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National Art Education Association The Object as Subject in 20th Century American Art Author(s): David A. Petit Source: Art Education, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Mar., 1990), pp. 36-41 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193205 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 18:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.78.109.162 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 18:49:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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National Art Education Association

The Object as Subject in 20th Century American ArtAuthor(s): David A. PetitSource: Art Education, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Mar., 1990), pp. 36-41Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193205 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 18:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

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Page 2: The Object as Subject in 20th Century American Art

The Object as Subject in

20th Century American Art

Art teachers rely on a variety of imagery to teach drawing, painting, and sculpture techniques to their students. The most commonly used subjects are traditional still life, landscape, and the human figure. Teachers need to make a well defined link between the subject matter of their stu- dents and the history and aesthetics involved in these choices. Teaching technique alone denies the student a rationale and a historical basis for the use of the traditional images.

Landscapes and figure work have limitations in a public school setting. Time schedules, weather, and the change of seasons work against landscape painting. Figure work is limited by the need for a model and the necessity of teaching about human anatomy without being able to utilize nudity. Figure work may also limit the student production because of the need for a student to pose. Ideal situations exist in some schools where money is available to pay a model, or students not in the class are used, but in many cases these situations are not possible.

Still life painting has a rich history and many examples. But there also are many contemporary examples of still life painting, or more generally, the use of the object as subject in painting and sculpture. Objects have been used as supporting images in many works, but the focus of this article is the use of the object as primary image in 20th century American art. The exploration of the uses of the object in art may help teachers and students form a historic and

aesthetic connection from the works of the past and their own work.

Still life painting in the 20th century has not broken any new ground or become in itself an important aspect in modern art history. The exception to this is the devel- opment of plastic space and color theory investigated by Cezanne and the use of objects as compositional elements, planes, and spaces in Cubism. There have been 20th century artists who chose to utilize objects as subjects in a more unique and original way. There are three groups of artists who fall into this category. These artists by no means represent the only approaches to the object as subject, but they are all examples of people who reflect the same underlying philosophy of utilizing objects as expressions instead of using objects as subject matter only to display technical virtuosity.

Architecture as Object The first group of artists are related by subject matter more than art movement. All three of these painters, Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, and Edward Hopper, used the American landscape and archi- tecture as an object. Their work went beyond what is termed landscape painting and became a statement about America in first the industrial revolution and later the great depression.

Both Demuth and Sheeler worked in traditional still life manners. The still lifes of Sheeler reflect his training and skill as a photographer. The interiors that Sheeler

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David A. Petit

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Page 3: The Object as Subject in 20th Century American Art

Edward Hopper. Gas. (1940). Oil on canvas, 26-1/4 x 40-1/4" Collection, The Museum of Modem Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund.

painted are photo-realistic and are shown from unusual angles that must have been inspired from the view through the camera lens. Demuth painted watercolor still lifes of fruit that, although not greatly ab- stracted, show the influence of the Ameri- can Cubists by blending planes and fading edges into the paper. The influence of the still life, and the importance and emotion that an object can transmit, became the overpowering force in their depictions of

American industrial sites and architecture. Both painters have been termed precision- ists for their disciplined use of form. The experience of the form is important, but the underlying message is also apparent. The use of industrial scenes is the artist's representation of the American monument. The wheel, the smokestack, the factory, the city itself, are the changing America of the 1920's. The human figure is unneces- sary to picture this thought; the object is

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Richard Estes. Michigan Ave- nue with View of the Art Insti- tute, 1984, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 121.9 cm, Gift of the Capital Campaign Fund, 1984.177

)1989 The Art Institute of Chi- cago. All Rights Reserved.

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Page 5: The Object as Subject in 20th Century American Art

the subject. Edward Hopper utilizes the human

figure in many of his bleak architectural landscapes. The human presence is minimalized even to the point of reducing the relative size of the figure by placing it far away and reducing the human pres- ence to one or two figures. The major compositional element and primary subject is the architecture and its effect on light and shadow. In these landscapes the object takes on the task of being a mes- sage or a storyteller. The object takes on greater meaning, in much the same way still lifes did in the 17th and 18th century.

Pop Art Pop artists in the 1950's and 1960's took the homage to the object to new levels. The whole pop art movement revolved around the fascination and dependence people had for material objects and commercial products. The pop artists of the sixties and seventies relied on similar inspiration but each of the more well known artists exercised such a unique style that signing their work became unnecessary. Their diverse treatment of similar subject matter makes the pop art era one of the most important in the handling of the object as subject.

