Week of May 20 - Museum of Modern Art

1. Cubism is an early-20th-century art movement. It began between 1907 and 1911. Cubism revolutionized European painting and sculpture. This is the most significant art movement from the 20th century. Important artists from this movement were Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Andre Lhote, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes and Robert Delaunay. Cubists artworks are made in an abstracted form. The objects are not depicted from one viewpoint but from a multitude of viewpoints in order to represent the subject in a greater context. Cubist artists challenged conventional forms of representation such as perspective.
This painting on the left is titled Ma Jolie by Pablo Picasso. It was painted around 1911/12 in Paris. Ma Jolie (My Pretty Girl) was the refrain of a song performed at a Parisian music hall that Picasso used to frequent. This was also the nickname that he gave to his lover Marcelle Humbert. In this painting, Picasso loosely built her figure using the shifting planes of Analytical Cubism. The Central triangular mass subtly indicates the shape of a woman's head and torso, and a group of six vertical lines at the painting's lower center represent the strings of a guitar which the woman strums. Picasso also included the words Ma Jolie. This painting has a combination of dark colors such as black and brown and lighter colors like yellow. Its dimensions are 3'3" x 2'1".  

 

2. Pop Art is an art movement that began in the late 1950's in the United States. It includes imagery from popular culture like advertising and news. Pop art contains a hard-edged composition and it is very representational. It looks like comic book images and cartoons. This type of art connects and critiques society. pop art tries to reach the audience and it is grounded in consumer culture and mass media.
The image on the right is a representation of American Actress Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol. It is known as Warhol's Gold Marilyn Monroe. It contains bright flat colors such as yellow, black, purple and blue, clean edges and it is not messy. This artwork was created in 1962 after Monroe's death. Its dimensions are of  6'11 1/4" x 57" (211.4 x  144.7 cm).