Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907

-The originator of the Cubist painting style.

-Picasso is very interested in how he can structure the idea of breaking down space.

-This is Picasso picking up on Cezanne’s idea and blowing it up ridiculously.

-The masks relate to Picasso’s style because African masks would sometimes break down the anatomy in the human face in a way much like how he painted.

-This painting was a sort of “test case.” Picasso wants to do things with this painting that go beyond it.

-He searches for someone who wants to collaborate on this idea, Georges Braque.

Cut With the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weiman Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, Hannah Hoch, 1919-1920

-Following WWI, Germany went through a period of hyperinflation so severe that the German currency was not worth the paper it was printed on.

-Hoch works in a style called photo montage. This collage is divided into segments; Hoch is a subject, as are many other Dadaist artists.

-The anti-Dadaists are also represented.

-There’s a sense of the absurd mixed in with the idea of the mechanical. A lot of the criticism in this image is of the industry in Germany being involved in German government.

-This is also the beginnings of the feminist movement. First, Hoch is wearing pants (which was a symbol of radical feminism at the time), and she also has short hair.

-Hoch presents herself as the “new woman,” meaning she was claiming political power and was a liberated woman in some ways.

-WWI was a point in which many women moved into the workplace while their husbands fought in the war.

-There is a sense that the dadaists at the bottom of the image are allied with the feminists.

 -This relates to the idea of the title: she’s using a kitchen knife (a woman’s tool) to cut out images. If the kitchen knife is a tool of a woman and she’s using that tool for this image, this is women’s work.

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, 1931

-The interest in the art of the illogical inspires a successor art movement called surrealism. Surrealism is heavily influenced by the development of modern psychoanalysis (Freud’s studies on dream interpretation).

-Freud believed you could determine someone’s psychological issues based on the way their unconscious mind produced ideas and imagery.

-The surrealist goal as artists was to produce a style that reflected the dream state and the conscious world. Aka, the combination of the unconscious and the real.

-The “melting” clocks may represent the impossibility to tell time in a dream. There’s also a tree growing out of a box.

-The “smear” in the image has been suggested to be a skewed self-portrait of Dali.

-This gives the sense of this not being the literal world, but the sorts of things you would expect to find in a dream.

 -Dali was fascinated by Freud, and wanted to use the stuff that appeared in his dreams as material in his painting. Therefore, he kept a dream journal to “mine” for images to represent in his paintings.

Number 1, 1950 (aka Lavender Mist), Jackson Pollock, 1950

-The first truly American art movement is called Abstract Expressionism.

-Pollock painted entirely abstract compositions that involved what we call “gestural,” the flinging of paint.

-Pollock was wildly popular and a very troubled man. He struggled with alcoholism his whole life, and started undergoing psychoanalysis to grapple with this.

-This psychoanalysis was what led him into a contemplative approach to painting.

-For Pollock, the art making process was more important than the end result (process over product).

-He would lay canvas stretched out on the floor of his studio, take industrial house and car paint, and fling it at paintings. Industrial paint is much less viscous, and so flings more easily.

-He would literally dance around a canvas flinging paint. In the same way surrealist thought the unconscious mind could generate ideas of painting, Jackson used this method to enter his unconscious and paint things such as this.

-Pollock got to the point in painting where his body was on autopilot, so to speak, and he no longer had to focus on the specific painting aspect.

-There is also a very political component to the development of American abstraction.

-It is related to the fear of communism in the United States (McCarthyism). McCarthy was the chair of the Joint Committee of un-American Activities. This was the Red Scare, where the United States was trying to root out anyone who was a member of the Communist party.

-Most of the artists that came to the United States from other countries were literally card-carrying members of the Communist party.

-Many artists were therefore very concerned about McCarthyism, and are trying to keep their political affiliations quiet.

-The artists also didn’t want to be heavily identified with capitalism either. They were essentially walking a fine line between the two ideals, since abstract art couldn’t be used to sell anything.

 -Abstract art is solely about personal expression, and not about any political ideal. They’re caught between a rock and a hard place when the United States asks to send the abstract artists to the border countries on the Iron Curtain to talk about how awesome the United States is since they can express themselves freely there.

