The forties were a time of anxiety, fear, and conformity in post-war America. Conflict with the remaining portions of the USSR, the Red Scare, and McCarthy politics all pushed the American people to a state of conformity and fear of nonconformity that permeated the culture. Louis Bouché’s Gallery K represents the American ideal of conformity through the fashion and interaction of the people within the scene. By situating this work in the style of an American scene oil painting, the imagery and content of the art is further normalized and idealized as the typical American experiences that people strived for in the forties. The focus of the painting is on the people, not the art within the gallery. Blurred statues line the hall with general …show more content…
indistinct outlines of shapes. The people, however, have crisp details comparatively. Artist known for American Scene paintings portray classic archetypes and situations that occur across the country rather than a regional of specific setting. The museum depicted within the scene balances classical architecture and content with the abstracted nature of the representation. The floor could be seen as an abstraction of the reflection rather than a depiction of how the light shimmers off the tiles. The classification of American Scene reflects not only the content of the work but also the implications imbued in it. Within the painting, people represent mainstream American in the Forties through physical appearances and conformity to the social norms that dictate their style. The couple on the right, dressed in typical attire for the time period, stands close to each other but not touching. The woman wears a red jacket and yellow knee length skirt with matching red shoes and purse. Her auburn hair seems to be styled in a stereotypical Forties style. Her sense of fashion focuses on sharp and bright clothing, reminiscent of what television markets as the style strived for by members of the upper and middle class. Nothing she wears could be categorized as subversive or challenging the status quo, but rather plays into protecting the current ideals but fulfilling the expected. Her companion wears muted tones, with a brown jacket and grey pants. He follows the current fashion guidelines to a tee, wearing a smart jacket on top that fits at the shoulders and meets the current styles length requirements. His pants fit loosely, showing wrinkles with his movement, but not overly so. His hat seems to be a tan fedora with a black or dark brown ribbon. Overall, the man in the couple seems to be following the fashion guidelines of the day and not attempting to do anything controversial, but rather protecting the status quo within mainstream American style. The couple seems to be depicting a typical forties style that establishes a contentment with the status quo within the scene. The remainder of the people on the left all sport attire that fits within the timeframe and within the social norms.
The boy and the man, presumably his father, in the center of the painting wear stereotypical American clothes for the period. The boy’s blue long sleeve shirt and khaki shorts could represent any America boy in the Forties due to their common nature. His father wears a grey jacket with white buttons down the front and on the pockets. His light grey pants fit with the current style and black shoes peak out from beneath them. For his hair, the father’s slicked back style meets the expectations that fashion in the forties has set. An older man stands behind the boy and father, looking into the main room from the pink back room. The old man dresses in dark grey pants similar to those of both other man within the scene. His white shirt has rolled sleeves and he appears without a jacket, unlike the rest of the men in the painting. Instead of loafers, he seems to be wearing tennis shoes that look similar to converse. While the older man does stand apart from the others in the painting, divided by style and room, he stills fits into the customary style of the forties within a different class structure. He seems to be of a lower status than the other people based on his clothing, but he still belongs within the context of the scene and does not feel out of place. Instead of representing the all-American middle and upper class, the older man represents a lower class that still fits into the painting of an idealized American scene. Finally the woman on the far left wears a yellow and blue plaid dress with matching blue shoes and a dark handbag. Her brown hair matches in style to the woman on the right, typical for the time period. Her knee length dress fits with the fashion of the time with a seemingly cinched waist due to the draping of the fabric and the high neckline conform to American style in the era. Each person within the scene dresses
like a typical American in the forties, conforming to the societal standards being advertised to them on a daily bases. Each person not only looks like typical Americans with their style, they also show how to be a good American trough interaction with art. Different ways to interact with art are exhibited within the gallery, along with ways to be a good American. The couple on the right stopped at a carved head, perhaps of a roman authority figure, and turned towards each other to discuss the work before them. The boy in blue runs through the gallery pointing at something off in the distance as his father watches, looking uncertain about what actions to take to control his child. The older man behind them looks back towards the boy, seemingly distracted by the commotion of the boy. Finally, the woman on the far left stands solitary, in a contrapposto stance looking at a statue. Her contemplative, internal method of experiencing art is as validated as the couple’s interactive discussion or the boy’s excitement. The scene does not limit the way art should be experiences but rather promotes the all-American viewing of art in the first place. The conformity contained within the painting captures the forties as a time to be alike with neighbors. The Red Scare sought out otherness as a thing to be feared and discouraged within society, and the Works Progress Association and the United States government used art as a way to exhibit those values they wanted to instill within the population. The six people inside Gallery K appear as the conventional American population that convey the conformity of the population through their interaction with art. Gallery K represents the American ideal of conformity through the fashion of the figures in the work and interaction of the people with the artwork in the scene along with the style of the work itself. In a period seeped with fear and anxiety, conformity became the idealized trait of the nation. The post-war Red Scare and the McCarthy Era that followed placed conformity with American ideals as the utmost obligation of the American people, and they used art as a means to convey that message through the WPA and Advancing American Art collections.
