scholarly journals The Future of Winckelmann’s Classical Form

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Prettejohn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Walter Pater ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Classical Form ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Historical Importance

Winckelmann’s thought and writing are routinely acknowledged to have had a profound influence on the artistic practices of the half-century after his death, known under the label ‘Neoclassicism’. Standard accounts of modernism in the arts, however, assume that this influence came to an abrupt end around 1815. According to such accounts, the anti-classical reaction that followed the Battle of Waterloo and the demise of Neoclassicism was itself a motive force in the generation of modern art and modernism. This paper argues, on the contrary, that Winckelmann’s ideas not only remained relevant, but gained in power through the generations after the fall of Napoleon. Mediated by critics and artists among whom Walter Pater and Frederic Leighton serve as the principal examples, Winckelmann’s thought made a decisive contribution to twentieth-century modernism. In particular, the articulation in both criticism and artistic practice of ideas about classical form, indebted to Winckelmann, had a subtler and more complex impact on the modernist doctrine of ‘formalism’ than literary or art historians have acknowledged. A renewed attention to classical form will help future scholars to write a more nuanced account of modernism in the visual arts. More importantly, it will call attention to artistic projects that have been excluded from histories of modern art due to reductive assumptions that classicism and modernism are inherently contradictory. The paper concentrates on Frederic Leighton as a case study of an artist whose historical importance and aesthetic merit have been occluded by reductive thinking of this kind.

Carmelo Bene e la decostruzione delle arti del secondo Novecento

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cosetta Saba
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Interdisciplinary Practice ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
First Results ◽  
Extended Field ◽  
The Subject

This essay collects the first results of a reflection launched in the context of the Conference "The Arts of the 1900s and Carmelo Bene" curated by Edoardo Fadini and based in Turin, at the Gallery of Modern Art, between 24 and 26 October 2002. The intent is to focus on how in the first phase of the interdisciplinary practice of Carmelo Bene, between the Sixties and the Seventies, an aesthetic reflection and a deconstructive attitude emerge that involve questions (such as the subject, subjectivity and singular / plural dimension of art) that were being defined in the philosophical field and in the extended field of art during the second half of the twentieth century.

Primitivism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyanka Basu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Artistic Styles ◽  
Modes Of Thought ◽  
Cultural Features ◽  
Hybrid Forms

Primitivism in modern art designates a range of practices and accompanying modes of thought that span the period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century and cut across manifold artistic styles and groups. This entry presents instances of Primitivism from this period that are representative of its features. Modern artistic Primitivism refers, above all, to the ways in which Western artists valorized and drew upon aspects of so-called ‘primitive’ art and cultures in their works, ideas and lifestyles. They employed selective formal and thematic elements that they believed were characteristic of the arts and cultures of not only small-scale, native, non-Western peoples, but also of larger-scale, more highly organized non-Western societies, Western pre-Renaissance and non-classical styles and European vernacular means of expression. Even more frequently, these artists freely intermixed such elements and invented others that suited their conceptions of the ‘primitive’, generating hybrid forms and cultural features.

Herman Trunk’s Cubist Crucifix: A Case Study

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 628-647
Author(s):  
Cynthia Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract American modern artist Herman Trunk (1894–1963) serves as a noteworthy case study in a consideration of the relationship between religion and American modern art in the first half of the twentieth century. One of his few overtly religious works, Crucifix (c. 1930), stands out for its intriguing convergence of a most important Catholic subject with Cubist art. This essay examines Trunk’s Cubist Crucifix in relation to other Crucifix and Crucifixion paintings created around the same time period. Trunk’s Crucifix is unique among abstract paintings of religious subjects in the artist’s distinctive use of Cubism to create a quiet meditation on the crucified Christ. In some respects affirming the long tradition of Crucifix and Crucifixion paintings, Crucifix also counters those traditions to provide an alternative perspective on the Crucifix as a subject. Through his Crucifix painting, Trunk successfully brings together two traditions that historically have been viewed as diametrically opposed—Catholicism and Cubist abstraction—to produce a devotional image of the Crucifix as a form of veneration.

