songs.
There is one more Blackface performer who follows the same mold: cocky,
brash, sure of himself.
As you probably know, the most popular music of the middle 19th century were marches, with John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)
leading the field.
“
March Music was so popular that people actually danced to it.
As you saw in “Minstrel Man,” Ragtime basically grew out of march music, just as JAZZ would later grow out of
Ragtime. Originating in the
African-American community, Ragtime was soon picked up by young people of all
colors, who eagerly watched their black neighbors develop hot new variations,
such as “The Cakewalk.”
Just as would happen in generation after generation, white parents were
shocked that the children were dancing steps and styles that originated in the
African-American community! (sound familiar?) In
the midwest, white families
were horrified when “city slickers” introduced such dancing.
Capitalizing on the minstrel style was Florenz
Ziegfeld Jr. (1867 –1932), the first Broadway
impresario.
And while Ziegfield was developing the American
Musical Theatre, Thomas Alva Edison (1847 –1931) introduced the motion picture
camera at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and another art form was born.
We shall examine the cinema in a future chapter. For now, let us consider the Decadent
Movement in literature and the Post Impressionists in Part Three.
CHAPTER 19, PART 3
EARLY MODERNISM:
Decadence, Expressionism, Post Impressionism
Another literary Movement was called DECADENCE, which basically saw the
evil in the world and embraced it, especially inspired by the more vulgar
classics which stressed sensual pleasure and emotion.
The Decadent Movement is probably best summed up by looking at the
brilliant Oscar Wilde (1854 –1900)
Oscar wrote some of
the Victorian period’s funniest comedies of manners, including Lady
Windermere’s Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895), and the hysterical
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895.)
More on the decadent side, he wrote an extremely sensuous version of Salome.
(1894)
He also wrote the horror classic, The Portrait of Dorian Gray
(1891)
Married to Constance Lloyd in 1884, Wilde was a self-destructive man with
multiple sexual tastes.
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquis of Queensberry
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (1870 –1945)
Accused in public of being a “somdomite” (sic),
Wilde sued the Marquis of Queensberry.
from
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde:
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword! (1898)
Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” is a great way to
introduce the elements of EXPRESSIONISM
“The Scream” captures not the reality of the world, but the reality of
terror, of alienation, of loneliness, of despair. Expressionism is a different kind of reality,
which tries to capture deeper truths, through nightmarish images.
The first great expressionistic playwright, who tried to go one step
further than Ibsen, was Johan August Strindberg
(1849 –1912)
In classic plays, such as The Father (1887), Miss Julie
(1888), The Dance of Death (1900), and A Dream Play (1902), he
explores power struggles, mostly between men and women. (Dance of Death is much like Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Father shows
a man questioning his role in his wife’s impregnation.
Expressionist novelist Franz Kafka (1883-1924) shows more
bizarre nightmares.
In The Metamorphosis (1915), a man awakens to find himself
transformed into a cockroach (sorry, in
In The Trial (1925), a man is arrested and tried
without ever knowing what he’s being accused of. (The story takes place in Paris, not
Guantánamo!)
Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859 –1891) was the first of what could be
termed “Neoimpressionists,” with an incredibly scientific approach to painting
he called “Pointillism.”
Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant Sunday in the Park With
George captures not only interesting conjecture on the life of Seurat, but
also creates a brilliant study of the nature of art, which deserves some
inspection on our part.
Consider this opening sequence which shows both the task an artist such
as Seurat sets for himself, and how an artist chooses the elements of his
painting . . .
This scene, with the painting Sister Wendy described shows how the artist
has to separate himself from personal needs in order to focus on his art.
A Sunday on
La Grande Jatte. 1884-86
Seurat spend two years painting “A Sunday
Afternoon on the
“Finishing the Hat,” is a definitive statement on the nature of the
artist, who, by choice, must always stay on the outside of his work and look
in.
Seurat and his mother look at the
The artist arranges the figures he’s been studying into their perfect
places.
Bathers at Asnières. 1883-84
Boats.
Bateux, maree basse, Grandcamp. 1885
Models. 1886-88
Invitation
to the Sideshow (La Parade de Cirque). 1887-89
The
Le Chahut 1889-90
Young Woman
Powdering Herself. c. 1888-1890
The Circus. 1890-91
.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 –1901) fits in more closely with the
Decadent movement than with the scientific, although he did develop new ideas
in the printing of posters with vivid color.
