Art Appreciation – UNIT IV

MODERN WESTERN ART

The history of Modern art begins in the 18th century when the age of reason succeeded
the age of authority. The groups or movements enfolded by ‘modern’ represent different
approaches and fashions which overlap each other and have no fixed dates. In most cases
they react against one another, and seem to agree only on the liberty to experiment freely,
unrestricted by classical subjects and Renaissance techniques.
The so – called modern movement began in and around Paris as a declaration of
independence against the stronghold of official academic art had not only survived the
French revolution but had become even more conservative.
The academy imposed effected notions of classical beauty and unprogressive subjects
and methods. Anyone who revolted against its absolute standards had to pay the price of
ridicule and poverty since the official society of French Artists refused to exhibit his
works in the Salon, the annual art exhibition in Paris.
Painters like Millet, Courbet and Daumier rebelled against the popular subjects
imposed by the Academy and paid for their liberty with the costly price of poverty.
Others slowly began to rebel against the academic methods. While the academy favored
dull, unattractive colours, Delacroix introduced riotous ones considered barbaric at the
time. His observation that it is ‘advisable not to fuse the brush strokes as they will fuse
;natural at distance; thus colour gains energy and freshness’ had great influence on the
Impressionists.
In the 1860’s a group of young artists, each with a different temperament and origin,
met in from the restrictions of the official Academy and to remain in contact with nature
and life away from the cities. Monet, Boudin, Jongkind developed their colourful, fluid
and ethereal style.

EDOUARD MANET ( 1832 –1883)

Although the term ‘Impressionism’ was first used in 1874 by a journalist ridiculing a
landscape by Monet, the bitter controversy that raged for 20 years over the merits of
Impressionism began 11 years earlier. In 1863 at the Salon de Refuses,Paris, Manet was
among the rejected artists by the jury for the Salon that year and he shocked the public by
his exhibit ‘Luncheon on the Grass’.
Edouard Manet was a painter of genius and one of the heroes of 19th century French art
He had – a spontaneous approach to painting
- summary style
- use of bold contrasts and strong colours.
Eg:1. Luncheon on the Grass (1863)
- shows a nude woman in a park with 2 clothed male members
- The landscape is semi- mythological
- Grouping of the figures were the influence of Raphael’s paintings –Triangular
composition
- The nude looks boldly and straight to the viewers.
- She is striking because of the colour contrast
 - Her pose is unpretentious
- The dress of the men are the dress of the time
- The still life is rendered in a realistic manner
- The popular indignation arouse because of the classic pasteral subject (a nude
woman and 2 clothed men seated in the woods)had been translated to the
contemporary terms.

2.

Olympia (1863)
- Manet himself considered this work to be his greatest
- But this painting evoked unprecedented abuse when it was first exhibited at
the Salon of 1865.
- Her direct, imperturbable gaze, made the picture seem shocking
- Olympia’s hand is bold in outline but rather flat
 - Manet’s critics objected to the lack of traditional modeling through light and
shade.
- His direct frontal lighting gives the effect of a photograph taken by flash.

3. A Bar at the Folies- Bergere (1882)

- This was his last monumental work
- This is in some respects his most successful interpretation of a modern scene
- The surface of his canvas vibrates with reflections of light spilling from the
gas lamps over the figures and the brilliant still life of fruit and bottles on the
counter
- In this study of artificial light,both actual and reflection in the mirror at the
back, the subject matter has lost its earlier importance
- Manet tells more about his visual experience than about the Bar maid and the
customers.
- Because of the way in which he has painted them, Manet has sometimes
been considered the pioneer or initiator of Modern painting.

After 1870,Manet adopted the Impressionist technique employing their use of

colour and rejecting black.

IMPRESSIONISM
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 Impressionism is the artistic movement, which flourished in France from 1860.
Impressionism came to birth in the light and moisture-filled atmosphere of Seine
estuary and the channel beaches where Boudin, Jongkind and Monet developed
their style. They refused to look at nature in the set Academic form, but observed
the ever new revelation of its wonder and beauty. Jongkind’s art of changing
atmosphere and Boudin’s reflections of light prepared the way for Impressionism.
- Monet and Pissarro painted a new kind of open-air landscape with particular
emphasis on light and water.
- The small brush strokes to represent the reflection of light on the water spread
over the whole landscape.
- The invention of bright chemical pigments enabled these painters to give up
the duller earth colours.
- They observed that the colour of an object is constantly modified by the kind
of light in which it is seen and by the reflections of other objects falling on it.
- They noticed that shadows are full of colour.(The shadow of an object
possesses something of the complementary colour of the object.
- The Impressionists did not mix their pigments before applying them but put
the primary colours near each other in small dabs.
- Distance would fuse them for the eye into brighter tones.
- Brush strokes were short and choppy
- The Impressionist technique, despite its unfinished look, required painstaking,
scientific precision
- Their primary aim of reproducing the fleeting effects of light and air at a given
moment made them lose sight of the three-dimensional character of forms and
perspective.
- They sacrificed solidity to brilliant colours.
- They broke up contours and abandoned modeling and precise detail
- They were more concerned with technique than with the subject.
- Their spots of colour represent light on an object rather than forms, which are
distorted in the shimmer of light and atmosphere.

CLAUDE MONET (1840 –1926)

- The most important , skillful and daring of the Impressionists whose painting
‘Impression Sunrise’ gave the movement its name. He discovered from his on-
the-spot observation of sunlight on the banks of the Seine the technical principles
of the style, namely the fragmentation of colour into flickering spots.
- Monet noticed that the appearance of objects changes constantly, that a
landscape is not the same at sunrise or in twilight, in spring or summer.
(Monet used to go in the morning with several canvases to the spot he wanted to paint.
He worked on the first canvas until his eye detected a change of light. Then he put it
aside and worked on the next until he noticed another change of light. Then he began the
third and so on until the end of the day. The next day he continued each canvas in the
same light as on the previous day. In this way he painted 26 impressions of Rouen
cathedral and 16 of waterloo bridges ,haystacks ,poplars and lily ponds.)
- He painted chiefly landscapes with water providing movement
- He showed that no absolute colour exists in nature- only reflections of light.
Light was the main character of his paintings. He studied
the reflections and shimmer of the light on water and in
his study of light on snow he first noticed that shadows
are coloured.

Eg: [Link] Sunrise (1872)

This view of the harbour at Le Havre gave impressionism its name.

2. The Rue Montorgueil Decked with Flags (1878)

This bird’s –eye view of a Parisian street, decked out in
celebration of a national holiday, was painted rapidly on a balcony
overlooking the scene. The red, white and blue stripes of the French flags
from vibrant patches of colours and in the center of the picture
a slogan in blue reads ‘Vive la France'
3. Poplars (1891)
A row of tall poplars lining the River Epte near Monet’s home
fascinated the artist, and he painted them many times from his boat. In
this late stage of his career Monet’s impression style grew increasingly
abstract and decorative.

4. Rouen Cathedral (1894)

Like Poplars, this painting formed part of a series. Monet painted the
same view over and over again, under changing light conditions (From dawn to dusk)

5. Water Lilies (1916-1926)

Monet painted the water lily pond at the bottom of his garden hundreds of times. It
became virtually his only ‘model’ for the last 20 years of his life. The lilies themselves
are not immediately recognizable- they dissolve into a magical mixture of delicate
colours.
CAMILLE PISSARRO
- He was the oldest of the Impressionist group.
- He was more interested in people than in atmosphere. His paintings stress
form and structure, and so his paintings had a great influence on Cezanne.
- By using small comma- like strokes he depicted bright light without distorting
the forms on which it shines
- His experiments with the Impressionist and Divisionist techniques resulted in
powerful yet subtle lines and rich , light colours.
- He loved vast stretches of green or yellow cornfields, trees in flower, delicate
leaves, dappled skies and running streams and delighted in imparting a gold or
silver sheen to his work.
- His serene pictures reflect his joy in life.
- He avoided anything ugly and presented his subjects in the most favorable
light.

ALFRED SISLEY
- He was of English origin.
- Surpassed Monet in retaining the structures of landscapes
- He did not dissolve the forms in atmosphere.
- He had the same skill in representing the movement of leaves and the
shimmer of light on water.
- In the last years of his life, he produced not less than 12 canvases, all of which
take the church as their central subject.
- Sisley used white to mix with his blues and ochres to create a subtle range of
colouristic effects.
Eg: The church at Morot
The church keeps its integrity as an architectural structure solidly wrought from
chiseled stone and set firmly in the heart of the village community. Despite its scale and
massiveness the church does not have an oppressive presence, the inclusion of ordinary
people busy about their every day affairs gives the sense of a pleasing human touch.

EDGAR DEGAS (1834-1917)

- He represented urban rather than rural scenes.

- He preferred man-made beauty (the artificial light of the artless) to sunlight.
- His innovations forecast photographic techniques. Such as unexpected angles
of vision, looking down from above importance to the foreground and
stressing accidental details by way of contrast, selecting aspects never
observed before, the clever wise of empty space to integrate the viewer into
the picture, as well as cut-off compositions to make the eye move beyond the
frame
- He learnt much from Japanese prints. Japanese artists do not use eye-level;
perspective but either look at the subject from above or below, while at the
same time standing close to it.
- Degas captured the flexing glimpse of life
- Characteristic of all his work is the photographically instantaneous effect he
sought
- He portrayed the movement of forms rather than of light
- He arranged facts, mostly from memory or from photographs to fit a design
pattern.
- His approach to form was linear rather than chromatic
- Degas took only an intellectual interest in his subjects. His dancers show
neither intelligence nor beauty often that look even vulgar.
 - He is more interested in the rhythm of their movement
- The beauty of the pastels, which he preferred to use contrasts with the ugliness
of the subjects.
-
Eg. 1. Two Dancers on stage (1874)
 These two young dancers performing in the lime light are viewed from above.
The off-center composition adds a delicate precariousness to the dancer balancing on
points, and the impression of sideways movement is accentuated by the lines of the
scenery tracks behind her

2. The Dancing class (1873-75)

With this informal picture of a

lesson in a rehearsal room at the opera.,
Degas made a complete break from the
conventional ballet paintings of his day.
Instead of depicting a famous ballerina
in the costume for her best-loved role.,
he turned his attention to the day today
training of the anonymous young
dancers in the chorus. In this painting,
Degas captures a moment in the arduous
training routine of the young ballerinas
at the Paris opera.

Other examples- Woman ironing,

After the bath , Combing the hair

AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)

Pierre- Auguste Renoir created some of the most charming

paintings of impressionist art. Throughout his long career, and
despite many changes of style, his paintings always remained joyful.
They evoke a dreamy carefree world full of light and color where
beautiful women dance with their lovers. He is a specialist in the
human figures, a sympathetic admirer of what is beautiful in the
body and what is pleasurable in human life.

Eg.1. La Loge(1874)
 Renoir`s younger brother Edmond and a model called Nini posed for this picture
in Renoir’s studio. Nini was dressed up to look like a wealthy woman at the opera.

2. Luncheon of the boating party (1881)

The famous picture which captures the

lazy atmosphere of a perfect French Sunday -
was painted on the terrace of the restaurant at
La. Grenouillere. Renoir’s friends posed for
him under the awning with the warm sunlight
filtering through.

