Intro to some works from MoMA

1. Cameras…born of the 1840’s
Deguerrotype “Camera”

2. Twenty years later, in the 1860’s…
Glass Plate Negatives
Tintypes
Ambrotypes
Carte de Visite (CDV)
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

3. For centuries, artists tried to replicate reality…
Albrecht Dürer
Self Portrait
1500
Leonardo da Vinci
Mona Lisa
1503
Johannes Vermeer
The Milkmaid
1658

4. Some say photography “killed” the medium of painting,
though a different perspective would be that it freed
painting to become something entirely new that the world
had never seen before.
Picasso
Woman Before a Mirror
1932
Marcel
Duchamp
Nude Descending
a Staircase
1912

5. This is where we get amazing and challenging works like we’ll be
seeing at MoMA…
Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon
The Young Women of
Avignon
1907

6. Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
The Young Women of Avignon
1907
This piece is a radical
break from traditional
methods of painting.
It depicts five nude
women with figures
composed of flat,
splintered planes and
faces inspired by Iberian
sculpture and African
masks.
The figures are crammed
into a tight space, and
their bodies are almost a
part of the environment
that surrounds them.
Their bodies jump
forward in jagged shards,
like the a fiercely pointed
fruit at the bottom.

7. Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
The Young Women of Avignon
1907
This piece is regarded as the
first “true” piece of 20th
century art, as it is a major
departure from realism and a
big step towards abstraction.
The subject matter of the
painting takes place within a
brothel, located in Barcelona,
Spain.
Originally the artist painted
two men at the sides of the
canvas (some say a doctor
and a sailor) but Picasso
omitted them before
exhibiting this, leaving only
the young women of
Avignon.

8. Some have called this a ‘tidal
wave of female
aggression…an onslaught”
Picasso was not the first to
paint pictures of nude
figures, or nude prostitutes
for that matter (nor was he
the last).
The placement of the fruit on
the table is like an offering of
an object, the viewer
welcome to come and sample
the taste of it. Much like the
women surrounding it, in a
way.
But this work raises certain
questions about why Picasso
chose to paint these five
women that seem to gaze out
at the viewer in a

9. Pablo Picasso
Les
Demoiselles
d’Avignon
The Young Women
of Avignon
1907
“This work is a raging, frontal
attack, not against sexual
‘immorality’, but against life
itself, as Picasso found it—the
waste, the disease, the ugliness,
and the ruthlessness of it…instead
of criticizing modern life by
comparing it, as much in sorrow
as in anger, with a more primitive
way of life, he now uses his sense
of the primitive to violate and
shock the civilized.
He is not in the least concerned
with formal problems. He is
concerned with challenging
civilization. The dislocations in
this picture are the result of
aggression, not aesthetics.”

10. Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon
The Young Women of
Avignon
1907

11. Pablo Picasso
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
The Young Women of Avignon
1907
FINAL THOUGHTS
(no pun intended with this slide title/artwork)
There are many debates about what “message” is being
portrayed in this painting.
Spend 1 minute talking
with the people
next to you.
What do you think?

12. FINAL THOUGHTS
(no pun intended with this slide title/artwork)
Bought for 30,000 francs in
1924 by Jacques
Doucet…it’s monetary
“value” was placed at
300,000 francs just 3 months
later (quite an awesome
investment!)
Bought by MoMA in 1937
for $24,000 dollars

13. Item: Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust
Winning Bid: $106.5 million
Sold: 2010
Just for a bit of perspective….

14. Vasily Kandinsky
Panels for Edwin R. Campbell
1914
Style: Nonobjective Abstraction

15. Vasily
Kandinsky
Panels for
Edwin R.
Campbell
1914
This series of four canvases was commissioned by
Edwin R. Campbell, founder of Chevrolet Motor
Company, for the entrance foyer of his Park
Avenue apartment. In 1913, Kandinsky coined the
expression "nonobjective painting" to refer to
painting that depicted no recognizable objects.

16. Vasily
Kandinsky
Panels for
Edwin R.
Campbell
1914
Although preliminary studies for one of these paintings
suggest that Kandinsky had a landscape in mind when
he conceived it, he ultimately envisioned these works as
free of any descriptive devices. Kandinsky stressed the
impact of color and its association with music,
explaining that: "color is a means of exerting direct
influence upon the soul. Color is a keyboard. The eye is the
hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings."

