• Select a piece from the Words Without Borders Campus website http://wwb-campus.org/find/
• Write a 1,000 word (approx. 4 pages) introduction: Give background into the author, the region, and the time period; Offer your thoughts on the text’s meaning and themes.
• Annotate the text, explaining specific words, allusions, or backgrounds; alerting your reading to examples illustrating the critical terms we have discussed in class; and showing your reader how you interpret the work.
• Compose an annotated bibliography of 4 sources: Scholarly articles, interviews, reviews, etc. about the text or its author that you think will help students to understand the work and its context. For each entry, write a 200-word “blurb” telling your reader why this piece of criticism is helpful for understanding the text or your interpretation.

I chose Umberto Boccioni’s The City Rises (1910). I had been looking for paintings around the room and walked past this but couldn’t make out the figures. As I stepped back, I could see that the brushstrokes made up what seemed to be a battle.  I was drawn to this painting because of the intense colors used and because the technique is similar to pointillism. The painting comes together when you view it from afar but loses its meaning when you view it close up. From researching this painting, it is one of the first Futurist paintings. The Futurist movement was one that focused on technological progress and urban environments. I learned that the painting actually depicts a city rising in the sense of technological advances. It depicts a the construction of an electric power plant. I had viewed a battle full of confrontation with “The City Rises” as a sort of uprising between citizens. In fact, it portrayed a city moving into the future with the help of technology. Boccioni exaggerated the angles of the people and horses in the painting and by doing so emphasized their importance in raising the city to a new level.

When visiting the Museum of Modern Art the piece of art that stood out the most was titled The City Rises (1910) by Umber Boccioni. When first looking at this piece I was amazed at how massive it was, along with how there was so much going on in this one piece of art. At the top of this piece we see large structural developments. These developments seem to represent modern developments, and industrialization. Under these developments there is a clash of people and horses. The clash seems to represent unity, considering that the people of the village and the horses are bonding together. In addition, it appears that this clash takes up the majority of this piece.
I questioned myself as to why it is that this messy clash is taking up the majority of the piece, and how this clash connects to the structural developments above. In order for us to succeed, and make progress in society we must understand the importance of uniting together. Furthermore, the reason these clashes are overwhelming the majority of this piece is representative as to how important unity is for our modern developments. 

Modernism pertaining to artistic works refers to qualities such as innovation and individualism, use of materials and subject matter in nontraditional ways, and the self-awareness of the art or artist (i.e. challenging the meanings of art). According to the MoMA, the evolution of art into contemporary and modern work began with post-impressionist works such as Cézanne and van Gogh, which then led to cubism, futurism, Dadaism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, etc. Yet, MoMA dedicates an entire room to Claude Monet’s waterlilies (partially because of their iconic presence, but also because of their historical context). Monet’s work of Impressionism retains aspects of Modernism through the innovative style and painting approaches he took. The work which I want to discuss is Monet’s “Agapanthus”, 1914-26, oil on canvas. Like many other Monet paintings, the brushwork is loose, without much concern for capturing life as it is, but rather for capturing the emotion and fleeting aspects of the moment. The representation of water and flowers is suggestive rather than realistic. This suggestive representation shows the focus of art changing from hyperrealism and dramatic scenes, to a calmer modernity of life and the present. The grand allure of this painting is in part of how well it captures a fleeting sense. How it captures a moment of life (which artists later on will then use to fuel their artistic movements). The vivid colors also contribute to this feeling of present life and “the here and now”. It feels like a personal experience to be in front of a Monet. Monet knew his work was nontraditional in style, but like many other innovative artists, he was challenging the idea of an established criteria for art. This painting also has empty edges where there is no paint, which also contributes back to the lack of interest for realism. There is no mistaking this for anything other than a painting on canvas. These qualities of innovation, differentiation, and deviation from the norm all pertain to modernist ideas of art.

Monet Painting Picture

This was the second time I’ve gone to Moma. I don’t remember much from the first visit two years ago. As I walked through the exhibit few pieces stood out to me. For example, “Sun, Moon, Simultaneous 2” by Robert Delaunay, and “The Park” by Gustav Klimt. My favorite piece was “The False Mirror” by Rene Magritte. It reminded me of a time that I looked into the sky and saw clouds. However at the same time the eye seems to be looking right back at me. This reminded me of Simultaneity, the property of two events happening at the same time. I felt that the eye also acts as a window for us to see the other world, like there is a beautiful and promising tomorrow.

This was a very creative piece because everyone has at one point of time seen an image similar to the blue sky so we can relate to the piece. After I reminisced about my past experience. I started to feel uncomfortable because I realised the eye was watching me the whole time and it was like it was with me through my journey to my memories. This piece was found on the Painting and Sculpture I at Moma and is an oil on canvas from 1928. Man Ray an owner of the painting in 1933 described the painting as  “sees as much as it itself is seen,” which is the perfect description for this artwork. Later I realised that the eye has no eyelashes and a very black pupal that I wasn’t painting attention to at first.

