Category: Modern Art

Introduction

No one would deny the fact that Shakespearean works are timeless. They have survived during the centuries and continue to ask readers various questions the answers to which help them to understand the mysteries of life. Drawing parallels between the works of the great poet and playwright helps the reader to understand the authors message and to dig into the very essence of the work.

Main text

The Tempest is one of the most famous plays of the final period of Shakespearean creative work. We consider the problems that the author revealed in this play to be rather topical for the present day. The interconnection between The Tempest and the modern times is quite obvious if we regard the play from the point of view of its relevance to the contemporary art. Reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors are perfectly depicted through the use of the same techniques as contemporary sound art does.

First of all, we should point out that the work under consideration uses a lot of attention-grabbing devices as well as contemporary art aims at. Attracting the audiences attention has always been the main target of any author. But if nowadays the modern technologies serve as the authors friends in their tasks, during the Shakespearian age the playwright needed to apply to various non-mechanic techniques to impress the audience, therefore, we consider Shakespeare to be a skilful performer of sound art. This art movement of the 2000s is concerned with sound and listening. The Tempest is also full of the effects of this type. Their main function is to render the correct atmosphere of the play.

For example, the first scene is characterized by usage of short characters lines. But for the lines 20-25, the characters words are rather harsh and dynamic. Shakespeare uses hurried dialogues to render the atmosphere of panic. Under the circumstances the characters do not have time for long conversations. They are at a loss; they try to shut themselves down as well as the noise of the storm.

Special effects in the play

The very storm is also rendered successfully by the author. Probably, the actors who played in The Tempest could clearly see how the storm should be set in front of the audience. Making as much noise as possible the actors could incarnate the authors concept.

The noise is also created when the characters constantly come on and off stage. If we consider that The Tempest is set by some sound art performer, he or she will easily get the springboard for the effects. The very characters voices will help the creator to render the horrible atmosphere: the conversation between the Boatswain and the passengers becomes more and more heated. Not only is the actual cry used by Shakespeare in his play, but the cry within, as well. The cry within means shouting off-stage. Shakespeare implied the usage of this technique and its appropriate application enables us to call him a representative of the sound art that is so popular nowadays.

By using the techniques of sound art we have talked above Shakespeare manages to draw the audience into the plot and make the reader find out more.

The present paper argues that the Dada art movement significantly influenced contemporary design and art, and its ideas of rejection of art and organized chaos remain demanded even nowadays. The Dada art movement, or Dadaism, originated in Switzerland at the very beginning of the 20th century. Even though it flourished only during the first half of the 20th century, its influence on modern art and culture is invaluable. The primary message of Dadaists was to protest against World War I, imperialism, and bourgeois society (Hage, 2020). The Data movement was directed against traditional art, rules, and ways of life on a more general level.

The critical characteristics of Dadaism include chaos and the absence of linear structure, and the pomposity of traditional artworks. Every poem, song, or picture communicates a message related to the acute social, political, global, or personal problems of the artist. This art movement is about self-expression, rejection of standards, and attempts to make the audience see the worlds harsh reality. At the same time, the paintings of Dadaist artists were heavily affected by Expressionism, Futurism, and Cubism (Hage, 2020). Even though it is impossible to deny the influence of other art movements, Dadaist artworks are innovative and even rebellious. Dadaism is a breath of fresh air in the art world of the past century.

The epoch of Dadaism was not long, and since the 1920-s, it has experienced a decline. At the same time, techniques introduced and utilized by Dadaist artists are used nowadays. These distinctive techniques could be exemplified by collages, photomontage, application of various objects, assemblage, and cut-up and fold-in techniques. The ideas established in the Dada art movement period gave birth to postmodernism, including pop art and surrealism movements.

Reference

Hage, E. (2020). Dada magazines: The making of a movement. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Introduction

The expression of emotions and moods, as well as a call to the feelings of the viewer, are one of the essential tasks of visual art. A competent artist uses not only the plot of a picture but also drawing techniques as a medium of expression. Vivid examples of such adept application of both methods simultaneously are of the classical era is The Bath of Diana by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and A Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm by Claude-Joseph Vernet. These works became the objects of study because they show the opposite emotions of calmness and anxiety using similar means of painting despite the difference of more than a hundred years. This work will examine from the perspective of visual and comparative analysis what methods of art prevailed in different centuries and the paradox between techniques and moods.

