• Places figures at the forefront and silhouettes them

• Shows the city of Madrid in the background

• it's a political painting : Spain embroiled in a Civil War, government asked the French to take control and they didn't leave; shows the uprising of Madrid against French troops; we don't see the faces of the French, not individualized; we see the reactions of the Spanish getting killed (victims: monk praying, religious figure)

• figure that stands out : defiant against the French; evokes crucifiction of Christ (religious theme); Goya wants you to draw that parallel

• commissioned by Ferdinand VII of Spain at Goya's request; painting is large, 9 ft by 13ft

• Book Fact : Goya's loose brushstrokes emphasize the writhing movement of the victims; Goya's commission to perpetuate "the most... heroic actions... of our glorious insurrection"

The Hay Wain

John Constable

1821

Romantic Landscape Painting 

• In Suffolk, near Flatford on the River Stout, where Constable grew up; drawing on his personal experiences to create the work; painting is an oil painting; Constable had a fascination with the weather conditions would create quick oil sketches to show the clouds and sky 

• painting is for me but another word for feeling 

• thinking deeply of what is going on: Industrial Revolution; countryside was threatened during this time; this painting is a call for the preservation of nature

Book Notes:  Constable's naturalism was in part inspired by his study of the innovation in landscape by Dutch seventeenth-century painters 

The Slave Ship 

J.M.W Turner 

1840

Romantic Landscape Painting (Romanticism)

• shows a boat that is floundering on the sea; shows a sail of a boat that is torn loose; ship is about to be engulfed 
• the sun causing a very intense color; nature is an awesome kind of force 
• event had to do with the transportation of slaves; ill slaves on the ship would be thrown overboard so the captain could still collect money 
• message: slavery is morally reprehensible; detail in the lower corner : legs w/ chain thrown over and fish considering slave as next meal 
• the sublime : the way in which artists were invoking nature in a sort of awe; an awesome force that we cannot control 

Book Notes: Turner's evocative colors and broad brushstrokes create and urgent, anxious feeling. 

Houses of Parliament 

Charles Barry & Augustus W.N. Pugin 

begun 1836, completed 1870

Gothic Revival Style 

• includes Big Ben; great variety of structures; Gothic architecture (Gothic Revival Style !!!); irregular silhouette 
• Houses of Parliament burned in a fire; old building dated back to Gothic time; West Minster Abbey influenced the architecture 
• architects saw a moral purity in the Gothic period that they wanted to reference 
• a statement against the Industrial Revolution; is it wise to replace hand crafted work with mass produced goods?

Book Note: Barry won a competition to design the new Houses of Parliament and hired Pugin to help with the detailing.  

The Opera

Charles Garnier 

1861 - 1875 

Neo-Renaissance/Baroque Revival  

• one of the most opulent Opera houses in Europe; increased Paris' cultural identity 
• building is right in the middle of the city, so difficult to photograph (compared to the Palace of Versailles) 
• beneath the opulence, iron skeleton; gives the building structural integrity
• opulent both exterior and interior (grand staircase, foyer & auditorium)

Book Notes: affected the development of the motion picture "palace" in 20th century America

The Eiffel Tower

Gustave Eiffel 

1887 - 1889 

 19th C. Art 

• the visibility; the shape, three levels; the tip was called the needle 
• made for the Paris Exposition in 1889 (World's Fair); Gustav Eiffel hired to build as an entrance way for the exposition complex; gave a bird's eye perspective on the city; had an elevator 
• a lovely patterning and basic shapes at the base; no nature but suggests nature 
• during construction, pre-fabricated materials produced and then already put together; iron completely exposed, a whole new design aesthetic 
• color is rejuvenated, painted every 10 years or so 
• was supposed to be temporary but decision was made to keep as a tourist attraction 

Book Note: Eiffel's design was selected out of 700 submissions as the winning entry 

A Burial at Ornans

Gustave Courbet

1849 - 1850

 Realism

• painting shocked and angered critics and public alike; the significance of a painting was judged by the didactic virtue of its theme and by the painter's adherence to the academic rules of composition and execution 
• Courbet broke these rules; the goal of the artist was to reproduce "objects visible & tangible to the painter"; the work shows a funeral in Courbet's hometown outside of Paris; simple, direct observation 
• when his two larger works were turned down by the jury of the Universal Exposition of 1855, he withdrew all of his submissions and and had his own exhibition building constructed in competition with the official exhibition
• style quickly became known as Realism

