Ánima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece), Oaxaca, Mexico, 1976
In this past week's Penny Stamps lecture, Wangechi Mutu referenced Ana Mendieta several times as an important influence in her work. Mendieta was a Cuban-American artist (1948 – 1985) famous for her performance art and "earth-body" sculptural, photographic, and video work. Here is an interesting article from the Tate written about her and Nancy Spero.
Imagen de Yagul, from the series Silueta Works in Mexico 1973-1977
For the United States, the 19th century was a time of westward expansion. A concept coined by the phrase Manifest Destiny gave Americans the idea that it was their right and duty to trudge westward, claiming the land they discover, and resettling the people living there. In such a time, art played a large role. The Hudson River School was a group of artists that travelled around the States and depicted discovery, exploration, and settlement. They were supported by the government and created popular art to engage the people on the ideas of westward expansion. Often times I think of art as a way to conceptualize current events, often times bringing to light the problems in society and in the world and critiquing it. Catlin’s work is an example of such, however rather than publicized as a critique of society, the government refused to purchase any of his work, and it remained hidden for many years. It is an interesting contrast to see the government use the artists of the Hudson River School as almost propaganda, promoting their ideas of westward expansion, where as Catlin’s art (because it depicts the Native Americans as human beings that have a right to live in peace) is contradictory to what the government is promoting and it is shunned.
ReplyDeletePaintings during this era were created as photo realistic representations of the landscapes they were inspired from. The work of Durand, Cole, and other Hudson River School artists are large scale, detail oriented, extremely accurate paintings. This work helped those who could not travel to the West see what it looked like. They served the function that a camera would today. They are beautiful pieces in this respect but they do not take advantage of their medium. Art today explores the far reaches of the medium used. If someone is going for a picture perfect replication, photography is most likely the medium of choice, where as paint can be used to manipulate, add texture, and color to a piece that a photograph does not offer. Trumpey’s lecture, perhaps not purposely, provided great contrasts between art in the 21st century and art from the 19th century.
I’m really glad we covered the Hudson River School in lecture. The movement fascinates me because of the very reason that it is a movement, a coherent construction of conglomerating artists making something better than their individual selves. It seems this sort of creation could only exists in earlier, simpler times, because nowadays nothing is unified. There seems to be too much of everything, too many artists, too many ideas to be able to derive any large conclusions about art or civilization in to any sort of school in our times. We truly have reached post-modernism, perhaps even post-post-modernism as some would say. Perhaps Lady Gaga could be the school-teacher of our times, along with the Los Angeles Lakers, Shake weights, and Jackass. I think if aliens were to look down upon us to determine what our culture was, they would be very depressed to find there’s nothing of value. Perhaps that is why intelligent life hasn’t contacted us yet, they’re running away in fear. Back to simpler times. The Hudson River School really had ideas to believe in. The power of nature, the steadfastness of manifest destiny. We were America and America was a nation of go-getters, of embracers of the unknown, the wild west, the great frontier. I was floored by the raw beauty of the paintings Trumpey showed, and it was very evident to see that the artists were not just physically but also spiritually inspired by the power of nature. It’s great that the artists were celebrities, making lots of money, traveling the west. I can’t think of any famous artists of our time, other than Banksy, and he’s ironically iconoclastic. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting to learn about the Hudson River School artists this week. As artists, it is important to look at art and design perspectives from an art historical point of view. I felt that this brief snipet of ADP was very relevant to the technology and the environment. It defiantly helps to include a more traditional art history component to the ADP courses. Seeing that we are artists, we generally respond well to looking at the work of other artists to put history, technology, and culture into perspective.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the work of the Hudson River School defiantly put the industrial revolution into perspective. Rather than being told about how the United States promoted fierce western expansionism and about all of the various technological advances of the industrial revolution, it is more effective to represent it in the allegory of art. I am currently taking a modernism art history course, and I have found it to be more influential in my artwork, and looking at the perspectives of other artists than the past three ADP courses have been. Perhaps if ADP were structured more as an art history course, but also included artistic projects, it would be more effective in exposing us to different perspectives as artists.
This week we focused on the Hudson River School artists and it was very interesting. The fact that these artists came together to create such movement is simply amazing to me. It is not very common (aside from various performance artists) that individual artists of different mediums would come together for a common purpose so to hear about this was very useful.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the mindblowing paintings depicting the importance and, i suppose faith, in nature was really eye opening. As artists grow and change as a collective culture, work is beginning to move from intensive hand drawn and painting pieces that once took days to produce, to a now faster and maybe less efficient way of producing art. I am hoping that this move of process will not drown out the true talent in people who can create such intricate pieces that really make a change and direct attention towards a common focus.
