Modern Synthesis

Danny Shapiro

Helena Cassilly

Claire West

Ivy Arbolado

Edward Tyler

Modern Synthesis

As many examine the prosper and innovation the modern era brought, one may also notice it’s natural similarities to past artists in their respective eras. Rembrandt visualized his image of society and projected it into an emotionally charged painting. Rembrandt knew his capability to manipulate very crafty portraits in particular to subliminally transfer his articulated thoughts into the prospective reader. Rembrandt didn’t necessarily inspire an artistic aesthetic, but more so of an philosophical aesthetic. His ability to convey psychological aspects of his own images of his surroundings validates him as a figure, not just an artist. Picasso also fits himself in the category of artists who evoke thought, appreciation, and criticism. His emergence became inevitable when he became the pioneer to cubism. His work not only showed an emotional image, but also a style of art that required great detail and precision. Picasso’s art unlike Rembrandt’s art was much more abstract. Picasso’s obsession with cubic art was actually very helpful for his portrayals because cubic art had many forms. Some of the most popular ways to utilize cubic art was synthetically and analytically. The reason these two become very important in drawing similarities to the modern era is the social statements they both evoke by contrasting one another’s styles. Some of picasso’s collages actually were made of trash. This represented the need for radical improvements in the era. Specifically Guernica, one of picasso’s paintings, expressed a need for justification of killing innocent civilians. Not to mention americans at the time were recovering from WWII and needed a different approach to things.

Asher.P1.T1 - Modern Era Synthesis

The transitional phase that came with the sudden growth in the Industrial Era was disappearing, and the Modern Era represented the shift in focus from pent up emotion in society into a more passive era where thought triumphed action. The works of artists like Rembrandt demonstrated a yearning for the real, where emotions were poured into the subject of the art rather than the style of the art. The Modern Era, however, brought about many changes in society and innovations. With this growth in technology came the continual strive for difference.

Picasso is just one example of an artist who tried to stray from the realism that existed in the past with his use of cubism and surrealism. The avant-garde movement he popularized was a symbol of the advancement and experimental Modern age. Cubist art is the use of geometric shapes, strongly defined angles, and abstract objects conglomerated into one, and the result of such a piece of art contrasted sharply with the “what you see is what you get” paintings of past artists like Rembrandt. Such works encouraged differing opinions and left much to the audience to decide rather than promoting a specific viewpoint the artist had intended. Picasso’s painting “Guernica” looks at first like a smattering of disjointed shapes with faces, but upon further investigation reveals layer after layer of symbolism and stories about the Spanish Civil War. The depth and emotion conveyed with a few simple shapes and colors inspires thought that lasts long after a look at the art of the Modern Era.

Asher P1T2 Modern Era Synthesis

Synthesis Question Modern Era

Rembrandt and Picasso, while both extraordinary artists, they had entirely contrasting painting styles. Rembrandt, an artist of the 1600’s, drew with great detail and specificity. He drew exactly what was occurring with in depth features. Rich details and colors were the highlight of his paintings, like in his own Abduction of Europa. It was straight-forward and psychological, allowing the audience to easily interpret the meaning of the work. This style was in many ways like the science of the time, in which people discovered things by looking at the factual details.

Transitioning to the Modern Era, Picasso’s cubist art depicted human tragedy through his shapes and bright colors while in the heart of World War II. Picasso used this type of art to show others what was going on around them in the war. His abstract use of colors and spread out geometric figures show the emotion of the story. In Guernica, Picasso shows the evils going on in the world, but it is hidden in the shapes of a beautiful, impressionistic painting. He also painted more works of anti-war sentiment, like Massacre in Korea, which protested the violence and horror that took place during the Modern Era. Through these works, Picasso showed his complaints about the tumult that was happening in many battle torn countries, and a hope for stability and peace to come. The artwork of the time depicted the general feeling and the social statements of the time period, which Rembrandt and Picasso did so with assertions of detail and reflection, and sadness of war.

Modern Era Synthesis Question

The events surrounding the modern era were filled with war and tragedy. People wanted to escape the chaos of the world and they couldn’t with Picasso’s painting when he depicted human tragedy in art. Instead, artists like Rembrandt created art based around the struggle of deep universal questions and a strong emotionally dense language. Artists rebelled against society’s norms and trailed away from old views toward art. The Modern period became a time for great artists to experiment with new styles and shape more “colorful” works.

