After Class 03/22/10

Today Jenn gave her presentation about the Modern Arts movement. Just how the society and environment effect what cave men, egyptians, and people of the renaissance wrote and draw about the same can be said about the 20th century environment. Big huge cities were popping up, radio was spreading, world wars were beginning, and for the first time ever humans could fly- in airplains. These factors changed the way we think about the world, our neighbor, and our place in the world. Cubists wanted the viewer and artist to change the way they thought about an object. It "challenged pictorial art" and the typical style in which human figures had been painted for hundreds of years. Paintings were created by putting together different fragments of what they eye sees- color, shape, form.
Futurism was interesting in that it rebelled against the machine age, modern life, and war. "Emotionally charged" poetry led the revolt. Originality in poetry and design was held at a higher esteem. Filippo Marinetti changed the way we think about tyographic wording.
The DADA movement was "anti-art." They rebelled against all tradition forms and ideas of what is considered Art. Often there pieces angered people, but that was the point. They were mocking what people considered the "Greatest art" like The Mona Lisa.Although they may seem like a bunch of punks, the people who were apart of the DADA movement stirred emotions in people. It made they question WHY they were getting so angry a piece like the Mona Lisa was getting defaced.However, with no organization or leader the movement died off in 1922.
The Surrealists came next in 1924. This had a huge impact on photography. The way a photo was developed altered, and lighter pictures were made. Frottage, which is a technique of rubbing over something to create an image became popular.
In Expressionsim color and proportion were bent out of shape. Paul Klee and Kandinsky were two artists that belonged to this movement. Die Blaue Reiter was the school they belonged too that showed "deep human emotion through color, line, and form"
I would be curious to know if Chanel was influenced by Futurism. There's a quote by Coco Chanel (?) that says, "In order to irreplaceable one must always be different"
I think it would be interesting to explore how all the movements we studied influenced fashion.