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Der Blaue Reiter (named after an emblem of St. George)

Form: Oil on canvas. Bright, saturated colors laid on in

thick impastos. Impressionistic

Iconography: He's playing with the formal elements,

texture, color, composition, light, and shadow. One of
his earlier works, Kandinsky is here still very
representational. Though the colors are bright and
harmonious, the picture meant to be somewhat abstract,
we still recognize it as a sunny lane seen through the
trees. We can see by this work that he is still very
much in tune withthe idea of a harmonious symphony.

Context: As a musician first, Kandinsky was interested

in harmony and balance, he wanted his paintings to
reflect beautiful music. "Born in Moscow in 1866,
Kandinsky spent his early childhood in Odessa. His
parents played the piano and the zither and Kandinsky
himself learned the piano and cello at an early age. The
influence of music in his paintings cannot be
overstated, down to the names of his paintings
Improvisations, Impressions, and Compositions. In
1886, he enrolled at the University of Moscow, chose
to study law and economics, and after passing his
examinations, lectured at the Moscow Faculty of Law.
He enjoyed success not only as a teacher but also wrote
extensively on spirituality, a subject that remained of
great interest and ultimately exerted substantial
influence in his work. In 1895 Kandinsky attended a
French Impressionist exhibition where he saw Monet's
Haystacks at Giverny. He stated, "It was from the
catalog I learned this was a haystack. I was upset I had
not recognized it. I also thought the painter had no right
to paint in such an imprecise fashion. Dimly I was
aware too that the object did not appear in the
picture..." Soon thereafter, at the age of thirty,
Kandinsky left Moscow and went to Munich to study
life-drawing, sketching and anatomy, regarded then as
basic for an artistic education. Ironically, Kandinsky's
work moved in a direction that was of much greater
Vasily Kandinsky. Autumn in Bavaria abstraction than that which was pioneered by the
1908; Oil on cardboard, 33x45cm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Impressionists. It was not long before his talent
Paris surpassed the constraints of art school and he began
exploring his own ideas of painting - "I applied streaks
and blobs of colors onto the canvas with a palette knife
and I made them sing with all the intensity I could..."
Now considered to be the founder of abstract art, his
work was exhibited throughout Europe from 1903
onwards, and often caused controversy among the
public, the art critics, and his contemporaries. An active
participant in several of the most influential and

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controversial art movements of the 20th century, among

them the Blue Rider which he founded along with
Franz Marc and the Bauhaus which also attracted Klee,
Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), and Schonberg,
Kandinsky continued to further express and define his
form of art, both on canvas and in his theoretical
writings. His reputation became firmly established in
the United States through numerous exhbitions and his
work was introduced to Solomon Guggenheim, who
became one of his most enthusiastic supporters."
(www.arthistory.cc)

Form: Oil on canvas. Thick impastos of saturated

color. "Color directly influences the soul. Color is
the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is
the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand
that plays, touching one key or another purposively,
to cause vibrations in the soul."

Iconography: “Painting is like a thundering collision

of different worlds that are destined in and through
conflict to create that new world called the work,” he
wrote. For him, a work of art came into being the
same wayas the cosmos, through catastrophes, and out
of the cacophony." He tried to dissolve the object in
order to create the whole.

Context: "Art historians still argue which was the first

non-objective painting, but Kandinsky is clear on the
subject: he did not paint it; he saw it, or allowed
himself not to see it, to be more precise. It just
happened suddenly, when he looked at one of his
landscapes standing on its side against the wall and
saw it as an abstraction. From this point, in every
subsequent work, he tried to dissolve the object in
order to create the whole. The final symphony was
what he called “the music of the spheres” — or his
“Moscow hour.” Kandinsky began to see all his
paintings as music, compositions meant to reflect the
increasingly turbulent world surrounding him. This
did not sit well with his conservative minded
comrades in Russia, to whom art was not an
expression of inner feeling, it was a realistic view of
mother Russia. Or, more succinctly, good
propaganda.
"During his Munich years, though considered a
Vasily Kandinsky. Composition No. 2 1910 Russian artist, Kandinsky was a leader of Munich’s
early expressionist scene, organizing the Phalanx
exhibition club in 1901 and the New Artists’ Union in
1909. He published the famous Blue Rider almanac in
1911. At that time, Munich was one of the best cities

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in which to be a foreign artist. Still, inevitably,

Kandinsky was considered “a Byzantine” by the
conservative Munich critics, and “a degenerate
follower of Western art” by the even more
conservative critics in Russia. Meanwhile, he was
keen to maintain contact with Russia: he took part in
Russian exhibitions; included Russian artists in his
Munich projects; and sent his manuscript of On the
Spiritual in Art to Russia where it was read at one of
the meetings of the Artists’ Union in 1911 and
became an important influence."
(www.capitalperspective.ru)

Form: Oil on canvas. The picture is conceived of as a vibrant

arrangement of rapidly moving color areas that make no reference to a
storyline or object in external reality.

