Activity 7

Activity 7  1 & 2

'preconception' noun

Your preconceptions about something are beliefs formed about it- before

you have enough information or experience. 

assumption, predisposition, prejudice, bias, delusion, illusion, inclination,

notion, prejudgment, prepossession, presumption, presupposition.

‘assumption’ noun

A thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

"they made certain assumptions about the market"supposition,

presupposition, presumption,

premise, belief, expectation, conjecture, speculation, surmise, guess,

theory, hypothesis, postulation, conclusion, deduction, inference, thought,

suspicion, notion and  impression, fancy;

book-Carole Gray and Julian Malins Visualizing Research- A Guide to the research

process in art and design- not much help!

Preconceptions of the research process-Really!  I thought it would be boring! But l am actually enjoying it!  I seem to drift for days and have to come back to-What was the Question?

Finding out about all the different research disciplines, the time and energy that goes into researching!  Assumption and Preconception are not as good as a Fact!

Research is so important in the arts for : re-sale values, copyright, restoration and the list goes on.

I do enjoy researching especially in the old arts and painters. I am quite interested in the restoration side and a lot of research needs to go into an artwork before you can start restoring it. You need to know an era in which it was painted and especially what it was painted with to be able to start restoration. I think l would be good at the restoration side as l find it relaxing, interesting and l have patience and good colour matching skills.

I thought this chart was interesting with lots of new words and sites.

‘Fin de Siecle’ 1870-1914 Activity 6_5

The End of an Era - ‘Fin de Siecle’ 1870-1914

‘Culture of Decadence but the shape of Fear’. Fin de Siecle (the beautiful era) Saw the end of a war in France, Franco Prussian 1871 and the start of World War 1 in 1914.

This era in between wars was a time of luxury and discovery but also a dark side to humanity, not seen by the tourist-caused by war.

A time of cars driving 45 miles per hour, women smoking and wearing pants with ankles showing and a time of optimism, technology, innovation and scientific discovery. 1909 was the first flight and along with changes came liberty, equality and unions along with the dark side of our culture.

People marching and protesting in the streets and a modern art movement that explains the changes of the times past and those to come.

Before World War 1 you had symbolism which started in the late 19^th century, Les Nabis and Expressionism. Then came the Modern Art Movements.

Picture 1 Motion Art

  Who invented motion pictures? No One. No One Person-That is!

No individual can claim the title as their own however their are co-inventors of a medium waiting for 2000 years to be discovered. 3000 BC man was attempting to mimic motion through his art on the walls of caves.  

·         1890 The first moving pictures were developed on celluloid film by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, in Hyde Park, London in 1889. The process was patented in 1890.

·         William K. L. Dickson completes his work for Thomas Edison on the Kinetograph cylinder either in this year or 1889. Monkeyshines No. 1 becomes the first film shot on the system.

Films

·         London's Trafalgar Square,^[1] directed by William Carr Croft and Wordsworth Donisthorpe.

·         Monkeyshines, No. 1 – contradictory sources indicate this was shot either in June 1889 or November 1890, Monkeyshines, No. 2 and Monkeyshines, No. 3, directed by William K. L. Dickson.

·         Mosquinha, directed by Étienne-Jules Marey.

·         Traffic in King's Road, Chelsea, directed by William Friese-Greene.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_in_film

In the bond between the art of film making and perhaps visual culture as a whole, film has always served a greater purpose -to move the overarching story forward. Whether you are a motion graphic designer, a digital artist or a connoisseur of design,"The Film Industry' is a source for artists in the era and today-film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production,screen writing, pre production, post production, actors, film directors and crew. Thus affecting Art and Design with all these creative jobs in this Industry in the 1880's to the current day.

Picture 2 Architecture

The staircase at Mietshaus Linke Wienzeile 38, designed by Otto Wagner in Vienna, Austria, 1898–99

Born: July 12, 1841 and Died: 11th April 1918

Otto Koloman Wagner, an Austrian Architect with a lasting impact on the appearance of his home town Vienna.

Modernism refers to a set of ideas that emerged in the 20th Century, that broke from traditions of previous centuries. Modernist ideas focus on the use of new technology and philosophy, especially those ideas that were not available in previous centuries.

Otto Wagner was one of the most important early architects, he literally helped build the modern world. Wagner lived in Vienna during the second half of the 19th century, a time when architecture was going through an interesting trend. The style of this era was Revivalism, in which historical styles were emulated in new buildings.

A period of Neo-Classicism, a Neo- Gothic trend and revivals of various colonial styles. In this era architecture was highly defined by its stylistic appearance. It was ornate, detailed and decorative. 

