WHAT IS ART?

WHAT SHOULD ART CONVEY?

ART IS:the presentation or expression of

what is beautiful, appealing or of more than

ordinary significance

layered, complex, susceptible to many different

interpretations

the source of questions and ruminations, not tidy

solutions

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SURREALISM: is the imagination of the unconscious

is a positive expression

is an unification of the conscious /

unconscious

is where dreams and fantasy are joined to

the rational, everyday world in an absolute

reality = surreality

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SURREALITY: is surprising, spontaneous, unexpected,

irrational

Andre Breton, Paris art critic, coined the

name “Manifesto of Surrealism” in the 1920’s

Breton admired Sigmund Freud

Breton trained in medicine and psychiatry

disdained traditional art forms

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EXAMPLES OF SURREALISTS:Salvador Dali

Maxwell Ernst

Rene Magritte

Joan Miró

Picasso

Jackson Pollock(an abstractionist who greatly admired the

surrealists)

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The Persistence of Memory Salvador Dali, 1931

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7The Tilled FieldJoan Miró, 1923-24

SURREALISM AUTHORS:authors considered surrealist

Jean Cocteau

E.E. Cummings

Garcia Lorca

Henry Miller

Anais Nin

Dylan Thomas

William Carlos Williams

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REALISM: is an art movement from France in

the 1850’s

is an objective reality – true to life

honesty / accuracy

subjects in art appear as they do in everyday life

no embellishment

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REALISM:the realists rejected romanticism and

neoclassicism from the late 1700’s / early 1800’s

painters who painted from the world around them

examples of realists:John Singleton Copley

Gustave CourbetHonore DaumierThomas EakinsJean-François MilletWilliam Sidney Mount 10

11The Death of Major PiersonJohn Singleton Copley - 1784

The Gleaners Jean-François Millet, 1857

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REALISM AUTHORS:authors considered realistsWilliam Defoe

Henry Fielding

Hamlin Garland

William Dean Howells

Henry James

Sarah Orne Jewett

Upton Sinclair

Mark Twain

Edith Wharton

Walt Whitman13

IMPRESSIONISM:began in the 1860’s after the Paris World’s

Fairaccurately, objectively recording of visual

reality in terms of transient effects of color and light

the term comes from Monet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise”

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FEATURES OF IMPRESSIONISM:visible brush strokesunusual angles light and changing lightconsidered radical in its timevery open composition, movementunmixed color not smoothly blendedhow the eye views the subject /

not a re-creation of the subject

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examples of impressionistsMary Cassat

Paul Cezanne

Edgar Degas

Edouard Manet

Claude Monet

Berthe Morisot

Camille Pissarro

Pierre Auguste Renoir

John Singer Sargent

Alfred Sisley

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17Impression, SunriseClaude Monet, 1873

18The Boating PartyMary Cassat, 1893-94

IMPRESSIONISM AUTHORS:the Romantic writers

William Blake

Emily Bronte

Wilkie Collins

Mary Shelley

William Wordsworth

and

Joseph Conrad

Arthur Rimbaud

Virginia Woolf 19

ABSTRACTIONISM:no concrete objects –

at least no recognizable onesmorally loaded themes

(rebellion, a disgust with society) emphasis is on individual, spontaneity, mood,

feelings, & revolt(without being an actual representation)

uses form / color / line to create composition existing independently of visual references to the world

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WHY ABSTRACTIONISM?at the end of the 19th century, artists felt

they needed a new kind of art to encompass changes in Science / Technology / Philosophy

it reflects diversity / turmoil of Western society

artists include:Theo van Doesburg

Wassily KandinskyPieter Cornelius “Piet” MondrianJackson Pollock

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22Composition XWassily Kandinsky, 1939

Composition with Yellow, Blue, and RedPiet Mondrian, 1937-42

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ASSIGNMENT form groups of FOUR students choose from ONE of the four genres:birthday party

cafeteriasporting eventwedding

illustrate your choice in each of the FOUR genres:surrealism

realismimpressionismabstractionism

your group will have FOUR total illustrations

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