Here his instinctive knowledge of colors

is now controlled by strong sense of designs.
This subject is quiet unconscious of the
presence of an observer. They do not pose but
merely go about the business of the movement.
NEO IMPRESSIONISM

[Link]

Neo- Impressionism or scientific impressionism tried to link art even more closely
to science. The movement was founded by Seurat and Signac about 1885. These artists
wanted to replace the color instinct of impressionism.
The Neo-impressionists introduced the techniques of divisionism and pointillism.
The former uses large, mosaic like spots, which serve as bright decorations for dark urban
interiors. Pointillism consists of tiny round dots of pure colour carefully applied side by
side like a laboriously stippled engraving. This was a short-lived experimental phase

GEORGES SEURAT (1859-1891)

- In 1882 Georges Seurat began experimenting with little spots of pure color to
be blended by the eye like the short Impressionist strokes.
- He systematically distributed minute spots of color over the white ground
which remained partially exposed
- For him, the method of working was the chief consideration than the subject.
- He skillfully contrasted light and shade- his forms seem to emerge from dark
shadow and a mysterious light shines through his pencil strokes.

Egs.1. A Sunday afternoon in La Grande Jatte (1884-86)

- Large composition took 2 years to finish

- It shows a bourgeois crowd on a Sunday outing from the city, but it is more an
exercise in arrangement than a representation.
 - The figures in profile, parallel to the frame in the foreground and under a dark
band of shade, give a quiet tone to the setting.
- Behind them is lighter strip of bright sunshine with another dark band near the
top formed by the leaves if trees.
- A back wall, parallel to the front plane, stops the movement of the eye.
- The horizontal shady areas and embankment in the distance, the vertical
figures and trees, the diagonal shadows and shoreline, together with the
transitional forms all carefully placed curved branches, umbrella and sails
from an overall abstract pattern of many parts all related to each other and to
the whole.
- Though drawn almost flat, the figures have a bas-relief quality. But the
impression of depth, solidity and distance does not interfere with the design.
- The receding and advancing qualities of the colors give the feeling of moving
in and out of the picture.

POST – IMPRESSIONISM
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The Post- Impressionists completely different in character, never united into a school.
Each one isolated himself from his environment though at the same time they tried to
influence the world with their art, thus demonstrating the divorce of modern artists from
society.
 Though they did represent the emotional possibilities of ordinary things and
people, they were less concerned with their actual appearance and much more with what
they meant to the artist.

They concentrated more on the technique and method by arranging what they saw
and felt into designs and symbols.

Objectives of the Post – Impressionists

1. They returned to the search of structural organization of pictorial form (Cezanne)

2. An emphasis on decorative organization for the sake of unity as well as
enchanting patterns(Gauguin)
3. A more or less conscious use of exaggerations of natural appearances- distortion
or elongation. Especially the distortions is used for emotionally suggesting
effects(Van Gogh)

The post Impressionists were individuals working in their own way. These three
artists are important because they set the major trends.
PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

Cezanne often called ‘The father of modern painting’ exerted great influence on
all subsequent movements. He was a transition artist between the realism of the
nineteenth and the abstractions of the early twentieth centuries. He tried to find a new
art without giving up the values of the old.

- For Cezanne art should give nature the thrill of continuance. He believed it
was the artists` function to discover the enduring, permanent reality behind
nature`s manifold appearances. Thus he arrived at the basic shapes but did not
try to replace these by geometric forms as the cubists did.
- In his desire for permanence and solidity he made even air, mist and vapour
sky and sea as substrates as houses rocks and trees. He wanted to show nature
consistency -to represent the all embracing atmosphere and air, but without
using the shimmer of impression or classical chiaroscuro.
- He painted from nature, not from his imagination, his work has solidity,
power and integrity.
- Instead of suggesting depth by the traditional method of perspective and
chiaroscuro, he used overlapping planes as in Chinese and Japanese art
- Cezanne modeled his forms not by the use of light and shade but by the
modulation of colors as the Venetian painters did.
 - Every touch of his brush was carefully planned though the paintings appear
rough and sketchy . He created his forms by means of these short, rectangular
chisel – like strokes which give them a sculptures appearance

Egs.1. Boy in a red vest

 - Egg shaped head and metallic appearance of the body and clothes shows the
application of his technique to portraits
- Geometrical color planes occupy almost the whole composition.

2. The Bathers
- He painted not for sensuality or
fashion he merely tried to discover
new forms and rhythms.

4. Mont Sainte Victoire

- He often represented Mont
Sainte Victoire near his home
in province because it
symbolized the order he sought in the world.
- The distant mountain, bigger than normal stands out clearly
- The sky has a gun- metal colour
to keep it from getting lost in the
distance.
- A series of overlapping planes,
somewhat like the scenic wings
on a stage, give depth to the
space without interfering with
the design.
- He showed that distance can be
represented without the use if
perspective.

His still life paintings served as

ideal means for experimenting with
the forms of unrelated objects. While horizontal and vertical lines anchor the
strong major forms to the picture frame, the interplay of curving and contrasting
lines provides interesting movement. For aesthetic purposes he distorted the sides
of the decanter and the bowls to harmonize with the forms of the fruit whose
round shapes would not go well with ovals. So he presented one bowl as seen
from the front and another as viewed from above all in the same pictures.
eg.4. Still life with fruit baskets.

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)

 Dutch Post- impressionist painter. Van Gogh painted in order to create a new
world according to his mind and feelings, not to imitate nature or to please fashionable
tastes.
- He emphasis on personal expression above all influences the Expressionists.
- He tried to paint his feelings for things-his passion for universal love for which
he found expression only in his art.
- Character interested him rather than appearances. He stressed the psychological
rather than the physical, feeling his way into a personality.
- His paintings reveal his basic kindness and inner beauty ,free of all dross.
- The pre-dominance of yellow in his paintings proclaims his emphatic love for
everything.
- He imparted life and humanity even to lifeless things
- His work shows fine balance and arrangement, distinct contours, almost
dazzling colors and light without shadow.
- Instead of the divided strokes of the Impressionists, he used long streaks of
colors expressive of his stronger emotional drive. At times he squeezed the
tube right on to the canvas.
- He worked at a terrific speed without concern for detail.
- He used intensely loud and bright colors, which express his sanguine
temperament. Bright yellow sunshine and whirling suns against a blue
background occur very often to express the beautiful. He loved blue and
yellow best of all.
- He experimented constantly with the effects of various brush strokes and of
heavy paint. He used simple
brush strokes, standing out
separately to give the paintings
texture.
- Though his simple design lacks
the lasting subtlety of
Cezanne’s, Van Gogh’s quiver
with movement, spiraling stars
blaze like fireworks and his
landscapes gyrate with emotion
- His abstractions are symbolic
rather than geometrical.

Eg.1. The potato eaters (1884)

- He showed how those who

produced the food had to live
on boiled potatoes and tea.
- The painting is dark, typical of his early paintings.
- He showed the greatest concern for the oppressed and painted them from an
empathetic rather than aesthetic viewpoint.
- He tried to feel and think as they do.
2. Starry Night (1889)

- The exploding stars and whirling galaxies seems like a prophetic visualization
of recent astronomical discoveries of the stupendous universe.
- Cypresses rise up to this grandeur while men huddle away in fear.

3. Sunflowers (1888)

- It is probably Van Gogh’s best known painting

- This picture is made up almost entirely of yellow, Van
Gogh’s favourite color.
- It had to be painted very quickly before the flowers
dropped.

Over the years there has been endless speculation on the

exact nature of Van Gogh’s illness ranging from epilepsy
and advanced syphilis to manic depression Van Gogh died
at the age of 37, by shooting himself.

PAUL GAUGUIN (1848 – 1903)

French Post- Impressionist painter. Breaking from his

family and his career as a stock broker, Gauguin devoted himself
to painting.

As in Egyptian sculpture, he distorted the flattened forms and as in Medieval

stained glass and Byzantine enamels and Japanese prints he used broad areas of flat
colors. He was also influenced by folk art and primitive woodcuts.

The greatest influence on Gauguin’s art came from E. Bernard. At the age of 20,
Bernard had worked out the theory of synthesism and the technique of cloisonnisim.

Synthesism gives greater importance to the memory than to observation. He

expressed this synthesism through the technique of cloissonnism inspired by Medieval
stained glass, Japanese woodcuts and folk art. Black or blue contours surround the figures
like the lead partitions in stained glass, and the colors of the bold, flat surfaces try to
imitate the brilliance of light passing through stained glass.
 - He worked out his priniciples -simple and unmodelled massive forms without
shadows but with heavy contours and flat colors and designs unrelated to
natural appearance.
- Gauguin’s is chiefly a decorative art. He lacked Van Gogh’s emotional power
and Cezanne`s interesting structure. While Cezanne’s work is symbolized by
his sculpturesque forms and Van Gogh’s by his soaring flames, the patterned
flower characterizes Gauguin.
- He aimed at creating his own beauty rather than representing what he found in
nature.
- Gauguin pioneered in the abstract use of colors -green or blue horses, red
dogs- to represent emotion through unexpected combinations.
- He preferred large areas of bright tropical color `since a meter of green is
greener than a centimeter of green’.
- He used unusual exotic colors emotionally selected in
exciting combinations to arouse interest. While he filled
his figures with the most daring colors, he usually made
his backgrounds soft.

Eg. 1. The yellow Christ (1889)

- He introduced symbolism for the first time

- He combined a representation of folk sculpture with his
impression of the piety of Breton peasant women who sit
at the roadside contemplating the sufferings of the
Redeemer.
- He has used flat yellow colors
- He draws our attention of central coloring of Christ

2. The Vision after the sermon

- The subject matter is based on the Bible –

The sermon they heard was about Jacob
fighting with the angel.
- The women are hearing the sermon.
The vision of this sermon is seen by these
folks.
- The figures of Jacob and the angel are
derived from the Japanese prints (lovely
colors, no three dimensional effect, area is
flat).
- The colors used are bright. He used color
symbolically.
- There is a tree bark, which has no volume. He uses the diagonal of the bark to
emphasis the fight.
- The figures stand out almost like silhouettes against the bright red meadow,
which occupies most of the space.
 FAUVISM – 1905
[Link]

What is Fauvism?
• Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived
and loose group of early twentieth-century modern artists.

• Characterized by intensely vivid, non-naturalistic and exuberant colors.

• Generally featured landscapes in which forms were distorted.

• Fauvists were the first to be inspired by African masks

Timeline of Fauvism
• Style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910,

• Movement lasted only a few years, 1904–1908

• Had three exhibitions

Fauvism was influenced by:

• Van Gogh’s Post Impressionism

• Seurat’s Pointillism

• Paul Signac’s Neo Impressionism

• Paul Cezanne

Characteristics of Fauvism
• The movement's emphasis on

– expressive use of color

– Line

– brilliant color,

– expressive brushwork

– flat composition
 – Emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the realistic values
retained by Impressionism.

– wild brush work

– subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction

Important Painters of the Fauvism Movement

• Henri Matisse

• Andre Derain

• Albert Marquet

• Charles Camoin

The Open Window, Collioure' colour is used at its maximum

intensity.
The window frames, clay flower pots and masts on the yachts
have all been painted in a blazing red.
These are a bold complement to the range of greens that
punctuate the painting.
In order to arrange the various colours of the work into an
effective composition he creates a counterchange between the
greenish wall on the left and its reflected colour in the right hand
window, with the purple wall on the right and its reflected colour
in the left hand window.
To unify the interior/exterior relationship of space, the dense spectrum of colours used
inside the room is echoed more sparingly in the distant view through the window.