I really dislike the Hudson River School. Although the paintings are technically very well executed, I don't enjoy looking at them. So many painters painting the same thing. In a way I feel the same about all of the high Italian renaissance art that I learned about in High School. For the last year a lot of students have complained that ADP should be an art history class, and for a while I agreed but this lecture really convinced me that I would not enjoy that very much. The Hudson River School wasn't half as interesting as the other course material. Something about the style of their paintings (which all look exactly the same to me) averts my eye, I don't see how they got so many peoples attention. It must have everything to do with cultural context. If a painted painted those paintings today, nobody would care.
ReplyDeleteGroup of painters can't all just paint the same thing and start a movement anymore, but if they could I wonder what they would paint about.
It was a delight to finally have someone teach us a little bit about art history. Though I'm not a fan of the Hudson River School, their paintings and their involvement in American History is respectable. Landscape painting has always been something that has bothered me. Perhaps it is because I myself, do not have the skills it takes to paint a landscape realistically. The Hudson River School painters were all so talented at painting landscapes and executing them to be hyper-realistic. I really enjoyed learning about Cole's series of paintings regarding manifest destiny. I have always disagreed with the notion of "manifest destiny" and the religious connotations that came with it. Seeing a series of paintings though, that represented this idea was highly enlightening for me.
ReplyDeleteKellyn Carpenter
ReplyDeleteADP III Section 4
Weekly Response
I loved that we discussed art history in ADP. I really enjoy learning about past art movements, such as the Hudson River School Movement. I recognized that work that he showed us that related to this movement, but I had not realized that these types of paintings were part of a larger movement. I think that the work of this movement is very well executed, being very pleasant to look at. The colors are rich and they are very accurate. My only critique of the landscape paintings of this movement is how romanticized they are in their depiction of the landscape. While I believe that nature is as beautiful as they way that they try to depict it, I believe that there is a loss of the “rawness” of nature in their work. I enjoy realistic work and while these paintings are for the most part technically realistic, they lack that last little push towards true realistic emotion. These paintings to me display the “niceness” of nature, and not necessarily the “trueness” of it.
Overall, I thoroughly respect the work of these artists. I believe that artistic movements are vital in history and the world today and I hope that Joe will devote more time to teaching art history.
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ReplyDeleteHannah Ryou
ReplyDeleteTo agree with some others in our class, I found the Hudson River School movement to be unappealing in some sense. However, there was the issue of photo manipulation Professor Trumpey briefly mentioned which caught my attention. This idea of artists staging and essentially fabricating reality to be more real was most fascinating. The re-touched image of the native American father and son, taken by Edward Curtis, was a great example. The original image shows them sitting inside a teepee with a modern clock sitting in between them. Curtis then took the liberty of removing the clock from the image. As the viewers, we can take this deliberate choice to have one of two intentions: 1) Curtis wanted the viewers of this photo to focus on what is important, namely the tribal force that is felt via capturing the father and son, or 2) he thought the clock detracted from the authenticity and nativeness that characterizes the image. Assuming the latter is closer to Curtis’ intentions, it begs the question about authority. As the artist, does he have the right to manipulate his work in this way? Or more importantly, is it okay for him to manipulate the reality that is being perceived by the viewer? As viewers, what is our right; should there be no distortion in reality of things? Are we entitled to the ‘truth’?
In modern day, manipulation and distortion of ‘perceived reality’ is much more dramatic than Curtis’ native American photo. And so I find it important that we ask these questions in relation to our current day. In what circumstances is manipulation acceptable, and when is it not?
Kaitlind Marek
ReplyDeleteI thought it was nice to learn about the Hudson River school. I fall into the group of people who want to learn more art history. However, I agree with the comments saying that the school produced too many paintings that look exactly the same. Looking at the paintings, there is no way to tell that they were done by different people. The paintings are beautiful. I think they are very well executed, but I do not think there is enough variance between the artists' styles.
Learning about the movement they created makes me wonder if there is a group of artists making an artistic movement right now. Or are we part of some artistic movement here at U of M? It seems like we are not, but do artists realize when they part of a movement? If there was a movement going on right now, could we know about it in the moment or only reflect on it later?
Liz Ritenour
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement
I was not particularly interested by the Hudson River School topic. I have never been that interested by landscape painting, perhaps because it is so common. I am impressed by the technical skill because realism in painting is certainly a great skill that I would love to achieve. It does not seem, however, to lend any creativity. This may be due to overexposure to photography and the ease with which a landscape image can be achieved. I do not feel that it was very relevant to what we have been learning in class. It is historically important because capturing landscape like that was important in that time, but it comes back to the question of what we as artists can do for the environment today. For that reason, I do not feel that I gained much from this topic. I have very much enjoyed learning about the environment and it has been a very eye-opening course for me, but this particular topic does not seem to aid my understanding of what artists can do for the environment.