An introduction to kinetic art

The term “kinetic art” derives from the Greek “kinetikos” which means “moving”. Kinetic art therefore involves elements that are in motion or are able to move, either from natural or mechanical forces. The term is also applied to works of art that gives the illusion of movement.

The use of movement allows the artist to create interesting patterns of light and shade that can be enhanced by incorporating mirrors and coloured lights to produce many unexpected effects. All sorts of materials can be used, assembled in simple or complex ways.

Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray

The first work of art to which the term can properly be applied was “Bicycle Wheel” (1913) by Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). He mounted a wheel on a kitchen stool and called it a “distraction”. This work has since been lost, but Duchamp continued to experiment and subsequently produced a number of kinetic works, some of them in collaboration with Man Ray (1890-1977). In 1920, for example, they produced an optical device consisting of rotating disks painted with lines and driven by a motor.

Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo (1890-1977), a Russian-American sculptor, was another early experimenter in this medium. In 1919-20 he put together a mechanised sculpture consisting of a metal rod that could be vibrated by an electric motor and thus give the impression of wave motion. He later created sculptures that were designed to be suspended from a ceiling or other structure and thus rotate, so that the full view could be made by a viewer who stood still rather than having to move around the sculpture themselves.

Gabo produced works that demonstrated three kinds of kineticism: those in which movable parts must be manipulated, those in which a mechanical force is applied, and those in which movement depends on a work’s position, such as under a flow of water or in moving air. Several works by Gabo, both kinetic and static, are held by Tate Modern, London. These include his 1920 work “Standing Wave”. The photo above is of “Revolving Tension”, a fountain in front of St Thomas’s Hospital, London (across the river from the Houses of Parliament).

Alexander Calder and others

Kinetic art appealed to the Surrealists, such as Giacometti and Miro, who incorporated moving parts in some of their sculptures, but it was the American sculptor Alexander Calder (1889-1976) who emerged as the first specialist kinetic artist, making his first moving sculptures in Paris in 1931. His early works were hand-operated but he later incorporated motors that performed a limited range of movements, as well as producing suspended mobiles that were subject to random movements generated by air currents. He worked mainly with metal rods and cut shapes, often in strong colours.

The kinetic principle has been adopted by many modern artists, some of whom have made extensive use of technical developments such as fibre optics and electronics to produce startling and beautiful effects. Artists of note include Jean Tinguely, Pol Bury, Heinz Mack and Lynn Chadwick. Given the huge range of materials, technologies and concepts available to today’s artists, plus the public appeal of art that does unexpected things, the possibilities of kinetic art would appear to be endless.

© John Welford

Algol, the Demon Star

Algol (Beta Persei) has another name, namely the Demon Star. The main reason for this is that it forms the eye of Medusa the Gorgon in the constellation of Perseus. The ancients thought that they could see an outline in the night sky of Perseus, the Greek hero, slaying the monster who could turn a man to stone with her stare. It is a somewhat fanciful notion, but then so are most of the assumed constellations! Perseus is close to the W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia, and is pointed to by the left-hand V.

However, Algol had another claim to fame, in the eyes of medieval astrologers, as being a star that implied danger and misfortune. The reason for this is its odd behaviour. Far from shining steadily in the night sky, it dims to 44 per cent of its usual brightness, every two days, twenty hours, forty-eight minutes and fifty-six seconds. This is not what most stars do, so there must surely be some devilry at work here!

  

The explanation was given in 1782 by John Goodricke, a young amateur astronomer from York, who was profoundly deaf and who died at the age of only 21. He not only measured the periodicity of the star but also surmised that it was caused by Algol being not one star but two, orbiting around each other and with one star eclipsing the other.

However, the second star is invisible to observers because it is outshone by its brighter companion. It has only been “seen” by virtue of spectroscopic observations of the spectral lines from the two stars as they orbit each other. As one star comes closer towards us and the other recedes, the spectral lines of each are shifted due to the Doppler effect (the same effect that is noted when the pitch of an approaching emergency vehicle siren rises as it approaches and sinks as it leaves), and can therefore be distinguished from each other. This calculation was only made as recently as 1978, at the McDonald Observatory in Texas.

So Algol is what is usually termed a double star (or binary system), meaning that two stars have been caught by each other’s gravitational pull and have never been able to escape since they were formed in a stellar nursery (the Orion Nebula is an example of such a nursery). One of the stars, which is regarded as the primary star, emits virtually all the light that we see, whereas the secondary star, which is dark by comparison, obstructs the light from the primary star as it passes between it and our line of sight. Actually, the two stars orbit around a common centre of gravity, making their orbits elliptical.

(To be completely accurate, Algol is actually a triple star system, but the third component orbits at a much greater distance than the other two stars do from each other – see illustration).

