1. 20th cent. Neoclassicism

2. The Russian Avant Garde
Suprematism
( )
“Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art that, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of 'things‘.”
Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World
Geometric forms as paradigms of spiritual evolution
sacred geometry

3. Malevich Kazimir Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles
o/c, 1915, 22 x 19” 3

4. Malevich Kazimir Black Square, 1913, o/c, 31 x 31”
"the supremacy of pure feeling"
"The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling."

5. Malevich Kazimir Suprematist Composition: White on White
1918, o/c, 31 x 31”
The Black Circle, 1913, 41 x 41” 5

6. What artists found appealing about the various arcane religious and philosophical systems was
their underlying premise that the spiritual world is governed by laws that mirror natural laws and that can
be expressed in symbols. The idea is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s notion that every appearance in nature
corresponds to some state of mind. Geometric forms are thus paradigms of spiritual evolution.
The spiritual world, like the natural world, is charged with energy, producing cosmic vibrations and
human auras. The spiritual principles that intrigued certain artists included synesthesia, the overlap
between the senses by which a painting can simulate music; duality, the idea that the cosmos reflects
an underlying principle of yin and yang; and so-called "sacred geometry," the belief that, as Plato put it,
"God geometricizes."
Spirituality in Abstract Art by Pamela Schaeffer on the subject of the exhibition "The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting ”.

7. Piet Mondrian Line and color
Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red,
Black, Yellow, and Gray,
1921, o/c, 23 x 19”
Line and color
Lozenge Composition with Red, Black, Blue, and Yellow Oil on canvas 30 3/8 x 30 in. vertical axis 42 1/2 in.
“the struggle toward unity of cosmic dualities and the religious symmetry undergirding the material universe”
Theosophist
Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue 1921, o/c, 15 x 13”

8. The International Style
Architecture
The International Style
Holland, De Stijl - Gerrit Rietveld
Germany, The Bauhaus – Walter Gropius
France – Le Corbusier
USA – Mies van der Rohe

9. Leo von Klenze Walhalla Oil on canvas 95x130cm
conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria

10. Walhalla built between 1830 and 1842
Johann Gottfried Schadow, sculptor

11. Constantin Brancusi Bird in space, polished brass, 1932-40, 60”
The Newborn,
1915, marble, 8 1/2 x 6 inches
Bird in space, polished brass,
, 60”
Bird in Space, 1923, marble,
(with base) 56 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches

12. The International Style
DE STIJL
Gerrit Rietveld
dematerialization
Shroeder House,
Utrecht, Holland, 1923
UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites

13. "One of the outstanding achievements of the new constructional technique has been the abolition
of the separating function of the wall. Instead of making the walls the element of support,
as in a brick-built house, our new space-saving construction transfers the whole load of the structure
to a steel or concrete framework. Thus the role of the walls becomes restricted to that of mere screens
stretched between the upright columns of this framework to keep out rain, cold, and noise. ...
Systematic technical improvement in steel and concrete …. are steadily reducing the area occupied by
supporting members. This, in turn …. allows rooms to be much better lit. It is, therefore, only logical that
the old type of window—a hole that had to be hollowed out of the full thickness of a supporting wall—
should be giving place more and more to the continuous horizontal casement ….. And as a direct result
of the growing preponderance of voids over solids, glass is assuming an ever greater structural
importance....In the same way the flat roof is superseding the old penthouse roof with its tiled or slated
gables.”

14. Gerrit Rietveld,
Schroder House, Utrecht, Holand,
1923
Mondrian chair (Blue and Red chair)

15. The Bauhaus Workshop Wing
Walter Gropius The Bauhaus
Dessau, Germany
The Bauhaus Workshop Wing

16. Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye, France,

17. Mies van der Rohe “less is more” Lake Shore Drive Apartment Houses,
German Pavillion, Barcelona (1929)
Barcelona Chair, 1927
Lake Shore Drive Apartment Houses,
Chicago,

19. Frank Lloyd Wright
Edgar Kaufmann House, Fallingwater, Pennsilvania,

20. precision and rationality
Minimalism 1960’s +
Visual purity
precision and rationality
creator out of the work
aesthetic utopia—a universally comprehensible language devoid of reference or narrative
objects are stripped down to their elemental, geometric form,
and presented in an impersonal manner
use of industrial materials creates abstract works that emphasize
the purity of color, form, space and materials

21. Piet Mondrian Kazimir Malevich
Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles
o/c, 1915, 22 x 19”
Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red,
Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921, o/c, 23 x 19”

22. Frank Stella Purity Precision Impersonality Abstraction
Avicenna, 1960, aluminum paint on canvas, 6 x 6’  

23. Carl Andre “sculpture as place rather than form”
Viewer-interactive sculpture
144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967, 144 zinc plates
industrial materials
Modular units
Fall, 1968.
Hot-rolled steel, 21 units, 71 x 28 x 72” each

24. Donald Judd ‘the simple expression of complex thought’
‘stacks’, ‘boxes’ and ‘progressions’
‘the simple expression of complex thought’
exploration of volume, interval, space and color
Creator out of the work (external manufacturers)
Untitled, , Woodcut on paper
Untitled 1969/1982 Anodized aluminum    
Untitled,  1973, stainless steel, relief

25. Donald Judd
Untitled, Stainless steel and plexiglass, in six parts.
With Carl Andre’s 144 Pieces of Zinc, 1967

26. Portrait of the Artist Throwing Molten Lead
Richard Serra
Large scale minimalist sculpture
Portrait of the Artist Throwing Molten Lead
Torqued Ellipses, 1996, steel
13' h. x 29' L x 20' w (each)

27. Richard Serra (site-specific),
Tilted Arc, 1981, raw rusting steel, 120’ x 12’, Federal Plaza, Lower Manhatan (destroyed, 1989)

28. Maya Ying Lin The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC
1981-3, each wing 246’ long, black granite

29. "I went to see the site. I had a general idea that I wanted to describe a journey...a journey that would make you experience death and where you'd have to be an observer, where you could never really fully be with the dead. It wasn't going to be something that was going to say, 'It's all right, it's all over,' because it's not."

30. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC
Maya Ying Lin
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC
1981-3, each wing 246’ long, black granite

31. Rejection of the art object as a commodity and of the museum culture
Earthworks, Land Art, Site Specific Art
Ephemeral art
The move outdoors
Rejection of the art object as a commodity and of the museum culture
Robert Smithson
mud, precipitated salt crystals, black basalt rocks from the site; a 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide coil that stretches out counterclockwise into the translucent red water.
Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah

32. Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah
rare occasion of its re-emergence from beneath the surface of the Great Salt Lake, following a season of severe drought

33. Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico
Walter de Maria
400 polished stainless steel poles installed in a grid array measuring one mile by one kilometer. The poles-two inches in diameter and averaging 20’ height are spaced 220’ apart and have solid pointed tips that define a horizontal plane.
Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico

34. Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico
Walter de Maria
Lightening Field, 1977, New Mexico

35. Christo & Jean –Claude The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1975-85
Ephemeral, environmental, site-specific art
To "create works of art of joy and beauty" through “gentle disturbances”
The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris

36. The Running Fence, Sonoma County,
Christo & Jean –Claude
The Running Fence, Sonoma County,
California
18’ high, 24 miles long
color and sound