Impression-Sunrise 

Claude Monet 

1872 

 Impressionism 

• subtle depiction of nature; Monet did not set out to pain a beautiful picture, goal was to record reality as he saw it; impressionism, visual effect of reality as it appeared to him at that moment
• transitory effects of color : how color changes in response to shifting lift and varying atmospheric conditions; 
• applied brush strokes that indicate clouds and then more defined -- dry brush that drags across the surface; not a lot of blending; 3 boats, less defined 

Book Note: Impressionists were rejected for the Salon exhibitions, so they instead held their own independent exhibitions; first hosted by the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, Etc.; they render not the landscape, but the sensation produced by the landscape 

The Night Cafe

Vincent Van Gogh 

1888

 Post-Impressionism 

• created during Van Gogh's stay in Arles 
• "yellow high note"; particularly strong time during his career, he adopted the Japanese belief that yellow is a symbol for hope 
• Arles was also a place of despair for Van Gogh, which may explain the intensity of the work; painting was given to his landlord in exchange for rent; "one of the ugliest pictures he has ever done"; ugliness intentional, color is used arbitrarily; allows him to express personal meaning through the clashing yellows, greens and "blood reds" 
• psychological impact of the work: the terrible passions of humanity, the cafe is a place where one can ruin onself, run mad or commit a crime 
• claustrophobia & tense threatening atmosphere; tilted and close perspective space that is unnerving for the viewer 
• began collecting Japanese prints during the time of the painting, clear in the details 
• other influences: suffered from epilepsy alcoholism and drank absinthe, all which may have affected his vision 

Mont Ste-Victoire 

Paul Cezanne 

1904 - 1906 

 Post-Impressionism 

• most significant monument in the landscape is the powerful thrusting mountain, Cezanne has constructed painting from blocks of color and no one area or object is less strong than another
• urged painters to "see in nature the sphere, the cylinder, the cone"; painting demonstrates this approach 
• surface strength : accomplished by intermingling blocks of limited color (violet, green, ocher and blue); these colors appear all over 
• compared to Impression-Sunrise, Cezanne has sacrificed momentary subtlety of color that forms the foundations of Monet's work in his attempt to create a landscape that has enduring strength and power; musterious presence 
• Matisse called Cezanne the "father of us all"

Book Notes: Mont Ste-Victoire, believed to be a holy mountain, home of the gods 

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 

Pablo Picasso

1907

 Cubism 

• scene is a brothel, five prostitutes; two wear masks based on African examples that hide their identity while projecting alienated aggression; masks were "magic things" added to mystery of the work
• colors clash : warm flesh tones and shades of pink and rust set against icy blues; illusion of space disintegrates in flat, abstract shapes
• a paradox for formal tensions; an affront to the traditions of illusionism 
• notions of beauty & the female form : Picasso represents the femal form a little differently, w/ african masks (little detail); questions the ideals of beauty; asks the viewer to think about these perceptions 
• cubism : assigned to Picasso's work; Picasso begins to break down the places; forms that look like cubes (not deragatory) 

Book Note: The Avignon is a street in the red-light district of Barcelona. The works reinforces the planarity of the pictorial surface.  

Robie House

Frank Lloyd Wright 

1909 

 Prairie Style 

• domestic architecture : someone's home 
• prarie style : refers to the landscape of the Midwest; structure that really hugs the horizontal 
• very modern, forward looking design; made good use of natural materials that emphasize the horizontal quality; brick lined w/ creamy stone
• considers how the living of the family; fireplace at the heart of the structure; encourages a positive family dynamic; exposed wood; "open floor plan"; designed all of the furniture in the homes as well -- enclosed space, no distractions, greater focus on togetherness 

Book Notes: Wright's designs later influenced modern European architecture including the de Stijl and Bauhaus movements 

Composition II in Red, Blue & Yellow

Piet Mondrian 

1930

 Abstract

• showed that artists were now thinking theoretically about their work; Mondrian used to pain forms we could identify, then moved far from this abstract form
• abstract art : indicate works that are based in nature but not realistic representation 
• non-representational art doesn't represent anything that we recognize 
• Mondrian was fascinated w/ philosophy and optics; working w/ warm and cool colors; a balance between the warm (red & yellow) and cool (black, white, blue) colors 
• thinking about philosophical issues 
• how do we represent the idea of equilibrium and balance at the heart of the universe? 