Influences of Fauvism
• Although Fauvism was a short-lived movement, it was influential;

– the German expressionists, particularly Wassily Kandinsky and Alexey

von Jawlensky in Munich,

– the Die Brucke group in Dresden

Why is Fauvism important to art history?

• The Fauves represented the first break with the artistic traditions of the past.

• The movement's emphasis on formal values and expressive use of color, line, and
brushwork helped liberate painting from the representational expectations that had
dominated Western art since the Renaissance.

• Fauvism was the first explosive 20th-century art movement.

The fauves like most 20th century art associations were casually held together by a general
similarity of outlook. The painters were not bound by theory as much as by temperament
and soon dispersed to develop individually. The undoubted leader was Matisse although
Vlaminck, an extrovert personality given to extravagant gestures, has claimed the
invention of fauvism.

Pictorial characteristics

The pictorial characteristics of fauvism are an excited and highly exaggerated use
of color with perspective and subject matter of the impressionists (landscapes ,still life,
figures in commonplace action).

The name

Essentially a French and primarily a Parisian art movement, the name ‘Fauves’ to
describe the painters has a certain relevance. It is French for ‘ wild beasts’ and was
coined by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles as a disparaging comment on the extravagant,
vivid and turbulent painting that the group exhibited in the Autumn salon of 1906.

The origins and development.

Fauvism as a movement had a short life, really only between 1905 and 1907. Its
origins and the influences, which moulded it, can be traced back to the beginning of the
century and to the career of Matisse during these years.

The nature of fauvism

Fauvism is essentially the result of an enthusiasm and exuberance in respect of

color.

Fauvist subject matter is essentially impressionist and post impressionist in

character. A fauvist painter takes a scene, a landscape or a figure and paints it without
deliberate distortion of ordinary perspective.

HENRI MATISSE (1869 – 1954)

French painter, sculptor and lithographer. One of the leaders of the ‘Fauve group,
Matisse had earlier been influenced by Cezanne and impressionists. His daring joyful
color was given further impetus when in 1910, he saw an exhibition of Far Eastern art
There after his interest in flat patterns and pure contrasting colors in juxtaposition was
upper most in his work.
 Matisse preferred flowers, women and fruit as subjects for his highly decorative
painting. After moving to the south of France in 1914 ,his work took on a new subtley of
form and color, permitted by the intense light of the Mediterranean. His last major work
was designs for the stained glass windows of the small Dominican church in Venice,
France. The decorations by Matisse lend the church the fundamental characteristics of his
art simplicity, serenity and joy. Matisse had a natural sense of design and rhythm.
Though a master in auto my, he distorted his subject to show the inner tension of
muscles. They show expression not
through the face and gestures but my
means of the general arrangements.
Sometimes he merely suggested form by
filling the areas between the outlines
incompletely. Matisse who was gifted
many new combinations such as
balancing the most brilliant pigments with
quiet, delicate neutrals. By subtle accents
of color he gave his flat surfaces a three
dimensional appearance. Though not
naturalistic, his colors are always
harmonious and pleasing. Yet strong too –
squeezed right out of the tube.

Eg. 1. Red room (1908 – 09)

He contrasted warm and cool

colors as well as curving and straight
[Link] strengths of color together
with directional lines indicate a front and back.

2. The Green stripe (1905)

At first sight visually ridiculous the stripe becomes both an

expressive element and a unifying agent when the color relationships
impinge upon the sensibility. There is a warm and a cold side to the
face, which the intense green, neither warm nor cold, unifies. The
green also serves to increase the luminosity of its near complementary
reds, to emphasis the cold green and though its color quality, advance
towards the spectator and give volume to the head.

[Link]– portrait (1906)

ANDRE DERAIN (1880 – 1954)

French painter, one of the original Fauve, Derain tried many styles influenced by
the ‘pointillism’ of Seurat, by the broken planes of Cezanne, and by the verve color of old
masters and painted in a conservative style the also produced etchings, book illustrations
and stage designs. In his West Minister Bridge painted in 1907, Derain has used curved
lines, such as these of the road, which move closer together as they approach the horizon.
The top of the tree in the foreground strengthens the effect of effect of depth. Through his
highly personal color. Derain achieves dynamic activity in the foreground in contrast to
the static city in the background.

Eg. London Bridge (1906)

Derain has used every kind of variation, from large- scale pointillism to free brushwork
which is very characteristic in this [Link] took a high vantage point and laid out the
large,main colour areas of green, blue, red and yellow. The perspective is tilted, the
background sky is rose-red. The buildings against the sky are silhouettes in green and
blue. The abruptly foreshortened space, serve the purpose of delimiting the depth. The
brilliantly synthetic colour is an accomplished arrangement of harmonies and
dissonances, excellently co-ordinated by the architecture of bridge and buildings.

Derain was a man who, despite his initial enthusiasm for the explosive colour of
Fauvism, was constantly haunted by a concept of painting more ordered and classical in a
traditional sense.

MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (1876 – 1958)

The career of Maurice de Vlaminck presents many parallels with Derain's, even though
the artists were so different in personality and in their approach to the art of painting. He
was influenced by Van Gogh. In his fauve paintings, Vlaminck characteristically used the
short, choppy brushstrokes of the Dutchman to attain a comparable kind of coloristic
dynamism.
Eg. 1. Picnic in the country (1905)
The two figures,modelled freely but rather
literally, are isolated within the coil of
swirling colour patches, they are foreigners
from the world of nature, picnicking in a
forest of paint.

Vlaminck had moved toward a kind of

expressive realism by 1915, which he
continued to pursue for the rest of his life. His characteristic later landscapes takes us
back to the 17th century Dutch landscape interpreted in heavily textured brush painting.
His colour became geneally tonal, the effect of the threatening skies over a road winding
through a desolate countryside. The formula ultimately arrived at by vlaminck proved
highly effective, skillfully presented and charged with emotion. He was content simply to
play variations on it throughout most of his life.
.
CUBISM 1907- 1919
A Movement in painting originated in 1907 by Picasso and Braque, which
transposed natural forms into abstract arrangements of overlapping on transparent planes.
It was based on Cezanne’s later works and was also much influenced by Negro art and
Picasso’s interest in Iberian sculpture and African sculpture with their furice distortions
acutely faceted surfaces and severe shapes, Cubists rejected values upheld in European
and since the Renaissance.

All the most important Cubists, including Picasso and Braque, moved from
Cubism proper to other forms of painting, most of them before the First World War.

Pictorial characteristics.

Great variation occurs in the appearance of Cubist paintings, but they are all in
some degree distortions of the visible world and not invented abstracts.
They do not use the conventional perspective, or realist color, nor do they
necessarily conform to a single viewpoint.
The resultant paintings may vary from small interlocking facets or planes in dull
color to bold patterns of large shapes in strong non-realist color.

The Name

Cubism was primarily a Parisian art movement deriving from the inquisitive
energy of the atmosphere of Paris at the turn of the century. Like fauvism the name was
coined by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles, when he referred to the paintings of Braque in
1908 as composed of Cubes.

Cubism has probably been the most important single movement in 20th century art
and contained in various form much after 1914.

Cubist painters broke down reality and rearranged it according to their own fancy.
They stopper short of complete abstraction retaining traces of reality man made articles
rather than nature to give unity interest and authority to their works. The cubists true to
represent collective inner feeling by means of symbols. The power of an image depends
on its ability to communicate feelings as if it had a life of its own. The cubits wanted to
create something new to convey the impression that it had a life of its own.

Analytical Cubism (1909 – 1911)

It combines several views of the object, all more or less fragmented and
superimposed expressing the idea of the object rather than any one view of it. Colors are
mostly gray, brown and ochre (dull colors only). During this period Picasso and Braque
eliminated the heavy, squat Iberian sculptures of ancient Spain. They produced grotesque
forms which bore little resemblance to human beings, since they broke up the shape in
order to present all aspects at once, as they exist in the mind rather than as observed by
the eye.

Synthetic Cubism (1912 – 1914)

Colors reappear in this along with an important discovery external material on to

the Canvas called collage. It translated everything seen into a language of visual things,
turning painting into a parallel reality. In synthetic Cubism, the complexity is reduced by
showing fever views of the same object and over all design is given more importance.

PABLO PICASSO (1881 – 1973 )

Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic and ceramic artist. The most influential artist of
our times the developed his incredible technical mastery at an exceptionally early age in
Barcelona. By time he made his first visit to pairs in 1900 he had already mastered such
different techniques and those employed by Toulouse Lautrec, Munch and Renoir.

He settled in Paris in 1901 and there he set off an artistic journey through a
succession of different styles or periods which through the years, have revealed a creative
imagination of extraordinary richness.

The Blue period extended from 1901 to 1905 and was dominated by a melancholy
atmosphere peoples with emaciated beggars, sick children.

In the pink period 1906 Picasso’s subjects included dancers, animals and portraits

Eg. 1. Les Demoiselles d Avignon

In 1907. he painted the Les Demoiselles d Avignon which was one of the first cubist
painting this influence of Negro sculptures is also evident in this work. In this work 5
nude women are in different postures in a shallow plane. He was inspired by Cezanne’s ‘
Bathers’. There is a sense of solidity in the figures. The figures look directly. The eyes
are large with pinpoint pupil. He has used strong lines and scratches on the face. We can
see the following characteristics in this work.
(1). Fragmentation of object / form
The treatment of figures are angular and faceted. The woman is made of
Geometrical shapes.
(2). Colors

He has reduced the colors. He has used ochre, pink and blue. He did with
sober colors and put away the rich colors.
(3). Distortion
The extreme right figure seated is distorted. He showed objects as they are
and not as they are seen. So the reality is conceptual realism and he had simultaneous
vision

Eg. 2. Head of a woman

3. Portrait of Braque.
 With Braque he began working out the principles of Analytical Cubism and
between 1920 – 25, he painted female figures inspired by Greek sculpture with straight
nose and into grotesquely distorted creatures with wild dance like gestures.

4. Guernica (1935)
Out of the same phase came his most famous single work the ‘ Guernica’ a
powerful protest against the suffering of the Spanish people during the civil war. This
was a elongated painting- the length like a rural the restricted himself to black and white
combination. Picasso imagined bomb to fall into the courtyard of a farm house. This
composition is a pitch (3 parts). The horse is chopped out because of the cubistic
treatment. There is a head of a bull in an angry mood. A woman looks up, tongue is thorn
like (grief stricken) cries over the dead child. The death of the child is shown by the head
hung loose. To balance the crying woman, on the right side is a person trembling because
of the roof that has given way into darkness. Distortion in these figures is seen because of
the shock of unexpected fall (glaring eyes, land and feet flung apart and other details). In
the middle panel is the poignancy impact through imagery and placement cruel effects of
war is represented. The pictorial art is combined with simple device strength of caricature
and satire.

