Late 19th Century Art

LATE 19^th CENTURY ART

Theme for Realism: “Reaction Against Romanticism”

Realism and Realist artists called for a widespread rejection of Romanticism. Instead, they favored what were accurate and “objective” depictions of the ordinary world.

Theme for Impressionism: “Modern Life”

Impressionism, emerging in Napoleon III’s remodeling of Paris, focused on contemporary scenes of Parisian middle class life – strolls in the parks, going to the opera, walking down city streets, reading, and similar past-times.

Historical Context (1850-1900)

• Positivism: Faith in all knowledge which would derive from science and scientific objective methods which could solve all human problems. Man’s problems CAN be solved and improved.
• Karl Marx and class struggle:
  • Economic forces based on class struggle induced historical change.
  • Constant opposition between those who controlled the means of production (bourgeoisie) and those whose labor was exploited to benefit the wealthy and powerful (proletariat).
  • Marx’s goal of creating a socialist state appealed to the laboring classes and many intellectuals and gave rise to trade unions and socialist groups.
• La Belle Époque and Napoleon III’s renovations of Paris

Artistic Innovations 

• Societal changes prompted greater consciousness of and interest in modernity.
• Development of Modernism
• Two major modernist art movements of the later 19th century are Realism and Impressionism
• Modernism led to the development of the avant-garde (artists whose work emphatically rejected the past and transgressed the boundaries of conventional artistic practice)
• In 1863 Napoleon III granted the Académie Royale des Peinture et Sculpture independence from the government, changing the name to L’École des Beaux-Arts.

 

(4) 118. The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel.

Jose María Velasco. Mexican. 1882.

Learning Objective: Late Romantic (Mexican) painting

Themes:

Landscape
Interpretation of history
Cross-cultural
Propaganda
Nature

Museum: Museo Nacional del Arte, Mexico City

The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel by Mexican artist Jose María Velasco is an oil on canvas work measuring 4 feet 6 inches by 7 feet 4 inches.

The canvas is large, making it a landscape elevated to the traditions of a history painting. The deep space lends a monumental quality to the landscape. It has a dramatic perspective and vista. Notice the atmospheric perspective used. Higher horizon allows us to see more of the land and a focus on nature. The human figures are small.

Function

 This work highlights the connection between landscapes and patriotism in Mexico. It helped to define the Mexican identity, not just to the Mexican people, but globally, as this was exhibited at the World’s Fair.

The Perfect Landscape

A popular Romantic landscape was known as a pastoral idyll.  It was where poetic harmony and daily life united.

Aztec Historical Elements

The white peaks of The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel are the Popocatepetl and Iztacchihuatl volcanoes, that are prominent Aztec volcanoes. The subject is of the legendary love story between an Aztec princess and warrior. This is symbolized by the mountains.

Lake Texcoco is the lake where the Aztecs settled. The island in the lake is Tenochtitlan.

Catholic Elements

The middle ground in the painting illustrates Catholic history. The artist’s hometown is located at the foot of the small hill. This same hill was the site where the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego.

Modern Indigenous Historical Elements

In the painting the human forms are an Indigenous family in their landscape. The clothing connects them to Mexican heritage. The mother with children shows the future of Mexico.

Context

In the late 18^th century, the first art school in Latin America was established in Mexico City. The Royal Academy of San Carlos was modeled after the Art Academy of San Fernando, in Madrid, which fostered Romantic and Neoclassical aesthetics.

After The Mexican War for Independence in 1810-1821 (from Spain), Mexico used art to establish its national identity (just like what Americans tried to do with the George Washington statue).

Comparisons

Romantic landscapes were used as popular subjects to express patriotism and national identity

Both images depict the Valley of Mexico, Lake Texcoco, and the island of Tenochtitlan

Both images depict the hillside where the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego

 

About the Artist

Jose María Velasco (1840-1912) was one of Mexico’s most accomplished landscape painters.  He trained at the Royal Academy of San Carlos, where he learned Romanticism and was encouraged to paint Mexican landscapes. During his career, he won numerous prizes and awards in national and international competitions.

Early French Photography

Early French photographers like Eugene Atget photographed Parisian scenes as their most common subjects.

Critics like Daumier disliked this, complaining that Paris was not photo worthy.

 

(4) 114. Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art.

 Honoré Daumier. French. 1862. (Related to) 19^th century. Photography.

Learning Objective: Late 19^th century Lithograph

Themes:

Satire
Print
Technology
Science
Text and image
Innovation

Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art a work by French born artist Honoré Daumier is a lithograph.

NOTE: Clearly this is not a photograph, however, it is grouped here so that we can continue to think about photographic developments throughout the 19^th century.

Lithograph (what Daumier used)

• Keeps the sketchy, “drawing-like” quality that cannot be captured in a woodcut, engraving, or etching and makes this reproducible like a print.
• Hinges on the principal that water and oil cannot mix.
• An image is drawn onto a stone slab with an oily crayon.
• Water is then rolled over the stone.
• The oily crayon repels the water, and the stone absorbs the water because it is porous.
• Oil is rolled over the stone. The oil adheres to the oily crayon but is repelled from the areas where there is water.
• Paper (with high cotton content) is applied to top to transfer image using pressure.

Collodion (what Nadar used in the image)

• Take a glass plate
• Coat gun cotton (aka collodion) on it à this is light sensitive and stays wet
• Expose plate to light (exposure time of 3-5 minutes) (1% of original time of daguerreotypes)
• Must develop plate while wet à anywhere you took the photo, you had to have a portable darkroom with you.

Function

This is a satire. It mocks both the difficulties of the method and the uncertain status of photography. It mocks the literal and figurative elevation of art.

Daumier believed it would take more than just going “up” to elevate photography to fine art. He did not believe photography was art. This was done in response to a French court decision in 1862 that determined that photos could be considered works of art.

This incited a large amount of mockery regarding photography.

What Do We See?

Nadar is a mad-scientist or absent-minded professor. After the perfect shot, he is about to lose his top hat, and tumble out of his hot air balloon. He will do anything for art!

What kind of photo is he taking? A collodion photo. The difficulty with these photos is you must develop it instantly! That means, not only is he struggling to get the perfect photo up in this blustery hot air balloon, but he also has a portable darkroom with him.