Modern Era Synthesis Question Asher Period 1 Team 6

Modern Era Synthesis Question

     Guernica is a painting by Pablio Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of  by Guernica the German and Italian warplanes, 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to paint a large mural for the Spanish display at the Paris International Exposition at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an antiwar symbol, and an embodiment of peace, upon completion, Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. The lack of color also shows the emotionless of the people. The colors of each individuals has left and vanished. Picasso’s later paintings began to perform more use of free color to show the idea of existentialism. Life becomes more meaningful, and each actions the person commits are used as fuel for a later purpose. The bland and emotionless life scurries as color expresses the meaning of life and the purposefulness of people.

Modern Era Synthesis - Asher.Period.1.Team.8.

Rembrandt’s artistic style was well-known to be detailed as well as extremely emotionally charged. This artist’s greatest creative successes are thoroughly exemplified in his portraits of contemporaries, self-portraits, as well as various scenes from the Bible. His paintings, stylistically, established a transition from the earlier “smooth” manner to the late “rough” treatment of rich paint surfaces. Picasso’s artist style, on the other hand, differed greatly. During his life, he experimented with classical and academic, realistic, and finally analytical and synthetic cubism. In his period of cubism, Picasso became famous for painting people and aspects of society as abstracted shapes. Although these two artists employed diverse and different means of expression, they both held similar opinions and a similar underlying belief regarding society during the Modern Era. This era is known as a period which was at the helm of prosperous advancements. Such advancements included science, politics, warfare, and technology. With all these advancements came an inevitable shift in the mindset of that society. Many people no longer had an interest in the “realism” which Rembrandt implied. For example, in Rembrandt’s iconic painting The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, emotion is thoroughly and expressively depicted, as several discouraged apostles plead to Jesus Christ to save them from the treacherous storm. The painting vividly illuminates the beastly way in which the ship’s sails are torn which results in a flooded vessel. Picasso contrastingly painted Guernica, which innovatively used various shapes to portray the attack on the Spanish city of Guernica by the Germans and Italians. Picasso’s artwork is credited for its distortion of reality. Guernica became famed during World War II, when innocent, lost, and confused felt as is they could turn to no one. Both painters idealized emotions and explained the turmoil society was intertwined into. They chose to create a depiction which ostracized the suffering of humankind in some shape or form.

Jessie Yen, Ruhi Sharma, Sidney Gerst , Rachel Clauss :D

Asher. P2.T4 - Modern Era Synthesis

The separation and contention that was formed during the Modern Era between “'spiritual' abstract painting and the 'materialist' representational painting of the Western tradition” has served as the canvas for new forms of expression and social criticism. Academia criticized the nineteenth century's preoccupation with subject matter, the person or object, and apparent lack of the spiritual or emotional elements, and has professed that modern art concerned form rather than representation. During the modern era we saw a shift in how we both interpreted and created art. We started to take focus away from replicating an object or person, such as Rembrandt did, to replicating an inspiring or emotional connection or reaction. This became the basis for Modernism art.

The ideals of modernism are visible in the cubist paintings of Picasso most of all, who was what many believe to be the most renowned modern painter. Picasso's cubist art represented a hitherto unheard of level of abstraction. Picasso and others created 'analytical' Cubism a style of painting in which the objective representation of a subject was broken down and formalized. Although strict modernists would object to any social connection or implications within modern art Picasso allowed many elements of social interest to be incorporated into his works. In his earlier works the circus performers, impoverished beggars and prostitutes, and Parisian night life figures do not demonstrate contemporary ideals, but Picasso painted them as symbolic 'types'. Many believe that this stemmed from the tendency to divided and define social, cultural, and economic differences within the country during the first half of the Modern Era. These growing gaps within the population became barriers and the source of eventual societal and economic instability that has led to patterns of violence and prejudice throughout the Modern Era and well into our time.

Late on, after he had honed his cubist style, Picasso’s work often contained hidden social criticisms. The scraps of newspaper in Guitare brought attention to and eventual criticism to the events of the Balkan War. Picasso's monumental painting Guernica presents similar problems. While it can be read simply as a symbol of the terror of war, it was painted in response to the Spanish civil war and the atrocities committed by the Nazis. Another one of his famous works, Massacre in Korea, a product of the Korean War during this era, portrays U.S. soldiers massacring communist sympathizers in Korea, all in the cubist style. Compare to the analytical scenes depicted in Rembrandt’s works, Picasso's works plainly displayed the tragedies, fears, and social changes and criticisms of the era.