Exploring Printmaking and Early Art Movements

Everybody, welcome back to module six. This lecture is going to be about printmaking and early 20th century art. This one will only be one part and it shouldn't be terribly long, so get a little bit of a break from lectures for this one module. So we're going to start with talking about printmaking. So prints are made by an artist or under an artist's supervision. Some artists just create the plate and then someone else actually prints it. Sometimes the artist creates the plate and prints the item. So usually whoever is printing it is not credited as one of the makers. It's whoever actually designs the plate. So prints are usually made in editions. So this means that the artist will have a set number that they plan to print. And then after that number is made, the plate is either destroyed or stored somewhere not to be printed again. So this is usually denoted as a fraction. So it'll be, it'll have a number out of however many. So for prints, you're going to have some kind of substrate. Usually it's paper, but it doesn't have to be. You're going to have the plate, which is where image is going to be stored, and then when you put the paper and plate together, you get the image transferred onto the plate or onto the paper. Ink is usually how we do this, some form of ink. So there are different types of printing. So we're going to start with talking about relief printing. So relief prints are any prints made from the raised portion of a plate. So as you can see in the diagram, the ink sits on the raised portions and that's what's going to transfer to the paper. A relief plate can be wood, metal, linoleum, stone, whatever you can carve into. Some people will make relief prints using potatoes. They'll cut a potato, carve away what they don't want to show. Whatever's raised is what we'll show. Dip it in ink and use it as a stamp. So ink is spread onto the plate and then the image is stamped onto the paper from there. That can be like if you're using some kind of stamp with like an ink pad. If you're using a printing press it's usually done with some type of roller. There are different types of relief prints. So first one we're going to talk about is woodcut. So this is Hans Baldung's The Witches. It was printed printed in about 1510. And so this one's on paper. So this print is an example of German chiaroscuro and is one of Baudin's best known works. So remember we've talked about chiaroscuro before. We have the really light lights and the really dark darks in behind. Baldurin worked alongside Durr, who we've talked about before, but he's credited as one of the first to work in a woodcut chiaroscuro style. So he's credited to be one of the first to have that really dark background with the really bright highlights in the front. So this scene depicts three witches around a cauldron spelling themselves to fly. The interest in witchcraft in the German-speaking countries was especially strong at the beginning of the 16th century, heralded by the publication in 1487 of the Malleus Maleficarium, or the Witch's Hammer, by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Springer. It was reprinted around... 14 times before 1520. So it was very popular during this period. So going back to the printmaking process, wood cuts are usually made using a relatively soft wood. The image is carved into the wood and then the positive spaces, which are the ones left raised, and then the negative spaces are carved away. So What's really happening is all the black is a raised portion of the plate. All the white is carved down into the plate. Woodcuts were used for some of the very first prints, but they're actually not the most effective printing process. Because of the softness of the wood, the plate or wood block It deteriorates over time. Basically, the pressure of the printmaking process beats down the raised areas of the wood until the image no longer remains, or you're not going to have sharp lines at the very least. Next, we have wood engraving. This one is by Edward Calvert. It's called The Brook, and it was created in 1829. So wood engraving was quickly adapted to solve the issue of wood block deterioration. With wood engraving, the image is carved into the end grain of a denser wood. So the end grain is going to be the part of wood, like if you are looking at a tree, it's going to be the part where you see the rings of the tree. Whereas before it would usually be like more like if you have like a plank of wood. So with this method the plate still deteriorates over time but it lasts a lot longer so you can get more prints from it. So this specific print shows a classically inspired scene. It was originally meant to have a Christian meaning but the caption was later removed by the artist. So the original caption read, the waters of this brook shall never fail to the married wife of the Lord God. So next we have linocut. Linocuts use the same process of carving away as the other techniques. The difference is that the artist uses a linoleum plate instead of a wood block. The linoleum is soft enough to carve away easily but is durable enough to not deteriorate under the pressure of printing. So this is Elizabeth Catlett's sharecropper created in 1952. Catlett once said that the purpose of her work was to, quote, present black