Asher.p2.t1.Post Modern Synthesis

Asher.p2.t1.Post Modern Synthesis


by Calvin Chan, Brianna Loo, Jane Lu, and Christina Yang 

Sigmund Freud was psychological analyst of the post-modern era who studied the science and workings of the mind. Specifically, he dealt with the subconscious; he defined the ego and the superego. Through his work, Freud simplified subconscious influence of human behavior into three categorical “mindsets”.

Freud’s work led many people of the post-modern era to explore and seek understanding of the mechanics of the mind, perhaps in ways that were too quixotically realistic. James Pollack was an artist who created paintings that literally fostered entropy in the seemingly random paint splashes on his canvases. However, these paintings were representative of Pollack’s inner frustrations; he suffered from mental illness and art was his form of self-relief and therapy. Andy Warhol was a visual artist who took common objects and transformed them into representative new figures. Warhol added an unorthodox to orthodox views. Freud’s views transcended through Warhol’s art. Traumatic and life-changing experiences are often times relieved through the minds of people as a source of comfort. Warhol aimed to capture terrifying images of hell and the afterlife, relating not only the reality of an experience, but the thought process that trails after it.

Post-Modern Era Synthesis Question

Sigmund Freud was a famous psychiatrist from Vienna, Austria. He was highly influential upon the artwork of Pollack and Warhol because of his studies with the brain and what people are capable of understanding and feeling through aesthetic material, such as art. Freud’s ideas of further exploring the mind proved that mankind is capable of understanding physical art forms, especially if they are colorful. Modern art, in the modern era, believed fragmentation in art was something of a tragedy; however, in the postmodern era, fragmentation was widely celebrated. Postmodern art was meant to provide meaning in areas of life in which nothing else can fulfill the empty regions of human life.  Pollock was influenced by Freud’s highly intelligent studies on the brain and psyche of man; Pollock was an alcoholic and received treatment known as Jungian influence, which allowed him to open up about his addiction and make room for more aesthetically pleasing elements in life such as art. Freud created the Jungian influence, thus providing Pollock with an alley to fame and creativity. Warhol was a popular “pop culture” artist, using bright colors and vivid images of celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe, to convey the essence and elegance of people of his time. Freud had some influence upon Warhol’s work, but some claim it was the artists who in turn influenced Freud and his ideas on the mind’s process on unconscious relevance when it comes to creativity.

Wylie, Period 1, Team 2, Sara Patterson, Helen Lee, Tori Kause 

Post Modern Synthesis

          Sigmund Freud was a defining figure of the Post-Modern Era, and his most basic ideas heavily influenced the arts, including the artwork of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. Freud revolutionized the idea that emotion and reason are not two separate entities but two interrelated, interdependent parts of our psyche, and he used reasoning and (psycho)analysis to unearth others’ emotions. Likewise Freud supported the idea of art that utilizes the subconscious – of the tangible serving as a link to and a siphon of the intangible thoughts and feelings of the subconscious. It is with this attitude that Jackson Pollock, famed abstract expressionist best known for his “drip painting” style, created his art, which resembles seemingly haphazard splatters, splotches, and drops of paint on canvas. This “action painting” and movement within the painting mirrored his oft-volatile personality, and in this way tapped deep within his subconscious to create something that is natural, spontaneous, and unlike any art that has ever been called “art.” This was almost like painting his dreams while awake, and can also be seen as constant, purposeful (and nonsexual) Freudian slips on canvas. By focusing on his emotions, Pollock was, according to Freud, also making rational, and therefore acceptable, art. Andy Warhol, innovator of pop art and revolutionary in his definition of “art” as simply a visual representation, played off the other side of Freudian thought – namely, logic and rationalism. Warhol did not believe in “fine art” – he believed that all art is worthy of being called art, and he actually valued the commercialism and reproductability of his works. He expressed himself, in the sense that he painted the subjects he personally liked and in the specific way that he chose to, but his creations can also be seen as mechanical and without much interpretation, yet still worthy of the title “art.”

Tiffany Chen

Melody Sue

Lucy Zhao

Wylie, Per. 5, Team 2

Forgot to post this online! Whoops!

