Semyon Fridlyand, "Stacking flax on the vast "New Life" collective farm in Kostromo, NE of Moscow, post-war.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Friday, February 22, 2008
(social vs. socialst) realism
Socialist Realism
Socialist Realism, the art produced in accord with the propagandist purposes of the Soviet Communist dictatorship from 1932. It was proclaimed the officially approved artistic idiom in 1934 at the First All-Union Congress, but no clear stylistic guidelines were given. Rather it was defined negatively, in opposition to the ‘formalism’ and ‘intuitivism’ of contemporary movements. These influences were defined as foreign and alien to Marxist theory, particularly during the patriotic aftermath of the Second World War. Typical subjects included large-scale factories, the new collectivist farms, and heroic representations of Stalin as found in The Morning of our Motherland by Fyodor Shurpin (1948; Moscow, Tretyakov Gal.). Such paintings were often on a monumental scale, with easily identifiable figures painted in a superficially naturalistic mode. Idealized depiction was intended to convey to the proletariat the idea that the Soviet dictatorship had succeeded in extinguishing all societal evils. This form of cultural control diminished in Russia after Stalin's death in 1953 but resemblances were later to be found under similar regimes in South-East Asia. (From www.groveart.com, [from OCWA])
and from Encylopedia Brittanica:
Socialist Realism follows the great tradition of 19th-century Russian realism in that it purports to be a faithful and objective mirror of life. It differs from earlier realism, however, in several important respects. The realism of Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov inevitably conveyed a critical picture of the society it portrayed (hence the term critical realism). The primary theme of Socialist Realism is the building of socialism and a classless society. In portraying this struggle, the writer could admit imperfections but was expected to take a positive and optimistic view of socialist society and to keep in mind its larger historical relevance.
A requisite of Socialist Realism is the positive hero who perseveres against all odds or handicaps. Socialist Realism thus looks back to Romanticism in that it encourages a certain heightening and idealizing of heroes and events to mold the consciousness of the masses. Hundreds of positive heroes—usually engineers, inventors, or scientists—created to this specification were strikingly alike in their lack of lifelike credibility. Rarely, when the writer's deeply felt experiences coincided with the official doctrine, the works were successful, as with the Soviet classic Kak zakalyalas stal (1932–34; How the Steel Was Tempered), written by Nikolay Ostrovsky, an invalid who died at 32. His hero, Pavel Korchagin, wounded in the October Revolution, overcomes his health handicap to become a writer who inspires the workers of the Reconstruction. The young novelist's passionate sincerity and autobiographical involvement lends a poignant conviction to Pavel Korchagin that is lacking in most heroes of Socialist Realism.
& Social realism
Term used to refer to the work of painters, printmakers, photographers and film makers who draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working classes and the poor, and who are critical of the social structures that maintain these conditions. In general it should not be confused with Socialist realism, the official art form of the USSR, which was institutionalized by Joseph Stalin in 1934, and later by allied Communist parties worldwide. Social realism, in contrast, represents a democratic tradition of independent socially motivated artists, usually of left-wing or liberal persuasion. Their preoccupation with the conditions of the lower classes was a result of the democratic movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, so social realism in its fullest sense should be seen as an international phenomenon, despite the term’s frequent association with American painting. While the artistic style of social realism varies from nation to nation, it almost always utilizes a form of descriptive or critical realism (e.g. the work in 19th-century Russia of the Wanderers).
Social realism’s origins are traceable to European Realism, including the art of Honoré Daumier, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet. In 19th-century England the Industrial Revolution aroused a concern in many artists for the urban poor. Throughout the 1870s the work of such British artists as Luke Fildes, Hubert von Herkomer, Frank Holl (e.g. Seat in a Railway Station—Third Class, wood engraving, 1872) and William Small (e.g. Queue in Paris, wood engraving, 1871) were widely reproduced in The Graphic, influencing van Gogh’s early paintings. Similar concerns were addressed in 20th-century Britain by the Artists international association, Mass observation and the Kitchen sink school. In photography social realism also draws on the documentary traditions of the late 19th century, as in the work of Jacob A. Riis and Maksim Dmitriyev; it reached a culmination in the worker–photographer movements in Europe and the work by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and others for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) project in the USA in 1935–43 (see Photography, §II).