people in their beauty and dignity for ourselves and others to understand and enjoy, end quote. Sharecropper calls attention to the tribulations of tenant farming, a system in which rent for the land is paid by the farmer with a part of the crop, creating an impossible-to-escape cycle of debt, while also offering a heroic portrait of an anonymous woman. Next we have intaglio printing. This is different from relief printing. With intaglio printing, the ink is placed in the dug out portions or the recessed portions of the printing plate. What you carve away will be what will be black. The ink is spread over, it stinks down into those crevices, then when you print that what's in the crevice comes onto the paper. So there are different types of intaglio printing as well. So first let's start with engraving. Engraving is an intaglio printmaking process in which grooves are cut into a metal or wood surface with a sharp cutting tool called a burrin or graver. So we're going to use a burrin for this one. We're going to dig out those and it's either going to be on metal or wood. So this print is Martin Schongauer's Christ Carrying the Cross. It was printed in 1475 to 1480. It's an example of an engraving. This is known as Schongauer's largest print at 11 3 8 by 16 7 8 inches. As the title suggests, it depicts Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha. The artist created a variety of tones by controlling the density of hatching in this work. With engraving, only thin lines can be carved and they're all black regardless of the depth of the carve. So in order to create gradations of black and white, artists must use hatching. So with relief printing, sometimes you can get like a lighter shade if you Depending on how you carve the image, you can also sort of selectively color parts of the image before printing to get some gray areas. But with etching or yes with engraving, what's carved in is going to be black. That's where the black, it's going to be black ink. Whatever color ink you use is going to sit in that groove. So little tiny lines are used and we have a lot of hatching that's used. Next we have dry point. So dry point is an intaglio printmaking process in which lines are scratched directly into a metal plate with a steel needle. The scratch raises a ridge or burr that takes the ink. So this is Edward Thomas Daniels' Sir Lyngham Ferry. So it was printed around 1842. So with dry point, you're going to have sort of this rough edge to a lot of the lines. Technically, it's either going to be an etching or an engraving, but you're still going to get that sort of rough bit. A lot of times dry point is combined with other forms of intaglio printing. So this one, a lot of the print is an etch, which we're going to talk about next, and then details were sort of added in with that dry point process. Next we have etching. Etching is an intaglio printmaking process in which a metal plate is first coated with acid resistant wax or varnish, then scratched to expose the metal, and then you soak it in nitric acid. And the lines, so what you carve away is where your lines will be. So you soak it in nitric acid, then your resist, which is your wax or varnish, comes off. and you have your lines. So you're using an acid process to make your lines instead of actually carving them yourself. So this print, which is a self-portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn, is an example of that. It was created about 1648. He also uses dry point in this one. So as was beginning to happen at this time we have a self-portrait. He's not idealized in this portrait and he uses multiple printmaking processes so he uses etching and dry point. So again, we have a lot of use of hatching. We're almost always going to have hatching in printmaking, depending on the process. So usually that can be one of your sort of tells if it's a print or not. An exception to this is going to be aquatint. So aquatint is usually not going to have hatching. This is an intaglio printmaking process. Value areas instead of lines are etched on a printing plate. So powdered resin is sprinkled on the plate which is then immersed in an acid bath. The acid bites around the resin particles creating a rough surface that holds ink. So what you want to be your flat plane of color will be where you put those resin particles. Then once it's put in the acid it's going to have that rough texture and those flat planes of color So this print the bath by America sought Create around 1890 to 91 is going to be an example of that So the yellow would be aqua tint the blue Sort of this greenish blue in the water that'll all be aqua tint So this print was actually created using two plates. One plate held the lines and then another one held the color. The lines were actually created using drypoint and then the color was added with aqua tint. So some prints, especially if they have color, are made up with multiple plates. A lot of times Artists will use, especially if they know they're going to have a certain addition, they'll use the plate to do all their black. All of a color, they'll carve away more, do another color, carve away more, do another color. Sometimes it ends up being multiple plates being printed to fill in color. So this one is multiple plates. Next we have lithography. So lithography is neither intaglio