Art informel

·      His work was largely autobiographical because he worked for the French Resistance movement and witnessed many atrocities

·      His work consists of much layering, scratching, and has a formless quality

·      It is considered to be anti-academic, anti-natural-emotional

·      Work is considered magic realism or ritualistic

Head of a hostage, 1943

·      Actual size of head

·      Based on autobiography-the witnessed  atrocity to the French.  He heard germans bring French hostage in the woods, he heard 4 shots.

·      Emotional-fascaux cave like, plaster, chalk

·      Primitive-early origins of western art

·      Fragile-canvas, 3 layers of paper

·      Layers-time

·      Abstract

Art Brut/Raw Art

·      Raw Art-it is primitive and earthy

·      He explored the out of children and the insane

·      His intention was to produce an art that was unmediated and pure

·      He rejected traditional art styles and techniques

·      He painted scenes of Germanys occupation of paris during the war

·      Self taught artist, and began making art when he was 45

Unmediated-no conscious training-child or insane people are incapable of using skills

Early origin, child like state (primitive), also cave people could not speak, but could make art

 Party City Scene, 1944

o   parade of Nazis-“goose stepping armies” continually showing power and intimidating people of france

o   autobiographical, unmediated (child like) bc of colors. Red-powerful, anger, emotional, primary color, pulls background to foreground, Closter phobia,

·      French are in black because they are depressed. They are faking happiness, and the French are like children.

     Large Sooty Nude, 1945

Based on cave painting, Lascaux

The body of women, women give birth to the new world, return to humanity.

During this time, French asked germans not to bomb them in paris, and germans took over.

1.     women will birth the new generation and bring them of the war

2.     the caves were the beginning of humanity, “mans inhumanity to man”

1.     Mother Goddess. 1945

Most unmediated, pure, childlike

Builds with glues, gesso, adding a lot of texture

Primitive, cave wall and goddess

Raw art, used red and browns for cave paintings

Thick and crusted paint

     Group of four trees. 1972

Made of fiber glass, and weighted with 3.5 tons of steel and concrete

Where: chase manhattan plaza, new york. NY

40 ft tall and 38 feet wide

made specifically for the chase plaza

plasticity of NY symbolism is unknown

the full intent is unknown

Italian, born in Switzerland, dived in France

Bw the wars, his works represented the surrealists ideas of interior landscapes

After WWII, his works seem to represent the philosophies of jean paul sarte,

Existentialism, which embraced the idea that man is alone in the world

Sartre, who wrote Being and Nothingness, 1943, said that Giacometti work perfectly exemplified his philosophy of existentialism

Surrealists made it possible to make what was inside their head rather than that they can actually see. Giocometti responds to that through spoon woman

1.     La Place, 1947

Stone with bronze figures

La place the place or piazza, where people/streets intersect and socialize

Perfect ex of existialism

People will believe that if they keep walking at the same speed, they will not intersect

This is not a traditional figure

1.     head of a man on a rod, 1947

Egyptians would decapitate their enemies and take it to their leader. Put them on a pipe on the outskirts of town. After  world war II

Horror feeling from the face.

Not an advocate of war, its so expressive and you can relate to it.

He always started realistically and ended up being highly textured

british Sculpture

British Sculpture

Henry moore was the british war artist assigned to sketch the city of London during air raids and after bombings.

He was the best known british sculptor

He sketched in the “tube”, which is the subway in England.

He used ancient sculpture as influence

His work is highly organic and he called himself a “carver”

Moore worked in wood and stone, excavating the materials.

Like most artists, he was unable to get metals until after war.

Moores organic sub matter reflection societys cry to return to humanity after enormous devestation

The female figure and the repopulation of Europe

He walked around the city of London and drew things of war. People would go to the Tube to be safe and he would draw the people down there and the events.

Influence is ancient culture

There was no metal because of the need for it for weapons in the war.

Return to humanity with women

1.     recumbent figure, 1938

highly organic and geometric fashion 4 by 6ft

carved Elmwood

they assume it’s a female, soft and curvaceous

most of his reclining figures are female.

