This formal and historical art analysis will define the color, composition, line, and values of the revolutionary modernist painting “The Rose Marble Table” (1917) by Henri Matisse. Matisse utilizes a modernist approach to this painting by presenting a minimalist approach to the placement of the rose and the table, which presents a very basic color scheme. The strong lines of the painting define the simplistic presentation of a sculptured object of beauty, which is nestled in various flora at the fringes of the composition. More so, Matisse’s modernist approach defines the perspective of detachment from social norms, which occurred during the First World War. Matisse sought to present an internalized vision of beauty that would not allow the horrors of war to impede his vision of beauty. This internalized view defines the revolutionary focus of Matisse’s work, since he did not allow the enteral issues of the world to influence the subject matter of his paintings. In essence, a formal and historical analysis of the revolutionary spirit of modernism will be examined in Henri Matisse’s “The Rose Marble Table.” In formal terms, Matisse’s “The Rose Marble Table” is a presented as a two-dimensional style of painting in the modernist style of the early 20th century. The rose marble table at the center of the composition is seen with the top of the table fully exposed, and the lower base of the table that extends below it. This central positioning of the table provides a compositional approach that makes the colorful values of the table come forth in contrast to the dark brown background. More so, the placement of a basket on the table and few small fruits provides some evidence of depth perception, although they are also presents in a very two-dimensional style. In the background, the black stems of trees and ivy vines provide a fringe accent to the painting, as ivy covers the base of the table and is seen at the upper right side of the painting. These organic parts of the painting define a more realistic presentation of flora, which contrasts the more two-dimensional aspects of the rose table at the center of the painting. This type of compositional arrangement blends the modernist shape of the table as a
Impressionism is an artistic style of painting that originated in France in the 1870s. This style of painting attempts to capture an experience or emotion opposed depicting a scene accurately. Every impressionistic painter has a distinct method of rendering as well as their own distinct set of qualities that reflect the artist themselves. For instance, The Basket Chair by Berthe Morisot and The Orange Trees by Gustave Caillebotte are two impressionist works of art of oils on canvas that contrast in many ways. These two paintings will be compared side by side with an in depth approach comparing the artist’s personal status in society, modernism’s role in the piece, and the execution of composition.
This essay analyses the aesthetic and ideological underpinnings of the Modernist artwork, Impression, Sunrise of Claude Monet. The artwork and Impressionism is considered to be a visual articulation of the avant-garde and the latter statement is explained. References to the writings of Charles Harrison, Clement Greenberg and Wilhelm Worringer is used to theorise the aesthetics of modernity.
Art by its nature is a subject of the philosophical, social, economic, political or religious context surrounding its creator. More often than not, a work of art addresses a specific topic or somewhat revolves around a particular person. Therefore, it is impossible to separate the context of a piece of painting, either historical or cultural, to its intrinsic value or the artwork's meaning. On the other hand, different cultures and time utilized specific conventions that govern the representation of objects of creativity. This essay highlights various pieces of art and their relationship to particular cultural, political, economic, or social settings. Moreover, it pinpoints how different times influence art presentation.
To describe the artwork “Woman in a Purple Coat” by Henri Matisse, the viewer has to be open to expression. In the artwork there is a woman, wearing purple pointy shoes, green pants with white faded stripes, a V-shape white shirt with grey lines, a long purple coat with white stripes and four black strips at the front to button the coat, a pearl necklace and another yellow long necklace. She is sitting with confidence with open arms on a vibrant two tone one side yellow and other side green couch. Sitting on the couch in a corner with a yellow flower arrangement on a pink and white vase with some fruit on a table next to her on the right. There is a magazine laying on the floor on top of a gray rug with black stripes above a black square marble floor. It looks as if she was reading intensely before being interrupted. She has her right foot behind her left, confidently waiting to be interviewed. The walls contrast with each other giving light and darkness to the portrait. On one side the wall is black with gray flowers outlined in red. On the other side the wall is green with black curvy streaks with white outline joined together by a grey corner behind the women wearing dark lipstick confidently sitting on the couch.