Wylie Period 6, Team 2 Modern Era Synthesis!

How did young artists during this time artistically influence one another?

Sigmund Freud’s artistic ideals and studies were both groundbreaking towards the general public, as well as influential to many other emerging artists of this time. Freud’s applications of “psychoanalyzing” gave many artists the idea that the human mind is capable of being infinitely faceted; mankind alike obviously view the world from different perspectives. A Poster-Modern star like Freud sparked many young minds, probing emerging artists to really utilize his studies of the human brain and it incorporate it into their art masterpieces.

Andy Warhol was another controversial artist of this time whose art was obviously influenced by Sigmund Freud’s ideals and morals. Warhol’s art was considered controversial because it often reflected Freud’s theories on human sexuality- Warhol’s movies expressed human repression and often depicted sexual encounters with those of both the opposite and same sex. Depiction of homosexuals and scandalous, drug-filled lives of our youth pushed the limits of social acceptance during this time. Thus, Warhol’s work wasn’t immediately accepted or embraced by society. Nonetheless, Warhol fearlessly explored the depths of the unconscious desires of the human mind, intimidating a good portion of viewers, yet forever inspiring latter generations to come.

Jack Pollack incorporated many of Freud’s ideas based solely on the human mind alone into his famous drip paintings-utilizing the idea that there is simply not one “appropriate” perspective when it came down to creating art. Rather than his paintings meaning to be representational or symbolic, Pollack greatly encouraged viewers to interpret his work freely and to “feel” the art. And although some critics had often referred to his paintings as “unorganized” or “random,” Pollack’s work was actually an unconscious effort to express his own personal issues of anxiety and anger with alcoholism. His drip paintings, ironically, due symbolize something-the complexities and indeed, the craziness of the human mind.

By following their own subconscious, these artists truly brightened the times of this era with their colorful yet one of a kind masterpieces and ideals.

♥,

Christine Ching

Erica Trinh

Eryn Bollin

Alexander Prescott

Kellyna Fox

Wylie Period 5 Team 9 Post - Modern Synthesis

Audrey Ford
Nicki Quiles
Gus Shettleroe

Post – Modern Synthesis Question

Warhol and Pollack were some of the most influential yet controversial artists of the post- modern era. They revolutionized the way people looked at art and even created their own form of it, Pop Art. Even though Warhol and Pollack revolutionized art, they were influenced by Sigmund Freud. Freud was a renowned neurologist; he introduced the theory of psychoanalysis and the unconscious mind. Freud created a revolutionary therapeutic technique called "free association." This technique required patients to report their thoughts without reservation and make no attempt to concentrate while doing so. This practice caught the eyes of Warhol many years later. Warhol and Pollack incorporated Freud's theory in the majority of their work. Warhol's paintings were often controversial because he painted homosexual males, at the time; this was a taboo and looked down upon. Warhol took Freud's idea of Free Association and incorporated it in his work, aiming to please no one but himself.

Post Modern Synthesis Question

Post Modernism, from the 1960s-1990s, was a reaction to the previous era, Modernism. A key characteristic apparent in both Modernism and Post-Modernism is the idea that all kinds of art form, from very sophisticated to seemingly simplistic, are all at the same level. Themes that were depicted in the art during these two eras were irony and playfulness. The reason for many of the similarities in the two eras was the influence one particular man had that carried over to other artists, a man named Lucian Freud. Freud was well known for his representative style of artwork. He was also able to create masterpieces without the aid of any drugs or narcotics. Pollack and Warhol noticed Freud’s success and in the Post-Modernism era were greatly influenced by his works.

