The document summarizes major art movements from Realism to Postmodernism. It discusses Realism's rejection of Romanticism in favor of depicting modern life, and artists like Courbet, Millet, and Manet. Impressionism focused on accurate depictions of light and color using small brushstrokes, exemplified by Monet, Renoir, and Cassatt. Post-Impressionism varied in its uses of color, seen in Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cezanne. Expressionism emphasized emotion influenced by psychology, including Munch, Schiele, and Kirchner. Cubism involved geometric fragmentation and collage materials, seen in Picasso and Braque

1. Basic Art History
Part 3: Realism to Postmodern Art

2. Last class
• Early Christian and Middle Ages- new art needed for new religion
(Illuminated Texts and Architecture)
• Byzantine Art- Architecture Christian and Islamic combined, Eastern
Orthodox
• Romanesque Art- first distinctive architectural style in Europe since Roman,
used Roman stone construction methods
• Gothic- pointed arches, vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses, open stone
architecture, ornate
• Renaissance- “rebirth”, renewal of classical humanism, order, harmony,
idealism, nude bodies, science, mix secular, mythological and religious themes
• Heightened realism with linear perspective, chiaroscuro
• Leonardo daVinci, Michelangelo

3. Last class(cont.)
• Renaissance to Modernism- Reformation and Counter reformation, growth
in pluralism of religious ideas and social order, Revolution, Enlightenment
• Baroque Art- propaganda for counter-reformation, focus on religion, more
theatrical and dramatic, heightened chiaroscuro (tenebrism)
• Baroque Artists- Rubens, Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt
• Rococo- French, more secular themes, meant for aristocracy, ornate curves
and decoration, frivolous (Boucher, Fragonard)
• Neoclassical- return to classical themes and forms, (David, Ingres)
• Romanticism- embraced emotion, the exotic, dramatic, heroism (Gericault,
Friedrich, Delacroix, Goya)

4. Modernism
• Early Modernism- 1850 to 1945, Late Modernism 1945-1960/5
• Great societal change- industrialization, move from rural farms to city
factories, big population boom, belief in progress and technology, utopian
ideas, manifestos (Marx),World Wars
• Art influenced by invention of camera which frees artists, much more focus
on individual expression rather than skill, constant rejection of tradition or
what came before
• idea of “Avant-Garde” (advanced garde), pushing boundaries, radical
• Realism (1850-70), Impressionism (1865-90), Post Impressionism (1880-
1920), Expressionism (1905-1925), Cubism (1906-15), Dada (1910-1920),
Surrealism (1915-45),Abstract Expressionism (1945-60), Pop Art (1960s),
Post-Modern 1970-?
• art centers begin in Paris, after WW2 moves to NewYork

5. Realism
• rejection of dominant Romanticism
• focus on reality of modern life, depict harsh social realities
• reject any religious, mythological, or historical themes
• show dignity of common man, sympathy and admiration for
peasants and field workers, for “everyman”
• “Show me an angel and I will paint it.”- Courbet
• Courbet, Millet, Manet

6. Gustave Courbet’s
The Stone Breakers, 1850
Francois Millet’s
The Gleaners, 1857

7. Edouard Manet
Olympia, 1863
Luncheon on the Grass, 1863
Flatness, bold sexuality

9. Impressionism
• Optical realism, continue interest in modern life
• accurate depiction of light and its changing qualities with
color,
• painting directly from nature,“en plein air”
• light effects made with many small brushstrokes of color
• color theory (complementary, optical mixing)
• new readily available paint in tubes in many colors
• influenced my Japanese prints’ compositions (cropping)
• Monet, Renoir, Mary Cassatt, Pissarro, Degas
• also applied to music and literature

10. Claude Monet
Haystack Paintings (1890-91)

12. Mary Cassatt
The Boating Party,
1893

13. Edgar Degas
Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872 L’Absinthe, 1876

14. Post-Impressionism
• continued interest in color but for different
reasons
• Van Gogh- color for expression, emotion, wild
brushstrokes
• Paul Gauguin- color as symbol
• Seurat- exaggerated optical color mixing
(Pointillism) scientific
• Paul Cezanne- color to depict essential structure

15. Van Gogh
The Night Cafe, 1888

16. George Seurat
La Grande Jatte, 1859-1891

17. Paul Gauguin
Where do we come from? What art we? Where are we going?, 1897

18. Paul Cezanne
Monte Sainte- Victoire, 1887
Bay of Marseilles, 1885

19. Expressionism
• interest in interior life and emotion
• influenced by psychology and psychoanalysis
(Freud)
• individual expression over realism or skill
• combined the emotion ofVan Gogh with
symbolism of Gauguin
• applied to literature, poetry, music, theatre
• Munch, Egon Schiele, Kandinsky, Max Beckmann

20. Edvard Munch
Dance of Life, 1900 Madonna, 1894

21. Egon Schiele
Male Nude with Red Cloth, 1914
Reclining Woman, 1915

22. Ernst Kirchner
Self Portrait as Soldier, 1915

23. Cubism
• influenced by Cezanne
• more radical depiction of form from multiple angles
• influenced by new ideas about space (Einstein)
• rectilinear or geometric fragmentation
• still life, portraits, landscapes
• limited color range
• combined imagery from different cultures and time periods
(classical, tribal and archaic).
• first use of collage materials in paintings
• considered most influential art movement of 20th c.
• Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris

24. Picasso and Braque
Braque’s Violin and Candlestick, 1910Picasso’s Girl with a Mandolin, 1910

25. Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon by Picasso

26. Dada
• extreme rejection of tradition and former
movements,“anti-art”
• Artists affected by horrors of WWI,
disillusionment with modern society
• Use of humor, irony, the absurd, disorder and
cacophony
• multi-media, sound art and poetry, heavy collage
• Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch

27. Hannah Hoch
Collages, 1919-1923

28. Kurt Schwitters

29. Marcel Duchamp
Readymades and Assisted Readymades, 1914-20

30. Surrealism
• developed out of Dadaism
• interest in subconscious, dreams
• automatism- technique of writing and drawing
using automatic, chance operations
• photographic precision
• strange juxtapositions, surprise, unnerving
• Dali, Magritte, Max Ernst

31. Salvador Dali
Geopoliticus Watching the Birth of the New Man, 1943 Persistence of Memory, 1931

32. Magritte
Time Transfixed, 1939
Treachery of Images, 1928

33. Abstract-Expressionism
• Post WW2
• center of artworld moves to NewYork City
• mostly American
• large scale painting, mixing cubist space with
expressionist color and brushwork with Surrealist
use of automatism
• Pollock, DeKooning, Rothko

34. Willem DeKooning

35. Jackson Pollock

36. Mark Rothko

37. Edward Hopper

38. Grant Wood

39. Neo-Dada (late 50s)
Jasper Johns
Robert Rauschenberg

40. Pop Art
Andy Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein

41. Conceptual Art
Joseph Kosuth On Kawara
Rauschenberg’s Erased deKooning

42. Minimalism
Frank Stella
Donald Judd

43. Postmodern Art
Kehinde Wiley Sherrie Levine