20th cent. Neoclassicism
The Russian Avant Garde
Suprematism
(1913-1918)
“Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art that, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of 'things‘.”
Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World
Geometric forms as paradigms of spiritual evolution
sacred geometry
Kazimir
Malevich
Suprematist Painting:
Eight Red Rectangles
o/c, 1915, 22 x 19”
"the supremacy of pure feeling"
"The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling."
Black Square, 1913, o/c, 31 x 31”
Kazimir
Malevich
Kazimir
Malevich
The Black Circle, 1913, 41 x 41”
Suprematist Composition:
White on White
1918, o/c, 31 x 31”
What artists found appealing about the various arcane religious and philosophical systems was
their underlying premise that the spiritual world is governed by laws that mirror natural laws and that can
be expressed in symbols. The idea is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s notion that every appearance in nature
corresponds to some state of mind. Geometric forms are thus paradigms of spiritual evolution.
The spiritual world, like the natural world, is charged with energy, producing cosmic vibrations and
human auras. The spiritual principles that intrigued certain artists included synesthesia, the overlap
between the senses by which a painting can simulate music; duality, the idea that the cosmos reflects
an underlying principle of yin and yang; and so-called "sacred geometry," the belief that, as Plato put it,
"God geometricizes."
Spirituality in Abstract Art by Pamela Schaeffer on the subject of the exhibition "The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985”.
Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue1921, o/c, 15 x 13”
Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19”
Piet Mondrian
“the struggle toward unity of cosmic dualities and the religious symmetry undergirding the material
universe”Theosophist
Line and color
Lozenge Composition withRed, Black, Blue, and YellowOil on canvas 30 3/8 x 30 in.vertical axis 42 1/2 in.
Architecture
The International Style
Holland, De Stijl - Gerrit Rietveld
Germany, The Bauhaus – Walter Gropius
France – Le Corbusier
USA – Mies van der Rohe
WalhallaOil on canvas95x130cm
Leo von Klenze
conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria
Walhallabuilt between 1830 and 1842
Johann Gottfried Schadow, sculptor
The Newborn, 1915, marble, 8 1/2 x 6 inches
Bird in Space, 1923, marble, (with base) 56 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches
Bird in space, polished brass,1932-40, 60”
Constantin Brancusi
The International Style
DE STIJL
Gerrit Rietveld
dematerialization
Shroeder House,
Utrecht, Holland, 1923
UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites
"One of the outstanding achievements of the new constructional technique has been the abolition
of the separating function of the wall. Instead of making the walls the element of support,
as in a brick-built house, our new space-saving construction transfers the whole load of the structure
to a steel or concrete framework. Thus the role of the walls becomes restricted to that of mere screens
stretched between the upright columns of this framework to keep out rain, cold, and noise. ...
Systematic technical improvement in steel and concrete …. are steadily reducing the area occupied by
supporting members. This, in turn …. allows rooms to be much better lit. It is, therefore, only logical that
the old type of window—a hole that had to be hollowed out of the full thickness of a supporting wall—
should be giving place more and more to the continuous horizontal casement ….. And as a direct result
of the growing preponderance of voids over solids, glass is assuming an ever greater structural
importance....In the same way the flat roof is superseding the old penthouse roof with its tiled or slated
gables.”
Gerrit Rietveld,Schroder House, Utrecht, Holand,1923
Mondrian chair (Blue and Red chair)
The Bauhaus Workshop Wing
Walter Gropius The BauhausDessau, Germany
1919-25
Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye, France, 1929-30
Mies van der Rohe
German Pavillion, Barcelona (1929)
Barcelona Chair, 1927
“less is more”
Lake Shore Drive Apartment Houses,Chicago, 1950-52
Edgar Kaufmann House, Fallingwater, Pennsilvania, 1935-37
Frank Lloyd Wright
use of industrial materials creates abstract works that emphasize the purity of color, form, space and materials
Minimalism 1960’s +
Visual purity
precision and rationality
creator out of the work
objects are stripped down to their elemental, geometric form, and presented in an impersonal manner
aesthetic utopia—a universally comprehensible language devoid of reference or narrative
Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19”
Piet Mondrian
Kazimir Malevich
Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles
o/c, 1915, 22 x 19”
Frank Stella
PurityPrecisionImpersonalityAbstraction
Carl Andre
144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967, 144 zinc plates
Fall, 1968. Hot-rolled steel, 21 units, 71 x 28 x 72” each
“sculpture as place rather than form”
Viewer-interactive sculpture
industrial materials
Modular units
Untitled, 1961-9, Woodcut on paper
Untitled, 1973, stainless steel, relief
Donald Judd
Untitled 1969/1982 Anodized aluminum
‘the simple expression of complex thought’
‘stacks’, ‘boxes’ and ‘progressions’
exploration of volume, interval, space and color
Creator out of the work (external manufacturers)
Untitled, 1967-68. Stainless steel and plexiglass, in six parts.
Donald Judd
With Carl Andre’s 144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967
Portrait of the Artist Throwing Molten Lead
Torqued Ellipses, 1996, steel 13' h. x 29' L x 20' w (each)
Richard Serra
Large scale minimalist sculpture
(site-specific)
Richard Serra
Tilted Arc, 1981, raw rusting steel, 120’ x 12’, Federal Plaza, Lower Manhatan (destroyed, 1989)
Maya Ying Lin
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC 1981-3, each wing 246’ long, black granite
Maya Ying Lin
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC 1981-3, each wing 246’ long, black granite
Earthworks, Land Art, Site Specific ArtEphemeral art
The move outdoorsRejection of the art object as a commodity and of the museum culture
Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah
Robert Smithson
mud, precipitated salt crystals, black basalt rocks from the site; a 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide coil that stretches out counterclockwise into the translucent red water.
Robert Smithson
rare occasion of its re-emergence from beneath the surface of the Great Salt Lake,following a season of severe drought
Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah
Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico
Walter de Maria
Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico
Walter de Maria
Christo & Jean –Claude
The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1975-85
Ephemeral, environmental, site-specific art
To "create works of art of joy and beauty" through “gentle disturbances”
The Running Fence, Sonoma County, California 1972-76
Christo & Jean –Claude
18’ high, 24 miles long color and sound