How To Keep It Modern
The modern movement that swept the Armory show in 1913 was the a grand coming out of a new art style that focused more on the audiences interpretation on what the artwork was saying. Chester Beach’s sculpture “The Unveiling Of A New Dawn” and Henry Reuterdahl’s “Blast Furnaces” are two pieces of artwork that perfectly fit into the genre of Modernist movement. Both pieces of art are meant to being out emotion of the subject of the piece. The style of each piece varies from the classical style of art that had a structured form in technique and also subject matter. Beach and Reuterdahl’s artwork show the emerging industry and urbanism that was making large changes in American life. Each art piece is an example of the change going through the U.S. that time and the affect it had on the people.
Upon viewing Chester Beach’s sculpture the viewer experiences the fantastic element of the art. The structure of the piece is done in traditional marble statue, but the form completely moves away traditional status of poising men or woman reenacting historical events. Instead, Beach sculpts a human man molding into the globe of smoke which is formed into a man’s face. The title “The Unveiling Of A New Dawn” invokes the feeling of evolution, of growth in the human spirit and mind. The point of Beach’s sculpture is the emotions it invokes, not finding out the true interpretation of the piece.
Similarly, Henry Reuterdahl’s “Blast Furnaces” is a portrait of factory wharf of a city. The style which Reuterdahl paints focuses the viewer’s attention on the feeling of heating and activity as everything in the painting is in motion from the impression of the brush stroke. By taking away the familiar style and technique of classical painting, Reuterdahl is defamiliarizing a common picture of factory life. Rather than just painting a scenario of a bustling industrial wharf, Reuterdahl wants the viewer to feel the heat of the working factories, the movement of working men, the taste of smoking coming from the roof tops-all perceptions that the viewer would make for his or herself. Reuterdahl’s painting is Modernist because it forces the viewer to engage or interpret it differently than what he or she is used to.
Another element of the two pieces of art is the way both artist try to trick the viewer. Beach and Reuterdahl take common scenes, a nude man and a wharf for a factories, and adds a twist that makes each scene unusual. For Beach, he chose to meld the form of a man into a larger sculpture of a man’s face made up from smoke. Different angles would show the viewer different interpretations of what the sculpture is. For Reuterdahl, it is the vibrant color and style of brush stroke that make his painting so vivid. Is the factory on fire? Or the blast of heat from the furnace so intense that it melts the perception of the viewer. There is no right interpretation of Beach and Reuterdahl’s pieces. The way both paints affect the viewer’s thoughts and feelings is proof that both pieces are of the Modernist genre.
on May 19, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Interesting reading of “Blast Furnaces” I wonder if this painting isn’t noteworthy in its use of techniques often applied to natural scenes to the industrial cityscape, therefore celebrating it . . . I don’t really have the art history background to argue this, though! You argue well for your overall point, that these pieces emphasize an emotional impact — and therefore the act of interpretation? — on the part of the viewer, and are were made by artists willing to depart from earlier aesthetic practices to achieve these effects.