We now know that the system is about 100 light years away, and that the primary star is a white, hydrogen-burning star that is about 2.6 million miles in diameter and with a mass approaching four times that of the Sun, but shining a hundred times as brightly. For comparison, the Sun is approximately 0.86 million miles in diameter. The companion star is larger than the primary star, at 3 million miles, but with a mass and luminosity similar to that of the Sun.

The two stars are 6.5 million miles apart (measured from surface to surface). If we could imagine the primary star of Algol as being where our Sun is, both stars would fit easily within the orbit of Mercury, which at an average orbit of 36 million miles is usually thought of as being virtually on top of the Sun (Earth’s orbit is 93 million miles). The two stars of Algol are, in astronomical terms, practically touching each other.

Given that the “dark” star is larger than the “bright” one, the question arises as to why it does not completely eclipse its companion as opposed to merely reducing its light. The reason for this is that they are not in exactly the same plane as seen from Earth, and part of the surface of the primary star is always going to be visible.

Algol presents something of a puzzle, in that the two stars, which must be assumed to have been born at roughly the same time, have features suggesting that they are of very different ages. The primary star is a massive supergiant that is still burning hydrogen (as opposed to helium when all the hydrogen has been used up). Its maximum age can therefore only be about 100 million years. However, the secondary star appears to be on its way to becoming a red giant, having reached the stage that our own Sun will reach when it is about twice its present age. This suggests that the secondary star of Algol must be about 10,000 million years old. So how can the two stars have been born as twins?

The explanation, as suggested in 1955 by John Crawford, is that the secondary star is not what it seems. Indeed, it was once far more massive than it is now, probably even more massive than its companion, and it soon reached the stage at which it had burned all its hydrogen and was ready to become a red supergiant. However, as it grew it was distorted by the gravity of the other, very close, star and started to lose material to it, having become pear-shaped rather than globular. This process has continued, so that it has now lost so much mass that it only has as much as our own, much smaller, Sun. The two stars have swapped roles, with the original primary star becoming the secondary, and vice versa.

Algol, a “close primary”, has some very interesting features that are shared by some, but by no means all, similar systems that have been investigated. For example, some binary systems have been discovered where one partner has become a black hole that is rapidly consuming its other half. Perhaps there are therefore other systems that are far more deserving of the “demon star” tag!

© John Welford

Alfred Stieglitz, pioneer of art photography

Alfred Stieglitz has been called the father of modern photography in that he was the first photographer to regard what he did as an art form as opposed to merely a method of documentation. He also played a major role in defining and shaping modernism in the United States, and in championing the work of artists in other fields besides his own.

He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on 1^st January 1864, the son of a wool merchant. As a child he showed an early interest in photography, but it was only after he was sent to Europe in 1881 to complete his education that he was able to study the subject. The Berlin Polytechnic offered a course in photochemistry, and Stieglitz quickly dropped his study of mechanical engineering to concentrate on this new discipline.

He travelled widely in Europe and entered photographic competitions, many of which he won by impressing the judges with the spontaneity of his work. Already at this young age he was doing something different with the medium and making waves.

On returning to the States in 1890 he began to experiment with this new art form, and faced the technical challenges of taking photographs at night and in snow and rain. He worked for a time in photo-engraving with the Heliochrome Engraving Company.

He joined a number of photographic organizations, including the Society of Amateur Photographers (which became the New York Camera Club), because he was keen to work with other photographers, share his ideas, and learn from the experience of others.

His keenness to promote photography as an art form can be seen from his taking on the editorship of a succession of journals, namely “American Amateur Photographer” (1892-96), “Camera Notes” (1897-1902), and “Camera Work” (1902-17).

“Camera Work” proved to be a leading force in the promotion of American photography, as it featured the work of all the leading photographers of the day, including Edward Steichen and Gertrude Kasebier. Stieglitz took great care to ensure that the quality of reproduction of photographs was of a high standard, such that they could be framed in their own right. The journal also featured articles by great writers of the day, including George Bernard Shaw and Gertrude Stein.

In 1905 Stieglitz founded the 291 gallery (in New York), which was devoted to featuring photography as a branch of fine art. In particular, he promoted the work of the “Photo-Secession” group, of which he was a founder member.

However, Stieglitz was also keen to promote other forms of modern art as well as photography. The 291 Gallery and “Camera Work” both featured the work of artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne. American artists including Max Weber and Gloria O’Keeffe also owed much to their promotion by Stieglitz.

Indeed, Stieglitz was so impressed by the abstract drawings of O’Keeffe that he mounted her first exhibition at 291, and then began to photograph her in ways that fused her body with her work. In all, he photographed her more than 300 times over a 20 year period and they became lovers, marrying in 1924.

The period 1917-25 saw Stieglitz’s best work, based partly on his collaboration with O’Keeffe. Having thoroughly mastered the technical side of photography, including the use of gelatin-silver printing to achieve sharp tonal contrast and high precision, he was able to develop the artistic possibilities of photography to new heights, influenced by the Modernist movement in art. Stieglitz’s series of photographs of New York was one of his greatest achievements, as were his cloud studies.