scholarly journals The Visual Economy of “Precious Books”

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
Zeina Maasri
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
Art Object ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract Shedding light on the postcolonial Arabic book, this article expands the literary and art historical fields of inquiry by bringing into play the translocal design and visual economy of modern art books. It is focused on the short-lived Silsilat al-Nafa'is (Precious Books series, 1967–70), published in Beirut by Dar an-Nahar and edited by modernist poet Yusuf al-Khal (1917–87). The series engaged prominent Arab artists and foregrounded the aesthetic dimension of the printed Arabic book as a “precious” art object. Situated historically at the threshold of contemporary globalization, this publishing endeavor formed a node connecting transnational modernist art and literary circuits with book publishing and was thus paradigmatic of new forms of visuality of the Arabic book. This materiality was enabled by a network of changes in the visual arts, printing technologies, and the political economy of transnational Arabic publishing in late 1960s Beirut. Relations between these three fields are analyzed through a multifaceted lens, focusing on the book as at once a product of intellectual and artistic practice, a commodity in a capitalist economy of publishing, and a translocal artifact of visual and print culture.

scholarly journals Religious Motifs in Polish Contemporary Art Using the Crucifixion: An Outline of the Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
Beata Bigaj-Zwonek
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
The Political ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War

Sacred motifs have a long tradition in art and ample figurative representation. They have been present in the visual arts for numerous reasons, from the need to identify faith to artistic expression based on commonly-known truths and stories saturated with meaning. In the art of the twentieth century, Christian motifs were often an excuse to speak about the world, its threats and fears, and the human condition. Polish artists frequently availed themselves of religious symbols and systems in the post-war era, and during the political transforma­tion of the 1980s, they became a way to articulate uncertainty, expectation, and hope for change. Today, the religious trope is a pretext for artistic commentary on religion, social problems, and internal issues of the creators themselves. The article explores the causes and the nature of artistic practice rooted in Christian iconography in Polish contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on the motif of the crucifixion.

scholarly journals Visual Arts Marketing: The Brand Equity Challenge Facing Galleries

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Stegemann ◽  
Beverley Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Brand Equity ◽  
Marketing Communications ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Art Galleries ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Arts Marketing

This article addresses the challenges facing art galleries in the Sydney metropolitan area with regards to maximising their brand equity. It takes a case study approach, and investigates art galleries' sources of brand equity and the implications for their marketing communications strategies. The research has shown that art galleries have a good understanding of their brand equity entities, however, have to learn to coordinate them successfully. Further, the different types of galleries examined employ and believe in a different mix of marketing communications efforts reflecting their objectives and resources. However, their strategies are not always customer orientated, and lack supporting research. This article is part of a larger research project investigating brand equity in the arts in Australia.

Narcissus and Echo: Reflections on an Art-Science Collaboration

Leonardo ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Dolores A. Steinman ◽  
Peter W. Coppin ◽  
David A. Steinman
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Blood Flows ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Collaborative Art ◽  
Blood Flow Dynamics ◽  
Science Collaboration ◽  
Interdisciplinary Partnership

More than a decade ago, our previous Leonardo contribution described our goal of establishing a basis for scientific exploration of blood flow dynamics closely intertwined with the visual arts. Here we present a case study of new collaborative art-science exploration. We show how paradigms we co-developed for visually abstracting cerebral aneurysm blood flows were extrapolated to sonification and bi-modal representations, and how a close interdisciplinary partnership was effected by guiding engineering students versed in the arts and artists adept with digital technology towards the final outcomes being more than the sum of their parts.

