FINAL STUDY GUIDE

The Bauhaus and International Style

The Bauhaus: House of Construction

Weimar, Dessau, Berlin
Germany
1919-1933

Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral of Socialism, woodcut, Cover of Bauhaus manifesto, 1919.

Walter Gropius
● Founder of the Bauhaus in Berlin

Walter Gropius, Sommerfeld House, Berlin, 1920-21

● Arts & Crafts inspired

Bauhaus workshops, Sommerfeld House Interior, 1920-22

JosefAlbers, window from Sommerfeld House, 1922

Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1925-26. Steel frame, non-structural glass walls

Gerrit Thomas Reitveld, Schroder House, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 1924

Anni Albers, Silk wall hanging, 1927-28. Textile

Marcel Breuer, tubular metal chair, c. 1928. Chrome plated steel, wood and cane

Marcel Breuer, tubular metal stool, c. 1926. Chrome plated steel

Marianne Brandt, Tea and Coffee Service, c. 1924. Silver and ebony

Herbert Bayer, Cover Bauhaus Quarterly Journal, 1928. Photomontage

 ● COMPARED TO: El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919. Poster

COMPARED TO: El Lissitzsky, The Constructor, 1924. Gelatin silver print

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Mies van der Rohe, Model for a glass skyscraper, Berlin, Germany, 1922

International Style

Mies van der Rohe, Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, 1950-56

The International Style: Fundamental Principles

● “The conception of architecture as volume rather than mass” (The use of a structural
skeleton of steel and concrete made it possible to eliminate load bearing walls)
 ● Regularity rather than symmetry as the chief means of ordering design
● Rejection of “arbitrary applied decoration”
○ Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Curators, The International Style:
Architecture Since 1922, MoMA

THE IRRATIONAL IN POST WWI EUROPE: DADA

Jean (Hans) Arp, Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, 1916-1917. Torn and
pasted paper.

Weimar Republic (1918-33)

Berlin Dada (1918-c. 1926)

Women’s Suffrage in Germany (1919)

Women’s Suffrage in U.S. (1920)
Women’s Suffrage in France (1944)

Raoul Hausmann, Tatlin at Home, 1920. Photomontage

Dada Fair, Berlin, 1920

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912. Oil on canvas

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1951 (third version, after lost original of 1913). Assemblage:
metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool, 50x25x16”.

THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE UNCANNY: SURREALISM

Surrealism
● Above or beyond the real world- it implies a state of exalted awareness
● Followed Dada, and like Dada, Surrealists also embraced chance
○ Founder believed Dada had become institutionalized and academic
● Embraced the notion of artistic genius more than Dada
● Deeply influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, the artists sought to tap into the
raw impulses, desires and fears that Freud claimed were located in the unconscious
mind
○ Free Association
○ The fetish
 ● Def: noun, masc., pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either
verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all
control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations. ENCYCL.
Philos. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of
association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of the dream, and in the
disinterested play of thought. It leads to the permanent destruction of all other psychic
mechanisms and to its substitution for them in the solution of the principal problems of
life.” –André Breton, from the Manifesto of Surrealism, 1924

André Breton, Automatic Writing, self-portrait, 1938. Photomontage.

Alberto Giacometti, Woman with her Throat Cut, 1932. Bronze. 8x34x25”.

André Masson, Battle of the Fishes, 1926. Mixed Media.

Joan Miró, Carnival of Harlequin, 1924-25. Oil on Canvas.

Salvador Dalí, Persistence of Memory, 1931. 9x13”. Oil on canvas.

Paranoiac-Critical Surrealism
● The creation of a visionary reality from elements of visions, dreams, memories and
psychological or pathological distortions (the Surrealism practiced by Salvador Dalí)

Automatic Drawing
● The process of yielding oneself to instinctive motions of the hands, without the
interference of the rational, conscious mind, as in Andre Masson’s Battle of the Fishes.