Below, every building in Paris has “photographie” written on it. Not only is all of Paris apparently “photo-worthy” to photographers (something that those who didn’t like photography thought ridiculous), but it will literally become a popular subject for photographers.

Context

Nadar was known for capturing the first aerial photographs from the basket of a hot air balloon in 1858.

Daumier’s lithograph (and what Nadar had done in the hot air balloon) touched on a controversial subject. People felt the photo took pictures of them without their permission. Later, in 1870, the government bought Nadar’s balloon for surveillance purposes.

Daumier’s print captured the anxieties over the accelerated growth, industrialization, and changes regarding privacy in Paris, France, and Europe.

There was a 19^th century debate over whether photography could be considered “art”. Some people said photography was just “worse painting”. They said it didn’t capture any of the emotion of painting. It was thought that it didn’t require any skill and that you just pushed a button.  It was said to eliminate the artist altogether. Or that anyone could do it without training!  Others said it would never have a use for science.

 

(4) (117) The Horse in Motion.

 Eadweard Muybridge. American. 1878. 19^th century. Photography.

Learning Objective: Late 19^th century albumen print

Themes:

 Print

Technology
Science
Innovation

 The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge is an Albumen print.

 Form

 Dry glass plate method:

This is the same process as collodion method, but:

• You do not have to develop while wet (uses dry collodion instead)
• Reduced exposure time to 1/25^th of a second (allows you to photograph moving objects)

How did he do it?

Muybridge set up a row of cameras with tripwires. Each would trigger a picture for a split second as the horse ran by.

Now, how did Muybridge replicate the photos for publication in a magazine?

Albumen print

• Take a dry glass photo
• Coat with silver nitrate (which is light sensitive)
• Take paper
• Coat with egg white (albumen) and salt
• Place wet side of glass with wet side of dry glass plate
• Expose to light
• Light helps the image to soak onto the paper and transfer the image over

Function

Muybridge was commissioned by Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University, governor of California and horseman. The work was designed to settle the question of whether a horse ever takes all four legs completely off the ground during a gallop. The human eye is not capable of breaking down such a fast action.

Stanford had made a $25,000 bet ($605,000 today) that all the hooves did come off the ground.

He hired Muybridge to prove he was right. He paid Muybridge $42,000 THEN (today, that is $1,018,000.00 +)

Content  

• 12 photographs shot in rapid succession
• Shows that, yes, a horse does bring all four hooves off the ground

Context

This marked a new purpose for photography. It really could answer scientific questions. Photographic technology could do something that humans couldn’t do.

Interestingly, people did not believe these pictures were real, accusing him of forging them.

Photography now was used for a scientific purpose.

People were still skeptical.  What skill or talent did it take? It could be manipulated. It wasn’t artful

Muybridge’s stop motion technique was an early form of animation that helped pave the way for the motion picture industry.

Zoetrope: instructions came in magazines to cut out the strips, place them in a circle and tape together the ends, lock through holes on the top and then spin it.

Zoopraxiscope: expensive version.

 

Realism: A Reaction Against Romanticism

Realism developed in France around the mid-19^th-century. This was a widespread rejection of Romanticism in favor of the accurate and “objective” description of the ordinary, observable world. It examined the unidealized events and people of the period.

Realism moved away from forms of the past toward a confrontation with contemporary issues. It renounced sentimentality and nostalgia of the past to instead focus on reality. This revealed contradictions and hypocrisy in our world. It illustrated discontent with political and economic issues. It asked the question– how does great wealth exist with great poverty?

Realism did not paint heroes but paints ordinary people. The focus was on the experiences and sights of everyday life. Artists, such as Courbet, Millet and Daumier became the social conscience and documentarians of 19^th century France. It was also promoted by critics such as Charles Baudelaire.

 

(4) 113. The Stone Breakers.

Gustave Courbet. French. 1849; destroyed in 1945. Realism.

Learning Objective: Realism painting

Themes:

Status
Propaganda

Museum: Destroyed in 1945; was in Dresden

The Stone Breakers by French artist Gustave Courbet was an oil on canvas work that was destroyed in 1945.  It measured 5 feet 5 inches by 8 feet 5 inches.

Realism

Realism is an accurate and objective depiction of the world full of everyday scenes and gritty hardships of impoverished lives. The crisp precision of Neoclassicism was going out of style, but Realist paint is still not gestural like Impressionist paint would later be.

The word realism means it has been painted to look true to life. This involves a large canvas with large figures, befitting a history painting – but this is not a history painting subject!

Brushwork is rough – consciously rejected Neoclassical finish. Often people thought the work was not finished. The canvas often seemed dirty with muted colors of brown yellow and cream. Figures are isolated in the foreground with flat space and dark color.

Function

This work illustrates the artist’s concern for the plight of the poor.  This was advocacy (maybe even propaganda) for a class that has been ignored and not deemed worthy, either by society or in art. It is not meant to be heroic. This is an account of abuse and deprivation and exploitation. It challenged traditions of academic painting and asked, “Why are the wealthy the only appropriate subjects?”

There was no commissioner. The art world was moving away from a clear patron or desire. Now, the art market had developed. There was an ample market for works that artists decided to create.

This work was rejected at the 1855 Salon as “inappropriate”. The reaction to the work was disgust. Never had mundane activities and peasants been represented in art, unless ennobled and honorably working the land.

Courbet’s comment on the painting:

I stopped to consider two men breaking stones on the highway. It’s rare to meet the most complete expression of poverty, so an idea of a picture came to me on the spot. I made an appointment with them at my studio for the next day. On one side is an old man of seventy, bent over his work, his sledgehammer raised, his skin parched by the sun, his head shaded by a straw hat; his trousers, of course material, are completely patched; and in his cracked sabots you can see his bare heels sticking out of socks that were once blue. On the other side is a young man with swarthy skin, his head covered with dusk; his disgusting shirt all in tatters reveals his arms and parts of his back; a leather suspender holds up what is left of his trousers, and his mud-caked leather boots show gaping holes on every side. The old man is kneeling, the young man standing behind him energetically carrying a basket of broken rocks. Alas, in labor such as this, one’s life begins and ends this way.

We see two figures work on the side of the road. They are stone breakers who are in charge of breaking up stones and clearing rubble so the roads can be made. This work was the results of industrialization

They are dirty, dressed in ripped and tattered clothing. We do not see faces and though they work together, they do not communicate. Not only are they isolated from us, but they are also isolated from each other. The figures are that of a boy (too young for this kind of labor) and an older man (too old for this kind of labor).