or relief printing. It is its own thing. Lithography is a printmaking technique based on the antipathy of oil and water. So oil and water do not mix. The image is drawn with a grease crayon or painted with a substance called touche, which is an oil sort of... oily sticky substance. The image is drawn on a stone or grained aluminum plate. Then the surface is chemically treated and dampened so it'll accept ink only where the crayon and touche were used. So this example is Gargantua by Daumier. It was created around 1831. Daumier was known for his caricatures, especially political cartoons, published independently and in newspapers. So this image is meant to make fun of the rulers of the day, taking more than they need from the common people. It's sort of meant as a political cartoon against the ruling class. So it's one of those sort of feed the beast ideas, feed the government. So he's taking food in and pooping out policies. on his throne. So this was another Domiere. This one is actually the example that's in your textbook. So it depicts a man that was in an apartment building where everyone was unjustly murdered because one person might have been part of a rebellion against the French rulers. This was published in the newspapers the morning after the event. So lithography can be printed very quickly since depending on the speed of the artist's drawing it doesn't take as long as some of the other prints do. We also have another example of lithography is Moulin Rouge Le Goulier. It was created in 1891 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec was well known for his posters, which this is an example of, and this print was made using four colors all printed using different blocks. So we had four different printing blocks. that lined up to make this image. This poster would have hung outside of the dance hall in which it was created for to draw people in, so it's an ad. And our last printing process is screen printing. It's also our newest form of printing. Screen printing is a technique in which stencils or light sensitive resist are applied to a fabric stretched across a frame. Paint or ink is then forced through the unblocked portions of the screen onto paper or another surface beneath. So in this example by Andy Warhol he uses ink but you can do screen printing t-shirts and usually it's some type of paint. I think it's still called ink, but it's a thicker material than what you typically think of when you think ink. Andy Warhol often used silkscreen as a medium in his images, so this image of Marilyn Monroe was accompanied by several other like images, all printed a little bit differently and with different colors. So we're not going to go over typography and logos. Those are included in your textbook, but they're not really important enough for us to go over in class. If you want more information about that, check it out in your textbook. So next we're going to talk about the early 20th century. So we're going to start with Fauvism. So Fauvism is a style of painting that was introduced in Paris in the early 20th century. It's characterized by areas of bright contrasting color and simplified shapes. So this is Henri Matisse's Woman with a Hat. painted in 1905. Matisse was one of the leading artists of Fauvism. The Fauves used simplification and bright color in order to display an enthusiasm for life. So, in this painting we can see how Matisse looked back to the post-impressionist styles of Van Gogh and Gauguin. We have that selective use of color, these bright sort of patches of color. The painting is laid on very thick. You can see the all the brush strokes. This painting is actually a depiction of Matisse's wife, Amélie. Obviously, it's not very realistic or idealistic. So it's a little bit of an abstraction. It wouldn't be full abstraction, but it's a little bit of abstraction. Obviously, people's faces are not green. Next we have Expressionism. So expressionism refers to individual and group styles originating in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It's characterized by bold execution and free use of distortion and symbolic inverted color. So expressionists wanted to express experience or emotion over objective depiction. So you're not depicting a thing, you're expressing a thought or an emotion or an experience. So here we have Wassily Kandinsky's Composition 7, and it was created in 1913. So Kandinsky often named his works composition as a way of relating it to musical creation. The listener of music doesn't just hear the music, they feel the music. So this is what he wanted his works of art to be like. You don't just view it, you feel it. So expressionism, you're expressing an emotion. It's meant to make the viewer feel something in return. Next we have cubism, which is actually one of the most popular. Today, one of our most well-known works of art from this period of time, or art styles from this period of time, is cubism. Cubism was an art style developed in Paris by Picasso and Braque. It began in 1908 and was based on the simultaneous presentation of multiple views, disintegration, and geometric reconstructions of subject in flattened ambiguous pictorial space. So that's a lot of big words. Basically, that means that they would look at an object or a scene and then break it down into flat planes. So we get