ART1. Divided Approaches to ArtArtists exploit differences to comment upon divisions in the world. They match form; the way a piece is created, to content, what the piece is about.

PerspectiveTo represent the world how we actually see it, artists must use perspective.

o Linear PerspectiveThe technique was found by European artists in the 1500s to draw 3D forms on a 2D object by

using geometry. It shows depth in the painting. The further the object is, they become smaller.

A photo shows the effect of a focus point (point where light rays converge) and fixed perspective (perspective that results from a stationary viewer and frame). An artist needs to understand geometry to create a 3D picture on a 2D object. Linear perspective lies on: geometry, maths, and optics (study of vision and the eye). Maths and geometry were popular at the time.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1466) was the first one to use linear perspective for his Renaissance buildings. He never recorded his methods, but passed them along to artists.

The honor of being the first person to describe linear perspective systemically is Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1474). He told artists to put a veil in front of a scene, and then trace the scene onto a paper or canvas by transferring the lines on the veil to a sheet of gridded paper. The result is accurate.

Alberti also described another method. First, the artist decides how large his scale would be. He would draw a man in the foreground (the part of the scene that’s situated nearest or in front of the viewer) and divide its height into 3 sections called braccia, each 1/3 of the person’s height. Then he would draw a line, called a horizon, across the canvas at the top of the man’s head. The artist would decide a vanishing point, and would draw orthogonal lines (diagonal lines) from the base of the figure to the vanishing point.

Tribute Money by Tommaso Masaccio c. 1428

By 5th century AD, after the Roman Empire fell, Europe fragmented into many kingdoms and progressed slow. They lost most of the cultural and technological advances of the Greek and Roman. Most artists painted religious paintings. There were no originalities in their art. Some things that are more important were drawn bigger and colored differently than the ones less important.

On the 13th and 14th century, people rediscovered classic Roman and Greek antiquities. This period is called the Renaissance. It saw the reemergence of humanism (spirit of learning and a renewed confidence of human beings ability).

Masaccio’s (1410-1428) original name is Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai. Only some of his works survived, but it influenced lots of other painters.

Masaccio painted the Holy Trinity, a fresco (murals painted with water-based pigments on wet plaster) in Santa Maria Novella church in Florence sometimes between 1425 and 1428. The painting shows a crucifixion scene. The barrel vault (series of arches placed in a row, extends a semi-circular

curve along a distance) is the impressive thing about the painting. But most importantly, Masaccio’s use of linear perspective.

Tribute Money created in 1428 is also a fresco. The linear perspective Masaccio used was even better than in Holy Trinity. It was based in the Gospel of Matthew. It tells the story about a tax collector who demands money from Jesus and his disciples. Jesus told Peter to fish from the sea, and inside the fish he would find money to pay the tax.

Masaccio painted the shadows realistically. The disciples’ faces were also all expressive. Masaccio tries to show the viewers the center point of the painting by the buildings’ linear perspective’s orthogonals which meets Peter’s arm. They draw our eyes to Christ, the center point. Other than linear perspective, Masaccio also used atmospheric perspective for the outdoor scene.

o Atmospheric PerspectiveThe technique is been used for centuries by Chinese artists. It’s the same as “aerial perspective” Atmospheric perspective painting shows distant objects only as a blur and not really clear, and the forms on the foreground with more detail.

o Isometric PerspectiveWhen you look at an isometric perspective from different sides, it shows the things differently. Unlike linear and atmospheric perspective, which looks the same from any side.

Wangchuan Villa by Wang Yuanqi c.1711

At the beginning of the 1400s, the Ming Dynasty extended its rule over China. By the 1600s, there was a lot of fighting going on. In 1644, the Manchus (an ethnic group) established the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Emperors exerts influence over the Chinese cultural traditions. Three groups of artists took stands on the relationship of art to politics. Traditionalists wanted to reinterpret past models for contemporary times; individualists focused on highly personal art, often as a form of political protest; and another group of artists painted in the service of the Manchu court.

Wang Yuanqi first studied art with his grandfather Wang Shimin (1592-1680) and also inherited teachings of Dong Qichang (1555-1636), an art scholar who found the Orthodox School. The school teaches art. In it, painters had to focus on the style (brushwork, etc.) but not really on the content. Artists were supposed to pour out qishi (breath force) into the painting and it flowed through the painting in longmo “dragon veins”.

Wangchuan Villa created in 1711 as a handscroll painting (Chinese horizontal paper canvases that could be several feet long, rolled up in a box, and opened on special occasions) by Wang Yuanqi in 1711 based on a 1617 poem by Wang Wei. Wang Yuanqi used both atmospheric and isometric perspective in the painting. He didn’t try to draw the place realistically, but he seeks to capture the feeling of the landscape. He also tried to capture the essence of the poetry and his own spirit. The Wangchuan Villa doesn’t have a center point. It lets people’s eyes travel all around the painting, creating longmo “dragon veins”. It doesn’t tell a story in a logical and precise manner.

LineArtists use lines to indicate forms of objects, which can come to life. Artists have relied on two different types of lines: outline (defines a 2D shape, shows difference between figure (foreground) and ground (background)) and contour (defines a 2D shapes. Contour lines that curve back into a

painting or stretch diagonally across a canvas gives the impression of depth). Carefully placed lines can highlight a painting’s focus. Lines can also suggest different emotions.

