We currently live in an era where technology, art, and environment share similar ideas and works together in producing innovative artworks by artists. This has, indeed, improved skill as a whole.

Tracing back through time, you will discover an unending list of history books and art streams where seven prominent paintings have a similar story to tell.

These paintings reflect the artists’ mind in compelling us to view a subject in a different approach and perspective, and we should try to question the normalcy of the things we see.

Through their psychedelic and hyper-imagination, which they termed “normal,” was the way they expressed themselves and their ideologies.

Let us take a look at seven great examples of experimentation in art.

Grauer Tag Painting by George Grosz

George Grosz was well-known for his caricature-like paintings that showed how life looked like in the German city of Berlin at the time.

But in 1920-1921, Grosz looked for new agitprop with this work, one with stylish visual language.

With the use of mediums that breathes Italian metaphysical art themes, George Grosz went beyond Dada and New Objectivity group of the Weimar Republic era. Moving to the USA in 1933, he abandoned his earlier style of the subject matter.

The paintings reminded the world of Giorgio de Chirico, which was something that looked like faceless people in empty areas in front of some standard industrial buildings.

These details mostly represented political issues and statements rather than existential.

The painting exposes controversial issues that were highlighted by a low brick wall.

There was a cross-eyed German nationalist council officer in the foreground.

According to the New Objectivity exhibition in Manheim in 1925, the other men behind the welfare officer was a disabled war veteran, a worker, and a black market dealer.

The illustration of this art divided society into two classes.

Grosz, however, started using the critical ‘Verism’ style and did not produce any more oil paintings as the years passed. 

The Great Metaphysician by Giorgio Chirico

De Chirico was a mysterious man, and his ideologies reflected in his works. In this painting, he created an empty building square in the middle of a strange monument.

The monument was made with furniture parts and construction tools with an eerie overall display.

The edifice was lit up with the summer sunlight beaming upon it like a stage while the darkness of the skies in the horizons highlights the nightfall.

To maintain the discontinuity, the chimney of the factory can be seen in the sky where the modern era bursts into the cosmos of quattrocento.

For his transcended world view, De Chirico discovered Italy in a metaphysical stage. This view, however, was influenced by Nietzsche.

“The conception of a picture has to be something which does not make any sense in itself and no longer signifies at all from human logic,” He said.

The School of Athens by Raphael

Made by Raphael between 1509 and 1511, The School of Athens was identified as a sound reflection of the Renaissance theory.

The painting consists of many ideas of great and famous philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists formed into one image.

Here, men like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Da Vinci, and many more can be seen in the painting.

The painting shows them learning and interacting with each other.

These great men did not live during the same time frame, but Raphael majestically brings them all together. This was meant to signify the celebration of that age.

The Italian Renaissance artist created the art piece to decorate the rooms in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The rooms are now called the Stanze di Raffaello which was made to represent and pay homage to the Renaissance era.

The painting can still be found in some of the room sections, the Vatican, which was commissioned by his sponsor, Pope Julius II.

Der Radionist by Kurt Gunter

In early 1928, German art critic and historian Franz Roh discovered something about legendary paint created by Kurt Gunter.

He described the interiors as a petit-bourgeois living room.

However, this contradicts the intentions of Gunter’s idea.

“petit-bourgeois…has shut himself in on a Sunday with a crackling radio set, has clamped on headphones, opened a bottle of red wine and picked up an opera libretto and a cigar a vengeful bachelor’s idyll of our time and a musical fortification, with resistance glinting in his eyes.”

He described it as just a picture of Herr Schreck, a paraplegic and wheelchair-bound German listening to the radio as it broadcasts a program on October 29^th, 1923, which signified his improvement in expanding his social web.

In shaping the face of society, the theme of his painting highlighted the positivity and revolutionary effect of his invention.

It then later became a major subject of many more new objectives painting artworks to come.

Portrait of Madame Isabel Styler-Tas by Salvador Dali

This painting was created by the legendary Surrealists, Salvador Dali, in 1929.

The picture depicts the picture of successful Amsterdam jeweler Louis Tas’s daughter, Isabel, an arrogant and rich businesswoman.

The image had her wearing a sophisticated red clothe with a brooch of medusa pinned to her breast.

Behind her was a landscape embodied in deep fantasy. Opposite her was a fossilized version of herself, staring back at her.