On Saturday, March 15, 2014, I visited the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The gallery #753, which is a part of so-called American Wing, features oil paintings of the revolutionary period in America. The paintings seen in this gallery celebrate heroes and hard-fought battles of the new nation. The most popular type of painting of that time remained portraiture. Portraits in extremely large numbers figured in interiors, where they were arranged to convey not only domestic, but political messages as well. Hence, it is natural, that such iconic figure like George Washington became a model for numerous artists of that era, including Gilbert Stuart and Charles Willson Peale, for whom Washington actually sat. Two exceptional portraits of Washington, the general and the the first President of the United States are highlighted in this paper.
The 1960’s changed the world in an explosion of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, for the first time women and men where declaring freedom and free love. The sexual revolution of the 1960’s saw changes in the way the world saw its self, and the way we saw each other. It changed what we wanted to buy, how we bought it and how we sold it to each other. Artistic free thinkers began to push boundaries everywhere they could. This is reflected in the music of the times, the notable events and the fashion.
After reviewing Jacob Lawrence’s direct and dramatic paintings, it was clear that his painting helped him express himself. The painting was and still is a product of the economic and cultural self-determination that African-American dealt in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, during the migration and still evident in society today. The visual qualities in Jacob Lawrence artwork that is appealing are the vibrant colors and his clever way of self-expressing the time he was so familiar. In final analysis, his artwork expressed how he felt about his environment and what his perspective were during that time. And, how restrained his painting were, for instance, Street Scene – Restaurant, even though African- Americans had access to restaurants in the neighboring area but, he still place patriot outside the restaurant waiti...
Lily Martin Spencer was a female American genre painter in antebellum period, a time period in the United States before the civil war and after the War of 1812. This paper is on the analysis of Conversation Piece, an oil painting by Lilly Martin Spencer in 1851-52. The medium of the piece is oil on canvas and is now displayed in Gallery 758 of Metropolitan Museum of Art. Conversation Piece illustrates the sentimental culture in the United States by depicting the image of a middle-class domestic life. With elements of sentimentalism, the audiences are able to perceive the emotions within a pleasant family render by the painting.
The late 1900s were a time of tremendous cultural change and instability in American history, but this change did not begin until after the relative unison of the late forties and fifties. After World War II (1939-1945) ended, a desire for normality led to large scale compliance to social constructs, with people reentering existing expectations such as men working, women tending the homes, and minorities functioning only as second class citizens. Because of these social barriers' reestablishment, conformity was simply the norm.
When one arrives in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he or she may be surprised, as I was, by its grand entrance. Upon entering this large pillared building, one is almost overwhelmed by the immense collection. Although very extensive, the museum undoubtedly concentrates on the grouping and placement of paintings and sculptures within the building. Through chronological and thematic paths, the museum takes the viewer through the major contributors to the advancement of art, from around the world. Separated by only a marble floor, the room containing Salomon Van Ruisdael’s Landscape with Cattle and an Inn, differs greatly from that of Claude Monet’s, Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil. These two paintings, when surrounded by the art of their contemporaries, create an environment for the viewer that parallels their original context.
Art is something that can be viewed and interpreted by a million different people in a million unique ways. Symbolism, color, texture, and size can all change the way it is viewed by others. However, certain distinct qualities have to be met for it to be actually considered “art.” The piece, American Icons, by Robin Murray, is a piece of art for many reasons, it has symbolism found throughout it, and many intriguing techniques are used with it.
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, located in the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of the most recognizable paintings of the 19th century, a painting made by Frenchman Georges Seurat. Finished in 1886, it has gained much of its recognition over the time of its completion; the pop culture of today has played a pivotal role into the popularity of it. An example of that is being apart in one of the most recognizable scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where one of the main characters is solely staring at the painting until he can’t even recognize the artwork. This painting also gets much attention because it was an early example of the style of pointillism, at the time; pointillism was becoming a new way of expressing one self with the new technique. It also brought upon about the way we saw paintings, and what we gained from the artwork as whole. In all this painting has become an icon in the art scene, due to the technique it used, and how much of an impact it has had in today culture.
