ART HISTORY 4470 Abstract Expressionism: Hofmann, Rothko & Newman
Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) • •
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biography: born in Germany; trained in Munich career: relocates to Paris (1904) – acquainted w/ Matisse, Picasso and Braque, Delaunay – 1908/1909: exhibits w/ New Secessionists – WWI: remains in Munich • opened Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts (1915); gained world recognition – 1930: teaches summer at U-C Berkeley – 1932: Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, advised H not to return • settles in NYC • teaches at Art Students League – 1933: opens Hofmann School of Fine Arts exhibition history: – 1944: age 64, first show in NYC held at P. Guggenheim’s Art of This Century – 1955: Greenberg organizes retrospective at Bennington College (VT) – 1957: retrospective at Whitney Museum – 1958: age 78, resigns as teacher – 1960: Venice Biennale – 1963: retrospective at MoMA – 1999: retrospective at Metropolitan Museum
Hofmann •
context: theoretical underpinnings – Nabis (c. 1890) Maurice Denis • “A picture … is essentially a flat surface covered w/ colors assembled in a certain order” – Post-Impressionism Cezanne (c. 1890s) – Cubism (c. 1907-21)
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Hofmann: Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948) – spatial dynamics and visual tensions • “picture plane must be preserved in its two-dimensionality” • “push and pull” asserts all movement w/in a painting implies reciprocal movement in opposing direction – movement into pictorial space demands balancing advance toward viewer » “Depth, in a pictorial, plastic sense, is not created by the arrangement of objects one after another toward a vanishing point, in the sense of Renaissance perspective, but on the contrary (and in absolute denial of this doctrine), by the creation of forces in the sense of push and pull” – relation to nature whether perceived on location, from memory, or imagination • focuses on volume and geometric forms in positive and negative spaces • the object creates negative or positive space, not, as traditionally conceived, that an object is placed in a space • if an object creates space, then it is light that creates form • light makes color in nature, but color creates light in painting .
Hofmann
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The Third Hand (1947) –
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process: automatism • different aim from Surrealism – not to probe unconscious mind – instead, proceeds from spiritual “inner necessity” (see Kandinsky) brushwork: impasto • spontaneity – splatters paint in some passages, rather than applying w/ brush composition: motifs arranged logically • forms do not overlap color: vibrant primaries & secondaries spatial order: motifs float in color field of neutralized background
Hofmann
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The Gate (c. 1960) – –
brushwork: combines hard-edge, oblong forms w/ reckless, loosely brushed areas method: “push-pull” effect • “The Search for the Real and Other Essays” (1948) – tension between its space, form, color and planes – spatial dynamics & visual tensions • effect: floating planes of color • essence preserves picture plane’s 2-d • structure of nature, rather than its appearance • formal elements: volume/form/light – object creates negative or positive space – not, as traditionally conceived, that an object is placed in space – light makes color in nature, but color creates light in painting
Hofmann’s The Golden Wall (1961)
Mark Rothko (1903-1970) •
biography: – 1903: born in Lithuania; childhood marked by worst period of mob violence against Jews in Russia in a generation – 1913: family emigrated to USA; father dies seven months later – 1921: earns full scholarship to Yale • radicalism becomes focus of intellectual life • drops out after second year – 1923: moves to NYC; takes courses at ASL – 1930: meets Gottlieb • develops intimate relationship • camaraderie peaks in early ’40s • joint statements on art – 1934: joins leftist organization, Artists’ Union – 1935: organizes artist group “The Ten” – 1936-37: hired for Federal Art Project (WPA) – 1947: largely abandons conventional titles
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aim: to express tragedy of human condition
Rothko •
intellectual assertions: – content: “We favor the simple expression of the complex thought” – credo: “Silence is so accurate.” – forms: "It was w/ the utmost reluctance that I found the figure could not serve my purposes.... But a time came when none of us could use the figure without mutilating it.“ – formal elements: • “We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.” – relationship to academicism: confrontational • “It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.” – influence of Surrealism: • “The surrealist has uncovered the glossary of the myth and has established a congruity between the phantasmagoria of the unconscious and the objects of everyday life. The congruity constitutes the exhilarated tragic experience which for me is the only source book for art.”
Rothko
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Untitled (1947) – – – – – –
aesthetic: non-objective • impact of Still’s ideas of purified, indistinct color abstraction spatial order: flattened, 2-d forms: larger and more geometric than in earlier experiments composition: “all over” • horizontal layers & implicit organization color: earth tones, primaries, & secondaries brushwork: thin washes • crude, naive application • heightens ethereal, poetic quality
Rothko
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Number 22 (1949) – – –
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aesthetic: non-objective aim: “to eliminate all obstacles between painter and idea, and between idea and observer” influence: children’s art • taught art to children @ Center Academy of Brooklyn Jewish Center (1929-52) • children emphasize things or space – may limit space arbitrarily and then heroicize object; or – infinitize space, dwarfing importance of objects forms: geometric • derived from formal notions, rather than compelling content meaning: subjective • free from secondary influence of narrative & overt cultural interpretation scale: large scale color blocks horizontal striations: Pietà (?)
