art of the XX-XXIth centuries
art essays Europea university of Madrid [ course of SARA GUTIERREZ DEWAR]
Lena Tkachenka
--------
III S_16
002
essay 001 Giacomo Balla “Lines- force of Boccioni’s fist”, 1915 Question 1
What art movement does this painting belong to? This painting belongs to the movement of futurism, which started in Italy in the 20s. Futurism is based on the idea of decline of the past for the future, which also has “just 20 years” to be built, until new generation will come. We can see the elements of futurism: chromatic clearance, simple forms, sharp edges. The painting represents the clearest symbol of speed, movement, simultation of moments. Forms here because of composition have an unstopable force inside. This force is blind and cannot be stopped. The movement inside of the painting is in common with the pathos of destroyal as a cleadning anrefreshing movement in society. It’s a lot about war. Everybody can take this painting personally, as if this mad force would be his own.
Question 2
Why do you consider it a “modern painting”? The painting is clearly modern because it denies the old way of representation of thought as outdated for the new century and industrial revolution with its movement, power and energy that changes the world, We can see the plactic of forms and lines. There is no “copying of the reality”, The rythms are not in balance, sharp edges represent speed. “Lines -force of Boccioni’s fist” is a political message as well and a reaction on the cruel changes in Italy and Europe overall. The work is very intuitive, based on the imagination and the feel of the author. For me the painting reminds the ancient wheel of life, which can be seen in almost all prechristian societies. The movement is happening due to the strong three elements. Two triangles keep the composition more in “the air”, so the whole structure moves itself. White I understood as a small piece of air, or spirit on the edges of “movement”, “wheel”.
|1|
004
essay 002 Kandinsky “Broken Line” Question 3
Comparison to suprematism
Vasiliy Kandinsky was the creator of abstractionism in Russia. The movement is based on the idea of harmonisation of the image due to colors and composition, freeing from copying the reality. In the work “Broken Line” abstraktionism is becoming closer to suprematism. Suprematism was proclaiming that the color and form has to be floating in space freely same as sounds are free in the musical composition. Color and line, shape is the “suprema”, it’s an old forgotten language. This work is special for Kandinsky, because, in comparison with other his paintings, it doesnt have a calm environment inside. It’s more about movement, same as in Balla’s “Lines”. Red round and arrow “ breaks the line”. Two triangles are also codes, without them the composition looses its message. Both paintings are simple and clear, strongly but monotonusly chromatic. They talk about movements and forces more than about changing the perspectives of reality. I find the work of Kandinsky more theoretical than ideological and politic, as Balla’s “Lines”. Kandinsky talks about the alternatives how to show the music with lines and colors, how to open inside of a viewer (listener) a knowledge of spiritual abstraction, of going away from the physical reality. Here is interesting how non-religious modernism interrelates with very spiritual aspects and generally speaks about the consept of religion, but in clear way. Balla’s work asks from a viewer, where are his forces are hidden. It talks ideologically and much more agressive. In my opinion, the mood and message are the main differences between italian futurism and russian suprematism (abstractionism).
|2|
006
essay 003 Spirituality as target in Avant-garde movement Reason for abstraction
Avant-garde movement in art which started in the end of XIX century has invented a new way of reality representation. Before the main tools were mimicking the nature, composition, narrative.A new movement, boostered by the invention of photography, became one step closer to the spirituality and more far from materiality. When we think about the music, it doesn’t copy songs of birds or animals. It has its own language created by numerous small achievements of each human generation. Could the prehistoric man imagine the arsenal of sounds and rythms of today? The visual art for certain reasons took another path - it was always close to imitate the reality , putting clear messages under realistic cover. Nearly the only evidence of abstraction before Avant-garde movement was in the prehistoric ornamentic art. The abstract forms that can be found in art of primitive societies, represent the cosmic world and only sligtly copies the nature. New forms which don’t exhist in the nature, now seem very easy to understand, only because they are already invented. The artists of avant-garde “reinvented” this approach of codifying information about the world, and started to create messages about their own time. They looked on the music rythm, vollume and weight as something that exhists due to human mind apart from nature. Representatives of abstract expressionism believe that spirituality is very important to keep the soul thin and sensitive. (Kandinsky, “Spiritual in art”). They claimed that it stands over nature, because nature is complete, but the human as a creator of his own “nature”, own “evolution”, has always the question “how” he has to invent. I think that search for spirituality is the most beautiful and most valuable reason for invention of new forms and rythms that go apart from nature. It is much more important in my opinion thatn social, political, formalistic targets which also are important messages of avant-garde.
