State of the Art: Fun Facts and Quiz

Most of the painters in this quiz were either groundbreaking or tried something different that resulted in a masterpiece. They were literally the "state of the art" in their time. Interesting facts from the quiz:

1) In the early 20th century, Abstract art emerged as a new way to represent things through the disassociation of matter. Known for his "Composition" series, Wassily Kandinsky is generally considered to be the pioneer of the movement. Contrary to popular belief, Pablo Picasso did not invent Abstract art. Russian painter Wassily Kandinksy was the first person to break down his paintings into completely non-representational forms. His first abstract paintings came about in 1910, including the first of his ten "Compositions". "Composition VIII", the most famous of them, is a purely geometrical study of musical forms in distorted space. 

2)  Claude Monet is famous for the many paintings of his gardens, but occasionally he would paint other things, such as seascapes and people. Occasionally though he painted people, such as in "Woman with a Parasol", depicting his wife Camille swirling around in a white dress while their son Jean watches in the background. It was finished in 1876 at his second home in Argenteuil. Next to van Gogh, Monet was one of the most prolific painters of the Impressionist era. Some of his other famous paintings are "Impression, Sunrise" and "The Water Lily Pond". 

3)  George Grosz was a German painter of Berlin society in the 1920s who predicted the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in works like "The Agitator" and "The Pillars of Society". Grosz was a satirist of the Weimar party before the Nazis seized power in 1933. After Hitler became Chancellor, Grosz fled to America just a few days before his apartment was raided by the Gestapo. "The Pillars of Society" presents us with a dueling aristocrat, a journalist with a chamber pot on his head, a Socialist with a pile of dung steaming from his skull, and a pro-Nazi preacher; all in the foreground of a military that is burning down the city. Finished in 1928, "The Agitator" seemed to predict Hitler's rise to power and all his maniacal doctrines of war. 

4)  David Hockney created an American landscape piece that was really a collage of over 700 photographs. Similar to a puzzle, he used his own photographs to create a cohesive image of the Mojave Desert (also known as a photomontage). 

5)  Anne-Louis Girodet was a Romantic painter who pleased Napoleon when he depicted French soldiers in Valhalla surrounded by floating maidens and the mythical poet Ossian. "Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of French Heroes" showed fallen heroes of the French Revolution being welcomed by one of Napoleon's favorite poets, Ossian. At the time, it wasn't known that the poems of Ossian were forgeries of Irish and Gaellic legends written by James Macpherson. Regardless, Ossian caused a sensation when it was released prior to the revolution. Napoleon was so inspired by it that he kept a copy of it when he went into battle. Girodet had been commissioned by Napoleon to paint something for his new mansion at Malmaison, but hadn't known that his favorite poet was to be featured in it. 

6)  Rembrandt made many paintings that were set indoors, such as "The Night Watch" and "Danae". But you might be able to find a distressed Biblical figure in his only maritime painting, called "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee". Jesus and his Apostles seem to be on the verge of a shipwreck in this harrowing painting. Interestingly, 14 people can be found in it and not the expected 13. Some experts believe Rembrandt included himself in the painting, but the figures in it are too small to know for sure. Sadly, it was stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and has not been seen since. 

7)  The Judith story was a popular theme among painters of the Baroque period. Not to be confused with Caravaggio, female painter of "Judith Beheading Holofernes", Artemisia Gentileschi, was one of the first women to gain international recognition as a painter. Raped by her private tutor when she was young, Gentileschi sought vengeance through prosecution and painting. Many of her paintings depicted strong women in the Bible who'd been through immense struggles, such as Judith. In the story, Judith beheads the general about to burn her village down, which must have given Gentilieschi some extra motivation and a sense of retribution. Highly influenced by the violence and starkness of Caravaggio's painting of the same name, "Judith Beheading Holofernes" is often considered her masterpiece. For her efforts, she was rewarded by becoming the first female member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. 

8)  During World War II, Max Ernst created an unusual piece of art that illustrated his fears about the future, titled "Europe After the Rain II". Ernst used the technique of decalcomania in this painting, and it worked to its greatest potential. It resulted in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic scene in which the war has left Europe ravaged, wrecked, and inhospitable. Ernst was a German living in Paris when World War I broke out, but he became drafted by the army and was forced to return home. Between the wars he moved back to Paris. When the Gestapo of occupied France came after him during World War II, he fled to America. One can only imagine how much his pessimism and disgust with the wars inspired him to create "Europe After the Rain II". 

9)  The woman in "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth is a fusion of his neighbor and his wife. His neighbor had polio and he was inspired to paint her after watching her crawl on the grass in front of his house. Since the woman was 55 at the time, he decided to use his wife's body to represent her physical form. 

10)  In 1932, Diego Rivera's "Man at the Crossroads" was painted for Nelson Rockefeller. Due to its political message, the mural caused a major controversy and Rockefeller had it destroyed.

Diego Rivera was one of Nelson Rockefeller's mother's favorite artists. He commissioned him to paint something for the Rockefeller Center at $21,000. Unfortunately, Diego decided to make a political statement in the mural that didn't sit well with the Rockefellers. At the center of the mural, a workman is seen attempting to control the biological and cosmological forces of the universe inside the wings of an insect. To his left there are upper-class capitalists and a large statue of Jupiter: the Roman King of the Gods. The god is angry and seems to be commanding a large army that is headed for a group of people on the right side of the mural. The right side represents socialism and the rise of the proletariat. A controversial portrait of Lenin is shown among them, and several fellows are holding up a red flag. Behind them, a headless statue of Caesar indicates that classical authority and religious idolatry has finally submitted to the scientific revolution and the rule of the people. 

 

Needless to say, Rockefeller was a little distraught at being associated with tyrannical forces. After it was destroyed, Rivera re-created it on a smaller scale that was almost identical to the first. He called this second one "Man, Controller of the Universe".