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[harrietfidkin-blog]

MAKING HISTORIES

Imagine you are going to curate an exhibition on the history of your discipline. Compile a list of 10 practitioners (or specific pieces of work) that you would include and write brief notes on why

I have chosen to focus on the history of painting...

Hieronymus Bosch (Netherlands)- Bosch’s major periods of activity were between 1480 and 1515. He was the first painter to depict images, beings and places unbeknownst to the human mind. Considered to be the first modern surrealist, Bosch captured what lies within the dark recesses of our consciousness, often painting scenes of carnage in hell and the paradise of heaven, playing on the fear and desire shared among humankind about what awaits them in the afterlife.

Caravaggio (Italy)- Caravaggio worked from around 1585 up until his death in 1610. His portrayal of religious figures was groundbreaking at the time, as he depicted his subjects as imperfect and hyper-real, by showing signs of aging and poverty. Although not invented by him, he was the first painter of his time to incorporate the chiaroscuro style into his work- very dark shadows and defined rays of light to emphasise certain areas of a painting. His work had a profound influence on later art movements such as Baroque.

Paul Cézanne (France) – In the late 19th century, post-impressionism emerged in France.  Focusing on the subjective rather than the literal, Cézanne’s work is characterised by a vivid colour palette, painterly brushstrokes to create geometric forms, and creative compositions, which give a skewed perspective to what is seen with the human eye; the principle of distortion would later play a huge role in Cubism.

Kazimir Malevich (Russia)- Malevich worked in a variety of different styles between 1890 and 1935, but is most well known for inventing the Suprematism movement, his own philosophy in which he believes painting should transcend its subject matter, and focus more on shape and colour. He saw the canvas not as a window looking into a realistic scene, but as its own physical object in that exists in space.

Georges Braque (France) – Braque is best known for being one of the leading artists in the revolutionary Cubist movement; working from 1900-1963. He was introduced to Cubism after meeting Picasso, yet his own career spans beyond the movement. His paintings explore colour, line, texture and perspective within still life, and border on becoming patterns rather than the capturing of a scene. He experimented with blending sand into his pigments and stenciling words and letters onto the canvas. He was one of the first artists to include collaging news advertisements onto his paintings, which inspired modern art movements such as Pop Art.

Max Ernst (Germany) – After serving time as a soldier in WWI, Ernst emerged deeply traumatised and harbored hostility towards Western culture. Throughout his working life (1910-1976), he aimed to question and attack the conventions of what art is, focusing on depicting the subconscious and dreams, whilst still retaining some conventions of classical art. He aimed to freely paint from his inner psyche in order to work through his trauma, and was particularly interested in the art of the mentally ill as a window to the most primal form of creativity. He was a key player in both the Dada and Surrealist movements, and was also one of the first painters to apply Freud’s dream theory to tap into his own subconscious in order to produce work.

Robert Rauschenberg (America)- A pioneer in the Neo-Dada movement, Rauschenberg is best known for his experimental blending of media, and was one of the most well-respected artists of the 1950s. He merged fine art and found objects by use of collage, and often left the interpretation of his work to the viewer by leaving it up to chance where he placed each image. He focused on the role of the artist and the definition of ‘artwork’, often focusing on performance and conceptual ideas, thereby introducing a very modern take on image making.

Jackson Pollock (America)- Pollock’s troubled childhood and inner demons served as the fuel behind his wildly expressive and unique paintings. In 1939, whilst being treated for alcoholism, he was encouraged to paint and draw. His art serves not only as an outpouring of his own personal battles, but also as a depiction of the terror felt by humanity post nuclear war. His style is seen to be one of the most radical within modern art, detaching line from colour, exploring the body in art, and putting the artist ‘in the canvas’; the process of creating is the art itself and the series of actions behind it become the work, rather than just the finished product.

Gerhard Richter (Germany) - Richter played on the borders between realism and abstraction. He was fascinated by painting’s relationship with photography, and how each medium may claim to portray reality in its truest form, yet neither gives a complete and perfect view of a subject.  He would project a photograph onto canvas and blur and distort the image within his paintings, suggesting that photographs have a life of their own separate to the subject(s) within them, almost like ghosts of the past. This gives the idea that our own vision is a conversion of reality to the imaginary. He worked alongside late 20th century movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Conceptualism, yet remained unique in his approach to painting.

Katharina Grosse (Germany)– Grosse is a contemporary artist whose work I am lucky enough to have experienced in person. Her vibrant, psychedelic colour palette sprayed in acrylic across gigantic canvases can be seen as an immersive gallery experience rather than just paintings. This submerges the viewer into a different reality, rather than them simply standing and looking in to something 2D. The pigments in her very modern colour palette would not have existed for a large portion of my timeline, and neither would the idea of paintings being a very immersive bodily experience- I have decided to end my history of painting with Grosse as I believe her approach to the discipline is as forward-thinking as the highly influential practitioners that came before her.