Magazine layout sketch

VOLUME 1 , ISSUED SEPTEMBER 14 2022

ART MAGAZINE

VINCENT VAN ABSTRACT
GOGH ART AND
MODERN
HIS CONTRIBUTION TO
MODERN ART ART

FAMOUS
ARTWORKS
AND THEIR

PAINTER

HEINZ

2

TASTE
THAT
GRABS
YOU

3

5.
EDITORS PAGE

6 & 7.
UNDERSTANDING AB-
STRACT ART

8 & 9.
FAUVISM

10 & 11.
SURREALISM

13 & 14
CUBISM

15 & 16
ARTIST AND THEIR PAINTINGS

17 & 18.
ARTIST AND HIS PAINTING

19 & 20
MODERN ABSTRACT ART

4

I have always believed that the magazine is the crucial
artifact of civilized life. Not the book—though good
books are lovely things— for it is too solid an object,
neither (as we say these days) reflexive nor interactive
enough. Magazines are the place where books are tried
out, reviewed, criticized, and, years later perhaps, re-
considered. They are home to an ongoing conversation,
in our case, a political argument, in which many people
participate, in different voices, in different genres. Es-
says, reports, comments, sketches, memoirs, symposia,
reviews, polemics, letters (and an occasional poem): we
publish all these, planning each issue to emphasize our
“magazineness.” “Dissent is not a journal,” Irving Howe
used to say—for journals are only half magazines, half
serial anthologies, specialized, monotone.
A democratic socialist magazine should exemplify the
values it claims to defend. Its pages should be open,
its range wide, its style accessible, respectful of the av-
erage reader, its tone undogmatic and self-critical; its
authors should always give reasons for their positions;
its debates should be comradely but sharp; its coverage
should include the issues most important for people in
trouble; a rough mix of hope and irony should drive the
editors.

MARK
MARK WAINAINA THANDE
EDITOR

5

ABSTRACT ART

Abstract art, also called
nonobjective art or non-
representational art,
painting, sculpture, or
graphic art in which the portray-
al of things from the visible world
plays little or no part. All art con-
sists largely of elements that can be
called abstract—elements of form,
colour, line, tone, and texture. Prior
to the 20th century these abstract el-
ements were employed by artists to
describe, illustrate, or reproduce the
world of nature and of human civi-
lization—and exposition dominated
over expressive function.

Abstract art in its strictest sense has WASSILY KANDISKY: THE MASTER OF AB-
its origins in the 19th century. The STRACTIONISM
period characterized by so vast a
body of elaborately representational is essentially a flat surface covered
art produced for the sake of illus- with colours assembled in a cer-
trating anecdote also produced a tain order,” summarizes the feeling
number of painters who examined among the Symbolist and Post-Im-
the mechanism of light and visual pressionist artists of his time.
perception. The period of Romanti-
Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow is a cism had put forward ideas about art
1930 painting by Piet Mondrian. that denied classicism’s emphasis on
imitation and idealization and had
6 instead stressed the role of imagina-
tion and of the unconscious as the
essential creative factors. Gradually
many painters of this period began
to accept the new freedom and the
new responsibilities implied in the
coalescence of these attitudes. Mau-
rice Denis’s statement of 1890, “It
should be remembered that a pic-
ture—before being a war-horse, a
nude, or an anecdote of some sort—

All the major movements of the first
two decades of the 20th century,
including Fauvism, Expressionism,
Cubism, and Futurism, in some way
emphasized the gap between art and
natural appearances.

