20 th cent. Neoclassicism. The Russian Avant Garde Suprematism (1913-1918) “Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art that, in the course of time, had.

20th cent. Neoclassicism

The Russian Avant Garde

Suprematism

(1913-1918)

“Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art that, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of 'things‘.”

Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World

Geometric forms as paradigms of spiritual evolution

sacred geometry

Kazimir

Malevich

Suprematist Painting:

Eight Red Rectangles

o/c, 1915, 22 x 19”

"the supremacy of pure feeling"

"The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling."

Black Square, 1913, o/c, 31 x 31”

Kazimir

Malevich

Kazimir

Malevich

The Black Circle, 1913, 41 x 41”

Suprematist Composition:

White on White

1918, o/c, 31 x 31”

What artists found appealing about the various arcane religious and philosophical systems was

their underlying premise that the spiritual world is governed by laws that mirror natural laws and that can

be expressed in symbols. The idea is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s notion that every appearance in nature

corresponds to some state of mind. Geometric forms are thus paradigms of spiritual evolution.

The spiritual world, like the natural world, is charged with energy, producing cosmic vibrations and

human auras. The spiritual principles that intrigued certain artists included synesthesia, the overlap

between the senses by which a painting can simulate music; duality, the idea that the cosmos reflects

an underlying principle of yin and yang; and so-called "sacred geometry," the belief that, as Plato put it,

"God geometricizes."

Spirituality in Abstract Art by Pamela Schaeffer on the subject of the exhibition "The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985”.

Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue1921, o/c, 15 x 13”

Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19”

Piet Mondrian

“the struggle toward unity of cosmic dualities and the religious symmetry undergirding the material

universe”Theosophist

Line and color

Lozenge Composition withRed, Black, Blue, and YellowOil on canvas 30 3/8 x 30 in.vertical axis 42 1/2 in.

Architecture

The International Style

Holland, De Stijl - Gerrit Rietveld

Germany, The Bauhaus – Walter Gropius

France – Le Corbusier

USA – Mies van der Rohe

WalhallaOil on canvas95x130cm

Leo von Klenze

conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria

Walhallabuilt between 1830 and 1842

Johann Gottfried Schadow, sculptor

The Newborn, 1915, marble, 8 1/2 x 6 inches

Bird in Space, 1923, marble, (with base) 56 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches

Bird in space, polished brass,1932-40, 60”

Constantin Brancusi

The International Style

DE STIJL

Gerrit Rietveld

dematerialization

Shroeder House,

Utrecht, Holland, 1923

UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites

"One of the outstanding achievements of the new constructional technique has been the abolition

of the separating function of the wall. Instead of making the walls the element of support,

as in a brick-built house, our new space-saving construction transfers the whole load of the structure

to a steel or concrete framework. Thus the role of the walls becomes restricted to that of mere screens

stretched between the upright columns of this framework to keep out rain, cold, and noise. ...

Systematic technical improvement in steel and concrete …. are steadily reducing the area occupied by

supporting members. This, in turn …. allows rooms to be much better lit. It is, therefore, only logical that

the old type of window—a hole that had to be hollowed out of the full thickness of a supporting wall—

should be giving place more and more to the continuous horizontal casement ….. And as a direct result

of the growing preponderance of voids over solids, glass is assuming an ever greater structural

importance....In the same way the flat roof is superseding the old penthouse roof with its tiled or slated

gables.”

Gerrit Rietveld,Schroder House, Utrecht, Holand,1923

Mondrian chair (Blue and Red chair)

The Bauhaus Workshop Wing

Walter Gropius The BauhausDessau, Germany

1919-25

Le Corbusier

Villa Savoye, France, 1929-30

Mies van der Rohe

German Pavillion, Barcelona (1929)

Barcelona Chair, 1927

“less is more”

Lake Shore Drive Apartment Houses,Chicago, 1950-52

Edgar Kaufmann House, Fallingwater, Pennsilvania, 1935-37

Frank Lloyd Wright

use of industrial materials creates abstract works that emphasize the purity of color, form, space and materials

Minimalism 1960’s +

Visual purity

precision and rationality

creator out of the work

objects are stripped down to their elemental, geometric form, and presented in an impersonal manner

aesthetic utopia—a universally comprehensible language devoid of reference or narrative

Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19”

Piet Mondrian

Kazimir Malevich

Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles

o/c, 1915, 22 x 19”

Frank Stella

PurityPrecisionImpersonalityAbstraction

Carl Andre

144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967, 144 zinc plates

Fall, 1968. Hot-rolled steel, 21 units, 71 x 28 x 72” each

“sculpture as place rather than form”

Viewer-interactive sculpture

industrial materials

Modular units

Untitled, 1961-9, Woodcut on paper

Untitled, 1973, stainless steel, relief

Donald Judd

Untitled 1969/1982 Anodized aluminum

‘the simple expression of complex thought’

‘stacks’, ‘boxes’ and ‘progressions’

exploration of volume, interval, space and color

Creator out of the work (external manufacturers)

Untitled, 1967-68. Stainless steel and plexiglass, in six parts.

Donald Judd

With Carl Andre’s 144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967

Portrait of the Artist Throwing Molten Lead

Torqued Ellipses, 1996, steel 13' h. x 29' L x 20' w (each)

Richard Serra

Large scale minimalist sculpture

(site-specific)

Richard Serra

Tilted Arc, 1981, raw rusting steel, 120’ x 12’, Federal Plaza, Lower Manhatan (destroyed, 1989)

Maya Ying Lin

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC 1981-3, each wing 246’ long, black granite

Maya Ying Lin

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC 1981-3, each wing 246’ long, black granite

Earthworks, Land Art, Site Specific ArtEphemeral art

The move outdoorsRejection of the art object as a commodity and of the museum culture

Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Robert Smithson

mud, precipitated salt crystals, black basalt rocks from the site; a 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide coil that stretches out counterclockwise into the translucent red water.

Robert Smithson

rare occasion of its re-emergence from beneath the surface of the Great Salt Lake,following a season of severe drought

Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico

Walter de Maria

Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico

Walter de Maria

Christo & Jean –Claude

The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1975-85

Ephemeral, environmental, site-specific art

To "create works of art of joy and beauty" through “gentle disturbances”

The Running Fence, Sonoma County, California 1972-76

Christo & Jean –Claude

18’ high, 24 miles long color and sound