WK3 ART ASSIGNMENT PART ONE of TWO Homework for Week Three Week Three: A Dialog With Europe________________________________ • Read Chapter 3: A Dialog with Europe Homework assignment: Please annotate one artwork you like from Chapter Three: A Dialog with Europe in your textbook. My CHOICE Willem de Kooning, Woman and Bicycle, 1953 Whenever I am writing for research presentation or publication, this is how I begin. The point is to make sure you’re not missing anything in terms of basic data or interpretive frameworks. When I take notes on a lecture at a conference, this is the way I like to organize my notes, as well. Structure outline to follow Identify the artwork Identify Period Style Identify Subject Matter: Discuss Historical Context: Discuss Visual Elements (Line, Color, Texture, Composition etc.) Discuss It’s Place in Ideas of Time: EXAMPLE of mine from another class I taught: 1.)See the artwork here: http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78699 Jackson Pollock. Untitled No.1A. Oil and enamel on unprimed canvas. 1948. PLEASE include HYPERLINK ON LINE 1. 2.) Identify Period Style: Abstract Expressionism 3.)Identify Subject: The painting is non-representational. It is designed not to have an explicit subject. Pollock was asked why he didn’t paint the external, natural world. He sharply replied: “I am nature” . The painting is himself, and he is his action. The style of the painting emphasizes a moving, acting person, operating in the context of Western painting. 4.)Historical Context (comment in a few sentences): This artwork is a heartfelt response to the horrors of the Great Depression, World War II, the fear of another big war (with the Soviet Union/China/anywhere else that “went Communist”), and the belief that modern civilization was on the verge of collapse. The abstract expressionists wanted to create a “new civilization” from the ground-up, based in the absolute freedom of the individual artist, the use of psychoanalysis to heal the depression, anxiety, and warlike death-drive of modern humans, and a new appreciation for the art and culture of “primitive” peoples like Native Americans. They also found inspiration in earlier modern art and music, especially abstract painting and bebop jazz. The part of New York where they worked included jazz clubs, some of the first “American Chinese” food take-out places, and a sense of being “alternative” and open-minded. It was also somewhat racially-integrated—a later black painter raised in Alabama during the 1930s commented that hanging out at the Cedar Tavern was the first time he went to a bar where white people drank. Apparently a white man who’d never seen him before asked if he was an artist, and the black painter said “I’m a painter.” The white man bought him a beer, which was the sign of acceptance to the “club” atmosphere of the tiny modern art world of the time. Willem de Kooning, for one, was a mentor to the great contemporary pai.

1. WK3 ART ASSIGNMENT PART ONE of TWO
Homework for Week Three
Week Three: A Dialog With
Europe________________________________
• Read Chapter 3: A Dialog with Europe
Homework assignment:
Please annotate one artwork you like from Chapter Three: A
Dialog with Europe in your textbook. My CHOICE Willem de
Kooning, Woman and Bicycle, 1953
Whenever I am writing for research presentation or publication,
this is how I begin. The point is to make sure you’re not
missing anything in terms of basic data or interpretive
frameworks.
When I take notes on a lecture at a conference, this is the way I
like to organize my notes, as well.
Structure outline to follow
Identify the artwork
Identify Period Style
Identify Subject Matter:
Discuss Historical Context:
Discuss Visual Elements (Line, Color, Texture, Composition
etc.)

2. Discuss It’s Place in Ideas of Time:
EXAMPLE of mine from another class I taught:
1.)See the artwork here:
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78699
Jackson Pollock. Untitled No.1A. Oil and enamel on unprimed
canvas. 1948. PLEASE include HYPERLINK ON LINE 1.
2.) Identify Period Style: Abstract Expressionism
3.)Identify Subject: The painting is non-representational. It is
designed not
to have an explicit subject. Pollock was asked why he didn’t
paint the external, natural world. He sharply replied: “I am
nature”
.
The painting is himself, and he is his action. The style of the
painting emphasizes a moving, acting person, operating in the
context of Western painting.
4.)Historical Context (comment in a few sentences): This
artwork is a heartfelt response to the horrors of the Great
Depression, World War II, the fear of another big war (with the
Soviet Union/China/anywhere else that “went Communist”), and
the belief that modern civilization was on the verge of collapse.
The abstract expressionists wanted to create a “new
civilization” from the ground-up, based in the absolute freedom
of the individual artist, the use of psychoanalysis to heal the
depression, anxiety, and warlike
death-drive of modern humans, and a new appreciation for the
art and culture of “primitive” peoples like Native Americans.
They also found inspiration in earlier modern art and music,
especially abstract painting and bebop jazz. The part of New
York where they worked included jazz clubs, some of the first