There is, however, a deep distinction representation with disfavour, how- Beginning in the 1950s abstract art
between abstracting from appear- ever. During World War I the emer- was an accepted and widely prac-
ances, even if to the point of un- gence of the de Stijl group in the ticed approach within European
recognizability, and making works Netherlands and of the Dada group and American painting and sculp-
of art out of forms not drawn from in Zürich further widened the spec- ture. Abstract art puzzled and in-
the visible world. During the four trum of abstract art. Abstract art did deed confused many people, but for
or five years preceding World War not flourish between World Wars I those who accepted its nonreferen-
I, such artists as Robert Delaunay, and II. Beset by totalitarian politics tial language there is no doubt as to
Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malev- and by art movements placing re- its value and achievements.
ich, and Vladimir Tatlin turned to newed emphasis on imagery, such
fundamentally abstract art. (Kan- as Surrealism and socially critical 7
dinsky was traditionally regarded Realism, it received little notice.
as having been the first modern But after World War II an energetic
artist to paint purely abstract pic- American school of abstract paint-
tures containing no recognizable ing called Abstract Expressionism
objects, in 1910–11. That narrative, emerged and had wide influence.
however, was later questioned, es-
pecially in the 21st century with
the renewed interest in Swedish art-
ist Hilma af Klint. She painted her
first abstract work in 1906 but with
a different goal than achieving pure
abstraction.) The majority of even
the progressive artists regarded the
abandonment of every degree of

Woman with a Hat is a painting by Henri Ma-
tisse. An oil on canvas, it depicts Matisse’s
wife, Amelie. It was painted in 1905 and ex-
hibited at the Salon d’Automne during the fall
of the same year, along with works by André
Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and several oth-
er artists known as “Fauves”

TYPES OF

ABSTRACT Louis Vauxcelles, who, because of left areas of raw canvas exposed, was
ART the violence of their works, dubbed appalling to viewers at the time.
the painters fauves (“wild beasts”). The other major Fauvists were
FFAUVISMauvism, style of painting The leader of the group was Hen- André Derain, who had attended
that flourished in France ri Matisse, who had arrived at the school with Matisse in 1898–99, and
around the turn of the 20th Fauve style after experimenting with Maurice de Vlaminck, who was De-
century. Fauve artists used the various Post-Impressionist ap- rain’s friend. They shared Matisse’s
pure, brilliant colour aggressively proaches of Paul Gauguin, Vincent interest in the expressive function
applied straight from the paint tubes van Gogh, and Georges Seurat. Ma- of colour in painting, and they first
to create a sense of an explosion on tisse’s studies led him to reject tra- exhibited together in 1905. Derain’s
the canvas. ditional renderings of three-dimen- Fauvist paintings translate every
sional space and to seek instead a tone of a landscape into pure colour,
The Fauves painted directly from new picture space defined by move- which he applied with short, forceful
nature, as the Impressionists had ment of colour. He exhibited his fa- brushstrokes. The agitated swirls of
before them, but Fauvist works were mous Woman with the Hat (1905) intense colour in Vlaminck’s works
invested with a strong expressive at the 1905 exhibition. In this paint- are indebted to the expressive power
reaction to the subjects portrayed. ing, brisk strokes of colour—blues, of van Gogh.
First formally exhibited in Paris in greens, and reds—form an energet-
1905, Fauvist paintings shocked vis- ic, expressive view of the woman.
itors to the annual Salon d’Automne; The crude paint application, which

8 one of these visitors was the critic

The Starry Night, a moderately abstract landscape painting (1889) of an expressive night sky The Scream, tempera and casein on card-
over a small hillside village, one of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh’s most celebrated works. board by Edvard Munch, 1893;
The Starry Night, oil on canvas by Vincent van Gogh, 1889; in the Museum of Modern Art, New
York City.

