Art History

Art History Essay

Australian artists during the 1930's and 1960's dealt with the social and political turmoils which occurred during the great depression by depicting the problems in their works. During this time, Australian artists became social realists. Yosl Bergner and Noel Counihan are examples of political artists and had a very strong social and political conscience. The artists always depicted the cruelty and suffering the society was facing and responded to their own voices. Common matter such as poverty, homelessness, isolation, drunkenness, immorality, general sadness and depression were just some of the things that were portrayed in these artists' works. Similar to the social realists there was also a group called the angry penguins, who which used similar colours and subject matter in their works. Artists such as Albert Tucker and Arthur Boyd were angry penguins and believed that whatever the artist wanted to paint they should paint it. The group explored social issues and Australian myths. They wanted to use European styles and adapt those styles to create Australian landscapes and colours. They also wanted Australian artists to take on board all the modern European styles and interpret those styles to Australian culture.

Albert Tucker was apart of the angry penguins and exposed the problems faced from the war and how society were throwing away their morals and values. One of Tucker's friend said of one series of his works, "that he dealt not in prettiness, but unsettling truths." The same could be applied to most of his life's work. Throughout his lifetime, Albert Tucker's work represents a reactive response to the issues and the environment surrounding him. Often difficult and abrasive, the work reflects the artists struggle to come to terms with a society he was at odds with, with whom he did not share a moral ground. The scenes he took in of Melbourne, and especially of Melbourne night life gave rise to the Images of Modern Evil series, 1943-1947. A city, which he felt, demonstrated a total collapse of simple morality. He described his feelings of shock and outrage, particularly to see schoolgirls trotting home from school only to reappear donned in miniskirts made out of Union Jacks and American flags heading off for a wild night in St Kilda. His works depicting scenes of drunken Australian and American soldiers and the 'victory skirts' of the women. Tuckers work Ð''Victory girls' shows the horrible scenes of how women just gave themselves to men as if they were sex objects. Tucker focused on the negative problems that society was facing and wanted people to realise what they were doing. The dark tones in the work contrasted with bright tones (girls) creates them as if they are objects. The colours are dirty and grungy and emphasise the environment. The works of Albert Tucker totally challenge his morals and values. I think he could not believe what he was seeing and was disgusted and shocked by what was happening. He's very conservative through his works and highlights the conditions and problems that society was going through and purely aimed for shock value.

Arthur Boyd was much alike as Albert Tucker as they were both in the Angry Penguins and depicted similar subject matters. His early works drew on his wartime experiences and his travels throughout central Australia and Aboriginal communities. Later his paintings drew from personal experience, and reflect family relationships, values and religious beliefs, and symbolize human passions such as love and aggression. His expressionistic wartime paintings, with their images of cripples and those deemed unfit for war service, were painful images of the dispossessed and the outcast. Two of these paintings established his reputation, Ð''The Mockers', and Ð''The Mourners' of 1945 used biblical subjects as an outcry against the concentration camps of World War II. Boyd's works are based on stories of the Old Testament from the bible, as he takes the story and puts it in his local environment. Today, they remain wonderfully vehement pictures; their heartfelt anguish all the stronger for the awkward clumsiness of Boyd's figurative drawing.