With an excellent fascination for perspectives and illusion, Dali flirted with the modernism era, which was going through the cubist phase at the time.

He was able to translate old-fashioned artworks into modern issues, and that was one of the things that made him famous.

He also noted that “As far as a portrait painting goes, I intended to create a fateful connection between each of the different personalities and their backgrounds, in a manner far removed from direct symbolism.

This is in terms of medium and iconography to encapsulate the essence of each of my subject in mind”.

Roy Lichtenstein’s TAKKA TAKKA

In response to the revolution of popular culture in America in the 1950s and 1960s, there was an urgent need to maintain the status quo due to its power and growing fame.

After its emergence, there was no stopping in shaking up and then changing the perspective of art critics and conformist; in fact, the views of the whole world of art.

Takka Takka was created by Roy Lichtenstein, who was trained in the USA pilot and a World War II veteran but never saw combat.

He ironically used the style of a cartoon sound effect to name his work. “takka takka”; the sound of a firing machine gun. This artwork represents the entire elements of pop art and its importance.

About the cartoon shows and art of that time were always created to reach a common goal; a swashbuckling, funny, and ridiculously heroic commentary.

Using this style in effectively conveying his message, Lichtenstein aimed to leave a thought-provoking and effect on his audience using the juxtaposition to his advantage. This work is considered to be a great example of experimentation in art because of the artist’s courage to convey a strong perspective about a relevant subject

When Lichtenstein’s work was criticized for been militaristic, he smartly responded,” the heroes depicted in comic books are fascist types, but don’t take them seriously in these paintings. Maybe there is a point in not taking them seriously, a political position. I use them for purely formal reasons”.

The Suicide of Dorothy Hale by Frida Kahlo

This artwork is undoubtedly one of the most potent artworks to date. Despite the limited amount of details on the portrait, it was still powerful enough to shake the world when it was produced.

The artist displayed the image of Dorothy Hale’s suicide in a truly artistic manner – also one of the bold subjects when it comes to experimentation in art

However, it was not an initial plan of Frida Kahlo to paint the death of a fast-rising American actress of the time as she was commissioned to do. Read Frida Kahlo’s Lust for Life

The building she had fallen from can be seen behind almost entirely shrouded in clouds, representing the extent of the height in which she had reached and fell to her death. Frida passed her message in a strong sense of metaphor rather than literal.

Dorothy Hale’s body can be found at the bottom of the image, which symbolizes the impact of its realism.

20 famous paintings of Frida Kahlo

The painting possessed every sense of art, from the real to the surreal, which clearly shows every detail of Hale’s suicide.

Standing at 60.4 x 48.6 cm in the Pheonix Art Museum, the painting translates;

“In the city of New York on the twenty-first day of October 1938, at six o’clock in the morning, Mrs. Dorothy Hale committed suicide by throwing herself out of a very high window of the Hampshire House building. In her memory…”

Conclusion – Experimentation in Art

A brief story on how some of the most formidable artists have dug deep into their bright imagination and conjured great art pieces.

Using the medium of diverse technicalities, themes, and subjects, they flawlessly passed their message in a truly artistic manner that was sure to change the face of art as a whole.

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Some street artists might unapologetically say that street art is the greatest art movement of our time and others could care less what the art community thinks. It’s not for the gallery – it’s for the masses – to entertain, to move, to bring about thought and change.

Either way, it likely is the most provocative movement of our time. Whether the art is whimsical, or if it grounds itself in anger, images of the art go viral or are seen offline in person by thousands daily. Its messages of beauty or of truth reach people of all demographics.

The meanings and messages it leaves behind are thought bending.

Good things aren’t always beautiful. Beautiful things aren’t always good. Ugly can be made beautiful. Beautiful can be revealed as ugly.

Street Art sends strong messages from the sidewalk to the world at large

Using iconic imagery that is often recognizable regardless of language, the street artist is able to speak his opinions and solutions to a global audience, making this a rapidly advancing form of art the world over. Fans of particular artists have made a movement of uploading pictures of the artist’s work on social media as he trips around the world leaving his mark in several countries. In the case of mobile street art – such as on trains and vehicles – the art itself travels. Major print and television media outlets follow high profile or subversive street artists and broadcast their art to large audiences.