A Closer Look

Set in front of a low hill, it looks like the town of Ornans, where Courbet lived. The hill reaches the entire top of the canvas except for a small spot on the far-right corner. This effectively isolates the laborers and makes us feel they are trapped. Their entrapment is not only physical (in this painting) but also social and financial.

Even though we know that the space between them and the hill is very deep, the colors and lack of sky make the painting seem flat and almost claustrophobic

Context

This work was destroyed in the WWII British Bombing of Dresden, in 1945. It was in a transport vehicle, with about 150 other paintings to a castle for safekeeping when it was bombed. Painted only one year after Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto which impacted Courbet.

The Industrial Revolution across Europe led to a two-class system, the Bourgeoisie who were factory owners and the upper class, and proletariat or working class.

The message is that the Proletariat was exploited. They must unite and overcome the bourgeoisie to create the perfect classless society. Marx advocated for a violent revolution if necessary.

Courbet turned away from his wealthy bourgeoisie upbringing to adopt a self-imposed vagrancy and Bohemian lifestyle. This was unconventional with few ties. It was based on art, music, poetry, and free love.  Think of Bohemians as the hippies of 19^th century Paris.

Courbet did not attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He was not a formal member. This marks the end of the Ecole’s influence over artists.

Making Comparisons

While most traditional illustrations depicted peasants as quaint, pastoral, and happily at work, Courbet’s work showed the exploitation of laborers and the realities of their livelihoods.

 

About Courbet

French born artist Gustave Courbet (1819-1879) was instrumental in the emergence of Realism. Rejecting the French Academy and classical styles, his work focused on what was real. Think the working class and people living in the countryside. He was an outspoken political activist, Courbet died in Switzerland, while in exile.

Impressionists (1863-1886)

Impressionists departed from tradition. They rejected Renaissance perspective, balanced compositions, idealized figures, and chiaroscuro.

Instead, they focused on:

• Immediate visual sensations through color and light
• Bright palette of color
• Inclusion of light
• Short choppy brush strokes
• lack of finish
• Individual stylistic techniques

Subjects

Contemporary Parisian life, including leisure, upper middle class, and the outdoors, were the main subjects for the Impressionists.

Auguste Renoir. Le Moulin de la Galette. Oil on canvas. 1876.

Edgar Degas. The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage. 1874. Oil on canvas.

Salon des Refusés, 1863

• Jurors rejected 3,000 of 5,000 paintings submitted to the annual art show as unacceptable works and “a serious danger for society”.
• Succès de scandale
• Art historians date beginning of modern painting from this point

 

(4) 115. Olympia.

 Édouard Manet. French. 1863. Impressionism.

Learning Objective: Realism/Impressionist painting

Themes:

Female nude
Appropriation
Sexuality
Ideal woman
Animals
Male-female relationships

Museum: Musee d’Orsay

 Olympia by artist Édouard Manet is an oil on canvas work. It measures 4 feet 5 by 6 feet by 4inches.

Form: REALISM

Bold, flat brushstrokes with very little modeling comprise this work, ignoring the detailed modeling of the Renaissance and Baroque era. The paint seemed to just sit on the canvas. Many called this unskilled and childish. In fact, many parts seemed unfinished: curtain, bed sheets, breasts.

The Image seems stiff and flattened into two planes: foreground and background. Manet ignored shadows, modeling, and any atmosphere that would have softened her and given her a fleshy feel.

Function: IMPRESSIONISM

Avant-garde was new, unusual, and experimental. It was known for simplification of brushstrokes and the removal of transitional tones.

This work was displayed at the 1865 Salon (for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the national school of art after the Revolution disbanded the Academie Royale des peintures et sculptures).

Viewers weren’t sure of Manet’s motives.

Was he trying to produce a serious work of art?

Was he trying to continue the great art historical tradition of female nudes?

Was he honoring Titian? If you wanted to become a great painter, you had to contend with the Old Masters

Was Olympia a parody of Titian’s Venus of Urbino?

Reaction was very negative. The public was so outraged by the painting that the gallery was forced to hire two policemen to protect the canvas. Objections had more to do with the realism of the subject than the fact that she was nude. She was not a Venus, not a wife, not even an odalisque (even La Grande Odalisque was acceptable because she was exotic and foreign!) This was a woman you could run into in the city of Paris!

Manet was trying to capture modern life. Here he paints a woman of his time – not a feminine ideal, not a goddess, but a real prostitute.

Art for Art’s Sake the phrase that wasn’t coined until 1875, after this painting was made is indeed still relevant.  JM Whistler, an American painter, in a court trial is credited with coming up with the phrase. He expressed the inherent value in art, even if it lacks a moral, historical, or didactic message.

Content: IMPRESSIONISM

How is this Impressionism? This is a scene of modern life, not necessarily the downtrodden who are exploited and toiling on the side of the road. Granted, many of us today would say prostitutes are exploited – however, from what we see of Olympia, she is a stable, well-off woman. We must remember the context of the period.

Olympia depicts a reclining nude woman, with a maid and black cat, gazing at the viewer.

Olympia

Olympia is a prostitute (a common prostitute name in Paris). The work is based on Victorine Meurent, a longtime model and lover of Manet. This is the same model in Luncheon on the Grass.

Notice her jewelry, Japanese robe (the height of fashion), shoes and flower.

She stares challengingly at the viewer. Venus of Urbino was demure. Is Olympia bored?

Olympia looks uninviting. Her body is stiff. Her torso is taut. If she is a prostitute, why is she so uninviting?

Maid

• Offers Olympia a bouquet of flowers, presumably a gift.
• Black women were often servants in brothels.
• Created 15 years after slavery had been abolished in France,

Cat

• Symbol of independence
• Black color – symbol of nighttime
• Associated with brothels
• Reference to female anatomy

Context

Olympia was displayed in the Beaux-Arts Salon of 1865.  The jury accepted his work, but it still ignited scandal. It was called “inconceivable vulgarity” despite the Impressionists loving it.

Manet is the bridge between Realism and Impressionism. This was a new beginning of artists becoming interested in modern Parisian life. There was something uniquely urban, sensational, and chic about modern Parisian life that deserved to be captured.

