Georgia O’Keeffe: The Mother Of American Modernism

Georgia O’Keeffe - Red and Yellow Cliffs - 1940 - 24 × 36 in. (61 × 91.4 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) played a pivotal role in the development of American modernism and its relationship to European avant-garde movements of the early-20th century.

Producing a substantial body of work over seven decades, she sought to capture the emotion and power of objects through abstracting the natural world. O'Keeffe incorporated the techniques of other artists into her work and was especially influenced by photographer Paul Strand (1890-1976) and painter Arthur Dove (1880-1946). However, her art is uniquely her own and she always danced to her own tune. 

In 1940, O’Keeffe purchased a house at Ghost Ranch in the Chama River valley of New Mexico. She spent her summers and falls at Ghost Ranch, where she painted the breathtaking views, including these immense red, pink, and yellow striated cliffs that rose up seven hundred feet behind her house. Dotted with green shrubs, the landscape faithfully reproduces the vibrant colors of the American Southwest. Awed by these colorful cliffs, O’Keeffe painted them seven times. 

Dr. Jill will be teaching a six-session ONLINE class on O’Keeffe through the Bethany Arts Community this Fall. Classes will be on Saturdays mornings (10:00-11:00 AM) from October 2nd through November 6th. Click HERE to Register.

Kandinsky: A Transcendent Experience

Wassily Kandinsky - Composition VII - 1913 - Oil on canvas - 200 x 300 cm (6' 6 3/4" x 9' 11 1/8”) - Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (click photo for larger image)One of the pioneers of abstract modern art, Wassily Kandinsky (1887-1986) exploited the evocative interrelation between color and form to create an aesthetic experience that engaged the sight, sound, and emotions of the public. He believed that total abstraction offered the possibility for profound, transcendental expression. Kandinsky’s visual vocabulary developed from early representational works to rapturous and operatic compositions, and then to geometric and biomorphic flat planes of color. Join us to explore the contributions of this highly significant contributor to modernism.

“Kandinsky was fascinated by music's emotional power. Because music expresses itself through sound and time, it allows the listener a freedom of imagination, interpretation, and emotional response that is not based on the literal or the descriptive, but rather on the abstract quality that painting, still dependent on representing the visible world, could not provide.” (Artchive)

Dr. Jill will be teaching a six-session ONLINE class on Kandinsky through the Bethany Arts Community this Fall. Classes will be on Tuesday mornings (10:00-11:00 AM) from September 28th through November 2nd Click HERE to Register.

Another Look at Cézanne

Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 - October 22, 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. A line attributed to Matisse is that Cézanne "is the father of us all" and Picasso claimed that Cézanne was “the mother hovering over us”.

Cézanne's work demonstrates a mastery of design, color, composition and draftsmanship. His often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of color and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields, at once both a direct expression of the sensations of the observing eye and an abstraction from observed nature. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects, a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal with the complexity of human visual perception.

The broad and profound influence of Cézanne on later generations of artists cannot be overestimated.

Dr. Jill will be teaching a six-week online art history class on Cézanne through the Pelham Art Center. The class will take place on Friday mornings, from 10 AM - 11:00. It will run from July 9th through August 13th. Click HERE to REGISTER.

Yum! Food In Art

Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Four Seasons in One Head - c. 1590 - Oil on panel - 44.7 cm x 60.4 cm - National Gallery of Art - Washington, D.C. (click photo for larger image)Food has long appeared in art—sometimes as a secondary subject, sometimes as the primary subject matter.

Some of the most clever treatments of food in art were completed by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593).

A Mannerist in the truest sense, Arcimboldo’s work examined the delicate relationship between people and their environments. He worked as a court portraitist for the Hapsburg family for more than 25 years, which makes his work even more rebellious.

To see and learn about more delicious food in art, register HERE for Dr. Jill’s single session art history program, scheduled for Friday, April 30th at 11:00 AM.

Georges Seurat: An Eccentric And Maverick

Georges Seurat, 1889–90, Le Chahut, oil on canvas, 170 x 141 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (click photo for larger image)Georges Seurat (1859-1891) is chiefly remembered as the pioneer of Pointillism, an approach associated with a softly flickering surface of small dots or strokes of color. 

His innovations derived from new quasi-scientific theories about color and expression, yet the graceful beauty of his work is explained by the influence of very different sources. He believed that great modern art would show contemporary life in ways similar to classical art, except that it would use technologically informed techniques. 

Seurat once said, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” 

To learn more about this fascinating artist, register HERE for Dr. Jill’s Art History program on him, taking place on Monday, May 3rd, at 2:00 PM.