Marilyn Diptych, Andy Warhol, 1962

-Warhol begins his career as a graphic artist and designer who does advertisements.

-Many of his earlier works deal with consumer products, but he also deals with celebrities in the same way he deals with products.

-This gives the idea of actors being as much a consumer product as anything else.

-Many of Warhol’s works are print screened. Just like the products he’s advertising, his works are infinitely reproducible as well.

-Warhol is interested in the idea of consumer commodities and mass reproduction. His works appear on surface to glorify this, but on the second level, they actually criticize it.

-Warhol had a studio called The Factory, where he produced his works. They were printed, and many other people made them other than him. He made the argument that since he designed it, it was his work even if he didn’t produce the one copy himself.

 -This brings back the question of The Fountain: how much work does an artist have to actually do to consider a work their own?

Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson, 1970

-Smithson is part of a group known as Land Artists.

-They were interested in moving art out of a gallery, because at the time there was a huge concern over how much power art galleries have over determining what good and bad art are.

-The Land Artists tried to take power away from the museums by making art that was incapable of being in a museum.

-The story goes that Smithson was driving through Utah and saw some land that he was particularly interested in.

-It had been owned by an oil company who found that it was not promising as oil land.

-Smithson negotiates a deal to purchase this. After researching the land, he finds that the salt in this location forms in spiral shapes, shapes similar to the design he was planning for his artwork.

Untitled Film Still #35, Cindy Sherman, 1979

-Sherman is a photographer who self-identifies as a feminist artist.

-She points out the ways that gender roles themselves are socially constructed. She’s interested in the way cultures and societies teach us to be men and women.

-This is one in a series of many stills that are not from any actual movie, but meant to look as though they are.

-The subject of the photo appears to be about to walk out the door, and seems angry at someone.

-Her clothing as a whole, including her apron, tell us that she is a housewife by profession.

-She seems to be lower middle class, judging from the dirty door, older-looking house and mediocre clothing.

-She seems to be in the universal “angry woman” posture, with her hands on his hips. She additionally is giving a half glare, over-the-shoulder look.

-The fact that we know all of this information without actually knowing the narrative behind it is a commentary on the idea of stereotypes and gender roles. The message here is so unbelievably common that we can dissect all this information while knowing almost nothing about it.

-There is a shutter cord on the floor, the method by which a photo would be taken remotely before infrared remote controls.

-Sherman allows us to see the cord while many photographers would hide it. This is because she wants us to remember that she constructed this image of stereotyping, just like the idea of the “housewife” is a societal construction.

Obey, Consume, Repeat, Shepard Fairey, 2010

-Fairey’s works are not intended to last forever. This particular work was for a street art exhibition in San Diego.

-San Diego commissioned many famous street artists to paint works for the exhibition.

-Fairey’s work uses wheat paste and paper, something that was not meant to last forever.

-This is another criticism of the anti-museum movement. It’s art that’s conceptually different than graffiti, for example.

-Fairey is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.

-He started doing this type of work in Rhode Island to draw attention to his style of work.

-He branched into a broader series of images.

-Fairey uses repeated images of icons in his work. He states that he’s interested in how repetition creates a perceived meaning. He’s playing with the question of how audiences see his work.

-Fairey’s work essentially has no literal meaning.

Army of the First Emperor of Qin, Qin dynasty, 210 BCE

-In 400 BCE, there’s a period of art called the Warring Dynasty Period.

-There’s no ruling family during this period. It comes to an end when a man named Qin came and reunified China. He also builds the Great Wall, and formalizes the Chinese calligraphic script.

-This is the army that was buried with Qin, made of clay. There are over 7,000 soldiers, horses and other elements.

-There is another sort of tomb mound behind this that has not yet been excavated.

Travelers among the Mountains and Streams, Fan Kuan, early 11th century

-This is over seven feet tall.

-Kuan was a Daoist recluse, and didn’t want to work with other people.

-He writes about his artistic philosophy. He argues that the best teacher for an artist is in fact nature. This ties in very well with Daoist ideas of living in respect and harmony with the natural environment.

