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Just excellent. And superior bibliography. Most impressed.

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Chipp, Herschel B., and Peter Selz. Theories of modern art: a source book by artists and critics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016.

The introduction of the chapter Symbolism and Other Subjectivist tendencies: Form and the Evocation of Feeling explained that the tendency of trying to describe and evoke personal feeling is connected to symbolism and is explored by artists during early modern art time. One opinion that is interesting is, "feeling qualities are more derived from the colors and forms rather than the subject chosen." While the central elements are simplified from the subject (interchangeable, vulnerable), the meaning is still complex and random (personal feeling). Readers may question: how modern artists are going to simplify the other side of the equation (the feeling)?

Deranty, Jean-Philippe. "Existentialist Aesthetics." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. June 26, 2009. Accessed April 16, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-existentialist/.

The philosophy of existentialism is closely related to a part of modern art. Existentialism emphasizes that human beings are special in the way that they can interpret nowness. It also stress the freedom and autonomy of the individual, thus giving artists the right to interpret and feel the objective world as they want without being criticized as distorting the reality. People can find many shared ideas between internal communication in art and existentialism in philosophy.

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George Wesley Bellows
1882 - 1925
American
The Picnic
1924
Oil on canvas

This painting looks bizarre and unreal. The mountains on the other bank look like that they are sinking. They are so outstanding compared with other mountains on the background. The people seems are sitting and standing on a small hill that terminates right when it reach the frame. All elements are overly rounded and lightened.

The artist absorbed the picnic experience, digested it, and emphasized a specific feeling in the work. This process makes the painting unreal, bizarre, yet evocative.

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Arthur B. Carles
1882 - 1952
American
Interior with Woman at Piano
1912
Oil on canvas

Although the title of the painting sounds objective and people may expect to see a realistic portrait, the painting itself is really impressionistic.

Just like O'Keeffe's Waterfall, the elements are vague and the details are blurred. Viewers cannot recognize any of the figures depicted in the painting, yet they can feel the emotion of each figure: the detached women on the left side on the sofa; the attentive pink lady with a tilt to the piano; the women in the corner who raises her head with a relief and seems really relaxed.

Again, figures may be observed from the reality, but the interpretation of each figure and the whole atmosphere in the room are personal interpretation from the artist. It communicates the ambiguous feeling with the viewers. The subject becomes a mean to achieve the feeling rather than the intension.

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Georgia O'Keeffe
1887- 1986
American
Waterfall I
1952
Oil on canvas

The current, the vapor, the bushes or trees are all shown vaguely, yet it provokes the feeling of being in front of a waterfall and feel the vapor blowing against one's face. The greatness of nature is irresistible even the form is simplified.

The artists must have observed the waterfall in the reality, but she transformed this external waterfall into something internal, and then created this piece with her personal feeling. Viewers can see the waterfall in the artist's point of view and have a similar internal experience.

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Modern art tends to deal with eternal feelings. The artwork is a presentation of the artist's thought or feeling. On the other side, when the work is finished and presented to the viewers, the internal meaning becomes evocative, and talks to the viewers about the artist's personal feeling or meaning.

The whole process is external (experience) - internal (feeling) - external (artwork). A process of internal communication.

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"I. Rice Pereira." Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery. Accessed April 16, 2017. http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=3761.

This article explains Pereira's approach and choice of materials. Pereira's works are considered experimental. She use reflective materials to attain the light effect and depth. Her  choice of paint, including glass, plastic, gold leaf, are considered as "unusual." This short essay briefly introduces the audience to the reason that modern artists use a varieties of "unusual" materials.

Modern Paints. Accessed April 16, 2017. http://www.getty.edu/conservation/our_projects/science/modpaints/modpaints_jp_mural.html.

This article throughly analyzed Pollock's paints in his work Mural (1943). It is interesting to find that while media equality provides artists with a wider range of choices and diminishes some traditional bias of art materials (eg. oil painting is more noble than others), it actually makes art conservation much harder. It is important to consider what media equality means in the whole art field, not only for artists and the art pieces, but conservation, museum, viewers, as well as the art market.

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Ben Shahn
1898 - 1969
American
Six
1952
Tempera on linen stretched over plywood

One way that modern artists treat material equally is by using cheap materials as long as it can attain the wanted effect.

What is interesting in this work is not only the painting on the surface, but the plywood underneath. The flaming and fluctuating color, and the bizarre yet uniformed composition all show that this is a carefully created work, but in contrast, it is a cheap plywood underneath.