Iconography: "One of Kandinsky's Improvisations, which carries a

subtitle (unusual for him at this period, especially because the subtitle
does make an association with external reality). The only way to
account for this is to realize the time period: one year before the
outbreak of WWI. This image, perhapps more than any others by
Kandinsky, expresses the theme of impending apocalypse. A reference
to a firing cannon and buildings toppling over foreshadow the war and
destruction to come. The drama here is backed up by the explosive
formal dynamics, which act out his theme. Opposed to the orderly
construction and restricted color range of Cubism and other hard-edge
geometric abstraction; did not trust an art that evolved out of logic or
the rationale; trusted only internal feelings and intuition. His art, thus,
has a mystical core that takes form at this time in dreamy
improvisations that are not earthbound. Space is conceived of as an
unbounded, energy field; he has no interest in illusionistic one-point
perspective. Line, shape, and color all have their own autonomy and
function freely within the unbounded field. Note how the color bleeds
here and suggests a slippage beyond any boundaries that would attempt
to contain it. The picture has its own reality, though this image does
make reference to an external reality. Significantly, though, that
external world is being destroyed; for Kandinsky it is the spirit that will
rule in the end. Germany in the years leading up to WWI where "joie
de vivre" (joy of life) was not the atmosphere. In his desire to make
abstraction spiritual, Kandinsky expresses the growing spiritual crisis
of Germany, which moved abruptly from an agricultural society (close
to nature) to a technological society (factories and German efficiency)
due to the Industrial Revolution."

Context: German Expressionist artists picked up on the apocalypse to

come in the tense years leading up to war (1910-1914); the theme that
they continually express or try to overcome is angst: an alienated
anxiety. What they want to do is give visual form to inner life; they
are, thus, against Mimesis. The art is highly subjective and they do not
hesitate to exaggerate or abstract to express internal, felt reality. It is an
art born out of inner necessity. There are two groups of German
Expressionists: Die Brucke (the bridge) and Der Blaue Rieter (the Blue

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Rider). Kandinsky belongs to Der Blaue Reiter, which is an art that

stresses intuition and a metaphysical projection beyond the world of
matter through color and forms that push away from description and
towards non-objectivity. The movement is typically more lyrical and
romantic than the sharpened tensions and jagged edges of Die Brucke.
Kandinsky had trouble letting go of the object in the beginning for fear
people would mistake his abstractions for formal decoration. This
canvas was painted one year after he published his book, "Concerning
the Spiritual in Art" and one year before the outbreak of WWI. In its
reference to a cannon and the destruction of cities, Kandinsky is
perhaps expressing the "apocalyptic enthusiasm" that showed up in
Franz Marc's work of 1913, as well (see "Fate of the Animals"). From
1910-12, Kandinsky had struggled to make a complete break with the
objective world, realizing in the end that "the object harms my
painting." Though trained in the logic of law, Kandinsky wants only to
be guided by creative intuition. In a scientific age, intuition is often
looked on as fuzzy thinking; Kandinsky's book is an important
theoretical text for making an argument that the intuitive is a valid
position of knowledge in its own right. Kandinsky would return to
Russia, his homeland, during the war. When Russia has its own
revolution in 1917, Kandinsky becomes the director of the Russian
museum system; during this short-lived period--the Heroic Period of
Vasily Kandinsky. Improvisation No. 30 Communism--Russia will emerge as the most progressive country for
(War Like Theme) 1913 abstract art in all the world. In the 1920s, Kandinsky returns to
oil on canvas 43 x 43" Chicago AI Germany and joins the faculty at the Bauhaus, where his work begins
to take on more of a geometric hard-edge; the book he writes in 1926,
"Point and Line to Plane," suggests a different logic than the earlier
"Concerning the Spiritual in Art," but Kandinsky's art will remain
mystical and abstractly directed his whole career. He ends up in Paris
where he dies in 1944."
(taken entirely from
http://www.csulb.edu/~karenk/20thcwebsite/438mid/ah438mid-
Info.00061.html)

"His inclination to spirituality must have seemed outdated, as must

have his great reluctance to embrace the political and ideological
project of the Bolshevik party as his own. For Malevich, Kandinsky
was just a refined and uninteresting German. For young and fiercely
Bolshevik constructivists, like the multitalented Rodchenko and his
energetic wife, Varvara Stepanova, who were both working with
Kandinsky at the Institute for Artistic Culture, he was an old man, still
an artist only in a very outmoded sense. Rodchenko and Stepanova
wanted to create in the social space rather than on the canvas. They
even banned the word that was sacred to Kandinsky: “composition.”
For them, the idea of composition was an anathema: a contemplative
approach that they planned to abolish in favor of more active and
ideological constructivism. And they succeeded.