Moving Modernism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nell Andrew
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Lumiere Brothers ◽  
Twentieth Century Europe

This book reenacts the simultaneous eruption of three spectacular revolutions—the development of pictorial abstraction, the first modern dance, and the birth of cinema—which together changed the artistic landscape of early twentieth-century Europe and the future of modern art. Rather than seeking dancing pictures or pictures of dancing, however, this study follows the chronology of the historical avant-garde to show how dance and pictures were engaged in a kindred exploration of the limits of art and perception that required the process of abstraction. Recovering the performances, methods, and circles of aesthetic influence of avant-garde dance pioneers and experimental filmmakers from the turn of the century to the interwar period, this book challenges modernism’s medium-specific frameworks by demonstrating the significant role played by the arts of motion in the historical avant-garde’s development of abstraction: from the turn-of-the-century dancer Loïe Fuller, who awakened in symbolist artists the possibility of prolonged vision; to cubo-futurist and neosymbolist artists who reached pure abstraction in tandem with the radical dance theory of Valentine de Saint-Point; to Sophie Taeuber’s hybrid Dadaism between art and dance; to Akarova, a prolific choreographer whose dancing Belgian constructivist pioneers called “music architecture”; and finally to the dancing images of early cinematic abstraction from the Lumière brothers to Germaine Dulac. Each chapter reveals the emergence of abstractionas an apparatus of creation, perception, and reception deployed across artistic media toward shared modernist goals. The author argues that abstraction can be worked like a muscle, a medium through which habits of reception and perception are broken and art’s viewers are engaged by the kinesthetic sensation to move and be moved.

scholarly journals Continuity of Tradition Dance: Acedemicians’ Intervention on Artists and Performing Arts Groups

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Indrayuda Indrayuda
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Performance Arts ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Art Performance

<p>This article intends to uncover a concept of developing tradition-art groups in West Sumatra, which is considered that they have been left behind by modern-art groups in terms of packing aspect, presentation, and technical skills. Hence, this article reveals intervention of the academician in developing and providing support in the forms of improving skills and knowledge of the artists and art groups. The support includes improving skills and knowledge of expressing arts through giving packing techniques and arranging art performance, orientated toward educational and social extension actions. The knowledge may consist of techniques for developing movements, dance music, costumes, and make-up affecting skills of arranging and packing performance arts that can be divested in art industries. The method used in this investigation was games that aimed to cope with boredom and improve new awareness of concepts of how to pack performance arts. In addition, the case study was employed to solve problems faced by partners in the field. Moreover, practices about how to pack the arts were critical to be done through brainstorming, discussing, and lecturing.</p>

scholarly journals Altering a Fixed Identity: Thinking through Improvisation

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Mobile State ◽  
Experimental Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
Identity Thinking ◽  
Insight Into

"Replacing artist with player as if adopting an alias is a way of altering a fixed identity. And a changed identity is a principle of mobility, of going from one place to another…" (Kaprow, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life 125-6) This paper explores an experiment in improvisation in which the practices of music, the visual arts, philosophy, and anthropology come together. Calendar Variations (2010-11) draws different kinds of artists into creative experiences through the use of verbal scores. The score invites participation in a process in which the outcome is indeterminate. The experiment raises a question within the group of artists and participants about the nature of artistic practice itself and whether any single aesthetic approach is more appropriate than another. The experiment frames the following questions: Why do we have/institute improvisation in life? Can art particularly inform those situations in life in which the unscripted and contingent challenge us to rethink in situations in which we may be encountering failure either in what is around us or failure in ourselves to cope? Drawing in particular on Allan Kaprow’s articulation of Experimental Art (Essays), informed by Ingold and Hallam’s construct of improvisation as a metaphor for existence (Creativity and Cultural Improvisation), I propose that the radical questioning of certainty in experimental art practices offers a different insight into improvisation, one that deals with experiences of failure. The paper concludes that sustaining uncertainty about what the arts might be has given rise to two possible understandings of visual art, one based on contemplation, and the other on time and duration. Our creative imagination is challenged by the collisions and complementarities of these different understandings to sustain a perpetually mobile state of creativity, akin to "adopting an alias as a way of altering a fixed identity" (Kaprow, Essays).

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