Impressionists departed from tradition by rejecting perspective, balanced compositions, chiaroscuro, and modeling. They desired sensation from color and light. There was a lack of finish to their work as well as individual technique.

More About Manet

Édouard Manet (DATES) was a member of Paris’s upper-middle class (bourgeoisie). The artist was the only one of his contemporaries who didn’t have to sell his paintings to earn a living. Although his father wanted him to study law, Manet still preferred art. Manet loved Courbet, Velazquez, and Goya.

 

(4) 116. The Saint-Lazare Station

Claude Monet. French. 1877. Impressionism.

Learning Objective: 19^th century. Impressionist painting

Themes:

Innovation
Technology
Landscape

Museum: Musée d’Orsay

The Saint-Lazare Station by French artist Claude Monet is an oil on canvas work measuring 2 feet 4 inches by 3 feet 4 inches.  

This was painted Plein air or plain air, meaning it was painted outside. This changed tradition. The artists who used this method to paint thought they should paint what they see and not bring items back to the studio. They brought soft aluminium tubes of paint with them. These were painted on small canvas, without the pretense of trying to be like history paintings. All materials were easily transported.

Monet focused on capturing the essence of what he saw, rather than capturing formal clarity. The focus is on light, color, and atmosphere. Some areas are almost completely abstract, with loose, gestural, painterly brushstrokes. There is no sense of traditional modelling. This focuses on the play of light and color.

The hardness of lines is dissolved by the light. He used rapid, swift brushstrokes to create transience of smoke and conveys speed. Light is filtered through the smoke and metal grid.

Is this compositionally different from a traditional landscape?

• Visual movement going back in space
• Framing devices on either side
• Lines that recede and carry our eyes back

Function

Modern critics had urged painters to “paint their own times”.  A wide variety of subject matter suddenly became acceptable (and even encouraged) when previously this subject matter would have been inappropriate and unthinkable for painting.

Charles Baudelaire had encouraged artists to be “painters of modern life”. A painter’s goal was to capture the very nature of modernity, distilling something essential from its transitory, busy qualities. The traditional Academy challenged this. Why paint what was viewed as ugly and unattractive? It was a radical idea to paint real life, but it was an emblem of modernity.

A train is a symbol of modern life, which was perfect for Impressionist goals.

Novelist Emile Zola said: “You can hear the trains rumbling in, see the smoke billow up under the huge roofs . . . That is where painting is today . . . Our artists have to find the poetry in the train stations, the way their fathers found poetry in forests and rivers.”

A series of 12 works were difficult to sell, however, as many buyers were not caught up with Impressionist ideas. Impressionists were not very popular in their lifetimes. This bothered many of them, especially Renoir. The term “Impressionist” was coined to be derogatory. It was used as a way of saying the artists couldn’t paint. They could only make impressions.

Content

 Interior of Saint-Lazare station

• Train that is moving into the station under giant metal hanger
• Grittiness and dirtiness of the coal-burning steam engines
• Noise of trains coming in, people getting off, squeal of brakes, whistle of trains and conductors
  • Canopy of glass and steel; frames activities on platform
• Block of residential buildings with uniform rooflines, standardized fenestration (arrangement of windows/doors on an elevation), and strong horizontal banding
  • Typical of Haussmann’s architecture
• Pont de l’Europe in background – a large, star-shaped iron bridge.
• Connection between energy/hustle + bustle of people, with the energy and power of modernization and technology

Context

Monet rented a flat near the Saint Lazare Station in 1877 and asked to paint the station. In the spring of that year, he exhibited seven of these canvasses.  Having previously lived in Argenteuil, a Parisian suburb, Monet knew the phenomenon of commuter railroads. It was a very modern idea, that people would travel to work in the city. He viewed the changes in Paris very positively at this time.

By 1877, Paris had been transformed through industrialization, urbanization, and technological advancements (Haussmannization of Paris).

Under the direction of Baron Haussmann, prefect for Napoleon III, Haussmann was asked to achieve many things.

• Modernize boulevards to both widen and lengthen them.
• Build new facades on existing apartments and build new buildings (fenestration – arrangement of doors, windows on an elevation; use uniform rooflines)
• Build bridges to allow commuters to pass more easily over Paris’s Seine and surrounding rivers
• Build new train stations to facilitate travel in and out of city, while increasing the size of existing ones. Saint Lazare is tripled in size.

This led to an increase of commuters and encouraged tourism around the city. An expanding middle class could support this leisure time and they had the money. Trains became faster, and more times were offered for travelers.

St. Lazare is still a working train station today. Visible in the current station is the eaved roof with glass panels at the top, like the one in Monet’s painting.

About Monet

French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) might be best remembered for soft pastel shades, of his serenely beautiful garden and lily pond, at his countryside home in Giverny, France. Other series of works include haystacks (1891), poplars (1892) and Rouen Cathedral (1894).

 

(4) 121. The Coiffure.

Mary Cassatt. French.1890-1891. Impressionism.

Learning Objective: 19^th century. Impressionist print

Themes:

 Print
Status
Appropriation
Cross-cultural
Female nude
Domestic space
Private

Museum: National Gallery in DC

The Coiffure by American artist Mary Cassatt is a 17 by 12-inch work using both drypoint and aquatint.

What is Drypoint?

Drypoint is an etching technique. A metal plate is covered with wax. An image is carved or incised into the surface of the wax using a burin. Incise lines directly into the surface of the plate with a stylus while pressing down hard. This results in uneven, jagged lines where shavings curl up on either side and makes ridges. Rather than blowing or wiping those shavings off, they are left to give extra texture to the printing. This reveals the plate underneath. The printing part is cut into, while the non-printing parts are left uncut.

The plate is put into acid. The acid eats away at the exposed metal parts, leaving holes. The plate is heated so all the wax melts off. The surface of sheet is covered with ink, so that the ink will pool into the incised areas. It will be wiped away from the rest of the plate. Paper is applied to the top to transfer image using pressure.

What is Aquatint?

A layer (or more) of powdery resin is applied to the plate. The plate is heated so it melts. Then it is cooled to create a hardened, fine, but still grainy pattern.  The plate is placed in acid which eats away around the powdered resin, leaving small indentations in the plate.

The plate is rinsed, and then ink is applied, so that the ink will pool into the incised areas. Paper is applied to the top to transfer image using pressure.

