Annotated Mona Lisa Lecture

ADVANCED PLACEMENT ART HISTORY

THE ANNOTATED MONA LISA LECTURE SLIDES PAGES 2-202

- PART ONE – The Birth of Art: Prehistoric Through Medieval

2-3

• Art began around 25,000 years ago. • Great ancient societies include Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. • As art evolved, depictions of human faces and figures became increasingly realistic. • In the Middle Ages, interest in human figural accuracy lessened in favor of Christian subject matter. Art was meant for teaching.

Prehistoric Art: The Beginning

4-5

• Shift from Neanderthal (tool-makers) to Cro-Magnon (image-makers). • Sculpture made from bone, ivory, stone, etc. • Painting done in caves, depicts deer, horses, cattle, mammoths, etc. • Cave paintings are in remote areas of caves • Architecture consists of dolmen, menhir and cromlech. Stonehenge is a cromlech. • Note: “lith” is Latin and Greek for “stone”

Venus Woman of Willendorf, 25,000-20,000 BCE

Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux, France

Dolmen

Menhir

Cromlech

Trilithon (often part of a cromlech)

Mesopotamia: The Architects

6-7

• “Mesopotamia” means “Land between the rivers” • King Nebuchadnezzar II was a prominent ruler. • Sumerians were first inhabitants, they invented the city-state, law, mathematics, formal religion, writing (cuneiform), etc. • Life was regularized and controlled by leaders. • Ziggurats were built. • Bas-relief was utilized to show scenes.

Citadel of Sargon II, 742-706 BCE

Mesopotamian bas-relief:

Mesopotamian cuneiform:

Egypt: The Art of Immortality

8-11

• Egyptian art is obsessed with immortality • Egyptians believed that their leaders were gods, the main concern of their art was to assure a comfortable afterlife for them. • Egyptians established literature, medical sciences and higher mathematics. • Mostly static culture that lasted 3,000 years. • Tomb art is a key to understanding Egypt. • Rigid formula for figures, hieratic scaling used. • Ka, or life force, needed to be accommodated.

Great Pyramids at Giza

Greece: They Invented a lot more than The Olympics

12-15

• Greece’s Golden Age was 480-430 BCE. • Great creativity resulted in advances in art, architecture, poetry, drama, philosophy, government, law, logic, history and math. • Pericles was the primary leader of this era. • Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things” • Greek philosophy stressed harmony and order. • Subjects were humans, gods and heroes. • Invented nude in art (passion and reason). • Tremendous influence on later cultures. • Greek orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.

Which came first? How do you know?

Rome: The Organizers

16-19

• Roman Empire encompassed a huge area. • Romans absorbed Greeks and other cultures. • Romans eventually developed their own art style, focused on true reality, not idealization. • Romans less innovative, more administrative. • Public works: (sewers, roads, bridges, aqueducts, etc.) • Romans used concrete, vaults, domes, baths. • Sculpture was brutally honest (veristic). • Roman Colosseum was a major achievement. • Pompeii is a valuable archaeological site.

Roman Pantheon (“all the gods”)

Pre-Columbian Art of the Americas: New World art when it was still an Old World

20-21

• “Pre-Columbian” refers to the period of culture in North, Central and South America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. • Native American art often focused on religious rituals and the appeasement of nature/gods. • Major cultural groups included Navajo, Hopi, Eskimo, Mayan, Aztec and Incan. • Sand painting, totem poles, murals, masks, dolls and mound building were art forms. • Much Native American art was inspired by visions relayed by a shaman (priest-healer).

African Art: The First Cubists

22-23

Main art in tribal Africa were wood carvings. Masks & in-the-round sculptures were made. Both were abstract, angular and distorted. Many art objects were though to possess spiritual powers and were used during ceremonies (washed, oiled, decorated). • Masks used in conjunction with music and dance, often as part of full costumes. • African art influenced Cubism (Picasso), Fauvism (Matisse), Surrealism (Magritte), Abstract Expressionists (Pollock) and others. • • • •

The Middle Ages: The Reign of Religion

24-29

• Middle Ages lasted for 1,000 years, from the fall of Rome to the start of the Renaissance. • Key figures were Justinian (Byzantine Empire) and Charlemagne (Carolingian Empire). • MAJOR SHIFTS DURING MIDDLE AGES: - culture shifted from south Europe to north. - Christianity triumphed and dominated art. - emphasis on the afterlife, not worldly life.

• THREE MAIN PERIODS OF MIDDLE AGES: - Byzantine - Romanesque - Gothic

• Byzantine culture was centered in the city of Byzantium, Turkey, (later Constantinople, now Istanbul), as well as the Italian capital of Ravenna. • Justinian was the primary Emperor. • Byzantine art had strong Christian themes, Byzantium is sometimes called “The Second Rome”. • Mosaics and religious icons dominated, humans were shown as flat and motionless. • Hagia Sophia was a major worship center.

