16-A Edward Hopper, House by the Railroad, 1925

16-A Edward Hopper, House by the Railroad, 1925
- Look closely at this painting and imagine whether anyone lives in the house.
- Describe the mood of this painting. Maybe lonely, empty, bleak, or barren? Ask them to explain why it seems like this. The dull gray color of the house, its deep shadow, windows with nothing visible inside, empty porch, and lack of vegetation all contribute to the lonely mood. Even the railroad track separates the viewers from the house, hiding the steps to the porch and making it seem even less accessible.
- Where is the sun? It is on the left.
- Where are the darkest shadows? They are on the right, under the porch overhang.
- What do these dark shadows suggest about the house?
- Describe the architecture of this house. What shape are its windows and roof? It is of ornate Victorian style with arched windows; the house has porches, brick chimneys, and an extremely steep, curved Mansard roof. The main body is three stories tall and the tower section has four stories.
- How would a real estate agent might write an ad for this house? What are its strong features? How could its location be described positively?
- Imagine how this scene would change if a train went by on this track. It would be noisy and the house might shake. At night, lights would shine in the windows.
- Which was built first, the house or the railroad track? Explain why they think this. Because this is an old-fashioned house with dated architectural features and it is too close to the railroad track, the track was probably laid after the house.
- Think of a building in their community that seems old, outdated, and ugly, but not so old that it is
a treasured antique. Explain that this is how Hopper probably felt about this house. Its Victorian architecture was dated and out of style in 1925, but today that style has regained some of its popularity.
- What elements in this painting help convey a sense of loneliness? The empty track and the lack of any activity enforce a sense of loneliness.
- Why might many people come near this house each day? What might they think about the house and its inhabitants? Will they probably ever meet the people who live in this house? Train passengers come close to the house each day but speed past it. They might even see people behind the windows or on the porch but cannot meet or talk with them. The speed of modern life sometimes isolates people even when it brings them physically near each other.


Nighthawks – 1942, 33x60 inches
The term "night-hawk", like 'night owl', is used figuratively to describe someone who stays up late. The scene was inspired by a diner (since demolished) in Greenwich Village, Hopper's home neighborhood in Manhattan.
Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sunday, December 7, 1941. After this event there was a widespread feeling of gloominess across the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others; all are lost in their own thoughts. Two are a couple, while the third is a man sitting alone, with his back to the viewer. The diner's sole attendant, looking up from his work, appears to be peering out the window past the customers. His age is indeterminate.
The corner of the diner is curved; curved glass connects the large expanse of glass on its two sides. Weather is understood to be warm, based on clothing worn by the patrons. No overcoats are in evidence; the woman's blouse is short-sleeved. Across the street are what appear to be open windows on the second story. The light from the restaurant floods out onto the street outside, and a sliver of light casts its way into one of the windows.
This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work. It is sharply outlined by the fact that the man with his back to us appears lonelier because of the couple sitting next to him. If one looks closely, it becomes apparent that there is no way out of the bar area, as the three walls of the counter form a triangle that traps the attendant. It is also notable that the diner has no visible door leading to the outside, which illustrates the idea of confinement and entrapment. Hopper denied that he had intended to communicate this in Nighthawks, but he admitted that "unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city." At the time of the painting, fluorescent lights had just been developed, perhaps contributing to why the diner is casting such an eerie glow upon the almost pitch black outside world. An advertisement for Phillies cigars is featured on top of the diner.

15-A Charles Sheeler, American Landscape, 1930

15-A Charles Sheeler, American Landscape, 1930
Charles Sheeler is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the 20th century. He studied painting under William Merritt Chase in Pennsylvania. In 1909, he went to Paris, just when the popularity of Cubism was skyrocketing. Returning to the United States, he realized that he would not be able to make a living with Modernist painting. Instead, he took up commercial photography (as a self-taught photographer). Sheeler painted using a technique that complemented his photography. He was a self-proclaimed Precisionist, a term that emphasized the linear precision he employed in his depictions. As in his photographic works, his subjects were generally material things such as machinery and structures.