Guernica by Pablo Picasso c.1937Pablo Picasso (1881-1975) was born in Málaga, Spain and lived through both World Wars. His

styles of painting are cubism and primitivism. Cubism painting explores mass, shape, and form. Primitivism adopted forms from ‘primitive’ cultures in Africa, Oceania, and Americas. His first major Primitivism painting was Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, where he combines African masks and poses of odalisques (a female slave).Picasso’s art is deeply political. He goes against Fransisco Franco Bahamonde (a Spain dictator at the time). Art was his way of dealing with a divided world.

The Spanish Civil War roots began in 1812, when Spain had a democracy rule. But the traditionalists wanted monarchy. In 1931, elections ousted King Alfonso XIII. In May 1936, Manuel Azaña was elected as President. On 17th July 1936, a group of Spanish army generals attempted to overthrow her and the Republic. They had the support of a political group, the Nationalists who were led by Franco. They had the support of Nazi Germany and Italy. The Republican had the support of the Soviet Union. At the time, the government asked Picasso to paint for Paris’s 1937 World’s Fair, the Exposition Universelle. The theme was The Arts and Technology in Modern World. On 26th April 1937 a bombing happened in Guernica, Spain. Franco let Hitler (Nazi Germany) to practice attacks there. 1/3 of the 5000 people there were killed and ¾ of the town’s buildings were destroyed. They practiced strafing too (attacking ground targets -including people- from low-flying aircraft). Franco declared Spain a monarchy in 1947, and titled himself not King, but the deputy ruler.

Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 for the Paris’s World Fair. It portrays the gruesome event that happened in Guernica. Its jumble of lines and forms confuses viewers, but we can pick out forms: bull, woman holding a dead child, wounded horse, soldier with stigmata, light bulb, hand holding a candle, and an open door. Picasso only colored it in navy blue, black, and white, the colors of a bruise. He didn’t use any perspective, so it forces viewers to pay attention to the surface and shape. The painting is a history painting. History paintings present scenes from history, classical mythology or Biblical traditions to express morals and lessons. It’s considered the greatest expression of art. History painting emerged from The French Art Academy, established by King Louis XIV in 1648. According to them, the level of painting from lowest to highest is: still-lifes, portraits, landscapes, history painting. Picasso expressed his opinion in this painting through the accurate and precise use of line. The bulb in the painting exposes crime and cruelty. In Spanish, light bulb is “bombilla”, very close to the word bomb -technology-. After the Exposition Universelle, the painting found a home in New York. On 25th October 1981 (Spain is now a Republic), Guernica is brought back to Spain to the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid.

ColorWhat is color? We perceive differences in the wavelengths of light as color. White light is

made up of a rainbow, or spectrum, of color. All objects have the capacity to absorb white light- but most of them don’t absorb the whole spectrum. An object appears to have color when it bounces back a certain wavelength. A tomato absorbs all of the colors of the spectrum except red, which bounces back; therefore, it appears red.

Colors are not exactly identical, they have different shades. They vary depending on hue, value, and intensity. Hue is the name of a color. Value is a color’s relative lightness or darkness. Intensity is the saturation of a color. A painting with a restricted palette only has few colors, and can even be monochromatic (one-colored). A painting with an open palette uses many colors.

o The Color WheelThe color wheel organizes colors based on their relationship to each other. Primary colors are

blue, red, and yellow. They’re the most basic colors and can’t be created by combining other colors. Secondary colors are a combination of two primary colors. Example, blue and yellow makes green. Tertiary colors are a combination of a primary color and one of its neighboring secondary colors. Example, blue and violet makes indigo. Complementary colors appear opposite of each other on the color wheel. Example, purple and yellow. Paintings that use complementary colors seem vibrant and energetic. Paintings that use colors close together on the color wheel seem calmer.

o A Brief History of ColorEuropean Nations in the 1700s began to fight whether to privilege color or line. Nicolas

Poussin said that color can charm or trick the eye, overestimating a painting’s worth. By the end of the 1800s, painters were beginning to use more colors. Colors were very important in Romanticism painting style, as it brings emotion to the painting, which will be discussed later. By the beginning of 20th century, painters experiments the effect of using color.

No. 13 (White, Red on Yellow) by Mark Rothko c.1958Mark Rothko (1903-1970) was in Latvia. Then he moved with his mother and sister to

Oregon. He dropped out of Yale then moved to New York. He was mostly self-taught. He illustrated the Graphic Bible (Bible stories for children). Rothko’s work is often linked with Abstract Expressionism. The style is very American, emphasizes emotion, rejects clear representation of forms, and strives for abstraction. But he wasn’t painting objects in abstract form, but emotions and ideas. He imagined his abstract forms as true objects. Color takes on an almost spiritual significance. He tried to paint human emotions in his paintings. Rothko received important commissions, but wasn’t really pleased. He thinks that buyers fail to appreciate his art and became temperamental of selling them. In 1970, he committed suicide.

No. 13 (White, Red on Yellow) painted in 1958 is very simple. It presents one white block and one red block, floating on a field of yellow. A third yellow box seems to float between white and red, but is barely seen because of the background. There are some color variations. The red is redder in different places (intensity), the white can be bright and opaque in some places but can be almost translucent in others (value). Rothko has mixed dark pigments, so that the color seems hardly white or a consistent yellow. The painting’s transparency comes from Rothko’s heavily diluted pigments, where the oil stains the canvas’s fibers. The position or mixture of the white and yellow feels different than the red and yellow. The white in the painting can express purity while the red is violence. But Rothko resisted symbolism. Instead, he saw the colors as emotions, which are maybe joyful and hopeful. It also gives a sense of buoyance or optimism. Rothko doesn’t tell us exactly what to see or symbolism either.

