Sample essay on late 18th and 19th centuries

Tuesday June 10

The three revolutions that started Modern Age are the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution.
2. What is the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason?

Enlightenment is characterized by a shift to a more rational and scientific approach to religious, political, social, and economic issues.

3. Neoclassicism: Oath of Horatii – Name 3 characteristics

The three characteristics were clarity of form; sober colors; and shallow space.

4. Romanticism: What is the “ attitude of this movement”? Use either The Third of May or The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons and state something about light, paint application and the subject matter.
Romanticism involves imagination and emotion as more valuable than reason. It also perceives that nature is less corrupt than civilization, and that human beings are essentially good.
The piece, Third of May, emphasizes feeling over fact which makes it Romantic. The light and dark areas have organized structured pattern. It is more than a reconstruction of history. This serves as a universal protest against the brutality of tyrannical governments.
5. Photography: Name 2 subject matters used by photography at this time.

During late 18th and 19th centuries, photographers focuses on landscape and portrait photography.

6. Realism: What is the general subject matter in this movement? What about The Stone Breakers leans toward an awareness of paint or painting as opposed to pure realism? Name one art element in Luncheon on the Grass that is or could be a different direction for art to take.
Realism depicts ordinary existence. Realists believe that art should deal with human experience and observation. For the painting, The Stone Breakers, Courbet wants to show the customs, ideas and look of his time in his paintings as supposed to rich people in romantic and glamorized settings. And in the painting, Luncheon on the Grass, Manet’s color shading and variation could have been a little lighter due to the fact there is an open space in the painting away not under the shade of trees.

Wednesday June 11

7. Impressionism: What is the true subject matter of these works, or this movement?
The subject matter for Impressionists are landscape and ordinary scenes painted outdoors in varied atmospheric conditions, seasons, and times of the day.
8. Post-Impressionism: Why did these painters react against Impressionism? What newly introduced artwork influenced composition for some artists at this time?
Post-Impressionism is developed because Impressionism tends to focus more on form and composition. Impressionism’s emphasis on the objective observation forgets to account for personal expression or spiritual content. Japanese prints becomes an influence for artists of that period.
9. What do we notice is different about the patrons of the “ Modern Age” as opposed to art we studied in previous sections? (Patrons means the people who are paying for art.)
Patrons of the Modern Age is unlike the patrons on previous centuries. They are not commissioning works for religious subjects and their role is rarely limited to commissioning work for private collections. They are often involved in their artists’ lives, socializing and visiting studios, and providing not only funding but also contemporary benefactors. They are giving artists freedom from their work, fostering originality and individuality of the artist.
10. Early Expressionism: What part of Europe is the artist who painted The Scream from? Describe the brush marks and the emotion of this work.
This particular painting is from the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. The emotion represent an image of anxiety, fear, and loneliness. Brush marks reflects continuous linear rhythms
11. Earth 20th Century world – The psychology of Sigmund Freud is about the power of the (subconscious) mind. The scientist Albert Einstein revealed that matter is a form of energy.
12. Fauvism: Is color used in a realistic way in these paintings?
Fauvism frees color from its traditional role of describing the natural appearance of an object. Colors are used as an independent expressive element away from its natural appearance
13. Blue Rider Group: The beginnings of nonrepresentational subject matter.
14. Cubism: How did the Cubists depict form and space?
Cubism transforms objects into their reconstructed geometric abstraction. Figures are collapsed into shallow and jagged pictorial space and sometimes ambiguous space.
15. Futurism: This art movement resembled Cubism but celebrated motion.
16. After World War I – Did those that were artists and/or “ thinkers” feel more positive or negative after this war? How did that attitude start the movement of Dadaism? (State what the movement of Dadaism is about.)
Thinkers and artist express their negative objection for the war but they developed a sense of hope and social betterment through their art. Dada began in protest against the horrors of World War I. Dadaism rejected most moral, social, political, and aesthetic values. They thought it was pointless to try to find order and meaning in a world that produced only chaos and destruction.
17. Dadaist works were often collages and mixed media (new media of art).
18. The Surrealists were interested in the idea of getting “ answers” or “ ideas” or “ art” from which part of a human’s mental capacity?

Surrealist taps the unconscious mind which contains dreams, fantasies, and hallucinations.

19. For this question, we have NOT talked about it in class: this question is about art that represents a Utopian idea of a society that is orderly, or deep Nationalism about someone’s own culture; it is any artwork from Chapter 22 AFTER Surrealism. Just pick one work of art from pages 404 to 421 Edition 9, or pages 378 to 394 Edition 10. Then state a reason why is seems to be: a) orderly or Utopian, or b) Nationalism (might be Mexican, Latin American, Russian, American, and African-American).
The piece, Dragon by the artist Xul Solar, reflects utopian as it hopes for a universal spiritualism and union of religions and nations. This universal spiritualism can be considered as the orderly union of societies. At the same time, Latin American nationalism is reflected throughout the art work by the presence of different flags in the painting.
20. World War II totally shook up the world, as artists, scientists, abused minorities etc migrated to different safer places. One result was that the center of the art world was no longer in Paris or Europe but was in New York (USA).

Monday, June 16

21. The brush marks of abstract expressionism were free-flowing. The paintings were about the act of painting. These works were either abstract or expressionist. Which previous art movement did abstract expressionism develop from? Surrealism because it embraces the relevance of dreams, sexual drives and express these through action.
22. Name 2 characters of Pop Art that indicated this movement was a reaction against abstract expressionism.

Pop Artists includes English artist, Richard Hamilton, and American artist, James Rosenquist.

23. Minimal art meant the subject matter was very different from any other movement, because it was only about only color and form.
24. Conceptual art was less about a finished produce or “ work of art” than it was about the idea in the artist’s mind.
25. Site works or public art had the ability to reach more people and more types of people, but challenged the idea of traditional art by presenting art as an experience rather than as a commodity.
26. Pick a Post Modern work of art from Chapter 25 and discuss it. (Just like a discussion question).
Blue Head by Rothenberg is a synergy between the mind and body of the artist. Unlike Pollack, the piece is more about the color. The monumental painting may have religious symbol and great message. It brings back the meaning to an art work by representing the head as the symbol for subjectivity and personality of the artist while the hand represents the physical process of doing the actual work. It links the humanity back to art and welcomes back metaphorical composition and interpretation to the viewers.