(from www.groveart.com)
Socialist Realism, the art produced in accord with the propagandist purposes of the Soviet Communist dictatorship from 1932. It was proclaimed the officially approved artistic idiom in 1934 at the First All-Union Congress, but no clear stylistic guidelines were given. Rather it was defined negatively, in opposition to the ‘formalism’ and ‘intuitivism’ of contemporary movements. These influences were defined as foreign and alien to Marxist theory, particularly during the patriotic aftermath of the Second World War. Typical subjects included large-scale factories, the new collectivist farms, and heroic representations of Stalin as found in The Morning of our Motherland by Fyodor Shurpin (1948; Moscow, Tretyakov Gal.). Such paintings were often on a monumental scale, with easily identifiable figures painted in a superficially naturalistic mode. Idealized depiction was intended to convey to the proletariat the idea that the Soviet dictatorship had succeeded in extinguishing all societal evils. This form of cultural control diminished in Russia after Stalin's death in 1953 but resemblances were later to be found under similar regimes in South-East Asia. (From www.groveart.com, [from OCWA])
and from Encylopedia Brittanica:
Socialist Realism follows the great tradition of 19th-century Russian realism in that it purports to be a faithful and objective mirror of life. It differs from earlier realism, however, in several important respects. The realism of Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov inevitably conveyed a critical picture of the society it portrayed (hence the term critical realism). The primary theme of Socialist Realism is the building of socialism and a classless society. In portraying this struggle, the writer could admit imperfections but was expected to take a positive and optimistic view of socialist society and to keep in mind its larger historical relevance.
A requisite of Socialist Realism is the positive hero who perseveres against all odds or handicaps. Socialist Realism thus looks back to Romanticism in that it encourages a certain heightening and idealizing of heroes and events to mold the consciousness of the masses. Hundreds of positive heroes—usually engineers, inventors, or scientists—created to this specification were strikingly alike in their lack of lifelike credibility. Rarely, when the writer's deeply felt experiences coincided with the official doctrine, the works were successful, as with the Soviet classic Kak zakalyalas stal (1932–34; How the Steel Was Tempered), written by Nikolay Ostrovsky, an invalid who died at 32. His hero, Pavel Korchagin, wounded in the October Revolution, overcomes his health handicap to become a writer who inspires the workers of the Reconstruction. The young novelist's passionate sincerity and autobiographical involvement lends a poignant conviction to Pavel Korchagin that is lacking in most heroes of Socialist Realism.
& Social realism
Term used to refer to the work of painters, printmakers, photographers and film makers who draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working classes and the poor, and who are critical of the social structures that maintain these conditions. In general it should not be confused with Socialist realism, the official art form of the USSR, which was institutionalized by Joseph Stalin in 1934, and later by allied Communist parties worldwide. Social realism, in contrast, represents a democratic tradition of independent socially motivated artists, usually of left-wing or liberal persuasion. Their preoccupation with the conditions of the lower classes was a result of the democratic movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, so social realism in its fullest sense should be seen as an international phenomenon, despite the term’s frequent association with American painting. While the artistic style of social realism varies from nation to nation, it almost always utilizes a form of descriptive or critical realism (e.g. the work in 19th-century Russia of the Wanderers).
Social realism’s origins are traceable to European Realism, including the art of Honoré Daumier, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet. In 19th-century England the Industrial Revolution aroused a concern in many artists for the urban poor. Throughout the 1870s the work of such British artists as Luke Fildes, Hubert von Herkomer, Frank Holl (e.g. Seat in a Railway Station—Third Class, wood engraving, 1872) and William Small (e.g. Queue in Paris, wood engraving, 1871) were widely reproduced in The Graphic, influencing van Gogh’s early paintings. Similar concerns were addressed in 20th-century Britain by the Artists international association, Mass observation and the Kitchen sink school. In photography social realism also draws on the documentary traditions of the late 19th century, as in the work of Jacob A. Riis and Maksim Dmitriyev; it reached a culmination in the worker–photographer movements in Europe and the work by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and others for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) project in the USA in 1935–43 (see Photography, §II).
(from www.groveart.com)
Friday, February 8, 2008
Entartete
"Entartet" in German means "degenerate." What does "degenerate" mean? "Art" in German does not mean "Art" in English, rather, it means "type," or "kind." Something like "genre" maybe? And "ent-" is a prefix which negates the word-root that follows, so something like "without type or kind"? Post a comment to the HCC Reader readings pages 85-133.
picture: room with some of the works confiscated as degenerate art by the Nazis
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Claiming the Britannica
Post your Britannica claims here. Include both the passage which contains the claim (simply recopy and include page number) and your summary of the claim.
Friday, February 1, 2008
who owns the world?
What is Brecht's "small seminar on realism"? In other words, how does Brecht conceive of/understand/define realism?
film still from Kuhle Wampe (or Who Owns the World?)
