American Rhapsody

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Zilczer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Georgia O'keeffe ◽  
Contemporary Artist ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The opening decades of the twentieth century saw painters renounce mimetic representation for the formal rigors and spiritual transcendence of visual art divorced from reproduction of the visible world. That they chose to do so in no small measure resulted from a profound shift in aesthetic values: music became the paradigm for visual art. While the concept of visual music gained international currency, this seductive aesthetic model had particular resonance in the United States. Between 1910 and 1930, leaders of the American avant-garde, such as Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Max Weber, experimented with musical ideas to forge a new abstract art. A comparative case study of the music pictures of these painters and the inter-media installations of contemporary artist Jennifer Steinkamp will illuminate the transformation of the modernist ideal of visual music in the postmodern era.

Fischinger, Oskar (1900–1967)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Leskosky
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Original Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Orchestral Music ◽  
John Cage ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Abstract Expressionist ◽  
Short Time

Oskar Fischinger (b. 22 June 1900, Gelnhausen, Germany; d. 31 January, 1967, Los Angeles, US) was one of the most influential German abstract experimental animators and creators of visual music. As a youth he studied draughtsmanship and engineering. In 1922, he invented a machine that photographed sequential slices of wax blocks, producing an abstract film in a relatively short time. In Munich, he continued his experiments in creating visual equivalents to orchestral music while making animated cartoons and multi-projector light shows. In Berlin, he did special effects for Fritz Lang’s Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929), helped develop the three colour Gasparcolor process, and made stop-motion commercials. In 1936, Fischinger immigrated to the United States. In 1937 he composed the abstract short An Optical Poem to Liszt’s ‘Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2’ for MGM. He worked nine months on the ‘Toccata and Fugue’ segment of Disney’s Fantasia (1940), but none of his original art appears in the film. He continued making abstract expressionist visual music films until 1947, culminating in his masterwork Motion Painting No. 1. Lack of funding subsequently restricted him to painting; around this time he invented a machine to generate artificial sounds. In 1955 he patented the ‘lumigraph’, which enabled its operator to create silent moving colour compositions. Fischinger influenced a host of avant-garde animators, including Norman McLaren, Jordan Belson, and Len Lye, as well as composer John Cage.

Art, abstract

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Colour Properties ◽  
Art World ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Decorative Art ◽  
Modes Of Representation ◽  
Art Canon ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Artistic Values

The widespread use of the term ‘abstract’ for a category of visual art dates from the second decade of the twentieth century, when painters and sculptors had turned away from verisimilitude and launched such modes of abstraction as cubism, Orphism, futurism, Rayonism and suprematism. Two subcategories may be distinguished: first, varieties of figurative representation that strongly schematize, and second, completely nonfigurative or nonobjective modes of design (in the widest sense of that term). Both stand opposed to classic representationalism (realism, naturalism, illusionism, mimeticism) understood as the commitment to a relatively full and undistorted depiction of the subject matter and construed broadly enough to cover the traditional ‘high art’ canon through to post-Impressionism. Analytic and synthetic cubism are model cases of the first subcategory while Mondrian’s neoplasticism and Pollock’s classic drip works are paradigms of the second. Though the effect was revolutionary, the positive motivations for this degree of abstraction in visual art were not wholly new. What was new was the elevation of previously subordinate aims to the front rank and the pursuit of certain principal aims in isolation from the full pictorial package. Thus abstract art variously celebrates structural and colour properties of objects, scenes and patterns; effects of motion, light and atmosphere; aspects of perceptual process, whether normal or expressively loaded; and forms expressing cosmic conceptions, visionary states or utopian ambitions. With a few exceptions (for example, the Futurists) the founders of abstract art were far from lucid or forthcoming about the significance of their work, and viewers have found successive waves of abstraction initially baffling and even offensive. But abstract art now forms a secure part of the ‘high art’ canon, though generally its appeal is less well understood than that of the classic modes of representation. Criticisms of abstract art have also become more lucid. Issues concerning abstract art include the definition of the concept itself and the delineation of subordinate types; the relation between abstraction and other modes of avant-garde art that superficially resemble it; the magnitude of the artistic values so far achieved by the various forms; and the theoretical limits of significance attainable by abstraction as compared with the limits encountered in nonabstract figurative art. Abstract art merits attention from philosophers more than do traditional types of figurative and decorative art for at least two reasons: philosophical theories played a significant role in engendering abstraction and subsequent art-world discourse purporting to elucidate abstractions often operates with concepts requiring philosophic analysis to clarify and assess.