Freud developed the notion of doing work in the style of surrealism. This style of work opened up a whole new world for future artists to explore. It encompassed free association and the exploration of the dream world. Freud had such a large influence on Pollack and Warhol because they noticed his new style of artwork and desired to further explore his ways. Pollack for example, took Freud’s creative way of painting – by standing up – and developed this to create his unique style, called action painting. Warhol on the other hand was influenced by Freud’s style of focusing primarily on the image he was painting, making it a perfect representation of the idea he wanted to convey, and spent little time on background. Warhol took this and applied it to printmaking and imagery. Overall, Freud influenced many artists in the Post-Modern era by the meanings of their paintings and their style of painting

Team 4 Period 1 Wylie

Claire West, Danny Shapiro, Ivy Arbolado, Edward Tyler, Helena Cassily

Post-Modern Synthesis wyl.p6.t7

Sigmund Freud symbolizes the merging of the intangible with the perceptible – an indirect merging of reason with imagination. This is unique, as in all previous eras there was a clash, rather than a unity, of these two ideals—science vs. religion. Freud instigated a new field of thought and ideas that were based on reason, but also elicited deep instinctive passion (often associated with sexuality). These ideals translated into a “counterculture” movement, as the merging of emotion with reason was, in a sense, backward from the earlier distinctions between emotion and reason.

Comparing these characteristics to art is simple, as this subjective reality was simply plastered onto large canvases as art. Andy Warhol’s block print paintings depicted an immediately harsh and profound merging of many contrasting colors that reflected the merging perspectives and ideals in this new age. It was fearless, and subjected the onlooker to a deep turmoil of passion and understanding that became personalized, since each person perceived a different perspective submerged in the ocean of color and blockage. Jackson Pollock was another leader in this era, a pioneer of abstract painting displaying ranges of dark colors in his drip paintings. The fast and undefined era of stark individualism were causes of the underlying passion and emotion in these nonuniform paintings. Differences and individuality were celebrated, unlike previous eras. There was an uproar of spirituality and science, as they fused together to create this beautiful thing that was in a state between intangibility and tangibility. This was reflected in Pollock’s and Warhol’s art, a transition to the more liberal modern era. Though the clash between religion and science was present, and still continues, there is a greater distinction in certain areas (like democratic politics in this country) and an unclear convolution in other areas (like biology and evolution).

Post Modern Synthesis

Sigmund Freud was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century because he painted the raw emotions he believed were concealed within the human subconscious. Surrounded by the aftermath of World War One, he went on to create psychoanalytical works of his time period. Freud created the idea of the brain having three personality compartments: the id, ego and super ego. Id is the personality compartment that reacts purely based on instinct. Ego is the personality compartment that’s conscious and aware of society’s expectations and surrounding. Super ego is the personality compartment that contains one’s morals. Jackson Pollack then took the foundation that Freud created into the post modern era. Pollack dealt with alcoholism most of his life and he understood a struggle. He invented a movement that became known as abstract impressionism. To most it looked like a combination of splattered paint, but his drip style conveyed the underlying misunderstanding and difference perspectives many situations have. Pollack was a materialistic man that condoned a lavish lifestyle. He was wealthy most of his life and directed his wealth to his art. Wealth and struggles led to his demise. Pollack died in a alcohol related car accident at the age of forty four. Andy Warhol, also influenced by Sigmund Freud, was a controversial artist channeled his observations about society into his art. Warhol created a type of art called pop art. This art was based on how Warhol perceived emotions and day to day pictures, often in repetition. This was controversial because the way his art conveyed society’s expectations and acceptances of one another wasn’t always popular. These three artists: Sigmund Freud, Jackson Pollack, and Andy Warhol all believed in the multiple personalities of society and how the cognitively analytical stand point can influence art. Each artist believed in the idea that Freud created: the brain has three personality compartments: the id, ego and super ego. Amber Austin Dylan Mulcahy Jenny Zhan James Jin Caleb Ong

Wylie Period 1 Team 5

Art, in its purest form, is primitive expression. Sigmund Freud believed that art, in its purest form, is expression of the subconscious, and of the three categories of human thought: id, ego, and super-ego. Freud's theory helped shed light upon the mysterious territory that is the mind. His impact reached famous painters such as Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock. Warhol painted well known figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson. His paintings often depicted fame and wealth, two lusts for which the Id category of the human mind longs for. The use of bright colors allowed Warhol to recreate familiar faces while creating true art, and this is how he was able to add his own meaning to his work. Jackson Pollock's paintings utilized a technique that did not depict familiar images. Rather, his work yielded scrambles of color and curvy streaks of paint. The paintings are of impulsive expression, showing the inner machinations of this artist's mind and visually replicating his subconscious. Freud's influence over these two artists is massive, and allowed them to effectively express themselves. 