Figural Representation

Representational art is a realistic visual expression of something. It tries to present an accurate picture of the world and tends to rely on linear perspective. Non-representational art is also a visual expression, but not of any particular object or concept. Representational art and non-representational art is a division between realism (realistic elements) and abstraction (abstract elements), even though they’re not the exact opposite. Representational art may have abstract elements and vice versa. They are different ways of thinking about perspective and the importance of color and line. Figural representation is to represent living objects in a realistic way.

Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger c.1536Henry VIII ruled England between 1509 and 1547. He had married Catherine of Aragon in

1509, the wife of his brother. He had lots of political and military conflicts. Later, he asked the Pope to undo his marriage with the reason of breaking the Catholic way. But the Pope refused. So Henry broke away from the Catholic Church in 1534, into the Protestant. Then he married Anne Boleyn. But in 1536, he executed her; he had been executing lots of people when he was in power.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) was a German painter. In Germany, he painted murals, designed stained-glass windows, and illustrated books. He then moved to England, and was introduced to the English Court. By 1532, he broke away from the Court and found a job working for the new queen, Anne Boleyn, and of Henry’s advisor. Holbein painted wealthy merchants and bankers. In 1535, he became the official court painter for Henry VIII. He designed beautiful objects for the royal household. Although his career in the court ended after 1540 when he lost his patron, he made a successful living from commissioned portraits and other works.

Created in 1536, Henry VIII‘s original version, no longer exists. However, a famous bust portrait and a preparatory drawing of the mural can let us know how it might’ve looked like. In the painting, Henry wore a cloak made from fur and silk, white linen undershirt which were expensive at the time, clothes studded with jewelries, a huge gold necklace with jewels on them, two rings, and a gold collar. But aside all that, Henry’s size and steely face are the most impressive parts of the image. His clothes and expression and the size of his body represents wealth, power, and command. When we look at other copies of Holbein’s other works, which are portraits of other Kings and Queens of England after Henry VIII, it shows us that images can represent a powerful monarchy. Figural representations can stand in for the things they represent.

Non-Figural RepresentationSomehow, most arts are representational; but it’s not the only way to express ideas. Western

art tends to move to non-representational art by the 20th century. But non-representational art is not exclusive to only the West or the 20th century. Islamic art tends to avoid representation. They tend to use stylized and geometrical representations of Arabic writing, inanimate forms, and of abstract natural designs. Calligraphy is the art form that Islam regards most highly.

The Tughra of Süleyman c.16 th century The Ottoman Empire began in 1299 until 1922 when the Republic of Turkey was founded.

They captured Constantinople, Iraq, Mecca, Medina, important ports in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and lots more. It was one of the largest and wealthiest empires in world history. Süleyman (1494-1566, r. 1520-1566) was an important leader in the Ottoman history. After assuming power in 1520, he conquered Hungary and areas around the Mediterranean, threatened the

Habsburg Empire, parts of North Africa, and the Persians. He also laid claim to the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. His government was strong enough that during his conquests, his territories were well protected. He also reconstructed the Ottoman laws successfully. In the East, he wasn’t known as Süleyman the Magnificent, but Süleyman the Lawgiver. Under his control, artistic activity expanded wide. They did calligraphies, manuscript paintings, textiles, ceramics, and tughras.

The Tughra of Süleyman was created in the 16th century. “Tughra” means handsign. Each Ottoman sultans had a unique tughra of their own that has his name and titles along with his father’s. They began using it in 1324. It appears on top of every firman (royal decree), on correspondence, papers, and coins. Tughras have arabesques (patterns of bold calligraphy) and foliate forms (figures that mimic leaves, plants, and flowers). Two calligraphers are needed to make a tughra. One to draw the initial outline and one to decorate it. They use an angled reed pen called a qalam which they cut themselves. The pen’s specific angle determines the style of writing. Süleyman’s tughra is so stylized that it blurs the line between writing and art. It balances vertical and horizontal directions. Every tughra have high shafts rising out of it and two ovals to the left containing the names of the ruler and his father. Historians believed that the shape represents thumb and middle finger: “handsign”.

ConclusionAn artist way of art can affect us deeply. Line, color, perspective, and representation differences do matter. Art differences might’ve come from cultural, religious, and intellectual differences.

2. Art and Violent DivisionArtists express their feelings of violence through art.

The Bayeux Tapestry c. late 11 th century After the Romans left England around 5th century AD, the Vikings and Saxons came. In 10th

century, a group of Vikings settled in North of France. They converted into Christianity, combined the native Latinate language with their Norse language to create Norman, and expanded their territory. In 1066, Harold Godwinson the Earl of Wessex was crowned King of England. Harald Hardraada and William Duke of Normandy wanted the throne. In spring 1066, Harald H. invaded north of England but lost. On 28th September 1066, the Normans landed in Sussex, England. As the English army marched south, the Normans built a castle in Hastings as headquarters. The armies met there in 14th October 1066. Harold G. and his two brothers died in the battle. Then the Witenagemot (a group of elite secular and ecclesiastic nobles) proclaimed Edgar (a noble) as the Atheling King. William fought his way to London until Edgar surrendered. On December 25th, the Archbishops of York crowned William as King of England.