Since the world war II he lived in the south of France, following no one style, but
expressing his subjects according to his particular interpretation in lithograph, ceramic,
sculpture and painting. His ‘Accordionist’ is a contraction of large interesting planes in
which the longer edges and longer angles suggest the original subjects a man host of
small shapes hover and interpenetrate.

Sculptures
Eg. 1. Head of a woman (1909)

- It was the first attempt to translate analytical cubism into

sculpture.
- The basic planes which climate the play of light and shade;
reinforce the solidity of the form.

Eg. 2. The glass of absinthe (1914)

A real spoon is balanced on top. The first example of an
assemblage.
- By mixing varied objects he moved away
from the abstract forms of Cubism.

In the 1920’s Picasso popularized Russian

constructivism but he always kept the human
touch in his own work this iron figures resemble
the totems or fetishes of animistic cults. This
animistic tendency or Vitalism became one of the
chief features of modern sculptures. Avoid the
dehumanization of the ‘ Magic power to arouse
collective emotions or to give them an outlet.
During this same period other magical tribal arts,
like jazz and rock music and dances, were revived
in the urban asphalt and concrete jungles.

GEORGES BRAQUE (1882 – 1963)

French painter and sculptor. Braque began his career as an apprentice in his
father’s decorating [Link] then turned to painting and in 1905 was part of the fauve
group. In 1909, he began a collaborative work, with Picasso, developing the branch of
painting known as ‘Analytical Cubism’. He was one of the first to experiment with
‘collage’ using sack cloth and a great variety of materials and textures to obtain
decorative and expressive effects. By 1902 he had exhausted his interest in synthetic
cubism and began to develop a very personal interpretation of reality, especially in still
life and figure composition. His palette is a particularly subtle one, mainly variations of
browns, greys, green and white. Braque produced some sculptures mostly relief in plaster
and also lithographs and etchings. In his Musical Forms the surface texture is the most
important element in the soulful harmonious and elegant shapes.
Braque could more readily attain a conceptualized image of reality when working
from landscape or still-life,both motifs free of the Expressionist psychological
subjectivity implicit in the human face and figure.
Eg. Landscape at La Ciotat,
Landscape with Houses,
Houses at L’ Estaque
Violin and Palette
FERNAND LEGER (1881 – 1955)

French painter and designer. An early acquaintance with Braque and Picasso led
to Leger’s development of a particular form of cubism in which appear the shapes of
geometric and mechanical devices. Leger produced machines – like forms called Tubism
or Block Cubism. Men are depicted as Massive, they resemble the robot like creatures
surrounded by machines and vast buildings precise, the over all mechanical effect is
accentuated by his use of large areas of primary colors with black and clear greys. Leger
also designed settings for ballets, mosaics, ceramics and in 1924 produced the first
abstract film ‘Le ballet mechanique’ using actual subjects instead animated drawings.
His influence on modern painting has been tremendous.

Eg. The city

The painting shows Leger the

modern expressing life incorporating the
massive effects of modern posters,
billboard advertisement, the heart
quality of electrical light and the noise
of the traffic, its large size and even
more monumental; scale prove that had
Leger been given the opportunities he
would have been one of the great
painters of over age.
 EXPRESSIONISM
 Expressionism developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
 Expressionism was opposed to academic standards that had prevailed in Europe
and emphasized artist's subjective emotion, which overrides fidelity to the actual
appearance of things.
 The subjects of expressionist works were frequently distorted, or otherwise
altered.
 Landmarks of this movement were violent colors and exaggerated lines that
helped contain intense emotional expression.
 Application of formal elements is vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic.
Expressionist were trying to pinpoint the expression of inner experience rather
than solely realistic portrayal, seeking to depict not objective reality but the
subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in them.
 Expressionism is intensely personal.
 The expressionist artist strives to convey his personal feelings about the object
painted, rather than merely record his observation of it.
 Thus, in order to achieve maximum impact on the viewer, representational
accuracy is sacrificed (distorted) in favor of (eg) strong outlines and bold colors.
 Compositions tend to be simpler and more direct, and are often characterized by
thick impasto paint, loose, freely applied brushstrokes, and occasional symbolism.
The message is all-important.
 The expressionistic tradition was significantly, rose to the emergence with a series
of paintings of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh from the last year and a half of
his life. There was recorded his heightened emotional state.
 One of the earliest and most famous examples of Expressionism is Gogh's "The
Starry Night."
 Whatever was cause, it cannot be denied that a great many artists of this period
assumed that the chief function of art was to express their intense feelings to the
world.
 The Belgian painter and printmaker James Ensor was such an artist - with his
sense of isolation.
 The Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard Munch dealt - with different fears
Pioneers
 Van Gogh (1853-90) exemplifies expressionism. Not only were most of his
pictures autobiographical, in that they chronicled his thoughts, feelings and
mental equilibrium, but even the composition, colors and brushwork of his
paintings were a close reflection of his feelings as he painted. Few artists have
since equaled his genuine intensity of self-expression.
  Edvard Munch (1863-1944), the neurotic Norwegian painter and printmaker
who, despite being emotionally scarred in early life, managed to live to over 80
years of age. However, nearly all his best pictures were painted before his nervous
breakdown in 1908.
 Another harbinger of expressionist art was the Swiss Symbolist painter
Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), and the Symbolist James Ensor (1860-1949).

Development
 Expressionism really took root in Germany, in Dresden, Munich and Berlin.
Three separate groups emerged, which are collectively referred to by art historians
as German Expressionism:
 Die Brucke -The Bridge group(1905-13)
 Der Blaue Reiter – The Blue Rider(1909-14)
 and the post-war Die Neue Sachlichkeit (1920s).

Though there are Expressionistic paintings from all periods and many countries, however
it is unusally used to described certain German movements occurring between 1905 and
the 1920’s and concentrated into 2 groups.
1. The Bridge group – It is very German’s in character and formed in Dresden in
1905.
2. Blue Rider group- The more international group founded in Munich 1911

Die Brucke (1905-13) (The Bridge)

 Based in Dresden, this group combined traditional German art with African, Post-
Impressionist and Fauvist styles.
 Important members included:
 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
 Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976)
 Erich Heckel (1883-1970)
 Emil Nolde (1867-1956), and
 Max Pechstein (1881-1955).
 Others included the Dutch ex-Fauvist painter Kees Van Dongen (1877-
1968).

Der Blaue Reiter (1911-14) (Blue Rider)

 Based in Munich, it was named after a Kandinsky painting from the cover of their
1912 Manifesto.
 The group included a number of artists, such as
 Alexei von Jawlensky (1864-1941)
 Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944),
 Paul Klee (1879-1940)
 Franz Marc (1880-1916).

PICTORIAL CHARACTERISTICS
 The characteristics of Expressionist painting are similar to those of Fauvism,
expect that Expressionist painters tend to use stronger linear effects, more heavy color
(black and brown), with the object of expressing the sense of tension in life that they felt.

Using a variety of technique, including print making and sculpture, the

Expressionist artists emphasized personal feelings about their subject matter thus having
close affinities with these tendencies usually referred as Romantic.

The subject matter frequently comments on the human situation with the use of
raw color brilliant, contrasting and unrelated to the objects portrayed. Unlike their
contemporaries in France, the Fauves, who used color in such a way that their paintings
cheered and soothed, many Expressionists cause us to shudder with discomfort when we
look at their work when the landscape is their subject, it is treated with an attitude of
distrust that is for removed from the self-confident coolness of classical art.

In short, the Expressionists exteriorizes inner feelings, transmitting them and

projecting his personality, state of mind, or emotional condition into things in such a way
that they take on similar characteristic.

Expressionism characteristics
 brilliant/clashing colors
 reflect mysticism, self-examination, speculation on the infinite
 nature used to interpret the universe
 distorted forms
 art to convey truth or psychological truth
 artists grouped in "schools" like Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter; were more
concerned with the emotional impact that their work can have on its viewers
 two main themes - alienation, loneliness

Vincent Van Gogh (whose work is mostly a visual form of self-examination,

exteriorizing his inner feelings) had the most dominant of influences on German
Expressionism among the other non-Germans whose works reflect this attitudes are
1. James Ensor (1860 – 1949) – Belgian
2. Edward Munch (1863 – 1944) – Norwegian artist, however is subordinate to the
influence of these.

In 1905, Central Germany , three student architects Ernest Kirchaer (1880 – 1938)
along with Fritz Blergl, founded the Bridge group. These founder members were later
joined by Max Pechstan, Emile Nolde, Olto Mueller and many others.

The Blue Rider group was followed by Kandinsky who in 1910 in Munich
gathered around him a heterogeneous collection of artists like Jawlensky, Bohemian
Alfred Kubin, France Marc. August marks etc. Paul klee’s place in the Blue Rider group
(joined in 1914) was only a peripheral one.
 Apart from these groups there were several independent Expressionists like Oscar
Kokoschka (1886) Max Beckmann (1844 – 1950)

EDVARD MUNCH (1863 – 1944)

Norwegian Expressionist painter and graphic artist. In his early years Munch
spent considerable time in Paris and Berlin. He was the first Expressionist to be
influenced by Gauguin’s colors and patterns but he showed much greater emotional force
in the turn influenced and provided a strong impulse for German Expressionists. Though
frightful colors and violently distorted symbols he revealed his
inner temper ant and obsessions. A sense of doom oppressed him
from his childhood when his mother and sister died. His brooding
themes on death, sickness, fear and loneliness are dramatized by
the use of patterns of lines and flat heavy colors. Moreover the
vastness of nature filled him with melancholy and fear while the
power of love haunted him with a nameless terror.

His woodcuts are perhaps his most effective and original

works, ‘THE SCREAM’ by Munch is an example of the
transgression of fixed boundaries of the breading through the
limitations imposed by the canvas. The scream continues into the
sky, into water and the land and into the figure in the foreground.
The foreground figure has pressed his hands over his ears to keep
out the scream. There is a lot of contrast between the terrified
figure in the foreground and the solemn, restful strollers in the
distance. They have obviously heard nothing. Rarely has such
disperate despairing fear been so effectively captured in a
painting.

JAMES ENSOR (1860 – 1949)

Belgian artist. His work is haunted by the fiendish mask, symbolic of human
beings trying to conceal their true self. He satirized contemporary society in the manner
of a cartoonist. In his best known work,
The Entry of Christ into Brussels’ (1889),
hideous crowed of marked men, unworthy to be
these followers, surrounded the savior. The
strident blot ended colors and tonal discords
represent these repulsive creatures.

This painting was refused admission and was

never publicly exhibited before 1929.
Ensor’s mature paintings still, decades later, have the capacity to shock. During the
1890’s Ensor focused his talents for invective on the antagonists of his paintings,
frequently with devastating results. This decade saw some of his most `brilliant , morbid,
gruesome, and at time obscene drawings and etchings
Portrait of the artist surrounded by masks (1899)

-The masks reappeared, which also became personal.

- A Painting in which he portrayed himself as Rubens –

debonair mustache and beard, gay, plumed hat and
piercing glance directed at the spectator.
- He is reminiscent of the Christ of Hieronymus Bosch,
surrounded by his tormentors (Ensor’s critics) the
personification of good, isolated by evil but never
overwhelmed.

FRANZ MARC (1880 - 1916)

Of the Blue Rider painters, Franz marc was the closest in spirit to the traditions of
German romanticism and lyrical naturalism. He was also seeking some inner harmony
between himself and the world around him that he could express in paint. This harmony
he found in the forms of animals, particularly horses and deer.

