Support notes for teachers planning group visits to the exhibition

This education pack supports teachers and art students viewing and researching the exhibition. It is designed to be used in conjunction with viewing the exhibition rather than be used as a general introduction to modern art of the period.

The focus is selective and is designed to give students some idea of the central ideas, philosophies and styles which gave young Australian women artists the inspiration to make modern art for a modern age.

This pack consists of:

• suggestions for pre-visit research
• exhibition context
• a checklist of key ideas and styles
• ideas for visit or post-visit research and review
• ideas for making art

PRE-VISIT

Using the checklist of key ideas, artists and styles, take time out with your students to illustrate how art changed in appearance and intention in the period immediately following Impressionism. This could involve contrasting examples of (for example) Monet with van Gogh or Gauguin. It will also be useful to outline and discuss the concept of the ‘Renaissance tradition’, particularly its development into a system of art with its compositional formulas, set subjects and single-point perspective.

Broader contexts are important so bring into the discussion, references to the industrialisation of European societies and cities, the emergence of middle class and café society, mechanised transport, improved global communications and the impact of photography on art.

Look also through windows on Australian society of the period to consider such things as; the end of the pioneering era, the nationalism of later nineteenth century landscape painting, Federation, World War 1and its aftermath, World War 11, life for ordinary Australians, the changing nature of society and the place of women in society of the period.

EXHIBITION CONTEXT

After World War 1, the young nation of Australia went through great economic and social changes. Australian began to think about their place in the world. This development was reflected in art of the period. The images produced by Australia’s women artists from 1925 to 1945 expressed a creative and positive response to the challenges of becoming a twentieth century, modern nation. These artists explored new ideas about what art could be and could portray. They brought new movements such as Cubism back from Europe. They explored and extended painting and printmaking in ways that challenged other artists and Australian audiences.

The women who dominated the two decades from 1925 to 1945 challenged the conservative mood of art and society during this period. They had little interest in producing art about nationalism. They preferred to explore the great modern movements of the international art scene. They did this in a very individual manner and in doing so became key artists of the Australian modernist movement.

While it is well known that women artists made a major contribution to Australian art during this period, Modern Australian Women is the first exhibition to focus entirely on modernist women artists of this period.

The turn of the century – a time of change

The late nineteenth century marked the end of the pioneering era in Australia. Some Australian impressionists; Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Fred McCubbin in particular commemorated this era of opening up he land and battling against the odds in a number of paintings which have become national icons (Arthur Streeton Fire’s On, 1891, Tom Roberts Shearing the Rams, 1890 and A breakaway! 1891, Fred McCubbin, the Pioneer, 1904) In the early twentieth century, pastoral (agricultural subject) landscapes were valued as expressions of national identity. The South Australian artist Hans Heysen maintained the landscape tradition.

Artists travelling and adapting new ideas

Inspired by the few artists who travelled to Europe and England and informed of recent developments by local and international art magazines a number of younger artists travelled to London and Paris. Ideas were taken from artwork seen in Britain and Europe.

There are a number of examples in this exhibition:

Grace Cossington Smith - Landscapes and interiors from the end of the 1920s to the 1950s.

Margaret Preston - Aboriginal landscapes and figure compositions from the late 1930s and 1940s.

Kathleen Sauerbier - blue and gold South Australian coastlines of the 1930s.

Grace Crowley - colour abstracts from the 1940s.

Related factors

World travel became more accessible during the late nineteenth century and into the 1910s. Australia became less geographically isolated from Europe.

Many young Australians felt that they needed to study and work in Paris or London.

World War 1 had a major impact on life in Australia. Families lost menfolk. Many soldiers were severely wounded. In the period following the war many women took more responsibility within the home.

A period of economic prosperity before the Great Depression (1929 - 1931) gave people and some women in particular, a greater degree of social freedom.

