AP® Art History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/art-history/units/4/4-4)
Unit 4 · Topic 4.4
4.4 Theories and Interpretations of Later European and American Art
Many modern works were made to be open to more than one reading, and artists often wrote theories about what their art meant. This topic covers eleven works, from The Scream to Spiral Jetty, and the interpretations scholars bring to them.
Key terms
- self-portrait
- identity
- installation
- performance art
- earthwork
- site-specific art
Expression and the spiritual
The Scream (Edvard Munch; 1893; tempera and pastels on cardboard). A figure clutches its face on a road above a fjord under a blood-red sky. Munch wrote of feeling a scream pass through nature. It is read as personal anxiety, as the alienation of modern life, and, more speculatively, as a sky colored by volcanic dust.
The Kiss (Gustav Klimt; 1907–1908; oil and gold leaf on canvas). A couple embrace on a flowery ledge, wrapped in golden robes: rectangles on his, circles and flowers on hers, often read as male and female. The gold recalls Byzantine mosaics Klimt saw in Ravenna. Readings range from ideal union to the woman's passivity.
Improvisation 28 (second version) (Vassily Kandinsky; 1912; oil on canvas). Kandinsky argued that color and line could move the soul like music, without depicting things. Some see hidden themes of destruction and paradise.
Self-Portrait as a Soldier (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; 1915; oil on canvas). Kirchner, an Expressionist, shows himself in uniform with his painting hand cut off, although he was never wounded. It is usually read as the war destroying his ability to create.
Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow (Piet Mondrian; 1930; oil on canvas). Only black lines, white and the primary colors, in an off-center balance. Mondrian believed such pure forms expressed universal harmony.
Dada and Surrealism
Fountain (second version) (Marcel Duchamp; 1950, original 1917; readymade glazed sanitary china with black paint). A readymade is a manufactured object an artist selects and presents as art. Duchamp signed a urinal 'R. Mutt' and submitted it to an exhibition that claimed to accept anything; it was rejected. Dada, a movement born during World War I, mocked art's rules. Fountain raised the question of whether choosing an idea can make art. A few scholars argue another artist, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, had a role; most accept Duchamp's authorship.
Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure) (Meret Oppenheim; 1936; fur-covered cup, saucer and spoon). Surrealism explored dreams and the unconscious. Fur makes a teacup unusable and unsettling. The title, added by the Surrealist leader André Breton, invites sensual readings.
Identity and the body
The Two Fridas (Frida Kahlo; 1939; oil on canvas). Two Fridas sit holding hands, their hearts exposed and linked by a vein. One wears European dress, one a Tehuana dress from Mexico, reflecting her German father and Mexican mother. Painted around her divorce from Diego Rivera, it is read as heartbreak and mixed identity.
Woman, I (Willem de Kooning; 1950–1952; oil on canvas). Abstract Expressionism stresses the act of painting. De Kooning scraped and repainted for two years, leaving a woman with huge eyes and teeth. Critics read it as misogynist, as a fertility goddess like ancient figures, or as an attack on advertising images of women.
Art beyond the gallery
Narcissus Garden (Yayoi Kusama; original installation and performance 1966; mirror balls). Uninvited at the Venice Biennale, Kusama spread mirror balls on a lawn and sold them to visitors until officials stopped her. It is read as a critique of the art market and of vanity: viewers see themselves in each ball.
Spiral Jetty (Robert Smithson; 1970; mud, salt crystals, rocks and water). An earthwork is art made from the land itself. A 1,500-foot coil of basalt juts into the Great Salt Lake. Underwater for years, then crusted white with salt, it embodies Smithson's interest in entropy: everything slowly changes and breaks down.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Interpreting with visual evidence
Explain one interpretation of The Two Fridas, using visual evidence.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Identify: Frida Kahlo, 1939, oil on canvas.
- Step 2: State the interpretation: mixed cultural identity.
- Step 3: Provide visual evidence: European dress and Tehuana dress; linked hearts.
- Step 4: Add context: German father, Mexican mother; Mexican nationalism after the revolution.
Answer: Model answer: One interpretation of Kahlo's The Two Fridas (1939) is that it explores her mixed identity. The Frida on the left wears a white, lace European dress, connected to her German father, while the Frida on the right wears a Tehuana dress from southern Mexico, linked to her mother's heritage and to the pride in Indigenous Mexican culture that followed the revolution. The two women hold hands and share a vein between their exposed hearts, suggesting these identities depend on each other even as the cut vein hints at pain.
Common mistakes
- Calling Fountain a sculpture Duchamp made. It's a readymade; the idea and choice are the point.
- Writing that Kirchner lost his hand in the war. He was never wounded; the image is symbolic.
- Confusing Klimt's The Kiss with Brancusi's The Kiss. Klimt's is a gold-leaf painting; Brancusi's is carved stone.
- Treating Spiral Jetty as permanent and unchanging. Its look depends on the lake level.
On the exam
- Interpretation questions want the reading plus the evidence. Quote the work's details, not just the artist's biography.
- Spiral Jetty and the Great Serpent Mound make a strong comparison of earthworks across cultures.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself: 4.4 Theories and Interpretations of Later European and American Art
5 questions on 4.4 Theories and Interpretations of Later European and American Art. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
A figure with a skull-like head clutches its face on a bridge, its mouth wide open. The blood-red sky and the blue-black fjord swirl in long, wavy bands, while the straight railing of the bridge shoots sharply away. Two figures walk away in the distance.
Munch's wavy lines, unnatural colors and distorted figure are meant mainly to
A long, frieze-like canvas painted in Tahiti shows figures in a lush landscape: a baby lies at the right, a central figure reaches up to pick fruit, and an old woman crouches at the far left. A blue idol stands in the background. The title is painted in the upper corner.
Read from right to left, the figures in Gauguin's painting are usually understood to show
Gauguin's move to Tahiti to find a "primitive" life is now often criticized because
A photograph looks down on a crowded ship. On a lower deck, passengers in shawls and work clothes gather; on an upper deck, others in hats look on. A slanting gangway, a funnel and a mast divide the picture into strong shapes. The photographer took it on a voyage from New York to Europe.
Stieglitz later said that what drew him to this scene was its arrangement of shapes. This shows his aim to
The division between the upper and lower decks is often read as showing
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