1. social change.notebook November 25, 2008
Art concerned
with social
commentary These visual images provide a vivid,
authentic picture of American history and
culture. They also serve as a springboard
for confronting issues that continue to
face the world today, especially as they
relate to Economics , War and Race &
Ethnicity
Nov 24­2:06 PM Nov 24­2:08 PM
Bloch created her woodcut, Land of
Plenty, the same year she joined the
Federal Art Project (FAP).
A comment on the fate of poor farmers,
the scene shows a poor, rural family of
indeterminate race physically separated
from the new electrical innovations and
towering corn stalks by a barbed wire
fence.
The problem during the Depression was not a lack of food, but
a lack of money – city dwellers could not afford to buy food
from the farmers, forcing the farmers out of business despite
their booming crops.
Land of plenty
Lucienne Bloch
Nov 24­2:12 PM Nov 24­2:17 PM
Brodsky’s inspiration for Tomato
Tomato Pickers Pickers came to him during a long
by Harry Brodsky drive in Pennsylvania – the vehicle
directly in front of him was a truck
crowded with migrant workers.
He was moved to create this image
of archetypical poor workers,
seeking whatever work they could
find. What about the composition of
this image makes it so dramatic?
Nov 24­2:25 PM Nov 24­2:26 PM
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2. social change.notebook November 25, 2008
The Agricultural Department hired Jack Delano
Miner at Dougherty’s Mine, as a photographer for the Farm Securities
Near Falls Creek, Pennsylvania Administration (FSA) and this photograph
by Jack Delano focuses on the working conditions of the coal
miner.
Between 1880 and 1930 the coal industry
expanded as the production of steel required
coal to fuel the furnaces. In the 1930s mining
sites could be found throughout the eastern
United States and mechanization began to be
implemented within coal mines but the
conditions were still dirty and the risk of injury
or death due to explosions or a shaft
collapsing was still high.
Workers were typically immigrants and were
required to live in company­built, efficiency
towns called “patches.” What does this
photograph tell you about the quality of life of
a coal miner in the 1930s in the USA?
Nov 24­2:27 PM Nov 24­2:28 PM
This deserted and rapidly decaying
West Texas gas station sits in isolation
in an arid landscape. Perhaps Mauzey
saw the war in Europe as casting a
shadow on the West Texas economy.
Do you agree with this conclusion?
West Texas
by Meritt Mauzey
Nov 24­2:29 PM Nov 24­2:30 PM
A Manhattan Landscape with
Like much of Abelman’s work, this lithograph criticizes the
Figures
effects that technology and business can have on nature and
by Ida Ableman human life.
A group of people, nervously glancing around at their
surroundings, huddle together under a streetlight; they are
bordered on the top by the elevated railway, and the back of
the image is dominated by imposing buildings.
The flowers and apples the two women in the front sell have
been taken out of their natural context and are instead being
used commercially. The intricate floral design adorning the
streetlight further demonstrates the assimilation of natural life
into an unfeeling technology.
Nov 24­2:32 PM Nov 24­2:32 PM
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3. social change.notebook November 25, 2008
Jobless Man
by Francis Chapin
Chapin, an Ohio native, was trained at the Art Institute of
Chicago where he became an instructor in lithography. He
spent most of his life in Chicago. His skills as a printmaker
are evident in this depiction of an unemployed man killing
time over a cup of coffee at a lunch counter, a scene he no
doubt witnessed often in Chicago.
What do you imagine this man is thinking about?
Nov 24­2:37 PM Nov 24­2:37 PM
From a privileged background, Evergood’s education and
Spring
lifestyle were paid for by his wealthy family. He was deeply
by Phillip moved by his first exposure to New York City’s poor.
Evergood During a nighttime walk in the winter, he encountered a
group of homeless men, huddled around fires in make­shift
shelters. He was so affected by these men and their plight
that he remained with them all night, talking with them
and sketching them.
Spring eventually grew out of these drawings and is a
condemnation of the city’s widespread poverty. The
wheelless car symbolizes the near impossibility of social or
economic mobility for these men, but Evergood also placed
the delicate white flower in the bottom left corner to
suggest hope.
Nov 24­2:38 PM Nov 24­2:39 PM
The Unemployed
by Raphael Soyer The scope of the unemployment problem during the Great Depression
is poignantly portrayed in this 1931 painting.
Weary men stand in line and scan the newspaper for jobs in what
appears to be an industrial area of a large city. Many others are
stretched out on I­beams most likely made at the factory, trying to
catch some rest while still hoping to be available for potential
employment. The dramatic diagonals of the beam lead the viewer back
into the emptiness of industrial buildings that show no sign of
economic activity. 25% unemployment
Nov 24­2:40 PM Nov 24­2:42 PM
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4. social change.notebook November 25, 2008
Supper
At the same time that President Lyndon B. Johnson
by Joseph
declared his War on Poverty, Hirsch was painting
Hirsch Supper, his own condemnation of the nation’s inability
to care for its elderly poor.