Main body

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the French artist of the realism movement, painted an oil picture called The Bath of Diana in 1855. The central figures of the image are Diana and other women who take part in bathing in the river. Two of them are to the left of Diana, one of which sits on a stone. Three women are on the right side of the main character of the picture, and two of them, along with two dogs, stand on the shore and keep a little closer to the viewer. Also, another woman leaves the bushes, thus being in front of Diana. The background consists of various kinds of vegetation like shrubs and trees of dark shades as well as the coastline and sky. The bright space of the picture represents the sky, which illuminates the bathing process and resonates with the hands of two women pointing up.

Of course, the focal point of the picture is a group of women located at the bottom of the image. To focus attention, the artist used not only their central location in a single place of sunlight, but also the contrast between light tones of women, water and sky, and dark tones of plants. Light tones include pastel shades of blue, gray, yellow, orange, brown, green, and flesh. Green, brown, and orange nuances make up dark tones. The conflict between the horizon and the diagonal manifested by the trees and the sky also supports the general focus. Smooth, long, and confident lines characterize images of girls, dogs, tree trunks, and branches. However, Corot applied mostly light, rough, short lines when creating the background. Dotted, somewhere inaccurate, strokes make the foliage and lighting on it. The artist avoids sharp corners and uses wavy lines and rounded shapes.

Calmness is the primary mood of The Bath of Diana. Diana is undergoing a process of sacred spiritual purification. The evidence of it is a light source directed down at her and other women, which may indicate the presence of God in this ritual. The weather transmits the feeling of some divine calm and appeasement. The viewer might observe a lack of wind when looking at the water surface, foliage, and branches. Even animals are in harmony with the environment, judging by their stance. If the paintings could convey sounds, then perhaps even the birds would remain silent in this canvas. The atmosphere of mystery and proximity, which are provided by dark, dense, almost completely covering the sky, greenery also supports the feeling of calmness. The artist created a fully immersive situation of the intimacy of the process of female bathing.

The romantic artist Claude-Joseph Vernet created an oil canvas called A Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm in 1775. A woman in red, and people around her, whom she may warn of an imminent thunderstorm or storm, represents the central figures. These seven people on a steep bank of the river in a hurry collect fishing rods, fishnets, and their catch. In the background, other people are also rushing to the city in a wagon, leaving the boat on the shore and driving a stubborn donkey with a cane. The background also includes the river surrounding its steep rocky bank on sides, the castle and waterfall on the right side, and the city far in the center. A massive mountain range rises above the sunlit city and the aqueduct. Darkness gradually covers the sky from left to right with thunderclouds due to the upcoming storm. Lightings of hellish colors sparkle in the upper left corner of the picture.

A woman with a child, who is the local focal point of the picture, is slight to the right of the lower center of the image, which creates visual dissonance. The red color of her clothes distracts the viewers attention from three people, who represent the real center; however, their dull clothes merge them with the background colors. The artist used a wide range of vibrant colors and shades such as red, orange, yellow, dark brown, dark green, deep blue, dark gray, white, and black. In general, the viewer might characterize the picture as having an extremely high degree of detail. The artist provided this effect by a multitude of heavy, smooth long thin, and sinuous lines. Another technique is a large number of heavy, sleek long, and thin lines, especially on stones, trees, and water. The environment consists of angular square shapes that contrast with the wavy and rounded silhouetted living objects. The upcoming storm as if an asteroid falls diagonally on the horizontal line of the aqueduct and the water surface.

The main motive of the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot is anxiety. First of all, the artist provided this feeling by the dissonance of points of attention on the canvas. In the foreground, a woman in red is not in the center; the lighting falls on her and her surroundings as well as on a group of people with a donkey. In the background, the castle tower, the city, the top of the mountain, and lightning simultaneously attract the viewers eye. The town in the distance may be the general center of the picture, but the bright red color of the dress always distracts the focus. Nature announces the impending threat with the dog, donkey, strong winds, and frightened birds. The contrasting infernal unnatural color palette of lightning and thunderclouds possibly portray Gods anger, and the light yellow city is the only haven in the picture. The location of people on a steep bank even causes a feeling of fear of falling into a raging river.

