Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or that depends on motion for its effects. Canvas paintings that extend the viewer's perspective of the artwork and incorporate multidimensional movement are the earliest examples of kinetic art. More pertinently speaking, kinetic art is a term that today most often refers to three-dimensional sculptures and figures such as mobiles that move naturally or are machine operated. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.
There is also a portion of kinetic art that includes virtual movement, or rather movement perceived from only certain angles or sections of the work. This term also clashes frequently with the term "apparent movement", which many people use when referring to an artwork whose movement is created by motors, machines, or electrically powered systems. Both apparent and virtual movement are styles of kinetic art that only recently have been argued as styles of op art. The amount of overlap between kinetic and op art is not significant enough for artists and art historians to consider merging the two styles under one umbrella term, but there are distinctions that have yet to be made.
"Kinetic art" as a moniker developed from a number of sources. Kinetic art has its origins in the late 19th century impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet who originally experimented with accentuating the movement of human figures on canvas. This triumvirate of impressionist painters all sought to create art that was more lifelike than their contemporaries. Degas’ dancer and racehorse portraits are examples of what he believed to be "photographic realism". During the late 19th century artists such as Degas felt the need to challenge the movement toward photography with vivid, cadenced landscapes and portraits.
By the early 1900s, certain artists grew closer and closer to ascribing their art to dynamic motion. Naum Gabo, one of the two artists attributed to naming this style, wrote frequently about his work as examples of "kinetic rhythm". He felt that his moving sculpture Kinetic Construction was the first of its kind in the 20th century. From the 1920s until the 1960s, the style of kinetic art was reshaped by a number of other artists who experimented with mobiles and new forms of sculpture.
Origins and early development
The strides made by artists to "lift the figures and scenery off the page and prove undeniably that art is not rigid" took significant innovations and changes in compositional style. Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet were the three artists of the 19th century that initiated those changes in the Impressionist movement. Even though they each took unique approaches to incorporating movement in their works, they did so with the intention of being a realist. In the same period, Auguste Rodin was an artist whose early works spoke in support of the developing kinetic movement in art. However, Auguste Rodin's later criticisms of the movement indirectly challenged the abilities of Manet, Degas, and Monet, claiming that it is impossible to exactly capture a moment in time and give it the vitality that is seen in real life.Édouard Manet
It is almost impossible to ascribe Manet's work to any one era or style of art. One of his works that is truly on the brink of a new style is Le Ballet Espagnol. The figures' contours coincide with their gestures as a way to suggest depth in relation to one another and in relation to the setting. Manet also accentuates the lack of equilibrium in this work to project to the viewer that he or she is on the edge of a moment that is seconds away from passing. The blurred, hazy sense of color and shadow in this work similarly place the viewer in a fleeting moment.In 1863, Manet extended his study of movement on flat canvas with Le déjeuner sur l'herbe. The light, color, and composition are the same, but he adds a new structure to the background figures. The woman bending in the background is not completely scaled as if she were far away from the figures in the foreground. The lack of spacing is Manet's method of creating snapshot, near-invasive movement similar to his blurring of the foreground objects in Le Ballet Espagnol.
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas is believed to be the intellectual extension of Manet, but more radical for the impressionist community. Degas' subjects are the epitome of the impressionist era; he finds great inspiration in images of ballet dancers and horse races. His "modern subjects" never obscured his objective of creating moving art. In his 1860 piece Jeunes Spartiates s'exerçant à la lutte, he capitalizes on the classic impressionist nudes but expands on the overall concept. He places them in a flat landscape and gives them dramatic gestures, and for him this pointed to a new theme of "youth in movement".One of his most revolutionary works, L’Orchestre de l’Opéra interprets forms of definite movement and gives them multidimensional movement beyond the flatness of the canvas. He positions the orchestra directly in the viewer's space, while the dancers completely fill the background. Degas is alluding to the Impressionist style of combining movement, but almost redefines it in a way that was seldom seen in the late 1800s. In the 1870s, Degas continues this trend through his love of one-shot motion horse races in such works as Voiture aux Courses.
