| Aesthetic | |
|---|---|
| 1) They were exemplary of the aesthetic of the times, and the aesthetic of the times was relevant to larger concerns expressed in science or culture. | |
 Circe and Her Lovers |
Example: Circe and Her Lovers, c. 1514. According to classical mythology, Circe was the daughter of the sun god Helius (Hyperion) and Perseis, and was celebrated for her knowledge of magic and herbs. She is most famous for her enchantment of Odysseus, whom she lures to her island where he stays for a year. Notice that Circe holds a plaque, on which something is written; her dog companion inspects an open manuscript. This may be an allusion to witchcraft -- a not very well tolerated practice in the time -- or, perhaps more ecumenically, to the notion that the laws of nature are possessed by the Divine. Regardless, the image is consistent with the emphasis upon the pastoral, which was popular at the time. |
 Mae West |
Example: Both Dali's Mae West, 1934, and Braque's Still Life: Le Jour, 1929, illustrate a playfulness with form and representation, and simultaneously refer to other media. This playfulness -- some might call it perversity, when puzzlers like Klee's Picture Album, 1937, are included -- is perhaps symptomatic of the times. For decades -- almost a century, really -- Western society was coming to terms with the increasingly important fact that, depending on where or who or even when you were, things looked ... well, different. Einstein's theory of relativity was making what media had already demonstrated abundantly apparent. So, without detracting too much from the creative genius of these painters, the variety of form and representation -- fragmented, impressionist, suggestive, radically interpretive and synthetic -- maps fairly well onto the changing sensibility of reality, at large. |
 Le Jour |
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 Picture Album |
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| Nature and Technology | |
| 2) They depicted -- in some fashion -- the Machine in the Garden (to quote Leo Marx). | |
 Lackawanna Valley |
Example: Marx had selected George Inness's Lackawanna Valley, 1855, to illustrate the aspired taming or controlling effects of the garden upon the machine, as rhetoricized in the late 1700s and early 1800s. So the painting is included here. It depicts a steam-driven train winding its leisurely course across a landscape. Neither the landscape nor the reclining figure in the foreground seem at all alarmed at the intrusion of the machine. |
 Across the Continent |
Example: Currier and Ives's contributions to this theme include Across the Continent, c. 1850s. In this painting, "civilization" follows the tracks of a rail train that shoves its way across the Rocky Mountain plains. Note the Native Americans gawking from the side, getting lungfuls of engine exhaust. |
 Gray and Gold |
Example: A more recent contribution to the theme is John Rogers Cox's Gray and Gold, 1942. This painting, with its powerful hues of golden wheat and stormy sky, seems to integrate technology into the tradition of the pastoral. Note the road, which forms a cross coming toward the viewer, and the billowing, threatening clouds that seem to overtake the fields. The telephone lines seem to be stretching in the opposite direction. The picture may be suggestive of the power of nature to subvert technology. |
| References to Media | |
| or 3) They made reference to media in some way, either by including a medium in the picture or evoking a way of looking made possible with media. | |
 Dog on a Leash |
Example: The modernist works mentioned above in item 1) also fit here. So does Giacomo Balla's Dog on a Leash, 1912, which is rather reminiscent of Muybridge's work on the photography of motion. Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was included for the same reason, although in the case of Duchamp, the inspiration from Muybridge was explicit. |
 Nude Descending a Staircase |
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Sources for the timeline and accompanying information.