Pollock : The Avent Garde Gambit

The Modern Movement took place between 1870 and 1970, all of the art produced in this period was known as ‘Modern Art’. Davis is well known for his art created in this movement. ‘Modern Art’ is a broad term that covers many categories of this period. Davis was part of the Cubism- and Abstraction Movements. He was not only part of these movements, but he also created his own style, now known as Synthetic Cubism. Synthetic Cubism is an almost poster-like style of painting, House and Street is a good example of this style.

While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.

The violent clash of patriarchal Europe with the Americas and other parts of the world during the colonial period directly caused a degree of cross cultural diffusion that is evident within art. During this period of immense change, european artists sought to innovate and take a modern approach to their work, breaking away from the established mold. Abigail Solomon-Godeau write of one such artist from this period, Paul Gauguin, not only for his experimentation into expressionism but for the relation to which he viewed the native people of Tahiti, regarding them from a primitivist lens, appropriating much of their culture, and the sexualization of women.

When discussing how one should look at art, paintings, or even sculptures to understand it for its full meaning Patrick Frank’s Prebles’ Artforms categorizes it in five ways; commentary, worship and ritual, commemoration, persuasion, and self-expression (Frank 23-34). I believe that these five categories can really help you when looking at any type of artwork because you can distinguish what message the artist is trying to convey and a deeper understanding of the work.

To understand most period and movements in modern art, one must first understand the context in which they occurred. When one looks at the various artistic styles, one will realize how artists react to historical and cultural changes and how artists perceive their relation to society.

Salomon argues that this comparison technique has been the main feature or art historical analysis. It puts a

Just like everything else in life, art has its critics. Art criticism is the expression used to describe the act of making selective judgments, both positive and negative, about an art piece. Just as art is so diversely expressed and interpreted, those who critique it also have various methods and use various standards when criticizing an art piece. There are many theories critics use to evaluate art but there are three basic theories most commonly put to use by professionals. The three basic theories are: formal theories, contextual theories, and expressive theories. Formal theories focus on the formalities of art. Critics using formal theories pay close attention to the making of a piece, how each section of the art piece works to form a visual experience that may or may not attract the attention of those who come across it. Formalists’ attention is centered on the formal organization rather than the themes, which they deem irrelevant. Contextualists, on the other hand, value the theme and its relevance to the times in which the artwork was created. The contextual theories deal with the context in which an art piece is used; what it symbolizes concerning the culture and values of the environment. Lastly, there are the expressive theories. Expressionists are more concerned with the artist and the personal expression put into the work. Also, because art is a method of communication, expressive theories

would situate ourselves in history.” (100) in the essay led me to start the analysis of Gauguin’s

His personal technique in gesture and action painting was applied as directly as possible. Pollock said that through this active process, he could "literally be in the painting". This describes the term coined "action painting". He also said, "When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making

‘The avant-garde understands itself as invading unknown territory, exposing itself to the dangers of sudden, shocking encounters, conquering an as yet unoccupied future ... The avant-garde must find a direction in a landscape into which no one seems to have yet ventured.’

Art criticism, defined as the linguistic exploration of artworks, or talk about art (Feldman, 1970). Art criticism is driven by various individual perceptions, world views, morals, and values. Throughout this essay I will explain my thoughts and feelings about a particular piece of artwork I find fascinating. For this essay I will be focusing on Grant Wood's portrait painting of the American Gothic. The American Gothic painting was created in the 1930s and has become an iconic piece of art as well as in my opinion his greatest work.

Both these artworks were constructed around the same times, 1889 in the 19th century. This was a time in Van Gogh’s life of great misplacement and the downhill run to his suicide in 1890 at 37. A series of events led to his downfall including such events as: chasing Gauguin with a knife, resulting in the fallout of their relationship; cutting his left ear off as a consequence for his misbehaviour and handing it to a prostitute as a ‘gift’ in 1888; finally shooting himself in the chest. Dying two days later in 1890. These series of events subsequently relate to Van Gogh’s paintings, as he painted with full attentive emotion within his artworks using colour as a vehicle to convey his subjective emotions.

, and in contrast to this, the independant wrote, ' It's too focused on the hit it will give its audience. It simply doesn't have enough world in it to be worthwhile art, enough complication, contingency, resistance, negotiation, argument – and abstract art can have these things as much as any other'. THE INDEPENDANT: 2008

Influenced by the progressing technology and the Industrial Revolution which drove people to urban life, modern art brought an emphasis on originality, innovation and looking at things with a different perspective. One of the major themes of Modernism was to abandon old ideas and produce new ways of creating art. Postmodernism movement developed between the later 1960s and the 1990s that revived earlier styles that artists could sample, adopt and recycle in order to create new, contemporary pieces and ideas. In the lecture for Modernism, the piece that made me think the most was Rene Magritte’s The Rape. This piece shows a women's portrait with her face missing and a female body shown as the face. Rene Magritte created this piece in reaction

This implies that painting, rather than 'using art to conceal art' (ibid) by creating illusionistic space and depth, should rather use art 'to call attention to art' (ibid), that is, to emphasise the unique characteristics of the medium; 'the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of pigment' (ibid). Greenberg states that such a process would render art 'pure', that is, autonomous, free of any extraneous elements deriving from other arts, such as theatricality or narrative. The impact of a painting should thus derive from those technical aspects characteristic of painting, such as colour, form and composition. An example of the sort of painting Greenberg was advocating at the time may clarify this. Morris Louis's painting Alpha-Phi (pl.D10) is exactly contemporary with the publication of 'Modernist Painting'. It consists of bold, ragged, diagonal streaks of pure colour against an off-white ground; Louis's use of acrylic paints, which soak into the canvas, means that the colours appear integrated with the ground and hence do not disrupt the flatness of the picture plane. Its effect depends upon the arrangement of colours and the large scale of the painting which makes it occupy 'so much of one's visual field that it loses its character as a discrete tactile object and thereby become that much more purely a picture, a strictly visual entity' (Greenberg, 'Louis and Noland', p.28). It is apparently devoid of references to