dc.description.abstract | Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955) is a special case among twentieth century artists. He departed from the art revolutions of the early years of the twentieth century and developed his art alone. His art did not involve complicated intellectual theory, and always aimed to represent the actual appearance of real places. In his fifty years of painting, Utrillo stock to landscape painting and focused exclusively on Montmartre in Paris, his long-time home. As a result, Utrillo’s name is closely connected with the place.
“Place” is not an objective and neutral space. People use and experience a space and at the same time get meaning and emotion generated from it. “An image” of a place is made of a memory, a photograph, a verbal description or a painting. People know a place through the image of the place in their mind. To Utrillo, Paris, especially Montmartre, was the place he lived and loved. Utrillo was an artist of landscape painting. He defined the image of the place with paintings, shared and used the collective image of Paris and of Montmartre. Because Utrillo was so close to Montmartre as a place, the making of the “image of place” can be seen as the character of Montmartre landscape paintings of Utrillo.
“Landscape” is not an objective and neutral space. It contains cultural and historical images of a site. The view of a landscape is the subjective choice of the painter, which is influenced by society and culture. The creation of a landscape painting is always involved with an existing pictorial tradition and cultural sources. Landscape painting is not only a means of the expression in painting, but also has the basic function of showing the appearance of an actual place. The repetition of a landscape image with the same viewpoint reinforces specific images of a place.
The main topic of this thesis is an in-depth look at the painter Utrillo, which sheds light on the life of the painter firstly and then studies the method of painting and the evolution of his style. Through the paintings of Montmartre, this thesis will discuss the making of the image of Montmartre. | en_US |