The Superstroke Art Movement by Conrad Bo: September 2009

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Superstroke abstraction and the inspiration from Picasso

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon)

Here is the best decscription for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon) I could find on Wikipedia.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon) is a large oil painting of 1907 by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) which portrays five nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Avinyó Street in Barcelona. All of the figures depicted are physically jarring, none conventionally feminine, all slightly menacing, and each is rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. Two of the women are rendered with African mask-like faces, giving them a savage and mysterious aura. In his adaption of Primitivism and abandonment of perspective in favor of a flat, two-dimensional picture plane, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting. The work is one of Picasso's most famous, and is widely considered to be a seminal work in the early development of both Cubism and modern art. It is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, having been acquired by the museum in 1939.^[1]

Picasso created hundreds of sketches and studies in preparation for the work.^[2] It was painted in Paris and completed during the summer of 1907.^[3] Demoiselles was controversial from its inception, creating anger and disagreement amongst Picasso's closest associates and friends. Picasso has long acknowledged the importance of Spanish art and Iberian sculpture as influences on his painting. Demoiselles is also long thought to have been influenced by African tribal masks and the art of Oceania, although Picasso denied that connection. Many art historians familiar with Picasso and his work are skeptical about Picasso's denials. Several experts maintain that at the very least Picasso visited the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (known today as Musée de l'Homme) in the spring of 1907 where he saw and was unconsciously influenced by African and Tribal art several months before completingDemoiselles.^[4]^[5]It has also been argued that the painting was a reaction to Henri Matisse's paintings Le bonheur de vivre and Blue Nude.^[6] Its resemblance to Cézanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses, Paul Gauguin's statue Oviri, and El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal has also been noted and widely discussed by later commentators. At the time of its first exhibition in 1916, the painting was deemed immoral. The art critic André Salmon (1881–1969) gave it its current name; Picasso had always called it Le Bordel ("The Brothel").^[2]

Superstroke lessons from Picasso

Picassofication in Superstroke

Notice the 3 figures on the right are painted in a normal style. The figures on the right resembles African Masks. This painting almost mark the beginning of Cubism, which started in 1907.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was painted by Picasso in 1907. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon appeared in the May 1910 edition of the Architectural Record, a US publication . Although it was labeled a "study", numerous sources confirm that the painting itself was reproduced therein. It wasn't published in France until 1925, when it appeared inn La Revolution Surrealiste.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907. Oil on Canvas (244 x 234 cm)

Bull ( Plate I. - December 5 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Pablo Picasso created 'Bull' around the Christmas of 1945. 'Bull' is a suite of eleven lithographs that have become a master class in how to develop an artwork from the academic to the abstract. In this series of images, all pulled from a single stone, Picasso visually dissects the image of a bull to discover its essential presence through a progressive analysis of its form. Each plate is a successive stage in an investigation to find the absolute 'spirit' of the beast.

To start the series, Picasso creates a lively and realistic brush drawing of the bull in lithographic ink. It is a fresh and spontaneous image that lays the foundations for the developments to come.

Picasso used the bull as a metaphor throughout his artwork but he refused to be pinned down as to its meaning. Depending on its context, it has been interpreted in various ways: as a representation of the Spanish people; as a comment on fascism and brutality; as a symbol of virility; or as a reflection of Picasso's self image.

Bull ( Plate II. - December 12 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

At the second stage of the lithograph, Picasso bulks up the form of the bull to increase its expressive power and achieve a more mythical presence.

Bull ( Plate III. - December 18 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

On Plate III. the development takes a change of direction. Picasso stops building the beast and starts to dissect the creature with lines of force that follow the contours of its muscles and skeleton. He cuts into the form of the bull much in the same way as a butcher would cut up a carcass. In fact, he was known to have joked with the printers about this butcher analogy. Also at this stage, Picasso introduces the use of a lithographic crayon to add more detail to the surface texture of the animal's skin. The overall effect is reminiscent of Dürer's famous images of a rhinoceros.