No one really knows where the tapestry origin is. It was first mentioned in writing in 1476, in an inventory of the Bayeux Cathedral. It was lost for a long time then rediscovered in the 18th century. Historians assumed that Queen Matilda (William’s wife) embodied the cloth with some of the ladies-in-waiting. Recent scholars suggest that Bishop Odo (William’s half-brother) commissioned

the work for monks to do. In the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon took it and used it as inspiration to conquer England. Later, the Nazis took it. After World War II, the city of Bayeux built a museum for the tapestry. In 2007, UNESCO listed the cloth on it Memory of the World Register, a collection of internationally important documents and museum holdings.

The creator of the Bayeux Tapestry only used two embroidery stitches to fashion it: stem or outline stitch for the figure’s borders, and laid work or couching to fill them. It’s difficult to tell what is happening on the tapestry. It only uses a few colors. But the figures’ acts are clear and striking. The creators of the tapestry had managed to use soft materials (fabric and thread) to describe a harsh, gruesome war scene.

Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi c.1612Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654) lacked the formal training that a male artist would’ve

received, so she emulated her father’s paintings, the painter Orazio Gentileschi. Women hardly ever became professional painters at the time, but she changed all that with her successful career as portrait painter and her Biblical paintings. Her pictures have great narratives and beautiful surfaces. Many of them focus on women in the Bible. Art critics and feminist scholars suggest that it was from her teen experience. Her father’s colleague, Agostino Tassi raped her when she was only 17. He was brought to trial by Orazio after he refused to marry her. To avoid further scandal, she was married to a painter named Pietro Stiattesti. But ended after ten years when he deserted her. It actually let her free to develop international reputation. In 1616, she became the first woman to join the Accedemia del Disegno (the Academy of Drawing). In 1630, Gentileschi had established a workshop in Naples. She died sometimes after 1654, at the height of her renown. Shortly afterwards, her reputation became to decline. Until the 20th century did art historians and scholars begin to appreciate her art.

Judith Slaying Holofernes created in 1612 represents a scene from the Book of Judith. It centers on a military conflict between the Assyrians and the Israelites. In it, Judith an Israelite seduced an Assyrian general named Holofernes, gets him drunk, and then beheaded him with her servant’s help before carrying him back to his camp. An artist named Caravaggio also did an interpretation before her. He’s renowned for using dark and light, called chiaroscuro, to make his figures appear realistically. Gentileschi also used this technique. She made beheading look like hard work in the painting. Blood spurts from Holofernes’s neck while he’s struggling. The painting lacks almost any background detail with only a few colors. But what makes the painting powerful is the moral behind the story. It represents not only the division between armies, but also between men and women. Women didn’t have much power at the time. Many historians interpreted this work as her revenge on Tassi. The painting expresses that although men are physically more powerful; women also have powers that men don’t.

The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo c.1939Frida Kahlo often gives her birth year as 1910 instead of 1907. Because in 1910, the Mexican

Revolution started a rebellion against the President, Porfirio Díaz. Many people supported Fransisco Madero, Díaz’s opponent. They put Madero in office in 1911, but failed as a president. After 10 days of fighting, Victoriano Huerta wrested power from Madero. He also didn’t last long. Fighting continued, until the USA president at the time supported Venustiano Carranza to be president. After

Carranza assumed power, Mexico drew up the Constitution of 1917. He promised some good things, but the Constitution promised more. So the people of Mexico remained unsatisfied. Most historians mark 1920 as the Revolution’s end. Carranza was killed and a new president took place. But rebellion and resistance continued until 1934, when another president took office and the Constitution’s promises of reform begin to come to fruition.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was born to a German-Jewish father and a Mexican mother of Spanish and native decent. She got Polio at age 6, and a trolley car accident at age 18 that nearly killed her. She began painting after the accident. Her husband was the famous painter, Diego Rivera. They married in 1929, divorced in 1939, and remarried in 1940. Her paintings were inspired from her life’s experience as a wounded person. Mostly she paints self-portraits. Kahlo’s works incorporate Surrealism, but better understood as magical realism. Surrealism is workings of the painter’s subconscious mind. It tries to combine reality with the subconscious. Magical realism blurs the line between fact and fantasy, but a magical realism painting convinces viewers that fantasy is a normal part of life. Mexican art and Rivera’s paintings of Mexicanidad (combined images from Mexican culture with a bold, flattened style of painting) also influenced her art deeply. She even discarded her European clothes and wore Mexican clothes the rest of her life. She and Rivera are also devoted to communism in a big way. In later years, she sickened. Her leg was amputated in 1953 after it developed a gangrene. She died one year later. But her reputation still grows increasingly.

The Two Fridas created in 1939 represents Kahlo’s split between her European and Mexican roots. On the left of the painting is Kahlo in a European dress and on the left side is her in Mexican clothes. They’re joined by a circulatory system. Kahlo’s heart is ripped from her European and put in her Mexican. The European Frida holds a surgical clamp to stop the flow of blood through the vein, but the blood stains her dress. The Mexican Frida is holding a picture of Rivera. When she painted this, she was going through her divorce; it represents the division between her and Rivera at the time. The painting suggests that one woman can only survive. It expresses the pain of being ethnically ‘split’. The women hold hands but they’re separate. If one woman dies, so does the other. So the painting really shows a division that can’t be solved or mend, because it’s too innate.

