Art Deco 1939

Art deco 1939
Chrysler building

Art Deco is characterized by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer and inlaid wood.
· The bold use of stepped forms and sweeping curves
Here the sunburst motif has been used which is typical of Art Deco.

De stijl - 1917

Mondrian CompRYB

Mondrian CompRYB

· Oil on canvas.
· Simple
· Interesting because it was new and different.

Dada - 1916

Dada

Hoch-Cut With the Kitchen Knife – 1919


Collage of pasted papers
Like cubism it is full and interesting with many of the same colours
Expressing reaction against the bourgeoir capitalist society

cubism - 1907

Juan Gris - 1912
Cubism
Juan Gris – 1912
Oil on canvas
Shapes create illusion
Fuzzy texture irregular create movement in the image
The similar colours make the picture more difficult to break up.
This cubist painting breaks traditional art rules by painting the subject for different viewpoints.
This painting is attempting to show the subject as the mind would see it and not the eye.

Fauvism 1905

Matisse - Green Line - 1905

Oil and tempera on canvas

wild brush work

strident colours,

subject matter has high degree of simplification and abstraction

strange and interesting

Art Nouveau 1890-1905

Like impressionism, Art Nouveau was a reaction to academic art. Characterised by organic, especially floral and other plant inspired motifs as well as highlt stylized flowing curvillineour forms.

Maude Adams as Joan of Arc, by Alfons Mucha, 1909

Alfons Mucha has used oil on canvas to produce this Art Nouveau painting. Most Art Nouveau paintings are chracterised by sinuous, assymetrical lines based on plant forms. Like many of his other peices Muchas has painted a healthy young woman in flowing vageuly Neoclassical looking robes. This also gives it a romantic feel. The flowers behind the womans head form a halo, making me see the symbolism influences as well as the dreamlike theme of the painting. The artisits decorative style means that the peice is full of detail and is interesting to look at. Even though the painting is of a scared woman, the pale pastel colours keep a calm and romatic atmosphere. Her perfectly flowing dress and hair add to this romantic style. The flowers in the painting have been used for more than background detail. They have been used to frame it and to decorate the whole peice. Although their colours are not dissiimilar to the womans dress they still stand out because of their bubbly shape against the dresses flowing lines. The painting has a very realistic look but the thechnique he has used to colour it gives it a flatter and more cartoony texture.

Symbolists 1886

French symbolism was both a "continuation of the Romantic and a reaction to the realistic approach of impressionism. The term sumbolism means the systematic use of symbols or pictorial conventions to express an allegorical meaning. The symbolist painters used these symbols from mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soal." Symbolists believed that art should show the truth but not in a direct way. They paint absolout truths in a metophorocal and suggestive manner. The theme of most symbolist paintings are death, dreams, evil, decedance, femmes fatales, adrogyny, perversity and the occult. www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c19th/symbolism.htm

The Death of the Grave Digger by Carlos Schwabe

Oil on Canvas

Shwabe has used a mystical theme to create this symbolist painting. He has used oil to successfully create a realistic scene, building up different layers to create depth, shade and realism. The brush lines are very difficult to see if possible at all. He has used a realistic location, a human subject and another realistic subject to create a realistic happening as if it were an everyday one. He has produced this scene with different symbols which the viewers have to read to get the meaning of the painting. Behing the two main subjects the background is detailed and interesting. This keeps the viewer interested for longer with more to look at and the the snowy scene creates an atmosphere of peace ans silence. To be sure that the audience's focus is on the two meanigful subjects in the painting, Shwabe has chosen dark colours to contrast with the light background. Also the drooping branches of the tree they are under seperates the background from the foreground and we are able to view them seperatly. The wings on the female subject symbolise that she is an angel and her dark colours show that she is the Angel of Death. Her scythe shaped wings also imply this. The green glow hovering in her right hand symbolise and are an example of her powers. She is looking down to the ground which we accosiate with hell but she is also pointing up to the sky which would make us think that she is sending him to heaven. The fact that she is displaying both options could suggest that she has not yet chosen where to send him. Her elegant wings are reaching into the grave and look as if they are suppoting or cradling him maybe to comfort him. The presence of the angel tells us that this man is dead. He is holding a spade in one hand meaning that he was digging the grave himself which suggests that he caused his own death. This is also implied with the expression on his face. He doesnt seem surprised that death is visiting him just amazed at her appearance. The artist has used the rule of thirds to draw the viewers eye to the male subjects head, the straight line that the angels body creates and also makes us follow her left arm up to her hand not letting us miss this important symbol. The positioning of the subjects also play a symbolic part in the peice. The man is not only below the angel but he is in the ground and looking up at her. This humbles him and strips away any importance he has as a person. The angel is high and mighty rightly looking down on her client. She is taking control and using her powers to death with the death of this man.