In this essay I will be comparing two pieces “Das Undbild” by Kurt Schwitters and “Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper” by Pablo Picasso. I will be discussing how they were influenced, and why they are modern art.
The Modern art era includes art movements between the 1860’s – 1970’s. Art at the time wanted to be new and forward thinking and some of the art styles were rejected from the past.
The first piece I will be discussing is “Das Undbild” by Kurt Schwitters, it is a collage piece. Schwitters’s began making his work from scraps, he called his first collage piece the Merz picture, then he called all his work Merz. Schwitter’s was good at putting things together and using subtle colours in his collages, he also used bold colours and shapes in clear geometric forms. His work was influenced by Cubism and Constructivism.
“Das Unbild” has a mixture of objects and texture. Schwitters uses found object/items he may have found on his journeys. They are sometimes personal items that he has used, like tickets, cinema tickets or train tickets. Also he uses typography. Schwitters was a poet and so he often used text in the collages. Through all his work he knew what he was looking for and what he wanted to make. Also In this piece I can see the heel-Rim of a shoe, Schwitter’s work is a mixture of 3D and 2D and a lot of the time the viewer can’t tell whether it’s sculpture or a 2D piece. He uses a great deal of shapes, lines, space and explores the relation between the colours. He uses browns, beige, blues and greens. This piece was created on a board which he worked on top of with different layers and items. “Das Undbild” means “The picture of and”. It is a mixture of Surrealist and Constructivist styles. My thought on the piece, overall I find the collage interesting, I like the comparison, the colours that are used. Also how there is a hint of typography, and the mixture of textures and materials. I like how the items that are used and materials links to a message, such as what’s going off at that times and also what items are around that times.
Kurt Schwitters was inspired by Surrealism which you can see in his use of collage. He referred to the collage pieces as Merz, which is a word he always used to describe his own work. He recalled the bad times of Nazi Germany in his work, which is portrayed by his use of blood red colours and the black backgrounds. Schwitter’s was influenced by the public opposition towards him during the Nazi rule of
Through all his life, Schwitters stood his ground of creation of Merz. Even though people rejected and discarded it. The Nazis found his work subversive and tried to get rid of it and destroy it. Artists that work with different materials other than paint have been inspired by Schwitters or refer to Schwitter’s work in some way. Schwitter’s work is modern as his work is different from what was being produced, also different from the things that was made before hand, also his work was influenced which makes it modern art.
The second piece I’m going to be discussing is “Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper” by Pablo Picasso. It is also a collage piece which was created in 1913. The piece was created using various kinds of media and materials, such as sheet music, newspaper, a wallpaper pattern and a cloth that has a wood-grain pattern on it. Picasso has also made drawings of a glass, using different colours and tones. At times Picasso uses some of these textures in his collage, which he applies onto the canvas. Also he used certain clippings from newspaper, he experiments with stencilled letterings. Picasso started the trend for using any objects or materials, this was new and was important for art in the later 20th-century. This series of collages by Picasso shows that oil painting is not the only way to make art on canvas. Picasso used found objects which he came across by chance; he then put them into a composition in an artistic way, which made it modern. Picasso began the area of Cubism known as “Synthetic Cubism” by making work in this way. This piece was one in a series of works. Picasso made many different musical collages on the same theme, glass, guitar and bottle of wine. Behind this, in the twentieth century were creating/ painting pieces, which normally typical flowers, fields, which weren’t the real thing. The ideas of using found objects are poetry and beauty of modernity, the use of discarded old newspapers and items found in the bin, also dime novels.
This piece, “Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper” was made out of a number different materials and media. He uses newspaper, which has faded and has a form of stencilled lettering, which was placed onto blue paper. He adds lines and lettering which says “Vieux” using pen or ink. I think this may suggest he used things that he could find around him at the time, and objects he may have found. Also it looks like he has used watercolour and charcoal; you can see this in the smudges around some of the pieces of paper and on them as well. There are great deals of shapes and lines which suggest the found items which are in the name of the work. The colours Picasso uses are creamy white, the dark green, with the grey and the faded brown. The white paper represents the guitar and the lines represent the strings. The green paper is suggesting the glass, its most typical colour for the item.
I’m not really fond of the piece, I like the colours and materials that are used, also the use of lines but I find it hard to understand what the paper/materials are trying to represent. The only one I can see is the guitar. However I do like how the paper and colours have some sort relation between them and go well with each other.
Picasso and fellow Cubist artist Braque were friends and worked together and influenced each other. Braque also used musical instruments a lot in his work; he claims that music didn’t have an influence in his work. It had been said that there was some connection with music for Picasso, as he had some musicians in his family and he travelled in the artistic community. I think this is clear in his work even if he said he was not inspired by music around him.
In conclusion, these pieces are modern because they have a great influence from what was going on at the time and the pieces that were created were different and new. They were unlike any artwork that came before them and were created in collage, a new medium, not oil paint. Also how the work reflected on what was going on in the world and the new art movements such as Synthetic Cubism, Cubism and Constructivism. Also the way they were moving away from using the typical oil painting and using found objects instead to show real life.
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