Eg. 1. Blue Horses (1911) -

One of the masterpieces of
marc’s earlier, curvilinear style.
The three brilliant blue beasts
are modeled out sculpturally
from the equally vivid reds,
Greens and yellows of the
landscape. Here he has used an
extreme close-up view, with the
bodies of the Horses filling
most of the canvas. The horizon
line is high so that the curves of
the red hills repeat the lines of
the horses curving flanks. He
uses the two tree trunks and the
green of the foliage in front of and behind the horses to tie foreground and together .
Marc’s colour had a specifically symbolic rather than descriptive function. He saw blue
as a masculine principle, robust and spiritual, yellow as a feminine principle, gentle,
serene and sensual, red as matter, brutal and heavy.
 [Link] (1913) – he combined his earlier
curvilinear patterns with a new rectangular
geometry. The horses . massed in the
frontal plane are dismembered and
recomposed as abstract . colour areas, to
the point where they appear now as flat
shapes on the surface of the [Link]
forms are composed parallel to the picture
plane rather than tilted in limited depth.
Marc’s colour achieved a translucence
beyond anything he had attempted earlier. The sense of rapid metamorphosis is due to
the action of colour as colour, rather than to the dismembered geometric shapes.
Intense but light-filled blues and reds, greens, violets and yellows flicker over the
structurally and spatially unified surface to create an impact of dazzling illusion. At
times the effect is of the changing, light-drenched colour of Gothic stained-glass
windows at other times of a hall of mirrors creating an infinity of fragmented colour –
saturated images.

EMILE NOLDE (1867 – 1936)

German Expressionist painter and engraver. Nolde began painting in the manner
of the Impressionists but generously his color became more violent and his forms more
grotesque. Profoundly religious, Nolde treated with terrifying harshness subjects inspired
by the life of Christ.

Eg. THE SISTERS shows his often violent brand of Expressionism, fauvism and the
variety of preventive art forms.

Despite his heavy impasto technique, he was a great artist with an inborn sense of
design this work combines the spirit and vitality of Van Gogh with the powerful
expressiveness of Grunewald and large religious compositions like the Last Supper and
white sun (1909). He did not remain long in the Bridge group.

PAUL KLEE (1879 – 1940)

Swiss painter, teacher, printmaker and one of the major figures of 20th century
painting. His art the product of many thoroughly assimilated and recombined influences.
It is always distinguished by the intelligence and poetic sensibility of the [Link] in
Munch, he worked and taught there. Until 1914 he worked mainly in black and white.
After the visit to North Africa, there was a great change in his work and he became
seriously interested in color. In his contempt for illusionistic art, he turned to the art of
children and primitive people. His paintings and drawings strongly reveal the real world
and the reality which were in the life of beings, animals and even inanimate to objects
discovered with wit and charm. His paintings and drawings were very small in size. His
Work helped to pave the way for Abstract Expressions.

In a water color such as ‘At the Mountain of the Bull’, the interpenetrating
planes of cubism, the geometrical character of Non-objective art and the instinctive linear
structure of children’s drawings satirize those current noses but the oddly sacrificial
feelings of the subject matter provokes deep into the sources of religious experiences as
old as human history.

WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866 – 1944)

He was a Russian painter. He carried his research into the emotional and psychological
properties of color line and shape to the point were subject matter and even
representational elements were entirely limited. He approached the canvas with no
preconceived theme but allowed the colors to come as they would prompted by
subconscious feelings.

In Improvisation the brilliant colors flow effortlessly across the canvas with as
little conscious order or control as possible on the artists part. In thus exploiting
subconscious sensations Kandinsky uncovered an area of feeling which was soon to be
exploited by other artists notably by the surrealists.

FUTURISM

What is Futurism?
• Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early
20th century.
• It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in
Russia, England and elsewhere.
• The Futurism movement lasted from 1909 to 1944.
• Sole Italian avant-garde movement
• The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including
– painting
– sculpture
– ceramics
– graphic design
– industrial design
– interior design
– theatre
– film
– fashion
 – textiles
– literature
– music
– architecture
– gastronomy
Who founded Futurism?
• The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
• Marinetti launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto, which he published
for the first time on 5 February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia, an article then
reproduced in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909.
• He was soon joined by the painters
– Umberto Boccioni
– Carlo Carrà
– Giacomo Balla
– Gino Severini
What did the Manifesto say?

1. Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic
formalism.

2. Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation.

3. Elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however violent.

4. Bear bravely and proudly the smear of “madness” with which they try to gag all
innovators.
5. Regard art critics as useless and dangerous.

6. Rebel against the tyranny of words: “Harmony” and “good taste” and other loose
expressions which can be used to destroy the works of Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin...

7. Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in
the past.

8. Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually
and splendidly transformed by victorious Science.

Themes of the Futurists

• The Futurists admired
– Speed
– technology
– youth and violence
– the car
– the airplane
– the industrial city
 • All that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature
• They often painted modern urban scenes
• They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation
• Praised originality
• The crowds of people
The vibrant nocturnal life of the stations and dockyards

Beliefs of the Futurists

• The Futurists believed that physical objects had a kind of personality and vitality
of their own, revealed by “force-lines”.
• This method of looking at objects that was based on their inherent movement -
and thereby capturing the vital moment of a phenomenon within its process of
continual change - was partly influenced by a fascination with new technology
and mechanization.
• Of equal importance, however, was the visual potential of the new-found but
flourishing art of cinematography.
• Futurists felt strongly that pictorial sensations should be shouted, not murmured.
Painting Technique
• The aim of the Futurist painters was to capture the “dynamic sensation”.
• In order to portray the “dynamic sensation” artists had to be aware that
objects/individuals in life did not exist in isolation to their surroundings; objects
penetrated their surroundings.
• Interpenetration stems from the notion that an object/subject cannot be seen in
isolation from its surrounding, but must be viewed in relation to its environment.
• Therefore all objects/subjects weave into each other, and are seen in relation to
other objects/subjects.
• Another element of dynamic sensation was that objects were not static but were
constantly moving, and it was essential to depict this movement.
• To heighten or emphasize this aspect of interpenetration the painters
experimented with different painting techniques, borrowing from the divisionists
and developments in photography.
• The Futurist painters were slow to develop a distinctive style and subject matter.
• In 1910 and 1911 they used the techniques of Divisionism, breaking light and
color down into a field of stippled dots and stripes.
• Later, Severini, who lived in Paris, attributed their backwardness in style and
method at this time to their distance from Paris, the centre of avant garde art.
• Severini was the first to come into contact with Cubism and following a visit to
Paris in 1911 the Futurist painters adopted the methods of the Cubists.
• Cubism offered them a means of analyzing energy in paintings and expressing
dynamism.
• But Futurist painting differed in both subject matter and treatment from the quiet
and static Cubism.
• The divisionist technique of applying unmixed color in small dabs alongside each
other seemed to lend itself to interpenetration.
 • However, divisionist approach was not a new development in the art world and
Marinetti’s obsession with the new demanded a new technique.
• The painters then referred to current developments in photography and hit on a
technique that in their eyes captured the dynamism that they were searching for.
• In rendering movement, they would use the notion of simultaneity.
• To represent a galloping horse, several repeated leg movements would illustrate
movement of the legs.
• Another aspect of their technique, also, was the lack of clearly defined outlines.
Boundaries are fluid, there is no clarification where one subject ends and where
one begins.
• Movement is also expressed by using such devices as clearly defined horizontals
or verticals.
• Vibrant use of color
• The Futurist painters made the rhythm of their repetitions of lines.
• Inspired by some photographic experiments, they were breaking motion into
small sequences, and using the wide range of angles within a given time-frame all
aimed to incorporate the dimension of time within the picture.
• Brilliant colors and flowing brush strokes also additionally were creating the
illusion of movement.

Difference between Cubism and Futurism

CUBISM FUTURISM
Static Dynamic
Monochrome or subdued colors Vibrant use of colour
Rational form of experimentation, and Vociferous and emotive exhortation for the
intellectual approach to the artistic process mutual involvement of art and life, with
expressions of total art and provocative
demonstrations in public
Interest in the objective value of form Images and the strength of perception and
memory

Painters of the Futurist movement

• Giacomo Balla,
• Gino Severini,
• Carlo Carra,
• Luigi Russolo
• Umberto Boccioni.

Just before the world war I, the short lived futurist movement appeared in Italy, with the
aim of revolutionizing the very foundation of art. In 1909, the poet Marinetti issued the
first of the blatant manifestoes of this movement wherein he started that art can be
nothing but violence, cruelty injustice. The following year the sculptor Boccioni, with
Balla, Severini and others proclaimed in the second manifesto that they intended to
glorify was which they considered the only health given of the world. They idolized
machines and made speed their aesthetic rule. For the Futurists the machine was the ideal
of beauty. They tried to represent movement by showing the limbs or wheels a number of
times in different stage of progress or by stretching the object in the direction of the
movement like magnetic lines of force. Yet the effect remains static one does not get the
impression of movement, nor movements itself. In the art only the interaction of
opposing volumes indicating motion are depicted. A basic rhythm gives unity to their
composition.

GIACOMO BALLA (1871 – 1958)

Italian painter and leading influence upon and exponent of Futurism. His most
widely known work, ‘ Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) anticipates modern
multiple flash stroboscopic photography with an eerie verisimilitude.

His Girl Running along the Balcony (1912) contains

much movement. The movement is accentuated by the
repetition of image and technique. The girl is seen in the
different phases of the movement almost as frames of a film
racing before our eyes.

• Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash - with its

multiplication of arms and legs, has become one of the
familiar and delightful creations of futurist
simultaneity. The little terrier scurries
along o short legs accelerated and
multiplied to the point where they
almost turn into wheels. This device for
suggesting rapid motion and animated
cartoons. The transformation of figures
and objects into a moving pattern of

color and line are seen. A lady is

walking a dog; a widow and her pet.
The lady has roughly 15 feet, variably
solid and see-through.
• The dog has eight countable tails, while
its legs are lost in flurry of blurry
overlays. Four swinging leads go
between them.
 • The picture's sense of movement (if that is what it actually is) is created out of
stark black forms and weird flowing lacey veils.

Flight of the swifts (1913) – A bold interplay of

rectilinear and curvilinear elements, both in their
entirety and fragmental are seen. The curving
horizontal of the swifts’ rapid flight contrast with
the zigzag organization of wings and feathers, and
both gain force from the off-vertical lines that
stand up like poles. The birds are literal and non-
literal, but the sense of flight is striking.
UMBERTO BOCCIONI (1882-1916)

- He was an Italian Futurist painter and

sculptor.
- He had pushed his forms too so far towards abstract on that in his Unique
forms of continuity in space (1913). The title calls our attention to the formal
and spatial effects rather than to the fact that
the source for these is the striding human
figure. Boccioni’s search for plastic means
with which to express dynamic movement
here reached monumental expression. In its
power and sense of vital activity this
sculpture surpasses similar experiments in
painting by Boccioni and his Futurist
companions to create images symbolic of the
dynamic quality of modern life. This
sculpture was Boccioni’s most impressive
sculpture, which was most specifically
related to his paintings. The striding figure,
made up of fluttering, curving planes of
bronze, moves essentially in two dimensions
like a translation of his painted figures into
relief. In effect, it is comparable with the
victory of Samothrace, with her wings and
draperies flowing out behind her, rather than
like the total sculptural environment for
which he pleaded in his own sculptural manifesto.
 Development of a Bottle in space
(1912)
Although cast in bronze,
constituted an enlargemnt of the
tradition for the analysis of sculptural
space. The bottle is stripped open,
unwound and integrated with an
environmental base that makes of the
homely object, the model of a vast
monument of three- dimensional
masses existing totally in
surrounding three- dimensional
space.