In the later 19th century Otto spoke against the revivalist movement of the day. He claimed the styles were focused on the form of the building, rather than their function. He compiled his ideas into a book called Modern Architecture. In his book he proposed new ideas based on emerging materials and technology. At the end of the century. He said "The world was changing and that it needed new styles of architecture to represent the intertectual and practical needs of modern people". Wagner's plan helped cement the use of modernist ideas in urban planning. 

Some of the materials used were white marble, bronze beading and iron. The introduction of colour and texture on exterior surfaces were taken from the natural world.

Picture 3 Design

Staircase detail and Reception area at the Villino Broggi Caraceno.

Staircase detail and Reception area at the Villino Broggi Caraceno. Designed by Giovanni Michelazzi 

in Florence, Italy 1910-11. Galileo Chini completed the pictorial and ceramic decorations, including the green majolica garlands that are considered highly unusual and unique. He fresco-ed part of the walls and entrance way ceilings. The stylized staircase in the form of a dragon have inspired generations  of decorators and creative designers.

Florence 1897-1920 Libberty Style or Art Nouveau. 

Many examples of this style are in private houses, stores and public buildings located in Florence, Montecatini, Teme, Lucca and Viareggio. The Libberty style of building was the perfect union between the Austrian secession style and the local art and craft. Giovanni was the only architect/designer to follow this path and was often contested. Villino Broggi was the first completed experiment of liberty art by Mechelazzi.  The internal facade was developed around a helical staircase covered with a glazed dome.

Art Nouveau was a brief 'Style' -The Look began to seam tired and lines and motifs were absorbed into the consumer capitalist machine, copied and mass produced into huge numbers of inferior versions and in such numbers that the market was flooded. The rich who set the pace were looking for new thrills- hence the short lived  but beautiful era.

Picture 4 Visual Art

A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte (1884-1886)

Artist: Georges Seurat

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-neo-impressionism.htm

In the latter part of the 19th century, Neo-Impressionism foregrounded the science of optics and color to forge a new and methodical technique of painting that eschewed the spontaneity and romanticism that many Impressionists celebrated. Relying on the viewer's capacity to optically blend the dots of color on the canvas, the Neo-Impressionists strove to create more luminous paintings that depicted modern life. With urban centers growing and technology advancing, the artists sought to capture people's changing relationship with the city and countryside. Many artists in the following years adopted the Neo-Impressionist technique of Pointillism, the application of tiny dots of pigment, which opened the door to further explorations of color and eventually abstract art.

Using a grid system and applying small dots of paint, Seurat took two years to complete this large-scale painting. He went to the park often, observing and making over 60 preliminary studies, including 15 in oil.

Most of the Neo-Impressionists held anarchist beliefs. Their depictions of the working class and peasants called attention to the social struggles taking place as the rise of industrial capitalism gained speed, and their search for harmony in art paralleled their vision of a utopian society. 

In order to more fully capture the luminosity seen in nature, the Neo-Impressionists turned to science in finding their painting technique of juxtaposing various colors and tones to create a shimmering, illuminated surface. By systematically placing contrasting colors, as well as black, white, and grey, next to each other on the canvas, the painters hoped to heighten the visual sensation of the image.The freedom they sought in scientific study furthered their abilities to overthrow bourgeois norms and conventions that hampered their individual autonomy.

Picture 5 Craft-Necklace

Murrle Bennet necklace ca. 1900

Jewelry was one of the purest and most successful expressions of the Art Nouveau movement. Fresh designs and motifs created intense excitement as organic forms surged with new life, and the female form struggled towards freedom, suggesting a long-hidden eroticism. The artists and goldsmiths who created this jewelry were trained in the nineteenth-century disciplines; their technical mastery allowed them to experiment with new materials and enameling processes to indulge their fantasies. This combination - an atmosphere of ideas for a new art and the unrivaled technical skill of the makers - produced some of the most evocative jewelry of modern times.

Being one of the most successful expressions of the Art Nouveau movement, a reaction to women and a number of things going on in the French society where women were going out to work and fighting for their rights. The jewelry sexualized nature and form, with its butterfly's and bugs.

Murrle Bennett & Co was established in London by Ernst Murrle and J.B Bennett and specialized in high quality affordable silver and gold jewelry. The firm produced jewelry predominantly in the Art Nouveau style. Their designs were often characterized by abstract motifs typical of Art Nouveau and the Arts & Crafts movements. Often comprised of Celtic inspired interlacing elements, stylized foliate forms, pierced geometric shapes, luminous enamels and precious or semi-precious stones. After World War I, the company was renamed White Redgrove & White. Murrle Bennett & Co jewelry is now highly sought-after and widely collected.