In late 1921, Kandinsky was forced to resign from his post as the
director of the Institute of Artistic Culture. Very soon, he departed for
Germany. By 1920, the first monograph about him was published in
Germany; and in 1922, Walter Gropius appointed him to his faculty in
Bauhaus. Kandinsky was almost sure that art in Russia had gone a way
that was not exactly his own. There was no Moscow any more, just the

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USSR. But Kandinsky did not emigrate, far from it, at least originally.
For a long time he was considered a representative – the representative,
in fact – of the Soviet avant-garde, the one that worked abroad. And
that was how he thought of himself, until 1927, when he had to take
German citizenship: as a Soviet citizen, he would no longer be allowed
to stay abroad or travel. For the same reason he took a French passport
in 1939: to maintain his cosmopolitanism. “National anthems have now
been sung in almost all the countries, but I am content not to be a
singer,” he wrote in 1938, six years before he died in his French exile.
Still, Moscow remained at the core of his universalism, of his synthetic
ideology opposed to artificial separation. “Moscow,” he wrote, is
defined by “the duality, the complexity, the extreme agitation, the
conflict, and the confusion that mark its external appearance and in the
end constitute a unified, individual countenance.”
(www.capitalperspective.ru)

Form: Oil on canvas. some saturated colors.

assymetrical and geometrically abstract.  

Iconography: "Composition VIII reflects the

influence of Suprematism and Constructivism
absorbed by Kandinsky while in Russia prior to
his return to Germany to teach at the Bauhaus.
Here, Kandinsky has moved from color to form as
the dominating compositional element. Contrasting
forms now provide the dynamic balance of the
work; the large circle in the upper left plays
against the network of precise lines in the right
portion of the canvas. Note also how Kandinsky
uses different colors within the forms to energize
their geometry: a yellow circle with blue halo
versus blue circle with yellow halo; a right angle
filled with blue and an acute angle colored pink.
The background also works to enhance the
dynamism of the composition. The design does
not appear as a geometrical exercise on a flat
plane, but seems to be taking place in an
undefined space. The layered background colors -
light blue at bottom, light yellow at top and white
in the middle - define this depth. The forms tend
to recede and advance within this depth, creating a
dynamic, push-pull effect."
(http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/)

Context: Kandinsky created a series of these

"Compositions". "Kandinsky viewed the
compositions as major statements of his artistic
ideas. They share several characteristics that
express this monumentality: the impressively large
format, the conscious, deliberate planning of the
Composition VIII
composition, and the transcendence of
1923 (140 Kb); Oil on canvas, 140 x 201 cm (55 1/8 x 79 1/8 in);
representation by increasingly abstract imagery.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Just as symphonies define milestones in the career

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of a composer, Kandinsky's compositions

represented the culmination of his artistic vision at
a given moment in his career. Regrettably, the first
three compositions were destroyed during World
War II. They are represented in the exhibition by
full-scale, black-and-white photographic
reproductions. One of the strengths of the
exhibition is the assembly of preliminary studies
for most of the works. These were done in oil,
watercolor, ink and pencil.These help convey a
sense of the three lost compositions, but cannot
hope to replace the actual canvasses. The viewer
is left with a profound feeling of loss for the
destroyed works."
(http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/)

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Expressionistic Movements

Expressionistic Movements: Life, Death and Anxiety at the turn of the Century

Form: Although
painted in oil on
canvas, the paint
is applied in a
rather thin often
washy manner
which exhibits
little or no
texture. The
composition is
asymmetrical and
the figure of the
robed figure with
the skull is
placed in an
empty field that
stands in stark
comparison to
the group of
figures on the
right side.

The figures are

painted in a
strange
combination of
illusionism and
flat unrealistic
anatomy. There
are passages of
modeled value
which are also in
a formal tension
against the flat
graphic designs
Gustav Klimt, Death and Life, 1916
of the patterns on
Oil on canvas 178 x 198 cm
the figures'
Private collection, Vienna
clothes.
Stokstad calls him Art Nouveau
or Sezession-stil (Germany) The designs on
Secessionist the clothes vary
in color and form
from harsh
angular crosslike
forms, geometric
shapes such as
triangles and
squares to
rounded
curvilinear
forms.

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Iconography:
The composition
is designed to
create a tension
between the
figure which
represents death
at left and wields
either a club or
some sort scepter
against the
massed
interwoven
bodies of the
sleeping unaware
figures on the
right.

The types vary

from old, and
young woman, to
mothers and
young well
muscled male
youths. The
patterning of the
clothing is also
meant as a type
of clue as to the
roles each figure
has. Death is
wearing a
cruciform pattern
which could be a
semi-sarcastic or
caustic statement
about religion
and salvation.
Each of the
living figures
seems to be
sporting an
individualistic
pattern whose
hues may be in
accordance with
there
personalities as is
the skin tone of
the male and the
pale females.

Klimt's work in
general and this

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Expressionistic Movements

in specific
exhibits a rather
"expressionistic"
quality.
According to the
Brittanica,
"Expressionism"
is an,

artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and
responses that objects and events arouse in him. He accomplishes his aim through distortion, exaggeration,
primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements.
In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later 19th and the 20th centuries,
and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of
modern artists and art movements. Expressionism can also be seen as a permanent tendency in Germanic
and Nordic art from at least the European Middle Ages, particularly in times of social change or spiritual
crisis, and in this sense it forms the converse of the rationalist and classicizing tendencies of Italy and later
of France.