AMERICAN ART BEFORE WWII: THE EIGHT/ THE ASHCAN SCHOOL, STIEGLITZ CIRCLE,
PRECISIONISM

Robert Henri, Cumulus Clouds, East River, 1901-02. Oil on canvas.

Robert Henri, Snow in New York, 1902. Oil on canvas.

● COMPARED TO: Alfred Stieglitz, Winter on Fifth Avenue, New York, 1893

John Sloan, McSorley’s Bar, 1912. Oil on canvas.

Theresa Bernstein, Suffrage Meeting, 1914. Oil on canvas.

George Bellows, Cliff Dwellers, 1914. Oil on canvas.

Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation Number 27: The Garden of Love, 1912.

Picasso, Standing Female Nude, 1910.

Armory Show, at the Armory on Lexington, NYC, 1913.

Precisionism
● Geometric abstraction influenced by Cubism, but without shifting, multiple views
● Precisionist subjects were chosen for their formal relationships but also because they
typified American landscape and industrial achievement

Charles Sheeler, Church Street El. 1920. Oil on canvas.

Georgia O’Keefe, Radiator Building – Night, New York, 1927. Oil on canvas.

Charles Demuth, My Egypt, 1927. Oil on composition board.

Charles Demuth, Buildings Lancaster, 1930. Oil on composition board. 24x20”

MEXICAN MURAL MOVEMENT: SOCIAL REALISM

● Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros

● 1821 New Spain declared independence from Old Spain, becoming the sovereign nation
of Mexico
● 1846-1848 Mexican American War

Mexican Revolution: 1910- c. 1920

Pre-revolutionary Mexico
● 1876-1910: Dictatorship of Pres. Porfirio Diaz
○ Enormous divisions of wealth, property and power
○ Espousal of order and progress through industrialization
○ Strong nationalism
● By the early 1910s, U.S. companies owned about 30% of Mexican land

José Clemente Orozco, The Franciscan and the Indian, Fresco, 1926. National Preparatory
School, Mexico City.
Diego Rivera, Night of the Rich, 1928. Fresco. Courtyard of the Fiestas, Ministry of Education,
Mexico City.

David Siqueiros, Echo of a Scream, 1937. 48x36”. Enamel on wood.

Social Realism
● Term used to refer to the work of painters, printmakers, photographers, and filmmakers
who draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working classes and the poor, and
who are critical of the social structures that maintain these conditions

Diego Rivera, Mechanization of the Country, 1926. Fresco. Ministry of Education, Mexico City.
David Alfero Siqueiros, The Elements (detail), 1922. Encaustic. Colegio Chico, National
Preparatory School, Mexico City.

The National Preparatory School (The Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Jesuit), Mexico City.
1573– c. 1740.

José Clemente Orozco, Cortez and Malinche, Fresco, 1926. National Preparatory School,
Mexico City.
José Clemente Orozco, Prometheus, Fresco, 1930. Pomona College, Claremont CA. Fresco.

Diego Rivera and workshop, 235 Murals, 1923-28. Ministry of Education, Mexico City.

Diego Rivera, Wall Street Banquet, 1928. Fresco.

● COMPARED TO: Diego Rivera, Night of the Rich, 1928. Fresco. Courtyard of the
Fiestas, Ministry of Education, Mexico City.
Diego Rivera, Our Bread, 1928. Fresco. Courtyard of the Fiestas, Ministry of Education, Mexico
City.

● COMPARED TO: Masaccio, Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1428.
Fresco. 21’x10’5”.

Diego Rivera, Man at the Crossroads, 1933. Unfinished mural at Rockefeller Center, taken
when Rivera was dismissed and before the mural was destroyed.

● Rockefeller did not approve of Rivera including Vladmir Lenin in the mural
Diego Rivera, Man at the Crossroads, 1934. Palace of Fine Arts (Museo de Bellas Artes)
Mexico City.

