Lecture Notes for Nov 11, 2009

Week 12 Terms Kathe Kollwitz, Neue Sachlichkeit, Surrealism, Salvador Dali, Sigmund Freud, Dreamscape, Giorgio De Chirico, Automatism, Joan Miro, Verfremdung Effect, Rene Magritte, Exquisite Corpse. Grant Wood was in the army. Trained but the war ended in November 1918 so he was in France but didn't fight, trained and looked at art. Also looked at stan glass windows. Looked at the old medieval craftship of the Germans who could still do this method. Before 1914 WWI, the popular type of painting was expressionism in Europe. Dominant style in Germany at the time. Was Russian but moved to Munich and was raised there. By 1920 when he arrived the economy was in ruins, poverty, lots of begging. Partially why Hitler came to power because he promised to help out. During this time the dominant style was "the new realism" the return to realism called Neue Sachlichkeit. The most popular was Kathe Kollwitz who made copies, prints, and lithographs. Very black dark areas with lines. Strong, bold and striking images. Showed sadness and misery of people in germany. The one on the screen is called The Survivors. Lots of the abstract lines and movements give the impression of darkness and bleakness that she wanted to convey. American Gothic won because it was similiar to those in Germany, getting back to realism that was slightly disturbing and in your face. Constructivism a bit. Break down things into their simplest components. The only thing Grant Wood said about his piece on record was in a letter to a farmer he was distraught that this was what 'the typical Iowan' family looked like. Grant Wood wrote back and said he never intended it to be a farmer and his wife but instead was a town man who was a part time minister and his spinster daughter. Not much indication that it is a farm. No silo or windmill. Looks like a church steeple in the back. Also, the building he was mimicking was not a farm house, it was a town house. However, his sister Nan always called it a farm scene. Not a simple, straight forward painting. Mysterious, points out ambiguity, not for sure, unanswered questions, troubling. This mysteriousness was interesting in this time period during a new movement. This movement was Surrealism, 1930 The Persistance of Memory by Salvador Dali from Paris. Purpose of this was to make you feel strange and that the world is strange and weird things are going on that we do not notice. The origins of surrealism goes back to the theories of Veinesse psychologist in the 1890's Sigmund Freud. Things that are effecting people are going on in the subconscious part of the mind. Pushing stuff into the unconscious, which is the source of psychotic and neurotic things that patients are doing. The method he used to get to these thoughts were Dream Analysis so the conscious can't block the unconscious mind. Be able to understand these weird dreams and actions. Came out with a book in 1900 Traumdeutung, was in 1899 but waited so it was the first book of the 20th century which was Dream Analysis. 1914 Mystery and Melancholy of the street by an Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico. Multiple vanishing points and shadows, spooky. Showing the dream analysis called Dreamscape.