Art History Unstuffed
On line. At your convenience. In your own time. On your own terms.
For too long art history has been held hostage by scholars speaking to scholars and not to people. The purpose of this site is to educate and to inform and to do so with respect to the intelligence of the readers. Designed as a site for serious students of art history in need of solid substantive material, Art History Unstuffed is written for Twenty-First-century learners who prefer reading “text-bytes” and “sound-bytes” of targeted information.
Written by Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette, a published scholar who has researched and consolidated both well-respected classical sources and vetted the latest research, this site creates a middle ground between arcane scholarly jargon and informed discourse and presents a detailed account of Modern, Postmodern, Philosophy and Theory that is accessible to all readers interested in the history of the modern and contemporary periods.
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Art History Unstuffed is listed on the ACI Scholarly Blog Index.
Recent Posts
Current chapters of the topic of the season, part of an ongoing research project.
Cubism After the War, Part One
During the disruptive years of the Great War, Picasso and Matisse continued their work, enjoying an uninterrupted stretch of creative development. Both Picasso and Matisse moved beyond Cubism and Fauvism, running ahead of the artists who were away at war. When the War...
Art After the Great War: Post Cubism
The Great War had shaken French society and had upended its culture. The wartime losses for the nation had been staggering and the psychological blow of the German advance as far as the Marne was searing. Women had left their god-given domestic places to work in...
The Old Avant-Garde Fades
Until 1914, the words “cubism” and “avant-garde” seemed to be synonymous, but there were definite differences among the Cubist artists themselves. In the pre-war era, the Salon Cubists responded in a relatively cautious fashion to the examples of Paul Cézanne, while...
About the Author
Art historian and art critic, Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette lives and works in Los Angeles. An art historian at Otis College of Art and Design, the widely published author covers the local art scene and is the publisher of the website Art History Unstuffed.
With an international audience, this website and its accompanying podcasts provide the 21st version of learning about art, history, philosophy, and theory.
How To Use This Site
Welcome to Art History Unstuffed, and to education in the twenty-first century
For Students
In contrast to the traditional text books, Art History Unstuffed exists on online where there is infinite space. The site can therefore go into depth and provides a fuller discussion of topics in art and theory.
For Teachers
Designed as an addition to classroom instruction, Art History Unstuffed is not a course but an extension of topics found in a survey art history class.
For Artists
Professional artist and students in studio art courses can find fast, easy access to information about famous historical artists.
For Museums
Art History Unstuffed can be a valuable resource in presenting information on modern and contemporary art for docent programs, which concentrate on training the teachers on the collections in your museum.
Podcast
Seeing to present art history to a variety of learners, Art History Unstuffed presents the Soundbytes in Modern Art podcast. These episodes are available as single units or can be found as a virtual book on iBooks, free of charge under the title: Art History Unstuffed: The Podcasts. Each episode discusses a single topic at greater length than the written posts, which are about 2500 words each. Each podcast ranges from 15 to 20 minutes and is part of a series that treats an artist or a topic over an hour of listening. The episodes are, therefore, discussions at a higher level and are geared more to graduate students and to colleagues than to the beginning student.
Episode 40: Painting 7 – Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg and Modernist Aesthetics
Clement Greenberg was a rare character in history: the right person in the right place at the right time, writing the right things to the right people. A New York intellectual and art critic, Greenberg was uniquely positioned to be “present at the creation” of The New York School during the 1940s. Greenberg’s art critical writings made the case for the importance of American art in the history of Modernism. Perhaps his most important contribution was to introduce the Modernist aesthetic or definition of art to his American audience. His “formalist” ideas would dominate the New York Art world for decades to come.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 39: Painting 6 – Art In New York
Modernism in New York City
Why and How did the impetus for Modernist painting move from Paris to New York? This podcast traces the historical and artistic reasons that resulted in New York becoming the center of avant-garde painting the Fifties. The presence of the European exiles in the city, the availability of innovative art in the Museum of Modern Art, and the sense that European modernism was exhausted combined to give rise to a new school of art called The New York School or the Abstract Expressionism.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 38: Painting 5 – Art Between the Wars
Art Between the Wars
Although art history usually passes over this inter-war period quickly, pausing only for Dada and Surrealism, these decades were significant for the continued development of painting. After decades of avant-garde art, Europeans began to consolidate the innovations and inventions of the new century. While the art scene in Paris returned to conservative market-based art, the experimental mind-set shifted to Berlin, the new capital of art between the wars.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Videos
The complete Art History Timeline – this twenty-seven episode series of five minute videos span Western art history, from the Caves to Romanticism. Produced with the assistance of Otis College of Art and Design, these can be used by students and teachers as introductory, supplementary or review material.
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Shop
Show off your smarts. Art history unstuffed merchandise makes great gifts for you and your colleagues.
The Writing of Cubism:
The Construction of a Discourse, 1910-1914
$20.00
New Artwriting:
Creating a Culture of Cyber Criticism
$10.00
Falling Through Postmodernism.
Volume One: Blindness (Volume 1)
$30.00
Forthcoming Books
To continue to the circulation of her contributions to Heathwood Press, Dr. Willette has assembled the articles, published and not yet published, into a new book on the avant-garde. This new book will include other articles available on Academia.edu and Heathwood Press. This most recent series on the historic avant-garde was being written in response to the centennial of the Great War. After a remarkable span of five decades, the avant-garde was ended by this war in Europe. The war exiled and killed the artists, ended art movements, and scattered avant-garde art, now left to the mercies of totalitarian regimes. Now that a century has passed it is time to re-examine the avant-garde and re-write its details, reexamine the art historical assumptions, which constructed the idea of provocative art. This forthcoming book also seeks to relocate forgotten art, left behind in the rush towards the future.
Dr. Willette is currently completing an entirely new kind of book on design, a book that is multi-modal. Offering multiple modes of output, this book offers the readers several ways of receiving information, slide shows, podcasts, texts and images. The interactive book, Design and the Avant-Garde, 1920-1940, will be divided into several volumes. Volume One will focus on the interconnections between art and design at the fine-de-siècle period, leading up to the creation of “modern” design.
“Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.”
— Jackson Pollock