Rothko
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Orange and Yellow (1956) – – – –
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aesthetic: non-objective aim: “to destroy finite associations w/ which our society increasingly enshrouds every aspect of our environment” spatial order: 2-d; flattened forms: soft-edged color blocks; • “shapes … have no direct association w/ any particular visible experience, but in them one recognizes the principle and passion of organisms” composition: tense equilibrium • innovative placement of stacked rectangles • rejects Still’s “all-over” arrangement color: isolated clouds of individual hues • intense, vibrant • determines idea & content light: mysteriously hidden source
Rothko
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Seagram Mural – Sketch (1958) – – –
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site: Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson’s Seagram Building (NYC) color: dramatic darkening of palette • deep maroons, brilliant reds, rich browns, and blacks motif: rotates horizontal forms • create vertical, frame-like shapes, instead of hovering, soft-edged rectangular forms • resembles portal or window spatial order: flattened; 2-dimensional • forms invites gaze • yet viewer kept at a perpetual threshold by resistance of dark ground effect: exercise in creation of a closed space • R compared Seagram murals to Michelangelo's Laurentian Library in Florence • windows exist but forever sealed
Rothko •
Untitled: Black on Grey (1969-70) –
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significance: Black Paintings • begun year before artist’s suicide • “an unexpected & unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need” tone: tragic; ontological spatial order: flattened; 2-dimensional forms: dispels w/ free-floating geometric forms or veiled layers of earlier work composition: choked by white border color: negated
Barnett Newman (1905-1970) •
biography: – born in Lower East Side (Manhattan) to Jewish immigrants; eventually, family moves to middle-class neighborhood in Bronx – 1922: classes at Art Students League • befriends young artist Adolph Gottlieb – 1923: attends City College of New York; majors in philosophy – 1933: last-minute candidate for election as NYC mayor • committed anarchist during 1930s • advocates civic art program • manifesto “On the Need for Political Action by Men of Culture” – 1938: fails exam to become fully-qualified art ` teacher • organizes “Can We Draw? The Board of Examiners Says - No!” • exhibition of work by himself and others rejected by board – 1943: meets Betty Parsons • leads protest against conservative jury for exhibition at Metropolitan Museum of Art • mounts counter-exhibition w/ friends Gottlieb & Rothko
Newman •
exhibition history: – 1944: organizes exhibition Pre-Columbian Stone Sculpture – 1946: organizes first exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery •
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joins gallery's roster of artists ,alongside friends Rothko and Still • following year, Jackson Pollock also joins 1947: organizes The Ideographic Picture at Betty Parsons Gallery • includes work by Rothko, Still and himself • sells first painting, Euclidian Abyss (1946-47) 1948: paints Onement I • publishes essay “The Sublime is Now” – argues for new type of art – free from weight of European tradition 1949: makes seventeen paintings, most he will ever complete in a single year. 1950: first solo exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery • receives largely negative response • one painting is sold 1951: second exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery • condemned by critics; no paintings sold • work wouldn't be shown again for 4.5 years 1958: work appears in The New American Painting (MoMA) • travels across Europe • retrospective exhibition opens at Bennington College in Vermont – catalogue essay by Clement Greenberg
Newman •
Onement I (1948) – – – – –
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significance: N’s “first” painting aesthetic: non-objective • rejects Surrealist content & Cubist stylization title: component of “atonement” (see Kabbala and Spinoza) theme: metaphysical/sublime “zip”: Newman's term for vertical stripe • evokes God’s separation of light/dark • extends from top to bottom edges • compels viewer to experience physical and perceptual relationship to painting in basic, reductive terms composition: symmetrical & “all-over” (?) • all three parts viewed congruently in single field • as opposed to striped “figure” that divides receding “ground” color: unmodulated fields • red/brown background (?) earth – Adamah (Hebrew) • zip Adam – verticality echoes viewer’s upright position – individualized, sensuous edges
Newman
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Abraham (1949) – – –
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title: refers both to OT as well as artist’s father who passed away in 1947 scale: large color scheme: somber • corresponds to personal and global moral crisis zip: hard edge • heavy, thick stripe • painted over tape, then peeled it off • secret symmetry (right edge placed on CVA) composition: numerical calculations • proportions 2:1:3 • width ½ width of left-hand section • enhances visual tension, as well as its meaning
Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimus (1950-51)
Newman
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Stations of the Cross (1958) –
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1957: Newman suffers heart attack • did not paint at all during 1957; feelings of failure • a few weeks after release from hospital, starts series of paintings that occupied him next eight years (1958 to 1966) narrative: not intended to express succession of events found in traditional depictions • instead, reveals single moment when Christ cried out “God, why have you forsaken me?” – subtitle “Lema sabachthani” – Christ's Passion becomes “the cry of man, of every man” – perhaps mirrors his own personal crisis – also interpreted as memorial to Holocaust “zips”: • left hard edge symbolically represents God • right soft edge symbolizes human doubt