|3|
008
essay 004 Dziga Vertov “The man with the movie camera”, 1929 Modern aesthetics
In terms of our modern world Dziga Vertov has created an outstanding for his time experiment in the world of cinema. It’s interesting to compare it with an expressionist icon of cinematograph - “Metropolis” - which still has a narrative, and is still so close to the theatre by its structure. People are acting to show the message of it, to show the ideology. On the contrary, “The man with the movie camera” shows the sensibility of every day life with such a care and honesty that it mezmerizes the viewer. Aesthetics is totally different from futurist adoration of mashines which excludes one human being and cares only about the society in general. By the replacement of music , of horses to cars and so on, it can be one of the movies made in our time. It evokes purest emotions as it is totally honest; a talk with the people of the beginning of XXth century through the time window of a camera is priceless. This aesthetics is very close to impressionist-avant-garde movement in art. Renoir’s “Ball in Moulin Galette” first comes to mind... It’s a lot about lights, water, sences, feels, breath, wind, trees. Most probably the works of Andrej Tarkovasky, russian director. were influenced by Vertov’s film: it has the similar sensitivity; reflective, passive and free of judgement view. The strength is in simple observation, which gives the viewer a possibility to make his own conclusions. That’s why I think the movie of Dziga Vertov is very close to be concidered “out of time”.
|4|
010
essay 005 Ideas and aesthetics of DADA and surrealism Surrealism and War
Personally I see one of the reason of going towards abstraction in the movement in between two wars as logical and the only way of survival of an artist’s soul. The adorement by progress and future life with technology “for peace” is destroyed during the first world war. Humanity is dead, only nature is still trustful. Being betrayed by human ideals, people of any kind of thought try to find a sub-reality, another world, and explore it with all deepness they have. Andre Breton, founder of surrealism, anarchist and antifashist, is a main figure for the movement, a philospher and writer. In his manifesto of surrealism he says that surrealism is a “pure physic automatism”. It is interesting to think about Dadaism in this context, because their ideas are basis of this philosophy. The manifesto written by Tzara stands for absolute indifference in art, in “doing”. Art has no purpose, no client. It is not an instrument for pleasure, which can be seen in cubism as anyway creation of a human mind. It is completely free from ideologies, ratio, aims, conclusions, manifestos. “DADA is useless. Just as life”. The idea od DADA was so incredibly clear that probably it was not so easy to keep if for a long time... In the end there was a statement, that real DADA is against DADA which i think the core thought to understand the movement. Surrealism represented by Salvador Dali, is another branch. It is more egocentrical, shoking, representative,seems like a classicism of XXth century. He says, “ I am surrealism”. I think in Dali’s world its more individuality and less of natural honesty... I think (being in this stage of knowledge) that modern art has taken one line of surreal art that became provocative and then came to a pop art. But the DADA movement , so clean in creating natural methamorphoses of mind is more abandoned and has to come back. Indifferent abstraction as a new musical melody, it is not relating to a human origin but very sencitive to the processes in nature. It can cure from the diseases of progress: the artists of the movement try to reach the space of actual creation of nature through spontaneous changes in it. I am convinced that the idea of DADA and surrealsim is very relevant nowadays , but it’s very fragile, thats why if we come back to their philosophy. we have to check all the time are there human motifs or goals in whet we are doing? If yes, we have already loose the path...
|5|
012
essay 006 Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel “Un Chien Andalous”, 1928 favourite scenes in Un Chien Andalous
The strongest feeling from the film for me is the after-taste effect. It has the most strong impact when time passes after watching. Film is purely surrealistic: no symbols, no signs or explanations, rational messages. The only way of exploration is psychoanalysis. I think that is the strongest point which can achieve art: there is no one book that will explain the film, every person has to become very honest with himself to understand his own feelings and psychological movements that he gets. But still it is hard to stop putting symbolic meaning... For me the cutted eye is a start of relations between a man and a woman, a loose of the virginity... The changes of a man behaviour for me is about the complexity of pshychological processes in mind. The fim is constructed same as a dream: out of timelines, of spacital reality, based on the cuts of memories and backgrounds of mind. The movie helps to explore subconsious sexuality. For me the strongest moments are for sure the eye, and the scene where a man tries to reach the woman with the weight of pianos, priests and dead animals. I felt curiosity, disgust, passion, happyness for the people having that complex relation. Another episode is also about complexity: the night butterfly that evokes disgust, but of another kind. It’s a disgust of cinic irony and how the man is teasing the woman. For me this part is the most beautiful in their relations. I have rewatched it several times.
adresses to...
