short films blog-Matisse/Picasso, Surrealism, Expressionism, Cubism

1. Explain why you selected each of the FOUR videos you choose from the selection listed above.

I chose each of these four videos because they interested me when I read about the main topics in our chapter readings and I wanted to learn some more about each.  I have seen some of Matisse and Picasso's works and enjoyed them.  I read about Surrealism, Expressionism, and Cubism is our readings and thought seeing a video about each would be a good idea.

2. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.

Matisse and Picasso broke away from tradition.  Matisse was rational, deliberate, and really French in his thoughts.  Picasso really showed himself in his paintings and was very impulsive.  Picasso was at the forefront of Cubism.  The inspiration for much of Matisse's works was Paris. As these two artists moved later into their lives, Matisse traveled the world not staying in the same location, while Picasso did not travel.

Surrealism had opened new windows for artistic creation by striving to look past the reasoning process and tap directly into the unconscious mind.  Through collage, Schwitter's sees the unlimited possibilities with nonsense everywhere.  He also includes many different types of objects in his art.  Artists such as Hoch used art to protest against the society she doesn't agree with.  Her work, "Cut with the Kitchen Knife" made a monumental political statement.  Later in this video, we saw Salvador Dali, who is a surrealist painter, tamper with the most dark regions of the human subconscious.  He makes up a world where nothing really makes sense.

Expressionism emphasizes the emotional properties of color while demonstrating way less concern than the Fauves had with formal and structural composition of color.  In Edward Munich's "Ashes", he depicts Adam and Eve in the period after their fall from grace.  The forms are all strongly simplified.  He created this visual equivalent of his inner emotional experience.    The 1892 Berlin exhibition of his work caused a huge outrage and was closed.  He later translated his work into other media such as lithography.

Cubism was the most influential style of the early 20th century.  This style offered European artists unfamiliar, nonclassical ways to show form and space.  I liked Marcel Duchamp's "Sad Young Man on a Train."  This experimental approach he took represented movement of a figure evolving in space and time.  Through using dark/small angles, the elasticity of the figure is achieved.    Umberto Boccioni's Cubism represents movement as a visual phenomenon, color and line connect figures and the environment to create powerful moods and settings to reveal personal values and visual complexity.  Boccioni's "Farewells" is a great vision of modern city life shown in many moods.

2. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text?

These videos all relate directly to the text.  Works shown in our readings show the different types of art that we see in these short films.  

3. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the readings and art concepts?

These short films gave me a better understanding of each topic and I was able to pick up a few things as well.  I saw a few works I had never seen before and learned more about Cubism than I had in the readings.  Overall, I enjoyed these films.