Color Theories from Western Europe and the United States in the Writings of Ivan Kliun

Experiment ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-266
Author(s):  
Viktoria Schindler
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Large Body ◽  
The United States ◽  
Color Theory ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Hermann Von Helmholtz ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Cultural Centers ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Wilhelm Ostwald

Abstract This article focuses on manuscripts on color theory by the lesser-known Russian artist Ivan Kliun (1873-1943), who, in the early twentieth century, worked together with leaders of the Russian avant-garde in the cultural centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg and made a significant contribution to the development of abstract art. Kliun belongs to a group of Russian avant-garde artists who endeavored to discover entirely new methods for investigating artworks, to develop art theory backed by science, and to renew art. He faced these great challenges by scientifically researching the various elements of art such as color, form, texture, light, space, and the principles of their combination in a composition in order to illustrate which aspects of a work of art have an impact on the viewer and his psyche. Kliun left behind a large body of writings, many of which are still unpublished. These writings contain his own reflections as well as excerpts from various scholarly treatises on color theory composed by international scientists. Kliun’s manuscripts offer a summary of relevant insights into the physical properties of color, tenets of contrast, and the sensual effects of color from works by Wilhelm Ostwald, Hermann von Helmholtz, Leopold Richtera, Matthew Luckiesh, and Albert H. Munsell. Kliun’s writings reveal that, in the 1920s, the studies of color theory in Russia were based on the same sources as those abroad. Russian avant-garde artists and scientists followed the ongoing developments in color research and gained access to the latest foreign publications.

Art, abstract

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Colour Properties ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Modes Of Representation ◽  
Figurative Art ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Art Canon ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Artistic Values

The use of the term ‘abstract’ as a category of visual art dates from the second decade of the twentieth century, when painters and sculptors had turned away from verisimilitude and launched such modes of abstraction as Cubism, Orphism, Futurism, Rayonism and Suprematism. Two subcategories may be distinguished: first, varieties of figurative representation that strongly schematize, and second, completely nonfigurative or nonobjective modes of design (in the widest sense of that term). Both stand opposed to classic representationalism (realism, naturalism, illusionism, mimeticism) understood as the commitment to a relatively full depiction of the subject matter and construed broadly enough to cover the traditional ‘high art’ canon through to Post-Impressionism. Analytic and Synthetic Cubism are model cases of the first subcategory while Mondrian’s neoplasticism and Pollock’s classic drip works are paradigms of the second. Though the effect was revolutionary, the positive motivations for this degree of abstraction in visual art were not wholly new. What was new was the elevation of previously subordinate aims to the front rank and the pursuit of certain principal aims in isolation from the full pictorial package. Thus abstract art variously celebrates structural and colour properties of objects, scenes and patterns; effects of motion, light and atmosphere; aspects of perceptual process, whether normal or expressively loaded; and forms expressing cosmic conceptions, visionary states or utopian ambitions. With a few exceptions (for example, the Futurists) the founders of abstract art were far from lucid or forthcoming about the significance of their work, and viewers have found successive waves of abstraction initially baffling and even offensive. But abstract art now forms a secure part of the ‘high art’ canon, though generally its appeal is less well understood than that of the classic modes of representation. Criticisms of abstract art have also become more lucid. The chief philosophical issues affecting abstract art concern the definition of the term and the delineation of subordinate types; the relation between abstraction and other modes of avant-garde art that superficially resemble it; the magnitude of the artistic values so far achieved by the various forms; and finally the theoretical limits of significance attainable by abstraction as compared with the limits encountered in figurative art.

Material World: Gender and the Bible in Evangelical Purity Culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Moslener
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young People ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Material World ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Teenage Girls ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Bible

For evangelical adolescents living in the United States, the material world of commerce and sexuality is fraught with danger. Contemporary movements urge young people to embrace sexual purity and abstinence before marriage and eschew the secular pressures of modern life. And yet, the sacred text that is used to authorize these teachings betrays evangelicals’ long-standing ability to embrace the material world for spiritual purposes. Bibles marketed to teenage girls, including those produced by and for sexual purity campaigns, make use of prevailing trends in bible marketing. By packaging the message of sexual purity and traditional gender roles into a sleek modern day apparatus, American evangelicals present female sexual restraint as the avant-garde of contemporary, evangelical orthodoxy.

