Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter and is best now because his cubist movement. He has a wide variety of styles that are reflected on his pictures. In his early years he paint using Realism but over the years his style change to cubism.  One of his most know works is Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937)

“They are not even allegorical or symbolical figures” (Andre Salmon, 1912 – Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon)

One of his more representative and best known work. The picture is about whores where one of them wears a mask and other woman is pulling a curtain, every woman is in a different position and draw differently. This painting caused commotion when appeared, not only for the subject, because prostitution was controversial because how was represented and as contortion the use of space in painting and the use of geometric shapes. These works revolutionize the art and develop the beginning of Cubism.

 “Picasso studies an object the way a surgeon dissects a corpse” (poet, Guillaume Apullinaire)

Picasso takes a person or ordinary object and redraws the images and transforms them into something completely different, it gets more interesting and visually intriguing. His work as a Cubist have something that catches your attention and makes it not boring,  you get interest  in his works and try to decipher the message and understand its meaning.

 Picasso's works are interesting to see from the detail and colors. I think it has an interesting way to break down the actual shape of objects and figures and recreate geometrically.

Quotations

‘Introduction modernism’                                                                                                                                Chris Rodriges/Chris Garratt  (2004) by Icon Books Ltd

www.pablopicasso.org/

www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso.html

www.picasso.fr/us/picasso_page_index.php

Semiotics

The Semiotics could define as the study of sign. The semiotic are currently surround us and are part of our daily lives even when we don’t realize that we are using it.

 “We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of sign and we have no way of understanding anything except through sign and the codes into which they are organized.”

An example would be using colors to identify the hot and cold water faucets. The color red would be for the hot water because this color is a warm color and we related the color with something really warm or hot, the color blue would be the cold water because we related this color is a cold color and we related the color with something cold or ice. The uses of color always affect how we perceive the things because; the color could change the meaning, for example red could represent passion or intensity and blue can represent depression.

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Semiotics involves the study not only of what we refer to as ‘sign’… in a semiotic sense ‘sign’ take the form of words, images, sound and gestures and objects… study how meaning are made and how reality is represented.”

Quotations

‘Semiotics: The Basics’                                                                                                                                   Daniel Chandler by Routledge

www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html

www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/10350330.html

Identity

“Identity is made evident through the use of markers such as language, dress, behaviour and choice of space, whose effect depends on their recognition by other social beings. Markers help to create the boundaries that define similarities or differences between the marker wearer and the marker perceivers; their effectiveness depends on a shared understanding of their meaning. In a social context, misunderstandings can arise due to a misinterpretation of the significance of specific markers”

Our identity is what defines us and distinctive us from other people but at the same time is what connects us to other individuals. But the identity of us, it always influenced by certain factors such as social, cultural, religion or the media, this plays a strong factor in the development of identity on a person and to create the roles we uses in our society.

“Transnational business and international transport and communication system have all contributed an increased coherence and integration in the mounting global traffic in people and meaning.”

Thanks to the internalization and the media, our society has changed as social roles and identities, in present times we can appreciate the different between the old roles and the new ones.

For example the role of women during the past was to be housekeeping and raising a family but  During World War II a lot of women took factory jobs to make up for the domestic manpower shortage. After the war the number of working women dropped but the women starts to work and fight for their rights. Currently this role has changed the women work but also raise a family.

Quotations

‘Culture, Society and the Media’                                                                                                            Michael Gurevitch, Tony Bennett, James Curren and Janet Woollacatt

www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/15298868.html

Postmodernism

The Postmodernism departs from modernism and this movement tried to separate eliminated any classification between art, popular culture, and the media and limits and expose the artificiality of style, Art came to be a self-contained study of dimension, color, and composition

 “The effacement of boundary between art and everyday life, the hierarchical distinction between high and mass/popular culture and the celebration of the ‘depthlessness’ of culture, the decline of originality/ genious of artistic producer and assumption that art can only be repetitious.”

The Postmodernism works require of interpretations from the viewers to have a meaning. The Postmodernism to develop an individual opinion from the viewers and made it personal, they want to see how the person have a different response.

This urinal is a mass-produced in a factory; it was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation.

The characteristics of Postmodernism are the use of collage, the presentation of art, the use of past styles in a modern way and develop of movement like Installation art, Conceptual Art and Multimedia.

“The Postmodern would be that which search for new presentations, not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart a stronger sense of unpreventable.”

Quotations

‘Theory culture and society: Postmodernism’                                                                                                                                               Mike Featherstone (1988) by SAGE Publications

www.postmodern-art.com/

michaelnewberry.com/av/post/post.htm

Modernism

The Modernism was a new movement extended during 1860s to 1970s and brought new innovations on arts that we can even perceive in present times.  The Modernism transforms the traditional art to more experimentation art with more creative ideas and led to experiments with form and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used. The Modernism changes not only affect the artistic view but also the cultural and were influenced by the modern development of the technologies, machinery, scientific development and philosophies.

“Modernism is marked by modernity’s new visual technologies” (Marshall Berman, 1982)

Modernism was the result of a series of sometimes contradictory responses to the situation as it was go through the society like the First and Second World War was the cataclysmic of an immensely traumatic experience for artist and the Enlightenment, came to be seen as the source of logic and stability along with machine age.

During this period of art emerged different branches like Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism and Futurism.

“Such isms- indeed modernism itself- provide clues to the ‘spirit of the age’… Modernism express the new energies sweeping through from the late 19th century onwards- the revolutionary potentials opened up by Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and others.”

The modernism has pioneered of art like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque from Cubism, Henri Matisse and André Derain from Fauvism, Edvard Munch from Expressionism and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti from Futurism.

Quotations

‘Introduction modernism’                                                                                                                                Chris Rodriges/Chris Garratt  (2004) by Icon Books Ltd

arthistoryresources.net/modernism/roots.html

www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1331_modernism/