Teem Destinee

Evelyn Ashleigh, Nick Hudson, Anne Kitchens, Bennett Kopperud 

Postmodern Era Synthesis Question #2 ash.p3.t8

Victoria Carlos

Taci Chin Robinson

Grace Giberson

Joshua Roquemore

Katie Whitworth

Period 3

Team 8

Postmodern Era Synthesis Question #2

Just as Freud influences the writings of James Joyce, Freud influenced the paintings of Pollock and Warhol. Why were these artists so profoundly influenced by Freud, and how did it affect their meaning/message?

         Postmodern art emerged as a contradiction to that of the recent-past, with artists such as Pollock and Warhol emerging as successful artists during their lifetimes. Postmodern art delves into the unconscious mind’s operation. Where modern artworks, such as Picasso, stuck to a certain structures, like cubism, to portray a social ideology. The modern artworks strived to reach a more personal and internal message.

         Freud introduced the idea of the Id, Ego, and Superego as the three components of the mind, which compose the human personality. The Id is the ever-present personality that is entirely unconscious responding only to primitive stimulus; the Ego is the shared personality and the conscious perception of the world, and the superego which contains morals.

         Warhol was a famed pop, popular culture, artist; he often used everyday images as well as repetition in his artwork. His work could be thought of trying to reflect the ego, in the way it takes images and mutes their importance to protect the Id and Superego. Warhol who survived an attempted murder said, “The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything”.

         Pollock was an artist of another movement called abstract expressionism, a movement from easel painting, to raw canvas floor painting with a mixture of techniques and mediums. Abstract expressionism was a highly personal and spontaneous form of art that in Pollock’s work can be seen by the marks of rapid movements.

         What Freud, Warhol, and Pollock have in common are their works being centered on and displaying aspects of human personality.  

Wyl.P6.T4 Post-Modern Synthesis

Sigmund Freud was considered a great neurological researcher of his time, especially due to his work on the unconscious aspects of the brain. However, he influenced not only other psychiatrists, but also future artists from the Post-Modern era. Freud’s beliefs were instrumental in the development of artistic works by Andy Warhol and Reginald Pollack. Freud was a firm believer that true art utilized the unconscious for its creation. This belief was expressed by Andy Warhol because he attempted to use the unconscious in his pop art. For example, in the famous painting titled, Campbell’s Soup, he paints a simple object exactly as it would be seen in real life. Yet this simplicity helps to express the simplicity of human nature. Humans are constantly suppressing the urge to feed and indulge themselves. Warhol uses Freud’s philosophy to help mimic ordinary values; humans must eat like all other animals. Freud also helped influence Reginald Pollack because Pollack enjoyed creating works based on deep metaphorical themes that every man theoretically harbors in the unconscious. For example, in his painting, Peace March, Pollack suggests that, while outwardly men may appear to desire conflict and combat, they actually only seek peace. Pollack served in World War II and encountered many of the traumatic experiences Freud sought to understand. Art would have provided a coping method for Pollack’s troubled unconscious. In the end, Freud helped Warhol and Pollack to better share their unconscious with the world and influence the unconscious of others. Works Cited "Artsz.org." Freud and Art. 10 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. . "Reginald Pollack." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Apr. 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. . "The Warhol:." The Warhol. 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. . Team 4: Cody Dunn, Stephen Hwang, Carlton Lew, Tyler Wong, Rin Sone