The Two Fridas

Frida Kahlo 

1939 

• Kahlo painted a lot of self-portraits; husband was Diego Rivera; she wanted to be a medical doctor, but suffered from accident before med school, so became a painter 
• as a landscape, the location isn't really defined 
• starting to see some very unusual things; two open hearts; white version, heart cut away and viewer can see inside 
• Frida Kahlo was going through a divorce from husband; she sees herself as divided, pulled a part by two identities 
• blood spilling on dress/trying to stop w/ pincers
• on the right, she is holding an image of Diego Rivera
• painting that deals w/ parts of her identity; on the right, the Frida Diego loved, on the left, the Frida Diego didn't love 

Book Notes: dual heritage likewise expressed in the two hearts; European dress + Aztec sacrificial practices  

Lobster Trap & Fish Tail

Alexander Calder 

1939 

Abstract 

• sculpture hangs from the ceiling, no longer earth bound 
• Calder first to take sculpture in this direction; sculture also creates movement & time; moving in response to air currents so that over time, it will change
• title of the work : didn't create the work with something in mind; only later is some kind of title assigned to the work 

Book Notes: In his later years, he created large abstracted structures that he called "stabiles" because they did not move  

Convergence 

Jackson Pollock 

1952 

 Abstract

• NYC : western world's most important art center 
• again, non-recognizable 
• action painting/abstract expressionism 
• laid canvas on the floor so he could be "in" the painting; used industrial paint and instead of using brushes, dribbled the paint from sticks 
• the painting communicates raw energy 
• influenced by Freud & Jung; psychoanalytic investigation of his own personality; mind and nature form a necessary unity 
• Surrealist automatism : records the process by which the artist's unconscious has been laid bare 

Marilyn Diptych 

Andy Warhol 

1962

Pop Art 

• pop art : loose movement that arose in the 1960s, first in Britain then the U.S.; means "popular art"; artists are working from popular culture 
• we're reacting against abstract expressionism; wanted works to glorify the every day 
• he also wanted the work to be impersonal
• in his designs, factory produced and not always created by himself
• diptych : a work made in two parts 
• this is in fact a print made by silk screening 
• silk screen : parts of screen blocked off -- ink is squeegeed through the screen 
• Warhol comes up with initial design and then someone else prints it 
• related to the celebrity
• Warhol : addressomg the idea of this image, too much pressure; Warhol created this work just after the suicide of Marilyn Monroe 

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Maya Ying Lin

1982

• the work represents Vietnam Veterans -- no memorial was created because they were not victorious 
• presented for criteria & asked designers to submit; monument needed to be contemplative & reflective in nature; harmonize w/ surroundings; must contain names as well as those who remained missing; make no direct political statement about the war
• designer was 21 years old when she was selected
• works the design into the landscape; work is below ground, sound of the city seem to vanish 
• walls are made of granite 
• sense of individualness
• names : most important part of the memorial 
• statues : a response to the memorial because memorial did not contain human figures 
• wall points towards the Washington monument 

Book Notes: Lin wanted the memorial not to be static, but wanted people to relate to as on a journey, or passage, that would bring to his/her own conclusion  

You Invest in the Divinity of the Masterpiece 

Barbara Kruger 

1984 

• large image : 72 inches high 
• painting featured : Michaelangelo's Sistine ceiling 
• asking us to critique the way we think about art; what determines a masterpiece? 
• step away from the idea that certain works are of higher value than others

Guggenheim Museum 

Frank Gehry

1997

• very interesting type of architectural form 
• helps us think about some of the issues that are a part of this course 
• Bilbao : a part of the Basque region; embroiled in poilitical controvery; wanted to separate from Spain -- Basque Separation 
• relationship between art museum & the community 
• structure; pulled together from different components; the idea of Bilbao being a shipping center; the building looks like a ship 
• titanium: a very expensive metal; structure is faced with titanium (very thin layer on the surface); surface lies in nicely w/ the reflection of the water; specializes in modern & contemporary art 

Book Note: architect refers to the enormous vertical atrium as the "metallic flower"