It wasn't until 1884 with Chevaux de Course that his attempt at creating dynamic art came to fruition. This work is part of a series of horse races and polo matches wherein the figures are well integrated into the landscape. The horses and their owners are depicted as if caught in a moment of intense deliberation, and then trotting away casually in other frames. The impressionist and overall artistic community were very impressed with this series, but were also shocked when they realized he based this series on actual photographs. Degas was not fazed by the criticisms of his integration of photography, and it actually inspired Monet to rely on similar technology.
Claude Monet
Degas and Monet's style was very similar in one way: both of them based their artistic interpretation on a direct "retinal impression" to create the feeling of variation and movement in their art. The subjects or images that were the foundation of their paintings came from an objective view of the world. As with Degas, many art historians consider that to be the subconscious effect photography had in that period of time. His 1860s works reflected many of the signs of movement that are visible in Degas' and Manet's work.By 1875, Monet's touch becomes very swift in his new series, beginning with Le Bâteau-Atelier sur la Seine. The landscape almost engulfs the whole canvas and has enough motion emanating from its inexact brushstrokes that the figures are a part of the motion. This painting along with Gare Saint-Lazare, proves to many art historians that Monet was redefining the style of the Impressionist era. Impressionism initially was defined by isolating color, light, and movement. In the late 1870s, Monet had pioneered a style that combined all three, while maintaining a focus on the popular subjects of the Impressionist era. Artists were often so struck by Monet's wispy brushstrokes that it was more than movement in his paintings, but a striking vibration.
Auguste Rodin
at first was very impressed by Monet's 'vibrating works' and Degas' unique understanding of spatial relationships. As an artist and an author of art reviews, Rodin published multiple works supporting this style. He claimed that Monet and Degas' work created the illusion "that art captures life through good modeling and movement". In 1881, when Rodin first sculpted and produced his own works of art, he rejected his earlier notions. Sculpting put Rodin into a predicament that he felt no philosopher nor anyone could ever solve; how can artists impart movement and dramatic motions from works so solid as sculptures? After this conundrum occurred to him, he published new articles that didn't attack men such as Manet, Monet, and Degas intentionally, but propagated his own theories that Impressionism is not about communicating movement but presenting it in static form.20th century surrealism and early kinetic art
The surrealist style of the 20th century created an easy transition into the style of kinetic art. All artists now explored subject matter that would not have been socially acceptable to depict artistically. Artists went beyond solely painting landscapes or historical events, and felt the need to delve into the mundane and the extreme to interpret new styles. With the support of artists such as Albert Gleizes, other avant-garde artists such as Jackson Pollock and Max Bill felt as if they had found new inspiration to discover oddities that became the focus of kinetic art.Albert Gleizes
Gleizes was considered the ideal philosopher of the late 19th century and early 20th century arts in Europe, and more specifically France. His theories and treatises from 1912 on cubism gave him a renowned reputation in any artistic discussion. This reputation is what allowed him to act with considerable influence when supporting the plastic style or the rhythmic movement of art in the 1910s and 1920s. Gleizes published a theory on movement, which further articulated his theories on the psychological, artistic uses of movement in conjunction with the mentality that arises when considering movement. Gleizes asserted repeatedly in his publications that human creation implies the total renunciation of external sensation. That to him is what made art mobile when to many, including Rodin, it was rigidly and unflinchingly immobile.Gleizes first stressed the necessity for rhythm in art. To him, rhythm meant the visually pleasant coinciding of figures in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional space. Figures should be spaced mathematically, or systematically so that they appeared to interact with one another. Figures should also not have features that are too definite. They need to have shapes and compositions that are almost unclear, and from there the viewer can believe that the figures themselves are moving in that confined space. He wanted paintings, sculptures, and even the flat works of mid-19th-century artists to show how figures could impart on the viewer that there was great movement contained in a certain space. As a philosopher, Gleizes also studied the concept of artistic movement and how that appealed to the viewer. Gleizes updated his studies and publications through the 1930s, just as kinetic art was becoming popular.