When I look at this painting, I was thinking, "Does the guy who framed the painting knows that it is a piece of plywood support?"

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Irene Rice Pereira
1907 (America) - 1971 (Spain)
American
Red Form
1939 - 1940
Oil on glass and board; artist's gessoed and painted frame

This art work is considered painting because it is about "surface," however, the layers give it a real dimension instead of the illusion created on one surface, as in traditional paintings. Pereira abandoned canvas or any types of opaque surface and used glass instead, in order to create the real depth and light effect.

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Jackson Pollock
1912 - 1956
American
Water Birds
1943
Oil on canvas

Although the label says that the artist used oil paint, it is clearly that Pollock used house paint for the fluttering lines instead. For Pollock, there is no fundamental difference between the expensive oil paint and cheap house paint. He chose the house paint because he wants its fluidity.

The only reason for choosing one medium from the other is that one's characteristics is closer to the artist's intension than the other.

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Modern art does not limit itself in one medium, but tends to have multi-media or even "unusual" media.

This principle is different from principle 2 materiality, which emphasizes seeing one material as the material without creating an illusion of being something else. Principle 4 media equality emphasizes the way how artists violate the traditional preference of media. Modern artists see all media and materials as equal. This perception opens up the possibility of creating something new.

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This is terrific, Coco. And thanks for addressing my questions about materials. Interesting!

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"Modernism." Tate. Accessed March 31, 2017. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/modernism.

This essay talked about the concept of Modernism, and describe it as "is characterized by a deliberate rejection of the styles of the past," which indicates that seeking new style is a fundamental character of Modernism. It also links to many interesting essays about modern art.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Essays On Art. New York: James Miller, 1862.

This book published at the time when modern art just started. Page 134-138 in this book talks about the process of forming a style: comprehension of the objects -- selection of the objects -- knowledge of the subjects. It also talks about the relationship between observation(nature, imitation) and inner ideas (imagination, self-creation), and states forming a style is balancing in between. This resource inspires people to think what is the relationship between the stylistic approach in modern art and traditional academic art, how style helps artists and also hinders artists in some degree, and what the balance stated in the book means.

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Egon Schiele
1890-1918
Austrian
Old City
1912
Oil on board

Nothing needs to be said. Schiele is such a stylistic person.

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Max Pechstein
1881-1955
German
The Circus
1920
Oil on canvas

Sharpness is the most appropriate word to describe the style of this painting. The artist creates a feeling of "fleeting motion" by using acute angles and thin shapes: The people on the stage have sharp feet; the actress's arms are slim and long; the horses' chins are sharp, the whip is long and thin. The sharpness along with the unstable composition creates a feeling of motion and uncertainness.

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Max Weber
1881 (Russia) - 1961 (America)
The Bathers
1909
Oil on canvas

Style, in a large extent, decides the overall feeling and atmosphere of the artwork.

This painting clearly shows the Fauvist style. The two women in the foreground have muddy paint on their body and invoke a fleshy feeling that makes viewers want to touch, whereas the three in the middle ground are darker, flatter, and more untouchable. The red on the right is burning and moving, but the sea behind is calm and stable. These stable and unstable, luring and intangible conflicts are mainly generated by Weber's Fauvist style, which is defined by its "painterly qualities and strong color."

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Modern artists are always looking for new medias, approaches, subjects, meanings, etc. In this process, they reach new styles. Many artists change their styles and media during their lifetime. A new style is not only a novelty for eyes, but a refreshing discovery that reveals something deeper. The style is always closely connected with the meaning the artwork convey.

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I think materials are distinctive (eg. oil paints do not have the crystal feeling of ice resin; plaster is matte but cloth is light-leaking). Because of their distinctiveness, they can be the idea represented in artworks instead of the methods used to reach something else. Material can be the subject of the work in which the artist experiments with its features.

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So I have a question. Does "materiality" also apply to modern sculpture? Is there work in which the medium itself transcends the thing or idea represented? Just wondering.

Love the in inclusion of Jean Dubuffet. Look up what he described as "haut pate," a dense built up surface that is almost sculptural.

Nice!

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Lawrence, Sharon Orleans. How the materiality of paint is intrinsic to the work of art: an explanation of the meaningful placement of the medium of painting in contemporary art theory. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2013.