The presence and influence of God in the most intimate aspects of human life is a common motive for both paintings. This similarity lies in the correlation between light colors and security. The sun completely illuminates the bathing process, as well as the city under the mountain, which will soon be under the shadow of a divine thunderstorm. The presence of Biblical motifs and divine principles in paintings were standard, if not mandatory, practice for most artists until the beginning of the 20th century. Also, in each of the two pictures, there is a body of water represented as a river, and even if they have a radically different mood, nevertheless they both fulfill an emotional function. Canvases have a common element of the plot during which people complete activities in rivers after seeing changes in the sky. Both artists actively used weather and nature in their paintings to express the spirits. The movement of the clouds occurs from left to right in both works, and the dogs turned their heads to the upper left corner.

The viewer might trace the common technique of focusing attention through the intersection of horizontal and diagonal in these two works. Also, Corot and Vernet captured participants of both paintings at the moment of their greatest attention to weather changes. Similar shades of green, brown, and blue make up the picture of both surroundings. The viewer sees the far background of both canvases, mainly on the left side of the paintings. Also, both artists emphasize the attention in both artworks at the bottom of the picture. The works of Corot and Vernet have a common paradox between the applied techniques and transmitted moods. Nervous short and rough strokes suggest an alarming sense of work, while long, accurate, and thin lines should convey calm.

One of the most critical semantic differences is the value of the diagonal line from the upper left corner to the center of the picture. In the case of The Bath of Diana, it means divine favor and support, but in A Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm, it symbolizes the Wrath of God. Artists clearly expressed these emotions by the colors which represent the light source and clouds, light blue tones of The Bath of Diana against the dark gray shades of A Mountain Landscape. The plot of the sky is also different; it is absolutely calm in the work of the 19th century, while in the canvas of the 18th century, aggressively moving clouds will soon completely cover the sky. Corot portrayed a distant background only in the form of small wooded hills, and Vernets canvas has a vast mountain range and urban area. Also, there are entirely no buildings in The Bath of Diana; nature constitutes everything in the picture. The patterns of the flow of the rivers differ by dividing into a raging, turbulent stream and small calm ripples.

Conclusion

The scale of the paintings is also different; the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot captured events much smaller than the canvas of Claude-Joseph Vernet. The nature of the colors corresponds to the moods of calmness and anxiety; the first painting uses pastel shades, while bright colors completely filled the second canvas. The leisurely pastime of Diana and the women contrasts with the anxiety of the inhabitants of the mountain landscape. The colors depicting people in The Bath of Diana are in perfect harmony with the environment and almost merge with it. In A Mountain Landscape, the purpose of tones and shades is to highlight and contrast the participants with their surroundings. Also, people are located on the right strand in the first painting and on the left in the second. Corots canvas represents the ideal of sealed calmness, and Vernets artwork is a perfect sample of visually depicted anxiety. For a clear understanding of the principal differences between the two works, it is enough to look at the branches on the right of A Mountain Landscape and in the center of the Bathing of Diana.

Picasso, Les Demoiselles dAvignon

Les Demoiselles dAvignon was created by Pablo Picasso in 1907 in Paris. The artwork depicts a group of nude young prostitutes staring at a viewer, therefore breaking the fourth wall (Picasso, Les Demoiselles DAvignon, n.d.). The painting is considered revolutionary because it symbolized the breakaway from Renaissance art and marked the formation of the Cubist movement. As a cubist, Picasso tries to shatter the three-dimensional image and then submit it in the form of a two-dimensional painting. Picasso uses nonlinear perspective and simplifies the chiaroscuro to transmit his own ideas on female sexuality. The viewer perceives the woman in the center as both standing across and lying on the bed. Additionally, the faces of two women on the picture resemble traditional African masks, which were brought to France as colonial trophies. The painting is a blend of contemporary styles and ideas, indicating the emergence of modern art.

Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning

Still Life with Chair Caning is a Pablo Picasso collage painting created in 1912. It depicts a Parisian café table composition: a newspaper represented by the written letters JOU, which flatten the painting; and a pipe, the bowl of which has been separated from the stem (Smarthistory, 2011a). A wine glass also looks disassembled, which represents the cubist technique of painting an object from various perspectives. It contrasts with the Renaissance concept of portraying something from a single vantage point and at a single point in time. Another element contributing to the artworks two-dimensionality is the chair caning, a pre-fabricated image that Picasso glued to the canvas. With his collage-style still life, Picasso states that manufactured objects can create an illusion more successfully than paint. Finally, Picasso uses rope as the picture frame, which can be seen as a mockery of academic art that utilized pretentious luxury frames.

Guernica (Picasso)

Guernica is an anti-war painting created by Picasso in 1937 commemorating the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The picture is black and white, which underlines the dark nature of the events depicted (Spencers Painting of the Week, 2011). Guernica is filled with terrifying characters: a bull standing over a woman lamenting a dead child, an agitated horse, a dead soldier. The bombed-out scene is engulfed in fire, a bulls tail and a person with stretched-out arms are in flames. The bulb at the top evokes the atmosphere of a torture chamber, and also sounds similar to the word bomb in Spanish. However, Picasso expresses the hope for future peace in little details and hidden images: a woman carrying a lantern, a flying up bird resembling a dove, and a flower growing out of a dead soldiers hand.

Brancusi, Bird in Space

Bird in Space is an abstract sculpture created in 1928 by French-Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. The statue is bronze, its pedestal is stone, and it is sometimes exhibited with a second wooden pedestal, which creates a sequence of materials from the most primal to the most artificial (Smarthistory, 2011b). Bird in Space depicts a representation of the idea of a bird as a flashing, curving, rising figure. The sculpture was to be a part of the 1936 Museum of Modern Art exhibition. Artworks go through customs and are not taxable; however, the US customs service refused to pass the sculpture untaxed because it did not consider Bird in Space to be a work of art, which even led to a lawsuit. Nevertheless, the sculpture is not as entirely abstract as it may seem because it still implies ascending motion and flight.

1913 | Dynamism of a Soccer Player by Umberto Boccioni

Dynamism of a Soccer Player is a painting created in 1913 by an Italian futurist, Umberto Boccioni. At the beginning of the 20^th century, futurists perceived art as something that would be essential for future generations (The Museum of Modern Art, 2013). They used fast, loud industrial elements as central themes in each of their works. Photography and cinema were developing rapidly, and futurists wanted to incorporate movement into their art too. One of the futurists main objectives was to create scandal and controversy through their artwork. Dynamism of a Soccer Player depicts a footballer as a series of figures and colors. Perhaps futurists did not expect people to understand their paintings. It was more important to them that the viewer felt like he was witnessing something that was turning over many years of old historical art traditions.

Piet Mondrian  Abstract Painting as We Know It | TateShots

Piet Mondrian is considered one of the most important artists of the 20^th century and one of the greatest contributors to abstract painting. He is known for his original and outstanding use of colors (Tate, 2014). His philosophy was that the color should not represent some particular object from reality (i.e., a yellow circle representing the sun), but could actually be used just as itself. In his painting, Mondrian comes to recreate certain perpendicular relationships in which each zone expresses a particular kind of color. He tried to find harmony in the unbalanced, so he mixed colors in unusual combinations. As a result, Mondrian was able to make the colors speak for themselves and create a new type of environment that can only be created through painting.

Kazimir Malevich | TateShots

Kazimir Malevich was a Russian avant-garde suprematist painter whose work revolutionized art. Malevich experimented with different art styles, and his most famous masterpiece, the Black Square, was first demonstrated at the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10 in St. Petersburg in 1915 (Tate, 2014a). He placed his Black Square in the corner, where icons were hung in village houses, and labeled the image an icon of his time. Thus, Malevich invented a new religion, with the Black Square serving as its symbol. Subsequently, he explored the themes of peasant life as well as the underwhelming topics of bolshevism and Stalinism. Malevich signed his later works with a little black square as a reminder that he was also the creator of such a groundbreaking avant-garde masterpiece. It seems like he was trying to propagate the possibility of stylistic eclecticism, which makes Malevichs ideas and art relevant nowadays.