Bull ( plate IV. - December 22 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

Plate IV. sees the artist start to abstract the structure of the bull by simplifying and outlining the major planes of its anatomy.

Ten years earlier Picasso had said that "A picture used to be a sum of additions. In my case a picture is a sum of destructions." In view of this statement, lithography seems to be the most natural choice of media for this series of prints. One of the technical advantages of lithography over other printmaking techniques is that you can both add to and subtract from the image with relative ease.

Bull ( plate V. - December 24 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

The simplification and stylisation of the image continues on Plate V. Picasso starts to erase sections of the bull in order to redistribute the balance and reorganise the dynamics between the front and the rear of the creature.

First, he reduces its massive head and compresses its features into the small area that was previously the bull's forehead. By enlarging the eye and flattening its horns into a more lyrical design, he creates a sharper focal point at the front of the animal.

Next, he erases a section of the back which has the counter effect of raising the front. He literally underlines this change with the bold white line that runs diagonally across the animal, parallel to the new angle of the back. As a counterbalance to this movement, he strengthens a line that runs in the opposite direction across the middle of the body, parallel to the shoulders at the front.

Picasso's process of development is like building a house of cards where balance and counterbalance of the individual elements is crucial to the stability of the whole.

Bull ( plate VI. - December 26 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

At this stage, another new head and tail are created to conform to the style and direction of the developing image.

Picasso introduces more curves to soften the network of lines that crisscross the creature. Once again he adjusts the line of the back which now begins as wave on the shoulders and flows like a pulse of energy along the length of its body. The two counterbalancing lines discussed in the previous plate are extended down the front and back legs to act like structural supports for the weight of the bull. All three of these lines intersect at a point that suggests the bull's center of balance. Through the development of these drawings, Picasso is beginning to understand the displacement of weight and balance between the front and rear of the animal.

Bull ( plate VII. - December 28 1945 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

As Picasso recognizes the balance of form in the bull, he starts to remove and simplify some of the lines of construction that have served their function. He then encases the essential elements that remain in a taut outline.

Bull ( plate VIII. - January 2 1946 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

Plate VIII. continues the reduction and simplification of the image into line with another reconfiguration of the head, legs and tail.

Bull ( plate IX. - January 5 1946 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

While continuing to have fun with the drawing of the head, Picasso now erases the remaining areas of tone and finally reduces the bull to a line drawing. Only the creature's reproductive organ retains its shading in order to emphasise its gender.

Bull ( plate X. - January 10 1946 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

At this penultimate stage, the more complex areas of the line drawing are removed to leave only a few basic lines and shapes that characterize the fundamental forces and correlation of forms in the creature.

Bull ( plate XI. - January 17 1946 )
(eleven developments of a lithograph)

In the final print of the series, Picasso reduces the bull to a simple outline that is so carefully considered through the progressive development of each image, that it captures the absolute essence of the creature in as concise an image as possible.

Picasso's Bulls 1945

http://art-image-studies.blogspot.com/2009/04/picassos-bull-lithograph-of-1945.html

The above was the original link where this was published. Please visit the Blog for more art-image studies

Picasso's Bull Lithograph of 1945

Friday, September 11, 2009

The Art History Archive

The Art History Archive

To learn more please use this link below, as this was where the original article was published. Conrad Bo

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/

This Website is Best Viewed Using Firefox

Mission Statement

This archive is being compiled to serve as a library of information about different artistic movements, art groups and specific artists. Its purpose is to educate people about the different movements and show people that there are other movements worth looking at, and specific artists that users may never have heard of.

We realize that art teachers in highschools and even professors in universities tend to gloss over these movements and forget about them. Thus this archive is endeavouring to include EVERY art movement worthy of mention, no matter how small.