sort of the idea. The term cubism sort of comes from that idea of if you broke it down into a bunch of cubes and then you painted it onto a flat surface, what would that look like? So this is an example by Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso. It's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. It's painted in 1907. So Picasso not only looked to the post-impressionist for inspiration, but also looked to art of the past and non-western art. So the faces of figures are actually modeled after African masks. There's some that you can tell more so than others. So we sort of have those lined ridges, that flat plane on the nose, even with some of the coloring that's going on. So we're getting that post-impressionist use of color. We're getting these sort of flat planes happening, this breakdown of space. Next we have Georges Braque. This is the Portuguese. It was created in 1911. So Braque came up with a lot of the terminology for cubism. This particular work by Braque inspired a lot of other cubist works by other artists. So remember Marcel Duchamp's, oh I don't have an example, but we talked about Marcel Duchamp's New Descending a Staircase. He was inspired by the cubists, including this work by Braque. So we have these sort of breakdowns of space. This is abstraction. You can't always tell exactly what it was originally. So now we're going to talk a little bit about America. So art in America during this period of time is very, maybe not very different, but we have different things happening in America and Europe. At this period of time, we did not have airplane travel. At least it wasn't widely used. So a lot of people had to come via ship. Across the ocean from Europe into America. Or back from America into Europe. This wasn't affordable to everyone. It was a dangerous journey. Even during this period of time. And so a lot of people just didn't do it. Especially artists. Also you have environmental things. Like humidity. Temperature changes. Etc. That aren't great for transporting art. Across the ocean. So we don't have a lot of Americans viewing European art and vice versa. So different things are happening in America. They're not necessarily influenced by Europe. There are some influences, but it's not going to be in the same way that European art is going to be influencing itself. So, we talk about America different than we talk about Europe, especially at this period. So, early modern art did not really take root in America until after the Armory Show of 1913. So, this was a display of different kinds of modern art being created in Europe. Many Americans had never viewed such works before because works like this were not being created in the U.S. Works like these had never been displayed in the U.S. And many American artists and middle class had never traveled to Europe. Thus, they did not have access to this type of art before. So the Armory Show of 1913 brought in that modern art influence to American artists from Europe. So that's what we're going to talk about now. So first we're going to talk about Georgia O'Keeffe. This is her Jack in the Pool Pit number four. It was painted in 1930. So O'Keeffe created these intimate images of nature. Many of her images were so zoomed in on an object or scene that they appear abstract. She was influenced by the bright and flat use of color that we see in modern works of art by artists like Gauguin and Matisse. This painting is a super close-up scene of a jack-in-the-pulpit flower. Well, I thought I had another example, but it's not there. Frank Lloyd Wright is another artist that was influenced by the Armory Show. He took inspiration from the show and European art and applied it to architecture. So, we've talked extensively about Frank Lloyd Wright in past lectures. It's okay that we don't have an example of his in this, but he saw a lot of outside influences. By outside influences, I mean non-American influences. Brought them into America and displayed them, created them, made something new from them for American architecture. So next we have futurism. Futurism was a group movement originating in Italy in 1909 that celebrated both natural and mechanical motion and speed. So futurism is all about movement. So this is Umberto Bocchioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, made in 1913. The mold was made in 1913. It was actually cast in bronze in 1950. So in this work, Bocchioni created a sense of motion even with a still figure. So we see tendrils of the figure pulling behind as the figure appears to step forward in space. It's as if the muscle fibers or clothing are actively in motion around the figure. We see a lot of sculpture by the futurists, although they did create paintings as well. So here we have Marcel Duchamp's New Descending Staircase. I knew I had it in here somewhere. I just didn't have it where I thought I did. So again, we see that cubist inspiration that we talked about before, but we see that movement as well. So that's why this work of art is not typically considered cubist, even though it has that influence. It's usually considered futurist because it has that movement. So that's it for Module 6. Make sure you answer your lecture notes questions at the end of your document and then submit them to Canvas. I will see you all in the last module, Module 7.