EXPRESSIONISM change or spiritual crisis, and in this The Scream is one of the most famil-
sense it forms the converse of the ra- iar images in modern art. It stemmed
Expressionism, artistic style tionalist and classicizing tendencies from a panic attack that Munch suf-
in which the artist seeks of Italy and later of France. fered in 1892. He described how it
to depict not objective re- More specifically, Expressionism as occurred, as he was strolling along a
ality but rather the subjec- a distinct style or movement refers path outside Kristiania (now Oslo):
tive emotions and responses that to a number of German artists, as “The sun was setting and the clouds
objects and events arouse within a well as Austrian, French, and Rus- turned as red as blood. I sensed a
person. The artist accomplishes this sian ones, who became active in scream passing through nature. I
aim through distortion, exaggera- the years before World War I and felt as though I could actually hear
tion, primitivism, and fantasy and remained so throughout much of the scream.
through the vivid, jarring, violent, the interwar period. Expressionism
or dynamic application of formal developed as an avant-garde style 9
elements. In a broader sense Ex- before the First World War. It re-
pressionism is one of the main cur- mained popular during the Weimar
rents of art in the late 19th and early Republic,[1] particularly in Berlin.
20th centuries, and its qualities of The style extended to a wide range
highly subjective, personal, sponta- of the arts, including expressionist
neous self-expression are typical of architecture, painting, literature,
a wide range of modern artists and theatre, dance, film and music.[5]
art movements. Expressionism can
also be seen as a permanent ten-
dency in Germanic and Nordic art
from at least the European Middle
Ages, particularly in times of social

Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory
plunges the viewer into a dreamlike and defi-
nitely strange universe where hard and soft
surfaces coexist. The artwork opposes Surre-
alism to reality and questions the ineluctabil-
ity of time. It cements the artist’s obsession
for its symbolism. Are we at the mercy of
time? One thing Dalí makes very clear, is that
time passes but leaves behind memories; the
memory persists.

SURREALISM nated in the horrors of World War I. Surrealism manifested itself in a
According to the major spokesman juxtaposition of words that was star-
Surrealism, movement in of the movement, the poet and critic tling because it was determined not
visual art and literature, André Breton, who published The by logical but by psychological—
flourishing in Europe Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, Sur- that is, unconscious—thought pro-
between World Wars I and II. realism was a means of reuniting cesses. Surrealism’s major achieve-
Surrealism grew principally conscious and unconscious realms ments, however, were in the field
out of the earlier Dada move- of experience so completely that the of painting. Surrealist painting was
ment, which before World War world of dream and fantasy would influenced not only by Dadaism but
I produced works of anti-art be joined to the everyday rational also by the fantastic and grotesque
that deliberately defied reason; world in “an absolute reality, a sur- images of such earlier painters as
but Surrealism’s emphasis was reality.” Drawing heavily on theo- Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco
not on negation but on posi- ries adapted from Sigmund Freud, Goya and of closer contemporaries
tive expression. The movement Breton saw the unconscious as the such as Odilon Redon, Giorgio de
represented a reaction against wellspring of the imagination. He Chirico, and Marc Chagall
what its members saw as the defined genius in terms of acces-
destruction wrought by the sibility to this normally untapped
“rationalism” that had guided realm, which, he believed, could be
European culture and politics attained by poets and painters alike.
in the past and that had culmi-

10

DADAISM Duchamp said he had chosen a urinal in part because he thought it
had the least chance of being liked (although many at the time did
Dada or Dadaism was an art movement of the find it aesthetically pleasing). He continued: ‘I was drawing people’s
European avant-garde in the early 20th centu- attention to the fact that art is a mirage.
ry, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at
the Cabaret Voltaire. New York Dada began c. 1915, and
after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris. Dadaist activities
lasted until the mid 1920s.
During the First World War, countless artists, writers,
and intellectuals who opposed the war sought refuge in
Switzerland. Zurich, in particular, was a hub for peo-
ple in exile, and it was here that Hugo Ball and Emmy
Hemmings opened the Cabaret Voltaire on February
5, 1916. The Cabaret was a meeting spot for the more
radical avant-garde artists. A cross between a nightclub
and an arts center, artists could exhibit their work there
among cutting-edge poetry, music, and dance. Hans
(Jean) Arp, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and Richard
Huelsenbeck were among the original contributors to
the Cabaret Voltaire. As the war raged on, their art and
performances became increasingly experimental, dissi-
dent and anarchic. Together, they protested against the
pointlessness and horrors of the war under the battle
cry of DADA.