More specifically, Expressionism as a distinct style or movement refers to a number of German artists, as
well as Austrian, French, and Russian ones, who became active in the years before World War I and
remained so throughout much of the interwar period.

The roots of the German Expressionist school lay in the works of Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and
James Ensor, each of whom in the period 1885-1900 evolved a highly personal painting style. These
artists used the expressive possibilities of colour and line to explore dramatic and emotion-laden themes,
to convey the qualities of fear, horror, and the grotesque, or simply to celebrate nature with hallucinatory
intensity. They broke away from the literal representation of nature in order to express more subjective
outlooks or states of mind.

Context: According the Brittanica,

Gustave Klimt, b. July 14, 1862, Vienna, Austria d. Feb. 6, 1918, Vienna
Austrian painter and founder of the school of painting known as the Vienna Sezession.

After studying at the Vienna School of Decorative Arts, Klimt in 1883 opened an independent studio
specializing in the execution of mural paintings. His early work was typical of late 19th-century academic
painting, as can be seen in his murals for the Vienna Burgtheater (1888) and on the staircase of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum.

In 1897 Klimt's mature style emerged, and he founded the Vienna Sezession, a group of painters who
revolted against academic art in favour of a highly decorative style similar to Art Nouveau. Soon
thereafter he painted three allegorical murals for the ceiling of the University of Vienna auditorium that
were violently criticized; the erotic symbolism and pessimism of these works created such a scandal that
the murals were rejected. His later murals, the "Beethoven Frieze" (1902; Österreichische Gallery, Vienna)
and the murals (1909-11) in the dining room of the Stoclet House, Brussels, are characterized by precisely
linear drawing and the bold and arbitrary use of flat, decorative patterns of colour and gold leaf. Klimt's
most successful works include "The Kiss" (1908; Österreichische Gallery) and a series of portraits he did
of fashionable Viennese matrons, such as "Frau Fritza Riedler" (1906; Österreichische Gallery) and "Frau
Adele Bloch-Bauer" (1907; Österreichische Gallery). In these works he treats the human figure without
shadow and heightens the lush sensuality of skin by surrounding it with areas of flat, highly ornamental,
and brilliantly composed areas of decoration.

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Expressionistic Movements

Form: This image shares in many of the same qualities as

Death and Life. Although painted in oil on canvas, the paint is
applied in a rather thin often washy manner which exhibits little
or no texture. The composition is rather central and static but
the filed of flowers in the foreground and the bending pose of
the figures grants it a rather asymmetrical quality.

Again here the figures are painted in a strange combination of

illusionism and flat unrealistic anatomy. There are passages of
modeled value which are also in a formal tension against the
flat graphic designs of the patterns on the figures' clothes.

The designs on the clothes for the male figure are angular
boxlike forms as opposed to the rounded curvilinear forms of
the female figure's clothes. The same contrasts appear in the
skin tones, the female is pale whereas the male is dark. This
seems very similar to the depictions of male and female figures
in Egyptian Art as well as in the murals at Knossos.

Iconography: The poses of the figures can be read immediately

as a kiss, however, many of my students have noticed that the
female's head seems bent back in an uncomfortable angle and
to some she seems to be being accosted rather than kissed.
Other students have read this as a passionate willing liaison.

The pose, skin tone and patterns on the fabrics seem to conform
with stereo types concerning male and female roles. The pose
of the male is more aggressive while the female's pose is at the
very least the receptor of his advances. Traditionally in many
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-8 cultures males are depicted as darker than females. Henry
oil on canvas, 5'10"x6' Sayre, in his text book A World of Art comments that males'
Vienna National Museum bodies are often depicted as angular and square while the
Stokstad calls him Art Nouveau female form is often depicted with more curved line. The
or Sezession-stil (Germany) patterns of the figure's garments seem conform to Sayre's and
Secessionist societies' views that woman are softer and rounder while the
male body is more angular.

Context: An interesting element in these works, and my own

theory, is that Klimt was heavily influenced by the
developments made in the fabric/weaving and printmaking
industries. It is possible to make the connection that thanks to
industrialization, textile design and the creation of brightly
colored and printed fabrics may have been a primary
inspiration for Klimt.
Form: Since this painting is both
representational and also rather expressionist in
it's rendering many of the forms are hard to
decipher. The symmetrical composition is
arranged in three bands.

