A R T


Feel like an idiot? Well, that’s going to end right here. Look at it this way. Going to Europe might include tourist monuments, great cafes, terrific night life, odd native customs, and so on and so forth, but a very big part of anyone’s trip to Europe ought to be their encounter with ART. A phrase that’s thrown around a lot these days is “cultural heritage” which is more or less that’s anything in the last thousand years that has lasted. That’s what makes Europe very different from the USA. So if you don’t explore the Art, you are missing the major part of why you go. Take Italy, for example. By a certain study conducted recently, Italy is said to harbor 60% of the west’s cultural resources. You can’t turn your head in Italy without confronting Art. The same goes for Paris, London and any other big cities because they are packed with architecture, museums, and parks that reflect their individual history and their contributions to Art. Now, if you haven’t taken Art History in school and you don’t go to museums in the USA (tsk-tsk) and you aren’t lucky enough to have our SF Art & Film program around to get you ready, you’re going to need a little help. To get a groundwork—an overall picture—it’s a big help to have in your mind a sequence of how Art developed in the western world. Here are some simple categories. We’ve cut them down to the bone so almost any dolt can understand. CLASSIC ART: ANCIENT GREECE We bet you remember something from high school about everything worthwhile in democracy, philosophy, aesthetics (matters concerning art and beauty) starting in Ancient Greece. Well, it didn’t. Nevertheless, the stuff that was created here lasted, and, as a result, gives us a great deal of western cultural heritage. The sculptures that decorated the Parthenon were stolen by the English and wound up in the British Museum, so you come in direct contact with Ancient Greece without heading to the Greek Isles. ANCIENT ROME The Roman world has gotten a bad rap in modern times. Yes, the romans did take over a giant portion of the globe and are responsible for the destruction and enslavement of countless populations. Still, you’ve got to consider that this was a government and civilization that ruled most of Europe for centuries. Romans are top dogs in the longevity circuit so something must have been going right. Roman art is usually bad mouthed as not being as elevated as Greek art (mostly sculpture and theater) but it’s important to remember when Shakespeare headed for role models he took the Roman ones, and the buildings the Romans scattered all over Europe are some of the most beautiful and impressive. The main thing to remember about Classic Art is that it was based on ideals of beauty. You want to note it’s ideas of proportion, elegance, and order. COLUMNS: Since you’re going to see more columns than you’ve ever imagined, you might want to remember the column types. The you’ll be able to impress any illiterate yahoo nearby. They are: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. (There’s also Tuscan and Composite , but these are the important ones.)

DORIC	IONIC	CORINTHIAN
THE DARK AGES: (otherwise known as the MIDDLE AGES or the MEDIEVAL AGE or the AGE MOYEN) Yes, the Roman world DID fall, but it took some time and plenty of invasions from the North, from Vikings, from Vandals, from China... if they were poor and “savage,” they headed to Rome. Was it because Rome was also morally corrupt, lazy, and couldn’t defend themselves? Not on your life! You try defending your house from an invasion every three years for almost a century. No, the world changed radically, and the pirating hoards and Christians managed to bury most of the progress that had been made and plunge Europe into a devastating cultural void. All the action, beauty, and thinking was going on in Asia, the Middle East, Muslim Spain... somewhere else. After all, the Dark Ages aren’t called that for nothing. The only refuge a peaceful man could take was in the monastery because a constant state of war, aggression, hunger, and (if that wasn’t enough) plague swept the continent again and again. As a result, the art that was produced was almost always religious. Byzantine style paintings, like you’ll see in museums all over Italy, were created for devotional purposes. Why does everything look flat and iconic and covered with writing and otherwise fairly unattractive? Because frequently they were works made to deliver the holy scripture to people who couldn’t read. Most peasants couldn’t read a single verse of the bible, but they could see the painting over the alter of Jesus sitting in his mother’s lap from thirty pews back. Literature? Not anything that was being written down. Eventually people managed to copy down stories like Beowulf and King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table, but how close they are to the original stories is up to much debate. As for music, you’ve got Gregorian chants and troubadour songs. One’s religious and one’s story telling by way of song. The hours must have flown by. There was, however, some pretty terrific architecture towards the end of the middle ages. When all you’ve got to look forward to is praising God, you’re going to want to make sure you have a nice place to do it in.
ROMANESQUE: Around 800-1000 activity began to stir, and a style of building was developed that had simple lines, simple decoration that we refer to as ROMANESQUE. Round buildings and arches feature. Painting was decorative, two dimensional and usually reserved for the church.
GOTHIC: By the end of the middle ages (late 1100’s), things began to pick up considerably. Trade began to sweep across Europe, the Crusades brought lots of new ideas back from Constantinople, and the Holy Lands. A type of grandiose, awe-inspiring architecture called Cathedrals popped up all over the place, with elaborate spires, vaulted ceilings, miles of stained glass, and complicated arrangements of sculptures on the front. This movement was accompanied by breakthroughs in music, painting, and writing.
