"Berenice Bobs Her Hair" by F Scott Fitzgerald

Reading assignment for the winter holidays ."Berenice Bobs Her Hair" by F Scott Fitzgerald  (complete text in e-caths) Movie watching assignment : "The Great Gatsby" based on the  novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Read complement material on the Jazz Age , in our blog`s past posts.

Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was Fitzgerald's fourth Saturday Evening Post story (1 May 1920) and provided the subject for the dust-jacket illustration when it was collected in Flappers and Philosophers. It occupies an important position in the Fitzgerald canon as a witty early treatment of a characteristic subject that he would later examine more seriously: the competition for social success and the determination with which his characters-- especially the young women--engage in it. The story was based on a detailed memo Fitzgerald wrote to his younger sister, Annabel, advising her how to achieve popularity with boys: "Cultivate deliberate physical grace."  Fitzgerald had some difficulty bringing "Bernice" to salable form; he cut some three thousand words and rewrote to "inject a snappy climax. "

www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/bernice/

Work, work and more work!!!

Unbelievably, we are already finishing the first semester of 2012. Before the winter holidays there are some topics we need to work on. First, the Partition of Ireland: sources  BBC History ,our blog`s past posts.
In our e-caths blog there are examples of Response essays.

Cubism

 CUBISM

Cubism is 20th century avant garde art movement that revolutonized European art. Until the first decade of 20th century, art, was essentially pictorial and  was based on themes of real world ideas, with the emergence of a new "modernist" thinking and an increasing use of machines in industry and daily life, artists sought new ways to interpret the changes taking place around the world. Modern concepts of art were born in Europe. Modern artists reacted abandoning intellect for intuition and depicting the world as they percieved it, they rejected the old victorian standars of how art should be made. Cubism emplied a rupture with the classical aesthetic and a new way to see works of art with the eyes of the mind. The viewer is obligaged to move his eyes to reasemble the picture. Cubism is one of the most influential art styles and it was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and George Braque in Paris , 1907. Its main characteristics are the use of geometric forms, mostly cilinders, cones, spheres and cubes. Artists reduced and fractured the objects into geometric forms and then reasembled them to show several views of objects simultaneously.

In 1914, the start of the world war I wiped out a generation of young artists. After the war, many cubist artists continued developing this style at the U.S.A. where modern art became popular as in the case of collage.  

In fact the geometric forms gave the name to the movement.
Cubism is not only found in paintings but also in literature , poetry and arquitecture.
The major part of the work has been done between 1907 and 1914 .
Les demoseilles D"avignon is the first cubist work done by P.picasso... (  Although this is a painting about prostitutes in France   which caused
surprise was not the sexual subjet. It was the new and revolutionary tecnique).
As the cubist artists rejected the established concept that art should copy nature as well as the traditional tecniques did.


According to critics of art from that time this movement has been divided in two phases:

The first one is called ANALITIC CUBISM where painters reduced and fractured the objects into geometric forms to realined them, so that they could  be reassembled in an abstrat form, the predominant colours were the monocromatic of blue, grey, green and brown.

This ANALITIC period lasted up to 1912 when Picasso incorporated everyday materials such as newspaper cuttings, tickets, tobacco wrappers to the paintings , this marked a difference from the previous phase. So this second Phase was known as SINTHETIC CUBISM.
by introducing physicall elements of real life art  ,would become more real and simpler.Colour and texture became more relevant and the word Collage gained and space within art.

Although cubist painters intertwined their work with other styles , from time to time they came over to cubism.In 1937  P. Picasso painted  El Guernica, which reflects the Spanish civil war in the city of guernica and the total destruction of the same.
In this picture there is no colour at all , just white and black to express the horror, the sadness  and the mourning.

  It is necessary to mention in the arquitecture field the work done by Le Corbusier and the Curuchet house here in La Plata.

arquitecture characteristics:
 spacial ambiguity,transparency and multiplicity. not classical perspective. IT BECAME AN INFLUENTIAL FACTOR FOR MODERN ARQUITECTURE FROM 1912 . IT IS THE LINKING OF BASIC GEOMETRIC FORMS, BEAUTY AND INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION..

In Argentina one of the most well known  cubist painter  is Emilio Pettoruti who has been highly influenced by their contemporaries.

More pictures here.

Fauvism

Fauvism PPP by Fabrizio Zyromski

Bauhaus

Click here to see the PPP created by Alonso and López Cabrera
More in the ecaths blog.

Futurism

Fernand Leger, La Partie des Cartes (1918)

Here`s the ppt of Futurism by Basaldúa and Mora. More in the ecaths blog.

Expressionism

Here is the ppt of the presentation by Siriòn and Agra .More in the ecaths blog.