17. Vasily Kandinsky
Panels for Edwin R.
Campbell 1
1914

18. Vasily Kandinsky
Panels for Edwin R.
Campbell 2
1914

19. Vasily Kandinsky
Panels for Edwin R.
Campbell 3
1914

20. Vasily Kandinsky
Panels for Edwin R.
Campbell 4
1914

21. But where is the meaning in this??
But it’s just color!
But it looks like a big mess.
Answer these questions from the haters who gonna hate:

22. Vasily
Kandinsky
Panels for
Edwin R.
Campbell
1914
One of the most common misconceptions about
Kandinsky’s work is that it is all thrown together very
quickly, and completely random.
Kandinsky would spend months, in some cases years
making sketches for his large canvas artwork.
Sometimes there are parts that were improvised, but
most of each composition is mapped out in advance.

23. "color is a means of exerting direct influence upon
the soul.
Color is a keyboard.
The eye is the hammer.
The soul is the piano, with its many strings."

24. In the 1913 Armory Show in NYC, all four panels were on
sale for approximately $177 each
(or about $4,000 in today’s dollars)
…so how much were all
four valued in 1913?

27. Henri Matisse Dance (I)
1909 Style: Fauvist

28. What is the “value” in knowing the monetary value of
these paintings?
Do you ask the “value” of other things?
How are those different from artwork?
Are there objects or things in our lives that we do not ask
the value of?
=

29. Henri Matisse Dance (I)
1909 Style: Fauvist

30. Henri Matisse
Dance (I)
1909
Style: Fauvist
The painting was highly regarded by the artist who once
called it "the overpowering climax of luminosity (light)”

31. Kees van Dongen
Woman with Large Hat
1906
“Fauvism” as a minor art movement in the early 1900’s that
emphasized bold use of color in non-realistic ways or sometimes
“primitive” ways. The name comes from a group exhibition of these
artists when a skeptical critic called them “fauves” or “wild beasts”
Common subject matter included women, self-portraits, and watery
landscapes.
Henri Matisse
Woman with a Hat
1905
André
Self-Portrait in the Studio
1903

32. Henri Matisse
Dance
1910
Style: Fauvist
Henri Matisse
Music
1910
Style: Fauvist
Dance (I) was a mere compositional study for
a different final work (seen below) for a
Russian businessman/art collector. Matisse
made a diptych using similar imagery.

33. Henri Matisse
Dance
1910
Style: Fauvist
Henri Matisse
Music
1910
Style: Fauvist
Fauves like Matisse would often say that humans
reach a state of “completion” or “contentedness”
during an act of creation (dance, music, art, etc.)
When do you think humans are most
“completed?”

34. Cezanne
L’Estaque
1879-83

35. Cezanne
L’Estaque
1879-83

36. Cezanne
L’Estaque
1879-83
DO NOW:
FINAL COMMENTS/QUUUUEEEEESTIONS??
WRITE IT DOWN!

37. Cézanne first visited the fishing village of L'Estaque in the mid-1860s.
He once said about this place: "It is like a playing card. Red roofs over the
blue sea. . . . The sun is so terrific here that it seems to me as if the objects were
silhouetted not only in black and white, but in blue, red, brown, and violet."
Cézanne painted some twenty canvases of L'Estaque over the next
decade, a dozen of them facing toward or across the gulf of Marseilles.

38. Why do you think someone
would dedicate so much of
their life to this place?

39. Is there a place (or places)
of such raw and colorful
beauty that you would
create over 20 paintings of?

40. happens that you can’t “handle” mentally, emotionally…physical
trauma would be physical injury that stays with you.
If something traumatic were to happen to you, how would
you handle it?
o Would you confront the issue?
We may ‘push away’ the negative things that happen to us.
Depends on the incident/situation AND the type of person you
are.
o Would you hide it away?
Someone may be “embarrassed” …someone who may feel an
overwhelming amount of emotion and can’t speak about it.
o Would you trust in someone?
Someone you have a close bond with. Reciprocal relationship:
mutual confinding
o Would you take some kind of action?
Tell parents or other family members …take up a new
hobby…ask yourself: how can I make this better for MEEEE

41. A negative event that happened in your life that still has an effect on
you.
If something traumatic were to happen to you, how would
you handle it?
o Would you confront the issue?
Confrontation sometimes helps with recovery and lead to you
DEALING with the problem.
Confronting the issue makes it a bit easier to deal with.
o Would you hide it away?
Easier to hide than it is to talk about it / feel feelings (though it
depends on the issue)
o Would you trust in someone?
You won’t get better until you WANT to get better …depends on
WHO you trust (friends, counselors) who you choose to put TRUST
in.
o Would you take some kind of action?
…

42. And now for something
completely different…

44. Claude Monet
Self Portrait with Beret
1886

45. Paul Cézanne
Self Portrait in
Straw Hat
1875

46. Vincent Van Gogh
Self Portrait with a
Straw Hat
1887

47. Vincent Van Gogh, Self Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887

48. Vincent Van Gogh, Self Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887