• The Romanesque era saw a great wave of church building, often based on ancient Roman architecture and features. • Pilgrimages were common, churches were set up to be destinations for travelers. • Churches were huge. Often built on cruciform plan with relief carvings as decoration. • Art was meant to educate the public. • Monks and nuns created elaborate illuminated manuscripts, which preserved biblical teaching.

• Gothic art is characterized by great cathedrals. • Gothic cathedrals focus on height and light. • Cathedrals utilized ribbed vaulting and exterior “flying” buttresses to stay intact. • Some cathedrals were over 50% colored glass. • Pointed arches emphasized verticality. • Cathedrals were a source of civic pride and were meant to inspire mediation and faith. • Long and lean sculpture, woven tapestries and stained glass decorated cathedrals.

Flying buttresses that support Chartres Cathedral

- PART TWO – The Rebirth of Art: Renaissance and Baroque

30-31

• Renaissance is characterized by lifelike art. • More interest in the natural world than in the Middle Ages. • Rediscovery of Greco-Roman traditions. • Expansion of scientific knowledge. - Anatomy - Perspective • Many works commissioned by the papacy. • Artists viewed as skilled professionals, not manual laborers.

The Renaissance: The Beginning of Modern Painting

32-45

• Renaissance (rebirth) began around 1400. • Renaissance began in Italy (Florence). • Great Italian masters: (Masaccio, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Brunelleschi, Bramante and Palladio). • Renaissance spread to Northern Europe. • Prestige of artists increased (divinity). • Age of exploration and scientific inquiry. • Breakthroughs: Oil on canvas, perspective, chiaroscuro and pyramid configuration. • Architecture: Rome, Rules, Reason, `Rithmetic. • Northern Renaissance was more detailed.

linear perspective

pyramid configuration

chiaroscuro (“light and dark”)

Baroque: The Ornate Age

46-65

• Baroque art used emotion, drama and LIGHT. • Baroque art began in Rome around 1600 as the Catholic Church funded huge projects. • Baroque style spread to the north, especially France (Louis XIV’s Palace at Versailles). • Italian masters included Caravaggio (painter), Bernini (sculptor) and Borromini (architect). • Northern European masters included Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez. • Baroque was followed in France by Rococo.

- PART THREE – The Nineteenth Century: Birth of the “Isms”

66-67

• Western civilization was in upheaval: – Church lost much of its power – Monarchies of Europe toppled – New democratic governments floundered – Industrialization and urbanization in cities – Fast pace of scientific progress – Capitalism caused a confused marketplace • The art world reflected this uncertainly • Many styles quickly came and went – Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Symbolism – Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism were more durable

Neoclassicism: Roman Fever

68-73

• • • • • • •

Neoclassicism: “New Classicism” (revival). Neoclassicism was rational, solemn and calm. Reaction against the emotion of Rococo. Founding father was Jacques-Louis David. Patriotism/archaeology fueled Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism painters favored line over color. Revival of Roman and Greek architecture.

Goya: Man without an “ism”

74-75

• • • • • •

Goya was a rebellious Spanish painter. Goya worked as court painter for Charles IV. Opposed tyranny, war, corruption, violence. He sometimes ridiculed his subjects. Influenced by fellow Spaniard Diego Velazquez Blunt, pessimistic, isolated man, obsessed with bizarre and grotesque creatures.

Romanticism: The Power of Passion

76-82

• Romanticism, which got its name from a revived interest in medieval tales called Romances, valued emotion over reason. • A leading Romantic painter was Gericault, followed by Delacroix. Both were passionate.

Realism:

83-88

• Realism does not necessarily mean detailed. • Realism focused on the “unvarnished truth”, subjects are painted without idealization. • Artists painted only what they could see and touch, not fantasy, mythology or history.

Architecture for The Industrial Age

89-90

• New industrial materials, such as cast iron, were used for public buildings, bridges, etc. • A new appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of these materials was discovered.

Art Nouveau

91

• • • •

International ornamental style. Opposed to sterility of the Industrial Age. Used winding, flowering forms to show nature. Tiffany glasswork is the epitome of Art Nouveau style.

Birth of Photography

92-95

Impressionism: Let there be Color and Light

96-109

• Impressionism was a total artistic revolution. • Radical departure from tradition in terms of subject and painting technique. • Rejected traditional perspective, balanced composition, chiaroscuro, idealization. • Favored the immediate appearance of light and visual sensation. • Leaders include Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cassatt, Morisot and Pissarro.

Rodin: First Modern Sculptor

110-111

• Auguste Rodin was the primary sculptor of the nineteenth century in Europe. • He was inspired by Michelangelo’s sculpture. • His work was naturalistic (non-idealized).

