Collage and the Modern Age
Both scholars listed below agree on the centrality of collage to modernist art; they disagree only in how broadly they define Modernism. Greenberg focuses wholly on developments within the field of painting, while Hopkins speaks of culture in the broadest sense: literature, film, etc.
Scholarly Reading: Two Perspectives on Collage
- Clement Greenberg, “The Pasted-Paper Revolution” (1958) (Blackboard)
- Budd Hopkins, “Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic” (1997) (Blackboard)
Viewing: Analytic and Synthetic Cubism
- Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
- Georges Braque, Violin and Palette (1909)
- Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning (1911)
- Georges Braque, Homage to J. S. Bach (1911-12)
- Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music and Wine Glass (1912)
- Juan Gris, The Table (1914)
Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, posting as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:
- Point to ONE quality that these Cubist works share in common with the Futurist art we examined last week. Alternatively, point to something that makes them distinct.
- Drawing on Greenberg or Hopkins—or just pointing to the art itself, should Cubist collage be classed as mimetic or expressive art? Or some third thing?