Maximus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Action ◽  
American Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
The One

This concluding chapter charts the continuing significance of the early postwar moment in Olson’s later work, particularly The Maximus Poems. The philosophical and political concerns of the American avant-garde between 1946 and 1951 play out across The Maximus Poems just as they inform later American art practices. The search of the early postwar American independent left for a source of political action rooted in the embodied individual is seen, on the one hand, to have been personified in the figure of Maximus. At the same time, Maximus’s radical ‘practice of the self’ charts a sophisticated alternative to the Enlightenment humanist subject widely critiqued in the United States in the immediate postwar period.

Management of personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic in England and the state of New York: A comparative case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Amy Barber, BSc ◽  
Annaëlle Vinzent, BS ◽  
Imani Williams, BA
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Personal Protective Equipment ◽  
New York State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Protective Equipment

Background: The COVID-19 crisis placed extraordinary demands on the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) at the beginning of 2020. These were coupled with shocks to the supply chain resulting from the disease. Many typically well-resourced health systems faced subsequent shortages of equipment and had to implement new strategies to manage their stocks. Stockpiles of protective equipment were held in both the United States and United Kingdom intended to prevent shortages. Method: Cross-comparative case study approach by applying Pettigrew and Whipp’s framework for change management. Setting: The health systems of England and New York state from January 2020 to the end of April 2020. Results: Both cases reacted slowly to their outbreaks and faced problems with supplying enough PPE to their health systems. Their stockpiles were not enough to prevent shortages, with many distribution problems resulting from inadequate governance mechanisms. No sustainable responses to supply disruptions were implemented during the study period in either case. Health systems planned interventions along each part of the supply chain from production and importing, to usage guidelines. Conclusion: Global supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions caused by international crises, and existing mitigation strategies have not been wholly successful. The existence of stockpiles is insufficient to preventing shortages of necessary equipment in clinical settings. Both the governance and quality of stockpiles, as well as distribution channels are important for preventing shortages. At the time of writing, it is not possible to judge the strength of strategies adopted in these cases.

Politics in the Art of War: The American War Cemeteries

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-254
Author(s):  
Kate Clarke Lemay
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
American Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
Internal Struggle

The overseas American war cemeteries, in their aim to achieve “soft power” or cultural diplomacy during the mid-century, created high-value commissions in the American art world. The sought-after commissions resulted in an internal struggle between artists practicing traditional figural Classicism and the avant-garde who had adopted expressionism and abstraction. Additionally, a surging political stream of anti-Communism made artists vulnerable, because modern art seemed to underscore Communism’s abandonment of religion. By adopting demagoguery as political strategy, McCarthyists escalated the perception of Communism as present in the United States by targeting American culture, including artists of the American war cemeteries. Describing the struggles surrounding the creation of the cemeteries, this essay takes into account the artists’ biographies, statements, and actions, arguing that their art-making was not only critical in creating international diplomacy, but also in sustaining American freedom, particularly within an era of American political suspicion.

scholarly journals Governance and decentralized energy transitions: a comparative case study of three medium-sized cities in Sweden, Canada, and the United States.

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-106
Author(s):  
Martin Boucher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Energy System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
Energy Projects ◽  
Decentralized Energy ◽  
The Impact

 Aim: This study examines the impact of governance on decentralized energy transitions. Knowledge of how particular jurisdictions and their governance arrangements influence these transitions can help strengthen and contextualize divergent trajectories of decentralized energy transitions and—most importantly—reveal the role of geographical context in policy change. Design: This research gap is addressed in this paper by comparing the uptake of decentralized energy transitions in three cities in three different countries—Luleå (Sweden), Saskatoon (Canada), and Anchorage (United States). The jurisdictions in each city has unique governance contexts pertaining to electric utilities, regulations, public policy, and public acceptance.  By comparing these transitions, this study highlights the governance considerations for decentralized energy transitions and asks how does governance impact decentralized energy transitions in cities? To answer this question, actors within various public, private, and sectoral capacities were interviewed to provide their insights on decentralized energy transitions in each jurisdiction. Conclusion: I present five governance dimensions that impact decentralized energy transitions and explain how these factors can be included to provide a more contextual understanding of patterns of decentralized energy transitions in cities.  Originality: Much of the literature on decentralized energy and cities has focused on project and sectoral level analysis and hasn’t considered the holistic nature of the energy system transition. A particular gap that would help inform a broader understanding is the jurisdictional governance impacts of decentralization energy transitions. Implications of the Research: In practical terms, the results could be used to inform inter-jurisdictional comparisons of decentralization energy projects. Limitations of the Research: Given that there were three case studies, it is not possible to make generalizable claims from the results.  

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