Post-Impressionism

112-122

• Post-Impressionists were similar to the Impressionists in brushstroke and color, but quite different in that they wanted to paint more durable subjects. • Key Post-Impressionists were Seurat, Gauguin, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh. -Seurat and Cezanne were more formal. -Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec were more emotionally expressive. • Post-Impressionism set the stage for twentieth century art.

Early Expressionism

123

• Expressionism portrayed emotions through distorting form and color. • Edvard Munch, from Norway, was the main forerunner for Expressionism.

Symbolism

124-125

• Symbolism was a literary and artistic movement in the late 19th century. • Symbolists discarded the visible world of reality for the inner world of fantasy. • Henri Rousseau was a leading Symbolist. • Symbolism was a precursor to Surrealism. • Odilon Redon produced works that produced “a hallucinatory world”.

The Birth of Modern Architecture

126-127

• In the late nineteenth century, some architecture held onto Neoclassical traits (Paris Opera House), while other architects embraced new, more streamlined ideals (Carson-Pirie-Scott Department Store). • The American Louis Sullivan is considered the first modern architect.

- PART FOUR – The Twentieth Century: Modern Art

128-129

• Twentieth century marked the most radical shift in style in the history of Western art. • Styles changed incredibly quickly. • Art was less concerned with visual reality, more concerned with interior vision. • All subjects were “fair game”. • Traditional rules did not apply (color, form). • Modernism was a rejection of all things past. • Art world shifted from Paris to New York around 1950 with the Abstract Expressionists.

Fauvism: Exploding Color

130-132

• • • •

Fauvism was short lived (1904-1908). Fauvists used arbitrary (non-objective) color. Founders: Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. Fauvists collected African tribal masks.

Twentieth Century Sculpture: A New Look

133

• The lead sculptor in the early twentieth century was Constantin Brancusi. • Brancusi believed in stripping away all non-essential details and revealing only basic forms.

Twin Titans of the Twentieth Century: Matisse and Picasso

134-137

• Matisse rebelled against established notions of color (Fauvism). Matisse eliminated details and became a Minimalist before his time. • Picasso rebelled against established notions of shape and form (Cubism). • Picasso continually shocked the art world with new innovations, especially Cubism. • Picasso produced an estimated 50,000 pieces. • Blue Period, Rose, Negro, Cubism.

Cubism

138

• Four pioneers of Cubism were Picasso, Braque, Leger and Gris. Cubism lasted from 1908-14. • Cubism was about breaking objects into pieces. Many Cubism pieces are on the brink of dissolving the subject. • Leger: “Art consists of inventing, not copying”. • ANALYTIC CUBISM: Objects are broken down into facets and shapes. Often monochromatic. • SYNTHETIC CUBISM: Objects are combined into abstracted forms. Often collages.

Modernism Outside of France

139-144

• Post WWI, chaos reigned over many nations. • Artists responded to this chaos by creating art classified as Futurism (Italy), Constructivism (Russia) and Precisionism (USA). • All three are adapted forms of Cubism. • German Expressionism showed raw emotion over visual reality (Kollwitz, Kirchner, Klimt…) • Die Brucke “The Bridge” expressed sickness of the soul as a major subject.

Mondrian: Harmony of Opposites

145

• Mondrian tried to eliminate all emotion from art (opposite of Expressionism). • Dutch movement called De Stijl, advocated severe art of pure geometry and composition. • Mondrian strove to create art that was precise and mechanical, mathematical order that was lacking in nature and society. • To Mondrian, vertical lines represented vitality and horizontal lines represented tranquility. • Opposed the cult of subjective feeling.

Modernist Architecture: Geometry to Live in

146-147

• The new International Style of architecture shed all aspects of historicism. • Architecture of the twentieth century was more streamlined than ever before. • Walter Gropius, director of Bauhaus School in Germany, set the stage for modern buildings. • Houses became “machines for living”. • Less personality, more mass production. • Frank Lloyd Wright was an American pioneer.

Dada and Surrealism: Art Between the Wars

148-151

• Dada was meant to cultivate absurdity as a reaction against the establishment and war. • Main strategy was to denounce and shock. • Dada rebelled against the notion of art itself. • Dadaist: Duchamp, Arp and Schwitters. • Surrealism was about harnessing dream imagery and unconscious awareness. • Surrealists: Dali, Miro, DeChirico, Ernst, Magritte.

Photography Comes of Age

152-153

• Early twentieth century photographers tried to carefully compose their work, like a painter, due to critical pressures. • As photography progressed, more photographers made their work personal. • Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange and others tried to realistically document the “unbeautiful” world around them.