The Third of May by Fransisco Goya c.1808Before Guernica, Spain was wrecked by Napoleon in the Peninsular War. His armies invaded

Spain in 1808. With the help of the UK, Spain resisted occupation. Small groups of civilian armies try to counter larger French armies. They’re called “guerillos”, meaning “little war”. The term adapted as “guerilla”; small, mobile combat units that ambush large national armies.

Fransisco Goya (1746-1828) was born in 1746 to a craftsman. He trained in his hometown of Saragossa before finishing his studies in Rome. He moved to Madrid and was elected to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1780. By 1785, he’d grown successful and was named deputy director of the academy. He also became a favored court painter to Spanish royalty. In 1972, Goya lost his hearing. He lost his royal patronage after the Peninsular War and started painting dark, nightmarish paintings. He died in 1828 in a self-imposed exile in France. Goya’s style of painting is like the bold emotional strokes of the Spanish Baroque artists. His famous painting was The Nude Maja painted in around 1800 of a naked woman. In Western art, nude paintings weren’t new, but the

Spanish government ordered him to clothe his subject. He refused, although he did paint a second version with clothes.

The Third of May created in 1808 shows the needlessness of war. In it, a group of French army is firing squad to the group of captured Spaniards. One Spaniard wears really bright clothes which draw our attention and it’s the only face expression we can see. Other faces are turning away or hidden. The scene takes place outside the city walls of Madrid. Goya uses chiaroscuro and dramatic lighting to emphasize the terror. But he doesn’t use it for perspective; The Third of May looks flat. But the flatness makes a sense of immediacy and incompleteness. It presents pure brutality. The contrast we can see is that the soldiers are standing really close together in a perfect line, unlike the Spaniards who are scrambled around. Goya refuses to glorify either side; none of them are heroes. Goya used his own techniques in the painting. Brushwork isn’t really skilful, colors are unimpressive, anatomical details are nonexistent. Great art comes from the artist’s interaction with us. So the painting shows division between empire and nation, large nation and small army, those in power and those not; the painting also divides itself from artistic tradition.

Cut with the DADA Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany by Hannah Höch c.1919

Photomontage is an artistic combination of disparate photos. The principle is to take media from various sources, then reassemble it to form an entirely new work of art.

At the end of World War I, Germany was left in a state of despair. People hated the Weimar Republic, in power from August 1919. Political violence tore Germany’s major cities. The new problem inspired artists to express the modern world without old forms of figural representation and realism. In Zurich 1916, Dada began to spread quickly across Europe. Dada artists rejected conventional depictions of reality and rebelled against the materialism and nationalism that seized the West after the war. They turned away from paintings and sculptures, and developed techniques of collage, photomontage, and the ready-made. Ready-made is a term made by Marcel Duchamp to describe his own process of taking random objects and combining them to form art.

Hannah Höch (1889-1978) lived through both World Wars. She studied glass design and graphic arts in Germany, skills that allowed her to work in advertising. She became involved with the Dada movement in 1919, even though many male Dadaists dismissed women’s contributions. Höch took photomontage to a new level by using mixed media and by attending carefully to construction and composition. She explored the surfaces of shapes and bodies. She focused on women and their interactions between men, relationship between art and non-art, and between peace and violence. Her work declined popularity after World War II but she continued exhibiting art until she died.

Cut with the DADA Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany created in 1919 looks like a confused jumble of magazine cutouts and full of bizarre associations; but tells a story. At the top are medias of women (one of them with her face cut out), wheels and gears, German politicians, and the words “die anti dada” which means “the anti dada”. At the bottom are medias of small figures, an animal, and mass of people that could represent workers and proletariat, map of European countries where women would or could soon be able to vote. The word dada is repeated several times. Dada erases the line between destruction and creation: destroying media to create artwork. The clear division it represents is between art and “non-art”, or art and “craft”.

Hagia Sophia c.360 ADA beautiful sanctuary can also be a work of art. Emperor Constantius commissioned to build

the Hagia Sophia in 360 AD. Over the centuries it was destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again until in 532, Emperor Justinian ordered it rebuilt and kept safe. When finished, it was the largest cathedral in Europe. By the end of the first millennium, the churches of Rome (Roman) and Constantinople (Eastern) had risen to the top. They fought over differences and practice, but they were just as much about power. By 1054, a delegation from Rome stormed into Hagia Sophia and announced that they’re kicking out the leader of the Eastern Church. The Patriarch of the Eastern Church stopped communicating the head of the Roman Church. This split is called the Great Schism and lasted for almost a thousand years. In 1204, knights of the Four Crusade (Western European or Roman knights) sacked and vandalized Hagia Sophia, leaving it in a state of disrepair. A few centuries later, the Roman Christians got their comeuppance. Mehmed II led his Ottoman forces to victory over the city in 1453. The Hagia Sophia was turned into the mosque Ayasofya Camii.