Sample Caption II: Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters, Mz 299, 1921 By Encyclopedia Britannica Soon after World War I, Kurt Schwitters was attracted by the emerging Dada school, a nihilistic literary and artistic movement dedicated to the destruction of existing aesthetic values. Denied membership in the Berlin circle of Dadaists, he formed his own variant in Hannover. He began to create compositions assembled from various everyday objects (train tickets, wooden spools, newspaper, string, cigarettes, and postage stamps). Similarly, his poems were composites of newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and other printed ephemera. He referred to all of his artistic activities as Merz, a nonsense word derived from the second syllable of the word Kommerz (German: “commerce”). His collages were called Merzbilden (“Merz pictures”). Later, he also referred to all of his daily activities and even to himself by that name. In 1937, when the German government declared Schwitters' art decadent, he moved to Norway. With the German invasion of Norway in 1940, however, Schwitters was forced to escape to England. The 'Mz' in the title of this work stands for 'Merz' and is followed by a number to denote that it is the 299th collage of the series. Schwitters produced around 2000 collages during his life, using coloured and printed papers with a variety of textures. His inclusion of fragments of paper, which have text on them, is reminiscent of cubist works, which feature scraps of newspaper. Schwitters's collages of 1920 to 1922 frequently employ a 'radiating' format, with diagonally pasted papers fanning out from the bottom centre. (words: 243)
Image Details: * Accession no. GMA 4081 * Medium Collage on paper * Size 18.00 x 14.50 cm (including mount: 20.00 x 16.00 cm) * Copyright © DACS 2006 * Credit Bequeathed by Gabrielle Keiller 1995 * Subjects [1] Dada www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/online_a
Comment on the above caption. What would you add or take out? What type of information is focused on in the sample? What would you do differently?
Sample Caption I: Hoch
Höch and Til Brugman, her partner from 1926 to 1935Photograph: Black & White
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/~rmoeller/HCC_Lectures/RGM_Lecture2.html
In the 1920s, the Weimar Republic, named for the town in central Germany where a new German constitution was drafted in 1919, became known throughout Europe for its encouragement of all sorts of experimentation—musical, artistic, even sexual. Although a global phenomenon, the “new woman,” characterized by her short hair cut, her androgynous dress, and her independence seemed to be particularly at home in the Weimar Republic. Particularly, in big cities like Berlin, Weimar opened up a space in which it was possible for women to enjoy same-sex relations with women in public spaces. In her 1929 book, Else Hermann described What the New Woman Is Like. Although this vision of the “new woman” was well beyond the reach of many urban working-class women and posed a threat to more traditional women of all classes, Hermann suggests some of the ways in which conceptions of appropriate femininity were subject to redefinition in the Weimar years. One such, “new woman” was Hannah Höch, a part of the Berlin Dadaist movement. In the 1920s in Germany, explicitly political art was almost exclusively produced by men and offered depictions of women that clearly reflected a male perspective. Women typically appeared as the downtrodden victims of the capitalist system, forced into poverty and unwanted pregnancy, or as prostitutes, slaves in a different way to the capitalist system. Höch was exceptional not only because she was a woman in an artistic world dominated by men, but also because she offered a much more nuanced commentary on the status of women in the Weimar Republic. (words: 258)
Reprinted in Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg, eds., The Weimar Sourcebook (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 206-7.
Comment on the above caption. What would you add or take out? What type of information is focused on in the sample? What would you do differently?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Interpretation II
What word is missing?
"[T]oday... genuine dramatists [ ] continue to work in airless rooms or in the museum of the past; for them too 'the scene becomes a tribunal!' [...] The stage becomes the conscience of the age?"
Friedrich Wolf, "Art is A Weapon!" (CR 63)
"[T]oday... genuine dramatists [ ] continue to work in airless rooms or in the museum of the past; for them too 'the scene becomes a tribunal!' [...] The stage becomes the conscience of the age?"
Friedrich Wolf, "Art is A Weapon!" (CR 63)
Filling in German Details
Oskar Schlemmer, "Costumes for a Triadic Ballet"
from "Bauhaus Boys" in Professor Moeller's Image Bank: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/~rmoeller/HCC_Lectures/Bauhaus_boys.html
Please post 6 C's of your choice from reader, from Professor Moeller's Image Bank, or from any other relevant place below. CHOOSE one of the C's that you think is most important, tell us why and emphasize this aspect in your discussion of the image you have chosen. Please give as much citation material as possible and link to site when available. Use analytic terms if appropriate: line, composition, color (b/w), orethos-logos/historia-pathos.
The Art Scab
John Heartfield, Adolf, the Superman, swallows gold and speaks junk/rubbish/nonsenseThis was a cover in 1932 of the Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung. The KPD sought to make use of a mass media--the illustrated newspaper--that had a very large following among the working class.
Please post your 6 C's for "The Art Scab" here.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
mAnifestoRT?
What counts as Art? post below. Include reference to one of the materials from the Reader.
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