Dennis Raverty

Culturally, the Song dynasty (960-1275 C.E.) marks a high point in the long civilization of China—an era that would be returned to again and again for inspiration, not only by the Chinese themselves, but also by the Koreans, Japanese and others. This presentation will examine classic landscapes from the period and the Daoist nature mysticism that viewed the creative process as a revelation of natural forces (qi) manifesting itself through the spirit or "breath" of the artist's brush. Jing Hao's 10th c. treatise on the six principles of painting will be used as our guide for how to "read" a Chinese landscape.

David was the most powerful artist in the history of Western art. Winning the Prix de Rome from the French academy under King Louis XVI, he was later a signatory to that monarch's execution during the period known as "The Terror." Although briefly imprisoned, he later rose to become the first painter to Napoleon and reorganized the academy, placing his own students in prominent positions within that powerful state organization. It is no exaggeration to say that David was truly the "dictator" of art during these years. After Napoleon's defeat, David was exiled to Belgium, where he continued to have an strong and lasting influnce on French art of the nineteenth century.

Edgar Degas captured form even in the seemingly random visual configurations to be observed in everyday life. Much informed by photography, Degas is best known for his depiction of the backstage life of ballerinas, intimate nudes at bath and the world of horse racing and jockeys.

Alfred Sisley was a British artist whose painting was very much within the orbit of his French colleagues. The art of Gustave Caillebotte was less typical of the Impressionist style, along with that of Jean Frédéric Bazille, whose life was tragically cut short before the first Impressionist exhibition in 1872. Women painters Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt (an American) were also marginalized in many accounts of the movement.

The Bauhaus was without doubt the most influential school of art, architecture, design and craft of the twentieth century. Founded in 1919 following the defeat of Germany in World War I, the Bauhaus school attracted a distinguished international faculty. They made affordable, well-designed products for the masses and utilized modern industrial methods in the age of machine production. The Bauhaus favored a sleek, industrial aesthetic in its clean, functional architecture, furniture design, and graphic arts. The internationally famous school was closed down in 1933 following the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor.

When Henri Matisse and his followers exhibited their work at the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris, they were called Les Fauves--the "Wild Beasts"--because of what the critics perceived as the savagery of their intense and sometimes "unnatural" colors. Matisse went on to become one of the century's greatest masters, and his sophisticated, exuberant use of color is evident behind the mask of this modern "primitive," even when France was occupied by the Nazis. Among his greatest works are the collages he executed during the last decade of his life.

George Seurat systematized Impressionist color and achieved greater clarity by reduction to small dots sometimes called "pointillism." Camille Pissarro also addressed the lack of form in Impressionism and through his art created a bridge to twentieth-century modernism.

From the 1930s through the 1960s Ben Shahn's painting and illustration addressed such issues as unemployment, discrimination, the rise of authoritarianism abroad, and threats to freedom of expression in the United States. Starting his career during the Great Depression, his art witnessed the rise of totalitarianism abroad and the anti-Communist hysteria of postwar America, as well as the Civil Rights movement. Shahn viewed nonconformity as the essence of avant-garde art as well as the agent of social change. His art was clearly modernist yet remained figurative and accessible to a wide, popular audience. A retrospective exhibition that spans the artist's long career is at the Jewish Museum in New York City from May through October.

After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, the new government commenced its conservative cultural policy with breathtaking rapidity, closing the world-famous Bauhaus school of design, firing curators sympathetic to modern art from state museums, and organizing anti-modern exhibitions culminating in 'Degenerate Art" of 1937, which held modern art up to ridicule, while promoting a new, bombastic form of idealistic classicism that became the officially favored style of the regime.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec documented, with great psychological insight, the glittering demimonde of Parisian entertainment and nightlife during the last decade of the century, using the saturated color and daring compositions first pioneered by the Impressionist painters twenty years before.

The flourishing of capitalism in the Netherlands was a rich source for the establishment of an art that catered to the tastes of the newly rich middle class. Down-to-earth businessmen wanted realistic depictions of themselves and the prolific artists of the period supplied them with portraits, landscapes, still lifes and scenes of everyday life.

October 14-Little Dutch Masters

November 13-Jan Vermeer

December 16-Rembrandt

Excerpts from Surrealistic films from 1929 through 1972 by Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel, Jean Cocteau and Alfred Hitchcock will be introduced, screened and placed within the context of surrealist theory and psychoanalytic thought from the period.

For many African American artists the depression provided employment through the Federal Art Programs of the Works Progress Administration (the W.P.A.) as teachers printmakers, craftspersons and muralists. The government also provided opportunities for exhibiting their work through traveling shows and government-sponsored exhibitions at presitgious venues (like the Museum of Modern Art) that had previously not shown work by black artists. After the Second World War, however, African American artists were once again faced with the lack of both civil rights and exhibition opportunities.

EARLIER PRESENTATIONS:

Marc Chagall

Henri Rousseau

Giorgio De Chirico