Henri Matisse Understanding Modern Art

Henri Matisse was one of the most influential artists of the 20^th century. He was inspired by Neo-Impressionism and Symbolism, but his main teacher was Paul Cezanne (The Arts Hole, 2020). He is the most popular member of a fauvist movement. Matisses works are known for wild use of colors and their rejection of three-dimensionality. In some ways, he opposed neo-impressionism because he abandoned their color balance theory and did not pay attention to it. The impressionist philosophy aimed for the depiction of the first sight of a certain object, but Matisse left this approach. He displayed his impression only on the first sketch, subsequently redrawing it many times in order to get to the essence of it. His approach largely influenced the formation of modern design, which can be seen around, for example, in the form of advertising images or various logos.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913

Composition VII was created in 1913 in Munich by the Russian abstractionist painter Wassily Kandinsky. It can be said that Kandinsky experienced and incorporated synesthesia into his art (Smarthistory, 2011c). It is an abnormal blending of the senses in which stimulation of one sensory organ produces sensation in another organ at the same time. Kandinsky was also acquainted with Arnold Schoenberg, a Viennese composer who experimented with atonal sounds. Kandinsky is attempting to elicit his own subjective experience of an object he is looking at. Composition VII consists of multicolored lines and shapes moving in different directions, which do not appear harmonious to the viewer, so the painting, therefore, can represent a conflict. Kandinskys later works became more minimalistic, which suggests that Composition VII symbolized the catharsis that destroyed the old order and cleared the way for the new one.

Degenerate Art exhibit explores Nazi assault on modern art

The Degenerate Art exhibition that was organized by the Nazis was intended to show the two types of art. One being true Aryan art that is healthy and righteous and the other being degenerate that disfigures reality (PBS NewsHour, 2014). Hitler was afraid of the idea of modern art because it broke with the traditional concept of art. Weimar Republic leftist artists like Otto Dix portrayed real life in often unpleasant and distorted ways. Nazis also hated the antiwar and pacifist pathos of modern art. They were preparing for the Second World War, and that is why Nazi art often shows war in a heroic and noble way. The modern recreation of this Nazi exhibition is aimed at showing the nature of any movement that tries to fight with contemporary art and to protect the world from such occasions.

Otto Dix. DER KRIEG (WAR) The Dresden Triptych

Otto Dix is considered to be the founding father of New Realism, a genre that he managed to establish in Europe in the 1920s. He was a unique author who was able to recreate true chaos in his works (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2014). He spent three years in the trenches of the First World War, and this experience left a mark on him. He was inspired by the classic art that dealt with suffering and horror, especially the iconography of Christ. The exhibition features his triptych format painting War, on which he worked for three years. X-ray technology helped to track how the picture was created and to see the elements that Dix originally wanted to include in his work but subsequently abandoned. The author managed to depict the traumatizing and devastating aspects of the war that he saw with his own eyes.

Art as concept: Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm

Marcell Duchamp was one of the members of the Dada movement, and he invented the approach he called Ready-Mades. He would take a particular object from reality and exhibit it. One of his works, In Advance of a Broken Arm, is just a regular snow shovel hanging on a rope (Smarthistory, 2012a). Because it is not an art in the traditional sense, Duchamp provides a certain amount of cynicism with it. In fact, the author is being really anti-art in its usual sense with this exhibition. Duchamp mocks the way that the art market works because this is just a regular snow shovel that costs a few dollars in the store, but on the auction, it could cost a few millions. The title of the work is fascinating because it does not explain anything and makes a viewer think of their own explanation.

Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci nest pas une pipe)

One of the most famous of Magrittes paintings, The Treachery of Images, is a very sophisticated painting that says a very new word in the art world. There is a very detailed depiction of a pipe, which is accompanied by the inscription This is not a pipe (Smarthistory, 2011d). As a result, the viewers find themselves in a state of conflict between the image and the text. On the one hand, the author is absolutely right because the object on the painting is not a pipe, it is only a representation of the pipe. On the other hand, the viewers perception is forced to deceive itself and confuse the real thing with its image because this is the nature of the art. This inscription breaks the fourth wall asking viewers what art really is.