In the foreground of the image, rendered in thin

washy oil paint are several anatomically
inaccurate figures. A smiling female figure
clothed in a pale patterned dress stands near a

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Expressionistic Movements

flower which may be growing out of the lawn

on which they stand. This figure is balanced in
the right of the composition by a scowling
female figure, dressed in a dark gown with
clasped hands. Both figures bracket a male and
female figure who dance between them. These
females eye sockets appear to be dark hollows.
All the foreground figures' forms are delineated
by the use of radiating contour lines. There is a
Edvard Munch The Dance of Life 1899 small indication of light and shadow in the
rendering of the facial features but the drapery
does not demonstrate and tonal rendering.
Similar figures dance on the lawn in the
midground. Although it is rather hard to make
out, in the background is an image of the sea
with the moon reflected in it.  

Iconography: The almost childlike drawing and

rendering of forms in Munch's work is almost
equally reflected by his rather unsophisticated
iconography. As the title implies, this painting
renders the artist's anxieties concerning the
transient nature of life. For Munch, (who many
of his family was sick and or had died) this
image represent the scary nature of life as a
waltz that is almost out of control. For Munch
(who probably needed prozac or paxil) we
dance through life in scary nocturnal
environment perched between life and death.
Context: A colleague once related how that in many of the Northern countries in Europe, that often summer is so short
that when the weather is warm enough great parties with dancing and music take place out of doors at all hours of the
day and night to enjoy the weather. It is possible that Munch is using such events as a point of departure for his
imagery.

According to the Brittanica,

Edvrad Munch b. Dec. 12, 1863,

Löten, Nor.d. Jan. 23, 1944,
Ekely, near Oslo  
Norwegian painter and
printmaker whose intensely
evocative treatment of
psychological themes greatly
influenced German
Expressionism in the early 20th

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century. His painting "The

Scream" (1893; see photograph

"The Scream," tempera and

casein on cardboard by Edvard
Munch, 1893; in the
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo...) can be
seen as a symbol of modern
man's spiritual anguish.

Early years.
Munch was born into a middle-
class family that was plagued
with ill health. His mother died
when he was 5, his eldest sister
when he was 14, both of
tuberculosis--the latter event
being recalled in his first
masterpiece, "The Sick Child"
(1885-86). Munch's father and
brother also died when he was
still young, while another sister
developed mental illness.
"Illness, insanity and death," as
he said, "were the black angels
that kept watch over my cradle
and accompanied me all my life."

Munch showed a flair for

drawing at an early age but
received little formal training. An
important factor in his artistic
development was the Christiania
Bohème, a circle of writers and
artists in Christiania, as Oslo was
then called. Its members were
characterized by a belief in free
love and a general opposition to
Edvard Munch The Scream 1893 bourgeois narrow-mindedness.
One of the older painters in the
circle, Christian Krohg, gave
Munch both instruction and
encouragement. But Munch soon
outgrew the prevailing naturalist
aesthetic in Christiania, partly as
a result of his assimilation of
French Impressionism after a trip
to Paris in 1889 and his contact
with the work of the
Postimpressionist painters Paul
Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec from about 1890.

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Expressionistic Movements

Artistic maturity.
Munch's own deeply original style crystallized
in about 1892. The flowing, tortuous use of line
in his new paintings was similar to that of
contemporary Art Nouveau, but Munch used
line not as decoration but as a vehicle for
profound psychological revelation. The outraged
incomprehension of Norwegian critics was
echoed by their counterparts in Berlin when
Munch exhibited a large number of his
paintings there in 1892 at the invitation of the
Union of Berlin Artists. The violent
emotionalism and unconventional imagery of
his paintings created a bitter controversy. The
scandal, however, helped make his name known
throughout Germany, from where his reputation
spread internationally. Munch lived mainly in
Berlin in 1892-95 and then in Paris in 1896-97,
and he continued to move around extensively
until he settled in Norway in 1910.

Paintings of love and death.

At the heart of Munch's achievement is his
series of paintings on love and death. Its
original nucleus was formed by six pictures
exhibited in 1893, and the series had grown to
22 works by the time it was first exhibited under
the title "Frieze of Life" at the Berlin Secession
in 1902. Munch constantly rearranged these
paintings, and if one had to be sold, he would
make another version of it. Thus in many cases
there are several painted versions, in addition to
prints based on the same images. Though the
Frieze draws deeply on personal experience, its
themes are universal: it is not about particular
men or women but about man and woman in
general, and about the human experience of the
great elemental forces of nature. Seen in
sequence, an implicit narrative emerges of
love's awakening, blossoming, and withering,
followed by despair and death.

Love's awakening is shown in "The Voice"

(1893), where on a summer night a girl standing
among trees is summoned more by an inner
voice than by any sounds from a boat on the sea
behind her. Compositionally, this is one of
Munch, The Vampire 1895 several paintings in the Frieze in which the
winding horizontal of the coastline is
counterpoised with the verticals of trees,
figures, or the pillarlike reflection across the sea
of sun or moon. Love's blossoming is shown in

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Expressionistic Movements

"The Kiss" (1892), in which the faces of the

kissing man and woman melt so completely
into each other that neither retains any
individual features. An especially powerful
image of the surrender, or transcendence, of
individuality is "Madonna" (1894-95), which
shows a naked woman with her head thrown
back in ecstasy, her eyes closed, and a red halo-
like shape above her flowing black hair. This
may be understood as the moment of
conception, but there is more than a hint of
death in the woman's beautiful face. In Munch's
art, woman is an "other" with whom union is
desperately desired, yet feared because it
threatens the destruction of the creative ego.