So prints are made by an artist or under an artist's supervision. Some artists just create the plate and then someone else actually prints it. Sometimes the artist creates the plate and prints the item.

So usually whoever is printing it is not credited as one of the makers. It's whoever actually designs the plate. So prints are usually made in editions.

So this means that the artist will have a set number that they plan to print. And then after that number is made, the plate is either destroyed or stored somewhere not to be printed again. So this is usually denoted as a fraction. So it'll be, it'll have a number out of however many.

So for prints, you're going to have some kind of substrate. Usually it's paper, but it doesn't have to be. You're going to have the plate, which is where image is going to be stored, and then when you put the paper and plate together, you get the image transferred onto the plate or onto the paper. Ink is usually how we do this, some form of ink.

So there are different types of printing. So we're going to start with talking about relief printing. So relief prints are any prints made from the raised portion of a plate. So as you can see in the diagram, the ink sits on the raised portions and that's what's going to transfer to the paper.

A relief plate can be wood, metal, linoleum, stone, whatever you can carve into. Some people will make relief prints using potatoes. They'll cut a potato, carve away what they don't want to show.

Whatever's raised is what we'll show. Dip it in ink and use it as a stamp. So ink is spread onto the plate and then the image is stamped onto the paper from there.

That can be like if you're using some kind of stamp with like an ink pad. If you're using a printing press it's usually done with some type of roller. There are different types of relief prints. So first one we're going to talk about is woodcut. So this is Hans Baldung's The Witches.

It was printed printed in about 1510. And so this one's on paper. So this print is an example of German chiaroscuro and is one of Baudin's best known works. So remember we've talked about chiaroscuro before. We have the really light lights and the really dark darks in behind. Baldurin worked alongside Durr, who we've talked about before, but he's credited as one of the first to work in a woodcut chiaroscuro style.

So he's credited to be one of the first to have that really dark background with the really bright highlights in the front. So this scene depicts three witches around a cauldron spelling themselves to fly. The interest in witchcraft in the German-speaking countries was especially strong at the beginning of the 16th century, heralded by the publication in 1487 of the Malleus Maleficarium, or the Witch's Hammer, by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Springer.

It was reprinted around... 14 times before 1520. So it was very popular during this period. So going back to the printmaking process, wood cuts are usually made using a relatively soft wood.

The image is carved into the wood and then the positive spaces, which are the ones left raised, and then the negative spaces are carved away. So What's really happening is all the black is a raised portion of the plate. All the white is carved down into the plate.

Woodcuts were used for some of the very first prints, but they're actually not the most effective printing process. Because of the softness of the wood, the plate or wood block It deteriorates over time. Basically, the pressure of the printmaking process beats down the raised areas of the wood until the image no longer remains, or you're not going to have sharp lines at the very least.

Next, we have wood engraving. This one is by Edward Calvert. It's called The Brook, and it was created in 1829. So wood engraving was quickly adapted to solve the issue of wood block deterioration. With wood engraving, the image is carved into the end grain of a denser wood.

So the end grain is going to be the part of wood, like if you are looking at a tree, it's going to be the part where you see the rings of the tree. Whereas before it would usually be like more like if you have like a plank of wood. So with this method the plate still deteriorates over time but it lasts a lot longer so you can get more prints from it.

So this specific print shows a classically inspired scene. It was originally meant to have a Christian meaning but the caption was later removed by the artist. So the original caption read, the waters of this brook shall never fail to the married wife of the Lord God. So next we have linocut.

Linocuts use the same process of carving away as the other techniques. The difference is that the artist uses a linoleum plate instead of a wood block. The linoleum is soft enough to carve away easily but is durable enough to not deteriorate under the pressure of printing.

So this is Elizabeth Catlett's sharecropper created in 1952. Catlett once said that the purpose of her work was to, quote, present black people in their beauty and dignity for ourselves and others to understand and enjoy, end quote. Sharecropper calls attention to the tribulations of tenant farming, a system in which rent for the land is paid by the farmer with a part of the crop, creating an impossible-to-escape cycle of debt, while also offering a heroic portrait of an anonymous woman. Next we have intaglio printing. This is different from relief printing. With intaglio printing, the ink is placed in the dug out portions or the recessed portions of the printing plate.

