20th Century Art Movements

FAUVISM• Fauvism was a joyful style of

painting that delighted in using bold colors.

• It was developed in France at the beginning of the 20th century by Henri Matisse and André Derain.

• The artists who painted in this style were known as 'Les Fauves'.

• 'Les Fauves' believed that color should be used at its highest pitch to express the artist's feelings about a subject, rather than simply to describe what it looks like.

• Fauvist paintings have two main characteristics: extremely simplified drawing and intensely exaggerated color.

The Open Window, Matisse 1905

The Pool of London, Derain 1906

Goldfish, Matisse 1911

EXPRESSIONISM• The 'self expression' in the art of

Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch inspired Expressionist artists in the 20th century.

• German Expressionism is a style of art that is charged with an emotional or spiritual vision of the world.

Red Tower at Halle, Kirchner, 1915

Still from the 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Self Portrait with Horn, Max Beckmann 1938-40

ABSTRACT• Abstract art attempts to shift the

focus to one or more of those elements so the viewer can witness those elements in a new and unusual way that the viewer hasn't witnessed before.

• The word 'abstract' means to withdraw part of something in order to consider it separately.

• In Abstract art that 'something' is one or more of the visual elements of a subject: its line, shape, tone, pattern, texture, or form.

Fugue in Two Colors, Frantisek Kupka 1912

Squares with Concentric Circles, Kandinsky 1913

There is no must in art, because art is free. Wassily Kandinsky

Abstract composite, Anne Bonnet

CUBISM• Cubism was

invented around 1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

• It was the first abstract style of modern art.

• Cubist paintings ignore the traditions of perspective drawing and show you many views of a subject at one time.

• The Cubists believed that the traditions of Western art had become exhausted and to revitalize their work, they drew on the expressive energy of art from other cultures, particularly African art.

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth” – Pablo Picasso

Woman with a guitar, Braque 1913

Three Musicians, Picasso 1921

Seated Woman (Marie-Therese), Picasso 1937

FUTURISM• Futurism was a revolutionary

Italian movement that celebrated modernity.

• The Futurists adopted the visual vocabulary of Cubism to express their ideas - but with a slight twist. In a Cubist painting the artist records selected details of a subject as he moves around it, whereas in a Futurist painting the subject itself seems to move around the artist.

• The main figures associated with the movement were the artists, Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, the musician Luigi Russolo and the architect Antonio Sant'Elia.

Movement and Sensation, Balla

Dynamism of a Cyclist, Boccioni 1913

Development of a Bottle in Space, Boccioni 1913

DE STIJL• De Stijl was a Dutch 'style' of pure

abstraction developed by Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck.

• Mondrian was the outstanding artist of the group.

• Mondrian gradually refined the elements of his art to a grid of lines and primary colors.

• He saw primary colors in a universal harmony way: yellow radiated the sun's energy; blue receded as infinite space and red materialized where blue and yellow met.

Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red, Mondrian 1937-42

Red & Blue chair designed by Gerrit Rietveld, 1917

Composition VII (the three graces), Van Doesburg 1917.

DADA• It was a form of artistic anarchy

born out of disgust for the social, political and cultural establishment of the time which it held responsible for Europe's descent into World War.

• Dadaism was an ‘anti art’ stance as it was intent on destroying the artistic values of the past.

• Dada’s weapons in the war against the art establishment were confrontation and provocation.

• They confronted the artistic establishment with the irrationality of their collages and assemblages.

ABCD (Self-portrait), Raoul Hausmann 1923-24 L.H.O.O.Q., Marcel Duchamp 1919

Readymade: pencil markings on a "Mona Lisa" reproduction print

SURREALISM• Surrealism was the positive

response to Dada's negativity. Its aim was to liberate the artist's imagination by tapping into the unconscious mind to discover a 'superior' reality - a 'sur-reality'.

• To achieve this the Surrealists drew upon the images of dreams, the effects of combining disassociated images, and the spontaneous form of drawing without the conscious control of the mind.

• The most influential of the Surrealist artists were Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Salvador Dali and René Magritte.

The Persistence of Memory, Dali 1931

Time Transfixed, Magritte 1938

Uba Imperator, Ernst 1923

Abstract Expressionism• Abstract Expressionism was fueled

by the idea of the subconscious, to paint without thought was in full flow by 1946.

• The pioneers of Abstract Expressionism were Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston.

• The modern/contemporary art was the first American art style to exert an influence on a global scale.

• Abstract Expressionism was also known as ‘Action Painting’, a title which implied that the physical act of painting was as important as the result itself.

Eyes in the Heat, Pollock 1946

Painting Number 2, Kline 1954

Cherries, Guston 1976

Pop Art• Pop Art was hugely successful and

became an icon of the 1960s. The champions of Pop Art were Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.

• It coincided with the globalization of pop music and youth culture, personified by Elvis and The Beatles.

• Pop Art was brash, colorful, young, fun and hostile to the artistic establishment.

• The images of celebrity and consumerism by Andy Warhol and the comic book iconography of Roy Lichtenstein represent the style as we know it today.

Campbell’s Soup Cans, Warhol 1962

Whaam, Lichtenstein 1963

Marilyn Monroe, Warhol 1962

OP ART• Op Art is short for 'optical art'. It

was an abstract style that emerged in the 1960's based on the illusionistic effects of line, shape, pattern and color.

• Op Artists such as Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Richard Anuszkiewicz popularized the movement.

• Time magazine referred to the new wave as Op art and how it manipulated the eye.

• Op Art was very popular with the public and was quickly commercialized by the design and fashion industries.

Movement in Squares, Riley 1961

Intrinsic Harmony, Anuszkiewicz 1965

Vega-Nor, Vasarely 1969

MINIMALISM• Minimalism was not only a

reaction against the emotionally charged techniques of Abstract Expressionism but also a further refinement of pure abstraction.

• It used hard-edged forms and geometric grid structures. Color was used to define space or surface.

• Ad Reinhardt, whose late paintings anticipate Minimalism, put it simply, ‘The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. More is less. Less is more...’

• Frank Stella, Don Judd, Robert Morris, John McCracken and Sol LeWitt were important contributors to Minimalism.

• Minimalism was a style which could be easily translated into architecture and furnishing and it was.

Harran II, Stella 1967

Free Ride, Tony Smith 1962

’23’, McCracken 1964

PHOTO-REALISM• Photo-realism, also called Super-

realism, American art movement that began in the 1960s, taking photography as its inspiration.

• Photo-realist painters created highly illusionistic images that referred not to nature but to the reproduced image.

• Artists such as Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Audrey Flack, Robert Bechtle, and Chuck Close attempted to reproduce what the camera could record.

• Photo-realists typically projected a photographed image onto a canvas and then used an airbrush to reproduce the effect of a photo printed on glossy paper

Self-Portrait, Close 1997

Ralph’s Diner, Goings 1981-82

Paris Street Scene, Estes 1972

Resources

www.op-art.co.uk www.artyfactory.comhttp://www.historybyzim.com/art/http://www.incredibleart.org/links/artstyles.html http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/255397/Harlem-Renaissance/272830/Visual-art http://www.allbuyart.com/art-movements.asp