Different tints and hues of a color can be controlled by how much resin is on the plate and how long the plate was in acid.

Influence from Japanese Prints

• Spare composition
• Tilted perspective; love of flat patterning; rejects Western assumption of 3D space
• Simplicity of line and form
• See figures from multiple angles

Repetition and Contrast of Form

Note the curve of the woman’s sloping back and neck echoes the curves of the chair.

Limited Color Palette

The palette consists of only four colors:

• rose
• white
• brown
• cream

This enables us to focus on line and clarity. From an artistic point of view, Cassatt was trying to imitate the haziness and softness of Impressionist form.

Additional Notes

• Asymmetrical composition
• Spatial flattening

Function

 This is Mary Cassatt’s exercise in Japanese techniques. It is based on ukiyo-e prints.

There is a de-eroticization of women, showing a boudoir/toilette scene that is not sexualized. This is likely because of the gender of the artist. This is a twist on the traditional female nude that we have been seeing in art history.

It captures fleeting moments of the busy lives of the Parisian bourgeois and working class.

Content

There are two cultural influences. While the work is Japanese in form (mostly), it is (mostly) Impressionist in content.  This was inspired by a woodblock print (in Cassatt’s personal collection) of the daughter of a prosperous Japanese Edo businessman. Toilette/boudoir scenes have their art historical roots in Old Master paintings. Think Odalisque, reclining Venuses, toilette scenes, and women bathing for example.

This is a private moment of a woman adjusting her hair. The Coiffure means “Hairdo” in French.

The ritual of getting dressed for the day had a great deal to do with status, based on royal rituals with Madame de Pompadour and Marie Antoinette. To wear elaborate hairstyles, one needed a maid. Yet, the woman here is tending to her hair alone. We see a working woman. This can be a comparison between the historically elite nature of the event vs. the everyday normalcy of this woman.

There is a voyeuristic element, but the body is not sexualized. Though her breasts are exposed, her chest and the details of her body are otherwise muted. No anatomical accuracy or detail is given.

Context

The was a wave of Japonisme spreading across Europe. In 1854, US Naval commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened Japan to Western trade. Japanese goods flooded into Europe for the first time since the 17^th century. Lacquers, fans, bronzes, hanging scrolls, kimonos, ceramics, illustrated books, and ukiyo-e prints were all popular. This inspired a Japanese style across Western art.

In 1890, Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris showcased an exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints. Mary Cassatt was in the audience and was absolutely taken with these prints.

Here are two of the prints she saw…

Utamaro, Takashima Ohisa Using Two Mirrors to Observe Her Coiffure, 1795, woodblock print

Utamaro, Takashima Ohisa Using Two Mirrors to Observe Her Coiffure, 1795, woodblock print

 

Making Comparisons

Let’s look at the similarities of these two works.

 

Content

• Women doing their hair, using a mirror

Form

• Simple compositions
• Flattened space
• Emphasis on line
• Simple color
• Views of figures from multiple angles

Mary Cassatt’s print is a revision on and Old Master toilette scenes which depicts an elite woman doing her hair and makeup.

About Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt (1844-1925) was born to a wealthy Pennsylvania family. She studied art in Europe and settled in Paris after befriending Degas. She regularly showed artwork with the Impressionists.

Cassatt rarely made nudes. Most often, she depicted her friends and family members with their children.

 

Post-Impressionism

The main artists of this time were:

• Seurat
• Cezanne
• Van Gogh
• Gauguin
• Lautrec

Yet, they did nor recognize themselves as a group and had diverse stylistic paths. They expressed emotions, rather than just optical expressions.

Simplified colors and definitive forms as well as sensations through color and light was achieved.

 

Georges Seurat.  A Sunday on the Grande Jatte. 1884. Oil on canvas.

 

(4) 125. Mont Sainte-Victoire.

Paul Cézanne. French. 1902-1904. Post-Impressionism.

Learning Objective: Post-Impressionism / proto-Cubist painting

Themes:

Nature
Landscape
Abstraction

Museum: Philadelphia Museum of Art

Mont Sainte-Victoire by French artist Paul Cézanne is an oil on canvas work measuring  2 feet 4 inches by 3 feet.

There is a proto-cubist stress on geometric structure. You will see a co-existence of multiple viewpoints in a single scene.

Are the views here always possible?

How can we see so many parts of the mountain flattened towards us?

How can we see the tops and sides of trees at the same time?

There are three horizontal bands in the composition. The band closest to us has foliage and houses. Rough patches of yellow, emerald, and green suggest a wide plain. Blues, violets, and grays form the mountain surrounded by sky. This alludes to atmospheric perspective through the bluish gray of the background. With its sketchy outlines this was not considered “finished” by academic standards of the day.

Cézanne used blocks of color to create forms and evenly distributed lighting. Our viewpoint is elevated, though we do not see how. Presumably, we are on another mountain. This in conjunction with the high horizon line allows us to see more of the valley.

A complicated pattern of diagonals can be found in each of the roofs, lines of the mountain, and arrangement of patches on the plain. This creates a deep, unified space that our eye can travel in.

Flatness coexists with depth. Somehow, he has flattened everything by making forms using rectangular swabs of paint. Yet, we understand the illusion. Things recede backwards.

Function

This is yet another study on this mountain and valley. It occupied an important part of Cézanne’s oeuvre.  Mont Sainte-Victoire poses a central question.  Can you use flat, unmodeled color to create the illusion of depth?

Can you explore coexisting views while flattening? In other words, when we flatten something, inherently we understand that to mean that we can only see one side. However, Cézanne thinks. “Can I flatten things and still create the illusion of showing more than one flat side of this object?”

Content

There are three segments:

• Foliage/houses
• An expansive plain
• Craggy mountain and sky

There is a sense of stillness across the landscape. Note the absence of human activity. We see human presence though. The subject was not chosen for historical interest or picturesque qualities. Cézanne’s principal interest was to explore the formal properties of his surroundings. For example, the huge iron cross that was on Mont Sainte-Victoire, never showed up in any paintings that he did of this scene.

The Location

Mont Sainte-Victoire dominates the skyline of Aix-en-Provence, the hometown of Cezanne. The mountain’s name means Mountain of Holy Victory. It is associated with a celebrated victory of Provence’s ancient Roman inhabitants against an invading army.

About the Artist

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) was born in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France. He developed artistic skills at an early age. Today, the artist is considered the father of modern art and a proto-cubist.