KEY IDEAS AND STYLES

Abstraction

Perhaps you have heard of the term ‘abstract art’? It has been used to describe any form of art, which doesn’t represent the visible world. The term can also be used to refer to the reduction of natural appearances to simplified forms or the construction of art objects based on non-representational forms. In the second sense of the term, abstract art is unique to the twentieth century. It first appeared in Western Europe between 1910-1912 but artists and critics had anticipated it in the later part of the nineteenth century. The idea of abstraction is very closely linked to developments in art at the turn of the twentieth century. It offered artists a way of giving their images and constructions a high level of independence from original sources or the world of natural appearances. Abstraction concerned with composition and the interplay of elements particular colour, line and shape remained a popular option for European artists until the 1950s. In the post-war era American artists opened up a new phase of abstraction based on a more gestural use of paint and open display of emotional energy.

Reductionism

Linked to abstraction and to the spirit of Cubism was the idea that the artist should seek to reduce unnecessary details and eliminate all but essential objects. Influential critics praised art, which reduced things to the barest essentials.

Spirituality

Many artists of the early modern era inherited ideas about the links between spirituality and art. The idea that individual experience and contemplation of nature could lead to a discovery of the spirit within was generated within Romanticism and increasingly captured the imagination of many nineteenth century artists. Some turned to the ‘primitive’ art of other cultures for inspiration. Others developed a language of expression based on the symbolic association of colours and forms. In this way they hoped to bypass the conventional responses to daily life and awaken a more radical awareness of what it meant to exist, imagine and feel. Taking (or transporting) the viewer away from the sense of the everyday was important. Composition, colour relationships and ‘primal’ geometric or organic forms were manipulated to help set up a state of meditation.

Aesthetic experience

The idea that it was possible for certain kinds of art works to provide special ‘aesthetic’ experiences was widely held in the nineteenth century. The term ‘aesthetics’ has a long history and is associated with the philosophy of beauty in art as well as the doctrine of ‘art for art’s sake’. Through the Aesthetic Movement aesthetic experience or aesthetics came to be associated with an art, which was suggestive and evocative rather than narrative or prescriptive. Viewers keen to have genuine aesthetic experiences were encouraged to achieve a state of calculated detachment in the presence of appropriate art works. It was possible to achieve such experiences with a wide variety of works but modernist artists guaranteed results by providing ready-made detachments from the world of appearances.

Composition

The idea of composition is fundamental to an appreciation of early modernism and most of the works in the exhibition. The term composition refers to the combination of elements in a painting or other work of art so that they seem satisfactory to the artist. Artists working within the studio tradition from the Renaissance onwards were always concerned with composition and usually relied on compositional sketches and designs to produce large-scale works. The difference between traditional and modern attitudes to composition lies in the fact that for a modernist everything within the picture frame is of equal importance. The conventional distinctions between foreground, middle and background were largely done away with. When making decisions about composition (aspects such as angles, colour of sky or length of line), modern artists focussed on harmony, balance and relationships between all aspects of the image.

Cubism

Many of the artists in Modern Australian Women were influenced by a style of art called Cubism. Cubism is the name given to a new form of painting developed by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, working mainly in Paris between 1908 and 1913. These artists continued to develop this form of art until at least 1921. Other major artists associated with Cubism are Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. Where did the name ‘Cubism’ come from? The artist Henri Matisse once commented that paintings by Braque of buildings (observed in a small town and port L’Estaque west of Marseille), was composed of ‘petit cubes’ (little cubes). An art critic (Louis Vauxcelles) later used the phrase 'bizarrieries cubiques' (cubic eccentricities) to describe some of Braque’s work. The tag ‘cubism’ stuck.

Cubism – a break with the past

Juan Gris writing in 1925 said that in the beginning Cubism was ‘simply a new way of representing the world’. This new way broke with traditions of representation, which had been developed and refined since the Renaissance. This long-standing tradition offered the viewer a single, fixed viewpoint. It also created strong illusions of reality.

Cezanne

Cubism wasn’t the only development to bring about radical change. The artist Paul Cézanne had a strong influence on a group of younger artists including Braque and Picasso. These artists were particularly interested in Cézanne’s later works. In these works Cézanne used a method, which involved overlapping, semi-transparent brush strokes. This had the effect of creating a feeling of things being solid and of occupying space without having to use traditional methods of light and shade and linear perspective. In this way the artist suggested that looking at things was as much a matter for the mind as the eye.