DADAISM
[Link]

A deliberately meaningless (the French word ‘Dada means hobby-horse) name of

the first anti-movement. An experimental movement in painting and literature originated
in Zurich by Tristam Tzare, Hugo Ball and others in ‘Shock’ tactics and use of unartistic
material was a modern form of protest against the sacred cows of art tradition.

Hatred gave birth to the Dada anti-art-loathing for the war, dissatisfaction with
victory in France and despondency in defeated Germany, post-war social unrest and
inflation, the destruction of the earth through mechanization. Culture seemed to have lost
its reason. They tried to fight senselessness, futility, and destruction with greater
senselessness. They organized meetings only to abuse and insult their audiences and their
demonstrations to show that culture had gone mad, became even more insane. They took
as their slogan ‘destruction is also creation’.

They declared that ‘Dada is against everything even Dada’. This anti-artistic
counter- revolution wanted to destroy the distinctions between painting and sculpture and
to declare that ‘all is art’.

Why Dada?
• to counter the logic that was used to justify the killing and mutilation of millions
• to show disgust with bourgeois values
• to create a better life after WWI through the irrational
Dada: What Is It?
• international movement in art and literature that used ridicule and nonsense to
reflect what was considered to be the meaninglessness of the modern world
• anti-war, anti-art, and anti-bourgeois movement
 • anarchistic movement that challenged traditional perceptions of art as well as
provoked a reexamination of social and moral values
Founding of the Movement
• originated in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916
– Zurich was neutral territory, the place where many artists went to find
refuge from World War I
– Lenin, James Joyce, and Carl Jung were also in residence here
• founded by exiles
• other Dada cells located in Paris, Barcelona and New York

Aims

• originally, to express anger over the war

• later, to attack the art establishment which was aligned with middle class society
• to destroy those systems based on reason and logic and replace them with ones
based on anarchy, the primitive, and the irrational
Anti-art Credo
• used shock, provocation, and irrationality as a weapon against the Establishment
• asked the question: what kind of culture would condone the industrialized murder
of World War I?
• made fun of the "seriousness" and sanctity of traditional art
• believed that traditional art had to be purged and that this new movement was
going to start culture from scratch
• created in a "child-like" manner
• believed that the value of art was located more in the act of making it than in the
work produced
Characteristics of Dada Art
• elementary
• anonymous and collective
• spontaneous, random, and provocative
• toy-like
• primitive
• organic and biomorphic
Mythic Origins of the Word Dada
• first word a baby utters?
• "yes, yes" in Russian?
• "hobby-horse" in Rumanian?
• word found at random in the dictionary?

MARCEL DUCHAMP (1887)

French painter one of the original Dadaist Duchamp’s work ‘ Nude Descending a
staircase’ shocked the American Public when it was exhibited in the New York Armory
show in 1913, provoking violent criticism and establishing his name in the art world the
executed various compositions in glass, giving them ridiculous titles like
‘To be watched at close range by one eye for almost an hour.

When during the journey to an exhibition one of his glass

paintings were broken. Duchamp insisted that the composition had been
planned on the assumption that it would be broken and placed it for
showing as it was. Besides painting he worked in abstract films and as a
journalist.

In his iconoclastic revolt against the artistic cult, he invented

satirical ready-made objects, but he combined careful craftsmanship with
his farcical subjects. As elements of design he incorporated the shadows
of his ready-made objects.

Nude Descending a Staircase (1912)

- The figure has been as fragmented and multiplied and the
facets are sharply geometrized that the implied motion
accelerate staccato.
- This is not simply a cubist paintings it is a painting in which
cubist means are used for some peculiarly personal express
effect.
- The rapidly descending figure was not merely an organization
of abstract lines and shapes but also a living figure set in a
common enough environments, engaged in a routine but disconcertingly
transformed activity.
- Duchamp here was deliberely attempting to reintroduce elements of subjects –
action, mood and personality – into cubist painting.

DE STIJL – 1910
This group comprised painters, sculptors, architects, designers and illustrators.
The most typical figures in the group are Van Doesburg and Mondrian in that the former
was the creator and inspiration and the latter the best known member.

Abstract art sprang up in widely separated countries but with the rapid modern
communications they kept in close contact. Abstract or unrealistic are flourishes in a
climate of alienation in a seemingly arbitrary world at the mercy of forces beyond ones
control.
Abstract art began in 1910, when the danger of war hung over the world. Men
sought in art something unchanging and absolute, an escape from the depersonalization
of industrialism, and liberation from an apparently arbitrary existence. They wanted to
create a new simple reality of order and harmony to escape from the complexity, discords
and impending destruction.
 PICTORIAL CHARACTERISTICS

The most unsurprisingly abstract of all modern painting de style work can be
recognized by the use of the primary colors (red, yellow and blue) or near primaries, and
horizontal and vertical lines dividing the areas of the canvas. In one characteristic of De
style, the vertical and horizontal lines give way to diagonals but the same use of primaries
is observed.

The name

De style is Dutch for the style it was the name given by Van Doesburg to the
periodical of the arts that he first produced in 1917.

Neo- plasticism was the term Mondrian preferred to De style as descriptive of the
movement. Mondrian said that Neo-plasticisim was the means by which the variety and
ingenuity of nature could be reduced to a plastic configuration defining the method of
communicating the immanent order of nature.

WASSILY KANDINSKY

In 1910, the half Asiatic Russian Kandinsky, born near the Chinese border of
Siberia, created the first completely non-representative art with color spots dynamically
juxtaposed, and wrote a book on the basics of abstract art. He had been a co-founder of
the Expressionist blue Rider group. He carried on research into the psychological and
emotional values of lines, their direction and relationship. While Gauguin and the Fauves
had divorced color from its natural representation, Kandinsky dissociated art completely
from all relationship with reality, not even making any allusion to it in his titles, unlike
Klee. By scientific study he also trued the to discover the laws of color and their
emotional impact. He retained the bright colors and flowing lines of Fauvism, but
rejected the planes and facets typical of Cubism. Thus he gave modern art a new
direction.

PIET MONDRIAN (1872 – 1944)

Mondrian was a Dutch painter and was influenced by Vincent Van

Gogh. After studying in Paris he turned to a seriously studied the theories of cubist
painting. This led him to renounce all representational elements and to concentrate upon a
severally limited vocabulary of forms. He reduced all lines to horizontals and verticals
and discarded all color, but used primaries, red, yellow and blue together with the
reutrals, black, white and grey the reduced all shapes to the square and rectangle. The
entire composition is also so carefully adjusted that no single portion of the surface is
more important than any other. Only a select few, even among the sophisticated can
understand this mathematical art to avoid monotony he varied the proportions but no part
had more value than the others. All the lines meet and cross at right angles the created the
illusion of movement by balancing unequal yet equivalent parts. All forms and colors that
aroused felling more strictly avoided.

1. His Pier and Ocean (1914) composed of plus and menus sings, derives from a
natural scene.
2. His ‘Composition’ (1921) Characteristic of his later work, shows a delicate
balance of thrusts and checks. Black lines of different thickness cross the white
background to form rectangles of different proportions, filled at times with
primary colors or grey tto produce effect of advancing or receding movement.
3. Broadway Boogie Woogie – He was influenced by the American scene without
forsaking the vertical and horizontal or the primaries, Mondrian is here suggesting
the range and variety, the excited mechanism of American life the dancing steps
of the asphalt jungle as well as revealing his own inherent romanticism.

SURREALISM (1924)
[Link]

Surrealism is a very adaptable name and is used to describe a great variety of

work, from the pure fantasy to the involved allegory or dream image. It differs from
all other modern movements and takes back modern art to where it left off, namely
with surrealism, the creativity of modern art comes to an end, since no important new
discoveries have emerged since then. Surrealism itself contributed no real
innovations, except that it tries to penetrate into the hidden world of the subconscious
and represent its contents in fantastic dream symbolism.

 Fantastical visual imagery from the subconscious mind

 No intention of making the work logically comprehensible.
 Founded by Andre Breton in 1924, it was a primarily European movement
 Attracted many members of the Dada movement.
 Surrealism was deeply influenced by the work of Freud.

From this standpoint of subject matter Surrealism passed through two stages.

1. Before the First World War there Rousseau, G. Chirico, Marc Chagall
contemporaries of the Cubists, had produced fantastic paintings that reveal a
romantic escape mechanisms into memory and imaginations together with
expressions of psychotic fear.
 2. After the war the French poet Breton, who had learned Freud’s ideas from his
study of neurology, started the second more sophisticated stage and gave it much
cleverly organized publicity through his manifesto of surrealism.

Like many other modern movements surrealism was an escapist art, a mad escape
from a mad world a romantic retreat into a world of dreams. The artists merely translated
their ideas into the language of shape and color. By breaking through the barrier of the
conscious to the unconscious and subconscious of psychological research, they wanted to
create a new world of fantasy a new mythology, a super or surreality more real than new
mythology, a super or surreality more real than reality by combining the psychological
levels.

They looked at human psychology rather than the anatomy of human physiology
which occupied the cubists. The subject rather than the objective interested them. Art for
them served to deepen their sacrifice knowledge, not as an object of contemplation or
enjoyment.

PICTORIAL CHARACTERISTICS

Dealing with the fantastic, surrealist painting may take a number of distinct forms,
each of which however, is recognizable through the irrational approach and the
construction of unreal, unworldly mysterious figures, either painted extremely
meticulously or constructed in near abstract shapes.

FANTASY PAINTER

The so called Neo-primitives discovered by modern artists and collectors like

Apollinaire, Picasso and Delaunay find a natural place in the history of modern art. They
had invented their own techniques but far from artistic and cultural contacts through the
circumstances of their lives.

HENRI ROUSSEAU (1844 – 1910)

French painter the greater primitive painter of modern times. He exerted great
influence on contemporary art, and his native paintings won him many admirers. He
painted from the heart, naturally and gracefully. He accepted criticism gracefully and
even cultivated his childlikeness without any affection. He remained a child a heart
loving and gentle and always siding with the defenseless. He looked at his world
sympathetically with a lively sensibility. His pictures mirror the kindness of his attractive
personality.

Rousseau’s works show a genuine imagination and emotional reaction to what he

observed, whereas others tried to self-consciously primitive creators of a cult. Rousseau’s
mysterious tropical landscapes grew out of his own unsophisticated fantasy. He always
saw the freshness of the world and he gave even the most ordinary events and the
simplest things an aura of enchantment with a feeling of drama and mystery. He painted
directly from imagination and memory but especially from the heart- he heeded no effort
to express emotion. Therefore his paintings, born of his simple yet deep understanding of
life from his own sensitive experience and imagination have a lasting interest.