Dali, The Persistence of Memory

The Persistence of Memory is one of the most famous paintings created by Salvador Dalí. The artwork comprises a desert landscape, melting clocks, and a distorted face and looks very psychedelic, corresponding to the art of the surrealists to which Dalí belonged (Smarthistory, 2012b). The painting is a dreamscape; there is an unendurable silence and stillness in the vastness of absurd environment. The main topic of the painting is time, which is an element of our industrial culture. However, Dalí examines time as a subjective phenomenon that can change based on peoples experiences. Time can be incomprehensible and frightening, which is why people attempt to quantify, limit, and classify it. Dalí confronts the idea of objectivity and intends to persuade the viewer that this approach is erroneous.

References

PBS NewsHour. (2014). Degenerate Art exhibit explores Nazi assault on modern art [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Picasso, Les Demoiselles dAvignon. (n.d.). [Video]. Khan Academy. Web.

Smarthistory. (2011). Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Smarthistory. (2011). Brancusi, Bird in Space [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Smarthistory. (2011). Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913 [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Smarthistory. (2011). Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci nest pas une pipe) [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Smarthistory. (2012). Art as concept: Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Smarthistory. (2012). Dali, The Persistence of Memory [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Spencers Painting of the Week. (2011). Guernica (Picasso) [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. (2014). Otto Dix. DER KRIEG (WAR) The Dresden Triptych [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Tate. (2014). Piet Mondrian  Abstract Painting as We Know It | TateShots [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Tate. (2014a). Kazimir Malevich | TateShots [Video]. YouTube. Web.

The Arts Hole. (2020). Henri Matisse Understanding Modern Art [Video]. YouTube. Web.

The Museum of Modern Art. (2013). 1913 | Dynamism of a Soccer Player by Umberto Boccioni [Video]. YouTube. Web.

Matisse- Notes of a painter

Matisse tries to expose the fact that art cannot be clearly expressed in its pictorial form, without essentially encompassing the artists thoughts (in its entirety).

In other words, it is increasingly difficult for him to express all his inner thoughts in a painting. In this context, he says, But the thoughts of a painter must not be considered separate from his pictorial means, for a thought is not worth more than their expressions, by the means which must be more complete.

From this point of view, we establish that it is quite difficult to represent everything an artist tries to depict in a painting because Matisse implies that complete paintings do not encompass what a painter had in mind; in spite of the fact that paintings should actually do so. This is an argument against naturalism in the sense that naturalism demands that authors should express a detailed realistic and factual expressions of their works.

The relation of this concept with Matisses work is observed when he explains that his paintings (or the works of similar authors) are not expressive of the authors thoughts, and in this manner, they are not realistic of the authors thoughts.

Matisse also goes ahead to explain that the works of painters never really concur with each other and it is from this basis that he expresses fear of the fact that he may be misunderstood when making reference to other painters works.

In other words, it is clear that the works of various painters fail to follow a given sequence of similarity, meaning that different pieces of art cannot be factual as naturalism demands. This is true because factual expressions follow a given sequence of similarity.

Roger Fry  An Essay on Aesthetics

Roger Fry reiterates the same sentiments (explained by Matisse) in Notes of a Painter; only that he represents the same explanation with reference to graphic arts. He says that graphic arts is a pigmentation of the painters thoughts on a piece of flat surface, and from this shallow representation, he notes that there is normally an unnecessary fuss about graphical arts, because to him, graphic arts only leaves the viewers in extreme perplexity.

According to Roger therefore, graphic arts fails to capture the painters feelings, and from this point of view, graphic art is shallow in its true meaning. In the same manner Matisse argues against naturalism (with regards to its realistic nature);

Rogers works can be scrutinized in the same way. In this light, it is proper to observe that Roger depicts graphic work as shallow and unrealistic in the manner it is meant to capture the authors sentiments. It is also because of this reason that he asks:

Can we arrive at any conclusions as to the nature of graphic arts, which will at all explain our feelings towards them, which will at least put them in some kind of relation with other arts, and not leave us in the extreme perplexity, engendered by any theory of mere imitation?

Clive Bell: The Aesthetic Hypothesis

Bell explains that works of art normally appeal to a given human emotion. He particularly expressed these sentiments with the aim of building on Rogers works, and with the aim of coming up with a more comprehensive theory of visual arts.

He however explains that these emotions are not exactly similar in all human contexts, although they may follow a given pattern. This is an argument against naturalism because naturalism is centered on facts and realism, which denotes a more scientific way of analyzing art.

