Cubism, Dadaism, & Surrealism

by | Nov 23, 2020 | IDES 131

“I wish to approach truth as closely as possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects”

Piet Mondrian

Mondrian was born Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan but changed his name so it was an anagram of “I paint modern”. Co founder of De Stijl, an art group focused on true abstraction and reduction of form. Mondrian created the movement he called “Neoplasticism” which used primary colours, values and vertical and horizontal lines to create a “dynamic balance”.  his work, though simple to the eye, took him months to complete and an immense amount of thought- definitely more than i put into most of my work. He used plasticism to represent modern reality through his colours and the action portrayed in his pieces as well as his need to pair everything down to the simplest forms. His work has helped to develop modern abstract art in a profound way and still is heralded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century

composition II

compositionII

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_with_Red_Blue_and_Yellow

Broadway Boogie Woogie

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78682

Sources

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/mondrian-piet/artworks/

10 Things to Know about Piet Mondrian

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Piet-Mondrian

The importance of Piet Mondrian in twentieth century

Exhibit Artifact

by | Nov 18, 2020 | IDEA 141

The Breuer Lattice chair

This project was super open-ended so I had to think for a while about my topic. In the end, I decided on something to do with the Bauhaus and Marcel Breuer has interested me since I saw his works. Most of his furniture uses steel so I had to find one that I would be able to do and the lattice chair worked great. I went for a roughly 1/3 scale model using wood and paper and used my extremely limited woodworking knowledge to put it together. the staging was my desk and a book for the black part to emulate how the furniture was shown off at the time.  I also made my description in the Bauhaus style and tried to get it to blend into the white wall to embrace the pristine modern ideas. Overall I feel I did pretty well in following the brief and creating my object and spread while also having a fun time doing it. I did give myself a big challenge so it’s not perfect but I still would give myself an 8.5-9/10.

Realism, Pre-Impressionism, & Pre-Raphaelites Impressionism & Post-Impressionism

by | Nov 8, 2020 | IDES 131

Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley was a Paris born impressionist painter. Sisley, after deciding business wasn’t his thing, started studying painting under Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre. This teaching would put him in contact with Baizille, Monet, and Renoir, whom he would make friends with and paint with. The group would go to paint landscapes en plein air and work to capture how the sunlight fell on the world.  Later in life, his father who gave him allowances would die and Sisley would live the rest of his life in poverty. Sisley would go on to paint practically only landscapes in the impressionist style his whole life as he found fulfillment in them.

Portrait of Sisley done by Renoir

Alfred Sisley – The Overshadowed Impressionist

Bridge of Moret

Alfred Sisley Paintings

Sisley’s style was consistently that of an impressionist landscape painter. He gave his paintings a strong sense of atmosphere and wonderfully rendered skies and stands out from the rest of the impressionists for his softer harmonies. Although he painted beautifully, his work would be overshadowed by Monet due to the more restrained colours he used.

Church in Moret

Alfred Sisley – The Overshadowed Impressionist

Sources

https://www.alfredsisley.org/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Sisley

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alfred-sisley-1948

Survey 6

by | Nov 4, 2020 | IDEA 141

The Vienna Secession

“To every age its art, and to every art its freedom”

The Vienna Secession was a group founded by Austrian artists in 1897. initially it has 50 members including such designers and artists as: Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, and Wilhelm Bernatzik

 

Culture

The idea of the group was to go against the extremely conservative culture in the arts and design prevalent in Austria at the time and do something new. their plan was to exchange ideas with countries and areas outside Austria and no longer be rooted in historical art. they have coined the Austrian Art Nouveau and would go on to help pave the way to expressionism. This movement helped break Austria out of the artistic rut they were in and brought not only just the secessionists but many artistic movements from around the world to the public eye.

 

Architecture

pictured here is the Secession building by Joseph Maia Olbrich

It was made as the headquarters for the group and shows off their ideas on architecture perfectly. It is considered the first permanent exhibition space for contemporary art. The building would (and still does) show off a wide array of paintings, sculptures, architecture, and graphic design pieces that show off the secession ideas. Inspired by neoclassicism, The secession architecture had simplicity in architecture and focused on the shape. But as they did not look to history for their style they went for a more art nouveau style of extreme levels of detail and strong use of organic ornamental detail. The massive floral dome on top of the Secession building shows off this embellishment perfectly as well as the whiplash designs dotting the facade.

Sources

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/vienna-secession/

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/vienna-secession

Vienna Secession

A HISTORY