This book explained the fundamental relationship between materiality and paint. Tracing back to ancient time and moving forward to contemporary time, the author answered why "the materiality of paint is a component of resonance."

Abstraction: The Experience. Produced by Carlos Vilardebo. By Andre Parinaud. 1980. Accessed March 4, 2017. https://ezproxy.mica.edu:2290/video/abstraction-experience.

This video showed valuable close shots of the details of Jean Dubuffet's works. His works appears around 00:14:00. Audience are given an opportunity to scrutinize Dubuffet's approach of materiality in this video.

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Natalia Gongharova
1881-1962
Russian
Untitled
c. 1920-1924
Oil on canvas

This is a really large painting but the brushstrokes are even wilder and stronger than what the size can contain. The colors are wild, dirty, earthy, but the shape are clear and artificial. Shapes twist and intertwine with each other and the same color appears on the center and margins, resulting in a messy unity rather than a distinguishable subject-and-background relationship.

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Jean Dubuffet
1901-1985
French
Orator at the Wall
1945
Oil on canvas

"Flat" seems like an obvious statement in this work. There is no shadow in the painting. Brushstrokes and colors are unrestrained. The artist did not pay more attention to the person, but he even did the opposite and dedicated to the wall. The texture on the wall is vibrant, disturbing, and intriguing, merging the person into the texture and thus reducing the spacial feeling in between.

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Susan Rothenberg
1945-
American
Siena dos Equis
1975
Acrylic and tempera on canvas

This work is a typical representation of denying illusional space in a painting. The artist covered the whole picture plate with a grid structure that is similar to tiles on a wall, and make viewers realize: this is not a horse but something on a surface.

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Modernistic paintings emphasize the materiality of paint. They deny the illusional space in paintings by using wilder brushstrokes, more vibrant color, and some times even by creating another illusional space that counteract with the former one. Modernism tells the truth: a painting is just "paint on the surface" and nothing beyond it.

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Just excellent, Coco! I particularly like how you are doing a short analysis of each work that really explains how the work connects to the principle. And excellent choices all around.

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Hofmann, Hans, Hans Hofmann: search for the real. New York: Ameringer Yohe Fine Art, 2005

Search For The Real is one of the most important published work by Hans Hofmann. The essay elaborates the idea of "push and pull", which explained his play between color, shape, and placement in his painting.

Paul, Stella, “Abstract Expressionism.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/abex/hd_abex.htm (October 2004)

This essay is a part of the The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History project by Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this essay, the author mainly explained different stages of abstract expressionism and how it developed. The transition of abstract expressionism shows how artists try to find a more purified form of expression, concentrating on the subject, gesture, and gradually transited to color.

Severini, Gino, The life of a painter : the autobiography of Gino Severini. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1995

This autobiography of futurist painter Gina Severini illustrated his life experience and ideas for his art. Severini's inclusion of many different modern artists, including Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Braque, Gris, and Dufy, provides people with a comprehensive sense of modernism.

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A part of the modernism deals with the delicate arrangement of simple elements, such as color, shade, and shape. While modern artists vary in the choice of the subjects (geometric shapes or actual representations of objects/figures), they all seek a more purified form of expression, and some of them found the method in playing with composition, basic elements in painting, and physical properties of the paint, developing into abstraction.

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Gino Severini
1883-1966
Italian
Dancer at Pigalle's
1912
Oil and sequins on sculpted gesso on artist's canvasboard

This painting break the flat plate by using a really thick layer of gesso to create three-dimensional shapes on the surface on the margin of the dancer's dress. The painting shows a clear sense of breaking down the composition of the dancer and recombining elements, which result in abstraction. Light is critical in emphasizing the dancer in a unnoticeable way.

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Max Weber
1881 (Bialystok, Russia)-1961 (New York, United States)
Avoirdupois
1951
Oil on canvas

Shadow is a central concept in this painting. The elements represent a delicate arrangement of layers, yet the shadows keep obscuring the layers, implying that they actually exist in the same plate. The playing with geometric forms and shadows is obvious in this painting, showing some sort of abstraction.

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Hans Hofmann
1880 (Weissenberg, Germany)-1966 (New York, United States)
Germania
1951
Oil on canvas

This painting shows a strong motion on the motionless surface. All the elements keep pushing and pulling each other, creating a disturbing yet balanced overall composition. The playing with geometric shape and physical properties of paints is obvious in the work, representing a tendency to abstraction.

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You are all set to go. Good job.