4.1: Introduction

Introduction

1940 found the world embroiled in war; Japan had invaded mainland China in 1937, and Nazi Germany controlled Austria and Czechoslovakia. By 1941, the war was global as Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States while Germany attacked the Soviet Union. World War II was fought in Europe, the Soviet Union, North Africa, West Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.[1] Monetary and human resources were expended for five years as countries rallied to defeat Germany and Japan, including the sixty million people estimated to die in the conflicts. With more sophisticated weapons, war included bombing civilian cities. The destructive and horrific atomic bomb was dropped on two cities in Japan, killing almost 200,000 people. And the worst horror of World War II was the systematic murder by the Nazis of six million Jews and three million other people.

For the next decades after World War II, newly formed sovereign countries were created around the world. Countries struggled with concepts of democracy versus authoritarianism or dictatorial warlords. Many countries had to overcome poverty and lower living standards while the established industrialized countries controlled the economic systems. As changing reform movements occurred in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Eurasia, the reforms also brought anti-colonial wars and nationalism. The United States emerged from World War II as an economic superpower; its cities, industries, and economic systems were never bombed or destroyed. They moved their factories from producing war machines to consumer goods and started constructing international alliances to rebuild the destruction of the wars and promote global peace. However, the Soviet Union also became a powerful country after the war. As part of the treaties with the defeat of Germany, the Soviets were granted much of the land they helped liberate, folding the different countries into the more extensive Soviet system of control. The conflict between communism and capitalism spawned the Cold War and brought persistent economic and political tension between the Soviet Union against Europe and the United States.

In China, the Communist Party waged a brutal war against the Nationalist Party. With Mao Zedong as the leader, the communists wanted to modernize China into an industrial superpower by collectivizing agriculture and building new industrial regions. As part of the reforms, the communist regime tried to erase capitalism and the old Chinese traditions, re-educating or killing millions of people, including intellectuals and artists. The intellectual and economic confrontation between communism and capitalism became entrenched.

The Cold War also affected the newly forming countries emerging from old colonial rule or independent from reforms after the war. Many of these countries had natural resources needed for industries, and both the United States and the Soviet Union competed for the resources and the political control of the countries. The world in 1950 was quite different than in 1900 at the beginning of the century. Europe was no longer the dominant economy; the world's population increased significantly, more people lived in the cities, and productivity expanded. However, now the world faced supremacy controlled by the superpowers and was also subjected to dangerous weapons able to destroy civilization. As countries rebuilt from World War II's destruction, people were anxious to buy the new mass-produced homes and consumer goods, helping strengthen America's economy. As a dominant world power, the United States took the role of the world's policeman, entering futile wars in Korea and Vietnam to stop communist expansion. The 1960s brought cultural revolutions against the Vietnam War, civil rights for all, and women's liberation. A global middle class developed in many countries, still leaving large segments of the world's population in persistent poverty.

During this period, mass communication was available around the world; even remote villages and popular culture reached everyone. Movies, the radio, and then television expanded the spread of information beyond the newspapers and local cultural values. With the American economy rising, artists from Europe began migrating to the United States, originally to escape the Nazis and then flee the war's devastation in Europe. New York City was emerging as a center for art, and many of the new immigrants also landed in New York, moving the center for Western art from Paris to New York. As art in America grew, so did the artists' interest in the unconscious and psychological theories, ideas central to the growth of American abstract expressionism. The first major post-war movement was Abstract Expressionism, artists who wanted to express emotion and the unconscious. The concepts conveyed individual freedom, generally monumental in scale. Color became important and was used to avoid any idea of a form or figure, the space color filled. Other movements emphasized the importance of geometric shapes or minimal constructions. The precepts of art originally based on a recognizable subject became abstract or nonrepresentational.

Paint of Abstract Expressionism

The artists used exceptionally large canvases, frequently laid on the floor to accommodate the application of paint through the subconscious and spontaneity of the artist. Although the appearance of an image seems random, the direction or location of each paint drop or line had a purpose. The artists experimented with color and how the color was applied. Some artists dripped, drizzled, or dropped paint onto the canvas with brushes or directly from a paint can. Others allowed thinned paint to soak into the canvas and form its movement. Paint was not applied to preplanned or sketched areas; the artist moved the paint around the canvas from edge to edge. Some regions of the canvas may have darker or lighter paint to imply emotion without any specific visual reference.

Intensity of Color Field

Color field artists followed the directions of Abstract Expressionism, except the color was applied in large fields of a solid color, each color with defined borders. The image was planned with specific regions of color; however, the paint was applied spontaneously through the artist's action, similar to Abstract Expressionists. Color could be applied geometrically or in an amorphous form, with the color borders subtly interacting. The large fields of intense color do not have a specific background; each shape melded into another.

Motions of Kinetic

Kinetic art is based on motion generated by natural movement or an automated form. Kinetic art may look like a sculpture; however, the image was designed to rely on movement to be complete. Earlier Dada artists might include some slight movement in their works which led to the more robust forms of Kinetic art. Technology also contributed to the ability of artists to use motion in their works as electricity became ubiquitous and mechanical parts were found everywhere.

Automated work moved from a battery, electricity, or other motorized mechanisms. Kinetic art generally has multiple mechanical parts fitting together to provide movement, including found junk to form the moving parts. The movement was also created by natural elements, including wind, sun, and water. Mobiles were another form of Kinetic art shaped into biomorphic forms and hung to move by the atmospheric conditions. More sophisticated sculptures might incorporate natural elements like water combined with mechanized units to create movement. From the viewer's perceptive, Kinetic art is constantly changing, never a static piece.

Imagery of Pop Art

Pop art pushed the boundaries of the definition of 'fine art.' Pop artists borrowed their ideas and images from mass media, movies, comic books, advertisements of all types, consumer product packaging, newspapers, even cartoons for children. They wanted to make art relevant and incorporate what most people encountered as the availability of mass-produced media exploded. Some artists focused on recognizable celebrities from movies or politics, while others used everyday items found in advertisements like soup cans. Their artwork was generally serialized and printed like the media they saw, narrowing the space between commercial art and the ideals of fine art. Pop art had bright and bold colors and was simplistic in form. Unlike the Abstract Expressionists who made singular large-scale abstract works, the Pop artists produced multiple, everyday images and challenged the boundaries of techniques and subject matter. 

Movement in Op Art

Op art was like Kinetic art, except the movement was based on optical illusions to confuse the viewer's eye. The artist used visual manipulations of color, lines, and geometric shapes to create illusions. Early Op art was first based on black and white, strong opposing colors; later, artists employed bright, vibrant colors. The artworks give a sense of movement by applying paint and patterns that appear to vibrate, are warping, expanding, or diminishing. The canvases are covered, and the negative and positive spaces are incorporated into the illusion. Op art fools the viewer by confusing the interaction between the eye's retina and the part of the brain that interprets the visual patterns. Different color combinations and geometric patterns produce the illusions of movement the brain perceives the viewer is seeing.

 

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[1] Retrieved from https://whfua.history.ucla.edu/eras/era8.php