-This ran against the traditional form of art instruction of the time.

-The humans in this work are miniscule compared to the natural environment, reinforcing this.

Shaka Triad, Tori Busshi, 623

-Japan and China around this time are uniting in their artistic interests.

-Therefore, Japan adopts many elements of Chinese court culture.

-Japan adopts Buddhism among many other elements of Chinese culture.

-Buddhism is firmly established as a religious practice in Japan by the 600s.

-Shinto and Buddhism are basically operating side-by-side in Japan at this time.

-This is in a Buddhist monastary. This is commissioned by a priestess whose son is sick. She wants to ensure he gets better, so she dedicates this commission to Buddha.

-The Buddha is holding the “fear not” gesture, meant to communicate a wish of well-being.

 -Japanese Buddha sculptures, both in detail of the Buddha himself and his clothes, are often more elegant looking than Chinese ones.

Evening Bell at the Clock, Suzuki Harunobu, c. 1765

-One thing that happens around this time is that the Japanese emperor is concerned about the influence of western culture.

-The emperor’s interest in maintaining the core of Japanese culture doesn’t just extend to traders; he also wants to roll back some social reforms, and he doesn’t want an educated population. He wants people to be illiterate, essentially.

-The Floating World? Look up.

-Elements of The Floating World include theater, musical performances, etc.

-One artistic tradition of this is Woodblock Printmaking.

-An element of this style is Ukiyo-e.

-These inexpensive prints made their way to France first during the impressionist period.

-The French are fascinated with this style of printmaking and start ordering prints.

-You could make these prints more expensive by using more expensive paper, ink and more color.

-Harunobu made high quality prints, called nishiki-e.

-The use of color was an indicator of expense because for each additional color, another block of wood had to be carved.

-Another indicator of cost is Harunobu’s ability to carve patterns.

-The last color would always be black in these prints, so it could masks joints between certain colors.

-What they’re doing here is paying attention to an implement of a modern clock.

-There is no visible horizon line here. This is very standard for much of Japanese art.

Ku Figure, Native Hawai'ian people, not dated

-Sculptures in Hawaiian areas such as this were called Heiau.

-Lono is the god of agriculture; Ku is the god of war, and food associated with warfare.

-This represents a specific form of Ku, the Ku that is the Snatcher of Lands.

-The Ku figure here is explaining a lot of the ideas about warfare in Polynesia.

-This is probably also dealing with the role of genealogy. It represents conflict, because many wars in Polynesia were caused by a brother trying to take power from another brother.

-The face the figure is making is called the Mouth of Disrespect, meant to intimidate the enemy.

-Essentially, they believed shaming someone would almost be better than killing them, since they would have to live with that shame for the rest of their lives.

-Therefore, this Ku, as the snatcher of lands, would be the ultimate in “shaming” an enemy, or at the very least intimidating them.

-We should also consider that Lono and Ku exist as compliments to one another: they both represent genealogy, but Lono represents family in harmony while Ku represents family in discord.

Stone Moai, Rapa Nui people, 1000-1500

-Rapa Nui is heavily deforested, and we believe this is because they used up what little trees they had to carve these stone pieces.

-These are anywhere from ten to sixty feet tall.

-From the waist down, the rest of the body is buried into the ground.

-They probably represent ancestor figures. They were placed around an important ritual platform called the Ahu Platform. This platform would have ridges, upon which the Moai stood.

-We know they stopped being made around 1500 because the British explorer James Cook found many of these knocked over. When asking the people of Easter Island had happened, they explained that they no longer practiced this religion.

-Cook finds that the last thing that happens to the sculptures is the eyes being placed in, left eye first. After this, they were viewed as being spiritually activated. If the right eye was popped out, it was deactivated.

-Many wear hats, called pukao, probably meant to stop people from touching the top of their head, being that a religious belief among these individuals was that touching one’s head caused a transfer of manna.

King, Yoruba, 11th to 12th century

-The Yoruba were one of the most prominent kingdoms in this region.

-The Yoruba believe the world was created by their creator god, and mades with the earth.

-From their mating, the first people are born. These immediate people are the children of the creator god, from them the Yoruba, and from the Yoruba the rest of the world.

