Word: ashcan
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...anecdotal, and the academic. Though Stieglitz had exhibited such men as Matisse, Picasso and John Marin in his Manhattan gallery, the critics' verdict on his shows ranged from a patronizing "bewildering" to a savage "subterhuman hideousness." The most vital American painters were a group subsequently known as the Ashcan School, but their harshly realistic paintings were receiving almost no recognition. "Stop studying water pitchers and bananas and paint everyday life," cried Cincinnati-born Robert Henri. But the Academy and the public preferred the bananas...
...formed the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, which, they hoped, would put on an exhibition that would have the same notoriety and success as Paris' Salon des Refusées. As president, they chose Painter Arthur B. Davies. not so much because he had exhibited with the Ashcan School, but because he knew people of wealth and position. The choice had repercussions no one foresaw: while the Henri group wanted to put on a huge exhibition to call attention to "progressive" American art, Davies happened to have an instinctive appreciation of the experiments going on in Europe...
Davies was an odd choice for commander in chief in the modernists' battle against the academics. Though Davies was friendly with the original members of the realist Ashcan School,*his own paintings pictured a vernal never-never land of cavorting nymphs and nice little girls, a tearless world where Purity and Joy joined in allegorical dances and virgins herded unicorns beside an unruffled sea. His work had become vastly popular with the public, and Davies' support for the Armory Show was proportionately influential. He rallied a group of wealthy, art-minded New Yorkers (including his own patronesses. Gertrude...
...large degree, modern art has been one long exercise in rebellion, and that has suited Davis' temperament perfectly. At 15 he joined a class run by Robert Henri, an "Ashcan School" painter who was in revolt against all the ready-made standards of beauty and proportion handed down year after year by the powerful Art Students League. Davis' next teacher was the 1913 Armory Show, which he saw when he was not yet 20. It was sheer emancipation to see that Van Gogh and Gauguin used color, not as nature had it, but almost arbitrarily in accordance with...
...which is indispensable in the statesman-practical wisdom. In the world of the intellectual, ideas meet with ideas, and anything goes that is presented cleverly and with assurance. In the political world, ideas meet with facts which make mincemeat of the wrong ideas and throw the pieces in the ashcan of history...