Munch's acute awareness of the suffering

caused by love is clear from such titles as
"Melancholy" (c. 1892-93), "Jealousy" (1894-
95), and "Ashes" (1894). If isolation and
loneliness, always present in his work, are
especially emphasized in these pictures, they are
equally so in "Death in the Sick Room" (1893-
Munch Madonna 1902 95), one of many paintings about death. Here
the focus is not on the dying child, who is not
even visible, but on the living, each wrapped in
their own experience of grief and unable to
communicate or offer each other any
consolation. The picture's power is heightened
by the claustrophobically enclosed space and by
the steeply rushing perspective of the floor.

The same type of dramatic perspective is used

in "The Scream," or "The Cry" (1893), which is
almost certainly Munch's most famous painting
(see photograph

"The Scream," tempera and casein on cardboard

by Edvard Munch, 1893; in the
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo...). It depicts a panic-
stricken creature, simultaneously corpselike and
reminiscent of a sperm or fetus, whose contours
are echoed in the swirling lines of the blood-red
sky. In this painting anxiety is raised to a
cosmic level, ultimately related to that intuition
of death and the void which was to be central to
Existentialism.

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Expressionistic Movements

Munch's massive output of graphic art--consisting of etchings, dry point, lithographs, and
woodcuts--began in 1894. The principal attraction of printmaking was that it enabled him to
communicate his message to a much larger number of people, but it also afforded him
exciting opportunities for experimentation. Munch's prints closely resemble his paintings in
both style and subject matter. Munch's art had evident affinities with the poetry and drama of
his day, and interesting comparisons can be made with the work of the dramatists Henrik
Ibsen and August Strindberg, both of whose portraits he painted.

Later years.
Munch suffered a nervous breakdown in 1908-09, and afterward his art became more positive
and extroverted but hardly ever regained its previous intensity. Among the few exceptions is
his haunting "Self-Portrait: The Night Wanderer" (c. 1930), one of a long series of self-
portraits he painted throughout his life. An especially important commission, which marked
the belated acceptance of his importance in Norway, was for the Oslo University Murals
(1909-16), the centrepiece of which was a vast painting of the sun, flanked by allegorical
images. Both landscapes and men at work provided subjects for Munch's later paintings. This
increased emphasis on the outside world may well have reflected a greater personal maturity,
but artistically Munch was no longer in the vanguard. It was principally through his work of
the 1890s, in which he gave form to mysterious and dangerous psychic forces, that he made
such a crucial contribution to modern art. Munch bequeathed his estate and all the paintings,
prints, and drawings in his possession to the city of Oslo, which erected the Munch Museum
in 1963. Many of his finest works are in the National Gallery (Nasjonalgalleriet) in Oslo.

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Beastly Color! "Les Fauves" (Wild Beasts).

Form: Oil on canvas, broad strokes of thick impastos, using non- local color, and
visible brush strokes. Vivid, saturated colors. "He has used color alone to describe
the image. Her oval face is bisected with a slash of green and her coiffure, purpled
and top-knotted, juts against a frame of three jostling colors. Her right side repeats
the vividness of the intrusive green; on her left, the mauve and orange echo the
colors of her dress. This is Matisse's version of the dress, his creative essay in
harmony." (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/matisse/green-stripe/)

Iconography: Here the subject matter wasn't so much his wife as it was playing eith
color. With this he's moving away from representation and is now playing with the
idea of color. "The green stripe down the center of Amélie Matisse's face acts as an
artificial shadow line and divides the face in the conventional portraiture style, with
a light and a dark side, Matisse divides the face chromatically, with a cool and
warm side. The left side of the face seems to echo the green in the picture's right,
the corresponding is true for the right side of the face, where the pink responds to
the orange on the left. The natural light is translated directly into colors and the
highly visible brush strokes add to the sense of artistic drama."
(matisse.hypermart.net)