Look closely at all the details in this painting.
- Locate the tiny figure. He is on the railroad tracks.
- Where is the ladder? It is located in the right corner.
- Where are the silos? They are on the left.
- How does Sheeler indicate distance in this painting? The parallel horizontal lines are converging, coming closer together, to the left of the painting. Objects overlap and distant structures are smaller, with fewer details.
- What lines look as if they were drawn with a ruler? The lines on the edge of the canal, the train and tracks, and the buildings look as if they were composed with a straight edge.
- Much of this painting is geometric. What parts are not? The water and the reflections in the water, the sky and smoke, and the pile of ore are irregular in shape.
-How large do the buildings seem in comparison with the man. They are huge.
- This plant mass-produced automobiles. Raw materials and ores were transformed into cars. Long conveyor belts moved materials within the factory. What structures in this view possibly house conveyor belts? The long, thin white structure in front of the silos and other large buildings are possible sheds.
- What does this painting say about the scale of American industry in 1930? Sheeler was impressed with the massive scale of American industry and this plant.
- Visualize how industrial progress changed this view of the American landscape. Encourage them to imagine how this scene looked before the canal, railroad, and factories were built. The river might have curved and been lined with trees and plants. Smoke would not fill the sky.
- Do you think this painting seems more positive or negative regarding industrial development?
- How might an average American in 1930 answer this question? How did factories like this affect the lives of American consumers? Factories like this employed many people and the mass-produced goods they made were affordable to middle-class Americans. Early twentieth-century Americans were proud of their country’s industrial development and appreciated the rise in their standard of living made possible by mass production. Today, Americans are more sensitive to the effects of industrial development on the environment.
- Does this painting look like a photograph? Why or why not? Everything looks extremely clean and new- probably didn’t look this way for long, if at all, in reality.
- How does the absence of any evidence of humanity (save the lonely, anonymous figure) affect your reading of the painting? Sheeler exalts the industrial age and the inventiveness of man while at the same time glorifying the machines as beings apart from humanity.

Compare to Stella: What is each artist's goal in painting these huge man-made structures? How are they different? How are they similar? How might these artists have treated the subject of the other? How might they portray the same objects in different ways?

Conversation with Sky and Earth 1931; Classic Landscape 

16-B Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, 1935–1939

16-B Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, 1935–1939
- Why is this house called Fallingwater? The house extends over a waterfall.
- Which exterior materials on this house are natural and which are man-made? The stone is natural, and the concrete, glass, and metal are man-made.
- Notice how the textures of these materials contrast with each other. Describe the textures of the different parts of the house. The glass is smooth and shiny and the rock is very rough. The concrete is gritty, but not as rough as the stone, nor as smooth as the glass.
- How did Wright preserve the natural beauty of this site? He made the house blend into the natural landscape by echoing the shape of the cliff and boulders. He built a large portion of the house from rock quarried on site. He did not plant large expanses of lawn, bulldoze the site to make it level, or cut down many trees.
- What parts of Fallingwater are cantilevered? The horizontal balconies are cantilevered.
- What part of the building appears to create the weight to hold them in place? The vertical stone column fulfills this function.
- Why might a city dweller enjoy this house? Imagine being on one of the balconies. What would you hear?
A retreat in the country would be a change of scenery for those who live in a city. From the balcony you hear the sound of the waterfall.
- The Kaufmanns wanted a vacation home on their land. Why was the location that Wright chose for the house a surprise to them? Where would most architects probably have located the house to take advantage of the natural waterfall? Most architects would locate the house to have a view of the waterfall instead of placing the house on top of it.
- How is Fallingwater like a piece of contemporary abstract art from the twentieth century? It’s been simplified into basic, essential shapes without added ornamentation.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York City

 


 














La Miniatura - Most people do not know that the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, was commissioned to design and construct a home that resembles a “Mayan temple set in a jungle ravine”. Even more extraordinary is that it still stands in Pasadena, California. Frank Lloyd Wright enjoyed creating “La Miniatura” so much, he was quoted as saying, “I would rather have built this little house than St. Peter’s in Rome.”

E. Fay Jones 1921-2004
Euine Fay Jones was probably Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous apprentice. Jones and Wright had an immediate rapport when they met while Jones was a professor. Jones’s entire family visited Wright in his winter workshop, Taliesin West, near Scottsdale, Arizona. Later, Wright invited Jones's entire family to his home and design institute Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Jones returned to both sites numerous times as both friend and apprentice and became a Taliesin Fellow.

A quiet, unassuming intellectual (also a strong Christian!) who taught Architecture at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Jones’ most well-known buildings are chapels and residences in his home state (as opposed to ego-driven skyscrapers). Thorncrown Chapel, a small, breathtaking glass chapel nestled in the Ozarks, pays tribute to the beauty of nature created by God.