-The creator children are the rulers of the world, the Oni.

-This is made of cast brass. There is a tradition of lost wax casting in Africa. The wax model is probably a plant-based wax. A wax version of a sculpture like this would be made, around which a clay mould would be made. You would then melt the brass inside the clay.

-Proportionally, the figure is very stubby. The big head feature is the reason for this. The Yoruba believe the head is the seat of power and wisdom. By emphasizing the head of the ruler, this sculpture is saying the King is wise and intelligent.

-The large belly is probably an indicator of high status.

-Most of his costume indicates his status: his beaded hat, a massive number of beaded necklaces, beaded bracelets and ankles, etc. In modern Yoruba society, beadwork is associated with royalty. These beads therefore speak to his royal status.

-In one hand, he holds a horn, the Horn of the Forest Buffalo, which would have held medicine, and the other is a club, a symbol of power, aka objects of rule: mercy and power.

-This is a lot more naturalistic than a lot of other African sculpture of the region. We’re not sure what exact ruler this is an image of, but one of the assumptions is that works like this were to record who specific rulers were.

Ancestral Screen, Kalabari Ijaw people, 19th century

-The Ijaw people come to prominence in the latter 20th century through trade with Europe.

-By the time we’re in this period, the slave trade is abolished, but a lot of trade with Europe prior to abolition probably involved slaves, and there’s some evidence that some African tribe groups were involved.

-This is about four feet tall. It’s an important object that memorializes the dead, specifically someone important.

-In this case, this is a memorial of an Ijaw trading corporation.

-One reason they were so successful is that the Ijaw formed corporations, where the entire tribe would operate as a unit so that Europeans couldn’t use competitors to drive prices down.

-When a corp leader died, it was very important to perform proper ceremonies to ensure that the spirits would feel favorably toward him,

-A way to do this was the construct a very specific screen called a Nduen Fobara.

-This object represented the figure’s power while also absorbing his spiritual essence and was very spiritually important.

-There are a lot of objects added on to this work. The ship on his head, the staff and the blanket.

-The heads at his feet are the enemies he’s conquered in battle, and the heads at the top are either his servants or slaves. Therefore there’s the idea that everything above his head is people he controls.

-The ship at the top creates the idea that the Ijaw believed they controlled trade with Europe, since it is also above his head.

-There’s therefore a political component to this, but also an important religious element, because it is more or less the body of the spirit.

Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc, Maya people, 725 CE

-Sacrifice was very common and important in Mayan culture, but it was not always death sacrifice.

-There is also sacrifice that is not deadly, but painful. They used bloodletting among the ruler families of Maya.

-This is a sculpture that would be on the ceiling of a doorway, such as in a temple.

-The figure on the left is the Shield Jaguar, one of the rulers of the city. Lady Xoc is the figure on the right. She’s performing the act of bloodletting.

-She’s using a rope with thorns to perform the bloodletting by perforating her tongue.

-The blood is dripping into a bowl at her feet, which is filled with paper.

-This was necessary for blood letting in Maya, because blood sacrifice was for the Gods.

-Once the paper dried, the paper and a type of incense called Copal would be burned to release the smell to the Gods.

-This sacrifice went to the God of Corn, because this god created the Mayan people.

-There are apparently several times when the Gods try to create people, but it fails each time. The Corn God steps in and used his own blood to “grow” the Maya people.

 -The Maya therefore have to sacrifice blood as a repayment to the God of Corn.

Coyolxauhqui, Aztec, c. 1469

-Coyo is the goddess of the moon. Her mother is an earth goddess, and Coyo has all of the stars in the sky as her brothers.

-At the time, Coyo lives on a place called Serpent Mountain, and one day, her mother is sweeping, and a mote of dust impregnated her mother.

-Coyo does not want her brother to be born, because she doesn't want anything to be brighter than her.

-Coyo meets with the stars in the sky, and they decide to kill their mother.

-They behead the earth goddess and toss her down the side of a mountain.

-Huitz is born from her dead mother and immediately knows what his sister has done, so he repays her by rolling her down the hill as well.