Overall, the ideologies discussed within the articles Written In Blood: 20th Century Art by Stephanie Dudek and Estrangement As A Motif In Modern Painting by John Adkins Richardson address similarities and differences from various standpoints. Modernistic ideologies towards social, cultural and technological changes of the 20th century are demonstrated in both articles. The article by Stephanie Dudek emphasizes on the employment of radical and transgressive values by modern artists within their work to target cultural, and artistic principles that have persisted over many generations leading to a transformation within the subject of art (Dudek 105). Furthermore, modern art set out to obtain new visions of reality as witnessed within the Cubist
Moreover, I explained how each image is an example for the core principles of modernism as mentioned in the overview. In brief, modernist design is innovative. Space, form and structure is based on the functional requirements. Designs became simple and without overwhelming traditional aesthetic concepts. Therefore, technology together with simpler design made the product easy to be mass produced. After the first World War, designers in central Europe intended to change the world for better through art by rejecting ornamentation as it resembled of the past generations whom withstood the unpleasant effects of war and poverty (Smith, 2005). Dormer (1993) writes that:
Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon is considered by many to be a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of modern art. Demoiselles is a “great manifesto of modernist painting” as Picasso had abandoned all known form of traditional art, a radical break from the Western tradition that very much led to the Cubism movement (Bishop, 2002). What made Demoiselles revolutionary was that "in it Picasso broke away from the two central characteristics of European painting since the Renaissance: the classical norm for the human figure, and the spatial illusionism of one-point perspective" (Fry, 1966). Cubism had “destroyed […] the realist conventions for three-dimensional perspective which had been dominant in art since the Renaissance” (Butler, 2010). While generally credited as the first Cubist painting, art historians such as John Golding have argued that it was only a “starting point for the history of Cubism” (1958). Indeed, the picture predicates key characteristics of Cubism like the distortion and break down of objects and figures into distinct shapes, rather than being itself a Cubist painting. This analysis will concentrate on the elements of Cubism in Demoiselles and how it led to the movement.
On September 4, 2016, I visited the Matisse in His Time exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. This exhibit is home to a plethora of pieces by many different European artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. While it is focused on Matisse and his extensive works, containing more than 50 of his pieces, there are many portraits and sculptures by other influential artists from that time period including Renoir, Picasso, and Georges Braque. Three of the most appealing works that I encountered in this exhibit are Maurice de Vlaminck’s Portrait of Père Bouju, Pablo Picasso’s Reclining Woman on a Blue Divan, and Henri Matisse’s sculpture series Henriette I, Henriette II, and Henriette III.
The purpose of this essay is to fully employ all of the new observational skills that I have learned from the start of the semester to now. With that in mind, I was feeling very excited to use these new “abilities” as I was observing art. The San Diego Museum of Art was very interesting indeed, and I have never experienced art in such a way that is sort of hard to describe. The museum had paintings and galleries ranging from the Renaissance era all the way to the eighteenth century and even Impressionism and Post-Impressionism as well. However, my eyes instantly caught Henri Matisse’s painting, Bouquet, this painting had so many details, elements, and meanings as well as similar characteristics from past chapters that I have read this semester.
Marshall Berman’s take on modernity is presented in his book All That Is Solid Melts into Air whereby he focuses on its issues and the cultural attitudes and philosophies towards the modern condition. In doing so he shares his experiences of modernity post WWII in New York in the height of an economic boom and then more specifically of his childhood neighbourhood, the Bronx. In addition to expanded austerity, industrial and architectural development, the end of WWII proved to be a key period in world history and by extension the history of art. A talented group of artists emerged in result that had been influenced by an influx of established European artist who had fled to New York to escape fascist regimes in their homelands. More importantly these artists produced art that was at the heart of maelstrom Berman describes in regards to his experience of modernity. I aim to highlight the correlation between Berman’s experience of modernity and the emergence of a new American modernism. Modernity throughout this period was broken into two different compartments, hermetically sealed off from one another: "modernisation" in economics and politics, "modernism" in art, culture and sensibility. It’s through the lens of this dualism in which we recognise that both Berman and these artists try to make sense of the world around them by making their individual expressions that would re-conceptualise what it is to be modern in the twentieth century.