Cézanne would return to this mountain more than 60 times in his career. Each time he painted it differently than the time before. He constantly tried multiple angles and points of views.

Cézanne bought an acre of land on this hill in 1901 and built a studio on it.

Historically, within the artworld, Cézanne took Impressionism to its logical next step. What happens when you apply the loose, gestural brushstroke approach to everything, not just scenes of the Parisian bourgeois class? This is what Post-Impressionism does. It further pursues the Impressionist mission with simplified color, and broken lines and forms. It reacts against the naturalism of Impressionists

 

(4) 120. Starry Night.

 Vincent Van Gogh. Dutch. 1889. Post-Impressionism

Learning Objective: Post-Impressionism painting (landscape)

Themes:

Landscape
Nature
Iconography

Museum: MOMA

Starry Night by Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh is an oil on canvas work measuring 2 feet 5 inches by 3 feet. Loosened brushwork emphasizes the physical application of paint onto the canvas— painterly, gestural, impasto. The colors are vibrant.

It often seems to me that the night is even more richly colored than the day, colored with the most intense violets, blues, and greens. If you look carefully, you’ll see that some stars are lemony, others have a pink, green, or forget-me-not blue glow. And without laboring the point, it’s clear that to paint a starry sky, it’s not nearly enough to put white spots on black.” (September 1888)

The Details of the Work

• Balance (tree on left balances with hills and stars on right)
• Low horizon line, which allows us to see more of the sky
• Deliberately stylized and simplified
  • Van Gogh enjoyed medieval woodcuts: thick black outlines and simplified forms
• Composite landscape: not based exactly on what he saw; he would not have had this view out of the window he worked from

Function

Landscapes were popular in the late 19^th century and Van Gogh participated in this trend. People desired landscapes in part because of their dissatisfaction with modern city life. He painted not what he saw, but what he felt. This was key in Post-Impressionism.

A night-time landscape presented technical challenges he wished to confront.

Content

 The artist painted this from his studio in the mental asylum of Saint Remy. His studio did not look out at the mountains, but rather had a view of the garden. It is assumed that he composed this view using elements of a few previously completed works in his studio.

 

Sky

• Largest “star” is Venus
• Whirling forms in the sky match published astronomical observations of clouds of dust and gas (nebulae)

Town

The steeple of the church resembles those in his native Holland, not the style common in France where he was when he painted this. We see presence of human life but not activity. See the hushed village of houses.

Tree

• A cypress tree is a visual link between land and sky.
• Symbolically, cypress could be seen as a bridge between life (earth) and death (sky).
  • Commonly associated with heaven, graveyards, and mourning

Context

Van Gogh was a Dutch, largely self-taught, artist. He produced over 2,000 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and sketches. He did not sell any works in his lifetime.

Chronology of breakdown beginning in 1888 (exact sequence is not known)

The friendship/partnership with Paul Gauguin broke down. Although Van Gogh thought they were close friends, Gauguin denied feeling close to Van Gogh at all and doesn’t want a partnership.

Van Gogh cut off his ear and delivered his ear to a prostitute. Later, he asked what had happened to him, as he had no recollection.

Ultimately, Van Gogh was hospitalized at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, in Saint-Remy, in southern France, a clinic for the mentally ill. During his convalescence here, Van Gogh was encouraged to paint by his brother Theo. The artist often chewed his paint brushes. Paint was made with led, which could cause difficulty focusing and halos in front of the eyes. This is caused by lead-induced enlargement of retina.

He was medicated with a plant called the foxglove. If given too much of the drug, it causes patients to experience yellow too intensely.

While staying in Saint Remy hospital in southern France, he was able to spend hours contemplating the stars without interference from gas or electric city streetlights. He had never seen the night sky like this.

In 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest, while standing in a wheat field.  There were no witnesses and he died there two days later. Some have suggested he was murdered. He remains in our consciousness as the quintessential misunderstood genius.

Self Portraits

During Van Gogh’s time in Paris (1886-1888) he painted 20 self-portraits.

 

(4) 123. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Paul Gauguin. French.  1897-1898.  Post-Impressionism.

 Learning Objective: Post-Impressionism painting (pastiche)

Themes:

Appropriation
Passage of time
Family
Cross-cultural
Landscape
West vs Nonwest

Museum: MFA Boston

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?  By French artist Paul Gauguin is an artwork of oil on canvas that measures 10 feet and nine inches by 31 feet and 4 inches.

This work casts realism aside in favor of expression. It uses color experimentally to evoke feelings. This is one of the greatest Post-Impressionist qualities. Here, colors are stylistic, vibrant, expressive, and nonrealistic. Golds and browns set against blues and greens.

The work was inspired by the Impressionist interest in flat fields of unmodeled color from Japanese art.

Proportions are ignored. Space is not logical. The work uses the stylization that is common in Oceanic art. The simple bodies are not modeled.

Gaugin uses cultural appropriation or pastiche. In other words, he took the style of the Pacific and made it his own using primitivism.

The composition is designed and painted to recall frescoes or icons painted on gold ground. The upper corners have been painted gold to contribute to this effect.

Function

• Potentially argues the inevitability of the basic processes of life: there is no escaping youth, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
• Precise, complete interpretations remain out of reach for historians; likely it had private meaning for Gauguin
• Reveals primitivism: utilizes native traditions in non-native artwork
• Represents the artist’s painted manifesto created while he was living on Tahiti

I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but also that I shall never do anything better or even like it.”

Content

This work contains numerous humans, animal, and symbolic figures arranged across an island landscape with the sea and volcanic mountains in the background.

Right: birth, infant (Where We Come From)

• A sleeping child
• Three crouching women
• Two figures dressed in purple speak to one another
• An enormous crouching figure raises its arms

Center: mid-life (What Are We)

• A figure picks fruit (fertility, adulthood, procreate)
• Two cats near a child
• A white goat

Left: (Where Are We Going)

• Old woman nearing death
• A middle-aged woman sits next to her, perhaps her child who now takes care of her
• Blue idol represents the beyond, the afterlife

Background Story

Gauguin was a “Sunday painter” or someone who paints for his or her own enjoyment. He had a wife and five children.  After his career as a stockbroker failed in the early 1880s, he took on painting more seriously. He went to work with Van Gogh for 9 weeks – we know how that turned out!

