Survey of Modern Art - Research Paper Example

Survey of Modern Art Introduction The painter Herbert Boeckl was born in Klagenfurt, Austria in the year 1894. He wasone of the most recognized representatives of Austrian Modernity and a well-known umpire of the Modernist movement’s crucial artistic ideas. He began the study of architecture at Vienna’s Technical University after he failed in the admission into the Fine Arts Academy in Vienna. After an initial period of study, he turned self skilled, to painting in 1914 exercising a lifelong weight on Austrian art making through his opinions on painting and aesthetics. During World War I, he began art as an autodidact while still participating in the army, which saw his career spanning to the time of reconstruction after 1945. In this period, he portrayed feminism through the way he depicted the suffering of women and children as casualties of war. He later studied in Berlin (1921-2) and Paris (1923), where he realized the classicism of Cubism which strongly distinguished his artistic strategy from both the graphic logic and consistency of Art Nouveau (Batliner, 1). On many occasions, he made trips to Paris where the art of modernity opened itself to Boeckl. He as a result of this became the chief delegate of meaningful, contemporary painting in Austria, specializing mainly with figural subjects and paintings. Following the study trip, the root for an innovative tectonic method to symbolic painting was acquired. He modified the typical classical trend with a hot impasto approach which comprehended the human body as a shipper of significance in terms of occurring issues, as is shown by the art in the analysis chain. In 1927, Boeckl took part in the exhibition in the Vienna Succession and achieved his first significant successes (Weinpolter, 1). He became a significant teacher for many prominent Austrian painters and a professor at the Academy, running the evening life-drawing classes, before becoming principal in 1945/1946 and again from 1962 to 1965. Having resigned from the certified art business in the Second World War, Boeckl came back to painting in 1945. He increased the experience of Cubism with a fresh, college like manner, which apart from paintings was also applied in frescoes and wall carpets. He travelled extensively to Spain in the early years of the 50’s, where he became engaged in the study of the Romanic frescoes. As a result of his experience and interaction with the frescoes, he came up with a sequence of sacred frescoes in European Modern Art. This influenced him as thus the painting of the Angel Chapel of the Seckau Abbey in Styria between 1952 and 1960. Herbert Boeckl died in the mid sixties in Vienna. While still at school, Boeckl took his first steps in his artistic career, making copies of nineteenth-century landscape paintings in Klagenfurt Provincial Museum. His landscape paintings were symbolist in mood and secessionist. While serving in the army, his pictures began to show an expressive intensification, that he showcased in the exhibitions of the War Reporting agency. His portrait of Grimschitz was first exhibited at the Carinthian sculpture Association, which as well showcased the works of Egon Schiele (Batliner, 1). His work covers most if not all genres of painting such as religious paintings, portraits, nude, mythological histories, still life and landscape. He mostly used oil canvas in his artistic work. The work of Boeckl can be categorized into three distinct stages that are objectivity phase, the expressionistic illustrations and the concept of realism. Boeckl paintings and sculptures also display feminism through the gracefulness and propinquity in which he expresses the physical existence of the female body. The expressionistic pictures were Boeckl’s first works and conveyed highly expressive style of painting with thick colour. It also included impasto paint appliances. The expression period was 1918-1920 which marked the beginning of his skilled life. He adopted pastose brushstrokes to make his work wealthier in detail, thus applied it to paint ‘The Engaged Couple’ in 1918. The style became more advanced as clearly displayed in “Reclining Female Nude” painting in 1919. The painting flatters the human body as Boeckl tries to challenge contemporary feminist science with the biological view and gender. In the painting, the brushstrokes were longer and crowded to form a carpet which was characterized with speckles of colour. He also changed from two to three dimensional paintings that had compressed visual elements with radiant red and blue tones. After two years, Boeckl was inspired by his travel and paintings that he saw in Cassirer’s gallery and began to still life and landscapes. The still pictures were less conventional since they contained objects such as dead birds, fish, keys, bottles, glasses and keys. Additionally, he used pastose and solid level paint. The landscapes had deep shades of blue of blue altered by humans as displayed in “Group at the edge of the wood”. Around 1924, he met, Max Gubler, a Swiss artist in Carinthia and made a number of prominent landscape painting such as “Large Sicilian Landscape” influenced by the quarries of Bagheria and scenes of Lake Klopein. He also adopted the tectonic landscape although he still used pastose style. These paintings show how Boeckl was significantly influenced by Paul Cezanne’s work. Boeckl later left Carinthia and shifted to Vienna and developed an open technique from the usual pastose (Villarreal 1). In Vienna, his religious phase of painting began where his interest shifted from tectonics to material and spiritual world. This was facilitated by his studies of the human anatomy in the pathology department at Franz Josef Hospital. The fresco, “deliverance of the Apostle Peter from the Sea of Galilee” also showed his strong religious beliefs. Boeckl also became impulsive towards portraying the bodily constructions of scenery and life in landscape evidenced by nudes. The nudes were drawn using pencil and coal, and they looked fragile and subtle. They are reckoned among the most imperative accomplishments of draughtsman ship in the 20th century. His bronze sculpture “Atlantis”, which he originally, moulded in wax is recounted to the “seated Yellow Nude with Mask”, where the sculpture lacks elements of support. The sprawling posture gives it an unsteady poise thus creating a sense of anxiety and timidity. The painting also shows the innocence of the woman through the emphasis of colour in the face. His anatomy drawings and paintings show the experiences and fates of the people in a modern city. He also displayed the human body as a carrier of existential concerns. One of the paintings show a pathologist and his assistance working on dead man whose cause of death was sepsis. Boeckl’s style also evolved to become more like collage and was evident in his wall carpets, frescoes and paintings (Villarreal 1). During the period of 1931-1945, his paintings displayed various personalities of the city of Vienna’s art scene. This made him an advocate of modernity and most of his work in this era has been used as teachings to students. His style and modernity shaped the Austrian art outlook and influenced many renowned artists from the Academy of fine Arts is Vienna such as Alfred Hrdlicka. His work was exhibited in Wiener Secession in 1972, Viennese Biennial and Viennese Galerie Oberes Belvederein in 2001. Works cited Batliner, Herbert. Herbert Boeckl. R & H. Batliner Art Foundation. Palm Beach, Florida. Accessed on 21 May 2012. At < http://batlinerart.net/kunstler/boeckl-herbert-en> Villarreal Jose & Villarreal Ignacio Jr. Belvedere Showing Retrospective of Modernist Herbert Boeckl.artdaily.org. Royaville communications Inc. Accessed 21 May 2012. Weinpolter, Gerald. Detailed information about Herbert Boeckl (Klagenfurt 1894 - 1966 Wien: Gerald Weinpolter fine Australian paintings. Vienna, Austria. Art Agency Gerald Weinpolter. Accessed on 21 may 2012. At < http://www.austrian-paintings.at/home.php > Read More