Tate Modern trip April

I recently went to the Tate Modern to view and experience the works that they had there. It was very interesting to see the works that I had seen in books, in class and on the internet in real life. The Tate Modern has a wide range of art movements to look at, from Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, to Pop Art.

POP ART 

One of the main art movements in the Tate was Pop Art. Roy Litchenstien was one of the major artists of this movement, recreating scenes from popular comic strips from magazines and comics. Pop Art was popular because of the attractive loud colours and bold, simple style. However, at the Tate they had work of another major pop artist, Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol did a lot of  screen prints, and focused on image, celebrity and commercialism. He did many prints of Marlyin Monroe, as he was interested in how famous people lost their individual identity once they became a “celebrity”. He used screen printing, because he felt that that was the most impersonal method of making art, and he used it because he wanted to use his detachment from the work to make a statement about society.

SURREALISUM

Another art movement at the Tate was Surrealism. Surrealism was a art movement based on dreams and the subconscious.

Max Ernst was a big artist of this movement.  A lot of his work is very textured and detailed, and seeing it in real life allowed me to look at things that I would not be able to see on the computer screen or in a book. For example, in “The Entire City”, he has used the texture of paint pallets, mixed with light colours to make the painting interesting and to convey a feeling. There is a feeling of sanctuary, safety and peace to the work, compared with “Forest and Dove”, which feels like a nightmare because of the dark colours.

<–The Entire City      <—Forest and Dove

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

Abstract Expressionism was a movement that focused on expressing a feeling, without depeciting any image in particular. Abstract Expressionist artists instead used colour and scale to achieve this.

The most famous Abstract Expressionist artists were probably Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Mark Rothko depicted shapes (usually rectangles) painted by layering similar colours over the top of each other. It was interesting to see these images in person, as the feeling of the painting changes. What comes across as one colour on a screen, can actually be many subtly different ones, and you can see how the colours are blended together. Also you can see the scale of the painting. Mark Rothko paintings are large in scale, meaning that you can feel a bit lost in them, which you cannot do otherwise.

Surrealism

Surrealism is a art movement that began in the 1920s. They painted illogical scenes that looked like photos,made everyday objects into strange creatures, and had  painting techniques that were focused on the subconscious creating the idea.

Salvador Dali

Max Ernst

• Dreamlike imagery that mocked social conventions.
• Soldier in World War I-was traumatised and became critical of western culture.
• viewed the modern world as irrational.
• Was a part of the Dada and Surrealist movements.
• Had good knowledge of art history in Europe.
• Didn’t clear narratives, made fun of religious icons.

• Tank like and wears a gas mask-reference to war.
• Painted collage.
• Whole object could be interpreted as a machine.

• Supposed to represent the relationship between Max Ernst and his father.
• It is supposed to resemble the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, with his father as Mary and him as Jesus.
• The expressions on the faces are blank because they are sleepwalking.

 made by using fabric printing blocks and then scraping the paint off.

• Bird family inside an egg, egg is inside another egg.
• Represents the question of ‘the chicken or the egg?’ as it is difficult to see where one bird ends and another begins

 

Abstract Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism is a art movement that became popular in the 1940s, and was inspired by surrealism. It has a focus on the spontaneous, automatic and the subconscious. Famous abstract expressionist included Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Abstract Expressionist paintings were usually done large scale, and was against other abstract movements such as futurism. It aimed to be rebellious, which meant that it came to be a symbol of artistic freedom in America.

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko was born in 1903, died 1970,and was of Russian decent, but American born.

• Very dense layers of paint.
• Lots of layers to create complex tone.
• Mixed turpentine with oil paints, so it created a burn on the canvas.
• This means that you can see the colours painted underneath.
• Used contrasting areas of colour, with soft boundaries between them.

His work was abstract/expressionist because:

• The paintings don’t depict anything literally.
• More about the emotion that the image evokes than the actual painting.
• He tried to make his paintings into experiences of tragedy and ecstasy.
• “Tragedy is the only source book for art” Trying to express this as the basic conditions of existence.
• Most of the titles are literal (Black In Deep Red) or numbered ;the titles are not important.

He wasn’t interested in others attempts to interpret his work,  and thought the relationship between the viewer and the work couldn’t be expressed verbally.People might argue that the images are too similar/simple.

His work specifically fits into the idea of American freedom of expression, because there is no set way that his work has to be interpreted-Freedom of interpretation, and the colours blend into each other-they are free to mix.

Dadaism

Dada, or Dadaism, was an art movement during the 20th century.  They where a largely Jewish movement from Switzerland, opposed to the Futurists, machines and war. They where also anti-(Not avant guard) art, as they thought it was a front put on by society.

Dadaist art was radical and surreal, made up of collage and nonsense, which they used to show how society didnt make sense.

Tristan Tzara used photomontage and collage.

 

Picabia also used the same methods, to create collages of machinery and people.

John Heartfield was a german artist, during ww1 who changed his name to an english one, in protest to the nazis, who he made propaganda images against. Like the other artists he used collage and photomontage.

 

George Grosz was a artist who took inspiration from Berlin society to make paintings and charactertures of people.

 

Punk is also somewhat influenced by Dadaism, in that it can be surreal and uses the same methods. Jamie Reid  did some artwork for the band The Sex Pistols.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Futurists

The Futurists where a group of artists who where around at the time of WW1 and WW2, in Italy. They  where obsessed with modern life, machinery,the city, cars and speed. They tried to put the spectator at the center of their artwork.

