You won’t learn anything about existentialism in this post, existentialism being the de rigueur ism to bring up when you need to sound smart in a conversation about modern art.
Instead of being smart, let’s play a game. Let’s imagine you stumbled upon an exhibit at, say, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where the paintings of Lionel Feininger (1871-1956) and Edward Hopper (1882-1967) were shown side by side. (That’s a game good museums actually like to play, which is what makes them so exiting to go to. At the Art Institute of Chicago, for example, paintings are moved around frequently so that you can see a familiar painting next to new neighbors and therefore gain new insights without anyone lecturing you about anything.)
Feininger was a prolific artist, who early in his career worked figuratively, even as a caricaturist and cartoonist, and later tended to work with linear forms in his compositions. In the 1920’s, when Hopper was visiting Europe, Feininger was teaching at the Bauhaus, first in Weimar and then in Dessau. There’s no chance that they met, given Hopper’s disinterest in modern art.
No matter. They were contemporaries, working with architectural forms in their paintings. It’s only fair to put them side by side.
The first thing you notice is the figure in the Hopper painting. Now try to imagine the painting without the figure.
It doesn’t hold your attention, does it?
Look at some Feininger compositions. Do they need a human figure to grab you? No. These compositions are engaging and absorbing as they are.
Hopper seems to be primarily interested in geometrical patterns, but because what he comes up with is flat, hard-edged and obvious, he adds a figure to focus your attention. The figure inevitably looks isolated and alienated, which makes for a facile match with existentialist jargon.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 