Exclavator-taking the object from within. Influenced by ancient culture. 

1.     shelterers in the tube, 1941

during the war trying to stay safe from the bombing

bodies are round like his sculptuors

abstracted reality. 

1.     internal and external reclining figures, 1951

started from wood and turned into bronze.

Figures engulfing other figures

A single person interacting intimately with another

Picaso work

Heads aren’t important, its about the masses of humanity.

Friend of henry moore

Worked in organicism also, but with a geometric quality.

We call her work geometric organicism

She was influenced by ancient cultures, including easter island figures

She called her abstractions “figures in a landscape”

Traveling through country with her father and seeing figures, influenced by Russian constructivist string/wire.

1.     sculpture with color and string, 1939-61

metal, not string

poured in bronze after the war when there was metal

oval/egg shape

she had triplets when this was finished

color of string-used acids to wipe it, it’s a seagreen.

It is a figure in a landscape

Used the string to show the tension within the object, to see them not imagine them

Figural energy

Starts before the war and finishes after the war

Has 4 kids in the process.

Hieroglyphic work, totemic, stacked like totem poles. Stands for being a human. 

1.     curved form II, with wire, 1961

organic geometry

wire creates tension from edges to within. It is totemic and upright.

Figure in a landscape

Looking for a return to human also, in the UK not Europe

“maternal” female with arms out for a hug.

Tension with arms and hear

Its like a child leaving a nest

1.     square with two circles (monolith) 1963

more geometric and totemic

square circles – man and woman

art became more sharper and hard edged

american, drip or action painter

influenced by: 

1. shamanistic navaho sand painting

2. the caves at lascaux

3. jazz rhythms, influenced by surrealism

4.jungian psychoanalytics

Guardians of the Secret, 1943

gestural, action painting

under the style of abstract expressionism

glyph making-jungian architype

jackson pollock

Lucifer, 1947

last canvas in mythological type

drip painting

unprimed canvas, 

household/industrial paint on the floor

brush never touches canvas

lucifer-Gods fallen angel. people were going to love it or hate it. he knew the reaction and break through that was going to happen. 

Dutch immigrant known as a gestural painter

he left the "accident' in

he borrowed "the drip" from picasso, influenced by picasso

and by ancient sculpture, iconic images of women, kandisky, matisse

considered painting a "moral struggle"

interested in a tantalizing glimpse

merged foreground to the background

glimpe of something to come

excavation, 1953

abstract expressionist

technique: drawn on role of paper

he cut out layers excavating them

tantalizing glimpses, white spaces are the glimpses of what he saw in the brothels with prostitutes

woman 1, 1950-52

mother physically abused kooning

based on the iconic influence of mary

resemblence of his mother

left home at 22 to ameria to escape bad life

broad strokes strikes emotion and drip

background and foreground merged

influenced by ancient sculpture

woman with a bicycle, 1952

its common to ride bicyles when a woman is protesting against womans libertaion and petition their rights. 

gestural and layered

merging foreground and background

tantalizing glimpses in white space

created in gotham, NY after his mothers last visit

he then decided to never see her again

mezmorized by detective comic books

its violent but peaceful

Color field painting

abstract expressionist

Russian jewish immigrant, who was a color field painter

he wanted to engulf the viewer in color

believed in light and dark as represented of good and evil

idealistic and mystical 

"romantic"-he had a different vision and saw something that isnt in the actual world

very depressed man

Subway Scene, 1938

friends with other abstract expressionists

highly abstract subway scene

many rectangles, geometric abstraction

transitional piece

golden composition, 1949

structures but with light and color

process: unprimed canvas (pollock), takes thin paint and dry brush, then loose and gestural painting.

thinned out oil paint with sponges, and pounces color getting soft edges

paintings suffer from fading

his intention: for the viewer to be able to get close enough to be engulfed in color and let the color evoke emotion and think about how THEY feel.

Blue, orange, red, 1961

abstract expressionist

color field painting