I think that the movie is about relations, love and sexuality, about the compexity of these matters. It talks about small feelings that pass through the relation. Somehow I came to a radical comparison with deeply psychological novels by Tolstoy (“War and piece”) or Dostoevsky (“Idiot”) where the authors describe every single fragile movement of mind of heroes but in words. Here we see these movements in action, in irrational scenes, with the power of a cinema.
|6| |7|
014
essay 007 Malevich Mondrian from figurative painting to reach Abstraction
It is interesting to think about the crucial change of minds of many artists from figurative art to abstraction. Mondrian was a brilliant figurative painter and during his life step by step was replacing trees, streets and so on by the symbols and diagrams, by visual compositions. Why? It was already not so hard to come to abstraction from the point of view of XXth century: impressionism, cubism, surrealism were pushing the visual art towards it. But still it was something that connected the art composition to the reality: symbols, collaged reality. The ultimate abstraction had to be as clear as music: the form is only a method to reach it, the art work is a result of a huge work of thought. Here is a great difference from surrealism for example, which was based on nature, on spontaneuity. On the contrary, abstractionism, suprematism consist of logically systematized colors, rythms, shapes. It was an invention of visual grammar - same as music grammar of notes and tacts. It is understandable why Malevich claimed suprematism as a new religion - the “black square”, the most stable and silent shape of all abstract shapes, black as an ultimate goal of movement from dark - without possibility of movement in the end - noone was that brave before to claim the simpliest form as Spirituality, as God. It is also very interesting to think about the difference between Mondrian and Malevich. Mondrian is very “flammish” in his approach. His compositions are out of presize thought, same clear as clearance of Peter Breigel (in my opinion). Malevich is more spiritual and bases his works more on philosophy than on rythm.
...why?
There is not a question of who was the first, or who had skills to illustrate. Here is a question of who was the scientist who tried to find, why we have blue, why we have black ( in a spiritual way) and so on, and how the understanding of it can move us forward, from physical sleep to spiritual awakennes.
|8|
|9|
016
essay 008 Bauhaus how it changed the world
Bauhaus is a significant period of synthetising arts in the early XXs in Germany. The reason why it was so prosperious is because it started as an art school. The director of school, Gropius, had revolutionary ideas and belief in function. Bauhaus gathered around it the best teachers and philosophers of that time: Kandinsky, Itten, Schlimmer... Bauhaus had the same changes and path as architecture schools in Russia, where art boosetered the development of architecture and design.
Bauhaus neglected art as something imagenary and fragile, The students were actually doing things, and in most cases things that could be set on industrial production. It was a belief to link art and craft again, to teach students to understand the maschines, mechanisms. By that they could understand the form. Bauhaus had different periods , with different directors. With Groppius it was more based on art and craftwork; with Meyer it beame politically more easy-going , with Mies Van der Rohe all attention was put on architecture. Bauhaus in its time was a concentration of free productive thought - a brilliant example for any architectural school of nowadays. Numerous things that were designed within its walls are surrounding our life: furniture, kitchen, household goods; same as architecture: pure functionalist buildings out of glass and steel, ‘living maschines�.
I think on the example of these two movement of functionalism\constructivism we see the importance of art as a primary thought that shapes our life in the future.
|10|
|11|
018
essay 009 Minimalist and Pop Art reactions against abstract expressionism The age of abstract expressionism which was a continuity of abstractionism in the middle of XXth century was becoming questionned. The clearance of abstractionist ideas started to be disappeared in numerous symbols, signs, philosophies of abstract expressionism. I think that it can be named as a baroque period of abstractionism. Artists deepepened themselves in trying to find abstract worlds. The questions for the movement started to increase also because of the american monopoly created by Grinberg. Art was in galleries. was locked as something unreachable, with all wight of Plato, Heidegger, Freud philosophies placed on the canvases. Why we need it? Why we create such a complicated world? That was a moment of fresh air that came with minimalism to art. The artists of the new wave didn’t want to complicate the world and question the essence of living, too much as Mark Rothko did, for instance... They brought the language of reality back, the power of reality increased. Metal is just metal and nothing else, and within this pure materialisation we find beauty and aesthetics. Carl Andre names his art as plastic poetry. Agnes Martin creates incredibly sencstive canhvases, shaped by simplisity of elements and aesthetics of a surface. Minimalism is a neo-nature, same indeiiferent and same useless. Personally I see here the the succession of dadaism and in some cases abstractionism (Mondrian), only purified to an ultimate. Pop art was another branch of struggle with monopolistic galleries “ art for the chosen “ ideas , and it shaped or life with an incredible power. The philosophy of the movement asks to rethink what is our life consist of, why we fool oursalves admiring the abstract worlds of Jakson Pollock and same time eating with plastic spoons, hamburgers, buying same things that actually are an art of our life. Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol were the pioneers of the pop-art movement. It;s interesting to link pop-art and the new-age philosophies, such as Jean Baudrillard’s “System of Objects” for instance. He talks about an importance of consumer signs, being a part of the whole sign system. People don’t consume the objects in their materiality, but they want a brand more, being a part of a value systems. (celebrities, popular products, comics, and so on). The time of pop-art is still here, and hopefully it will get a new level of comlexity and intelligence in the future, that will raise up the popular cultural values.