Wylie. Period 5. Team 5. Post-Modern Synthesis Question

Lorena Huang Liu

Diana Huang

Rachel Yeo

Sigmund Freud proposed the idea that the human mind can be categorized into three different places: Id, super-ego, and ego. According to him, the id is the impulsive part of the mind that only worries about “pleasure” without worrying about much else, such as the consequences that these actions might arise. The super-ego is the moral part of the mind, it always chooses the situation in which the individual does the right thing, despite any other circumstances. Finally, the ego is an attempted balance between the id and the super-ego. This last one, the ego, is according to Freud the type of psyche present in most of the minds of the people around the world. However, there are always some exceptions which make human’s judgment very extreme and not practical. Both id and super-ego are extremely impractical. The hedonistic approach of an id psyche means that this person will only be acting for a self-interest that looks for pleasure and for fun. For obvious reasons, this would end up in failure. At the same time, the super-ego approach is not plausible. In John Gardner’s novel Grendel, there is a certain soldier that lives by super-ego. He follows Grendel in an attempt to be a hero and destroy him, but since he cannot, he is tortured by the fact that he is not killed. Grendel spares this man’s life on purpose to mock him, because he knows that the warrior would rather die fighting than live as a coward. Artists and authors have been profoundly influenced by Freud because the id, ego, and super-ego theory analyzes the way that characters make decisions and develops their particularities. Due to this theory, readers are better able to understand the rationalizations of the characters in a particular work.

Postmodern Era Synthesis Ash.P4.T5

Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, greatly influenced postmodern artists, Pollack and Warhol. Freud believed that truth is elicited through reason, and that reason itself “elevates humanity far above other creatures.” Religion is not compatible with Freud’s scientific and logical reasoning; he wrote a book that referencing to spirituality, named The Future of an Illusion. He developed a theory that people acted out of unconscious, innate instincts that could not be escaped. These irrational actions are often based in the concept of sexuality.
However, in the postmodern era, reality was seen as subjective. An individual’s perception of reality differed from others’ due to different experiences, exposures, opinions, etc. As a reaction to the modern era, people strayed from the logical and scientific mindset - similar to Freud’s - to one that was more illogically inclined, focusing more on the differing perspectives that society presented its many issues with.
Andy Warhol, an American-born artist of the postmodern era, was an integral leader in the pop art movement. His block print paintings revealed how profoundly Freud had influenced his art: as a direct reaction to Freud’s theories of reason and science, Warhol diverges into the zeitgeist of the postmodern era by forcing onlookers to observe an artistic idea with many perspectives, as contrasting colors change from block to block across the painting. Warhol’s paintings that repeated images but altered the colors portrayed messages of how the importance lies on ideas and personal perception, rather than the objective observation of the recognizable and repeated subject of the painting. In a way, the repetition of such images draws the attention away from the image, and brings it to the use of colors and how that evokes emotion and a deeper understanding - one that is personal and specific to each person.
In addition to Warhol, Jackson Pollock, an influential leader of abstract painting in the postmodern era, revealed the shift of sensibility from Freud’s age. Pollock used a range of darker colors in his most famous drip paintings. The mood created by the cool colors and formless layers of paint “dripped” onto the canvas reveals the kind of undefined and nonuniform state of mind and the intertwining personal perceptions of ideas that all come from one “reality” that is presented on the canvas of life. Such abstract portrayals of the shift from organized reasoning stand in stark contrast to the modern era ideals, creating a message of the newfound intricacies of personal interpretation of the relative reality of individuals.

post-modern synthesis Wyl.p5.t3

Sigmund’s Freud’s influence in the humanities extended to the paintings of Pollack and Warhol. Developer of ID, ego and superego, Freud’s research and monumental conclusions of the human mind were critical to the understanding of Pollack’s drip painting and irrational life style as well as Warhol’s infatuation with Hollywood.  Freud’s development of psychoanalysis gave new understanding of the unconscious mind and how one project the feelings of gratification and irrationally driven behaviors. Much of Pollack’s drip paintings and his abstract art was a representation of his bottle up mind filled with anxiety during the times of Modernism. Much of his need for instant gratification was assuaged by alcohol, which gradually led to his addiction. Pollack’s decision to undergo psychotherapy to mediate his needs, show that he acknowledged an unfathomable connection to his unconscious mind and how he portrayed that to art. Andy Warhol was influenced greatly by the hype of celebrities and Hollywood. His highly recognized painting of Marilyn Monroe embodies both his obsession with glam and riches of fame but also his own interpretation of Hollywood through the use of various color schemes and hues. He brought attention to everyday items like the Campbell soup cans and added his own twist and interpretation about them through his use of vibrant colors. Warhol, through his obsession, could seem like an artist simply swept up in his time of fads, but Freud’s research on the subconscious mind shows his overarching influence in Warhol’s depiction’s of his own world. 


Paulina Alvarez, Emily Teraoka, Angela Oh, Karen Cao