The central premise behind the Dada art movement
(Dada is a colloquial French term for a hobby horse)
was a response to the modern age. Reacting against the
rise of capitalist culture, the war, and the concurrent
degradation of art, artists in the early 1910s began to
explore new art, or an “anti-art”, as described by Marcel
Duchamp. They wanted to contemplate the definition
of art, and to do so they experimented with the laws
of chance and with the found object. Theirs was an art
form underpinned by humor and clever turns, but at its
very foundation, the Dadaists were asking a very serious
question about the role of art in the modern age. This
question became even more pertinent as the reach of
Dada art spread – by 1915, its ideals had been adopted
by artists in New York, Paris, and beyond – and as the
world was plunged into the atrocities of World War I.

11

PIET MONDRIAN

ABSTRACT Pieter was the second child of Pieter He became a member of the art so-
ARTIST Cornelis Mondriaan, Sr., who was ciety Kunstliefde (“Art Lovers”) in
an amateur draftsman and head- Utrecht, where his first paintings
AND THEIR master of a Calvinist primary school were exhibited in 1893, and in the
FAMOUS in Amersfoort. The boy grew up in following year he joined the two
a stable yet creative environment; local artist societies in Amsterdam.
PAINTINGS his father was part of the Protestant During this period he continued to
orthodox circle that formed around attend evening courses at the acade-
Mondrian, Piet: Farm the conservative Calvinist politician my for drawing, impressing his pro-
Along the River Gein Abraham Kuyper, and his uncle, fessors with his self-discipline and
Frits Mondriaan, belonged to the effort. In 1897 he exhibited a second
Hague school of landscape paint- time.
ers. Both uncle and father gave him Up to the turn of the century, Mon-
guidance and instruction when, at drian’s paintings followed the pre-
age 14, he began to study drawing. vailing trends of art in the Neth-
Mondrian was determined to be- erlands: landscape and still-life
come a painter, but at the insistence subjects chosen from the meadows
of his family he first obtained a de- and polders around Amsterdam,
gree in education; by 1892 he was which he depicted using subdued
qualified to teach drawing in sec- hues and picturesque lighting ef-
ondary schools. fects. In 1903 he visited a friend in
Brabant (Belgium), where the calm
beauty and clean lines of the land-
scape proved to be an important in-
fluence on him. When he stayed on
in Brabant the following year, he ex-
perienced a period of personal and
artistic discovery; by the time he
returned to Amsterdam in 1905, his
art had visibly changed. The land-
scapes he began to paint of the sur-
roundings of Amsterdam, mainly of
the Gein River, show a pronounced
rhythmic framework and lean more
toward compositional structure
than toward the traditional pictur-
esque values of light and shade.

12

PABLO PICASSO

Pablo Picasso, in full Pablo Diego José Francisco de Pau-
la Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano María Reme-
dios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso, also called
(before 1901) Pablo Ruiz or Pablo Ruiz Picasso, (born
October 25, 1881, Málaga, Spain—died April 8, 1973,
Mougins, France), Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor,
printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the
greatest and most-influential artists of the 20th century
and the creator (with Georges Braque) of Cubism. (For
more information on Picasso’s name see Researcher’s
Note: Picasso’s full name.)
The enormous body of Picasso’s work remains, and the
legend lives on—a tribute to the vitality of the “disqui-
eting” Spaniard with the “sombre…piercing” eyes who
superstitiously believed that work would keep him alive.
For nearly 80 of his 91 years, Picasso devoted himself to
an artistic production that contributed significantly to
and paralleled the whole development of modern art in
the 20th century.

