FRENCH
IMPRESSIONISM AND MODERN ART
Modernism - An art movement
characterized by the deliberate departure from tradition
and the use of innovative forms
of expression
that distinguish many styles
in the arts and literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Modernism refers to this period's
interest in:
Paul Cézanne (French,
1839-1906) is often called the "Father of Modernism."
Impressionism - An art movement
and style of painting that started in
Post-Impressionism - In early Modernism,
a French art movement
that immediately followed Impressionism
and Neo-Impressionism.
The artists
involved, usually meaning Paul Cézanne
(French, 1839-1906), Vincent van
Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890), Paul Gauguin
(French, 1848-1903) showed a greater concern for expression,
structure
and form than did the
Impressionist artists. Building on the works of the Neo-Impressionists, these
artists rejected the emphasis the Impressionists put on naturalism
and the depiction
of fleeting effects of light
Fauvism - An early twentieth century art movement
and style of painting in
Cubism or cubism - One of the most influential art movements
(1907-1914) of the twentieth century, Cubism was begun by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1882-1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) in 1907. They were greatly
inspired by African sculpture, by painters Paul Cézanne
(French, 1839-1906) and Georges Seurat (French,
1859-1891), and by the Fauves.
In
Cubism the subject
matter is broken up, analyzed,
and reassembled in an abstracted
form. Picasso and Braque
initiated the movement when they followed the advice of Paul Cézanne, who in
1904 said artists should treat nature
"in terms of the cylinder,
the sphere
and the cone."
Abstract Expressionism - A painting movement
in which artists typically applied paint
rapidly, and with force to their huge canvases
in an effort to show feelings and emotions, painting gesturally,
non-geometrically,
sometimes applying paint with large brushes, sometimes dripping or even throwing
it onto canvas. Their work is characterized by a strong dependence on what
appears to be accident and chance, but which is actually highly planned. Some
Abstract Expressionist artists were concerned with adopting a peaceful and
mystical approach to a purely abstract image.
Usually there was no effort to represent
subject
matter. Not all work was abstract, nor was all work
expressive,
but it was generally believed that the spontaneity
of the artists' approach to their work would draw from and release the creativity
of their unconscious
minds. The expressive
method of painting was often considered as important as the painting itself. Abstract
Expressionism originated in the 1940s, and became popular in the 1950s.
Jackson Pollock
(American, 1912-1956)
Surrealism or surrealist art - A twentieth
century avant-garde
art movement
that originated in the nihilistic ideas of the Dadaist and French
literary figures, especially those of its founder, French writer André Breton (1896-1966). At first a
Dadaist, he wrote three manifestos
about Surrealism -- in 1924, 1930, and 1934, and opened a studio
for "surrealist research."
Influenced
by the theories of the pioneer of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (German, 1856-1939), the images
found in surrealist works are as confusing and startling as those of dreams.
Surrealist works can have a realistic, though
irrational style,
precisely describing dreamlike fantasies,
as in the works of René Magritte
(Belgian, 1898-1967), Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1988), Yves Tanguy
(French, 1900-1955), and Alfred Pellan (Canadian,
1906-1988). These artists were partly inspired by Symbolism, and partly the Metaphysical Painting
of Giorgio de Chirico
(Italian, 1888-1978). and André Masson
(French, 1896-1987), who invented spontaneous techniques,
modeled upon the psychotherapeutic procedure of "free association" as
a means to eliminate conscious control in order to express the workings of the
unconscious mind, such as exquisite
corpse.