Due to an improperly treated fracture,
At the Moulin Rouge,
1892/95
Moulin Rouge: La Goulue 1891
Ambassadeurs: Aristide Bruant
1892
La Goulue Arriving at the Moulin Rouge with Two
Women 1892
At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing 1892
Woman Pulling up her Stocking 1894
Alone 1896
Rue des Moulins: The
Medical Inspection 1894
Red-headed nude squatting woman 1897
You might notice a certain lack
of reality in some of these pictures, as if color and shape are not in
photographic quality. This is because
art is moving to a more abstract depiction of life. Let’s let Paul Gauguin explain it.
Eugène Henri
Paul Gauguin (1848 –1903)’s
work was called “Primitivism,” but actually led the way for abstract artists of
the future.
The Yellow
Christ. 1889
Eve. Don't Listen to the
Liar. 1889
Tahitian
Women (On the Beach).
1891
Manao tupapau (The Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch). 1892
Words of
the Devil. c.1892
Eü
haere ia
oe (Woman Holding a Fruit). 1893
As you saw in the Gauguin clip, Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 1890)
loved Millet and looked for the passion of life in color and the common man.
Van Gogh’s personal life was hopeless.
Too passionate to show any restraint, he drove people away. This famous story is typical of his
relationships . . .
But he worked in a fury, often using a palate knife or even his finger
instead of a brush, in his eagerness to capture the light and the beauty of the
world. He was the complete opposite of
the scientific, completely planned Georges Seurat.
“The Starry Night” (1889) shows so much of that passion, which author
Irving Stone so aptly named Lust For Life (1934).
In February of 1888, Van Gogh took up residence in
Van Gogh lived through this suicide
attempt, and eventually was put in a sanitarium by his brother, where he fared
well. Later, on his own again, under the
care of Dr. Gachet, whom he painted, the depression
returned, and on July 27, 1890, at the age of 37 . . .
Vincent’s devoted young brother,
Theo (1857-1891), who supported him all his life, was devastated at Vincent’s
death and died himself only six months later.
Interesting note: Theo’s great grandson and namesake was a Dutch columnist, television producer, and film
maker. After making a short film
critical of Islam, he was brutally assassinated on November 2, 2004 in
“Starry Starry Night” by Don McLean (1971)
Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906) represents the next step in
painting.
Building on the expressionist and abstract ideas of many painters who had
gone before him, Cezanne began to focus on shapes and forms and colors rather
than true images. His work led to a
movement called CUBISM, of which the great master as Pablo Picasso.
Apples and
Five Bathers 1885-87
The Great Bathers 1898
- 1905
Dr. Gachet's House at Auvers. c. 1873
Mount
Sainte-Victoire. 1904-1906
Henri Matisse
(1869-1954) follows much of Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh, but his
focus is especially on color and its interelationships.
The Window. 1905
Madame Matisse, "The
Green Line" 1905
Interior
with a Girl. 1905-6
Le bonheur de vivre. 1905-1906
La Danse
(first version). 1909
The Dance. 1910
Open Window. 1921
Lying Nude. 1924
Blue Nude
IV. 1952, made with
cutouts and glued, something like they do with
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is probably the greatest painter
of all time, because he represents the best of everything that came before him
and led the way to new ideas in the future.
But before we get into Picasso in detail, we really should examine his
influences from other important art forms, such as Jazz Music and the Cinema,
in part four.
Art was strongly influenced by jazz music.
Picasso: “Three Musicans” 1921
Picasso “The Old Guitarist” 1902
But what is JAZZ? Early jazz men said "to jazz" meant to
fornicate. A "jazzbo"
was a lover of the ladies. According to Thomas L. Morgan, Clarence Williams said he was the first
to put the word in a song. He does
remember a woman shouting, “Jazz me, Baby!” while he performed.
Cole Porter presented a rather interesting introduction to Jazz by
writing a song for Bing Crosby and Louis (Satchelmouth)
Armstrong in the film, High Society (1956)
Well, it certainly contains a “stick” and some “skins” and a “Box” and a
bass, but I think we have to dig just a bit deeper.
We know jazz comes from the African American Community, and was an
outgrowth of Ragtime, Blues, gospel and African rhythms.
One interesting aspect of jazz is the interplay, or
"call-response" between instruments.
You can hear that here as Louie Armstrong plays with Red Nichols
(portrayed by Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies) (1959).