(The Young Ladies of Avignon

13

WASSILY KANDINSKY

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky Russian: 1866 – 13
December 1944) was a Russian painter and art the-
orist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the
pioneers of abstraction in western art, possibly af-
ter Hilma af Klint.[1] Born in Moscow, he spent his
childhood in Odessa, where he graduated at Grekov
Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of
Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in
his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair
of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today
Tartu, Estonia)—Kandinsky began painting studies
(life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first
at Anton Ažbe’s private school and then at the Acade-
my of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after
the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian
Revolution, Kandinsky “became an insider in the cul-
tural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky”[2] and
helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Paint-
ing.[3] However, by then “his spiritual outlook... was
foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet
society”,[4] and opportunities beckoned in Germa-
ny, to which he returned in 1920. There he taught at
the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922
until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to
France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becom-
ing a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of
his most prominent art. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine
in 1944, three days prior to his 78th birthday.

couple riding by wassily kandinsky

14

Paul Pollock convergenve by jackson pollock

Paul Jackson Pollock January 28, 15
1912 – August 11, 1956) was an
American painter and a major fig-
ure in the abstract expressionist
movement. He was widely noticed
for his “drip technique” of pouring
or splashing liquid household paint
onto a horizontal surface, enabling
him to view and paint his canvases
from all angles. It was also called
all-over painting and action paint-
ing, since he covered the entire can-
vas and used the force of his whole
body to paint, often in a frenetic
dancing style. This extreme form
of abstraction divided the critics:
some praised the immediacy of the
creation, while others derided the
random effects. In 2016, Pollock’s
painting titled Number 17A was re-
ported to have fetched US$200 mil-
lion in a private purchase.

HENRI MATISSE

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for both his
use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsman-
ship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor,
but is known primarily as a painter.[1] Matisse is com-
monly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the
artists who best helped to define the revolutionary de-
velopments in the visual arts throughout the opening
decades of the twentieth century, responsible for signif-
icant developments in painting and sculpture.
The intense colourism of the works he painted between
1900 and 1905 brought him notoriety as one of the
Fauves (wild beasts). Many of his finest works were cre-
ated in the decade or so after 1906, when he developed
a rigorous style that emphasised flattened forms and
decorative pattern. In 1917, he relocated to a suburb of
Nice on the French Riviera, and the more relaxed style
of his work during the 1920s gained him critical acclaim
as an upholder of the classical tradition in French paint-
ing.[6] After 1930, he adopted a bolder simplification of
form. When ill health in his final years prevented him
from painting, he created an important body of work in
the medium of cut paper collage.
His mastery of the expressive language of colour and
drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a
half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure
in modern ar

16

VINCENT VAN GOGH Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle-class
family. As a child he was serious, quiet and
Vincent van Gogh, in full Vincent Willem van Gogh, thoughtful. He began drawing at an early age
(born March 30, 1853, Zundert, Netherlands—died July and as a young man worked as an art dealer, of-
29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France), Dutch ten traveling, but became depressed after he was
painter, generally considered the greatest after Rem- transferred to London. He turned to religion and
brandt van Rijn, and one of the greatest of the Post-Im- spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern
pressionists. The striking colour, emphatic brushwork, Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude be-
and contoured forms of his work powerfully influenced fore taking up painting in 1881, having returned
the current of Expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh’s home to his parents. His younger brother Theo
art became astoundingly popular after his death, espe- supported him financially; the two kept a long
cially in the late 20th century, when his work sold for correspondence by letter. Van Gogh’s paintings
record-breaking sums at auctions around the world and did not sell during his lifetime, during which he
was featured in blockbuster touring exhibitions. In part was generally considered a madman and a fail-
because of his extensive published letters, van Gogh has ure, although some collectors recognised the
also been mythologized in the popular imagination as value of his work. His fame came only after his
the quintessential tortured artist. death, when he evolved in the public imagination
into a misunderstood genius.[6] His reputation
grew in the early 20th century as elements of his
style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and
German Expressionists. He attained widespread
critical and commercial success over the ensuing
decades, and is remembered as an important but
tragic painter whose troubled personality typi-
fies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.
Today, Van Gogh’s works are among the world’s
most expensive paintings to have ever sold, and
his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name,
the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which
holds the world’s largest collection of his paint-
ings and drawings.

