March 11, 2008
In our last session I talked about the continuum in experience from largely intellectual aspects to largely aesthetic aspects. All experiences have both, somewhere along the continuum. It's good to recognize both in all of our experiences, and question our own balance.
We then looked at parallel developments in Music and Literature, citing Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky as musicians who changed the established concept of musical keys. The riot in the concert hall when Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was played for the first time took place in 1913, the very same year in which the viewers of the Armory show in which Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was shown, rioted. Parallel changes were also taking place in literature with James Joyce changing the established rules of language use and compressing time into one day. Dostoevsky also compressed time and Ambrose Bierce described only one second in a man's life. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells projected into future time and Proust brought past time to the present. Radical changes were taking place in all of the arts.
We then looked at the Post WWII American artists who, once freed from the dominance of European Art, made Expressionist art more and more abstract. The main guru of this period was Clement Greenberg who believed that art should have aesthetic principles to which all artists adhered. Principle among these principles were the flat canvas (no depth nor perspective) and a focus on the "painterly" aspects of a painting: line, color, shape, texture, rather than on objects, scenery, or stories. Once all objects were removed the art became more and more abstract. The main artists of this period were Pollock, Motherwell, Clyfford Stills, Barnett Newman and the color field painters: Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell and Yves Klein. Mark Rothko represented color field painting at its height. After this period painting became more and more abstract, as in the works of Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella and Ad Reinhardt until they so distanced themselves from the viewer, in the period of Minimalism, that a reaction set in.
The reaction was introduced by the works of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, both of whom were said to have bridged the periods of Minimalism and Pop Art. These artists wanted to bring the world of common objects into their pictures and so began the tradition of "combines" and collages, and conceptual art. The Pop Artists who followed them were Warhol, Lichtenstein, Claus Oldenberg, Baldessari and Jeff Coons, among others. Much of their work were critical and/or satirical representations of the popular culture of the day.
Artists in this period, such as David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Diebenkorn and Oliviera, in California, revived the painting of figures in a style known as Naive Figurative Painting. Later proponents of this style were Manuel Neri and Joan Brown.
Next week we'll look at some artists whose work could not be easily categorized, and then go on to the 60's revolution in the arts.
In our last session I talked about the continuum in experience from largely intellectual aspects to largely aesthetic aspects. All experiences have both, somewhere along the continuum. It's good to recognize both in all of our experiences, and question our own balance.
We then looked at parallel developments in Music and Literature, citing Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky as musicians who changed the established concept of musical keys. The riot in the concert hall when Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was played for the first time took place in 1913, the very same year in which the viewers of the Armory show in which Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was shown, rioted. Parallel changes were also taking place in literature with James Joyce changing the established rules of language use and compressing time into one day. Dostoevsky also compressed time and Ambrose Bierce described only one second in a man's life. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells projected into future time and Proust brought past time to the present. Radical changes were taking place in all of the arts.
We then looked at the Post WWII American artists who, once freed from the dominance of European Art, made Expressionist art more and more abstract. The main guru of this period was Clement Greenberg who believed that art should have aesthetic principles to which all artists adhered. Principle among these principles were the flat canvas (no depth nor perspective) and a focus on the "painterly" aspects of a painting: line, color, shape, texture, rather than on objects, scenery, or stories. Once all objects were removed the art became more and more abstract. The main artists of this period were Pollock, Motherwell, Clyfford Stills, Barnett Newman and the color field painters: Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell and Yves Klein. Mark Rothko represented color field painting at its height. After this period painting became more and more abstract, as in the works of Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella and Ad Reinhardt until they so distanced themselves from the viewer, in the period of Minimalism, that a reaction set in.
The reaction was introduced by the works of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, both of whom were said to have bridged the periods of Minimalism and Pop Art. These artists wanted to bring the world of common objects into their pictures and so began the tradition of "combines" and collages, and conceptual art. The Pop Artists who followed them were Warhol, Lichtenstein, Claus Oldenberg, Baldessari and Jeff Coons, among others. Much of their work were critical and/or satirical representations of the popular culture of the day.
Artists in this period, such as David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Diebenkorn and Oliviera, in California, revived the painting of figures in a style known as Naive Figurative Painting. Later proponents of this style were Manuel Neri and Joan Brown.
Next week we'll look at some artists whose work could not be easily categorized, and then go on to the 60's revolution in the arts.
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