Slaves in
Dixieland Jazz is said to be "collective improvisation,” in which
various instruments contend for the main role, while others blend in perfectly
improvised harmonies. In a way, it’s
much like a symphony, except the melody is reworked while they play, rather
than planned out beforehand. Listen to
what they do with “
Today’s rap harmonies use a variation of what was called “Scat,” first by
Ragtime singers, later in Dixieland Jazz.
Probably the best example of scat singing was the great Cab Calloway’s
blues number “Minnie the Moocher.”
The classic “When the Saints Go Marching In” gets a new vocal rendition
followed by a wild round of scatting in The Five Pennies.
Of course, Dixieland Jazz led to “swing” in the forties . . .
And swing led to progressive jazz
And, of course, all kinds of dances followed the developing popular music
styles.
Probably the greatest example of classical jazz is “Rhapsody in Blue,”
(1924) in which George Gershwin put all the sounds of New York into a single
piece, presented here in its entirety as it appeared in Disney’s Fantasia in
2000.
What jazz really amounts to is FREEDOM. Jazz music is the freedom to share music in
any style you choose, from a single instrument to the concert stage. This freedom was admired by modern artists
who tried to do the same thing.
Georges Braque (1882–1963) is usually credited with started
CUBISM. He had Impressionist and Fauvist
periods, but, along with Picasso, was fascinated with light and the shape of
things, trying to see a figure from all sides at the same time.
1909-10 La Mandore
(a small lute)
“Woman With a Guitar” 1913
“Woman with Mandolin” 1945 (Somewhat
modified cubism by that time.)
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) was influenced by motion
pictures and often tried to show movement in his work.
“Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” 1912
Transition
of Virgin into a Bride/Le Passage de la Vierge à la Mariée. 1912.
The Bride Stripped Bare By
Her Bachelors, Even or The Large Glass. 1915/23. Oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire and
dust in two glass plates mounted with aluminium, wood
and steel frames.
Reproduction
of L.H.O.O.Q. 1919. from Box in a
Valise. Readymade: pencil on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa.
Picasso’s life covers several periods in art.
His first major work, “The First Communion” (1896) has an impressionist
look to it, in the light and color, as well as the “Slice of life” affect.
Science and
Charity. 1897
Picasso was very distraught after his friend, having been spurned by a
girl, killed himself. For awhile, his
sorrow was shown in his work, in what was called “The Blue Period.”
Death of Casagemas. 1901
La Vie (Life). 1903 (The man in this picture has the face
of his late friend.)
The
Tragedy. 1903.
By 1905, Picasso lightened his palette, relieving it with pink and rose,
yellow-ochre and gray. Now aged 24, he
began to paint women more sensually, as well as the clowns and performers he
saw on the
Acrobat on
a Ball. 1905
Acrobat and
Young Harlequin. 1905
La Toilette. 1906
Girl in a
Chemise. c.1905
Picasso’s Cubist period dates from 1907-1917. This was quickly divided up by critics into
sub periods. The first one was
characterized by his interest in primitive art and African masks, and was named
his “Negro Period.”
Nude
(Half-Length). 1907
Head of a Man 1907
Head of a
Woman. 1907
Just an aside: In 1923, Eugene
O’Neill wrote “Strange Interlude” for Broadway, an
very naturalistic, Strindberg like play in which the characters used masks to
hide their true feelings from each other.
Self-Portrait. 1907 (Are Picasso’s masks meant to hide
something, or are they a depiction of Jungian values?)
Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. 1907 Although Picasso was trying to see
women from all sides at the same time, critics called this masterpiece a simple
copy of African Art.
By 1909, critics are calling Picasso’s work “Analytical” Cubism in which
he gives up a central perspective and splits forms up into facet-like
stereo-metric shapes.
Bread and
Fruit Dish on a Table.
1909
Young
Woman. 1909
Factory in Horta de Ebbo. 1909
Portrait of
Ambroise Vollard. 1910
Nude Woman. 1910
By 1910, Picasso had moved on to Synthetic or Collage Cubism, in which
much of the art is glued or attached to the painting, for example: Still-Life
with Chair Caning. 1911/12. Collage of oil,
oilcloth, and pasted paper simulating chair caning on canvas
Musical
Instruments. 1912. Oil,
sawdust and gypsum on cardboard
Picasso: “When I paint a bowl, I want to show you that it is round, of
course. But the general rhythm of the picture, its composition framework, may
compel me to show the round shape as a square.”
The First World War affected Art in a number of ways, but the most
important effect as I see it is that it’s affects
start in Chapter 20 and we are finally finished with Chapter 19! In Chapter 20, we shall discuss more of
Picasso and the other modern artists, more of