What you carve away will be what will be black. The ink is spread over, it stinks down into those crevices, then when you print that what's in the crevice comes onto the paper. So there are different types of intaglio printing as well.

So first let's start with engraving. Engraving is an intaglio printmaking process in which grooves are cut into a metal or wood surface with a sharp cutting tool called a burrin or graver. So we're going to use a burrin for this one. We're going to dig out those and it's either going to be on metal or wood. So this print is Martin Schongauer's Christ Carrying the Cross.

It was printed in 1475 to 1480. It's an example of an engraving. This is known as Schongauer's largest print at 11 3 8 by 16 7 8 inches. As the title suggests, it depicts Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha.

The artist created a variety of tones by controlling the density of hatching in this work. With engraving, only thin lines can be carved and they're all black regardless of the depth of the carve. So in order to create gradations of black and white, artists must use hatching. So with relief printing, sometimes you can get like a lighter shade if you Depending on how you carve the image, you can also sort of selectively color parts of the image before printing to get some gray areas. But with etching or yes with engraving, what's carved in is going to be black.

That's where the black, it's going to be black ink. Whatever color ink you use is going to sit in that groove. So little tiny lines are used and we have a lot of hatching that's used.

Next we have dry point. So dry point is an intaglio printmaking process in which lines are scratched directly into a metal plate with a steel needle. The scratch raises a ridge or burr that takes the ink. So this is Edward Thomas Daniels' Sir Lyngham Ferry.

So it was printed around 1842. So with dry point, you're going to have sort of this rough edge to a lot of the lines. Technically, it's either going to be an etching or an engraving, but you're still going to get that sort of rough bit. A lot of times dry point is combined with other forms of intaglio printing. So this one, a lot of the print is an etch, which we're going to talk about next, and then details were sort of added in with that dry point process.

Next we have etching. Etching is an intaglio printmaking process in which a metal plate is first coated with acid resistant wax or varnish, then scratched to expose the metal, and then you soak it in nitric acid. And the lines, so what you carve away is where your lines will be.

So you soak it in nitric acid, then your resist, which is your wax or varnish, comes off. and you have your lines. So you're using an acid process to make your lines instead of actually carving them yourself. So this print, which is a self-portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn, is an example of that. It was created about 1648. He also uses dry point in this one.

So as was beginning to happen at this time we have a self-portrait. He's not idealized in this portrait and he uses multiple printmaking processes so he uses etching and dry point. So again, we have a lot of use of hatching.

We're almost always going to have hatching in printmaking, depending on the process. So usually that can be one of your sort of tells if it's a print or not. An exception to this is going to be aquatint. So aquatint is usually not going to have hatching.

This is an intaglio printmaking process. Value areas instead of lines are etched on a printing plate. So powdered resin is sprinkled on the plate which is then immersed in an acid bath. The acid bites around the resin particles creating a rough surface that holds ink. So what you want to be your flat plane of color will be where you put those resin particles.

Then once it's put in the acid it's going to have that rough texture and those flat planes of color So this print the bath by America sought Create around 1890 to 91 is going to be an example of that So the yellow would be aqua tint the blue Sort of this greenish blue in the water that'll all be aqua tint So this print was actually created using two plates. One plate held the lines and then another one held the color. The lines were actually created using drypoint and then the color was added with aqua tint.

So some prints, especially if they have color, are made up with multiple plates. A lot of times Artists will use, especially if they know they're going to have a certain addition, they'll use the plate to do all their black. All of a color, they'll carve away more, do another color, carve away more, do another color.

Sometimes it ends up being multiple plates being printed to fill in color. So this one is multiple plates. Next we have lithography.

So lithography is neither intaglio or relief printing. It is its own thing. Lithography is a printmaking technique based on the antipathy of oil and water.

