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The renewed interest in representational figure painting that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s caused artists, art historians, and critics to consider whether or not this contemporary work belonged to the abstract, modernist direction painting had taken in the 20th century. This paper considered the problem as it was reflected in the careers of contemporary figure painters Philip Pearlstein, Jack Beal, and Alfred Leslie. The opinions of critics and historians and the views of the artists themselves were researched. The critics reached the consensus that all three artists' works were a logical extension of the modernist tradition in painting. Pearlstein concurred. He felt strongly that subject matter was irrelevant if the artist's attitude toward it was modernist in sensibility. Beal and Leslie found that abstract modern art was of little interest to them and concerned themselves with figure painting as a narrative genre allowing personal expression.The author also used this issue as a framework for the evaluation of her own series of three representational oil paintings of human figures wrapped in fabric. After describing the paintings, she concluded that they did reveal aspects of the artists' and critics' criteria of modernism (i.e. evenness of detail, large scale, and aggressive imagery) that should be pushed further in future work.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / Jack Tworkov began painting in the 1920s and made his reputation later as an Abstract Expressionist working in a gestural style. At the age of sixty-five Tworkov put that reputation on the line by undergoing a radical transformation in style and, within a few years, emerged as one of the innovative geometric painters of the later 1960s and the 1970s. This dissertation focuses on works from 1955, when Tworkov began to paint wholly idiosyncratic canvases, to 1979, at which time he significantly changed his brushstroke, a stylistic element that functions as a thread throughout this period. Other binding concepts include a continuing attempt to reconcile painterliness and spontaneity with premeditated structure and the combination of choice and chance in generating new ideas and compositions . This dissertation attempts to provide a complete analysis of this specific portion of Tworkov's work, which has never been done, and to avail the reader of a significant collection of artist's statements drawn from a variety of sources including Tworkov's own diary notes, the art historical literature , and personal interviews with the author. The analysis of the works is contextual, within the frame work of Tworkov's career itself, and proceeds stylistically rather than chronologically, identifying, explaining, and pursuing trends in Tworkov's works over an extended period of time. Iconographic analyses are provided where most appropriate and where most illustrative Tworkov's relationship to other artists has been discussed. The work from 1955 to 1979 has been divided into three major segments: Transitional Works, including the Painterly Abstractions and the Fields; the Structural/Geometric Works, subdivided into early geometric canvases, further experiments with geometry, and the Bisections; and the System Works, including both the Knight Moves and the Three-Five-Eight series. / by Lois Fichner-Rathus. / Ph.D.

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The XXXII Venice Biennale, held in 1964, presented an important moment in the history of American art, for it was the first time that an American painter was awarded the major prize at the prestigious international show. The fact that Robert Rauschenberg captured the most coveted award of the Biennale, the Grand Prize for painting, had major repercussions for the art scene in the United States and the international art community. For the Americans, the prize was "proof" that American art had finally come into its own, that through its struggle for recognition over the European avant-garde, it had finally reached its well-deserved place as leader of the pack. For the Europeans, especially the French, the award represented the "last frontier" of American expansionism--for it seemed that the economic and military dominance of the United States finally had been supplemented by cultural dominance. It seems pertinent to this study to examine the French response in particular, since they had traditionally dominated Biennale prizes. By analyzing the French reviews and responses to the prize, and situating these in a broader political context, I will discuss how the U.S. was perceived as the new cultural leader, despite the vehement objections to the culture of the New Frontier, which seemed to be only Coke bottles, stuffed eagles and carelessly dripped paint. Given the vehement objections engendered by the Rauschenberg victory, it seems somewhat curious that the United States would choose Rauschenberg as a representative of American culture. In order to discover how the pop imagery in the work was linked to the image : of U.S. culture promoted by the U.S. Information Agency (the government agency responsible for the show), it is necessary to analyze the cultural and intellectual debates of the early 1960s. Rejecting earlier notions that high art should remain separate from mass culture, a prominent group of intellectuals argued for a "new sensibility" in art which would embrace popular culture, thereby elevating it. This positive notion of a single, all-embracing culture corresponds to a more general optimism among many intellectuals; their rallying cry was the "end of ideology," which disdained radical critique in favor of the promise of Kennedy's "progressivism" and the welfare state. These intellectuals argued that while the system was not perfect, any major problems could be averted by simply "fine-tuning" the existing state; in the meantime, the promise of Kennedy's New Frontier required a more affirmative than critical stance. The elements shared between these discourses on culture and society at this time were of seminal importance to the critical understanding of Rauschenberg's work, particularly as it was presented at the Biennale. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

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Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) est un artiste américain très connu dans son pays mais peu étudié en Europe. Le catalogue raisonné de son œuvre n'est toujours pas établi à ce jour. <p><p>Tout au long de sa vie, ses sources d'inspiration sont intimement liées à la femme. Cette thèse souhaite aller plus loin que les études existantes: d'une part en envisageant la femme dans tous ses rôles (danseuse, diva, écrivaine, amie, starlette,) et d'autre part, en étudiant la série qui lui est consacrée. Ce regard minutieux sur les variations au sein d'une série est l'un des points forts et totalement inédits de cette thèse. Il permet d’observer le renouvellement de l’obsession et le goût pour la collection, au sens où Baudrillard l’entend.<p><p>En première partie, l'angle d'approche consiste à observer, les stratégies de l'artiste qui tente de s'approprier la femme par la mise en boîte, en bouteille, en dossier, <p><p>En deuxième partie, nous observerons la manière dont il installe une distance qui permet à la muse de rester inaccessible – au sens romantique voire nervalien du terme. La distance peut-être d'ordre surnaturel: la femme prend alors les traits d'une fée ou d'une sylphide ;temporelle (la muse est imaginée enfant) ;spatiale (la muse prend vie sous forme de constellation). Autre stratégie d'évocation: "le portrait sans visage" où le corps de la muse est totalement absent, seul « un objet symbolique) fait référence à la femme désignée. Il peut s’agir d’une chambre ou d’une lampe de mineur pour évoquer Emily Dickinson ou une poupée pour évoquer La Belle au Bois dormant. Vers la fin des années cinquante, Cornell réalise des « boîtes-mémoriaux » en hommage à des jeunes trop tôt disparues. <p><p>La troisième partie tente d’étudier comment Cornell « transcende » l’idée de mort. <p><p>Enfin, en quatrième partie, nous dresserons un bref inventaire des collages des années soixante ayant comme thème central le nu féminin. Cornell quittant un matériel « nostalgique » afin de « charge d’innocence » des images qu’il considère comme érotiques.<p> <p><p>Cette étude s'appuie, entre autres, sur une vingtaine d'œuvres analysées qui n'ont jamais été publiées, une trentaine d'autres qui n'ont jamais été commentées. Plus d'un tiers des œuvres choisies bénéficient d'une recherche de sources totalement inédites, se voyant ainsi placée sous un nouveau regard interprétatif. Et enfin, les œuvres sont mises en rapport avec les sources littéraires qui les ont nourries (Aurélia de Gérard de Nerval, Le Portrait de Jennie, la poésie d’Emily Dickinson, la biographie de Marilyn Monroe ou les écrits de Mary Eddy Baker, …). <p> / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished