Conventions of Western Art - Essay Example

Originality: A Basis for Artists to Challenge the Conventions of Western Art Throughout The Twentieth Century Great artists attain originality both consciously and unconsciously. Consciously, because they seek to make a difference through their artwork and they do not want to be a predictable reproduction of previous artistic thought. Unconsciously, because their creative potential is so immense, that it inevitably leads them into creating their own style and into producing unique pieces of art. Originality is, therefore, associated with everything that is new, fresh and different, not necessarily within the same artistic movement, but definitely as an opposition to previous ones. For an artist, it is impossible not to be influenced by the spirit and the social and economic standing of a certain era. As Paul Wood illustrates in the book Frameworks for modern art, at the beginning of the 20th century, at the World Fair in Paris in 1900, the artworks that were displayed were still corresponding to the core values of the European society at that time, which were dominated by the strong imperial though of power and virtue and placed art as a concept absolutely dependant on the expression of the “fine arts”. Even if certain representatives of the avant-garde were displayed, one could still identify the paintings and the sculptured on show as belonging to “the fine arts” (Gaiger). However, throughout the 20th century, art- as concept, means of expression, form, and aesthetics- changed tremendously. In order to explain this phenomenon we need to step back and look at the major historical context of the 20th century: it was probably the most tensed and bloody century, full of an overwhelming ideological, social and national unrest. It was a century that has seen Two World Wars, the fall of major colonial powers, the strive for liberation of many people, the emancipation of women, the fight against racial discrimination, the rise and fall of Nazism and Communism, the hard times of the Great Depression, as well as a major technological and scientific progress, which opened the doors for the human mind to a whole universe of new ideas and possibilities, not to mention the process of globalization that has introduced us to the meaning of a multicultural society. All these changes in the world economy and politics, as well as in local societies did not leave artists indifferent, and have certainly had a major impact on their artistic thought, making them reconsider the purpose of art itself. Artists could not resume themselves to portraits and still life. On the contrary, they started to experiment with color and material. These circumstances have lead to the creation of original artworks, expression in art changing as fast as the social and political changes occurred. In this paper, I will talk about three artists and their main, representative artworks that best convey the principle of originality and how their artistic thought has challenged old western conceptions about what art is supposed to be. Dadaism was a cultural movement in visual arts that appeared as a response to the cruel and inhumane nature of the First World War and came to challenge rigid intellectual principles as well as all former art conventions. Not only did the style deny any existing connection between rationality and artistic expression, it also rejected the artistic standards at the time. One of the most important representatives of Dadaism was Marcel Duchamp, who first built his reputation as an advisor on modern art in New York, but he also lead his activity in Paris. He exhibited in 1913, for the first time, a set of ready-made sculptures, which were basically objects found on the street or elsewhere, abandoned by their previous owners, which Duchamp decided to modify, to change their appearance or simply to combine them with other objects of the same sort. This way, the objects lose their utilitarian function and gain an artistic one. The key to understanding the motive behind this kind of art expression is the fact that Marcel Duchamp believed that one could not make an opinion about these forms of art as being of bad or good taste. He believed that the society at that time had no aesthetical values in order to be able to critically judge art in any correct way, so irrationality in art stood the same chance as rationality. The only difference was that Duchamp was doing something that no one did before him; therefore, he did not only appeal to irrationality, he also made use of originality, which in his case became practically synonyms. Perhaps one of his most shocking readymade was the Fountain, “anti-artwork” which you can see an image of on the left. It is a porcelain urinal, with a “R. Mutt” inscription (signature) on it and dated 1917. This signature was a pseudonym which derived from the name of the plumbing company, Mott. Duchamp tries, therefore, to anchor himself in to the mundane as much as he can. However, he did not decide to exhibit this object because of its extraordinary aesthetical role. The meaning of this artwork lays in the fact that the artist chose this object to display, that is, he basically challenges the viewer to see the object from a different perspective and find a