The Hagia Sophia, created in 360 AD, is located in Istanbul, Turkey. Justinian’s architects were Anthemios of Tralles and Isidores of Miletos. The cathedral’s most impressive feature is its soaring dome or naos. Isidore designed the dome. A system of arches and semi-domes supports the dome, thanks to an architectural element called pendentive. They are triangular segments of a sphere; they narrow to points at the bottom and spread at the top to support the dome’s base. But the structure wasn’t very stable so it collapsed in 558 after an earthquake. Isidore’s nephew, Isidorus, rebuilt the dome even taller. Mehmed II’s architect, Sinan, strengthens the structure and built two large minarets (narrow towers with balconies) where the imams would call for prayer. Two more were added later on, along with a mihrab (a niche in a mosque’s wall that point towards the holy city of Mecca). They also added a minbar (a pulpit for the imam’s sermons). Muslim redecorators spread whitewash over the Christian mosaics and covered them with calligraphy and other Muslim arts. It remained a mosque until 1936, when the Turkish state turned it into a museum. Restoration teams began to uncover some of the Christian mosaics. But removing the whitewash destroys the Islamic art that’s covering it. In a sense, Hagia Sophia is like a collage, because it combines Islamic art and Christian traditions literally on top of each other. Hagia Sophia was caught between the division of the East and West, and religions. Now, it’s caught in another division between the religious and secular (a lot of people want the government to rededicate the building as a religious site).

3. Non-Violent Division in ArtNot every division means violence conflict. But some non-violent divisions can turn into real violence.

The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz c.1907In the 20th century, 9 million people immigrated to the USA. The Americans were afraid that

they would take their jobs and make unwelcome cultural changes. Immigrants needed to be asked questions first. People who are unlikely to find work or came with contagious diseases were returned back. In America, the gap between the rich and poor widened. There were lots of conflicts.

Alfred Stieglitz was born in New Jersey in 1864. His father supported his desire to be a photographer. Then his family moved to Germany. In college, he studied photochemistry. His photos

were based on “straight” photography. So the truth can be seen. He avoided manipulating his photos. In 1891, he returned to New York and bought a photography business. He used hand-held cameras and larger tripod cameras. In 1896, he created the Camera Club of New York and published his photography theories. Eventually, he parted with the club and founded the Photo-Secession group, borrowing the name from a group of European artists who were known for pictorial photography, which sought to emulate painting and etching, emphasizing the artistic nature of photography. He took pictorial photography a step further by exhibiting paintings alongside his photos. Many of the exhibitions took place in his art gallery 291. In 1924, he separated with his wife and married Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986). Her works influenced his photographs.

The Steerage was taken in 1907 when Stieglitz and his family were sailing first class on a transatlantic steamer. He used a hand-held camera that used glass plate negative, and only had one left. So he only had one shot. It captures the activity of two crowded decks of working class passengers who had failed the immigration test and were being sent back to Germany. One of the divisions is the contrast between the crowded decks and empty walkways and ladders. Another division separates detail from abstraction. The foreground seems more detail than the background, because of the camera’s focus. The photo itself is a conflict between historians. Where was he standing? A big division separates the rich and poor. The Steerage reveals the idea that “straight” photography can reveal truths about people.

After the Marriage by William Hogarth c.1743Up until the 20th century, marriages among the upper classes of Western Europe took place

between the families, not individuals. Young girls especially weren’t aloud of spending time alone with young men. They could approve or disapprove of suitors but couldn’t choose themselves. In the 18th century, merchants became richer and the aristocrats began to bankrupt. Their solution was marriage of convenience. Daughters of rich merchants would marry son of bankrupt aristocrats. The son would get money and the daughter would get titles and social influence. Companionate marriage opposed to marriage of convenience. They were marriage of matching husbands and wives who were able to provide companionship and a stable home for children. But at the time, this kind of marriage was still an ideal, not reality.

William Hogarth was born in 1697 and apprenticed to an engraver (craftsman who drew designs on wood or metal and then used them to print paper copies for a mass market). Those skills allowed him to reach a wider audience. He took mass production a step further by pioneering sequential art, installments of prints on a common theme. By 1720, he was an independent and popular engraver and painter. His works expresses morals. Hogarth’s style borrows from the 17th century Dutch genre painters who create rich detail of middle-class interiors (kitchen, workroom, etc.). He also draws from a lower class form: satirical broadsheets (scandalous newspapers like olden-day tabloids). His works satirize either the upper class or lower class, offering the middle class as a satiric norm. He offers moral uprightness and hard work as worthy alternatives.

After the Marriage or The Tête á Tête painted in 1743 shows the consequences of marriage convenience. It’s the 2nd series of six paintings titled Marriage à la Mode (Fashionable Marriage). It’s about the son of an aristocrat marries the daughter of a wealthy merchant. The son visit prostitutes and contracts a disease. The wife takes a lover, who later kills the husband. The lover is then hanged

and the wife kills herself. The painting takes place in the morning before the tragic night. The husband just returned home from somewhere; we can see a woman’s cap trailing out of his pocket. Everything about the house is messy. The man who manages their finance is in disrepair. The servant is stressed and crooked, attempting to clean the house. The division is between the husband and wife. They didn’t have anything to talk or to do together. It’s also a division between the social classes. So marriage convenience isn’t a really good thing, because this marriage is doomed.