(Top to bottom: Cooper Chapel, Pinecone Pavilion, Spock at the Ministry...aka  Skyrose...in the new Star Trek movie, Thorncrown Chapel)

15-B William Van Alen, The Chrysler Building, 1926–1930

15-B William Van Alen, The Chrysler Building, 1926–1930

- Locate triangles, squares, rectangles, and semi-circles on the Chrysler Building. Geometric shapes were important to Art Deco-style architecture.

- Why did corporations and architects race to build tall skyscrapers in the 1920s? The economy was flourishing, corporations needed more office space, and Chrysler wanted to own the tallest building in New York City.

- Why do you think the spire was added to the top? It was added to make it taller than all the other buildings.

- What happened in 1929 to halt this building spree? The stock market crashed.

- New York City building codes required that tall buildings such as this step back their upper stories. What were the benefits of making tall buildings smaller near the top? This allowed more light and air to reach the streets and made the buildings look even taller than they really were.

13-B Louis Comfort Tiffany, Autumn Landscape– The River of Life, 1923–1924

Art Deco was a popular international art design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts and film. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, glamorous, functional and modern.

The movement was a mixture of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative.

The structure of Art Deco is based on mathematical geometric shapes. It was considered to be an eclectic form of elegant and stylish modernism, being influenced by a variety of sources. The ability to travel and excavations during this time influenced artists and designers, integrating several elements from countries not their own. Among them were the so-called "primitive" arts of Africa, as well as historical styles such as Greco-Roman Classicism, and the art of Babylon, Assyria, Ancient Egypt, and Aztec Mexico. Much of this could be attributed to the popular interest in archeology in the 1920s (eg, the tomb of Tutankhamen, Pompeii, the lost city of Troy, etc). Art Deco also drew on Machine Age and streamline technologies such as modern aviation, electric lighting, the radio, the ocean liner and the skyscraper for inspiration.

13-B Louis Comfort Tiffany, Autumn Landscape– The River of Life, 1923–1924

- How are stained glass creations made? See a brief video here

- What do you see first in this window? The sun in the center.

- Why is our attention drawn to this area? It is the lightest part of the window and contains the strongest contrast of light and dark.

- How would this window feel if you ran your fingers over its surface? It would feel rough in some areas and smooth in others.

- Where do you see rough textures? These are found in the trees and rocks.

- Where do you see smooth textures? They are located in the pool and the light sky.

- Tiffany used a variety of techniques to create special textures and colors of glass.

Mottled glass: It is located in the dark parts of the sky.

Confetti glass: We see it in the foliage.

Marbleized glass: It is found in the boulders.

Rippled glass: It occurs in the closest pool.

- What time of the day is depicted? Because the sun is near the horizon, it is early morning or late afternoon.

- Why will this art look different at different times of the day? The light shining through it will be different depending on how high or low the sun is in the sky and whether it is a bright or overcast day.

- Stained-glass windows are commonly seen in churches, but this window was created for a stairwell in a man’s private home. Why would someone rather have a stained-glass window in a house than clear glass? The window is beautiful, and provides privacy or blocks unsightly views.

- How would this landscape make the space of a small stairwell feel larger? Instead of a wall at the top of the stairs, the window would open up a deep vista and make the inside space look as if it continues outside into the landscape.

- Because the man who commissioned this window died before it was installed, it seemed like a memorial for him. Why are autumn scenes and sunsets often featured in memorials to the dead? Sometimes a year is a metaphor for a lifetime. The autumn of a person’s life refers to a later stage of life and the sunset marks the end of a day.

Harry Clarke (1889-1931) was an Irish stained glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement. He illustrated collections of stories such as fairy tales of Anderson and Perrault and Edgar Allen Poe.

Stained glass is central to Clarke's career. His glass is distinguished by the finesse of its drawing, unusual in the medium, his use of rich colors (inspired by an early visit to see the stained glass of the Cathedral of Chartres, he was especially fond of deep blues), and an innovative integration of the window leading as part of the overall design (his use of heavy lines in his black and white book illustrations is probably derived from his glass techniques).

Visual Arts of the United States

Visual arts of the United States refers to the history of painting and visual art in the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement, which began as a reaction to the industrial revolution. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. Previously American Artists had based the majority of their work on Western Painting and European Arts. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Since then many American Movements have shaped Modern and Post Modern art. Art in the United States today covers a huge range of styles.

Art History Timeline

As we are on the brink of studying Modern Art, it will be helpful to review past art movements as well as get a brief introduction to the many art movements associated with Modern Art.