Though self- taught, he developed his natural talent for design and his masterly
color sense through obstinate toil. He rejected studio tricks to give his work a realistic
illusion. Both perspective and chiaroscuro are subdued and he did not trouble himself
with solidity and proportions. The details in his smaller paintings did not spoil their unity.
The bigger, even tones of color.

Rousseau’s jungle and dream pictures with their rhythmic designs of interwoven
lines and shapes and their unusual color effects constitute his best work. The figures and
leaves intertwine as in enlarging the branches and magnifying the leaves. The delicate
foliage produces a subtle rhythm and pleasing decorative design with the artistic meeting
and crossing of the leaves. Generally he outlines the contours directly with his brush.

Egg. Sleeping gypsy:- This shows the impossible dream situation, mirroring the
subconscious. This is one of the first examples of surrealist method and one of the best
surrealist paintings even before Chirico and Chagall. Instinctively he created an endless
desert landscape by using a series of planes one behind the other. And by subtle tones he
gave it a dramatic atmosphere. Some of the important surrealist painters are Marc
Chagall, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali.

GIORGIO DI CHIRICO (1888)

Born in Greece Chirico started Metaphysical painting as a reaction to the

idolization of everything modern by his Futurist compatriots. He wanted to revive an
appreciation for the art for the part, to produce nostalgia for the infinite by infinite by his
long perspectives, and in his own words to sanctify reality.

Chirico was inspired by the sculpture and architecture in Turin, beautiful arcs
which leave room for imagination.

Chirico’s paintings covey a mysterious, dreamlike, epigenetic impression with an

atmosphere of fore boding, probably influenced by the political rises and general
insecurity just prior to First World War. Shadows are thrown by absent figures or go in
the wrong direction; a little girl rolls her hoop towards the shadow thrown by an unseen
statue. These long shadows effectively bring to mind the past and future tower’s stretch
to weary lengths accentuated by a few small figures in the background. A strange
romantic half-light adds to the dream-like atmosphere.

Eg. 1. Souvenir of Italy, the joys and enigmas of a strange hour (1913)
 - This illustrates his combination of past, present and future as if a person in the
time of locomotives were trying to return to the past while the setting sun
casts a long slanting shadow before.
- The medical tower, the long stretch of loggia and street, and the large
restlessly sleeping classical sculpture in the foreground recall the past, and
contrast with the tiny people and locomotive in the background, who bring us
to the present while the shadow seems to point to the future.

MARC CHAGALL (1887)

Russian born painter of brightly colored fantasies Chagall has spent most of his
life in France and for a while experimented with cubism, though he is primarily an
expressionist. His paintings embody memories of his childhood in Russian villages, folk
tales and fables, as well as symbolic figures. During the last war Chagall was profoundly
disturbed by the persecution of the Jews. His tragic paintings from this period are full of
the sufferings of the Jews from the time of Christ until the advent of the Nazis.

Eg. Crucifixion (1943):- This demonstrates the importance of faith which brings hope
and courage in the midst of cruelty and terror. Over the small pathetic human figures and
the village in the background appears an angel the scroll of the Jewish scriptures and the
rabbi-like figure of Christ on the cross.

MAX ERNST (1894)

One of the founders of the later surrealist movement, Max Ernst, exerted great
influence by the techniques he introduced such ‘frontage’ which bear some resemblance
to the Rorschach test used in psychiatry. He created a piece of paper with paint, placed
another paper on top, and made a sandwich of them. After separating the sheets he
saluted the most suitable one, leaving it as it was or working on it. His fantastic
imagination discovered landscapes in the most ordinary things like floorboards. His
compositions have balance with attractive color and texture.

SALVADOR DALI (1904-89)

He was a Spanish painter and one of the leading surrealist. So his Baroque
treatment he added studies of the 17th century art of realistic painter. But Freud’s research
into psychological illness was his chief inspiration in his development of a new way of
painting which he called ‘paranoiac-critical activity. It consists of creating startling
effects by combining the unreal with real. In order to make the unreal appear more real he
painted in the precisely detailed manner of the miniaturists. In this way his paintings
resemble hallucinations.
 He seemed to have an obsession for multiple images a kind of optical fun,
whereby he made the building and foliage in many of his landscapes take on the shape of
faces or heads.

He collaborated in the making of Surrealist motion pictures and was a clever

writer, but even the educated public find him hard to understand because of the pseudo-
scientific expressions he employed.

Eg. The Persistence of Memory (1931)

This grim allegory of the end of

time reveals the different aspects of his
technique Flabby watches, indicating
that time is not absolute but contingent,
hand from the dead branch of a tree,
over a rectangular ledge and on a
shapeless dormant monster in the
foreground. Moreover ants and flies,
symbolizing decay, are devouring the
peruse metal instruments made by man.
We can see the combination of real and
unreal- ants eating metal. The expanse
of sandy shore, bleached by the sun,
gives a personal touch to his annoying fads.
Painted in 1931, Persistence of Memory expresses the eternal theme of time and the
limitation of our existence with the boundary of time. Perhaps this is why this painting
has been reproduced more than any of his other work. The concern for time, how we use
time, where time goes, what time means is eternal and feels as relevant today than ever.
Insects crawling over the watch suggest death and decay, the never ending cycle with life.
Larger than life watches melt over a tree branch, drape a dead man’s head, and turn the
corner of a landscape within this fantastic painting. Dali paints what seem to be varied
dimensions of time and space within a haunting landscape of geometry and desert.
Seventy years after this was painted, scientists theorize that there are at least ten
dimensions of time and space. Persistence of Memory is one of Dali’s earliest
masterpieces and most celebrated paintings
Apparatus and Hand
 In this painting Dali creates a strange, dreamlike scene,
dominated by a weird contraption in the foreground
that is part human, part geometric robot, which Dali
refers to as an apparatus. Perhaps the apparatus is
himself, with an eye, two thin legs, a cane which is
something he liked to carry, and a painter’s hand
coming out of the top of his head. This is science
fiction as he has made an image of what could be
called a cyborg, part human, part machine and the
unknown.

JOAN MIRO (1893)

Joan Miro is a surrealist painter of Spanish origin

living in the United states. He does not use the current
aesthetic jargon, nor try to invent painting anew or rival
anyone or propose a new style or school.

He holds a unique place in modern art with his whimsical elementary forms
resembling amoeba, larva, germs or filaments. Like a primitive man or child he invents
his own decorative style with basic curbed forms and sparing colors without concern for
modeling or composition. Often he uses the automatic techniques. For his collages he
tears papers haphazardly scatters the fragments and then gives permanence to the
accidental shapes.
Characteristics of Miro’s paintings
• His work has been characterized as psychic automatism, an expression of the
subconscious in free form.
• By 1930 Miró had developed a lyrical style that remained fairly consistent.
• It is distinguished by the use of brilliant pure color and the playful juxtaposition
of delicate lines with abstract, often amoebic shapes.

Throughout his life, Miro felt a deep connection to his Catalan heritage and much of
the symbolism that is so prevalent in his work is deeply rooted in this bond.
In 1940 Miro returned to Spain and began to explore new media including large scale
sculpture, ceramics, murals and tapestries.
Following his first retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in 1941, Miro
achieved international acclaim and is recognized as a pioneer of Modernism.
After 1941, Miró lived mainly in Majorca.
He painted murals for hotels in New York City and Cincinnati and for the Graduate
Center at Harvard.

Eg. 1. Harlequin’s Carnival (1924) – One of the first Surrealist pictures takes place
within the suggested confines of a room. The perspective of the window opening on the
right gives an od inversion of space. A wild party reges inside, where only the human
being is staring sadly at the spectator. Surrounding him is every sort of animal, beasts or
organism, all having a fine time .There is no specific symbolism, simply a brilliant,
fantastic imagination that has been given full rein. Certain favorite motifs recur in a
number of paintings. The ladder with the ubiquitous ear, the eye, the man with the pipe,
the arrowbird – but the salient points of Miro’s art is not iconographical or structural.

2. Dog Barking at the moon (1926) - explored different aspects of his new word,
shows magic simplicity.

3. Dutch Interior II (1928) – a vivid phantasmagoria of amorphous shapes floating

in ambiguous space.
 JEAN ARP (1887-1966)

- Jean Arp was a French sculptor, painter, printmaker and a poet.

- He was associated with the Blue Rider, helped find the Dada movement in
1916 and contributed to the 1st surrealist exhibition in 1925.
- His later abstract works, less concerned with ideological positions than with
their self-expression are rhythmic, sure of form and bear strong suggestions of
organic and particularly sexual motifs.

- The ex-Dadaist Jean Arp, a close friend of Max Ernst, was a participant in
the first surrealist exhibition in Paris at Gallerie Pierre in 1925, and a
regular contributor to Surrealism until 1930.
- Known originally for his Dadaist wood-reliefs, cardboard cut-outs and torn
paper collages, his surrealist works comprised simple biomorphic shapes
sometimes with echoes of primitive art.
- He also experimented with automatic composition (automatism). In 1930,
he joined Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square) a Parisian discussion and
exhibition society for (mainly) geometric abstract artists, and in 1931
became a member of the larger Abstraction-Creation group, with whom he
began producing his sensuous organic abstract sculptures in marble or
bronze. This terminated his rather short involvement with Surrealism.
- Despite this, he was a forceful personality within both Dada and
Surrealism, while his signature biomorphic forms have had a strong
influence on a number of other sculptors, notably Henry Moore, as well as
the school of Organic Abstraction.

Eg. Before my birth (1914)

- Arp used cut-outs made by scissors and

‘Guillotine against the cardboard.
- He distrusted manual dexterity.
- He went without a transitional phase from this
severe type of collage to sculpture.
To Be Lost in the Woods (1932) – Bronze – One of arp’s earliest as well as most
complex bronzes, includes a base that becomes part of the total design. The base
is a pedestal form, an upper and a lower square block joined by two loosely
cylindrical and conical shapes. On the upper block rest three organic forms, the
two smaller nesting within the larger. This small structure, less than 30 inches in
height, embodies forms and ideas that Arp was to explore over the rest of his
career. The most interesting part of this sculpture is the cluster of three
interlocked organic shapes at the top.
He introduces sculptural forms in the
round that, although abstract,
nevertheless are reminiscent of
identifiable portions of human
anatomy.
Aquatic (1953)
Marble – represents his most explicit
figurative sculpture. The suggestion of
metamorphosis is particularly striking.
The artist tells us it may be displayed
horizontally or vertically: vertically it
is a female nude, horizontally, a finny
monster.

Jean Arp shared with Brancusi a love of

natural simplicity, perfection of form and lack of
artificiality to the frenzied age of machines his
works bring soothing calm speed with humour.

In his sculptures called concretions he imitated the processes of nature.

The other Dada sculptors produced machines with no other function than to mock
technology and science.

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONSIM
[Link]
MuseumofContemporaryArt

Starting from surrealism all the other movement was not viewed as regional perspective
but as an International and universal style. The pictorial art shifted from Europe to United
States. After the World War II around 1940, there was no real movement or art genius
active in Europe because it pardoned the movement and many of the artists migrated to
states. There was a sort of canalization in Europe countries to USA. In states there was 3
or 4 major origin for their style.