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore GéricaultThe French Revolution began in 1789 and divided the French society into three parts called

Estates. The Third Estate was workers and middle-class. The First and Second Estates were wealthy, noble, aristocrats. Under Louis XVI and his wife, the French Monarchy began to bankrupt. So they demanded taxes from the Third Estate that the aristocracy refused to pay. The Third Estate had enough. At first, the Revolution was fairly peaceful. By 1793, the Jacobin government begun to execute anyone suspected being counter-Revolutionary. Eventually, the Girondin faction gained control. After a coup in 1798, Napoleon I gained power, and the rest is history. Historians squabble about what caused the French Revolution. But it was something that has to do with a basic inequality between the poor and rich.

Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) was born in Rouen, France. In 1808, he studied with two Neoclassical artists but didn’t like their style. In 1811, he left them to spend the next few years copying artworks in the Musée Napoleon, now called the Louvre. In 1812, he exhibited a horse painting at the Salon (France’s government-sponsored art exhibitions) but never felt appreciated. After spending time in Italy, he moved to the French countryside and became interested in sketching the mad, murderous, and the dead. Géricault returned to Paris in 1822, and died in 1824. His body work is diverse, but his style is bold, compelling, and radical.

The Raft of the Medusa painted in 1818-1819 represents a revolutionary idea, a sense of reaching upwards. It portrays an actual shipwreck caused by a government-appointed captain. Only 15 people survived, and some of them were the lower-class passengers who were told to boat the unseaworthy raft while the captain and wealthy passengers sat in a lifeboat. The painting exemplifies Géricault’s still for composition. The painted death is gruesome. The survivors are piled like a pyramid and corpses are everywhere. Waves rushed. Viewers are tempted to turn away from the painting, which is what Géricault wants. He forces us to look at the ugliness of class division. The painting itself is an artistic division. He didn’t use the Neoclassical style which was popular at the time. He inaugurated a new style: Romanticism. It privileges individual experience, emotion and imagination, and dramatic use of color in painting. He used contrast colors and turbulent shapes to sympathies the victims and emotion in the viewers.

The Slave Ship by J.M.W. Turner c.1840Turner’s inspiration for the painting was the Zong Massacre. In 1781, the slave ship called

Zong set sail from Africa to Jamaica. The ship were overcrowded and understocked with drinking water. Many of the slaves sickened and began to die. So the captain made a horrific decision to throw the Africans overboard. Because they could get paid for insures if their “cargo” drowned at sea. They threw 122 people and 10 crews threw themselves overboard as a sign of protest at the captain. When the ship arrived in Jamaica, the captain asked for his insurance money, he said he

needed to throw the slaves overboard because they didn’t have enough water for everybody to stay alive. But the ship’s first mate reported that they still had 420 gallons of water. So the ship owners lost their case. But the event that happened wasn’t recognized as a murder because at the time, slave owners could kill their slave. It was only called a massacre until decades later.

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in 1775. He studied as an architectural craftsman and enrolled in the school Royal Academy in 1789 in London. He drew landscape paintings. In 1796, he began to exhibit oil paintings which ranked higher than watercolors (which he favored). He saw his work coming from Poussin, a Baroque painter. Turner also saw himself as a man of linear perspective. Lots of his paintings use light and brilliant color. In later years, he would saturate his paper with large areas of wet paint and then build the final image in gradual layers. He was interested in humanity and nature, and ancient and modern. But he hated to sell his work. He left his paintings to the Tate Gallery in London.

The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying-Typhoon Coming On) painted in 1840 creates a dramatic impression with its colors. It shows the contrast between the inhumanity of the slavers and the humanity of the slaves which are drowning. The close-up of the victims encourages us to sympathize with them. The ship is far away in the distance and the victims are in the foreground. So our emotion stays with the slaves. Turner also shows division between nature and society. He shows the drowning slaves as part of the ocean. He glorifies their struggle. But the ship is even no match with the ocean. The Slave Ship paints slavery as a crime against nature, and nature itself will punish the offenders. The painting wins sympathy for the victims from the viewers. Even he himself is a white man; but he shows that sympathy for others is the right side to be on.

Man at the Crossroads by Diego Rivera c.1934In the early 1930s, both Mexico and the USA were at the crossroads. The Rockefellers were

one of the wealthiest families in USA. When Nelson Rockefeller wanted a mural for their Rockefeller Center, he chose Picasso and Henri Matisse. But in the end, he chose Diego Rivera. Rockefeller commissioned Rivera to paint on this theme:”Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future”. Rockefeller’s grandfather built his oil company around capitalism, while Rivera is devoted to communism, which are enemies. So when Rivera began to paint a mural full of communist imagery, the family was horrified. So in the end he was ordered to stop working on the mural. In May 22th 1933, they cover the mural with a large drape and in early in 1934, they smashed the mural to pieces. Luckily before it was destroyed, Rivera’s assistant took photos of the mural. Rivera used them to paint a smaller version in Mexico City. The mural was called “Man, Controller of the Universe”.

Diego Rivera was born in 1886. He studied in Mexico City and later in Europe. When he returned to Mexico in 1921, he began working with the government on a mural program, and it and Rivera became part of a movement known as Mexican Muralismo. His style of art is Mexican. He also drew from inspirations of the Mayan steles, carved standing stones. He joined the Communist Party after his return from Europe. His art was publicly political. But eventually his politics became too radical. Even the Mexican Communist Party expelled him. For the rest he accumulated on important commissions and negative publicity.