new use for it. Therefore, the Dada movement did not try to create the extraordinary, but merely to put the ordinary into a whole different light and it is hard to imagine a more aggressive avant-garde approach to art. This is where originality is manifested in the most pure way: the artist finds a completely new use for an object and gives it a totally different meaning by turning it into a work of art. On top of that, he places the original thought in someone else’s mind, challenging them to think differently, in an opened manner. Some would say that Dadaism was way ahead of its time, but as a paradox, it was a synthesis of that era, when artists wanted to create different, unconventional forms of art. Another artistic movement that I would like to talk about is minimalism, which developed during the mid 1960s and aimed to reduce art to its basic meaning, stripping it of any personal artistic expression or historical context and pursuing the purity of the art form. Minimalism rejects symbolism and illusionism and comes as response to abstract impressionism, which on the contrary, tried to convey strong emotion through powerful colors on canvas. The minimalist sculptures represented an uncontaminated space which the viewer was supposed to fill with personal emotional meaning. “Minimalism puts emphasis on the material objects (a cube, a square, a triangular prism, a prop, a column, a serial arrangement of volumes) of aesthetic contemplation as they appear to us in our experience of them as well as on the meanings they acquire in our experience” (Ross, 384). The artwork acquired meaning from the outside, the experience of viewing took substance according to the moment and the angle the beholder chose to look at the artwork. Minimalists reduced experience to its most fundamental level, preventing viewers from drawing on assumptions or preconceptions when dealing with the art before them (Kleiner, 980). They also believed that as long as they worked with simple forms in the real three dimensional space, they were free from the limitations of painting, which was the imprisonment of form on a flat surface. Minimalist sculpture offered the viewer to see all materials and colors and it was original in its simplicity and unpretentiousness. Robert Morris was one of the most important minimalist representatives and theorists. In the 1950s he was fascinated by the idea that a work of art was the product of a performance that the artist gave in his studio. To explore this idea, he even staged a performance in New York in 1960, around the time when he became very interested in the art of Marcel Duchamp and did a series of artworks as a response to Duchamp’s Fountain and other pieces. However, Robert Morris did not try to seek originality in his works of art; on the contrary, he tried to defy it, along with the concept of rational and logic and he believed that associating cultural context to an artwork is unnecessary. Even so, the fact that he tried to be unoriginal, simple and uncomplicated transformed the criteria of originality into a basis for challenging the conventions of Western Art. Robert Morris experimented with geometrical shapes, the way they blend together, the way they interact with the environment (shadow casting) and the way they are influenced by the natural laws of physics, especially gravitation. Basically, in Robert Morris’s works, the object and the environment create the art in the moment the viewer looks at it and the artist cannot project anything in advance. A very good example is this Untitled from 1968, which consists of a stack of eight felt rectangular shapes cut horizontally 14 times. When put on a flat surface (on the floor), this sculpture has a simple quadrilateral shape, with no other color that minimal white (Walker Art Center). However, when hung on the wall, the force of the gravity, which the artist has no control over, unveils the many colorful layers that give the sculpture a very dynamic, new, fresh, inspiring look. The viewer can notice that rounded vertical movement, as if the multicolored structure has a special connection with the ground, as if it is dripping color in to the floor. Another piece made by Robert Morris is the Observatory, on the right. This kind of land art, of open-air sculptures, is a way through which Robert Morris decided to leave his imprint upon the world; by laying simple concentric circles on the ground Morris found an original way to leave a strong heritage for future generations. This structure is similar to ancient monuments, like the one at Stonehenge; also, in this work Morris implies that physical and astronomical phenomena exist outside of human history. This way the sculpture becomes majestic by itself, there is no need to make any cultural connections, to give it mythical resonances; in front of such a sculpture one becomes silent and absorbed by its grandiosity. This kind of artwork is also freed from the conventional pedestal or base, used to connect the sculpture to the ground in traditional Western Art. On the contrary, here, Morris puts the Observatory directly on the floor and introduces it to the viewer in its real space, unaltered by adjacent constructions. Therefore, Robert Morris’s work is original because he doesn’t try to be