20th cent' Neoclassicism

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20th cent. Neoclassicism
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The Russian Avant Garde Suprematism
(1913-1918) Suprematism is the rediscovery
of pure art that, in the course of time, had
become obscured by the accumulation of
'things.
Kasimir Malevich, The
Non-Objective World Geometric forms as
paradigms of spiritual evolution sacred geometry

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Kazimir Malevich
Suprematist Painting Eight Red Rectangles o/c,
1915, 22 x 19
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Kazimir Malevich
Black Square, 1913, o/c, 31 x 31
"the supremacy of pure feeling"
"The square feeling, the white field the
void beyond this feeling."
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Kazimir Malevich
Suprematist Composition White on White 1918,
o/c, 31 x 31
The Black Circle, 1913, 41 x 41
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What artists found appealing about the various
arcane religious and philosophical systems was
their underlying premise that the spiritual
world is governed by laws that mirror natural
laws and that can be expressed in symbols. The
idea is akin to Ralph Waldo Emersons notion that
every appearance in nature corresponds to some
state of mind. Geometric forms are thus paradigms
of spiritual evolution. The spiritual world,
like the natural world, is charged with energy,
producing cosmic vibrations and human auras.
The spiritual principles that intrigued certain
artists included synesthesia, the overlap
between the senses by which a painting can
simulate music duality, the idea that the cosmos
reflects an underlying principle of yin and
yang and so-called "sacred geometry," the belief
that, as Plato put it, "God geometricizes."
Spirituality in Abstract Art by Pamela Schaeffer
on the subject of the exhibition "The Spiritual
in Art Abstract Painting 1890-1985.
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Piet Mondrian
Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black,
Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19
Line and color
Lozenge Composition withRed, Black, Blue, and
YellowOil on canvas 30 3/8 x 30 in.vertical
axis 42 1/2 in.
the struggle toward unity of cosmic dualities
and the religious symmetry undergirding the
material universe Theosophist
Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue1921, o/c,
15 x 13
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Architecture The International Style Holland,
De Stijl - Gerrit Rietveld Germany, The Bauhaus
Walter Gropius France Le Corbusier USA
Mies van der Rohe
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Leo von Klenze
Walhalla Oil on canvas 95x130cm
conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig I of
Bavaria
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Walhalla built between 1830 and 1842
Johann Gottfried Schadow, sculptor
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Constantin Brancusi
The Newborn, 1915, marble, 8 1/2 x 6 inches
Bird in space, polished brass, 1932-40, 60
Bird in Space, 1923, marble, (with base) 56 3/4
x 6 1/2 inches
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The International Style DE STIJL Gerrit
Rietveld
dematerialization
Shroeder House, Utrecht, Holland, 1923
UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites
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"One of the outstanding achievements of the new
constructional technique has been the abolition
of the separating function of the wall. Instead
of making the walls the element of support, as
in a brick-built house, our new space-saving
construction transfers the whole load of the
structure to a steel or concrete framework.
Thus the role of the walls becomes restricted to
that of mere screens stretched between the
upright columns of this framework to keep out
rain, cold, and noise. ... Systematic technical
improvement in steel and concrete . are steadily
reducing the area occupied by supporting
members. This, in turn . allows rooms to be
much better lit. It is, therefore, only logical
that the old type of windowa hole that had to
be hollowed out of the full thickness of a
supporting wall should be giving place more and
more to the continuous horizontal casement ..
And as a direct result of the growing
preponderance of voids over solids, glass is
assuming an ever greater structural
importance....In the same way the flat roof is
superseding the old penthouse roof with its tiled
or slated gables.
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Gerrit Rietveld, Schroder House, Utrecht,
Holand, 1923
Mondrian chair (Blue and Red chair)
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Walter Gropius The Bauhaus
Dessau, Germany 1919-25
The Bauhaus Workshop Wing
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Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye, France, 1929-30
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Mies van der Rohe
less is more
German Pavillion, Barcelona (1929)
Barcelona Chair, 1927
Lake Shore Drive Apartment Houses, Chicago,
1950-52
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Frank Lloyd Wright
Edgar Kaufmann House, Fallingwater, Pennsilvania,
1935-37
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Minimalism 1960s
Visual purity precision and rationality creator
out of the work
aesthetic utopiaa universally comprehensible
language devoid of reference or narrative
objects are stripped down to their elemental,
geometric form, and presented in an impersonal
manner
use of industrial materials creates abstract
works that emphasize the purity of color, form,
space and materials
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Piet Mondrian
Kazimir Malevich
Suprematist Painting Eight Red Rectangles o/c,
1915, 22 x 19
Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black,
Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19
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Frank Stella
Purity Precision Impersonality Abstraction

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Carl Andre
sculpture as place rather than form
Viewer-interactive sculpture
144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967, 144 zinc plates
industrial materials Modular units
Fall, 1968. Hot-rolled steel, 21 units, 71 x 28
x 72 each
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Donald Judd
stacks, boxes and progressions
the simple expression of complex thought
exploration of volume, interval, space and color
Creator out of the work (external manufacturers)
Untitled, 1961-9, Woodcut on paper
Untitled 1969/1982 Anodized aluminum    
Untitled,  1973, stainless steel, relief
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Donald Judd
Untitled, 1967-68. Stainless steel and
plexiglass, in six parts.
With Carl Andres 144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967
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Richard Serra Large scale minimalist sculpture
Portrait of the Artist Throwing Molten Lead
Torqued Ellipses, 1996, steel 13' h. x 29' L x
20' w (each)
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Richard Serra
(site-specific)
Tilted Arc, 1981, raw rusting steel, 120 x 12,
Federal Plaza, Lower Manhatan (destroyed, 1989)
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Maya Ying Lin The Vietnam Veterans Memorial,
Washington, DC 1981-3, each wing 246 long,
black granite
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Maya Ying Lin The Vietnam Veterans Memorial,
Washington, DC 1981-3, each wing 246 long,
black granite
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Earthworks, Land Art, Site Specific Art Ephemeral
art The move outdoors Rejection of the art
object as a commodity and of the museum culture
Robert Smithson

mud, precipitated salt crystals, black basalt
rocks from the site a 1500 feet long and 15 feet
wide coil that stretches out counterclockwise
into the translucent red water.
Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah
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Robert Smithson
Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah
rare occasion of its re-emergence from beneath
the surface of the Great Salt Lake,following a
season of severe drought

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Walter de Maria

Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico
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Walter de Maria

Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico
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Christo Jean Claude
Ephemeral, environmental, site-specific art
To "create works of art of joy and beauty"
through gentle disturbances

The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1975-85
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Christo Jean Claude

The Running Fence, Sonoma County, California
1972-76
18 high, 24 miles long color and sound
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