Twelve men in tattered clothing eat together around a
formal table, a probable allusion to the Last Supper.
Their contentedness at having a hot meal and company
to share it with is evident, and serves as the basis for
Hirsch’s dismay.
If such a seemingly small act can so greatly improve
lives, Hirsch implies, why does it remain elusive except
around the holidays?
Nov 24­2:44 PM Nov 24­2:44 PM
Quirt, a member of the American Artists’ Congress, began
Obeisance to Poverty
this surrealist painting in the year the Congress first met.
by Walter Quirt Quirt is criticizing the tendency of the public to romantically
“elevate” and praise the poverty­stricken mothers who
manage to keep their families together.
It would be harder, but ultimately more helpful, if the public
and leaders instead fought to solve the problems at the root of
poverty. The mother and child at the center of the image
represent both poverty and the Christian Madonna and child,
while the figures on the left represent various religious
leaders.
Nov 24­2:45 PM Nov 24­2:46 PM
Herrin Massacre
by Paul Cadmus Cadmus was one of sixteen artists commissioned by Life
magazine to illustrate significant moments in American history
after 1915. Cadmus chose to depict the tragic events of a labor
contract dispute which occurred in the mining town of Herrin,
Illinois in 1925.
The bloody riot that ensued left twenty­six dead strikebreakers,
slain by labor union members. Cadmus situated the action in a
town cemetery, and included the symbolic Christian image of
the sacrificial lamb on a headstone, drenched in blood.
However, Cadmus’s tempera painting was never published by
Life, most likely because the magazine did not wish to offend
organized labor just as the nation was gearing up for war
production.
Nov 24­2:47 PM Nov 24­2:48 PM
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5. social change.notebook November 25, 2008
3rd of May
Francisco Goya
Goya sought to
commemorate Spanish
resistance to Napoleon's
armies during the
occupation of 1808
The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a
groundbreaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. Although it draws on
many sources in high and popular art, The Third of May 1808 marks a clear
break from convention. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and
traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged
as one of the first paintings of the modern era.
Nov 25­12:04 PM Nov 25­12:27 PM
Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso, showing the Nazi German bombing of Guernica ,
Spain, by twenty­eight bombers, on April 26 , 1937 during the Spanish Civil War . The
attack killed between 250 and 1,600 people, and many more were injured. Liberty Leading the People (French : La Liberté guidant le peuple) is a painting
The Spanish rulers commissioned Pablo Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which
display at the Paris International Exposition (the 1937 World's Fair in Paris ). The toppled Charles X . A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over
Guernica bombing inspired Picasso. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricolore flag of the French Revolution in
war inflicts upon individuals. one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other
Nov 25­12:17 PM Nov 25­12:20 PM
How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare.
The artist could be viewed through the
glass of the gallery’s window. His face was
covered in honey and gold leaf, an iron
slab was attached to his boot. In his arms
he cradled a dead hare, into whose ear he
mumbled muffled noises as well as
explanations of the drawings that lined the
walls. Such materials and actions had
specific symbolic value for Beuys. For
example, honey was the product of bees
who, for Beuys (following Rudolf Steiner),
represented as ideal society of warmth and
brotherhood. Gold had its importance
within alchemical enquiry, and iron, the
metal of Mars, stood for a masculine
principle of strength and connection to the
earth. A photograph from the performance,
in which Beuys is sitting with the hare, has
been described quot;by some critics as a new
Mona Lisa of the 20th century,quot; though
CONVERSATIONS WITH A COYOTE (HOW TO RECOGNIZE A POSTMODERN ANIMAL
Beuys did not agree with that.
WHEN YOU SEE ONE) ­­ Joseph Beuys, Carlos Castaneda, Sam Keen & Jean­Francois
Lyotard
Nov 25­12:21 PM Nov 25­12:41 PM
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6. social change.notebook November 25, 2008
• List 10 social problems
•
• pick 3 of these and create 5 thumbnails
•
• chose the best thumbnails and create 3 color sketches
When you return we can chose one of the
three sketches and complete a work.
All resource material is due then too.
20pts of you project grade ( I will consider quality of the sketches)
Other canvases depict men being
sodomized with a broken stick, suffering
a rain of urine or cowering before green
attack dogs that are combination wolf,
bull and stegosaurus.
Nov 25­12:42 PM Nov 25­12:55 PM
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