Bringing together 16 sculptures made between 1958 and 1995, the exhibition allowed viewers to trace Sugarman's career from his carved-wood works of the late 1950s to his polychrome, laminated-wood pieces of the 1960s to the painted-aluminum work that has occupied him since the early 1970s. While the show did not cover Sugarman's extensive activity in the public-art realm--over the last 30 years he has created large-scale public sculptures throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe and Asia--it was an effective presentation of his "indoor" work. (Sugarman has drawn a useful distinction between what he calls the "indoor eye," a museum- and gallery-oriented esthetic vision which perceives the work of art in isolation from its surroundings, and the "outdoor eye,"
People were filled with desperation and conflict, especially post World War One. These painters worked on their paintings to depict the disturbed tie s people were experiencing in terms of the horrors of massive human death, absence of joy and the death of human freedom. They regarded their paintings as a reflection of the depth of the human soul, in terms of the cynicism, alienation and dissolutionment that so existed in people’s consciences, but unspoken of. They both use realism, space and the human body as the theatre of expression of human emotions (John 2).
Art is such an eternal concept and part of our lives. It lives on through generations, transcending many periods, and can speak through many mediums. Art is a way of expression, when nothing else can capture, but is something that can be interpreted in many ways. I chose photography—that which best portrays mankind, in that it hides nothing and only shows what is there to begin with. “It is the language most readily understandable to all and our most important form of communication among nations and cultures.”(Schuneman; Koner 59-60) Two excellent representations of this is a street photographic piece by Garry Winogrand called American Legion Convention- Dallas, Texas 1964 and a piece by George Krause called Skip, Philadelphia 1962.
As I enter the Gioconda and Joseph King Gallery at the Norton Museum of Art the first thing that Caught my attention was a painting measuring approximately at 4 ft. by 10 ft. on the side wall in a well- light area. As I further examine the painting the first thing I notice is that it has super realism. It also has color, texture, implied space, stopped time, and that it is a representational piece. The foreign man sitting on the chair next to a bed has a disturbed look on his face and is deep into his own thoughts. It’s as if someone he loved dearly just experienced a tragic and untimely death. He is in early depression. I could feel the pain depicted in his eyes. A book titled The Unquiet Grave lying open on the floor by the unmade bed suggesting something is left unresolved. The scattered photos and papers by the bedside cause redintegration. The picture of Medusa’s head screaming on the headboard is a silent scream filled with anger and pain, yet it cannot be heard. I feel as if I am in the one sitting in the chair and I can feel the anger, and regret.
Many elements place emphasis on the smaller construction, such as the saturation and variety of the onion domes, which greatly juxtapose the uniformity and monotony of the larger constructions. Furthermore, the typical, Asian building is not to scale; in reality, it is not as small in comparison to the symmetrical buildings that dominate it within the painting. This proportional inaccuracy emphasizes the overwhelming and conquering atmosphere that the grand, modern buildings emit. Through contemplation of the title, the symbolism displayed in the painting is more apprehensible. “Orientalism: the representation of Asia… in a stereotyped way that is regarded as embodying a colonist attitude.” With this in mind, the painting now seems to represent the dominating presence that the western civilization radiates. The Asian architecture is the “stereotyped” symbol that represents the collective culture, while the imposing buildings symbolize the western and modern
I say this because they are all dressed up nicely. The women are in long, elegant looking dresses, and the man is in a suit and a top hat. This would seem irrelevant if I didn’t think about why it is odd that these upper class people are in such a dark area with so many negative feelings. What I noticed while studying this piece of art is that they show no happy emotions, which is what I have said all along. But, it becomes even more obvious when I noticed how fancy the figures are. This sets this painting aside from many others, because normally, rich people are portrayed positively rather than so sad and lonely, it is almost emotionless.
The period leading up to the 1950s was considered as the Era of Conformity. At this time the majority of Americans were living in suburban areas called Levittowns, felt threatened by Communism, they were driven with conspicuous soncumption. Men would go to work all dressing up in a grey or blue flannel suit while women were domesticated for they stayed home to cook, clean, and tend the children. For Americans at that time eating a family dinner and watching TV every night was considered a conservative tradition. However this all soon changed during post World War Two. Tired of the boring, traditional day-to-day life style that they lived at the time, most Americans felt “beaten” down in a sense. Starting in 1984, the period after the second World War should be, as stated by Jack Kerouac and John Clellon Holmes, known as the Beat Generation. Those who were a part of the Beat Generation did not believe in straight jobs and they lived in dirty apartments selling drugs and committing crimes. Some of the Beat Generation beliefs include the rejection of mainstream American values, exploring alternate forms of sexuality such as homosexuality as well as experimenting with drugs like cocaine and LSD. The Beat Generation was meant to echo the Lost Generation in the 1920s but it made a larger impact than its historical counterpart. This generation was created because people were tired of doing the same exact thing every day, it got repetitive. These “rebels”, as some would call them, wanted to step of the normal day-to-day life that was expected of from every American. They wanted to created their own ways of living, exploring into lifestyles that were most time looked down upon, revolutionists if you would, changing the beliefs and life st...