Context: "Matisse was born the son of a middle-class family, he studied and began
to practice law. In 1890, however, while recovering slowly from an attack of
appendicitis, he became intrigued by the practice of painting. In 1892, having given
up his law career, he went to Paris to study art formally. His first teachers were
academically trained and relatively conservative; Matisse's own early style was a
conventional form of naturalism, and he made many copies after the old masters.
He also studied more contemporary art, especially that of the impressionists, and he
began to experiment, earning a reputation as a rebellious member of his studio
classes. Matisse's true artistic liberation, in terms of the use of color to render forms
and organize spatial planes, came about first through the influence of the French
painters Paul Gauguin and Paul Cezanne and the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh,
whose work he studied closely beginning about 1899. Then, in 1903 and 1904,
Matisse encountered the pointillist painting of Henri Edmond Cross and Paul
Henri Matisse The Green Stripe Signac. Cross and Signac were experimenting with juxtaposing small strokes (often
1905 dots or “points”) of pure pigment to create the strongest visual vibration of intense
oil and tempera on canvas color. Matisse adopted their technique and modified it repeatedly, using broader
strokes. By 1905 he had produced some of the boldest color images ever created,
including a striking picture of his wife, Green Stripe (Madame Matisse) (1905,
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). The title refers to a broad stroke of
brilliant green that defines Madame Matisse's brow and nose. In the same year
Matisse exhibited this and similar paintings along with works by his artist
companions, including Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. Together, the
group was dubbed les fauves (literally, “the wild beasts”) because of the extremes
of emotionalism in which they seemed to have indulged, their use of vivid colors,
and their distortion of shapes."
(matisse.hypermart.net)
"What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or
depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a
good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue."~Henri Matisse

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Form: Oil on canvas, broad strokes of thick impastos, using non- local color, and
visible brush strokes. Vivid, saturated colors. He used bright, saturated analogous
colors to create the lights and darks, instead of traditional skin tones. The hat itself is
wild and abstract looking, perched precariously atop her head. The composition is
symmetrical, she looks directly over her shoulder at the viewer from the center of
the canvas. "Brisk strokes of colour--blues, greens, and reds--form an energetic,
expressive view of the woman. As always in Matisse's Fauve style, his painting is
ruled by his intuitive sense of formal order". (
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/fauvism/)

Iconography: "The painting exemplifies the fundamental characteristics of fauvism

with its choice of subject (a portrait), energetic paint strokes, and use of unnatural
colors. Madame Matisse’s dress, skin, and feathered hat — as well as the
background — are all portrayed with unrealistic shades of vivid colors applied with
active brushwork." (http://www.matisse-picasso.com/artists/matimages.html) The
portrait wasn't made for just a portraits sake. It was used as a "pretext for pictorial
innovation sometimes leading toward pure abstraction".

Context: "Matisse's portraits are almost always of family, or of friends - people in

his circle, painters, painters wives, musicians, actresses, collectors who had become
friends. There are very few commissioned portraits. And as to his models, it is only
occasionally that he made portraits of them. The family, Mme Matisse and
Marguerite in particular, are like hard driven laboratory assistants. During the crucial
Matisse Woman with the Hat
years 1905/6 his wife is the model for the paintings in which he summarized the
1905
Fauve style, The Hat and The Green Stripe. And it is she again who sits through
oil/canvas 31.75"x 23.5" SF
endless sittings for the great portrait that is his major response to cubism. These
MOMA
paintings mark radical turning points. She had supported him through thick and thin.
These sittings which stretched her nerves to breaking point, and the results of which
brought down storms of ridicule from conservative critics and the ardent support of
critics like Appolinaire, were strenuous tests of her support and understanding."
(Full text at http://www.giotto.org/vasari/portraits.html)
Form: Oil on canvas. Painting done with thick impastos of paint in a very
'painterly' manner, which means that the brush stroke is visible. This piece was
done in hues of blues, greens, and red. The composition is symmetrical, and
the colors used are non-local.

Iconography: "The compulsive, restless alluvia ornament of the background,

recalling the work of mental patients, is for some physicians an evidence that
the painting was done in a psychotic state. But the self-image of the painter
shows a masterly control and power of observation, a mind perfectly capable
of integrating the elements of its chosen activity. The background reminds us
of the rhythms of The Starry Night, which the portrait resembles also in the
dominating bluish tone of the work. The flowing, pulsing forms of the
background, schemata of sustained excitement, are not just ornament, although
related to the undulant forms of the decorative art of the 1890's; they are
unconfined by a fixed rhythm or pattern and are a means of intensity, rather,
an overflow of the artist's feelings to his surroundings. Beside the powerful
modeling of the head and bust, so compact and weighty, the wall pattern
appears a pale, shallow ornament. Yet the same rhythms occur in the figure
and even in the head, which are painted in similar close packed, coiling, and
wavy lines. As we shift our attention from the man to his surroundings and
back again, the analogies are multiplied; the nodal points, or centres, in the

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background ornament begin to resemble more the eyes and ear and buttons of
the figure. In all this turmoil and congested eddying motion, we sense the
extraordinary firmness of the painter's hand. The acute contrasts of the reddish
beard and the surrounding blues and greens, the probing draughtsmanship, the
liveness of the tense features, the perfectly ordered play of breaks, variations,
and continuities, the very stable proportioning of the areas of the work - all
these point to a superior mind, however disturbed and apprehensive the artist's
feelings."