THE RENAISSANCE: So much was changing and growing it’s only natural that light would finally shine somewhere, and that somewhere was Italy. There are lots of reasons for this. If you study a bit you’ll find it had to do with a new curiosity, a new permissiveness, shifting power, and lots of creative energy. Once it broke forth, well, there was no stopping it. Prosperity generated energy. The new trade in spices from the East brought money. The huge swell of population growth in the cities gave birth to a renewed interest in the world of the Romans and the Greeks. In Italy it was definitely and it didn’t take long for a lot of other places to catch on. (But don’t look to England. Being detached from the continent put them a few centuries behind.) Ideas spread, morphed, exploded faster than yeast, and all of a sudden ART that took the main stage. The little and big despots who ruled the growing towns and cities decided that patronage of artists was a good way to be remembered after they died, AND THEY WERE RIGHT. You’re reading about them, aren’t you?

BOTTICHELLI	DAVINCI	RAFFAELLO
When you look at renaissance period Art you’re going to be beaten senseless by Madonnas holding baby Jesi and religious symbols out the kazoo. Have patience. So much Art was produced in service of the Church (the Catholic one, in Rome?) Even the despots fell all over themselves to out “devout” each other. But look closely and you’ll see these religious paintings really aren’t all alike. You may make some really mind-boggling discoveries. Renaissance Art came in stages, and took its time. And there’s nothing but a series of innovations in perspective, light, form, color. Keep in mind the the renaissance reached difference places at different times and each area had it own particular flavor. The paintings from the North (Flanders and the Netherlands) are very different from those in the South (Italy and Spain).
1300’s EARLY RENAISSANCE Certain cities prevailed. Venice is one—a star of trade with a strong navy. The painter is Giotto. He shifted ideas about painting from two dimensions to three and, lo and behold, his people start to look real. From there, one innovation lead to another.
1400’s HIGH RENAISSANCE Florence and Rome and Milan, Bruges in the North are the cities where its the most vital, though all over the North of Italy, South of France, Spain, Germany and Belgium, as is the case with Jan Van Eyck whose work is pictured. Art’s breaking out like an epidemic. Can’t keep it down.
1500’s HIGH RENAISSANCE Now we’re in full gear. Here come the painters even most ignorant of you should recognise—Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello. If you with we’re talking about martial-art trained turtles, you may as well leave the site now and use your travel money to head to Tiajuana. The museums of the world are filled with paintings from these periods because Art poured out of the cities during this period and a good deal of it was amazingly good. And that’s not all. Music was making huge gains. In Venice, Monteverdi was creating the first operas while orchestral music was being developed in Venice and Rome.
Early 1600’s MANNERISM Well, you can imagine how difficult it was for artists to come up with something that was going to beat the Renaissance. The accent of Mannerism is, as you might expect, that things begin to look mannered—artificial and with lots of flying angels and halo-ed figures hovering in the air. Imagine a religious soap opera. The folks in these paintings seem caught in perpetual melodramas, star-struck by the Gods. However, the scene has moved on from Italy. In Belgium, Peter Paul Rubens (Mr. Mannerism himself) leads the pack. Things are jumping in Spain, and the Renaissance finally makes it’s way to England during the reign of Elizabeth. Theater explodes as an art form (you know—Shakespeare). The richest country of this period is the Netherlands, but art isn’t mannerist there. Rembrandt is more introspective and somber.
Late 1600’s THE BAROQUE So all those angels, flying figures, and melodramatic figures just weren’t enough. Artists decided to let it all hang out, throw everything in on top of each other, make it as elaborate, as overdone and as complex as the eye could stomach—total excess. If it’s gold and packed to the gills with mind-boggling elaborate detail, it’s a safe bet that it’s Baroque. This period covered most of Italy and lots of Spain, but finds it’s real home in France at Paris at Versailles.
Mid-1700’s CLASSIC Well, it couldn’t last. People were getting dizzy just going to church. Something had to give, so a few artists started returning to the classic idea. Landscapes with a lot of temples in them, very formal stuff filled with Roman and Greek symbols. A nice break, but not the most celebrated period in Art.
Early 1800’s NEO CLASSIC And so all this caught on, and the style of art became more realistic, reflecting the times people lived in. It became pretty, lovely, in fact. It was so pleasant to look at. It made all those white wigs feel right at home. France was where all this new stuff could be found, and portraits became very popular in England. Everything now is back to such original ideas as order, formality, and simplicity. The thinking behind it is what counts. It’s enlightened.
Late 1700’s to mid 1800’s ROMANTIC And the storm arrives. The French revolution, naturally. Followed by Napoleon. And then there’s an English artist name Turner, who painted storms at sea, or the new trains racing through landscapes filled with bursts of light. Then there is Goya in Spain, painting piles of dead bodies left around by the Napoleonic Wars. And in France a whole new school of painting comes from exotic sources like harems and sphinxes. Storms at sea. Ghosts and ghouls, vampires too. And swirling, seething landscapes. It’s the feeling that counts. Let’s all feel together. Passion! Excitement! Adventure!