Man, Controller of the Universe created in 1934 was kind of like a collage, even though it’s a painting. It doesn’t tell a story but portrays concept. At the centre of the painting is the man of the title. Two ovals are slanting up to his right and left. The left one is full of cells and particles and the right one is full of planets and stars. There’s one statue of maybe, a Christian God, and one statue symbol of the Nazi party. Two armies clash at the top. One wearing masks and has bombs and the other is workers in protest as part of worldwide May communist celebrations. There’s an audience, Charles Darwin, Lenin, people holding banner of communism, and lots more. Also beneath them all Rivera drew plants that sustains our agricultural needs. The mural has no perspective, suggesting that technology has made everything equally visible to man. The divisions are between communism and capitalism, technology divisions, between religious and scientific, and religion and nationalism. The man in the center represents the whole humanity.

Mao Zedong Bust by Huang Yan c.2006Mao Zedong (1893-1976) led the Republic of China from 1949 until his death. Depending on

who you ask, he either saved or destroyed China. He was a communist. He intentioned to develop China into a communist country, but that threatened to destroy Chinese traditions and killed millions of people. He defeated the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek (1887-1975) in the Chinese Civil War. Mao supported the working class to things that has led to China’s inequality. He had lots of followers. Under his control, China’s literacy rate, life expectancy, and population increased. He also improved the laws of rights for women. But despite all this, some historians still claims that he was a power-hungry dictator. They said that he planned poor education camps which led to protests. He recruited artists to produce propaganda that was accessible for a wide audience.

Huang Yan was born in 1966 and still lives today. He works in paint, marble, photography, and with his body as a performance artist. His works combines Chinese landscape with art traditions around the globe. He has his own gallery, the Must Be Contemporary Art and teaches visual arts.

Mao Zedong Bust created in 2006 was made out of porcelain. It combines Chinese landscape paintings and Western tradition of sculptures. The bust emphasizes Mao’s personality as a communist to the extent of an emperor. Landscape painting doesn’t focus on an object or person, unlike propaganda paintings. Huang had painted landscape painting on Mao’s bust. So he prints exactly the kind of art that Mao hated on his bust, which is ironic and rebellious. Does he strive for unity or division? These kinds of art are spreading worldwide. The porcelain is very traditional Chinese. Western artists try to do bust with porcelain but they never end up as good. Huang applied a traditional object onto a modern subject: a communist leader. Chinese artists have gained reputation worldwide because of its relax rules of art. This bust gives a hidden message that no one really can comprehend.

ConclusionArt addressed various types of divisions. They can be non-violence, or can explode and become horrifying. They can address them loudly, or in a hush.

4. War Monuments and Memorials

War monuments and memorials commemorate battles and honor soldiers. They do so with different techniques and styles. But unlike painting or sculpture, architecture has lots of functions: it holds people, inspires them to worship, directs traffic, or indicate the boundaries of a city.

The Arc de Triomphe (1806-1836)The memorial stands in Paris. It forms part of the L’Axe Historique, a series of monuments that stretches from the Louvre to the edge of Paris. In 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) commissioned to build the arch to celebrate his victory in what’s now the Czech Republic. But he was finally defeated at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. The arch was only one of his imperial building projects, but the central one. The construction of the arch was interrupted by several battles but finished in 1836 under the Bourbon Restoration.

Tugu Negara (1966)In Malay, the “Tugu Negara” means “National Monument”. It’s located in Kuala Lumpur. It commemorates Malaysia’s struggle against Japanese occupation during World War II and the Malayan Emergency - a civil war between the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the Malayan Communist Party, and the British Army. The MNLA used guerilla tactics against the British Army. They lost steam when Britain withdrew from Malaysia in 1957. Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj became the first prime minister and in 1960 the emergency was declared to an end. In 1963, Al-Haj commissioned the Tugu Negara from Austrian sculptor Felix de Weldon (1097-2003). The work finished in February 1966.

The Motherland Calls (1967)It’s a GIANT statue commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad in Volgograd, Russia. The statue, designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich and engineered by Nikolai Nikitin, was the tallest in the world when it was dedicated in 1967. It stands in the middle of a large complex of memorials on Mamaev Kurgan, the center of the battle. The battle took place between 17th July 1942 and 2nd February 1943 between the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. Germany’s campaign to invade the Soviet Union commenced in June of 1941. But the Germans were defeated.

Vietnam War Memorial (1982)It was dedicated to the USA’s casualties of the Vietnam War. The wall stands in Washington, DC. A nearby statue commemorates the women. The Vietnam War was a conflict that lasted from 1959-1975 between the communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Beginning in 1964, the USA supported South Vietnam. The untrained American army and the guerilla warfare of the South Vietnamese communists complicated the conflict. The USA was responsible for many civilian casualties. The USA army was pulled back in 1973. The Vietnam War is controversial. An American artist named Maya Lin won the competition to design the memorial in 1981. But many people wished the memorial to take a more overt political statement.

India Gate (1921-1931)

It commemorates the casualties of the Afghan Wars and World War I. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and completed in 1931. On its surface are names of the soldiers lost in the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919. Beneath it is the Amar Jawan Jyoti “flame of the eternal warrior”. The British East India Company began doing business in India in 1856. After India’s First War of Independence, the “Sepoy Mutiny”, the British seized control and ruled India until 1947. During their occupation, the British fought 3 wars with Afghanistan. The irony of the India Gate is that colonizers constructed it and it commemorates a colonizer’s war. But India has claimed it as its own.