English 2850 Fall 2021: Great Works II

What happens to Rolf in his encounter with Azucena?

Rolf’s encounter with Azucena brought him sorrow because he could not save her life. How Azucena was trapped in the clay and said that her family held her down brought back memories of Rolf’s family and how he was treated when his father held him down. Overall, the encounter with Azucena was a flashback of Rolf’s own life.

“The Portrait” was painted by René Magritte during the Surrealism period in 1935. René François Ghislain Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He was born on November 21, 1898, and lived in a wealthy family. Around 1912, his mom had committed suicide and the entire family was publicly humiliated by that event. He studied at Brussels Academy of Fine Arts and became an important member in the Belgian Surrealist movement. After he drop out of academia and began his career, his true calling in the art world, surrealism. Some of his earliest works are “The Menaced Assassin” and “The Lost Jockey” which catapulted his career.

The main subject in the painting is the seemingly normal breakfast. There is a bottle of wine, a glass cup, fork, knife, and a plate with a slice of ham on it. All of these are drawn realistically with shadings and shadows. The only thing that is exempt from these is the ham, which has a realistic-looking eye in the middle. The painting is also framed so that the viewer is about to eat the breakfast or the breakfast is inviting you to eat it. 

This work reflects upon the ideas of modernism or surrealism by depicting a common morning routine, but with a twist. The routine is a morning breakfast and the twist that makes it surreal is an eye in the ham. By doing this he seemingly broke away from the past of realism and into the realm of absurdity. When I first saw the eye in the ham, I thought it may have represented the society watching your every move. I also wondered why there is only a slice of ham as the main meal. Is the person that is going to eat breakfast poor? If so then why is there a whole bottle of wine?  

I discovered this painting in MoMA on floor 5, gallery 517. I was walking around this floor that contains collections of works from the 1880s to 1940s. As I was looking for a painting that interested me. I quickly passed by multiple paintings when “The Portrait” caught my eyes, due to its realistic depictions of our world in contrast to the rest that simply depicted odd shapes and imaginative or fictional versions of our reality. I wonder in my head why he chose this style of modernism over the wacky and unrealistic depictions and the real reason why he depicts the breakfast the why he does.

Sources:

https://www.renemagritte.org/ 

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79990?artist_id=3692&page=1&sov_referrer=artist 

• 
  Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, ceramicist born in 1881. Before the age of 50, he had become one of the most well-known artists in modern art. Throughout his lifetime, Pablo Picasso created over 20,000 works of art including paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Pablo Picasso worked alongside Georges Braque with co-founding the entire cubist movement. Picasso died at the age of 91 in 1973 and has become one of the most famous and successful artists in the history of art.

For this modernism assignment, I decided to choose a cubism piece created by Pablo Picasso. The painting is called “Woman in a Chemise in an Armchair” created in Paris, late 1913-1914. The painting I chose represents a woman seated in a purple armchair with one arm raised while the other arm is holding a newspaper. In this painting, Picasso includes references to other painters such as Jean Auguste Dominque Ingres and sculptors of Fang and Baule.

This work reflects the aesthetic preferences associated with modernism because it’s a cubist painting by Pablo Picasso. This piece has a great amount of different shapes and the way their put together to create this woman in an armchair. This picture depicts how woman in society are sexualized and objective as this painting is said to be a sexualized piece of woman in art culture today.

I encountered this piece of art by Pablo Picasso in the MET museum. I was drawn to this piece because out of all the works of art in modernism, the one that caught my eye the most was the cubism pieces. In my opinion cubism shows a great amount of creativity by the artist. Pablo Picasso has been one of my favorite painters of all time and seeing his creativity in his art pieces amazes me greatly. After doing some research on the potential paintings I would do this assignment on, I knew I had to it on a piece by Pablo Picasso after finding out he helped found the cubism movement. I liked this art piece based on the patterns and colors to create the woman in the armchair.

Florine Stettheimer is an American modernist painter. She developed a feminine, theatrical painting style depicting her friends and experiences of New York City. She painted the first feminist nude self-portrait. Her paintings depict controversial issues about race and sexual preference and the parties of her family and friends that she and her sister hosted for members of the Avant- Garde. She is best known for her works illustrating what she considered to be New York City’s “Cathedrals” which are Broadway, Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, and New York’s three major art museums.

The artwork I chose is called Family Portrait, II (1933). The artwork shows people dressed in elegant clothing and lounging around in an elegant room from the decor. As I readed more about the painting, the people in the painting are actually the artist herself holding the palette, her mother sitting in the gold armchair and her sisters Ettie, sitting in the other chair, and Carrie holding a cigarette in between her fingers. There is a view of the city since the Chrysler Building can be seen in the background. There are flowers in the middle of the painting that interrupt the scene in the painting since it comes out of nowhere. It bring life to the painting since everyone in the painting is idling around, the leaves on the flowers brings movement to the painting.

This work reflects the aesthetic preferences associated with Modernism because the painting is depicting her experiences. This painting would be considered modernism since in the way the artist expresses her family portrait in an unconventional way with the flowers blooming front and center of the painting. I wouldn’t consider this a traditional painting. Also, the colors she chooses to depict the painting in is very calming since she uses subtle colors. The blue and warm colors enhance the tone of the painting as stress-free and relax. They look like they are enjoying their pastime.

I encountered this work on the 5th floor of the Museum of Modern Art in gallery 504 as I was walking around. It is very colorful and bright compare to other paintings in the exhibit, so it caught my eye immediately. The placement of the flowers drew me to the painting since it had a very abnormal placement for the flowers when looking at the painting closely.  My question is why the decide to put the flowers in the middle in the foreground rather than in the background of the painting?

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78392?classifications=any&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=2021&on_view=1&q=manhattan&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist born from 1887-1973. He developed a passion for art to create as many artworks as possible and became one of the best artists. In 1904, he left Paris to pursue his dreams of being an artist. His artworks were based on Cubism, and he created works based on Surrealism and Expressionism. He produced over 20,000 artworks based on naturalism and perspective. His purpose was for his audience to witness his paintings and acknowledge him for his hard work. Also, I found out that his artworks were based on eclecticism.

This work is called Fruit Dish. It was published between 1908 to 1909. He created artworks like this in different colors like the Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table. There is a table that has a dish with fruits on it. There are fruits on the table too. Also, there are napkins on the table which are hard to see because it was painted in different dimensions. There is a vase behind the bowl and the fruits are dark green. The vase is colored blue, and the table is brown. The knife is on the table for the person to cut the fruits. Even though the fruits are painted in different colors, they still capture Picasso’s views on Modernism. 

This work reflects the aesthetic preferences associated with modernism because Picasso created this artwork to express cubism. He demonstrates his belief in cubism by painting this image green to show his views on modernism. He painted this work for the audience to visualize what they see in the painting which was a form of expressionism. When you look at the painting, the way he paints the fruits, and the vase are very smooth. 

I walked around the museum and saw lots of great pieces until I encountered this artwork. The museum had lots of fascinating artworks from each artist. I noticed there were a few paintings that were published by Picasso. What drew me to this painting was the way it was created. When you look at the painting, you can see that it was painted in different dimensions. He painted this one green and the other one colorful ways to express emotion towards his audience when he created his masterpieces. He wants the audience to express their feelings when they see this painting compared to his other masterpieces. In my opinion, this painting is very nice when you look at it.

Pablo Picasso | MoMA

MoMA | Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Paris, June–July 1907