Sandy Cheng

While walking around Moma I noticed a painting by Umberto Boccioni named “The city Rises”(1910). Umberto Boccioni was one of the most successful and influential Italian painters among Futurist, which emerged as an art form before the outbreak World War I. After “futurist manifesto” was published many artists started following this movement that depicted modernization, new technology and violent break up with the past. This painting is considered one of the first futuristic paintings. Central theme are blurry looking horses who are running wild and workers who are trying to gain control over them. The name of the painting suggests that the new city is being build, but painting shows conflict between humans and horses, like a struggle between new and old. Horses are depicted as mystical, ancient creatures. Boccioni developed effects of dynamics and action, which were associated with his style. While horses and the humans depicts majority of the painting, urbanization f the city is evident. Upper area of the painting has clearly recognizable factories and the walls of the new city that has being build. Boccioni wants to break up with the past by showing us chaotic struggle between humans and animals. Horses have wings in the painting symbolizing past and contrasting it with new world that is rising. Horses are moving but they are not very distinctive at first while the walls of the city are much more clear. The painter sees the progress of the human kind through speed up industrialization and urbanization of the new raising city.

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79865?locale=en

Marija Krasojevic

The period of Modernism represented a time of transforming the idea of what was considered the societal norm. Artists implemented styles such as cubism to respond to the changes in the world around them. Cubism challenged the traditional ways of representing art. Cubism especially challenged ideas of perspective. Artists yearned for people to see art from their very own unique perspective rather than from the artist’s  view. The impending industrial era especially gave artists more of a reason to transform art in ways that people had never imagined before.

As I walked around the room entitled, “Cubism Revolution,” I came across many Picasso paintings. One that especially stood out to me was Picasso’s, “Ma Jolie.” (1911-1912) Ma Jolie means “my pretty girl” in Italian, referring to the subject of the painting. However, what interested me was that Picasso did not take on the normal painting of an artists’ beloved. As you can see from the painting, there is no clear image of a “pretty girl.” Instead, Picasso used various mechanisms of representation to describe his beloved. According to the description next to the painting, “Ma Jolie” was the refrain of a popular song at the time. This idea explains the treble clef and music staff situated by the stenciled letters. All of the bold, stenciled letters may represent the idea of language. Picasso simultaneously used these aspects to illustrate his lover in a way that no artist would think to. Picasso was very abstract in the way he depicted his lover. From a certain angle, it kind of appears that there is a lady holding a guitar in the painting. This perspective of mine, however, may not be the same as someone else’s. Some may not see the woman holding the guitar, and instead may see something else in the painting. This idea just goes to show that everyone will interpret “Ma Jolie” in a different way and this was Picasso’s very intention. All in all, I really enjoyed how all of these paintings required a lot of critical thinking, analyzing and perspective.

After walking through the MoMA I looked through all the pictures that I took and decided that the one that was my favorite was “Young Man in a Gray Sweater” by Diego Rivera. This is a painting using the style of Cubism with oil on canvas from 1914. Cubism is a form of art that was part of the era of Modernism that consists of jagged lines and geometrical shapes to create abstract images in the way that the artist envisions them. These paintings are created with the intent for unique observations of what the image is supposed to be from each individual viewer. This painting is particularly interesting because it looks as if there are two different half-faces in one. It appears as if there is one half of the face looking forward and the other side was looking to the left when you are up close. However when you look from afar it looks somewhat like one man with his hands crossed. Rivera used multiple perspective points and fracturing forms. My initial reaction to the painting proves the point behind the style of Cubism. Additionally, there are two spots in the painting that have stripes of color of the left side that seem quite randomly placed that I personally think make the painting more confusing. I don’t know whether they actually serve a purpose other than confusion but it does seem to fit the . The color palate of this painting is dull and does not really show much emotion which may be portraying the artists emotion at the time of the paintings creation. I wonder if changing the colors to brighter ones would change my perspective on this work of art.

One example of Modernism that struck my attention at the MoMa was “The False Mirror” by Rene Magritte. Modernism represented a time when societal views were changing as the world became increasingly industrialized, encouraging the idea that society as it was became obsolete and outdated. With this, individuals yearned for a more modern form of society and looked to the future, prompting many to take action to change society. Magritte’s “The False Mirror” exemplifies this rationale in that the majority of the canvas is painted with an eyeball with a clear blue sky with clouds inside it. Often times, when people look at the sky, they think of better days, similar to the way society looked to a more modern world.

Around the eyeball is the portion of a face that surrounds the eyeball on a human. The skin on the face is in pristine condition, with no facial imperfections or wrinkles whatsoever. This leads me to believe that the individual is young, and has the desire to create a new society, rather than simply adapt to the current ways of society. This is largely because if someone is young, they often have a more open mind because they have not yet experienced as much as someone who is older, and may be more resistant to change.

Additionally, I find it interesting that all portions of the painting surrounding the eye are darker shades, and become increasingly brighter as they approach the center sky, which is the brightest portion of the painting. This idea of dark fading into bright represents the ways in which society was becoming less obsolete and more modern and futuristic. Furthermore, in the very center of the painting is the pupil, which is hard to miss, in my opinion. The black pupil, the darkest portion of the painting, and directly in the center of the bright sky, represents the obstacles faced by those who yearned for and tried to create a more modern society. As a viewer of the painting, the pupil stands in the way of viewing the clouds because it covers everything behind it.