Special Edition Blog: Modern (1900-2011)

To the left is a picture of me at the Art Institute and to the right is a picture of Professor Nathan Peck, also at the Art Institute in the Modern Wing.

Craft

This painting is called Head and was created by Pablo Picasso in 1927. This is made with oil and chalk on canvas and shows craft. The necessary steps in making this were fairly simple and it shows Picasso’s constant experimentation with style and technique. To make this, he painted a surface on the canvas. He laid the canvas flat and sprinkled powdered pigment, similar to Native American sand painting, onto the still-wet painted surface. In some areas he left layers of the powder untouched, making a rough surface. In other areas, he scraped the pigment off which created a flat and blurred effect. Picasso added on three different sized rectangles and a strange depiction of a head.

Composition

This painting is called Lincoln and was created by Robert Rauschenberg in 1958. This is printed paper and stamped metal with oil paint, fiber – tipped pen, and silkscreen ink on fabric. In this painting there is a photograph of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., with passages of paint and items such as a scrap of damask, a rectangle of brown wrapping paper, and an illustration of an eroded cliff. He arranged things this way because he joined found objects, postcards, and other printed materials to bond the gap between art and life. To me, it seems like he arranged it by putting the picture of the Lincoln Memorial in what looks to be a white frame then on the side has the rest of the items which can have some type of relation to the photo. He is controlling the viewers’ eye by using light hues except in the left and right corners and scale. The picture is larger than the other items but is very light and is in black and white. The viewers’ eye is either drawn to the large picture, the left corner which has yellow paint dripping down, or the right corner which has a splash of red paint.

Concept

This painting is called Ceci n'est pas une pipe and was created by Belgian Surrealist painter Rene Magritte. This painting shows a pipe with a saying beneath it. This saying is in French and it means ‘this is not a pipe’. The saying seems like a contradiction but it is actually true which is what he is trying to say. This painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of one. Magritte commented on this painting saying "Just try to stuff it with tobacco! If I were to have had written on my picture 'This is a pipe' I would have been lying."