He had cardiovascular syphilis and when left untreated, will spread to the heart and veins. Syphilitic sores on legs were often mistaken for eczema and treated with…arsenic!

Gauguin made his first visit to Tahiti in March 1891. He returned to Paris in 1893. He then abandoned his family and wanted to leave behind all that was “artificial”.  He complained that Tahiti was not as exotic as he expected. As a French colony, he said it had already been destroyed by missionaries and disease. Yet, he was swept up in the exoticism of what he did see.

Marriage and Women

When he was 50 years old, he married a 13-year-old Tahitian girl. She became pregnant almost immediately. At the same time, he married two other 14-year-olds! He gave all three girls syphilis. He named his Tahitian home the “House of Orgasm”. 

Gauguin has been criticized for sexualizing Tahitian women by painting them as frequently nude (or partially) and flirtatious, coy, and alluring.

Self Promotion

Gaugin painted this canvas in 1897. Just after learning of the death of his daughter Aline, he decided to climb up into the mountains, paint this canvas, and then kill himself afterwards.

While he may or may not have attempted suicide, he certainly realized that saying this would make a good story. “I painted this planning on committing suicide afterwards, and then decided not to because this painting made me want to live again.”

Gauguin was extremely self-conscious of his image as a bohemian vanguard artist and concerned with self-promotion.

A few months after completing this, Gauguin sent it to Paris along with several other of his works, insisting they be exhibited altogether in a gallery. He sent his friends careful instructions about how they should be framed and who should be invited to the exhibition. These facts show that his awareness of the Parisian art market and how his art would be received was of utmost importance even as he supposedly renounced this society by living on a tropical island on the other side of the globe.

Details of Life on Tahiti

Gauguin did capture details of Tahitian life, including their sculptures of deities. Such sculptures were not only common in Tahiti, but also across Oceania as seen with Female deity from Nukuoro.

Making Comparisons

Making Comparisons

Why is Mary Cassatt’s appropriation of Japanese ukiyo-e prints acceptable, whereas Gauguin’s appropriation of Tahitian artwork is not?

Cassatt is inspired formally – she takes Japanese techniques and adapts them to her own Impressionist content and individual style.

Gauguin adopts not only the formal qualities of Oceanic/Tahitian design but tries too hard to “paint native.” This is complicated by Gauguin being French and part of the dominant culture that imperially oppressed the Tahitians. Gauguin saw their art as “simpler” and more “pure,” throwing racial and cultural assumptions into his appropriation of their style.

Summary

Gaugin was hugely important in art history for beginning the path towards expressionistic color and (unfortunately) primitivism. He died in 1903 on the Marquesas Islands.

 

(4) 122. The Scream

Edvard Munch. Norwegian. 1893. Symbolism.

Learning Objective: Symbolism

Themes:

Landscapes
Man v. nature
Vision
Stylized bodies
Psychological bodies

Museum: National Gallery in Munich

The Scream by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch was created using tempera and pastels on cardboard. It measures 3 feet by 2 feet and 5 inches. This is a highly simple work.  There is an androgynous, skull-shaped head, elongated hands, wide eyes, flaring nostrils and an oval mouth.

The Five Versions

This work was replicated into five versions.

• An oil, tempera, and pastel, a soft stick of pigment like lipstick, on cardboard.
• There were 2 tempera and pastel on cardboard.
• Tempera on cardboard.
• Lithograph

More About the Form

The colors are orange, yellow, red, and blue-green. We would expect the sky to be blue and the land to be orange, but he has swapped this. The high horizon line lets us see more of the landscape than sky.

The strict linearity on the left contrasts with the curves and rounded shapes on the right. The foreground and background blend into one another. Wide curves of the figure are repeated in the landscape, and it literally ripples through or affects the man’s body.

Function

This is part of Munch’s semi-autobiographical cycle “The Frieze of Life”, painting not what he saw, but what he felt. It shows internal emotion through external form. This is Munch’s feelings/experience of synesthesia or the union of senses. It’s a visual depiction of sound and emotion.

Ask yourself:

How does one convey experiences that are not visual?

How does one convey sensations that we experience with more than one sense?

Can art be used to depict sound, perception, anxiety?

Content

The theme of this work is death, dread, and anxiety.

Three main areas illustrate this.

The bridge extends at a steep angle from the middle distance at left to fill the foreground

Human figures also display this. A screaming figure in the foreground, is linked to the landscape, as both are made of curves. One feels the cry of nature, a sound that is sensed rather than heard. The figure’s face resembles a Peruvian mummy that was exhibited at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889. Many artists were inspired by this.

There are two rigid figures on the back of the bridge. Are they coming or going?

The landscape also represents the theme. The shoreline, lake, hills, and churning sky are reflected on the water.

What is Symbolism?

Symbolism expresses emotion and ideas. It ignores naturalism. Symbolist artists came from diverse international backgrounds.

“It is not the chair which should be painted, but the human’s relation to it”. In other words, it expresses emotion.

The Decline of the Traditional Art School

This was a Norwegian artist. The art world was expanding. One no longer had to be French, Italian, or Dutch. Therefore, traditional art schools were declining in their power and necessity in the art world.

Influences on the Work

Both his mother and sister died when Munch was a child. The artist was ill, depressed much of his life and suffered from synaesthesia.

Passage in his diary dated January 22^nd, 1892, written in Nice, France likely is the inspiration for this piece.

I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun went down, and I felt a gust of melancholy. Suddenly, the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death, as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the city. My friends went on, but I stood there, trembling with anxiety, and I felt a vast and infinite scream tear through nature.

What could this have been? What was he inspired by?

The unnaturally harsh colors were likely observed by Munch. It may have been due to volcanic dust from the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. The dust lingered in the atmosphere for 10 years making extraordinary sunsets

Desired by All

In 2012, a version of The Scream sold to a private collector for $120,000,000, making it at that time, the 2^nd highest price ever achieved at auction.

 

(4) 119. The Burghers of Calais.

Auguste Rodin. French. 1884-1895. 19^th century sculpture.

Learning Objective: 19^th century sculpture

Themes:

Interpretation of history
Ideal man
Commemoration
Public
Psychological
Stylized bodies

Museum: copy in Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Burghers of Calais by French artist Auguste Rodin is a sculpture-in-the-round comprised of bronze. It was made using the lost-wax technique.