Van Gogh Self-Portait September Context: Vincent VanGogh is famous for his self portraits, he painted 24
1889 during a two year stay in paris 1886-88. . He has done many over the years, all
oil/canvas 65"x54"cm chronicling his unstable state of mind and descent into madness and
Saint-Rémy, Paris depression. Van Gogh, as a mentally disturbed individual, seemed committed
Musèe d'Orsay to painting the world the way that he experienced it in his mind, not the way it
truly was. His self portraits are often disturbing and bizarre, and share a
glimpse into his own distorted self perception. "He sold only one painting
during his lifetime (Red Vineyard at Arles; Pushkin Museum, Moscow), and
was little known to the art world at the time of his death, but his fame grew
rapidly thereafter. His influence on Expressionism, Fauvism and early
abstraction was enormous, and it can be seen in many other aspects of 20th-
century art. His stormy and dramatic life and his unswerving devotion to his
ideals have made him one of the great cultural heroes of modern times,
providing the most auspicious material for the 20th-century vogue in
romanticized psychological biography."
(http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/)

Form: This painting is done with a very saturated color-

pallete, it has a flattened picture plane and little attention is
paid to concepts of proportion or depth. Has a feel of
graphic design.

Iconography: Matisse was interested in making things

'happy'. He wanted his paintings to show the joy he felt for
life, so they are often whimsical and filled with patterns and
scenes of everyday life, the thing that he enjoyed the most.
"Matisse also limits his perspective in this work. He makes
elisions in the line around the table, frames the chair, the
window, and the little house in an innovative manner by
cutting them off, and encloses two of the planes, the green
and the blue in a window."
(http://www.mystudios.com/art/modern/matisse/matisse-
red-room.html)

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lesson_fauves

Context: Matisse was often sick at various times throughout

his career, but it did not seem to dampen his passion for
creating. This painting started out as 'Harmony in Green',
then it became 'Harmony in Blue'. The canvas was actually
Matisse, Harmony in Red (La Desserte), 1908
Oil on canvas 180 x 200 cm The Hermitage Museum, St. painted entirely blue to begin with, and then he decided it
was better as 'Harmony in Red'. This may be a motivating
Petersburg
factor in the choice of red used, as it had to cover a whole
lot of blue without it peeking through.As he gets older, his
works simplify.
Form: An early form of stencil, these images are actually
cut-out shapes. The colorful cut-out shapes known as
pochoir.

Iconography: "The two principal themes to be found in

Jazz are the noise and excitement of the circus (the series
was originally named Le Cirque, but Matisse changed it
before publication) and the syncopated rhythms of popular
jazz music. In the The Horse, the Rider, and the Clown the
horse is the only distinct figure; the equestrienne is implied
by her fan shaped skirt, overlapping the horse's flank, and
the clown by his vibrant costume in green, black, and
yellow." (www.museum.cornell.edu)

Context: "Matisse's twenty cut-outs called Jazz, depicting

circus scenes, folklore subjects, life in Parisian music
halls, and the artist's own travel experiences. It was in the
early 1940s, when he was confined to his bed for most of
the day, that Matisse began to pursue the cut-out as an art
form. His assistants painted opaque watercolor onto white
sheets of paper, which Matisse in turn cut into a variety of
shapes, often retaining both the primary form (the
Matisse, The Horse, the Rider, and the Clown,
"positive") and the cut-away piece (the "negative"),
Plate V from the Jazz series, 1947
arranging them in vibrant juxtapositions. He pinned and
Color pochoir. 25 5/8 x 16 9/16 in. (65 x 42 cm)
re-pinned the pieces to the wall of his studio until he was
finally satisfied with the overall harmony of the
composition."
(www.museum.cornell.edu). Matisse is once again
focusing on what he observes, what is lighthearted, what
makes him feel "happy." He is also going beyond painting

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and pioneering new ways to create his images.

Form: The colorful cut-out shapes known as pochoir. Gouche on paper. It was also
screen printed and used as an illustration for a book entitled "Jazz".

Iconography: "In his Jazz series, Matisse used prepared, gouache-painted papers of
various vibrant colors to compose collages that related to his memories of the circus,
popular stories, myths and journeys he took. They are very personal expressions of his
imagination, feelings, and inspirations." (www.neworleansonline.com.)

Context: The story of Icarus is an old one, in which a man and his son wanting to fly
to escape a certain doom, fashions wings for his son and his self with wax and
feathers. The father warns him not to fly too close to the son. But Icarus, becoming
too confident and perhaps rebellious, flies to close to the sun, the wax melts, the wings
fall apart, and he falls to the ground far below. Here, Matisse has Icarus falling against
a night sky filled with stars, and the figure looks more joyful than death bound. This
may have been Matisse's' way of changing the story to make the context one of
happiness and salvation rather than death and defeat. Being confined to his bed did
little to dampen his love for life or the energy of social events such as the circus or
musical performances. Matisse was determined to not allow politics or social mores
affect the message of his work. "Like many artists of his time, Matisse took an active
interest in creating artwork to accompany written texts. The resulting illustrated books
Matisse Icarus 1947
are works of art in their own right and exemplify his style. Matisse's Jazz, printed in
1947, is such a book."
(www.neworleansonline.com)

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