3. “American Chinese” food take-out places, and a sense of being
“alternative” and open-minded. It was also somewhat racially-
integrated—a later black painter raised in Alabama during the
1930s commented that hanging out at the Cedar Tavern was the
first time he went to a bar where white people drank.
Apparently a white man who’d never seen him before asked if
he was an artist, and the black painter said “I’m a painter.” The
white man bought him a beer, which was the sign of acceptance
to the “club” atmosphere of the tiny modern art world of the
time. Willem de Kooning, for one, was a mentor to the great
contemporary painter Jack Whitten, who is also African
American. The Native American (Anishnaabe) painter George
Morrison would hang out there, too, and said he grew a thin
mustache and people usually thought he was a “rich Persian
businessman” (that was before the 1953 Iranian coup
d’etat,helping pave the way for the crazy Iran of today) This
small contribution to de-segregation is an under-recognized
cultural legacy of the “New York School.”
5.)Comment on use of visual elements (line, color, etc.):
Pollock’s so-called “drip paintings” create immersive force-
fields of liquid, energetic line across the soft woven texture of
unprimed canvas. The color is carefully restricted, using mostly
analogous colors that harmonize with each other and contrast
with the beige unprimed canvas . The compositions have no
focal point, but lead the viewer’s eye in
organic swooping motions around the horizontal picture plane,
suggesting the energy of the human mind and body freed from
normal social manners and conventional ways of painting. Most
Abstract Expressionist paintings were huge by the standard of
previous abstract painting. Audiences in the late 1940s and
1950s found this use of scale dizzying, more like being pulled
into an unsettling “environment” than seeing the smaller, more
visually “contained” abstract paintings of prewar America or
Europe.
While earlier abstract painters like Arthur Dove often worked at

4. a 16”x20” scale Pollock’s paintings are typically around eight
by ten feet in size!
6.)Comment on associated critical theory (IN THIS CLASS:
REFER TO YOUR FINEBERG
TEXTBOOK): We discussed two quite different, positive
readings of Abstract Expressionism in art criticism. The first
was that of Clement Greenberg, which emphasize the pure
“opticality” of Pollock’s work. He meant that Pollock had
“purified” painting of everything outside of “painting itself.”
He meant that there was no subject matter, no narrative, no
illusion of three-dimensionality—just pure, flat paint on a flat
canvas. This is its general place in the “trend” Greenberg
thought he saw in studying hundreds of years of painting in the
West. The move was from the “window” theory of the painting
to the “screen” idea of modern times. The other critical reading
is that of Harold Rosenberg, who called this “action painting.”
He stressed the freedom and contingency of the modern artist,
freely creating without reference to a previous system of art
values. he other critical reading is that of Harold Rosenberg,
who called this “action painting.” He stressed the freedom and
contingency of the modern artist, freely creating without
reference to a previous system of art values. Each brushstroke
was a gesture toward the absolute freedom of modern artists, no
longer illustrating stories or using figures but instead focusing
on expressing action, energy, and spontaneity. Meyer Schapiro
mostly agreed with this view, emphasizing the way modern
artists sought a personal, expressive, intuitive style of painting
because mainstream modern society was based on externally-
focused conformism, mass-production, and alienating
technology. In most modern jobs, people have routine and
assignments, not spontaneity or personal expression. Modern
art helps fill the gap
PART 2 of TWO WEEK (3) ASSIGNMENT
The Meaning Of Freedom

5. One of the major themes of existentialism is freedom. For the
existentialists that influenced the Ab-Ex painters, the basic
problem of life was to find meaning in a situation of total
personal freedom. If we can do anything (assuming we're tough
enough to accept the consequences), how do we choose? How
do we determine what to do with our freedom?
How do you think about freedom in your life? What art forms
(music, visual art, the arts broadly) do you think convey
freedom in your personal sense?
WK3 ART ASSIGNMENT PART ONE of TWO
Homework for Week Three
Week Three: A Dialog With
Europe________________________________
• Read Chapter 3: A Dialog with Europe
Homework assignment:
Please annotate one artwork you like from Chapter Three
: A Dialog
with
Europe in your textbook

6. .
My
CHOICE Willem de Kooning, Woman and
Bicycle, 1953
Whenever I am writing for research presentation or publication,
this is how I begin. The
point is to make sure you’re not missing anything in terms of
basic data or inter
pretive
frameworks.
When I take notes on a lecture at a conference, this is the way I
like to organize my
notes, as well.
Structure
outline to follow
Identify the artwork
Identify Period Style
Identify Subject Matter:
Discuss Historical Context:
Discuss Visual Elements (Line, Color, Texture, Composition
etc.)

7. Discuss It’s Place in Ideas of Time:
EXAMPLE
of mine from another class I taught
:
1.)
See the artwork here:
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78699
Jackson Pollock. Untitled No.1A. Oil and enamel on unprimed
canvas. 1948.
PLEASE
include HYPERLINK ON LINE 1.
2.)
Identify Period
Style: Abstract
Expressionism
WK3 ART ASSIGNMENT PART ONE of TWO
Homework for Week Three
Week Three: A Dialog With
Europe________________________________
• Read Chapter 3: A Dialog with Europe

8. Homework assignment:
Please annotate one artwork you like from Chapter Three: A
Dialog with
Europe in your textbook. My CHOICE Willem de Kooning,
Woman and
Bicycle, 1953
Whenever I am writing for research presentation or publication,
this is how I begin. The
point is to make sure you’re not missing anything in terms of
basic data or interpretive
frameworks.
When I take notes on a lecture at a conference, this is the way I
like to organize my
notes, as well.
Structure outline to follow
Identify the artwork
Identify Period Style
Identify Subject Matter:
Discuss Historical Context:
Discuss Visual Elements (Line, Color, Texture, Composition
etc.)
Discuss It’s Place in Ideas of Time:
EXAMPLE of mine from another class I taught:

9. 1.)See the artwork here:
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78699
Jackson Pollock. Untitled No.1A. Oil and enamel on unprimed
canvas. 1948. PLEASE
include HYPERLINK ON LINE 1.
2.) Identify Period Style: Abstract Expressionism