In the 16th and 17th centuries, a time of great discoveries resulting from expeditions to various parts of the world, the so-called “cabinets of curiosities” began to proliferate in Europe. These spaces exhibited articles and treasures considered strange or curious, representing the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In addition, these places also showcased inventions or human creations. Such is the case of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who had a large collection of artworks that he made available to the public for their knowledge.
When human beings decided to gather these objects in the same space, catalog them, store them and make them known to the public, they were carrying out one of the most important historical events in art: the creation of museums. Apart from this, other highly relevant events have marked trends and key moments in art. These are some of them.
The Discovery of the Altamira Cave
This site, located in the north of Spain, has the honor of possessing the first artistic manifestations of humanity. Henri Moore called it The Royal Academy of Rock Art. Over 270 meters, the walls of this cave are decorated with figures of animals, hands, and symbols of stupendous pictorial technique in a sample that art is a manifestation and a natural need of the human being. They have been a great source of inspiration for artists of the stature of Joan Miró. It is estimated that this cave was inhabited approximately 13,000 to 35,000 years ago.
When Leonardo Da Vinci Painted the Mona Lisa
Leonardo is one of the most extraordinary artists the world has ever seen in its long history. Considered an example of homo universalis par excellence, he was a scholar of diverse areas of knowledge: anatomy, hydraulics, botany, and architecture; however, he is best remembered and recognized for his artistic work. Especially, for his iconic painting of universal art: the Mona Lisa (1503), which has exerted an intense fascination on the part of historians, critics, and the public of all times due to its hidden history and mysterious smile.
The Day Caravaggio Used the Camera Obscura for the First Time
To paint his models and achieve the desired effect, the Baroque artist used revolutionary optical instruments. 200 years before the camera was invented, Caravaggio would lock himself in a dark room with his models, cut a hole in the ceiling to illuminate them, and, with the help of a mirror and a lens, project the image onto his canvas.
Roberta Lapucci, a professor at the Studio Art Centers International in Florence, says that this technique was revealed to Caravaggio by his friend Giovanni Battista Della Porta, a physicist. The artist managed to fix the images on the canvas by exposing them for half an hour and with the help of light-sensitive chemicals, such as lead carbonate and various minerals that were visible in the dark. In this way, he could draw a preliminary rough sketch.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and the First Photograph
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the very first photograph and Louis Daguerre perfected his technique. Both men changed the destiny of art by being the first to obtain permanent still images. From the window of his barn in the community of Saint Loup de Varennes, France, the engineer Nicéphore Niépce took, in 1826, the first photograph preserved to this day. Point de vue du Gras, is the title of the image now in the Gernsheim collection at the University of Texas. In 1839, Louis Daguerre announced and disseminated his “daguerreotype,” a method of capturing images employing a camera obscura on a metal plate. This device only allowed obtaining an original copy without the option of making duplicates.
The Year Duchamp presented The Fountain
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp presented his work The Fountain before the Society of Independent Artists in New York. It was a simple toilet that bore the signature of R. Mutt and began a whole artistic revolution known as avant-gardism. This piece was called a “ready-made” or found object. Duchamp believed that any everyday object could become a work of art if it was taken out of its original context and moved to a museum or gallery, thus acquiring a reinterpretation of its meaning.
The piece was rejected at the time Duchamp submitted it for exhibition. The only record that exists of this work is the photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz. The Fountain is considered the beginning of a new form of art in the 20th century.
William Turner and His Landscape Work
The breath is cut short when the gaze discovers the landscapes of William Turner, a British painter who focused his attention on the beauty of nature to stop focusing the art on human beings, which form one more piece within the sublime immensity of his paintings. The intense colors, the wildness of the natural elements, and the invitation to lose oneself in the freedom that the world grants are the main characteristics of a work that broke schemes and opened the limits of pictorial work.
Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the Birth of the Avant-Garde Movement
With this work, Picasso gave way to the cubist movement, one of the so-called avant-garde, in which the laws of perspective were altered, and the figures were presented under flat geometric shapes and dispersed appearance. It was his letter of introduction to what art was to become in the twentieth century: innovative expressions that broke with the classical molds. Cubism draws from African primitive art, as can be seen in the face of one of the young ladies, who seems to wear a mask.
At the time, this work did not enjoy the general acceptance of artists or critics; however, time has given it the place it deserves as one of the works that initiated the transformation of art towards new paths. It is currently part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where it has a privileged place among visitors.
The Rebirth of San Francisco
This period was characterized by a strong explosion of poetic and countercultural activity in the city of San Francisco, California, in the 1950s. Writers and visual artists were strongly influenced by Eastern philosophies and models of life-based on new social sensibilities. A remarkable revival of American avant-garde poetry was also experienced. One of the best examples is Kenneth Rexroth (also considered the father of the San Francisco renaissance): his poetic activity delved into the Japanese art of haiku and was strongly influenced by jazz.
Various poetry readings in cafés and galleries, in which young creators participated, characterized this movement in which the birth of the Beat Generation is framed. Jack Kerouac’s novel The Dharma Vagabonds describes one of the most famous readings of that period: the one held at the Six Gallery on October 7, 1955, organized by Kenneth Rexroth. Kerouac describes the moment when the poet Allen Ginsberg read his famous work Howl.
The Day Andy Warhol Transformed the Popular into Art
Warhol’s contribution was decisive for the history of art: he opened the doors of the popular and the commercial to be seen as a creative manifestation. His famous paintings of Campbell’s Soup or the portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley were the absolute statement about the culture of consumerism that was gripping the United States in the 60s and 70s, as well as the fascination of an entire nation for stars they considered new gods.
Superficiality and materiality were portrayed in his paintings and films as something that could achieve relevance. Early in his career he was criticized and ridiculed; today he is considered an artistic genius and one of the most relevant figures of the last century. What did Warhol say about being an artist? “An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have.”
Every day another page is written in the history of art, offering us new perspectives on the knowledge and creation of our species.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
