Modern Art Movements – Quick-Review Notes

Timeframe: $1872$ – mid- $1880$ s (Paris)
Goal: capture the viewer’s momentary “impression,” not detailed realism
Key techniques
- Short, thick, visible brushstrokes
- Paint applied impasto (thick)
- Painted en plein air (outdoors)
- Colors placed side-by-side, seldom blended
Origin of the term: Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise
Leading artists
- Édouard Manet – early catalyst
- Claude Monet – landscapes, water-lilies, gardens of Giverny
- Auguste Renoir – luminous scenes of everyday life; later adopted a more formal style

Direct outgrowth of Impressionism; retained vivid color & heavy strokes but added
- Geometric structure
- Distortion / fragmentation of forms
- Un-natural or symbolic color choices
Principal figures
- Paul Cézanne – bridge to modern art; analysis of form & plane
- Vincent van Gogh – turbulent brushwork, intense emotion, pulsating color

Term coined $1910$ by Antonín Matějček as the opposite of Impressionism
Sought to project inner feelings; subjects often harsh or anxious
Visual traits: swirling, exaggerated brushstrokes, bold color, distorted forms
Sub-movements/styles: neoprimitivism, fauvism, dadaism, surrealism, social realism
Key groups & artists
- Der Blaue Reiter: Franz Marc (symbolic animals, spirituality)
- Die Brücke: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (raw urban scenes)
- Edvard Munch – The Scream ( $1893$ ); psychological angst

Early $20$ th-century shift to logic & analysis (influenced by new scientific ideas)
Process: select, simplify, detach forms from visible reality
Encompasses cubism, futurism, mechanical style, nonobjectivism

Borrowed motifs from South-Sea & African tribal art (oval faces, elongated bodies)
Key adopter: Amedeo Modigliani

Offshoot of Futurism
Paintings built from precise geometric solids (planes, cones, spheres, cylinders)
Associated with Fernand Léger