So oil and water do not mix. The image is drawn with a grease crayon or painted with a substance called touche, which is an oil sort of... oily sticky substance.

The image is drawn on a stone or grained aluminum plate. Then the surface is chemically treated and dampened so it'll accept ink only where the crayon and touche were used. So this example is Gargantua by Daumier. It was created around 1831. Daumier was known for his caricatures, especially political cartoons, published independently and in newspapers.

So this image is meant to make fun of the rulers of the day, taking more than they need from the common people. It's sort of meant as a political cartoon against the ruling class. So it's one of those sort of feed the beast ideas, feed the government. So he's taking food in and pooping out policies.

on his throne. So this was another Domiere. This one is actually the example that's in your textbook. So it depicts a man that was in an apartment building where everyone was unjustly murdered because one person might have been part of a rebellion against the French rulers. This was published in the newspapers the morning after the event.

So lithography can be printed very quickly since depending on the speed of the artist's drawing it doesn't take as long as some of the other prints do. We also have another example of lithography is Moulin Rouge Le Goulier. It was created in 1891 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec was well known for his posters, which this is an example of, and this print was made using four colors all printed using different blocks.

So we had four different printing blocks. that lined up to make this image. This poster would have hung outside of the dance hall in which it was created for to draw people in, so it's an ad. And our last printing process is screen printing. It's also our newest form of printing.

Screen printing is a technique in which stencils or light sensitive resist are applied to a fabric stretched across a frame. Paint or ink is then forced through the unblocked portions of the screen onto paper or another surface beneath. So in this example by Andy Warhol he uses ink but you can do screen printing t-shirts and usually it's some type of paint. I think it's still called ink, but it's a thicker material than what you typically think of when you think ink.

Andy Warhol often used silkscreen as a medium in his images, so this image of Marilyn Monroe was accompanied by several other like images, all printed a little bit differently and with different colors. So we're not going to go over typography and logos. Those are included in your textbook, but they're not really important enough for us to go over in class. If you want more information about that, check it out in your textbook.

So next we're going to talk about the early 20th century. So we're going to start with Fauvism. So Fauvism is a style of painting that was introduced in Paris in the early 20th century. It's characterized by areas of bright contrasting color and simplified shapes. So this is Henri Matisse's Woman with a Hat.

painted in 1905. Matisse was one of the leading artists of Fauvism. The Fauves used simplification and bright color in order to display an enthusiasm for life. So, in this painting we can see how Matisse looked back to the post-impressionist styles of Van Gogh and Gauguin. We have that selective use of color, these bright sort of patches of color. The painting is laid on very thick.

You can see the all the brush strokes. This painting is actually a depiction of Matisse's wife, Amélie. Obviously, it's not very realistic or idealistic. So it's a little bit of an abstraction.

It wouldn't be full abstraction, but it's a little bit of abstraction. Obviously, people's faces are not green. Next we have Expressionism.

So expressionism refers to individual and group styles originating in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It's characterized by bold execution and free use of distortion and symbolic inverted color. So expressionists wanted to express experience or emotion over objective depiction.

So you're not depicting a thing, you're expressing a thought or an emotion or an experience. So here we have Wassily Kandinsky's Composition 7, and it was created in 1913. So Kandinsky often named his works composition as a way of relating it to musical creation. The listener of music doesn't just hear the music, they feel the music.

So this is what he wanted his works of art to be like. You don't just view it, you feel it. So expressionism, you're expressing an emotion.

It's meant to make the viewer feel something in return. Next we have cubism, which is actually one of the most popular. Today, one of our most well-known works of art from this period of time, or art styles from this period of time, is cubism. Cubism was an art style developed in Paris by Picasso and Braque.

It began in 1908 and was based on the simultaneous presentation of multiple views, disintegration, and geometric reconstructions of subject in flattened ambiguous pictorial space. So that's a lot of big words. Basically, that means that they would look at an object or a scene and then break it down into flat planes. So we get sort of the idea. The term cubism sort of comes from that idea of if you broke it down into a bunch of cubes and then you painted it onto a flat surface, what would that look like?

