HY/AS3240 Making America Modern

A/P Ian Gordon
AS1/05-40

Lecture 8
Cultural Modernism II: American Artists and the shifting scene
Outline

Key Content:

Reading:
David Bjelajac, American Art: A Cultural History (New York: Harry Abrams, 2001), Chapter 7, 285-327.

I. Introduction  

II. Before 1900

1. Hudson River School

Hudson River school: group of American landscape painters, working from 1825 to 1875. Influenced by European Romanticism's attitude toward nature.

Cole, Thomas: 1801–48, American painter; b. England. He specialised in painting the spectacular scenery of New York state, Other works are neoclassical in style.

Bierstadt, Albert, 1830–1902, American painter; b. Germany. He journeyed to the West (1859) and is best known for his immense canvases emphasising the drama of western scenery.

 

2. Other Romanticists

Leutze, Emanuel: 1816-1868

Bingham, George Caleb: 1811–79, American painter and politician; b. Augusta co., Va. His vigorous genre scenes accurately picture their time and locale.

Erastus Salisbury Field: 1805-1900

Inness, George: 1825–94,  b. Newburgh, N.Y. His early work is in the manner of the Hudson River School.

Homer, Winslow: 1836–1910,  b. Boston.

 

3. Genre and Portrait

Johnson, Eastman: 1824-1906. He is best known for his many genre paintings. He also painted portraits.

Eakins, Thomas: 1844–1916, American painter, photographer, and sculptor; b. Philadelphia. Eakins is considered the foremost American portraitist and one of the greatest 19th-cent. artists.

 

III. The Eight

Eight, the: group of American artists in New York City, formed in 1908 to exhibit paintings.

Sloan, John, 1871–1951,
Hairdresser's Window

 

IV. The Armory Show 1913

Duchamp, Marcel, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912)

 

V. Precisionism

Demuth, Charles: 1883–1935,
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold

O'Keeffe, Georgia: 1887–1986,
Light Coming on the Plains III

Sheeler, Charles: 1883–1965,
Upper Deck; An American Landscape; New York, Towards the Woolworth Building

 

VI. American Scene Painters

American Scene Painters: Circa 1930s. Rejected European modernism and attempted to create an American style.

Hopper, Edward:1882–1967
Early Sunday Morning
 

VII. Towards Abstraction

Davis, Stuart (1894-1964)
 

VIII. Abstract Expressionism

Gorky, Arshile  (1904-1948)

Pollock, Jackson (1912-1956)

Rothko, Mark  (1903-1970)

Newman, Barnett  (1905-1970)
 

IX. Conclusion

POWERPOINT

 
A/P Ian Gordon History American Studies NUS
Copyright © 2003   e-mail: <hisilg at nus.edu.sg>