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Art History Modernism
Key Terms
30
Art History
Undergraduate 4
12/13/2013

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Term
Chicago School (architecture)
Definition
Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial aesthetic which co-evolved with, and then came to influence, parallel developments in European Modernism.
Term
Fantastic art
Definition
Fantastic art is a broad and loosely-defined art genre.[1] It is not restricted to a specific school of artists, geographical location or historical period. It can be characterised by subject matter - which portrays non-realistic, mystical, mythical or folkloric subjects or events - and style, which is representational and naturalistic, rather than abstract
Term
Metaphysical School
Definition
style of painting that flourished mainly between 1911 and 1920 in the works of the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. The movement began with Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contrasts of light and shadow often had a vaguely threatening, mysterious quality, 'painting that which cannot be seen'. Often emphasis on strange, eerie spaces based on Italian piazza.
Term
Futurism
Definition
Founding manifesto by Marinetti. Aggression, beauty of speed, militarism. Time and space destroyed. Omnipotence of speed. War is world's only hygiene. Museums are cemeteries for admiring old images: like putting yourself in an urn instead of hurling self off in spasms of creation.
Term
Vorticism
Definition
Vorticism was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century.[1] It was partly inspired by Cubism. Rejection of landscape and nudes in favor of a geometric style tending towards abstraction. Ultimately, it was their witnessing of unfolding human disaster in World War I that "drained these artists of their Vorticist zeal". In a Vorticist painting modern life is shown as an array of bold lines and harsh colours drawing the viewer's eye into the centre of the canvas.

Percy Wyndham Lewis "Composition" 1913
Poet Ezra Pound
Term
Suprematism
Definition
Replaces futurism and cubism. Breaks from academic art, no nature confines. Those who are academics are savages only stealing natural forms- deformities in naturalism are only technical error, not creativity. Artist is only creator when forms do not resemble anything in nature. Art is based on weight, speed, and construction of movement. Though futurism was a stepping stone, it is inferior. Forms themselves will not be copies of living things, but they themselves will be living things. Intuitive feeling is made conscious. Painters must abandon subjects and objects to be pure painters. A stroke of color should convey the gallop of a horse.

Malevich "White Square on White"
Term
Constructivism
Definition
Came into being in Russia. Build up new, post revolutionary society. Art should look to find the communistic expression of material structures. Art for social purposes.

Redchenko "Untitled ad poster"
Stepanova "Design for sportswear"
Term
Counter-relief
Definition
Tatlin’s “counter-reliefs” were a stage of artistic experiment which followed the creative work with shapes in Cubism. The artist saw reliefs in the atelier of Pablo Picasso in Paris and this prodded him to make his own artistic explorations. What is important in counter-reliefs is the very newness of them. They do not depict anything and are self-sufficient, works of abstract art. A counter-relief is not connected to a picture surface and is an independent three-dimensional construction. The author uses various materials: rosewood, fir and metal, saying in this way that the object of art can be “everything.” Artistic expressiveness is built on the juxtaposition of materials, their properties and surfaces. In the spirit of Cubo-Futurism theories of man’s being forced out by technology, the “antiquated human psychology” is replaced by “instincts of materials.” The combination of contrasting shapes and materials is reminiscent of some fantastic decorative mechanism which presaged the principles of Constructivism.
Term
Socialist realism
Definition
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other socialist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism.
Term
Dada
Definition
Thought to originate in Zurich. Reaction to WWI. Loves the extraordinary, the absurd. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. Protest of destructive action. Displays knowledge that, until now, was rejected due to comfort and good manners. Faith in spontaneity. Demands revolutionary union of all those creative and intellectual on basis of radical Communism.

Marcel Duchamp "Fountain" "Bride stripped bare.." "The Waterfall.. Illuminating gas"
Term
Cabaret Volaire
Definition
Nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland founded by Hugo Ball. Place of entertainment for artists. Aim was tho remind that there are people who are above war and Nationalism who live for others' ideals.

Hugo Ball "Hugo Ball reciting sound poem Karawane"
Term
readymade
Definition
Marcel Duchamp. "R Mutt"
The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art".[1] By simply choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning or joining, titling and signing it, the object became art. As the process involved the least amount of interaction between artist and art, it represented the most extreme form of minimalism up to that time.
Term
New Objectivity
Definition
The New Objectivity (in German: Neue Sachlichkeit) is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it. Rather than some goal of philosophical objectivity, it was meant to imply a turn towards practical engagement with the world—an all-business attitude, understood by Germans as intrinsically American
Term
School of Paris
Definition
École de Paris ("School of Paris") refers to a community of French and foreign modern artists working in Paris (as a center for cultural internationalism) during the first half of the 20th century, especially between the wars. Paris had economic stability, lacked political repression, and was home of key masters like Picasso, Matisse, etc. The art world was booming and cross-fertilizing. Artists who don't conveniently fit other movements belong here. The Nazi invasion ended it all.
Term
the call to order
Definition
The return to order was a European art movement that followed the First World War, rejecting the extreme avant-garde art of the years up to 1918 and taking its inspiration from traditional art instead. The movement was a reaction to the War. Cubism was abandoned even by its creators, Braque and Picasso, and Futurism, which had praised machinery, violence and war, was rejected by most of its followers. The return to order was associated with a revival of classicism and realistic painting.
Term
les maudits
Definition
subgroup. (the cursed ones) because of their miserable lives: poverty, illness, self-destructive behavior. Archetypal bohemian: drugs and alcohol, drunken exhibitionism, fights with girlfriends.
Term
De Stijl
Definition
Dedicated to synthesis of art, design and architecture. War is destroying old world and its contents, new art brings balance between the universal (new) and the individual (old). By excluding natural form, they have eradited that which blocks the artistic expression. Ultimate in simplicity and abstraction. Primary colors. Avoiding symmetry.

