Week 11 Video Review

The Impact of Cubism

1. Explain why you selected each of the TWO videos you choose from the selection listed above.
I chose the Cubism video because I’ve always had a soft spot for Picasso’s cubist masterpieces and wanted to learn more about the movement as a whole.

2. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.
Cubism was a worldwide movement – artists from Europe flocking to Paris, Russia
Juan Gris (1906 @ 19) – “start with abstraction and end with the real objects”
Pablo Picasso was the dominant figure
Mandinsky – Kasimir Malevich? Russian tradition – church icon – mystical experience, glimpse divine truths through symbols” – peasant as Christ – stopped by Soviets

3. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text?
The video greatly expanded on artists other than Picasso and Braque, the two artists talked about in the book. It also showed how global cubism was.

4. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the readings and art concepts?
I did enjoy the film once I got past the antiquity of the narration. It felt like an old British war propaganda film for a bit.

Expressionism

1. Explain why you selected each of the TWO videos you choose from the selection listed above.
For the same reason I chose the cubism film, except this time Matisse is the only artist that I know is associated with the movement of Expressionism.

2. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.
Kirchner’s Die Bruecke paintings were featured prominently, and after their breakup Kirchner’s paintings became much darker and sharper.
Beckmann reinvented the ancient medieval triptych, which is a 3 panel painting that can be closed, while living in a tobacco warehouse. The one in the video was called The Actors which looked like a medieval scene, though it is showing a play on a stage.
Markus Luepert The Great Friends with its small headed, massive bodied soldiers is meant to be comic and tragic.

3. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text?
It was very helpful in explaining the trajectory of the movement all the way from its beginnings, and how it kept getting more and more abstract as time went on.

4. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the readings and art concepts?
The video was very helpful in that regard; the book barely brushes over the various expressionism movements.