Early 1800 REALISM So there is no longer one style of art but many, and prevalent is realism, which means you get what you see.
Late 1800’s IMPRESSIONISM Probably the one style of painting we don’t need to describe for you as here we’re back to household names again, because if you haven’t heard of Van Gogh, on what planet have you been living, please? Add Cezanne, Monet and Degas, and the French have it sewn up. These guys painted from nature, outside, on easels, and armies of little old ladies still invade Maine in their honor. It’s the reproduction that hangs in your parent’s dining room.
1900’s THE ISM’S and ISTS So France became the center of just about all Art, and the ISM’S exp like hand grenades.
the FAUVISTS—abstract and full of feeling. Emotional force is more important than realism. If you feel the trees need to be pink, then pink they will be! The wilder the color the better, but keep it inside black lines, please. (Matisse, Derain)
the POINTILISTS—tiny tiny primary-color dots make up secondary colors. Prefigures color photography and television. Try sitting really close to the screen. You'll get the idea. (Georges Seurat, Paul Signac)
the CUBISTS—break it up, make it choppy and squared off. Try looking at life through a prism. (Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Georges Braque)
the FUTURISTS—start in Italy. Make it choppy, and askew. Rhythm and vibration more important than form. Noise, cities, and pollution aren't problems, they're exciting. “Drain the canals of Venice!” Sounds great. Too bad they were all fascists. (Marinetti, Gino Severini, Mayakovsky—poet)
the SURREALISTS—take the subconscious and doll it up; any hand with ants crawling out of it will do. If people ask what it all means, tell them you saw it in a dream. Dreams always mean something deep. (Salvador Dali, Magritte, Yves Tanguy, André Breton)
the DADAISTS—baby talk won’t help you to understand a urinal with a signature on it, to say nothing of the table with hairy feet..."Dada is the sun, Dada is the egg. Dada is the Police of the Police." (Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst)
the EXPRESSIONISTS—get depressed, smear some grey paint around and weep on it. If you're not into painting, take your prefered medium and fill it with bugs. Express yourself! (Kandinsky, Klee, Shoenberg—composer, Kafka—writer)
DE STIJL— "The Style". Make it geometric, and it fly around. Reduce all form to rectangles. Outlaw the color green. Whatever it takes to impress the Bauhaus. (Mondrian, Van Doesburg)
the CONSTRUCTIVISTS—rectangles, squares, circles, lines, space, all in Russian. Art as production and left leaning politics. Used for book covers and propaganda posters almost as much as for gallery walls. (Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Malevich)
MODERN ART: So here it is in all it’s glory. All the isms and the ists fighting it out through around 1950’s when all of a sudden Europe looked around and voila! Something started happening in that tacky US of A.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM “My child could do that”. Well, yes, but his name isn’t Jackson Pollock who did it first, so shut up and throw your paint around somewhere else. These guys painted BIG and finally started getting noticed when Peggy Guggenheim showed up and threw her money aound to get them some proper publicity.
POP ART Images from the commercial world, and lots of three dimensional collages with stuffed animals, and giant floppy plastic hamburgers and soup cans. And don’t forget our guaranteed fifteen minutes of fame. Andy Warhol took painting and turned it into a lifestyle. How American can you get?
MINIMALISM It had to happen sooner or later. Paint a canvas white. Then put a small red dot somewhere off center. Or get really wild and put a giant blue triangle on a wall. Frame it and make sure it’s perfect. Put it in a gigantic space, and be careful not to toss it out by mistake on trash day.
CONCEPTUAL ART Finally: art for people who aren’t skilled with their hands. It’s all about the idea—not the thing. But the idea better be damn good, and actually MEAN something. Dot the California coastline with giant yellow umbrellas. Just make sure they don't topple over in a storm and kill people.
AN END (Sort of) Well, there you have it. Our history in a nutshell is tiny and doesn’t give anything it’s due, but it should give you a base you can start to fill in. Now you can feel comfortable wandering around all those museums. And just think of all the big words you can throw around (when you have only the shallowest idea of what they mean). But please, don’t humiliate yourself. Get yourself some books and start learning more! A PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY: Here’s a list of some sources you might look at for more information: An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones and William Wilson Covers not just art, but religion, science, history, etc. It’s a great deal of information in compact encyclopedia-like entries, but it’s all in plain English, and it’s observations are often hilarious. (Kind of like us? Maybe?) Kiki’s Paris by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin The central figure of this book is Kiki du Montparnasse, an artist and the model for most of Man Ray’s most famous photographs. She knew just about every important cultural figure of the 1920’s. From Picasso and Matisse to Hemmingway and Stein. There are about three pages of period photographs to each page of text. Art Lover by Anton Gill A biography of Peggy Guggenheim, museum heiress and friend to and promoter of many of the big names in modern art including Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Willem DeKooning, Jasper Johns... Cover’s the New York art scene of the 30’s 40’s and 50’s pretty thoroughly, but gives you the social context that art history books miss. The Social History of Art by Arnold Hauser The history of art through the social climates that informed the artists. May be out of print, but it is available online and through used book stores.