JacksonPollock an Understanding ?

--> Yesterday’s tutorial was truly memorable – I now understand Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)…didn’t say I liked him but now I understand him. And further I now don’t feel odd when I see figures resolving and unresloving when I look at a typical Jackson Pollock – that’s the intended aesthetic effect..

Cubism has its lines creating faceted planes, Pollock has his curves creating fictive figuration. Rectilinear meets curvilinear. Architectonic meets Biomorphic. The Apollonian meets The Dionysian. Picassoism* meets Pollockism *(Picasso the Cubist!).

We can track his influences and see the outcomes as Pollock moved from formal figurative to fully abstract figuration.

Formal Figurative
Influences: Cubism, Mexican Muralist,
Pollock oeuvre : Naked Man with Knife; Jackson Pollock drawings,
Prof Harrison* quote: transparent and graspable

Fully Abstract Figuration
Influences ,alcohol, psychoanalysis, Surrealism, automatism, Jung, Guernica
Pollock oeuvre :Mural , 1943, Autumn Rhythm Number 30, Eyes in the Heat
Prof Harrison* quote: vestigial modelling

So he created an alternative to Cubism based on formal figurative art ...if he'd lived he could have developed an whole new school....

*see pages 177 to 143
Wood, P. (ed), (2004) Varieties of Moderism, New Haven and London, Yale University Press

What is Kitsch ?

A 30yr Intellectual in the late 1930’s writing for a communism magazine saw Kitsch as ….

Kitsch is a German word
Kitsch is a rearguard to art’s avant-garde
Kitsch is popular , commercial, art and literature, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, tap dancing, Hollywood movies.
Kitsch is a product of the industrial revolution.
Kitsch is culture for the proletariat and petty bourgeois newly settling in cities.
Kitsch is ersatz (bogus, artificial, pseudo, fake, pretend) culture
Kitsch is for those insensible to the values of genuine culture.
Kitsch is produced mechanically.
Kitsch is its own salesman and presses (sells aggressively) every member of society.
Kitsch is deceptive The New Yorker magazine is high class Kitsch
Kitsch is not altogether worthless – now and again it produces something of merit.
Kitsch is capable of producing great profits – a source of temptation to the avant-garde(!)
Kitsch is on a triumphal tour of the world – crowding out and defacing local culture.
Kitsch is irresistible.
Kitsch is enjoyed without effort.
Kitsch is an inexpensive way in which totalitarian regimes seek to ingratiate (suck up to, crawl, grovel to) themselves with their subjects.
Kitsch is pliable.
Kitsch is easy to inject with effective propaganda.
Kitsch is a dictator’s way of keeping in close contact with the ‘soul’ of his people

Biblography
Clement Greenberg (1909-1995) Avant Garde and Kitsch first published in
Parisian Review , New York VI no.5 , Fall 1939, pp 34-49 reproduced in
Harrison, C., Wood, P. (eds) (2003) Art in Theory 1900–2000, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd

The History of Art in 3 Latin and 1 French Phrase

Renaissance

Ut pictura poesis Horace 35BC
As is painting so is poetry.

Painting and poetry (and literature) are equal one was a source for the other, for inspiration and as an aid to interpretation. Look at Giotto’s Arena Chapel Fresco’s

Ars est Aretum celare Horace 35 BC
Art is to conceal art

All brush strokes are hidden , modelling is central – chiaroscuro effects are the aim.
Look at Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and try and find the brush strokes.

Romaniscim

L’art pour L’art Théophile Gautier (1811–1872)
Art for art sake

Art is free to ‘do its thing’ it had no moral or teaching purpose it was what it was, it needed no justification or origin. Try and explain Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur L’Herbe or rather why bother – just enjoy the view!

Modernism

Art est artum demonstrare Clement Greenberg 1940
Art is to reveal itself.#

The medium shows itself in the finished work aka medium specificity. Primary colours: no tones or tonality, dripping paint (if need be). Lines - clears and obvious the division between two colours. A move to flatness as that what a canvas is , who needs Renaissance’s perspective and verisimilitude ? See Pablo Picasso, 'Women of Algiers (O) (after Delacroix)' , its all there….the primary colours – straight out the tube; the black lines: separating the colours; the flat canvas – cubist effects to create the dept: unfinished look as though the artist was in a hurry (in fact on some Picasso’s you can still see the dripping paint marks

That's it...the history art - Renaissance : Romanticism : Modernism....Ut pictura poesis : Ars est Aretum celare : L’art pour L’art : Art est artum Demonstrare : QED

Alfred H. Barr A LEGEND ?

Alfred H. Barr’s cover for 1936 Cubism and Abstarct Art Exhibition at MOMA is one of my favourite works I met so far on the course. Why ? Because it appears to be so logical:
Vertically - A distinct time line all progression, one thing leading to another.

The chart ignores any of the social , political or military circumstances which impacted art's developements during the period.

Horizontally – The shift from figurative to non-figurative or the opposite from non-geometric to geometric – making figurative the negation of geometric. En Route figurative art was abstracted

What’s missing or least I haven’t come across it is any kind of legend , explaining the significance of the red and black lettering , boxes and arrows the solid and dashed lines.

Here’s my take:

Font Size




The size of the font seems to indicate importance CUBISM is the biggest reflecting its pivotal importance in modern art with six connections the most influential ISM of the twentieth century. Interestingly FAUVISM is the most eclectic ISM with 5 influences.

Red Type




The red appears to indicate external influences while the black are internal
For example the impact of NEGRO SCULPTURE – Primitivism – on Fauvism where it simplified its compositions, Mattisse Dance, and Cubism where it moved it to abstraction.

(ABSTRACT)
Here Barr is indicating the ISM had other branches he is only concerned with its abstarct developments. For example EXPRESSIONISM has on the one hand figurative work by Matisse and on the other hand fully abstract pieces by Kandinsky which both have a common root in EXPRSSIONISM

Dotted Lines





Black
A dotted line seems to indicate a tentative relationship.

The lines from Redon to EXPRESSIONISM and SURREALISM are to me problematic need to proven.

Equally the all the dotted lines to MODERN ARCHITECTURE are questionable specifically the BAUHAUS link this one at least should be a solid line.

Red
There is only one seem to indicate a tentative relationship between MACHINE AESTHETIC and Brancussi.
A dotted line seems to indicate a tentative relationship between Barancussi work and the machine which is odd because there was a famous court case where Brancusi had to defend a work as art not domestic utensil to the US custom authorities.