Picture 6 Photography

Pioneering Photographer Adolf De Meyer 

Said to have 'Pathed the Way' for  the likes of Helmut Newton, Adolph De Meyer's life read like a gossip column. Baron Adolph De Meyer was born in Paris, German-Jewish and a Scottish photographer who grew to fame  in the early 20th century. Meyer was an international jet setter and influential artist- who captured reality but distilled it into fanciful imagination.

As part of his persona as a artist, De Meyer wearing blue hair, mixed with the fashion circles of the era. Mixing with the Edwardian elite and dedicating himself to the pictorial-ism, a prominent movement in photography from the 1890's to the first world war, where photographers tried to bring their photography to the level of fine art.

At the beginning of World War 1,  De Meyer fled Europe for the United States and applied his pictorial style to fashion photography. He was the first fashion photographer for American Vogue in 1913. it was the first time photos were on the their pages.  De Meyer was one of the first to merge artistry with commerce via photography. His interests were the effects of light, exoticism and a strong sense of pose which were explored throughout his career. He later worked for Harper's Bazaar and Vanity Fair.  

D.1946

  

MODERN ART MOVEMENTS 'Fin de Siecle'

by Roger-Miles, L. (Leon), 1859-1928;



Impressionist Movement (fl.1870s-1880s)

Christened by the French art critic Louis Leroy after the title of Monet's painting Impression: Sunrise (1873), Impressionism was a spontaneous plein-air manner of landscape paintingwhose goal was the exact representation of light. The style was exemplified by the plein air painting of Monet, Sisley, Renoir and Camille Pissarro, although other painters were also part of the Impressionist group, including Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Frederic Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, as well as Mary Cassatt, one of the leading figures of the American Impressionism movement (c.1880-1900). Introduced to Britain by Whistler, it was taken up by his pupils Sickert and Steer and promoted by the New English Art Club. After giving birth to some of the greatest modern paintings of the 19th century, Impressionism was succeeded by Seurat's Neo-Impressionism and Cezanne's Post-Impressionism.

Neo-Impressionism (1880s)

The term given by the French art critic Felix Feneon (1861-1944) to work by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and their followers like Camille and Lucien Pissarro. The style was based on the optical painting technique called Pointillism (an offshoot of Divisionism). Instead of mixing colours before applying them to the canvas, primary-colours were placed directly onto the picture - arranged in groups of tiny dabs or dots - to allow the viewer's eye to do the "mixing". The style was a later influence on Fauvism. For more details, please see:Neo-Impressionism. For developments in Italy, under Vittore Grubicy, please see: Italian Divisionism (1890-1907).

Newlyn School (fl.1884-1914)

Led by Stanhope Forbes, Frank Bramley and Norman Garstin the Newlyn School was inspired by the naturalist plein-air painting tradition of the French Barbizon School and aimed to reproduce the realities of country life.

Art Nouveau (1890-1914)

Derived from a Parisian shop called "La Maison de l'Art Nouveau", owned by the avant-garde art-collector Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), the Art Nouveau style originated in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain (notably the designs of William Morris) - being also influenced by Celtic and Japanese designs - and was popularized by the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris before spreading across Europe and the United States. A highly decorative style of design art (called Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Stile Liberty in Italy, Modernista in Spain), Art Nouveau was characterized by intricate flowing patterns of sinuous asymetrical lines, based on plant-forms. Leaf and tendril motifs are popular Art Nouveau designs, as are female silhouettes and forms. The style appeared in interior design, metalwork, glassware, jewellery, poster-design and illustration, as well as painting, sculpture and poster art. It was exemplified by the paintings and illustrations of Gustav Klimt, first President of the Vienna Secession, as well as poster designs by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley, and serpentine architectural motifs by Victor Horta of the Les Vingt artists group in Brussels. It also had a strong influence on the Munich Secession (1892) and Berlin Secession (1898) in Germany. It was succeeded by Art Deco.

Symbolist Art (Late 19th Century)

Mythology-inspired and characterized by a mystical and magnified sensitivity with occasional erotic content, Symbolism was a refinement of the Romantic tradition. Pioneers included Caspar David Friedrich and Henry Fuseli, while modern exponents included Gustave Moreau, the mural painter Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon. Influenced the Art Nouveau movement and Les Nabis, as well as the Expressionists Edvard Munch and Franz von Stuck.

Post-Impressionism (1880s, 1890s)

Post-Impressionism is an umbrella term incorporating numerous groups and styles of Post-Impressionist painting, as exemplified by the work of painters like Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Henri Rousseau. Cezanne adopted a rigorous classical approach to plein-air painting; Gauguin used rich colours but preferred indoor studio painting; Van Gogh painted outdoors but more to express his inner emotions than capture nature; while Toulouse-Lautrec specialized in indoor genre scenes.