1. Migration of European artists to states.

 2. There was a photographer called Alfred sterility. He had a lot of enthusiasm and
he exhibited the works of art. He profounder the new movements of America and
also brought out the magazines which was a media for the artists.
3. There was a lady called Peggie Gunggenheine, she collected and exhibited the
paintings periodically and published. So she encouraged the artists.
4. An isolation of America nation. There was an awakening of national spirit and
they had political identity. This turned the artists inward. The artists started using
the subject matter of the nation itself. This gave birth to the American painting
(subject matter with the life of people in America). Abstract Expressionism was
started in America.

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912- 56)

[Link]

An American painter the foremost exponent of action painting and one of the
major artists of the mid 20th century. Jackson Pollock’s brush action painting stressed the
uncontrolled process of applying colors over the content.. He let the paint mixed with
impasto, sand or broken glass etc drip on the huge canvases as he walked over them. A
Pupil of Thomas hart Benton, he worked in the regionalist until the late 1930’s share his
style was radically influenced by the Mexican muralist, surrealism (especially as
exemplified by Miro) and south, western American Indian sand painting. In his
characteristic works of the 1940’s and early 1950’s he laid large expanses of unscratched
canvas on his studio floor and crouching over them, let paint drip upon them, in chewing
the use of brushes and other conventional tools, in an effort towards the direct expression
of his emotion,. Typically his large pains are densely impacted tracks left by his own
comings and goings actions and gestures as he hovered above the canvas surface.

He poured, plotted, sprinkled and dripped liquid paint is stained into the while
cotton duck so as to become part of the warp and waft of the weave rather than an
autonomous film on top of the canvas. The result is an image scintillating with light like a
work of late impressionism but containing an almost apocalyptic intensity in the clarity of
the improvisation. It constitutes a contemporary interpretation of the ‘sublime of the late
18th and early 19th centuries. Ideally, each of his works is a continuous without beginning
or end with references to nothing outside the work itself.

Action Painting
 In 1947, Jackson Pollock developed a radical new technique (one that both Hofmann
and Krasner had tried earlier) called "action-painting", which involved dripping
thinned paint onto raw canvas laid on the ground using wide and rhythmic sweeps of
a large and loaded brush (if a brush was used) or, more usually direct from the can -
a far cry from the traditional painterly method whereby pigment was applied by
brush to a canvas on an easel. Pollock worked in a highly spontaneous improvisatory
manner, famously dancing around the canvas pouring, throwing and dripping paint
onto it. By doing this, he claimed to be channelling his inner impulses directly onto
the canvas, in a form of automatic or subconscious painting.

Pollock's paintings smashed all conventions of traditional American art. Their subject
matter was entirely abstract, their scale was huge, and their iconoclastic production
method became almost as important as the works themselves. This was because, for
these Abstract Expressionists, the authenticity of a painting lay in its directness and
immediacy of expression: in how the artist conveyed his inner impulses, his
unconscious being. In a sense, the painting itself became an event, a drama of self-
revelation. Hence the term "action painting".

Op-Art (1965-70)

[Link]

Op Art (a term coined in 1964 by Time magazine) is a form of abstract a

(specifically non-objective art) which relies on optical illusions in order t
eye of the viewer. It is also called optical art or retinal art. A form of mo
it relates to geometric designs that create feelings of movement or vibra
art works were first produced in black-and-white, later in vibrant colour
Historically, the Op-Art style may be said to have originated in the work
Movement In Squares (1961). Vasarely (b.1908), and also from Abstract Expressionism. Another majo
By Bridget Riley, one of Britain's
leading abstract painters. artist is the British painter Bridget Riley (b.1931). Modern interest in the
art movement stems from 1965 when a major Op Art exhibition in New
entitled "The Responsive Eye," caught public attention. As a consequenc
style began appearing in print graphics, advertising and album art, as w
fashion design and interior decorations. By the end of the 1960s the Op
 movement had faded.

What is Op-Art? - Characteristics

Op Art can be defined as a type of abstract or concrete art consisting of non-

representational geometric shapes which create various types of optical
illusion. For instance, when viewed, Op Art pictures may cause the eye to
detect a sense of movement (eg. swelling, warping, flashing, vibration) on the
surface of the painting. And the patterns, shapes and colours used in these
pictures are typically selected for their illusional qualities, rather than for their
substantive or emotional content. In addition, Op artists use both positive and
negative spaces to create the desired illusions.

. How Op-Art Works

Op art exploits the functional relationship between the eye's retina (the organ that "sees" patterns) and the
brain (the organ that interprets patterns). Certain patterns cause confusion between these two organs,
resulting in the perception of irrational optical effects. These effects fall into two basic categories: first,
movement caused by certain specific black and white geometric patterns, such as those in Bridget Riley's
earlier works, or Getulio Alviani's aluminium surfaces, which can confuse the eye even to the point of inducing
physical dizziness. Second, after-images which appear after viewing pictures with certain colours, or colour-
combinations. The interaction of differing colours in the painting - simultaneous contrast, successive contrast,
and reverse contrast - may cause additional retinal effects. For example, in Richard Anuszkiewicz's "temple"
paintings, the arrangement of two highly contrasting colours makes it appears as if the architectural shape is
encroaching on the viewer's space.

Despite its strange, often nausea-inducing effects, Op-Art is perfectly in line with traditional canons of fine art.
All traditional painting is based upon the "illusion" of depth and perspective: Op-Art merely broadens its
inherently illusionary nature by interfering with the rules governing optical perception.

Famous Op Artists

The senior exponent, and pioneer of Op art effects even as early as the 1930s, is Victor Vasarely, Hungarian
in origin, but working in France since 1930. He has taken a radically sceptical view of traditional ideas about
art and artists: in the light of modern scientific advances and modern techniques, he claims that the value of
art should lie not in the rarity of an individual work, but in the rarity and originality of its meaning - which
should be reproducible. He began as a graphic artist; much of his work is in (easily reproducible) black and
white, though he is capable of brilliant colour. His best work is expressed in geometric, even mechanistic
terms, but integrated into a balance and counterpoint that is organic and intuitive. He claims that his work
contains "an architectural, abstract art form, a sort of universal folklore". His mission is of "a new city -
geometrical, sunny and full of colours", resplendent with an art "kinetic, multi-dimensional and communal.
Abstract, of course, and closer to the sciences". Vasarely's work can sometimes dazzle the eye, but he does
not aim to disturb the spectator's equilibrium.
 Bridget Riley (b.1931)
The British painter and designer Bridget Riley CH CBE hit the cultural headlines in the early 1960s with her
pictures of Op art - an illusionist geometric form of abstract art, originated by the French-Hungarian painter
Victor Vasarely (1908-97) - which earned her celebrity status far beyond the world of modern art. Her
monochromatic paintings, typically tempera or emulsion on board, used simple geometrical shapes like circles,
squares, or stripes, set out in intricate, repetitive patterns to to create movement as well as other optical
effects on the viewer's physiology and psychology of perception. In its suggestion of movement, Riley's work,
along with that of other Optical artists like the British painter Peter Sedgley (b.1930) Richard Anuszkiewicz
(b.1930), is a type of kinetic art. She is regarded as one of the great abstract painters.

The effect of the work of British artist Bridget Riley can be to produce such vertigo that the eye has to look
away. Though carefully programmed, her patterns are intuitive and not strictly derived from scientific or
mathematical calculations, and their geometrical structure is often disguised by the illusory effects (as
Vasarely's structure never is). Riley refuses to distinguish between the physiological and psychological
responses of the eye.

Pop-Art Movement
[Link]

What is Pop-Art? - Characteristics

The term Pop-Art was invented by British curator Lawrence Alloway in

1955, to describe a new form of "Popular" art - a movement characterized
by the imagery of consumerism and popular culture. Pop-Art emerged in
both New York and London during the mid-1950s and became the dominant
avant-garde style until the late 1960s. Characterized by bold, simple,
everyday imagery, and vibrant block colours, it was interesting to look at
and had a modern "hip" feel. The bright colour schemes also enabled this
form of avant-garde art to emphasise certain elements in contemporary
culture, and helped to narrow the divide between the commercial arts and
the fine arts. It was the first Post-Modernist movement (where medium is
Ingrid Bergman (1966). Andy Warhol as important as the message) as well as the first school of art to reflect the
power of film and television, from which many of its most famous images
TWENTIETH CENTURY ARTISTS acquired their celebrity. Common sources of Pop iconography were
For a quick reference guide,
see: 20th Century Painters. advertisements, consumer product packaging, photos of film-stars, pop-
stars and other celebrities, and comic strips.
 Leading Pop Artists

In American art, famous exponents of Pop included Robert Rauschenberg

(1925-2008), Jasper Johns (b.1930), Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97) and Andy
Warhol (1928-87). Other American exponents included: Jim Dine (b.1935),
Robert Indiana (aka John Clark) (b.1928), Ray Johnson (1927-95), Alex Katz
(b.1927), Claes Oldenburg (b.1929), Edward Ruscha (b.1937), James
Rosenquist (b.1933), and Tom Wesselmann (b.1931).

Leading British Pop artists included: Sir Peter Blake (b.1932), Patrick Caulfield
(1936-2006), Richard Hamilton (b.1922), David Hockney (b.1937), and Allen
Jones (b.1937).
Campbells Soup (1968). Warhol

Origins and Influences

Pop-art, like nearly all significant art styles, was in part a reaction against
the status quo. In 1950s America, the main style was Abstract
Expressionism, an arcane non-figurative style of painting that - while
admired by critics, serious art-lovers, and experienced museum-visitors -
was not "connecting" with either the general public, or with many artists.
Very much a painterly style, the more abstract and expressive it became,
the bigger the opportunity for a new style which employed more figurative,
more down-to-earth imagery: viz, something that the wider artist fraternity
could get its teeth into and that viewers could relate to. Thus Pop-art, which
duly became the established art style, and which in turn was superceded by
Electric Chair (1965) Andy Warhol other schools after 1970.

In some ways, the emergence of Pop-art (and its ascendancy over Abstract
Expressionism) was similar to the rise of Dada and its broader based
successor Surrealism (and their ascendancy over Cubism). Both the
superceded schools (Abstract Expressionism and Cubism) involved highly
intellectual styles with limited appeal to mainstream art lovers. True, Dada
was essentially anti-art, but the years during which it flourished 1916-1922
were marked by great polarization and political strife, and as soon as things
calmed down most Dadaists became Surrealists. In any event, as explained
below under Aims and Philosophy, Pop-art shares many of the
Floor Burger (1971) Claes Oldenburg
characteristics of Dada-Surrealism and is indebted to it for several
techniques derived from Kurt Schwitters' collages, the "readymades" of
Marcel Duchamp, the iconic imagery of Rene Magritte and the brash
creations of Salvador Dali (eg. Mae West Lips Sofa; Lobster Telephone).
 And if Surrealism was essentially internalist, and escapist in nature, while
Pop-art was defined by external consumerist forces, both were consumed by
the need to make a strong visual impact on the general public.

Another artist who may have had an impact on Pop-art, is Edward Hopper
(1882-1967) the realist painter of urban America. Although his painterly
style is very different from most pop works, his simple images of ultra-
American everyday scenes (eg. "Night Hawks", 1942 and "Gas", 1940) were
well known to the pop generation, and may have informed their paintings.

A Bigger Splash (1967)

David Hockney