White Paintings

Robert Rauschenberg, White Painting [three panel], 1951

“Bridge” by Robert Ryman (1980).

Verbs used with images:

illustrate
depict
portray
render
describe
represent
symbolise
convey
delineate
show

sketch
display
draw


Words sometimes used with abstract art

compose
assemble
position
arrange
layer
juxtapose
contrast
suggest
evoke
surface
cover
situate

connect

relate

balance



Try using these words in sentences

“Art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible.”
- Paul Klee


Discuss the quote.


 - What is the difference between 

A painting and photograph?
A painting and an image?

This video was suggested by my student Amaru.

Watch:

Why these all-white paintings are in museums and mine aren't


1. Which movement are white paintings associated with?

2. Who is "THE" abstract expressionist?

3. What's the difference between minimalism and abstract expressionism?

4. What is a the most common reaction to minimalist art?

5. Where does minimalist art "live"?

6. What should you do after your first reaction to an ambiguous work of art?



Listen again and fill in the gaps:

1. The first man sees only "a blank canvas with some _____"

2. Robert Ryman's painting, which is entitled ____, sold for 20.6 Million.

3. There are a lot of these _____-______ "white paintings"

4. Minimalism first ______ in the late 1950s.

5. White is always _____ in some way.

6. There a lot of very small and faint ______ that make it more than just a white canvas.

7. Abstract Expressionists believed art ought to be _____, expressive and emotional. 

8. Minimalists thought the  art object - ___ it sculpture or painting or installation - should be removed from the author.

9. Minimalists took away the ______ of art needing to be about something else.

10. A group of _______ friends are torn apart when one of them buys and all white painting.

11. Pop Art has a lot of very easy-to-recognise ________

12. A lot of art today has more to do with the ____ than "skill".

13. It's easy to be _______ of things that don't immediately grab our attention.

14, According to the curator, an all-white painting may teach you about itself but also _______.

Collocations








Erased de Kooning  (1953)

Before watching - Why would one artist erase the work of another artist and exhibit it as an art work?

0:00 - 1:30

1. What Rauschenberg's relationship with the de Kooning circle.

2. "I kept making drawings myself and erasing them. And they just looked like an erased Rauschenberg. You know, it was nothing. So I figured out that it had to begin as art. So I thought it was going to be a de Kooning - it was going to be an important piece. Do you see how ridiculously you have to think in order to make this work?"

Discuss the quote

3. Before watching the next part, how do you think Rauschenberg went about getting a de Kooning piece and erasing it? How do you think de Kooning reacted to the idea?

1:30 - 3:28

1. What were de Kooning's two conditions for allowing Rauschenberg to erase his work.
2. What is on the other side of the erased work?
3. How do you think the public reacted to the final work?
4. How you think Rauschenberg felt about the work?

3:28 - end

After watching

What do you think of what Rauschenberg did?