-This is a metaphor for the sun and the moon rotating around the earth, and the continuing battle of dominance.

-Huitz is the most important God of the Aztec people.

-This stone is more than ten feet in diameter.

-It was placed at the base of the staircase of the Huitz Temple in the city of Tenochtitlan.

 -Sacrifices would be made at the top of this temple, and then they were tossed down the staircase, much like Coyo, so that they would appear broken and bloodied by the time they reached the bottom.

Hunter’s Summer Coat, Innu c. 1805

-Innu live in subarctics, where it is very cold.

-The predominant food source is what they hunt; this isn’t an area where the sun is prominent enough to allow for agriculture.

-Hunting is a key component for the Innu survival; it makes sense that the works of art representing hunting would be prominent.

-This is made of caribou hide, and it’s not a traditionally shaped coat for the Innu.

-This is inspired by European costume. There was a kind of European trapping coat called a Great Coat.

-This is dress-like because the women who made them used extra hide to make it look “fuller.”

-This was intentional because it’s extremely difficult to run wearing a tight skirt.

-You need a full range of motion while hunting, and so this coat allowed for that full range.

-There’s also a spiritual component to this; it’s because of how the Innu understood hunting.

-In an animal-hunter relationship, the hunter is viewed as the most powerful traditionally. However, the Innu believe the opposite: they believe the animal being hunted was the most powerful.

-This is because the Innu conceptualized a successful hunt as whether the animal was willing to die for a hunter. Essentially, the animal would not be dominated, but let the hunter kill him. It was therefore all in the hands of the animal being hunted.

-Innu believe that all caribou receive their spiritual energy from the Lord of the Caribou, who releases the spirits of all the caribou so the herd will come into a new territory.

-The Innu believe they need to show the Lord of the Caribou that they’re worthy of having enough animals to hunt, so that he will release them to be hunted.

-So on one level, hunting clothing is meant to please the Lord. The geometric patterns are metaphoric representations of the magical mountains on which the Lord lives.

-There’s also an element which makes the hunter attractive to the caribou, since it’s made of caribou hide. They believed that if you performed a certain ceremony over the hide while the clothing was being made, you would imbibe certain qualities that would attract caribou to you.

-It was a way of communicating to animals that the hunters would treat them properly.

Loon Mask, Yup’ik people, before 1892

-This mask represents a loon, which was very important for these people, because it was understood as being able to move between worlds both metaphorically and in reality. They believed that since the loon dived underwater to hunt, it had the ability to move between the living world and the spirit world.

-The fork-like appendages are the product of the Yup’ik trading with the Europeans, so they’re probably literally salad forks.

-The human legs and the fork hands are both representations of the human body.

-If you were to rotate the mask, you could see a human carved face within the beak.

-This is because of how the Yup’ik conceptualized the spirit. They had the idea of Yua, which is a spirit that inhabits all living things.

-They wanted to communicate that there is no difference between a human and a loon Yua.

-Like with the Innu, hunting is key to survival. The idea of Yua is extremely important, because the Yua lives in every living thing’s gallbladder. When the Yup’ik hunt animals, they believe since the animals have souls, they must eat everything, or make use of everything of that animal, such as sinew for sewing.

-Anything that was completely useless would be taken and left at the place where the animal was hunted.

-The only thing that was preserved was the gallbladder, because that’s where the Yua lived. The gallbladder would be stored in a ceremonial house.

-There wouldn’t be much daylight this time of year, so people would mostly stay indoors.

-The opening of the winter season was called the Bladder Festival, where all the stored gallbladders are inflated and songs are sung to them. Masks are worn during this festival, such as this one.

-Behind this mask is a bite bar, and you would hold it in place with your teeth. It would therefore look like it was floating in front of the person wearing it.

-The inflated bladders are then cast out to shore and they’re whisked away by the currents. They then sink under water, and all the Yua residing in those bladders return to Sedna, the Sea Mother. Like the Lord of the Caribou, Sedna sends out the spirits of all the animals who have been hunted.

-The animals then tell Sedna whether they were treated rightly, and if they were, the Yup’ik would be given food the next year.