Marientti was one of the famous futurists:

 

The Futurists  aimed to create “words in freedom”, which means that they mixed, or jumbled up type from how it was usually presented. They where also very fond of manifestos.

Marinetti published the Futurist manifesto in a French far-right newspaper.Here is a small part of it:

“Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs. Alone with the engineers in the infernal stokeholes of great ships, alone with the black spirits which rage in the belly of rogue locomotives, alone with the drunkards beating their wings against the walls.

Then we were suddenly distracted by the rumbling of huge double decker trams that went leaping by, streaked with light like the villages celebrating their festivals, which the Po in flood suddenly knocks down and uproots, and, in the rapids and eddies of a deluge, drags down to the sea.

Then the silence increased. As we listened to the last faint prayer of the old canal and the crumbling of the bones of the moribund palaces with their green growth of beard, suddenly the hungry automobiles roared beneath our windows.

“Come, my friends!” I said. “Let us go! At last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left behind. We are going to be present at the birth of the centaur and we shall soon see the first angels fly! We must break down the gates of life to test the bolts and the padlocks! Let us go! Here is they very first sunrise on earth! Nothing equals the splendor of its red sword which strikes for the first time in our millennial darkness.”

He also wrote out several rules for Futurists to follow:

“We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.”

“Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.”

“We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.”

“We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.”

Marinetti stated in this that he thought war was good, as it provided a clean slate for the world, and that music should be the sounds of the city, Marinetti himself was friends with Mussolinni.

Balla, Boccioni and Fortunato Depero where some other Futurist artists.

  

 Balla

  Boccioni

        

My Futurist drawings:

Primitivism- The Decorative and Expressionism

One aspect of Primitivism was the decorative,where shapes seemed to form a pattern that where almost as important as the image. It focused on pattern and flat colour.

Gaugin was an artist who was inspired by Africa:

There was a group of artists called the Fauves, and they focused on un-natural colours. Matisse and Deran where among some of them.

Matisse

Derain:

Expressionism was another area of the Primitive movement. They aimed to make their art look rushed and un-sophisticated, and had African influences. Franz Marc and Kandinsky where some of them.

Kadinsky:

Franz Marc:

My own Primitive inspired print:

First I did some sketches of what I wanted my print to look like. I liked Franz Marcs drawings of horses, so I tried to get something simular.

Then I etched my design into some styrofoam using a brio pen:

 

Finally, I covered my etching in blue paint, and pressed it onto a bit of paper. The dark areas are where I have pressed down with the pen, and the light parts are the raised sections.

  The left is my first attempt, the right is my second.

 

Primitvism -Japanese Prints

In the 18th and 19th century, Western society often viewed other cultures as ‘primitve’, they saw them as underdeveloped, simple and uneducated. This negative view was the start of racism.

The Primitivist movement was a art movement that didnt view these cultures as lesser than the west. They beilved instead that these cultures were just different, with their own customs, culture and history that should be admired.

The west discovered Japanese prints when they started to ship precious treasures such as china, back from the orient. These items when packaged in Japan, had been wrapped in these prints, as they where cheap to make.

 Hokusai, Horseman In the snow.

 Suzuki Harunobu, Suzuki Honurbu

 Suzuki Harushige, Utagawa Hiroshige

                  

                  

   Utagawa Kuniyoshi

The Japanese prints had bold outlines and flat blocks of colour, as they where carved from blocks of wood. They also focused on the decorative, in things such as backgrounds and  clothing.

Western artists, such as Manet, Degas, Monet,Van Gogh, and Mary Cassat started to beccome influenced by Japanese art.

Manet and Monet.

 

Impressionism

 

Impressionism was a radical art movement. The ‘unfinishedness’ of the paintings caused by large brush strokes were a response to previous art, which had been very clean and the same for a long time. Impressionist painters such as Monet, also used colours in response to the development of photography, which was in black and white. They wanted to show that the world is colourful.

Art before impressionism was known as Illusionism. That meant that it wanted to make something that wasn’t real, look like it  actually existed. Paintings often consisted of heroes, kings, queens, goddesses and cherubs.

 <- an example of a illusionist painting.

Illusionism also focused on trying to make the painting look 3D. They did this by composing the backgrounds in such a way that it looked as if they were far away. Illusionist paintings have been described as ‘boxes’ that draw you in and make you dream about the impossible.

Impressionism wanted to focus on the real, fashionable, social and the ordinary. They used painting to explore social relations. Some examples of Impressionist painters are Monet, Degas and Renoir.

<- La Loge

Some painters used aspects of realism to bring a social issue to the attention of the public. 

For example, the painting above is trying to draw attention to the issue of women in prostition( which was a problem in Paris at the time).  La Loge also tries to subtly talk about this as well as society, fashion and being modern. The painting below is about how people in Paris are always observing each other, judging each other.

This was done by a female painter. Females couldn’t paint the same subjects as males, as they had to be seen as respectable. Also females weren’t allowed into the art academies as they often did life drawing, using naked  models. There are several differences between this painting and La Loge, despite them being in the same sort of setting. For example, this painting is side on, so the woman isn’t looking directly at you, and she doesn’t seem relaxed. She’s wearing black, which probably means that she is either respectable, or a widow.

   Impressionist were interested in the everyday and ordinary.

Impressionist painters also knew about complimentary colours. They knew that certain colours looked nice together.