original; he simply acknowledges the physical attributes of this world and explores them, leaving his work like a signature on the ground. This way, he challenges the conventions of the Western Art by using different sculptural techniques and different display techniques (outside, in the open air, on the open land). I would now like to introduce another exceptionally original artist who did not make use of mundane objects or minimal geometrical shapes, but used her own body to create works of art. The artist’s name is Ana Mendieta, a Cuban born artist, who was concerned with gender issues, cultural heritage and spirituality, all of these being closely related to the ideas mentioned in the introduction of the paper, about the emancipation of women and the process of globalization (exploring the depths of different cultures). The way she used originality to challenge western artistic conceptions is by doing performance art, which completely changes the perspective on the art object, as well as by seeking to reach spiritual ancestral resonances in a way that western art never did before and by linking her artwork to the natural environment in a very unconventional way. This artist is closely related to feminism, trying to harmoniously incorporate the female body into compositions and therefore, challenging artistic conventions and turning art into another genuine expression of originality. In the western art, the female form used to be painted on canvas by a male painter, therefore becoming a reflection of his conceptions and views on the female body; Ana Mendieta breaks these conventions and gives a whole new artistic meaning to the female forms (nudes) in relation to nature, open space and landscape, as opposed to the classic studio background. Anna Mendieta tried to examine, through performance art, several social taboos; since 1975 she worked on a generic prototype of the female form which she called “Silueta”; following this idea, she imprinted her own body or images and constructions of her body on the natural landscape and explored how the female form, the “silueta” connected to nature in a harmonious, cosmic, ontological way. “Throughout her work, Mendieta sets her body down in nature and then records its simple presence on the planet. There are photographs that document her lying naked on the ground, almost hidden by the wildflowers stuck between her legs and clutched between her arms and body” (Gopnik). The artist used to outline the female shape into mud, sand and rock or create the outline out of burning clothes and fireworks. By leaving these prints of the female body on the natural environment, it is almost like she tries to connect to our ancestors who left their body prints into caves and rocks millions of years ago. Mendieta does not seek the extraordinary, the individuality, the originality, but more of a cosmic reintegration into the normal flow of human life. However, even if it is not the originality what she seeks, it is certainly what she achieved. In an industrialized society, with people that have forgotten about spirituality, nature and religion, Mendieta stands out, as she achieved a unique fusion in relating her body form, her “silueta” to the land and to the long-forgotten symbols of primitive religious rituals (Nederend). In conclusion, I would like to say that the three artists that I have analyzed in this paper have used originality, both conciously and uncounciously, to challenge western conventional art principles. First of all, Marcel Duchamp with his ready mades has shown the world that the most ordinary, usual, insignifican object can make the subjects of an art for, as long as the viewer is forced to view then in a different light and to form an opinion about them. For Marcel Duchamp, his artworks were irrational, and therefore original, opposing pure utilitarian meaning of objects and giving them an artistic meaning. Second of all, Robert Morris, through the principles of minimalism and the denial of originality in the first place, challenged artistc thought by returning artworks to their most fundamental functions. His artworks were outside of the human history, cultural background, but were a strong synthesis of the “when” and the “how” the viewer looked at them. And the last, but not the least, Anna Mendieta, with her mythical, but unpretentious resonances, challenged the very object of art by using her own body to create art works that tried to connect the mankind to the long lost ancestral conciousness. No matter how bizarre, tormented and intense was the 20th century, originality, as the expression of the “new” and the “different” represented a basis for artists to challenge western artistic conventions and therefore, to stimulate artistic progress. Works Cited and Consulted: Gaiger, Jason. Frameworks for Modern art. Yale University Press, 2004. Gopnik, Blake. 'Silueta' of A Woman: Sizing Up Ana Mendieta. 17 October 2004. 26 November 2010 . Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner's art through ages. Wadsworth: Clark Baxter, 2009. Nederend, Gabriëlle. GALERIE AKINCI. 1999. 26 November 2010 . Ross, Christine. "The Paradoxical Bodies of Conterporary Art." A companion to contemporary art since 1945. 2005. Walker Art Center. 1999. 28 November 2010 . Read More