Fair Use Policy

We subscribe to the Fair Use Policy in which educational tools are exempt from copyright. We respect the rights of the artists but also believe in the higher goal of providing the broadest range of educational material for our audience. We will not censor works of art from our database because we believe censorship of specific artists only leads to lack of knowledge of such artists. It is an often held complaint that art galleries don't show enough works by female artists (for example). Many times it is because the artists in question refused to give copyright permission (or was unavailable to give it) to those involved, and thus was inadvertantly censored. We shall endeavour to show works regardless, as stated under the terms of Fair Use. We will not be attempting to contact artists we show either. There are simply too many out there and artists are reclusive creatures anyway.

We also will be including articles written on various artistic topics and various contemporary artists. Because often the author is unknown or dead we will not be taking the time to ask the person for their permission.

Labeling Art:

Whenever possible we will be using a special formula for naming files. It is as follows: "ArtistName-Name-of-Art-Piece-Year" Take for example the above-right piece by Anne Louis Girodet, a portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, done in 1797. The file name is labeled: "AnneLouisGirodet-Portrait-of-Jean-Baptiste-Belley-1797". Why are we using this formula? Because too few websites use ANY formula. They just name the file in whatever way is easiest, and thus important information that should accompany the piece is sometimes lost. We hope that by setting a new standard other websites will follow suit and use the same standard. It will make it easier for research purposes and lead to a lot less mislabeled files.

We are also endeavouring to show only the largest/best quality version of a particular piece that we can find. This means that when a person goes to Google and wants to be precise they can now type in: "Pablo Picasso Guernica 1937" (or some similar combination) and get a high quality piece of exactly what they were looking for.

Chronological/Century
18th Century Art
19th Century Art
20th Century Art
21st Century Art

Countries & Cultures
Painters of the World by Nationality
Canadian Art History - Alphabetical
International Art Galleries
Art Galleries of Europe
Art Galleries of the UK
Art Galleries of the USA
Art Galleries of Canada
Toronto Artists & Art Galleries
Armenian Artists
Azerbaijani Artists
Bosnian and Herzegovinian Artists
Chinese Landscape Painting
Christian Art - Abraham to Zacharias, Alphabetical
Greek & Roman Art - Achilles to Zephyr, Alphabetical
Estonian Artists
Iraqi Artists
Islamic Art of the 16th & 17th Centuries
Turkish Artists
Zimbabwean Artists

Art Movements & Periods
Abstract Expressionism American Scene Anti-Design Arbeitsrat fur Kunst Art Brut Art Deco Arte Povera Art Informel Arts and Crafts Art Nouveau Ashcan School Assemblage Bauhaus Beat Art Body Art Chicago School Cloisonnism Co.Br.A. Combines Conceptual Art Concrete Art	Constructivism Cubism Dada Decadent Movement Der Blaue Reiter Der Ring De Stijl Deutscher Werkbund Die Brucke Earth Art Ecole de Paris Elementarism Existential Art Expressionism Fantasy Art Fauvism Fluxus Funk Art Futurism Graffiti/Punk Art GRAV	Gruppo 7 High-Tech Hungarian Activism Impressionism Installation International Style Internet Art Jack of Diamonds Jugendstil Kinetic Art Kitchen Sink School Les Vingt Lettrism Magic Realism M.I.A.R. Minimalism Modernisme Nabis Neo-Dada Neo-Expressionism Neo-Gothic Art	Neo-Pop Art Neo-Romanticism Neue Sachlichkeit New Brutalism Nouveau Realisme Novecento Italiano Novembergruppe Op Art Organic Art Orphism Outsider Art Performance Art Pin Up Art Pittura Metafisica Pop Art Post-Impressionism Post-Painterly Abstraction Precisionism Prehistoric Art Purism Rayonism	Romanticism Salon de la Rose Croix School of Amsterdam Site Works Situationist International Social Realism Socialist Realism Sound Art Stuckism Super-Realism Supports-Surfaces Suprematism Surrealism Symbolism Synthetism Synchromism Transavanguardia Video Art Vienna Secession Visionary Art Vorticism World of Art