De Stijl was built on the fundamental principle of the geometry of the straight line, the square, and the rectangle, combined with a strong asymmetricality; the predominant use of pure primary colors with black and white; and the relationship between positive and negative elements in an arrangement of non-objective forms and disections.

Gerrit Rietveld "Schroder house"
Piet Mondrian "Tableau No II"
Liks established with bauhaus through constructs with El Lissitzky "Proun 99"
Term
neo plasticism
Definition
Neoplasticism is the belief that art should not be the reproduction of real objects, but the expression of the absolutes of life. To the artists way of thinking, the only absolutes of life were vertical and horizontal lines and the primary colors. To this end neoplasticisist only used planar elements and the colors red, yellow, and blue. The neoplastic movement happened in the 1910's and the two main painters of this movement where Piet Mondrian
Term
Walter Gropius
Definition
Founder and first director of Bauhaus. Concerned that work of Bauhaus shouldd be assured of a productive outcome through contacts with industry. Schooling alone cannot produce art- must have talent.Education must be broad to permit every kind of talent.
Term
Surrealism
Definition
Developed out of Dada in Paris. The aim was to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality." Artists painted (occasionally disturbing) illogical scenes with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself.[1]
Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact.
Term
Andre Breton
Definition
After exhaustion of Dada, assumed leadership of left wing of avant grade. Thought is our greatest freedom. Realism is hostile to intellectual advancement. Dreams are organized and can solve life questions. Merging of dreams and realty = surrealism. Extreme degree of immediate absurdity in surrealism. Surrealism expresses the actual functioning of thought. Omnipotence of dream. Non conformism.
Term
The Eight
Definition
The Eight, group of American painters who exhibited together only once, in New York City in 1908, but who established one of the main currents in 20th-century American painting.
Term
Ashcan school
Definition
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the early twentieth century that is best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. 5 of these individuals made up part of The Eight.
Term
Armory show
Definition
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, the first large exhibition of modern art in America. The three-city exhibition started in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913. The exhibition went on to show at the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston,[1] where, due to a lack of space, all the work by American artists was removed.[2] The show became an important event in the history of American art, introducing astonished Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European vanguard, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism. The show served as a catalyst for American artists, who became more independent and created their own "artistic language."
Term
291 gallery
Definition
291 is the commonly known name for an internationally famous art gallery that was located at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City from 1905 to 1917. Originally known as the "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession", the gallery was created and managed by photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
The gallery is famous for two reasons. First, the exhibitions there helped bring art photography to the same stature in America as painting and sculpture. Pioneering artistic photographers such as Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gertrude Kasebier and Clarence H. White all gained critical recognition through exhibitions at 291. Equally important, Stieglitz used this space to introduce to the United States some of the most avant-garde European artists of the time, including Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brâncuși, Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp.
Term
Precisionism
Definition
Precisionism was the first indigenous modern-art movement in the United States and an early American contribution to the rise of Modernism. The Precisionist style, which first emerged after World War I and was at the height of its popularity during the 1920s and early 1930s, celebrated the new American landscape of skyscrapers, bridges, and factories in a form that has also been called "Cubist-Realism."[1] The term "Precisionism" was first coined in the mid-1920s, possibly by Museum of Modern Art director Alfred H. Barr.[2] Painters working in this style were also known as the "Immaculates," which was the more commonly used term at the time.[3] The stiffness of both art-historical labels suggests the difficulties contemporary critics had in attempting to characterize these artists.
Term
Regionalism
Definition
Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life. Regionalist style was at its height from 1930 to 1935, and is best known through the so-called "Regionalist Triumvirate" of Grant Wood in Iowa, Thomas Hart Benton in Missouri, and John Steuart Curry in Kansas. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Regionalist art was widely appreciated for its reassuring images of the American heartland.

Grant Wood was a prominent Regionalist. No longer need to migrate to NY. Each region has personality of its own and the competition of these sections creates a growing American culture.
Term
Grant Wood
Definition
Grant Wood was a prominent Regionalist. No longer need to migrate to NY. Each region has personality of its own and the competition of these sections creates a growing American culture. Regional school establishments will promote growth.
Term
The 306 Group
Definition
The artists themselves made up a tightly knit community. Many of them gathered at Adjust Savage's studio to learn or to converse at 306 west 141st in Charles Alston's studio. Here artists from Jacob Lawrence to Morgan and Marvin Smith studied with each other in what became known as the "306" group. This group who often were also WPA artists, helped to integrate the younger artists coming up from the migration with the already established northern artists. These groups aided the dialogue between the South and the North for the creation of the unique and dynamic art of Harlem.
Term
Mexican mural art
Definition
Mexican muralism was the promotion of mural painting starting in the 1920s, generally with social and political messages as part of efforts to reunify the country under the post Mexican Revolution government. It was headed by “the big three” painters, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. From the 1920s to about 1970s a large number of murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created on public buildings, starting a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico and has had impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States where it served as inspiration for the Chicano Mural Movement.
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