In 1925 Stieglitz opened the “Intimate Gallery” and in 1929 “An American Place”, as successors to 291, the latter operating until his death in 1946.

What Alfred Stieglitz did was to reconcile photography as an art form with other media such as painting, drawing and sculpture. In no way did he see the new medium as a replacement for any other, but as a companion for them, a “new eye” on the world that allowed for a different and complementary aesthetic. Stieglitz had hated the approach to photography adopted by the Kodak company, with their slogan “You press the button and we’ll do the rest”. For him, pressing the button was no more significant than dipping a brush into a paint pot. The artist could feel and emote with a camera just as much as he could with paint and canvas, and the history of photography since his time has done much to confirm that attitude.


© John Welford

Alfred Stevens and the Wellington Memorial

Alfred George Stevens, Victorian painter and sculptor, might have been far better known if he had managed to be more skilful as a businessman. He must go down as a failed genius because of his inability to finish his projects, this being due largely to the exacting standards that he set for himself.

Alfred Stevens's Early Career

He was born in Blandford, Dorset, on 31st December 1817, the son of a house painter. He was largely self-taught, having spent the years from 1833 to 1842 studying classical and Renaissance art in Italy.

On returning to England, he taught design and worked on a number of projects, including designs for the lions that adorn the railings outside the British Museum and the mosaics of four prophets inside the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.

He also worked on more prosaic designs, such as for domestic stoves and fenders on behalf of a foundry in Sheffield.

Alfred Stevens worked for six years on designs for murals at Dorchester House, on Park Lane. These were never completed, and would have been lost in any case when the house was demolished in 1929 to make way for the Dorchester Hotel. However, some of the cartoons (preliminary artwork) survive, and can be seen at Tate Britain, on Millbank. His style was not so much an imitation of the forms of the Italian Renaissance as a reincarnation of its spirit.

As a painter, Alfred Stevens specialised in portraiture, although no more than 17 of his works are known to have been completed. These were technically excellent, although other portrait painters of his time may have had a better understanding of character. He demonstrated a mastery of colour and of how to apply paint.

The Wellington Memorial

However, the project that occupied him for most of the latter part of his life, and for which he is best known today, was the memorial monument to the Duke of Wellington (who died in 1852) that can be seen in the North Aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1856 a competition was announced for the commission, which Stevens entered. However, his design was well down the list of preferences, and he was only awarded the commission when proper consideration was given to how the memorial would be placed in the cathedral, framed by one of the aisle archways.

There were difficulties from the start, including Stevens’s totally unrealistic estimate of what the project would cost to complete. He also agreed to produce a full-scale plaster model in situ, which naturally led to much debate over the design, with his intentions being queried at every turn. When the money ran out, Stevens found that he had no choice other than to finance the project himself.

In 1870 there was only the plaster model to show, and the commissioner of works had Alfred Stevens’s contract terminated and his work impounded. No other sculptor could take on the task and Stevens was brought back to the project, under supervision. However, Stevens did not live to see the memorial completed as he died suddenly, in his studio, on 1st May 1875, at the age of 57. There is a suggestion that he may have committed suicide out of despair.

The monument was eventually completed in 1912, some 56 years after it began. Much of the work was done by Hugh Stannus, who unveiled an incomplete version in 1878, and John Tweed, who completed the piece to Stevens’s original design, or as close to it as was possible. Finance was the main problem, with various arms of government refusing to take responsibility or to find the funds. There was also considerable debate over what had been Alfred Stevens’s intentions, as it was well known that his plans had changed at various stages. The monument was to be surmounted by a massive bronze horse and rider, but there were doubts as to whether the structure would take the weight.

The 40-foot-high monument comprises a sarcophagus with a bronze effigy of the Duke of Wellington lying on it. A marble canopy, supported on slender pillars, rises above it. On one side of the canopy is a sculpture, cast in bronze, of Valour overcoming Cowardice and on the other side is Truth defeating Falsehood. The influence of Michelangelo is easy to see in both these bronzes. Other sculptured figures can be seen at the base and on other parts of the edifice. Surmounting the whole structure is the bronze figure of the Duke riding his favourite horse, Copenhagen, as mentioned above.

One difficulty with getting the monument completed was that for many years the unfinished work was placed in a side chapel of the cathedral where it could not be seen to advantage, with some of the excellent sculptural work not being visible. However, the full splendour of the monument is now fully on display in its rightful place. Stevens’s original 10-foot high plaster model of the monument, made for the 1856 competition, can also be seen, but at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington.

Assessing his Legacy

Alfred Stevens has been regarded by many as the finest sculptor of his age, although the small quantity of his work makes it difficult to judge its quality. What we do know is that his meticulous attention to detail and destruction of anything that he considered to be at all sub-standard means that the work that has survived is the very best that he could do, and, had he left more such work behind him, it would have been equally good.

© John Welford