American Art: 1908-40

154-157

• Ashcan School artists: many started out as newspaper sketch artists. • Ashcan School artists hastily documented life around them, especially in New York City. • American painters in 1908-1940 were typically either Scene painters (Benton, Wood) or Social Realism (Bellows, Marin, Sloan). • Both wanted to show American life.

Abstract Expressionism

158-161

• Abstract Expressionism, aka Action Painting, The New York School, emphasized the active process of making art, not just the final piece. • AE stressed energy, action and freneticism. • In AE, the act of painting had value. • In AE, no recognizable images were needed. • The best known AE artists are: – Pollock, Gorky, de Kooning, Kline, Still, Motherwell.

Figural Expressionism: Not just a pretty face

162-163

• Figural Expressionists did not embrace the idea that art should have no subject. • They believed that art must express truth beyond surface appearance. • Jean Dubuffet began Art Brut, art of children, the insane and those on the edges of society. • Outsider Art became popular.

Postwar Sculpture

164-165

• Post World War II sculptors worked with new materials, new techniques and new forms. • Highlighted by experimentation. • Henry Moore used biomorphic shapes, like Arp and Miro, based on natural forms. • Calder created sculptures that move (kinetic). • David Smith used steel as a medium • Louise Nevelson used wood and worked in an assembly technique.

Color Field

166-167

• Color Field painting was a spinoff of Abstract Expressionism, using huge bold canvases. • Color Field painters, like Rothko, did not want to tell a detailed story. They worked large in order to “take in” the viewer. • Helen Frankenthaler combined Pollock’s drip technique with Marin’s watercolors.

- PART FIVE – The Twentieth Century and Beyond: Contemporary Art

168-169

• Contemporary art is still happening, and has been rapidly shifting since 1960. • Opposed to Pollock’s Abstract Expressionism. • Artists struggled with being truly original in a world where almost anything served as art. • As the twentieth century ended, no geographic area was dominant, and art was more diverse than ever before.

Hard Edge

170-171

• Created machinelike forms to annihilate Pollock’s Action Painting. • Hard Edge painters wanted to “clean up” art. • Hard, cool, clean paintings, art was meant to be viewed as an independent object. • Precise, impersonal designs.

Pre-Pop Art

172-173

• Pre-Pop artists looked to distinguish themselves from Abstract Expressionists. • Robert Rauschenberg was a main Pre-Pop artist, he developed “combines”. • Jasper Johns was a co-founder of Pre-Pop art, he experimented with altering objects that were already familiar.

Pop Art

174-176

• Embraced commercial imagery and mass-produced forms (started by Pre-Pop artists). • Many Pop Artists had commercial art backgrounds. • Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg were major Pop Artists. • Anonymous, witty, impersonal subject matter. • Mainstream subjects like soup cans, comic strips, dollar bills, celebrities, etc.

Minimalism: The Cool School

177

• Donald Judd defined Minimalism as “getting rid of the things that people used to think were essential to art”. • Eradicated individual emotions, messages and ideas. • Used prefabricated, anonymous materials. • By eliminating details and distractions, Minimalists forced the viewer to pay attention to the materials.

Conceptual Art: Invisible Visual Art

178-179

• • • • •

Eliminated the idea of hand-made art. “Painting is dead”, historical curiosities. Criticized the “Capitalistic” gallery system. Art resides in the concept, not the object. Emphasizes the artist’s thinking, not materials.

Contemporary Architecture

180-183

• International Style had grown old, too uniform and mass-produced. Worldwide similarities. • More curvilinear, asymmetrical shapes. • Post-Modern architecture is pluralistic. • Continually experimenting.

Photography: What’s New

184-186

• No single trend exists in modern photography. • The most important trait is diversity. • A tendency of modern photography is to combine images with text.

Photo-Realism

187

• Also known as Hyper-Realism. • Influenced by Pop Art, paintings reproduced life with photo-like accuracy. • Key Photo-Realists were Audrey Flack, Richard Estes, Chuck Close and Duane Hanson.

Neo-Expressionism

188-189

• Around 1980, European artists returned to figure painting and recognizable images. • Infused the public with intense, emotional work, bringing back subjects and painting. • Neo-Expressionism began in Germany.

The New Breed: Post-Modern Art

190-194

• Art of the 1990’s was political, often involving heavy text with images. • Often dealt with social issues (AIDS, homelessness, racism, environmentalism, etc.)

Contemporary Art

195-202

• Video art is a new component of Contemporary Art. Viewer stands still, while the artwork produces movement and sound. • Art is more globalized than ever before, artists attempt to make their work a universal language. • Installation art became a major movement. • Collaborative art played a role.

Artists are still being trained in the “classical” style of realism! Katie Whipple (AHS Class of 2009), Portrait Drawing, graphite, 2011