Figures are arranged into a dynamic circle. No one figure is the focal point. This allows the sculpture to be viewed in-the-round from multiple perspectives, without a clear leader. There is no contrast or emphasis.

The men are fragile vs. the heavy, rhythmic drapery that anchors them. This makes them broader. There is a roughness and stylization to the figures. Their bodies appear in agony, both twisted and contorted. This is not a heroic monument, unlike George Washington and Augustus Prima Porta.

Function

In 1885, Rodin was commissioned by the French city of Calais to create a sculpture that commemorated the heroism of Eustache Saint-Pierre.

• Saint-Pierre was a prominent citizen of Calais during the 100 Years War between England and France (began in 1337)
• The statue would be timely as Calais being besieged by the English in the 100 Years War was similar to France being besieged by Prussia (Germany) in the Franco-Prussian War, which ended in 1871.

The patrons wanted: 

• A heroic statue of Eustache (It was Common to depict heroic men as sole figures like George Washington.)
• Raised pedestal
• Heroism was key to show Eustache in a heroic light

What Rodin wanted:

• All six men
• An emotional work to enhance a personal connection with the viewer and bring the audience in.
• He wanted it to be street-level so the audience could feel a part of the tragedy.

The Resolution 

This tug-of-war persisted between Rodin and the committee for ten years. The correspondence reveals that the Calais mayor tried to keep Rodin’s interest in the project despite their disagreements and delays.

The patrons were so disappointed, they did not want to purchase it. They wanted one statue of Eustache since he was the council leader of the burghers. And where was the pedestal?

They did not like that the men were unidealized and emotional. They thought this display of male emotion was inappropriate, and made them look vulnerable and weak, instead of ennobled.

Rodin gave them a version with a pedestal to satisfy them. Then, he made a second version without a pedestal for himself.

The patrons were still so disappointed, they did not order additional castings like they had discussed.

One Moment in Time

Look at the choice in the moment of the narrative (have not discussed this since Baroque art!).

Rodin does not show these men when they were released. Instead, he shows them in the moment they gather to go to their deaths. We see them in agony. Instead of elating the men in the moment of full knowledge that they will not die, he shows us that the threat of death is very real.

The Men

Six men appear – these are the burghers (councilmen) of Calais. They are wearing only simple tattered sackcloth (King Edward humiliated them by making them wear sackcloth to reinforce his power over them). The clothing anchors them to the ground. There is no escaping their fate.

They appear thin and malnourished. The city had been besieged for 11 months. The man with the beard is Eustache de Saint-Pierre.

The men stand together, but they do not make eye contact or interact with one another. Each is reflecting on their own choice and their own sense of loss.

• Some have their heads bowed.
• Some raise their hands.
• Others gaze out into the distance (one with key to the city: Jean d’Aire).
• Some plea.
• They are united then not through contact but by their posture and circumstance.

Warring and Death

Calais was besieged for 11 months with dwindling food and water. To end the assault on the French, English King Edward III made a deal with the city of Calais. If they wished to save their lives and the city, they must:

• Surrender the key to the city to the king.
• Six burghers must die!

The burghers had to decide what to do. Unbeknownst to the burghers, their lives would be spared. The king’s wife Philippa persuaded him to not kill the burghers. She believed the deaths would be a bad omen for their unborn child

More About Rodin and The Burghers of Calais

Rodin was denied entry into the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris three times. He needed recognition and approval, so he took this job despite not being interested in it. The committee selected him because he was cheaper than a Beaux-Arts artist!

He revolutionized the sculpture and disregarded the traditions of heroic sculpture. Rodin used a version recounting the 100 Years War by a 14^th century French chronicler named Jean Froissart.

Artist Backgrounder

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was born in Paris, France. He started out in the field of decorative arts and did not become a sculptor until his 40s.  His most famous works include, The Age of Bronze, The Thinker, The Kiss and The Burghers of Calais.

 

(4) 124. Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building.

 Louis Sullivan (architect). American. 1899-1903. 19^th-century architecture.

Learning Objective: Chicago Style skyscraper

Themes:

Public
Technology
Innovation
Architecture
Commercial 

Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building by architect Louis Sullivan was constructed from steel, glass, and terra cotta. The building stands in Chicago, Illinois, US.

Form

Sullivan wrote his treatise on skyscraper architecture The Tall Office Building Considered Artistically in 1896. He was a pioneer of American commercial architecture.

Examples of Chicago Style:

• clean and streamlined
• grid-like
• simple with little to no ornamentation

This type of architecture got its start in Chicago, hence the name.

Sullivan coined the term form follows function. If form followed tradition or precedent, it would look classical.  With this architect’s method a building would reflect or telegraph its purpose. This is why we think buildings “look like prisons” or “look like banks” today.

Tripartite skyscraper

• Base level with ground floor for business
  • Easy public access accomplished by a rounded corner door
  • Light, open space from ample windows
  • Windows on this floor are much larger than higher floors
  • Decorative and appealing

• Infinite number of floors for offices, designed to look the same and serve the same function
  • Should display efficiency and height (power, ingenuity, momentum)
  • Windows are all identical to display productivity
  • Topped with a distinct cornice line to mark the top of the building

• Iron and steel framework (skeleton) made possible open floor plans and large glass windows
  • Achieve height + open floor plans
    • Replaced old load bearing walls

SUB-IMAGE 1 (Floor plan)

• Large glass windows
• Rounded corner entryway to attract shoppers from both streets

Function  

• Department store for dry goods merchant Schlesinger-Mayer
• Office space for company

Content

 The building received its name in 1904 when Carson Pirie Scott bought the building.

Department store for dry goods merchant Schlesinger-Mayer

• Bottom floor was for shopping
• Upper floors were individual offices

 

SUB-IMAGE 2 (Entryway)

The gorgeous entryway is made of cast iron. The decorative program gave the building a chance to be distinguished from buildings around it. This made it more attractive to potential customers. A pedestrian’s eye will be immediately attracted to the bronze-colored ground floor.

The ornamentation is Art Nouveau a style that embraced natural decorative elements, twisting, ornate, curling vines, floral elements.

Context

The late 19^th century and early 20^th century in America saw the increase of wealth for the middle class. It became a consumer culture. Department stores and banking/offices needed to be built.

There was now a professionalization of jobs and an increase in white-collar jobs.