Early Modern art covers a vast number of styles and distinctions in art because the period in time was such a busy one. There was a devastating war, innovations in technology, and a redefining of art. One major influence of some of the art from this era is The Great Depression. Taking The Great Depression into account, I have selected three pieces by three different artists for examination.
Hotel Room
Edward Hopper used oil on canvas in 1931 to paint the Hotel Room. During this point in his life he lived in New York and completed a great deal of work in the Washington Square studio he owned with his wife (Biography.com). Hopper is a prominent realist painter of the 20th century.
This painting depicts a woman sitting, partially clothed, on a neatly made bed in a hotel room. She hunches forward, her shoulders parallel to her thighs. The angle of her upper arms falling parallel to her legs, resting on the ground. This room is full of lines and saturated colors, and the upper half of her body is engulfed in shadows. Her bent posture creates more shadows that she casts upon herself. Unlike the tidy bedsheet, her belongings are arranged messily in the hotel room. A hat is on what I presume to be the top of a set of drawers. Her clothes are tossed over the armchair. Her bags are not even unpacked, and they take up a portion of the corner of the room near the armchair. She hasn’t settled in for the night. She sits looking at a sheet of paper that Hopper’s wife, Josephine, recorded as being a timetable (EdwardHopper.net). There is a quiet distress to her. The state of her belongings and the bedding makes it seem as if she is somewhere that she can’t truly relax. Aside from angular lines, this painting is composed of geometric shapes. There are a lot of rectangles and squares present in the hotel room in the bed, suitcases, and shadows. The plainness of the hotel room and composition of simple shapes creates a simple environment for the woman in the painting. It accentuates a feeling of loneliness.
This painting was done during The Great Depression, and its overpowering sense of isolation and lack of belonging are iconic themes of the time. The hotel room setting adds a layer of searching away from one’s home for something. I think this leans into the widespread migration of people during The Great Depression. People were looking for jobs and better lives and not finding them. I think this painting speaks to the lonely isolation and restlessness of the times.
Outreaching Hands
Thomas Hart Benton painted Outreaching Hands in 1931 as an addition to his America Today mural collection. It is an egg tempera mural like the rest of the collection is. The entirety of America Today is a panoramic mural collection of American life from the twenties, with Outreaching Hands being the last installment. He painted this in a loft in New York near its intended destination, “the third-floor boardroom in the [New School for Social Research’s] new Joseph Urban-designed headquarters at 66 West 12th Street” (ArtDeco.org).
The backdrop of this panel is the sky. It is a gradient of blue that starts out deeper at the top and is a lighter color near the bottom. Looking at the sky, I am often taken by how vast it is. I find it to be something endless to the eye and peerless in its beauty. The immense sky taking up the background of this painting can relate to the hopelessness of The Great Depression. When one is going through hard times, those times seem like a clear sky, as if they are without end. This painting was done after The Great Depression had already been going on for a few years, and the bleakness of the times seemed to be without foreseeable resolution or end.
The main indicator of The Great Depression in this painting is the hands themselves. The hands that reach for money are a clear association to the desperation surrounding money. In this time, people suffered, “the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world” (History.com). There are different skin tones present in this painting as well as visible parts of people’s clothing. The difference in clothing colors and styles as well as skin tones indicates the abundance of suffering. The economic disparity and hunger were widespread. Fingers are curled and grasping, reaching out for money and food. Some hands reach for bread, a simple food that gets the message across. Bread has often been used as a symbol of the hunger associated with poverty or a certain era in history. “Panem et circenses,” is a phrase attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet, and the father of Juvenalian satire (Blogs.TimesofIsrael.com). He spoke of bread and circuses (entertainment) as being the only provisions necessary to appease the people. With food one could live, and with entertainment one could pass the time.
Frozen Assets
This is a fresco mural by Diego Rivera painted on concrete and steel from 1931-1932 (TotallyHistory.com). A journalist visiting the mural referred to it as Frozen Assets, and the name has stayed in use (DiegoRiver.org). Rivera completed several murals in America, but he was in entirely different locations for many of them. He painted in San Francisco, New York City, and Detroit during the years 1931 to 1933 (Britannica.com). I would hazard a guess that he might have painted this in New York City because of this piece’s use of New York architecture.
The topmost section of this mural displays New York architecture against a gray skyline. Just in this section, one can observe the muted colors and how they seem to be blended with gray. The colors are dull and shadowed. There is a bridge that is packed with people crossing it, presumably on their way to work. Below the buildings, one looks into a steel and glass structure crowded with rows of sleeping men. This section is dominated by grays and blended yellows. Directly below this section is the waiting room of a bank (DiegoRivera.org). Rivera has segmented three sections. The first encompasses the city itself and the crowds of people that head for work, or search for it each day. The second displays the overwhelming number of homeless people. The third and bottommost area depicts the people that do possess money hiding it.
