Chapter 29 and 30

University of Phoenix

Arts 125 Pop Culture and the Arts

Bishop James Wilkowski

December 15, 2010

Chapter 29 & 30

After reading and absorbing chapter 29, I came to the conclusion that art was a very misunderstood attribute of life. Many people did not accept that art could represent an artists’ mood or surroundings. Throughout the chapter it explains that many paintings of streets, architecture, and ordinary people emerged around the 1900s. This new art form known as realism portrayed the everyday life of people in poverty and in urban America. This time was known as the beginning of the truth. Realism was much different from the European paintings. Realism focused on the life on the streets in America. Many American’s were disgruntled about the fact painters would paint images of society suffering and in misery. This misunderstanding lead to the hardships painters faced while contributing to art galleries and shows. Realism paintings were too much for some gallery owners and they banned the art from the gallery. Robert Henri and the eight changed this a few years later. Robert understood that society wasn’t accepting this new generation of paintings, so he opened a school for painters freely to their work. Once the school was open painters began freely painting and eventually contributed to the realism movement. Robert eventually took eight men under his wing and mentored them.

Chapter 30 took realism to another realm. It focused on the fact of color and brushwork. Artists began to use color to express certain mood or meaning within their paintings. For example American Gothic, by Grant Wood. He demonstrated realism by painting a picture of his sister and dentist on a farm. In the picture the black and white clothing demonstrated religion, whereas the colors demonstrated everyday work life on