The art world has been host to a vast menagerie of talent, intellect, and creativity for about as long as human culture has existed. It has grown, developed, and changed just as humanity has. Naturally, with such an impressively expansive history, various avenues of art are visited time and time again by new artists. Artists seek not only to bring their own personal flavor and meaning to timeless concepts, but to find new ways to approach them. While not every single creator and craftsman can make such a great impact on art or the world, their efforts have given birth to some truly magnificent and unique works. In an effort to create a more meaningful understanding, as well a deeper appreciation, of the nuances, techniques, and design choices employed in these attempts, a comparison will be made between Edouard Vuillard’s Interior With a Screen (1909-1910) and Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra) (1907). In this essay, each artist’s approach to the subject of the female nude will be closely analyzed, compared, and contrasted, as will their styles of painting, handling of visual elements, and their use of the principles of design. An interpretation of each work and what the artist intended when creating it will also be provided.
When the two men meet, Matisse’s career was beginning to take off. On March 19th, 1906, his second one-man show opened at a Private Gallery where he exhibited fifty-five paintings, along with a number of sculptures, watercolors, drawings, and lithographs. The paintings ranged in date from 1897 to the current year, so the exhibition served as a retrospective that gave a clear idea of his art development. For the 1906 Salon exhibition, Matisse only showed a single painting, Le Bonheur de vivre (Fig. 5), which was the largest- and most daring- canvas he had ever done. Matisse’s creation of The women with the hat (Fig. 3) had unexpectedly shocked people, but with le Bonheur de vivre. Matisse appear to have purposely set out this painting to create a shocking effect. That Matisse wanted his painting to be a kind of manifesto. Leo Stein bought the painting and declared it to be “the most important painting done in our time.” And was hung up high in Gertrude and Leo’s studio. Leo’s high opinion of Le Bonheur de vivre must have vexed Picasso.
Art is all around us. There are many different forms of art. It can be something created, captured, or it can be already existent. Not a single person is to say what makes something art because there is a different definition for everyone. However, there are a couple factors that come into mind whenever someone decides to declare something as art. In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting four different pieces of art. I will be discussing each art piece’s form, time period of creation, intention or purpose, and value. These four pieces of art are Michelangelo’s Pieta, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko’s No.61, and the “Oyster Dress” by Alexander McQueen. These works of art come in all different shapes and sizes but they are valued
When one considers the term “Art Nouveau,” what comes to mind most immediately is “images of a European-wide invasion [characterized] by the restless dynamism of organic form”(Silverman 1). For me it is usually the work of Alphonse Mucha– his mysterious women surrounded by the beauties of nature. Often my Art Nouveau fantasies take shape in the odd fungal-shaped stained-glass lamps of Tiffany. Or sometimes they surface as the romantic Parisian posters I’ve seen at Pier One, advertising champagne or cats noir or bicycles or the like. But no matter what ones notion may be of what Art Nouveau looks like, there is a feeling that accompanies it that is at the heart of the style’s appeal. It is difficult to define or describe what
Matisse was influenced by Cézanne's method of analyzing and pulling apart his subject matter. Like Paul Cézanne, Matisse believed that everything could be broken down into simple shapes and painted that way (Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre, n.d.). In Bonheur de Vivre the broken down figures accurately represent the human form and living scenery. The figures in The Large Bathers emit a feeling of calm while the scene depicted in Bonheur de Vivre is a place full of life and love and freedom. Unlike the paintings by Cézanne, Matisse's work does not depict forms that recede in the background and diminish in scale. In Bonheur de Vivre, the scale of the figures in the foreground and the middle ground is badly skewed (Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre, n.d). Matisse brought exploration of vision through space by incorporating shifting perspectives. As a result, the viewer relates differently to the painting and is required to "enter" the scene. Matisse's painting is perhaps the first canvas to actually further the elder master’s ideas.