Following in the footsteps of Synthetism (developed by Gauguin) and Cloisonnism(invented by Emile Bernard and Louis Anquetin) came the fin de siecle art group called Les Nabis, composed of young painters drawn to the decorative and spiritual content of painting. The leader, Paul Serusier (1864-1927) and the group's leading theorist Mauris Denis (1870-1943) were joined by Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), Paul Ranson (1862-1909), Ker-Xavier Roussel (1867-1944), Henri Ibels (1867-1936) and Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). Out of the Nabis came another style of post-Impressionist painting, known as Intimism, exemplified in the tranquil domestic genre scenes of Edouard Vuillard, his close friend Pierre Bonnard, and Gwen John. Taken up by Nordic painters, like Hammershoi and PS Kroyer. In Britain, Post-Impressionism was practised by the Camden Town Group, founded in 1911 by Walter Richard Sickert, who became known for his nudes and interiors.

Les Fauves (1905-1908)

Influenced by Paul Gauguin, Fauvism was an important movement in the history of expressionist painting, which advocated brilliant colours and wild brushwork - hence their nickname Les Fauves (wild beasts), given them by the critic Louis Vauxcelles after their first showing at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1905. Fauvist painters included Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck Albert Marquet and Georges Braque. In Britain, Fauvism was practised by a group of artists from Scotland known as the Scottish Colourists. They included JD Fergusson, Samuel John Peploe, Francis Cadell and Leslie Hunter. For more, see Fauvism.

Expressionist Movement (1905 onwards)

Personnified by Vincent Van Gogh - whose hectic brushwork and intense colours reflected his inner state rather than the scenes he painted - Expressionism is a style whose aim is to portray an interpretation of a scene rather than simply replicate its true-life features. One of the first examples of the style is German Expressionism, which was developed in and around Munich by Der Blaue Reiter [The Blue Rider], and in Dresden by Die Brucke [The Bridge]. After this the movement spread worldwide, giving birth to variants - including Abstract Expressionism - in America during the 1940s and 1950s. Influenced by Romanticism, Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism, the expressionist movement encompassed all genres, including landscape, portraiture, genre painting and still life. Famous Expressionist painters included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Edvard Munch, Modigliani, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, as well as Pablo Picasso, and Francis Bacon. For specific works, please see: Expressionist Paintings (1880-1950).

The Bridge (Die Brucke) (1905-13)

The Bridge was a German Expressionist group based in Dresden in 1905. Combined elements of traditional German art with African, Post-Impressionist and Fauvist styles. Its leading members were Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Emil Nolde. Short-lived but influential.

Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) (1911-14)

Based in Munich, the members of Blue Rider included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Alexei von Jawlensky, August Macke, Gabriele Munter and Paul Klee. A loose association rather than a tight group, it was named after a Kandinsky painting used on the cover of their 1912 Almanac or Manifesto. Cut short by the First World War during which both Macke and Marc were killed.

Ashcan School, New York (active 1900-15)

The so-called Ashcan School consisted of a progressive group of early twentieth-century American painters and illustrators (sometimes called the New York Realists) who portrayed the urban reality of New York City life, in a gritty spontaneous unpolished style. The Ashcan movement included Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, Everett Shinn and John Sloan. Others whose work is considered to reflect the Ashcan school include: George Wesley Bellows, Guy Pène Du Bois, the celebrated Edward Hopper, and Alfred Maurer.

Cubist Art (Europe, 1908-1914)

Cubism was invented and formulated between about 1908 and 1912 in a partnership between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, who were strongly influenced by the grid-like landscapes of Paul Cezanne and (in Picasso's case by African imagery: witness his stunning Les Demoiselles D'Avignon). In part a reaction against the pretty pictures of Impressionism, a style which held no intellectual interest for Picasso, Cubism refocused attention on the essential 2-D nature of the flat canvas, overturning conventional systems of perspective and ways of perceiving form, in the process. The movement developed in three stages: Proto-Cubism (Picasso's & Braque's early phase, containing the only 'cubes' to be seen); Analytical Cubism, an austere style which disassembled 3-D views into a series of overlapping planes; finally, Synthetic Cubism, a lighter more colourful style which 'built-up' images sometimes using various 'found' materials. Picasso's late Cubism - a more representational idiom than his earlier Cubist styles - is exemplified in works like Weeping Woman (1937, Tate Collection), and Guernica (1937, Reina Sofia, Madrid). Other important Cubist artists included Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. Although relatively short-lived, the movement revolutionized painting in the 20th century, and instigated a new tradition of abstract art. Cubism benefited from significant promotional support by its spokesman, the German-born art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884-1979). For an important Cubist splinter group, see: Section d'Or, an offshoot of the Parisian Puteaux group.