Yajushi Mattegunta
GSI Tara Phillips
Discussion Section 1-2 Fri
1 November 2016
Georgia O’Keeffe
Known as the “Mother of Modernism”, Georgia O’Keeffe was one of the most prolific artists of her time, producing striking works during the interwar period. Born on November 15th, 1887 in Wisconsin, O’Keeffe developed an affinity towards art at a young age. Yet her formal art education was fragmented; although she joined the Art Institute in Chicago, she had to withdraw for health reasons. After recuperating, O’Keeffe went to New York City to learn, but only a year later was called back home once again due to her mother’s failing health.[2][4] It was while taking a summer art class at the University of Virginia that O’Keeffe became exposed to the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow, which encouraged O’Keeffe to experiment with her own style. She began using it as a mode of personal expression, making iconic charcoal drawings that caught the eye of Alfred Steiglitz, a prominent New York art promoter. After their marriage, he took O’Keeffe into his inner circle of modernist painters that frequented his gallery.[3]
O’Keeffe began working with simplified shapes and motifs, breaking boundaries with her bold, abstract work before transitioning to the oil paintings of flowers for which she would gain fame. Instead of painting them as small parts of a larger scene, she chose to focus in on them, depicting them in great detail against an abstract background of color. Her flowers are not contextualized; they are not playing a role in an overall scene. The subject is the flower, with no other surrounding objects to detract from the jarring, magnified depiction. This departure from convention was done so “... they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.”[2] Although some viewed her flowers as a representation of femininity, especially female sexuality, O’Keeffe rejected this notion just as she did with the sexualized image of herself. She maintained that she was simply painting what she saw, and sure enough, the centers of the flowers she was painting had both the male and female parts represented. This idea of challenging the existing notion of flowers representing a part of a scene or femininity illustrates the beginning of O’Keeffe’s modernist style of thinking. Much like Dos Passos uses his Camera Eyes as a stream of consciousness to simply give the reader a perspective from his eyes without interpreting it for the reader, O’Keeffe simply paints what she ses, without pushing the viewer to an interpretation. This modernist idea of “showing it like it is”- breaking the tradition of having works point to an overt metaphor- is something they both share.
Another modernist vein of O’Keeffe emerges with her paintings of bones juxtaposed with flowers and landscapes- especially in Summer Days. Inspired by New Mexico and Navajo culture, the way in which O’Keeffe boldly mixes the living and dead furthers the modernist theme of temporality. The ease with which O’Keeffe shows life and death coexisting next to each other contributes to the landscape as a cohesive whole instead of opposing forces. Temporality plays a role in how Hurston depicts Janie’s relationships- they grow and die, but out of the death of one comes new development for Janie and opportunity for another chance. O’Keeffe shares Hurston’s ease with life and death, perpetuating this new modernist perspective on temporality.
O’Keeffe brought to the fore techniques never before seen in the realm of painting- she experimented with the unknown and made it accepted by the public. Her departure from traditional art was welcomed, and her legacy solidified.
- Which aspect of O’Keefe’s work would you say exemplified modernist ideals the most- the fact that she was simply depicting the world as she saw it, or her experimentation with temporality? Or is it something else altogether?
- Do you think that O’Keefe is the type of trailblazing woman Hurston tries to create with Janie? Is her trailblazing itself modernist?
Summer Days, 1935 [1] Black Iris, 1926 [1]
Works Cited
Anirudh. "10 Most Famous Paintings By Georgia O’Keeffe." Learnodo Newtonic. Learnodo Newtonic, 19 Sept. 2015. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
"Georgia O'Keeffe." Bio. A&E Networks Television, 26 Aug. 2016. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
Lynes, Barbara. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
Peltakian, Danielle. "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE." Sullivan Goss American Gallery. Sullivan Goss, 2015. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
It is difficult to say which component of Georgia O'Keefe's work most reflects Modernism, but from the two pictures you posted, the simplicity of the structures themselves but the contrast between the living flowers and dead bones along with intense color variation add the tensions we seem to find in every Modernist piece.
ReplyDeleteI think the most modern part about O'Keefe's work is focusing on how a change in perspective can make something mundane seem new. There was nothing revolutionary about painting flowers, it was the unique perspective she was using in he paintings that made her work unique.
ReplyDeleteI think the way O'Keefe, as you mentioned, focused in on flowers and attempted to just portray the flower to the audience is modernistic because it is taking a very simple and natural object and painting it and just putting it up for the audience so they can appreciate. Thus, I think her oil paintings on flowers is more modernisitc.
ReplyDeleteI found the analysis of the opposition of life and death to be a recurring theme in many of the texts we have read so far. Attempting to break and blur this boundary seems relevant to what we have read so far in "Absalom, Absalom".
ReplyDelete