Painting, Cinematography, and Physics in Europe of 1895-1914

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The nineteenth century saw movements in the arts that baffled observers such as that of the emergence of scientist-writers Michel Eugene Chevreul, David Dutter, and Ogden Rood. They wrote about colors and optical effects. The color wheel was introduced by Chevreul who was a chemist. He based his theory on colors with Alfred Newton’s mixing of light. This was the influence of Neo-impressionist artist Georges-Pierre Seurat, who is credited to have helped maneuver the direction of the arts in that period taking into consideration light and color effects. His paintings that include the famous A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte exhibits the pointillism method he would rather call the language of Chromoluminarism (Sam 27). For Seurat, color can be used to create harmony and emotion in art. He suggested that gaiety is achieved through the domination of luminous hues, predominant warm colors, and the use of upward lines. On the other hand, balanced use of light and dark, warm and cold, and horizontal lines produce calm (Sam 76). This early reference to science in the arts signaled the possible changes that occurred in the world of arts. This paper will proceed to discuss the relationship between painting, cinematography or film, and modern physics in Europe between about 1895 and 1914.

Discussion

The disjointed use of objects that seem to overlap or intersect one another is a movement that inspired the exploration of surfaces and science in the art movement. This era produced the Cubism movement led by the likes of Pablo Picasso. This paper will focus on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon painted in 1907. The Spanish artist employed primitivism and flat perspective for this revolutionary work influenced by his Iberian sculpture roots and African tribal art, although he strongly denied the latter. In addition, critics allude to the painting as influenced by Paul Cezanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses and Henri Matisse’s Le Bonheur de vivre and also Blue Nude. It was also proposed that Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was heavily influenced by Paul Cezanne’s cube, sphere, and cone.

Meyer Schapiro made a connection between the Neo-impressionist form and the scientific color theory used by Seurat. Schapiro proposed “a relationship between artists’ formal inventions and the climate of scientific, technological, and industrial innovation surrounding them in Paris in the 1880s,” (Roslak 381). Aside from earlier revolutions in painting, this same period also saw the emergence of film as a new object of visual art. One of the emerging trends was the use of special effects such as stop trick, substitution, multiple exposures, dissolves, and hand-painted color in films as the ones revolutionized by Georges Melies (Meny and Melies DVD).

This interplay of effects characterized by bringing together strips of films, or frames, may have influenced Picasso at this time who was then starting to make a name for himself. The Les Demoiselles d’Avignon has women that did not look like women at all but had disjointed, angular bodies with mask-like faces and savage looks. This painting has been attributed to several other influences depicting the many exposures and inspirations of the well-traveled Picasso. Cubism was set through this painting but it has also been attributed to “Fauvism, Expressionism, Primitivism, Futurism, and Modernism” (Princeton P 1). The painting is also seen to lean on geometry and advancement in the art movement. It is acknowledged that Picasso had long been inspired by Egyptian and Greek sculpture as well as Cezanne’s geometric planes, among other inspirations. As the Princeton reviewer suggested, “Many expressionists were influenced by Negro art since they were attracted by its reduction in artificial art. Picasso was also influenced by Cezanne. He began to cut up his figures into geometric shapes, cones, spheres, cylinders, and in clearly defined planes just like Cezanne used to do. In the painting, Picasso over-highlighted the cutting up of the shapes with brightly colored lines that remind tribal scars on the faces of some African tribesmen,” (P 2).

Another artist of importance in this period is Paul Cezanne. Cezanne brought forward another phenomenon in the arts by introducing his cube, sphere, and cone theory about nature. His works also were credited for the binocular vision of simultaneous visual effects with depth and complex spatial relationship as depicted in his most popular work Les Grandes Baigneuses circa 1906. Post-impressionist Cezanne bridged the transition of art from the 19th-century Impressionists to the 20th century Cubists. Cezanne’s work was more focused on the shape and form more than content. He was quoted to have said, “I know nothing except color… Light is but one tone of a place; the shadow is another.” (Time P 3).

Les Grandes Baigneuses also called the Bathers, is the biggest in a series of bather paintings. It depicted the changes that Cezanne adopted in all of his works in order to separate each from a tradition and eventually appeal to generations. The nude females are rendered in abstract, flighty, and a picture of leisurely summer (Time P 4). Cezanne commented that “the painter must rely on his vision. He must do everything according to nature, with much reflection, because every color-touch must contain air, light, the object, the plan […] in a word, all that which constitutes a painting.” (Time P 6).

One notable film work in 1902 coinciding with the times of Cezanne and Picasso was the science-fiction A Trip to the Moon by Melies. This was basically a black and white film but hand-colored and considered the first pataphysical film or that which explored beyond metaphysics. It used innovative animation as well as Melies’ signature special effects mentioned earlier (Dirks P 2).

Conclusion

The changes in the turn of the century in the 19th to 20th coincided with various revolutions from social, political, industrial, and subsequently, art movements. This was also a time when artists have started to explore and work beyond their traditional methods of rendering visual works to the possible fusion of methods. Science and industry, with industry here represented by the developments in the film or cinema in its early stages, were inspirations for change for emerging radical artists as mentioned above.

In conclusion, there was parallelism in the presentation of film and paintings in the mentioned works as each employed changes that could be attributable to developments in science or industry during that period. However, it is also to be noted that the paint artists were earlier influenced by the artists before them such as Seurat as well as the earlier Renaissance classic painters such as Leonardo Da Vinci who was also considered a scientist and inventor. The developments of cinematography at that time may be considered in its infancy as compared to the ever ancient art of painting which has gone through the same lineage as human history. The influence of science and industry on both, however, is substantial.

References

Dirks, Tim. Return to home Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip To The Moon) (1902). Film Site.

Meny, Jacques and Georges Méliès. Le cinémagicien (documentaire de Jacques Mény accompagné de 15 films de Méliès). DVD. 2008.

Princeton. Les Demoiselles D’Avignon: Picasso’s influences in the creation of a masterwork. Web.

Roslak, Robyn S. The Politics of Aesthetic Harmony: Neo-Impressionism, Science and Anarchism. The Art Bulletin LXXIII (3). 1991.

Sam, Hunter (1992). Georges Seurat. Modern Art. New York

Time. Art: I Am a Timid Man. 1952. Web.

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Painting, Cinematography, and Physics in Europe of 1895-1914

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