Colour

In traditional or academic theory, colour was considered to be an incidental feature of painting. It simply helped to define form and add to the illusion. In modernism colour was promoted to become the most essential element. This increasing interest in the expressive powers of colour can be traced back to early nineteenth century artists particularly William Turner and Eugene Delacroix. Technological developments saw new, synthetic colours developed which increased the range of the artist’s palette. The influential critics Charles Baudelaire in France and John Ruskin in England promoted colour and the key element in expressing ideas. Many artists from Monet to Matisse placed great importance on the power of colour to express feelings and to symbolise inner states of mind.

IDEAS FOR MAKING ART (in the modern style)

Flat Out

Modern artists used a number of systems or devices to break up illusions of real objects in real space. See if you can find examples of any of the following systems at work:

Leaving bold outlines around objects (the stained glass window effect).

Infilling the shapes (created by the bold outlines) with a single colour to create a mosaic-like effect.

Tipping things up (giving the viewer a bird’s eye view).

Not reducing the scale or size of objects which in ‘real life’ would be further way.

Not using any vanishing point perspective.

Using bold or heavily textures brush marks, which usually don’t pay much attention to the forms or details of the objects they are describing.

Arranging brush marks into strong areas of pattern.

Using bright colours, which are usually, don’t belong to the original subject (eg yellow skin or green sky).

Reducing or leaving out details.

Using semi-transparent brush marks.

Not using shadows or highlights.

Showing different viewpoints or angles of the same object in the same picture.

Like to try some of these methods? See ‘The modern treatment‘ in Research/Review.

Print stint

Relief and stencil printing were popular methods of achieving a modern style. Three or four colour prints didn’t allow much room for tones or details. If the art room is set up for these kinds of printmaking, make some based on your own sketches and ideas. You might care to model the style of the image on one of the print images in the exhibition. At the end swap a print with someone else or hold a mini-exhibition.

Line’s fine

Different types or qualities of line can give images an entirely different style or expressive mood. As you walk around the exhibition try to focus on this aspect only. Notice how (for example) the relief prints are dominated by bold lines or Dorrit Black’s landscapes use many straight or angular lines. Things to look out for are; dominant or strong lines balanced by less-stronger lines, curving lines repeated to create a sense of movement, diagonal lines used to create a sense of action or drama, and broken outlines.

Colour

Modernists used colour in the same way that composers use combinations of notes or chefs use flavours and textures. To get an idea of how colour relationships can influence the appearance or mood of an image start with an easily duplicated design or picture (photocopies are fine) and ‘colour in’ using different combinations of colour, here are some colour combination suggestions; warm/cool, dark/light, clean/muddy, neutrals, shades (or tones) of one colour.

Pattern

Start with an easily repeated image (photocopy is fine) and ‘infill’ the different areas created by outlines, with different kinds of patterns. When deciding on what patterns to use you can decide if the patterns will follow or emphasise the form or volume of things or operate in an independent way. Good examples in the exhibition – works by; Cossington Smith, Spowers, Preston, O’Connor.

The modern treatment

Select subjects from contemporary life (eg rock concert, at the beach, supermarket) and represent it in a modern style or a style favoured by one of the artists in this exhibition. As a variation start with an historical photograph (eg street scene 1890s) and ‘bring it to life’ using modernist techniques. For style options see Flat Out.

Movement and speed

Capturing movement and speed was an important means of symbolising modern life. There are many examples in this exhibition. Find some and make some sketches, which ‘capture’ some of the rhythms or designs, which give the images their particular sense of movement. Later in your studio work, apply some of these ideas using some of your own subjects or sketches. For further inspiration look at the work of some Futurist and Vorticist artists of the period.

As an alternative write a description (poem or prose form) of a selected work which tries to capture in words, impressions of movement or speed.

More with less

Reductionism (keeping it simple) gave modern art its distinctive style. Try it for yourself.