Art Nouveau

ART NOVEAU

It is an international style of art, architecture and graphic design which was most popular within the period from 1890 and 1910. the name of “art noveau” is  French for new art, but it is also known as “jugendstil” in Germany,  which is the german for “youth style”,  “secession” in austria-hungary, “floreale” in Italy and “liberty” in England.

The name of this movement was taken from an art gallery called “maison de l’art nouveau” in Paris.Samuel Bing was his owner. He was a German art dealer. This gallery was famous for featuring exclusively this kind of art, including furniture and decorative objects.

Art Nouveau was most popular in europe but its influence was global, frequently  influenced by localised tendencies.

One of the major visual influences on Art Nouveau was the Japanese art that entered the west after Japan was opened to trade in the 1850's. many westerners were intrigued by japanese art's decorative qualities and conception of space and nature.

The creators of Art Nouveau advocated the end of the distinction between high art such as painting and minor art such as decoration.

Reactions to the cold, mechanical landscape of the industrial revolution and the rigid classical styles embraced by art academies gave birth to the art nouveau movement.

It came to break all connections with classical times, it was  a complete change in the way of thinking about art in terms of a new society and new production methods, sicking to apply art to everyday lifeto make it nicer.  From that time on, art should not overlook everyday objects, an artists should work on everything from architecture to furniture design, also jewelry, pottery, metalwok, graphic design, glassware, textiles and sculpture, to add harmony and beauty to everyday life.

Gustav Klimt "The Kiss"

 AS REGARDS THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS STYLE:

Ø      it combines organic lines, feminine forms and a general return to nature as the inspiration for art.

Ø      typical colourfull flat patterns, -eliminates three-dimension by reducing shading-

Ø      intertwined organic forms of stems and flowers.

Ø      emphasized handcrafting instead of industrial manufacturing  -the idea of merging art with utilitarian objects was partially inspired by a reaction to the ugly manufactured goods that were beginning to dominate daily  life-

Ø      curving lines

Ø      modern techniques with new materials such as iron and steel, -symbolic materials of first industrial revolution- glass, ceramic and concrete.

Ø      principal subjects are birds, flowers and female shapes-

Ø      artifacts are beautiful works of art but not necessarily functional

Women

·        women were often depicted in a highly sexual manner, in confident postures which conveyed a strong sense of power and independence. Art Nouveau artists were also some of the first to use sexy women in advertisements for products such as train tickets, cigarettes and bicycles. Although sexually provocative advertisements are commonplace today, they were new and fresh in the 19th century.

Architecture

• Art Nouveau Architects such as Antoni Gaudi, created buildings with ornamental structural elements, sinuous flowing lines, open floor-plans and ornamental facades. They frequently used iron, steel, glass, ceramic and reinforced concrete. They also made use of technological innovations such as elevators and electric lights.

Sinuous Lines

·         Art Nouveau took its sinuous lines and curves from the natural world. For many artists, the use of lines went beyond ornamentation and decoration. They saw these lines as visual symbols of spiritual energy. This put them in opposition to a contemporary Aesthetic movement, and academic rigid classical art which advocated "art for art's sake." The patterns of Art Nouveau lines took many forms, ranging from the symbolic to the floral and the organic.

MAIN REPRESENTATIVES:

IN BRITAIN

-         Arthur lasenby liberty

-         Charles ashbee

-         Charles rennie mackintosh

IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM

-         Alphonse Mucha

-         Victor Horta

-         Henry Van De Velde

-         Hector Guimard

-         Émile Galle

IN SPAIN

-         Antoni Gaudi

IN AUSTRIA

-         Gustav Klimt

-         Joseph Hoffman

IN GERMANY

-         August Endell

-         Hernann Obrist

Galería Güemes, Buenos Aires

In Argentina, there was a strong predominance of agricultural exportation, being the importation of manufactured products mainly from europe.

Another factor which contributed was Buenos Aires strong dependence on french cultural tendencies.

And then, of course, the strong immigration produced during this period –final XIX century to early XX- the immigrant s hadicraft would leave their mark on architecture, furniture design, decoration and graphic design.

Galería Güemes, Inside 

We can see architecture of Art Nouveau for example in “ Galería Güemes” and in “Confiteria El Molino”  in Buenos Aires.

Then in Rosario, “El Palacio Cabanellas”, “El Club Español”  y el “Edificio Trasatlantica”  works  of  spanish artist Frances Roca I Simo

Nowadays it is considered as an important transition from 19th to 20th century before “Modernism” and recognised by UNESCO for its significant contributions to cultural heritage.

Such as Ccasa Batllo” and “Casa Vicens” of Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona among many others.

Work done by Chazarreta and Krause

History of the Avant Garde

In our classes, we are starting to work with the Avant Garde movements corresponding to the first half of the XXth Century. As introduction to the subject, I leave you a funny poster which explains very succinctly the key elements of each movement. Hope you enjoy it! 

Picture selected by Blanca Lòpez Cabrera