Jasper Johns strives to place his art somewhere between art and life. The paintings, sculptures, and prints that Johns has produced in his long career elevate common objects and images that we see every day to the status of symbol. The viewer, as a result, seems to encounter the object for the first time. The paintings of Jasper Johns often recall not only a rendered image of an object but also present us with the imprint, the shadow, and even the object itself adhered to the work. The object, in effect, becomes part of the artwork. An object or symbol is, in many of Johns' prints, reworked so the interplay between the print media and the painting media can be observed. Many of

these prints are inspired by or copied from original Johns paintings. Johns strives to make his work a single image, indivisible. The creation of this "immediate gratifica- tion" turns the object into the artwork and the artwork into an object that exists on its own terms.

Claes Oldenburg recreates objects as sculptures with the intent of radically altering the viewer's expected encounter with that object. Oldenburg changes the scale, the texture, the solidity, and the intended function of a common object. The objects are usually something that a normal person uses or sees every day. The familiarity of the viewer to the object is vital to creating the visual satire that Oldenburg employs.

Oldenburg seems to have translated the traditional still life painting intentions into a three-dimensional format. Plaster food, cloth french fries, a huge ash tray complete with cigarette butts are examples of a visual satire that reminds us what our legacy could be. When the viewer reflects on the work and when the viewer becomes better able to analyze Oldenburg's inten- tion, the seriousness of the message becomes apparent. The mass produced, disposable society we live in gives us little reason to enjoy our senses. Oldenburg reminds us not to take our surroundings for granted.

Photo-Realists In the late sixties and the decade of the seventies a number of artists took the depiction of objects to a higher state of realism than their pop art contemporaries. Artists have, at regular intervals in art history, revived the realistic and illusionist tendencies of the past. The importance of these periodic efforts is dependent on new discovery or the redefining of art and subject matter. Robert Cottingham, Robert Bechtle, and Richard Estes helped trans- form the ordinary subjects of the pop artists into a super-realist manner, thereby

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Jasper Johns. Numbers in Color, 1959. 66-1/2 x 49-1/2" Encaustic and collage on can- vas. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Gift of Sey- mour H. Knox, 1959.

stretching the theme of the contemporary image to a new technical level.

The realist painters rely on freezing a moment in time by utilizing photography. The pictures are edited on the canvas to simulate light and accentuate value, line, and volume. Mistaking the painted image for a photograph of that image is the ultimate goal. The technique is not, how- ever, the only important development in this movement from the standpoint of object as subject. The subject in the work of Bechtle and Estes is the common urban scene of America. The paintings are reminiscent of Hopper, Sheeler, and Demuth in that they minimize the direct human presence. The street scenes, urban, and suburban visions rely on the power qnd allusions of the objects in the paintings to tell a human story. The paint- ings of Richard Estes are filled with the reflective surfaces of the city; storefronts, shiny chrome, and street paintings cele- brate the man-made world.

Robert Bechtle chooses images that look more like snapshots out of a family album. The paintings are meant to simulate photography not only in technical similari- ties, but also in composition. Bechtle enjoys comparing photographs of his paintings to the original snapshot to see how close the comparison can be. Robert Cottingham shares a closer relationship to the subject matter of the pop artists in that he concentrates on advertising signs as his subject. Cottingham tries to tell a human story through the subject instead of utilizing human expressions. The photo-realism and dramatic angling of the subject forces the viewer to encounter these familiar images in a new way. Conclusion The artists that choose to interpret and picture human emotion, needs, and values through non-human subjects have man- aged to form a connection between themselves and the symbolic still life

paintings of northern European tradition. The replacement of human subjects pictured in a moralistic role by objects that signified the same message was a key to the development of the still life in Europe. The replacement of an assortment of objects for the larger, more commercial, and more superficial objects of the twenti- eth century is a natural extension of this development. There is no way to predict the next important interpretation we may see of the object as subject in art, but with the precedence that the twentieth century art movements have placed on allusions in representational work we can perhaps be more aware of this direction. Art teachers have a responsiblity to help create an awareness of art ideas, motivations, and movements. The increased visiblity of art programs developed on discipline based art approaches makes the connection between art production, aesthetics, and art history vital in our school art curriculums. The use of objects as subjects in school art problems needs to be made more than a technical exercise if the goals of a well rounded art education are to be met.

David A. Petit is Art Instructor at Eagle Hill Middle Schools in Manlius, New York.

Bibliography Famham, E., (1971), Charles Demuth: Behind A

Laughing Mask. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Field, R.S., (1970), Jasper Johns Prints 1960- 1970. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Geelhaar, C., (1980). Jasper Johns Working Proofs. Petersburg Press.

Rose, B., (1975), American Art Since 1900. (Rev. ed.). New York: Praeger Publishers.

Robins, C., (1984), The Pluralist Era: American Art. 1968-1981. New York: Harper & Row.

Ritchie, A.C., (1950), Charles Demuth. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.

Levin, G. (1981), Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist. (available from [Whitney Museum of Art, 945 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10021]).

Huber, C. (1972), Opera Grafica di Jasper Johns. [The Graphic Opera of Jasper Johns.] Bern: Kornfeld and Klipstein.

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