THE BEDROOM PAINTING BY VAN GOGH

17

ABSTRACT AND
MODERN ART

Dots, squares, and black paintings are in the and distinct craft. An example of that is Mark Roth-
world of abstract and modern art. Most think ko’s work. His pieces include limited amount of colors
this style of art is pointless but actually, it’s and rectangles that no one has done before. Each artist
unique, has expression, and can have reason without creates their own style and build around it. Their style
showing one. People tend to judge abstract and modern doesn’t have a specific way that it’s suppose to look un-
art to be futile and meaningless, so to manifest the rea- like most art. This is also stated by Rachel Barnes, “..art-
son for these art pieces is to create a criteria explaining ists tried to find a way of painting that did not have to
the worth and purpose of one’s creation. follow any particular style or school of art.” Expression
is very important in abstract and modern art. Artist
In realistic and animated art, it’s all very similar in a way usually create what they feel, not what they see. You can
because people take ideas from each other and get in- create your own thoughts, rather than someone else’s.
spired. In abstract art, every artist has their own unique When you draw something exactly how it looks, you
can’t express any emotion. Most people see abstract art
18 as pointless, but in reality, it has way more thought than
realism. “ Just because something causes you to have a
feeling of aesthetic beauty does not make it a work of
art. “ (artrenewal), this is not true because there is no
rule that states what is and is not art.
Art can have a meaning without showing one. When

you see art pieces, you usually think that abstract and modern art was Even though abstract and mod-
about what you see which can be questionable and useless, so to help ern art can look unpleasant and
comparable with others, but with them grasp abstract art, it is crucial low-quality, it holds sentimental
abstract art, each audience can find to have a intent. Another import- thought and feelings that most can’t
their own theories about the work. ant rule is that it has to be original. visually see. Everyone has a different
When you’re not visually showing Modern art has been known for it’s imagination and interprets abstract
what you created, you make the unique look for each individual art- and modern art. Art can be in any
audience question what it is about. ist, so copying another artist’s work form, even if it’s just dots, squares,
Even a black canvas has a mean- will make modern art look like any and black paintings.
ing, “...find something in nothing..” other art styles. Last rule is to have
(tate). A criteria for modern and a shock value on your audience.
abstract art has to have a rule that “Abstract art was created to have a
states that you have to have a rea- reaction and expression on people
soning for your art work. When you looking at it.” (catholiceducation).
have no meaning or purpose, there These rules will show that abstract
is no point of making it in the first and modern art isn’t what most me-
place and also proves the point of dia showcase it to be.
people who don’t enjoy modern art.
In a survey, 30/67 people thought

19

Art sits back, licking its chops and waiting for the next fool who
believes art can be explained rationally.

I've never been that kind of fool. As far as I'm concerned, the qual-
ity of art can't be determined by the accuracy of an image or the
chemical composition of the pigment. The poet W. H. Auden identi-
fied a far more reliable test:

In times of joy, all of us wish we possessed a tail we could wag.
All of this goes to say that my current diversion into the darkest
depths of abstract art is not an attempt to find objective criteria for
judging abstract art.

However, my personal view is that abstract art and representation-
al illustration-- despite their obvious differences-- both deal at their
core with the creation of form, and can both be judged by what
Peter Behrens called "the fundamental principles of all form creat-
ing work." These principles enable us to place all visual art on the
same continuum. They give us a standard by which even abstract
art can be measured. With representational art, we often achieve
aesthetic qualities by starting with subjects from nature that em-
body these qualities, while with good abstract art the challenge is
to distill these principles one additional level, to their essence.