Breaking the Artists’ Mould: Essay 2019

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Breaking the Artists’ Mould What happens when artists break the Order of Things? Every historical period is characterised by a

shifts of landscape art from the past 200 years:

fundamental paradigm, or episteme, and every

Firstly, by focusing on the works of Romanticist

historical movement either begins with or

artist J.M.W. Turner, and secondly by linking

brings about one or several paradigm shifts. In

this to the works and ethos of Fauvist artist

art especially, these paradigm shifts are visible

André Derain. In my analysis I will be referring

in how representation of a subject or a context

to several of their respective artworks, as well as

can change over time, often with just one

referring to artworks from their contemporaries

person or a select group of people kindling

and their forerunners The methods used by

these shifts in perception and representation.

these artists in their paintings demonstrates the ways in which they broke the Order of Things

Many critics and historians attempt to contextualise these paradigm shifts by searching along a timeline for their

that had come before them, shaping art and representation and the way we as viewers perceive it, for ever.

fundamental cause or starting point. However, linearity is far from the only way of exploring

My starting point when considering this was

this, and in fact only started being the more

Foucault’s own analysis of Las Meninas

common method in the late 19th century/after

(published as a preface to The Order of Things),

the 19th century.

a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez of the Royal family of Philip IV of Spain, and one of the most analysed paintings of Western art history. Foucault’s study illustrates how

By following on from the theories of French Post-Structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault, specifically those explored in his 1966 book Les

Mots Et Les Choses: Une Archéologie des Sciences Humaines (translated into English as “The Order of Things”, 1970) , this essay aims to examine two of the most powerful paradigm

Velázquez’s painting came to be at a time when visual representation was drastically altering in the Western art world from depicting resemblances to curating representation. As stated by Foucault (1966, pp. 3-18) Velázquez manages to capture this moment of change in his painting, where he re-creates the order of


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