THE NEW YORK SCHOOL: ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM C. 1943-1960

World War II (1939-1945)

● Siqueiros ran Experimental Art Workshop in NYC in the 1930s

○ He was passionately committed to technical innovation

David Siqueiros, Echo of a Scream, 1937. 48x36” enamel on wood.

● Mexican Mural Movement

Jackson Pollock, Guardians of the Secret, 1943. Oil on canvas. C. 48x75”.

Hans Namuth, Photo of Jackson Pollock painting.

What the New York School stood for:

● The importance of risk
● The reassertion of the picture plane – flat forms which destroy illusion and reveal truth
● That the subject matter is crucial, and only subject matter which is tragic and timeless
● A kinship with primitives and archaic art (because they are timeless)

Willem De Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52. Oil on canvas.

Willem De Kooning, Gotham News, 1955. 69x79”. Oil on canvas.

Barnett Newman, Vir Hericus Sublimus (Man, heroic and sublime), 1950-51. Oil on canvas. C.
8x18”.

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1949. 6x10.5”. Oil on canvas.

Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960. Oil on canvas. 9’6”x8’9”.

Mark Rothko, North, Northeast, and East wall paintings in the Rothko Chapel, Houston TX,
1956-66.
Joan Miró, Carnival of Harlequin, 1924-25. Oil on canvas.

Lee Krasner, Untitled, 1949. Oil on canvas.

Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on
canvas c. 7x10’.

Abstract Expressionism: Action Painting

Abstract Expressionism: Color Field Painting

Life Magazine story on J. Pollock, August 8, 1949.

AFTER ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM: THE GAP BETWEEN ART AND LIFE

Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955. [Combine] Oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood
supports

Jasper John, Flag, 1954-55. Encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three
panels. C. 42x60”.

Semiotics
● Signs - understood as something that stands for something else - expressing meanings
and define the world
● Human beings create and share meanings through signs
POP ART

Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962. C. 6x5’. Synthetic polymer, silkscreen ink, and
graphite on canvas.

Andy Warhol, The Factory, 1962-84.

Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes, 1964. Silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood. 17x14x17”.

Roy Lichtenstein, Brushstrokes, 1965. Oil and Magna on canvas.

 ● COMPARED TO: Charlton Comics’ Strange Suspense Stories “The Painting”, 1964.

HAPPENINGS, PERFORMANCE

● Jackson Pollock- inspiration

Robert Rauschenburg, White Paintings, 1951. Oil on canvas.

Marcel Duchamp, Teeny Duchamp, and John Cage playing chess in a performance,
Sightssoundsystems, a festival of art and technology in Toronto, 1968. Photo Shigeko Kubota.

John Cage, 4’33”, 1952. Musical composition in three parts. (conducted by Lawerence Foster in
2004).

● http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7UK-6aaNA&feature=related
Allan Kaprow, Yard, 1961. Environment in court of Martha Jackson Gallery.

Rules of Thumb for Happenings

● The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct as possible
● The source of themes, materials, actions, and the relationships between them are to be
derived from any place or period except from the arts, their derivatives, and their milieu
● The performance of a Happening should take place over several widely spaced,
sometimes moving and changing locales
● Time, which follows closely on space considerations, should be variable and
dicontinuous
● Happenings should be performed only once
● It follows that audiences should be eliminated entirely

Allan Kaprow, Tree, A Yam Festival event at George Segal’s Far, South Brunswick, NJ, 1963.
Happening.

MINIMALISM

Key Traits of Greenbergian Modernism (CLEMENT GREENBERG)

● Purity: Art should adhere to its own materials and properties
● Autonomy: Art should remain independent of mass culture
● Formalism: Painting and sculpture are meant to be optical (for the eye) and should be
judged according to its inherent formal qualities: line, form, and color
○ Good for painting = Flat
○ Not good = Narrative, figural representation and illusion
Jasper John, Flag, 1954-55. Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three
panels. C. 42x60”.

Frank Stella, Great Jones Street, 1958. Enamel on canvas.

Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II, 1959. Enamel on canvas. C. 7x11’.

Frank Stella, Copper series installation, 1960-61.

Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965. Metallic powder in polymer emulsion, paint on canvas. C.
6x18’.
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1969. Anodized aluminum and Plexiglas. C. 47x59x59” per unit.

Robert Morris, 3 L-Beams, 1965. Installation.

Robert Morris, Untitled, 1968. Felt, asphalt, mirrors, wood, copper tubing, steel cable, lead.

Robert Morris, Box with the Sound of its Own Making, 1961. Wood, internal speaker, 7”
Cassette of ¼” tape.
POST-MINIMALISM & PROCESS ART

CONCEPTUAL ART & INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE

Bruce Nauman, Self-Portrait as a Fountain from Eleven Color Photographs, 1966-67. C-print.

● COMPARED TO: Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. [Dada]

Joseph Kosuth, Language must speak for itself, 1991. Neon tubing, transformers, and wire.
4½x6’6½”.

Joseph Kosuth, Art as Idea as Idea, 1967. Photostat mounted on wood. C. 47x46¾”.
On Kawara, The Today Series of Date Paintings, 1966. Print on board.

Hans Haake, MoMA Poll, 1970. Installation.

FEMINIST ART

Feminist
● An advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women

Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952. Oil and charcoal on canvas.

Morris Louis, Saraband, 1959. Acrylic resin on canvas.

Helen Frankenthaler, Interior Landscape, 1964. Oil and charcoal on canvas.

Mary Beth Edelson, Some Living American Women/Last Supper, 1971. Offset poster.

Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture, 1973. Performance/Action.

Socialist Feminism
● Connected the oppression of women to other forms of oppression in society. Critiqued
the idea that true equality was possible in a society built on inequality, whose structure
was fundamentally flawed

Cultural Feminism
● Focused on the unique nature of women

Liberal Feminism
● Sought equality for women in all social institutions (govt, law, and education)

Radical Feminism
● A perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male
supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts. Patriarchy means the rule
or “power of the fathers”, so sex discrimination is entrenched in all existing social,
economic, and political patterns and practices
POSTMODERNISM ARCHITECTURE 1966-1990

Postmodernism
● A critique of modernism, such as the avant-garde’s claim to originality. Postmodernism
sought to erode the boundaries between high art and mass culture, It rejected the idea
that art or artists posses a special privileged insight into art or the world

MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE: THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE

[C. MID 1920S- EARLY 1970S]

Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret) Dom-ino skeleton, (Intended to be concrete and

steel. Never built) 1914-15.

● COMPARED TO: Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissey, France, 1928-30.

Le Corbusier, Proposal for a Contemporary City of Three Million Inhabitants, 1929.

Le Corbusier, Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, France. 1947-52. Rough cast concrete.

Mies van der Rohe, Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology [The new Bauhaus], Chicago,
1950-56.

Mies van der Rohe, Seagram Building, New York, 1954-58.

● COMPARED TO: Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1925-26. Steel frame,
non-structural glass walls.

Minoru Yamasaki, Pruitt Igoe Housing Project, St. Louis MO, 1954.
Minoru Yamaskai, World Trade Center, 1974.

CONCEPTS ASSOCIATED WITH MODERNISM

● Originality
● Meaning is universal
● Purity
● Homogeneity
● Minimal form
● Existing power structures are maintained
● Absence of ornament
● Progress
● No overt reference to everyday life

CONCEPTS ASSOCIATED WITH POSTMODERNISM

● Appropriation
● Meaning changes according to viewer and to context
● Pluralism: No one world view appropriate for everyone
● Heterogeneity
● All power structures are questioned
● Symbolism, ornament, and embellishment welcomed
● Participatory
● Skepticism and Irony – rejection of orthodoxies

Robert Venturi, John Rauch, Denise Scott Brown, House in Delaware (west elevation),
1978-1983.