| Artist: | Henri, Robert |
|
|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | Eva Green | |
| Date of Work: | 1907 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Context: | Pre-WWI | |
| Movement: | Ashcan School | |
| Medium: | Oil | |
| Subject: portrait of a young American girl that gives a living, breathing likeness. Henri's affection for his subject comes through here as he expresses the "spirit" of his sitter, who emerges as a true individual, and not as an academic convention or abstract mask. Consider how different this face is from the German Expressionist zombies Kirchner painted in the big city streets, or the African mask-inspired faces of Picasso's Demoiselles, painted the very same year as this portrait! Henri practices a humanistic or subjective realism, in place of distortion and formalist experiments. In a way, he picks up where Eakins left off, stressing character and individuality as American ideals. Style: most of the artists that Henri gathered together under the neutral heading "The Eight" started out as newspaper journalists. They thus were used to working quickly and focusing in on the telling, annecdotal detail; they worked directly from observation of life and usually convey an affection for their subjects. What they are after is a slice of life. Though Henri himself had not worked as a newspaper illustrator, he was the spokesman for the group, proclaiming an art-for-life aesthetic, rather than an art-for-art's sake. They do not idealize or abstract. In a way they were the urban rappers of their day. Henri's own style was influenced less by the Impressionism he had seen when he traveled to Europe than by the 17th c. Dutch artists he saw, especially Frans Hals, whose dark palette, rapid gestural strokes, and eye for penetrating character study greatly impressed Henri. Context: America is the New World, and quite different from the Old World with its European avant-garde. The Eight were not so concerned with aesthetic theories or breaking with tradition; America had no real art traditions to break from! They were concerned with the American experience, and their art is based on that and a realism that comes from direct observation of life. The critics who thought their work was not beautiful in the Academic sense, dubbed them the Ashcan School, deriding them for the dirty, unseemly details of urban life that they did not edit out of their art. The critics thought their work belonged in the ashcan, but the public embraced The Eight when they exhibited together in New York in 1908. What held them together as a group was not a group style; Henri believed too much in individualism as an important aspect of the American character. Thus, there is stylistic individuality among The Eight, from Henri's unidealized city streets with their dirty snow to Arthur Davies's fantasy scenes of unicorns and arcadian dreams. The majority of the group, however, worked in a style that can be called humanistic or subjective realism, which emphasized the individual and expressed what Henri called "the spirit of the people." | ||