|12|
|13|
|13|
020
essay 010 Conceptual art as the most influential movement of the 2nd part of the XXth century Where is the limits of purification of art? And what is art? These questions are essential for the second part of XX century in the world of “spiritual creation”. Abstractionism clearified the visual forces of art, minimalism made it less symbolic and pathetic, brought back the simple reality. But still it was deeply materialistic: art couldn’t exsist without canvas and a paint. Conceptualism brought the new purification: art is just an idea. This was a new philosophy of a thought as an art. Personally I see the process of merging of all human actions into one: philosophic thoughts were art as well in all times, and they asked for an action; but now the action of someone else but artist is also in the field of visual art. Performance is an extension of what was happening in the times of Andy Warhol (for instance his interviews) and it counterlines with sencivity what was happening in the society of the 60-s, 70-s... Freedom, reaction on war campaigns, hippies, questioning a human and his reactions, his limits and tabooes. What is time? How can we show time, distances, psychological connections? For me the most powerful work of Marina Abramovich, a performance artist, is “rythm 0”, in which she acts as a mediator between people and their boundaries. Where is art here? Art is a power to create situation in which people explore themselves. This performance reminds me of a film by Lars von Trier, “Dogville”. The main concept of it about the psychological boundaries of people, or about their abcense: there are only social tabooes, and when society allows to act so that one who acts stays “nice” and “good” for the others, he can do the most antimoral things that all humanity was trying to get rid of. What people feel doing weird things? They try to please the artist showing how creative they are? But that is not an exam on creativity... I still question myself why it is happening in this way, but I feel that is sometimes a dangerous road, aimed to call out the darkest parts of a human mind... And even if it is never a true, and if to go deep in the consept of a body as a medium; but sometimes I can see the notes of arrogance in many performance shows. That’s why for me was sometimes not easy to like it. But anyway conceptual art clearified the space for the new openings in the world of mind, now art is not an object any more, it is life itself, it is a moment of action.
|14|
|15|
022
essay 011 Nan Goldin Robert Mapplethorpe 80’s in America... A chaotical time of changes and being lost What is a beauty? Can weird be beautiful and what is a place of weird in life? What is weird. Nan Goldin was a part of a an exotic for that time world of drug queens, gays and lesbians, prostitutes. This world has so incredible amount of feelings and shadows of feelings. People that were prisoned in their bodies when they felt different. They found a freedom of being themselves in the world of sadeness, because society didn’t let them live. Nan Goldin’s photography is a sensitive documentation of this world. “The ballad of sexual depencency”, 2011, is for me filled with dark blue sadeness, same time it is deeply free, people are free and twisted by the mashine of ignorant and brutal world. The influence of Nan Goldin is extremely powerful. Her photogaphs are a medium to release the beauty and sencivity of world which was usually thought just as “weird”, no further mind movements were usually made from an ordinary “correct” man. Robert Mappelthorpe was a “white angel” of the brutal experimental world. For me he was as an exploring child with same clearance of motifs. His photography almost first showed the beauty of a man body, of different colors of skin, of a body and the freedom of exploration of it. Both artists reflect the whole time of 80s, 90s. It´s a time of Act Up, of AIDS epidemia, of ignorance of government, rejection of all social institutions. With these limits the flow of freedom inside of oppressed was even more powerful, if we can say so...
|16|
|16|
|17|
024
Links 1
http://uploads5.wikiart.org/images/giacomo-balla/lines-force-ofboccioni-s-fist.jpg
2
https://www.artclon.com/images/201010/goods_ img/38555_G_1286889486771.jpg
3
Illustration from the book of Vasiliy Kandinsky “About spiritual in art”
4
http://emanuellevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The_Man_ With_a_Movie_Camera_1_vertov.jpg
5
http://www.fahrenheitmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ andr%C3%A9-breton-1930.jpg
6 https://marthaph.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/un_chien_andalou_17-1024x752.jpg
7
https://lenguajecinematografico.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/ chien-andalou.jpg
8
http://jaquealarte.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/malevic-cruzcuadradocirculo.jpg
9
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7FHHaFBa0Ic/TjfqU3wJxpI/AAAAAAAAAUc/1Ne2ILwh6rQ/s1600/Mondrian%253B+Pier+%2526+Ocean%252C+1915.jpg
10
https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/escola_bauhaus.jpg
11
http://www.knoll.com/media/837/951/Wassily_product_story,0.jpg
12
http://artaktivist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/3.jpg
13
https://modernartnotespodcast.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/agnes-martin-little-sister-1962.jpg
14
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T03/T03100_10.jpg
15
http://ellen.li/blog/wp-content/uploads/Rhythm0.png
16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlZJMS1wwsU
17
http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portfolios/self-portraits/?i=6