In a single piece, Rivera has captured an immense story. It tells a story of a city that cannot hide its desolation. It depicts the economic imbalance of the times and the struggle for work. The color palette itself is dominated by muted colors and gray, giving the entire painting a melancholic mood. The subject matter is hard to swallow yet true to the times. This is art characterized by the hopelessness and struggles experienced during The Great Depression.
Bibliography
Blatty, David. “Edward Hopper.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 1 Nov. 2021, https://www.biography.com/artist/edward-hopper.
Brandon. “Frozen Assets by Diego Rivera - Facts & History of the Painting.” Totally History, 21 May 2013, https://totallyhistory.com/frozen-assets/#:~:text=Frozen%20Assets%20was%20created%20by%20Diego%20Rivera%20from,architecture%20and%20created%20this%20painting%20to%20show%20it.
Craven, Jackie. “The Life and Art of Edward Hopper, American Realist Painter.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 25 May 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/edward-hopper-biography-4165484.
“Diego Rivera.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diego-Rivera.
“Edward Hopper.” Smithsonian American Art Museum, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edward-hopper-2297.
“Frozen Assets, 1931 by Diego Rivera.” Frozen Assetes, 1931 by Diego Rivera, https://www.diegorivera.org/frozen-assets.jsp.
Gandelman, Luiz, et al. “Panem Et Circenses.” Roger M. Kaye | The Blogs, 5 Aug. 2021, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/panem-et-circenses/.
History.com Editors. “Great Depression History.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history#:~:text=The%20Great%20Depression%20was%20the%20worst%20economic%20downturn,a%20panic%20and%20wiped%20out%20millions%20of%20investors.
Hopper, Edward. “Hotel Room.” Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/hopper-edward/hotel-room.
Hotel Room, 1931 by Edward Hopper, https://www.edwardhopper.net/hotel-room.jsp.
Rivera, Diego. “Frozen Assets, 1931 - Diego Rivera.” Www.wikiart.org, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.wikiart.org/en/diego-rivera/frozen-assets-1931.
“Thomas Hart Benton's America Today Mural.” Metmuseum.org, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bent/hd_bent.htm.
“Thomas Hart Benton's America Today.” ArtDeco.org, https://www.artdeco.org/thomas-hart-benton-america-today.
Hi, I think this is a really important topic and I find it super interesting because my grandma would tell me stories about her experience during the Great Depression in the mid-west. No doubt this time in America's history had a huge affect on art and provided lots of inspiration. My favorite out of the paintings you chose is Outreaching Hands because it speaks volumes about the desperation of people during this time. Some of the hands look skinny and tense, which shows how people were desperate for food, and literally starving.
ReplyDeleteHi! I like your observation about Outreaching Hands. I agree. Another aspect I like about Outreaching hands is its shape. It feels like looking into a rectangular window. There's something restrictive about it.
DeleteAlyssa,
ReplyDeleteGreat job this week. The choices you made on pieces influenced by the Great Depression were both expressive and exciting. They all represent the struggle and emotions experienced throughout society during the Depression. The Great Depression explanation you provided for each piece gives excellent information about the effects and how artists chose to portray them. You can see the color differences between past artistic styles and this period, darker and shadowed colors maintain the dull representation and feel. Is there anywhere we can find the rest of the collection of egg tempera murals? I would love to see the rest of the collection as I also had an interest in writing on the influence of the Great Depression, but chose to go with the WWI influence instead.
Jasmine
Hi, Jasmine! Thank you. You can look through the murals under this link. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/499559
DeleteHi Alyssa, I really like two of the art pieces presented in your blog, and the third isn't my favorite. The two paintings that I like are Outreaching Hands and Frozen Assets. Outreaching hands has a cheerful and cartoon like atmosphere but is reflecting a dark theme, The Great Depression. The painting reminds me of the game monopoly with the vibrant colors and the hats and shapes of buildings. The hands reaching out for money and food show the basic struggles during The Great Depression. I also really liked the Frozen Assets painting because of all the angular lines. The whole image looks very geometrical and is appealing to look at. The colors used are very muted and dull which show a sort of despair that clouded the Great Depression. The only painting I did not particularly like is the Hotel Room. I did not like this one because of the lack of details. I think the lack of details the the minimalism in the painting exhibit the times accurately, but it is not appealing to the eye. The colors are dull and bland and there is;'t much going on. Thanks for your post!
ReplyDeleteHi, Katie! That's interesting to me that you didn't like Hotel Room for those reasons because those are the reasons I like it. Thank you for your feedback.
DeleteI enjoyed your blog on the Early Modern art covers. They were appealing to the eye and had a assort of styles, I do agree! This period was such a busy one and with all that was going on there was a lot of innovations in technology. I enjoyed how you mentioned the connection to this era by including the The Great Depression. I also enjoyed the three selected pieces by the three different artists for examination.
ReplyDelete