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Example research essay topic: 20 Th Century Black And White - 1,208 words

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The global art periods of Romanticism and Modernism could not leave apart the cultural life of the United States. Besides, at the times of these eras USA has already been recognized by the rest of the world, and managed to integrate into global artistic movement. The portrayal of fantastic and realistic notions occupied the activity of painters from the mid 1800 s to the middle of the 20 th century. The period of Romantic painting lies roughly from the mid 1700 s to the mid / later 1800 s, while paintings from the movement of Modernism are referred to art of the 20 th century in Europe and the Americas. Diagonals and tension characterize the aspect of a Romantic compositions balance. Disproportion, imbalance and a feeling of pushing and pulling within the depth of the composition can also be observed.

While movement and activity is characteristic of Romantic paintings, a still, quiet, stationary behaviour epitomizes Realism paintings. In Eugene Isabeys Boat Ashore at Calas (1851), simple romantic elements comprise the piece: diagonals and smoke. A main diagonal line emphasizes the downward slope of a shore lined with beached boats resting upon the sand. A challenging inferior diagonal line of a small group of people and their dinghies cross the main diagonal flow.

The two lines of tension resolve at the lower centre of the composition highlighting the main, looming subject - a dark massive apparition of a docked, freight boat enshrouded by blackening smoke. The use of balance and tension in Romanticism and Modernism is not restricted to its compositional flow but also to the painters use of his palette. The use of colour in Romantic paintings is bold visually and figuratively. Its usage is implemented to represent a feeling or an ideal. The presence of a colour may not be realistically representative. For example, if the blood of a corrupt official is painted, it might be painted black or green, rather than red.

There is also a heavy application of paint from the brush. The presence of a blurring smoke is also present in much of Romantic paintings. Blurring smoke has many uses, although its usual function is to detach and glorify the main subject from the rest of the background. The contrast of colours in reality and fantasy are also affected by the intensity of their hue. The use of light in Romantic paintings presents a stark contrast between light and very dark shadows. The source of light in Romanticism is usually artificial and intentional.

Its purpose is to highlight the main subject. In Modernism, many shades of a colour are used to present the object as it is truly perceived. The light is a reproduction of a natural source and forms the outline of the object. There is very little blurring or smoke. Gros Napoleon Bona part Visits the Plague Stricken at Jaffa can be analysed from Romantic point of view. The Romantic technique of stark contrast between light and dark is used to separate Napoleon from the plague stricken.

Opposite of Modernism's use of a natural light source, the main subject of Napoleon and two naked men are artificially and purposefully spotlighted in an otherwise very dark hallway. Romantic themes appeal to the emotions and are determined by the ideals of the sublime, or sensual liberation, the fantastic, and a German ideal known as Sturm und Drug or storm and stress. Emotional tension is portrayed dramatically in peoples faces and their environments. Another very popular unrealistic Romantic icon is the presence of nudity. Contrary to Romanticism, Modern art comprises a remarkable diversity of styles, movements, and techniques.

The wide range of styles encompasses the sharply realistic painting of a Midwestern farm couple by Grant Wood, entitled American Gothic (1930, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois), and the abstract rhythms of poured paint in Black and White (1948, private collection), by Jackson Pollock. Yet even if we could easily divide modern art into representational works, like American Gothic, and abstract works, like Black and White, we would still find astonishing variety within these two categories. It is in the modern period that artists have made paintings not only of traditional materials such as oil on canvas, but of any material available to them. This innovation led to developments that were even more radical, such as conceptual art and performance art movements that expanded the definition of art to include not just physical objects but ideas and actions as well. For some critics, the most important characteristic of modern art is its attempt to make painting and sculpture ends in themselves, thus distinguishing modernism from earlier forms of art that had conveyed the ideas of powerful religious or political institutions.

Because modern artists were no longer funded primarily by these institutions, they were freer to suggest more personal meanings. This attitude is often expressed as art for art's sake, a point of view that is often interpreted as meaning art without political or religious motives. But even if religious and government institutions no longer commissioned most art, many modern artists still sought to convey spiritual or political messages. Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, for instance, felt that colour combined with abstraction could express a spiritual reality beneath ordinary appearances, while German painter Otto Dix created openly political works that criticized policies of the German government. Another theory claims that modern art is by nature rebellious and that this rebellion is most evident in a quest for originality and a continual desire to shock. The term avant-garde, which is often applied to modern art, comes from a French military term meaning advance guard, and suggests that what is modern, is what is new, original, or cutting-edge.

To be sure, many artists in the 20 th century tried to redefine what art means, or attempted to expand the definition of art to include concepts, materials, or techniques that were never before associated with art. In 1917, for example, French artist Marcel Duchamp exhibited everyday, mass-produced, utilitarian objects including a bicycle wheel and a urinals works of art. In the 1950 s and 1960 s, American artist Allan Kaprow used his own body as an artistic medium in spontaneous performances that he declared to be artworks. In the 1970 s American earthwork artist Robert Smithson used unaltered elements of the environment earth, rocks, and water material for his sculptural pieces. Consequently, many people associate modern art with what is radical and disturbing. Every period of the global culture is marked by its unique streams in the development of painting, literature, or any other form of art.

The Romanticism and Modernism do not stand apart from the development of these tendencies, and what is more interesting is that they are very alike all around the world. Bibliography: Richardson, Edgar P. American Romantic Painting. NY: E. Were, 1944. Cranston, Maurice.

The Romantic Movement. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1994. Honour, Hugh. Romanticism. England: Penguin Books, Ltd, 1979. Wolf, Norbert.

Painting of the Romantic Era. Koln, Germany: Taschen, 1999. Gablik, Suzi. Has Modernism Failed?

New York: Thames & Hudson, 1986. Jenks, Charles. Modernism: The New Classicism in Art and Architecture. New York, 1987.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. The Modern System of the Arts. Journal of the History of Ideas, XII, no. 4, 1951, pp. 496 - 527.


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Research essay sample on 20 Th Century Black And White

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