The Great Upheaval

Modern Art Collections

from the Guggenheim Museum in New York

Name: Paul Babij

Teacher: Ms. McKay

Course Code: AVI101-01

Date: Thursday, January 16, 2014

We live in the age of technology, we depend on it, especially the internet. Our lives were significantly revolutionized by technological inventions in the early 1900s. The inventions changed the world; the television, the camera, and the computer provided the backdrop for the artists of the Great Upheaval. Technology created a digital life, no longer traditional. In 1910, there came a new language of art to show the reality of industrialization. From Madrid to St. Petersburg, artists experimented using excitement, passion, and adventure in art. Using the latest forms of technology changed art forever. The Great Upheaval: Modern Art Collections from the Guggenheim Museum offers the opportunity to see the foundations that caused an artistic revolution and changed the work of generations of artists. The Great Upheaval was like an industrial revolution. New technology, exploring new ways of creating art. From 1910 to 1918, more and more ways to create art were discovered, ways that were never used. Technology allowed artists to use things like photographs, telegrams, and computers to create art. It was a new and improved way of creating art, using inventions like the camera to create artworks of nature and landscapes. The public had many different opinions about the work of modern artists. Some believed it was a waste of time and they preferred the traditional art, while others embraced it with open arms, and started working with it. The Great Upheaval allowed the artists to be more creative, more unique than ever before. Each artist was allowed to be different, whether it was traditional or digital art. This is how different artistic groups were formed, from country to country. Some artists had similar ways of creating art, they got together, and made history by changing the way art would be created.

Pablo Picasso, known as one of the most famous and influential artists of all time, had a huge impact on modern art. He was part of three different periods (Blue, Rose, and African-Influenced) and then came cubism. During the Great Upheaval, he created the style of cubism, both analytic (1909-1912) and synthetic (1912-1919). Cubism is his most famous style, a great example would be one of his most famous artworks, Girl with a Mandolin. This oil painting is of the analytic style, and it depicts a woman playing what appears to be a violin. Her body shape is irregular and angular shaped making it very hard to decipher what exactly he painted, similar to most of Picasso's artworks. Another artwork of his during the days of cubism would be L'Homme aux cartes (Card Player), a work of synthetic cubism. Using angular lines and shapes, it shows what appears to be a staircase leading to maybe a basement in which things like poker and blackjack were played.

Vassily Kandinsky was the creator of abstract artwork during the early 1900s. It came to him after a long intense period of artistic experiences in which he experimented with many different aspects of art. The central aspect of his art was what he called inner beauty. Kandinsky worked with a couple of styles and periods as an artist. The first style, metamorphisis, used broad lines of bright colour and form. For the most part, Kandinsky featured a minimal amount of human beings in his