From a more critical point of view, we can say that Bell affirms that works of art normally have an aesthetic value which strongly appeals to its fans. This fact leads him to conclude that anyone with feelings can relate to art in a deeper sense.

From such kind of representation, it is correct to note that Bell introduces an argument against naturalistic art because he advocates for a more philosophical representation of art and acknowledges the fact that the art is developed to appeal to human feelings and emotions, as opposed to concepts and facts which are advocated by the naturalistic concept.

This fact can be affirmed by his assertion that In each lines and colors combined in a particular way, certain forms and relation of forms stir our aesthetic emotions.

From this point of view, we can conclude that Bell strongly holds the point of view that art is meant to stir human emotion. This appeals more to the aesthetic side of art as opposed to the scientific recourse to art (as explained by the naturalism concept).

An appeal of art to the human emotion, feelings (as advocated by Bell) is therefore more representative of the spiritual and supernatural side of man which attracts people to art. This is a breakaway from the naturalism way of analyzing art.

Bibliography

Harrison, Charles. Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Idea. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

Since its invention, photography has been hailed by the masses as one of the best means of bringing the rest of the world to the public, affording them views of far-away places and peoples they would never have known about otherwise. The public appearance of the photographic process in 1839 (Leggat, 2000) revolutionized the way people saw the world around them and introduced a concept of capturing images that was so true to life that only the best painters could duplicate the effects. As an aid in the search for reality, the photograph offered an immediate, faithful and permanent record, a source of artistic exploration (Brown, 1971: 31). In its earliest forms, due perhaps in large part to the fact that exposure times were lengthy as the technology was in its infancy, photography was used as a narrative form, but even this early in its history, technological developments were allowing for more creative expression than simply recording the truthful image. At the turn of the century [1900], a small group of serious photographers tried to rescue the art form from its low estate by turning their backs on the more blatant forms of narrative photography and its continued reliance on and subservience to painting. They sought a more independent poetic vision based on the camera lens and motivated by a concern with contemporary forms (Brown, 1971: 31). Thus, while it might be said that The new malleability of the image may eventually lead to a profound undermining of photographys status as an inherently truthful pictorial form (Ritchin, 1990: 28), the new technological developments offered to photography are merely the latest in a long line of photographic tools that can be used to explore new creative possibilities and/or provide truthful representation, based upon the decisions made by the photographer. At no point in its history can photography be said to have been limited to merely true forms of capturing images.

Artists working during the relative time period between 1910 and 1920 were affected to a great degree by the technological innovations of the photograph. This period was an era of prosperity and modernization, when the entire world it seemed was becoming mechanized and the world of art was being questioned by such new technologies as photography and motion pictures, which could produce realistic representation at least as well as the artists in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. In response, artists began experimenting with those forms of expression that the camera couldnt touch, such as the colors and shapes of emotion. There remains a significant difference between the art produced at the beginning of this decade, such as Duchamps, with the art produced at the end of the decade such as Modiglianis, which is primarily divided by the advent of World War I in 1914. As a result, one can see the cubist influences of the first decade of 1900 in the work of Duchamp, such as in his Nude Descending a Staircase #2. This painting is characterized with a lighthearted, warm light and a sentimentalized emotional content. This is sharply contrasted with the darkened spaces of Modiglianis painting, Head of a Woman, in which the woman seems bent out of shape, dark and mysterious, impossible to penetrate and guarded in her forced interactions. Where Duchamps woman seems to glow from within as she floats down the stairway, Modiglianis woman is smudged with dirt and seems off-balanced in her motionless state while her eyes remain coldly inexpressive and hollow.

Works Cited

1. Brown, Milton W. The History of Photography as Art History. Art Journal. Vol. 31, N. 1, (1971): pp. 31-32 + 36.
2. Duchamp, Marcel. Nude Descending a Staircase #2. Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1912.
3. Leggat, Robert. The Beginnings of Photography. (2000).
4. Modigliani, Amedeo. Head of a Woman. Oil on canvas. Bridgeman Art Gallery, c. 1915-1918.
5. Ritchin, Fred. The Critical Image: Essays on Contemporary Photography. C. Squiers (Ed.). London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990: p. 28.