Sketch a figure using no more than ten lines

Sketch a figure using one line only (it can be continuous).

Sketch a figure in thirty seconds

RESEARCH & REVIEW

Naked or nude?

In art the unclothed human body has usually been described as nude, not naked. This was a convention or agreed system which allowed artists to explore the human form or use it as an expressive symbol without being accused of obscenity or indecency. The female, not the male nude dominated European art into the twentieth century. In the later twentieth century this convention was challenged by (principally) women artists who regarded this tradition as an expression of male values and dominance.

The nude studies in this exhibition may give you some clues about the artists’ intentions and your role as a viewer. Here are some aspects to consider:

Gaze. Where is the subject looking? At or away from you? What might this suggest?

Facial expression. Does the expression give any clues about inner feelings or attitude?

Pose. How is the figure posed? Does this pose suggest (perhaps) that something has is just about to happen? Is the pose ‘natural’ (as if taken form real life)? Or does the pose look ‘posed’?

Nudity. Is the nudity of the figure an important aspect of the image? For example do you sense any sexual tension or possible interpretation?

Setting. Where is the figure? What time of day is it? Are there additional details (eg furniture, clothing) in the setting, which add to a possible story line or clue to identity?

Painting style. Has the artist worked hard to convey a sense of flesh and bone (i.e. create a strong illusion of a figure)? You could compare some different styles as a starting point to discuss different artists’ intentions.

Portraits and self-portraits

Most of the aspects related to analysing nude studies can be applied to an exploration of self-portraits or portraits in the exhibition. The key questions to deal with these works are linked to intention and response. What did the artists intend or want to achieve? Is the fact that the subject is the artist or a certain kind of person of any importance? Do you get any sense of feeling connected in any way to the person depicted? If so, how has the artist achieved this and does it matter anyway?

The spiritual

Seeing something extraordinary in ordinary things and experiences was something that a number of artists in this exhibition share in common. Look for works where the artist has worked to translate the subject into something very special or memorable. Perhaps there are some images, which go beyond a straightforward exercise in exploring colour or compositional elements? Do you sense in these works an intention of the artist to communicate directly about an intense or very personal experience? To decide on this you may have to rely on a more personal response, on your instincts and feelings. If you can identify such works try analysing them in terms of such things as choice of subject, use of colour, composition, rhythms and patterns or distortion to see if you can better understand how the image functions or works in a particular way.

Modern life

Many moderns attached importance to recording the modern world in terms of transport, changing lifestyles, and communications and urban and city environments. There are a number of references to modern life and technological change in this exhibition. See how many you can find. Discuss or analyse in particular any examples where you feel the artists has been particularly successful in matching the style of expression or interpretation of subject with a sense of modernity or a world undergoing change. Are there any aspects of modern life (of the period), which are missing from this line up?

Women in society

The fact that so many significant Australian modern artists were women is saying something about changes taking place in Australian society at the time. These changes offered women opportunities to take more active roles within the family and the workforce. Given that most of the artists in this exhibition took such opportunities do you consider that any (artists) had something special to say about their own situation or that of other women in society? Are any of these aspects still relevant today?

Review

Modern artists often faced hostile critics. Some critics discounted the work on the basis that it had been made by women. Others saw all forms of modernism as symptoms of a sick European culture, something like a disease. Various histories of Australian art include examples of this type of criticism.

As an exercise in being highly critical of a style of art you choose to dislike, select one artist’s work from within this exhibition and write a brief media review. Think carefully about the terms and phrases to be used. Libellous abuse will not get past your editor so you’ll need to be clever in trying to win support from your readers.

As an alternative write an exchange on talk back radio, Various characters could play different parts; an exhibition visitor who can’t see any sense or value in this kind of art, a ‘shock jock’ who needs some controversy to boost ratings and the gallery director defending the art in question.

For extended research look for examples of recent media focus on art works.

Modern Australian Women paintings & prints 1925 – 1945 education notes written by John Neylon, Education Officer Art Gallery of South Australia
April 2001