Street art isn’t limited to the street itself. It grows up and around walls, on the sides of buses and subway cars, the trunks of trees, and even on traffic signs and lights. Any kind of outdoor public medium can be morphed to express a message through the artist’s vision.

[quote_colored name=”” icon_quote=”no”]A lot of street art has an obvious, or sometimes very subtle, anti-establishment hint in it. The very mediums it uses, owned by states or corporations, are protected by law from the artist but are used without regard or in spite of it. That illegality is often a part of the message.[/quote_colored]

For millennia, people have been desecrating public buildings and spaces with their written or drawn opinions of authority figures, celebrities, and even their own friends and lovers. Archaeologists have found Roman inscriptions that mirror what’s written on the wall in our modern bathrooms.

In more recent ,mmtimes, the hobos of the early 20^th century made a language of images and symbols to communicate with each other. This language was most often found on trains, in rail yards, and on buildings near train tracks. It was from this that modern Graffiti was born.

Graffiti is, according to art historians, the direct predecessor of street art. In the 1950s and early 60s, subversive youth took the train car hobo’s medium and began to use it to relay their own messages, opinions, and to establish group territories. By the mid 60’s, an element arose that began to evolve a movement through it to speak about the current political and social turmoil of the time. Often the art spread anti-establishment messages through comic and satirical images.

Since the 1960s, street artists have grown in their passion and the resulting work has bloomed in its visual aesthetics. Early graffiti was limited to three or four basic colors of spray paint and had to be executed quickly to avoid the authorities. Modern street artists use an array of colors – or even gray scale – and don’t always limit themselves to spray paint.

Street Art Draws Culture to the City

Street art is so much a part of its environment that it not only becomes a part of the city landscape, but is born out of it symbolically and in its composition. The meaning of the work is often anchored in the place it is found in, as a commentary on the social balance of a neighbourhood or business district. The lines, angles, and brushstrokes form naturally around or in concert with the objects they are made on.

A crack in a wall becomes a river of division in a painting visualizing the separation of rich and poor, a crumbling wall is filled in with Lego bricks, or a natural vine or bush becomes the hair on a portrait painted on the wall beneath it.

[quote_colored name=”” icon_quote=”no”]Outside of the symbolic meaning of a piece, the art adds beauty or comic relief to areas of a city that are often either cold and characterless, or poor and unmaintained. By providing a visual break from the reality of depressed neighbourhoods or depressing industrial and business areas, street art gives its audience a moment of amusement, reflection, or validation.[/quote_colored]

The sudden appearance of some street art can even bring about change by spurring action in a society that has grown complacent, or by calling for a change of perspective from an establishment such as the government or a business that hasn’t recognised or acknowledged the needs of the people. Street art also inspires people to beautify the environment and draws in people that might not otherwise visit the area. This can lead to economic shift and cultural change.

Street Art offers mystery and exploration as reward

Inquisitive urban explorers are often the first to find new street art.

A subset of street artists like to hide their art in secret places. This could be as simple as painting a piece on a staircase that can only be seen from one angle to as difficult as gaining access to the basement of a long abandoned factory. The artist himself gets a taste of forbidden thrill and the subsequent explorer gets the ultimate reward of visual treasure.

Rather than falling back on the taste and judgement of a gallery or museum curator, the art explorer becomes a participant in the culture of street art, taking the active role of seeking and discovery upon herself.

Street art connects with everyone

Coming off the back of postmodernism, street artists have the ability to influence thought and restructure ideals without the limits of space and material. It lacks the desperate need to be heard and pretentious intellectual exclusivity of prior art movements. Street art can communicate ideas in an original piece that another artist may respond to or expand on with another nearby work or an addition to the one already existing. Public spaces grow and change and so then does the art on them. New artists respond to the change so that street art is ever evolving. A single piece of street art can grow in any endless direction, both metaphorically and physically.

This freedom allowed the artist and the viewer the mental space to think about the meaning of the work and the physical space for the artist to expound on the thought or for another to respond to it. A complete visual conversation can go on and on. Puzzles, trickery, satire, hidden humor, and other mind benders are often worked into the art, making it a delight to see over and over.

Street art’s former graffiti reputation as destructive vandalism has mostly disappeared. As the art form gains the notice of the art world elite, and more importantly, the masses, there is hope of success for the artist in his life and even the immediate future.