So this is an example by Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso. It's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

It's painted in 1907. So Picasso not only looked to the post-impressionist for inspiration, but also looked to art of the past and non-western art. So the faces of figures are actually modeled after African masks. There's some that you can tell more so than others. So we sort of have those lined ridges, that flat plane on the nose, even with some of the coloring that's going on.

So we're getting that post-impressionist use of color. We're getting these sort of flat planes happening, this breakdown of space. Next we have Georges Braque. This is the Portuguese. It was created in 1911. So Braque came up with a lot of the terminology for cubism.

This particular work by Braque inspired a lot of other cubist works by other artists. So remember Marcel Duchamp's, oh I don't have an example, but we talked about Marcel Duchamp's New Descending a Staircase. He was inspired by the cubists, including this work by Braque.

So we have these sort of breakdowns of space. This is abstraction. You can't always tell exactly what it was originally. So now we're going to talk a little bit about America.

So art in America during this period of time is very, maybe not very different, but we have different things happening in America and Europe. At this period of time, we did not have airplane travel. At least it wasn't widely used. So a lot of people had to come via ship.

Across the ocean from Europe into America. Or back from America into Europe. This wasn't affordable to everyone. It was a dangerous journey.

Even during this period of time. And so a lot of people just didn't do it. Especially artists.

Also you have environmental things. Like humidity. Temperature changes. Etc.

That aren't great for transporting art. Across the ocean. So we don't have a lot of Americans viewing European art and vice versa. So different things are happening in America. They're not necessarily influenced by Europe.

There are some influences, but it's not going to be in the same way that European art is going to be influencing itself. So, we talk about America different than we talk about Europe, especially at this period. So, early modern art did not really take root in America until after the Armory Show of 1913. So, this was a display of different kinds of modern art being created in Europe.

Many Americans had never viewed such works before because works like this were not being created in the U.S. Works like these had never been displayed in the U.S. And many American artists and middle class had never traveled to Europe. Thus, they did not have access to this type of art before. So the Armory Show of 1913 brought in that modern art influence to American artists from Europe.

So that's what we're going to talk about now. So first we're going to talk about Georgia O'Keeffe. This is her Jack in the Pool Pit number four.

It was painted in 1930. So O'Keeffe created these intimate images of nature. Many of her images were so zoomed in on an object or scene that they appear abstract. She was influenced by the bright and flat use of color that we see in modern works of art by artists like Gauguin and Matisse.

This painting is a super close-up scene of a jack-in-the-pulpit flower. Well, I thought I had another example, but it's not there. Frank Lloyd Wright is another artist that was influenced by the Armory Show.

He took inspiration from the show and European art and applied it to architecture. So, we've talked extensively about Frank Lloyd Wright in past lectures. It's okay that we don't have an example of his in this, but he saw a lot of outside influences. By outside influences, I mean non-American influences.

Brought them into America and displayed them, created them, made something new from them for American architecture. So next we have futurism. Futurism was a group movement originating in Italy in 1909 that celebrated both natural and mechanical motion and speed. So futurism is all about movement. So this is Umberto Bocchioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, made in 1913. The mold was made in 1913. It was actually cast in bronze in 1950. So in this work, Bocchioni created a sense of motion even with a still figure.

So we see tendrils of the figure pulling behind as the figure appears to step forward in space. It's as if the muscle fibers or clothing are actively in motion around the figure. We see a lot of sculpture by the futurists, although they did create paintings as well. So here we have Marcel Duchamp's New Descending Staircase.

I knew I had it in here somewhere. I just didn't have it where I thought I did. So again, we see that cubist inspiration that we talked about before, but we see that movement as well. So that's why this work of art is not typically considered cubist, even though it has that influence. It's usually considered futurist because it has that movement.

So that's it for Module 6. Make sure you answer your lecture notes questions at the end of your document and then submit them to Canvas. I will see you all in the last module, Module 7.

Transcript for:Exploring Printmaking and Early Art Movements

Transcript for:
Exploring Printmaking and Early Art Movements