[quote_colored name=”” icon_quote=”no”]Artists are now recording the art as they execute it and play the performance on the web, thus generating cash flow. Some street art is only viewable by inserting a credit card in a structure in the wall that covers the art work. The audience pays to play and the artwork is revealed. Yes, technology has entered into art scene [/quote_colored]

There is an argument here that paying a cover charge to view what was subversive in its infancy takes something vital away from the experience. The opposing thought would be that the great artists of the past didn’t live to reap the millions of dollars their pieces are worth now, but rather scraped by penniless until their deaths and that it is only fair for the artist to receive something back for the gifts he has given to many.

Street Art is not vandalism anymore. Street Art is attitude

Street art has proven itself to be a true expressive art form. It is not an inferior form of political outcry nor is it the indifferent rebellion of a disaffected youth. Street art thinks, feels, and evokes thought and emotions in the people that view it with an open mind. Street art is executed with purpose and design with technique and intention. Street art heightens our experience of the visual landscape outside museum walls.

(Below is a short excerpt from This is Street Art Untitled III by Carpet Bombing Culture)

Street is cool.
Street is sharp. It’s being in control.
Attitude, individuality, EDGE.
Street is city blocks humming hip hop corner beats harmonizing defeat and victory.
Street is black, yellow, white, red and purple.
Worry, financial mishaps, and credit cards.
Street is struggling and juggling two jobs – rolling high, earning dirt.
Street is vampires sucking blood from the weak.
Clean, dirty – smelling of trash and posh cologne.
Street is frustration – living from one man’s hand to his neighbour’s mouth.
Expensive and dangerous. Soft drinks and hard liquor.
Warring for truth, uniting in adversity.

Street art is art.

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When we think of graffiti, the words slanderous, defiling and rubbish may come to mind.  A lot of street art has an obvious, or sometimes very subtle, anti-establishment hint in it. Street Art from the Islamic Republic of Iran is by no means different, it has become part of city’s landscape, delivering strong messages symbolically to everyone around.

The powerful messages of peace, love, and hope in a country torn apart by internal conflicts are represented by Iranian street artists through their art, and mostly these works grow in all endless direction, both metaphorically, conceptually and physically.

Filmmakers Zeinab Tabrizy and Paliz Khoshdel decided to start the initiative through their film Mutiny of Colours, to give the world the perspective from the Street Artists view.

Street Art in Iran is viewed very much the same way the rest of the world views Graffiti Artists.  The public and government believe that they are out to destroy property and make a nuisance of themselves, that their works reflect a Satanic and evil expression.

Iranians are not spinsters on expressing their feelings on all aspects of political, social and cultural aspects of their life.  The Iran Islamic Revolution in 1979, as well as the Iran Green Movement of 2009, saw many Iranians marching the streets, voicing their opinions and plastering the walls of Iran with their effectual messages.  This, according to the Street Artists, is similar to how they are communicating their thoughts and vision while maintaining their way less violent and more influential.

By using the medium of art they feel they can reach a greater audience and influence a wider band of people.

Through the movie, the Directors have approached various Street Artists, who has stronger reasoning behind their beautiful and powerful depiction of their messages.

Five artists were identified as the main contributors to the film and while they hide their faces behind masks, when being interviewed, in fear of being arrested, they are resolute in bringing their compelling messages alive through their skill. Each of these five artists has a very different message and a manner in which they express it on the walls and buildings of Iran.

One of the main contributors is CK1, who, by using Iranian literature shows his anti-war stance.  Omet draws on his childhood, stating that because he was born in the time of Iranian upheaval, he wants to reach out to the youth in the community.  Brothers, Icy and Sot, are all about peace and friendship.  And finally Lady Green reveals the synergy between government-sanctioned murals, over times of war and discord, to her graffiti-style work.

Many famous artists have supported the film’s passion and purposes, such as Faith47, Isaac Cordal and Blu, to name but a few.

The Mutiny of Colours documentary relies heavily on public contributions and while it is an on-going work, starting off in 2012, they are still looking for more funding.

Street art has proven itself to be a true expressive art form. It is not an inferior form of political outcry nor is it the indifferent rebellion of a disaffected youth. Street art thinks, feels, and evokes thought and emotions in the people that view it with an open mind.

Take a look at their compelling trailer and consider a small donation.  The cause and consequences could be huge for the Iranian population.

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