Chapter 22: Early Twentieth Century

22.1: The Fauves and Expressionism

Young painters would study post-impressionist works.

  1. Fauvism:

    • Henri Matisse—Matisse was inspired by Gauguin’s Tahitian works. He led a group of painters—called “les fauves” (the wild beasts)— whom used vigorous brushwork and large, flat areas of bright color. Matisse wasn’t a rebel, he wanted to simply express himself: lines, colors, subjects, and composition itself were his mediums. He would reduce subjects to outlines to preserve “impulse of feeling” to stop distracting viewers from the immediate burst of emotion.

      • LE BONHEUR DE VIVRE(THE JOY OF LIFE)—Pure hues vibrate across the surface, lines align with simplified shapes to provide a lively composition. Seemingly careless depiction of figures is based on Matisse’s knowledge of the human anatomy. “Childlike” quality heightens the joyful content.

    • Andre Derain—Fellow fauves member and friend of Matisse.

      • LONDON BRIDGE—Brilliant colors are balanced by traditional composition and perspective. Derain intentionally uses discordant color. Pure touches of yellow, blue, and green in the lower left are expanded versions of pointillist dots.

    • Fauve movement lasted little more than 2 years, 1905-1907. Fauves took color farther from its traditional role and led to an increase in the use of color as an independent expressive element.

  2. Expressionism:

    • Expressionism—Group in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterized by bold execution and free use of distortion and symbolic or invented color. Emphasized inner emotions.

    • German Expressionism—German artists who developed vivid, often angular simplification of their subjects and dramatic color contrasts, with bold, at times crude finish; added emotional intensity. Explored themes of natural life, sorrow, passion, spirituality, and mysticism. Two groups led German Expressionism:

      • The Bridge(Die Brucke)

      • The Blue Rider(Der Blaue Reiter)

    • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner—One of the founders of The Bridge. Appealed to artists to revolt against academic painting and establish a new aesthetic to connect Germanic past and modern experience. Kirchner employed flat color areas of Fauvism; by 1903, he developed a style that incorporated the angularities of cubism.

      • STREET, BERLIN—Depicts elongated figures crowded together. Diagonal lines create an urban atmosphere. Dissonant colors, chopped-out shapes, and rough brushwork heightens emotional impact.

    • Paula Modersohn-Becker—Developed an expressionist style different than the organized groups.

      • SELF-PORTRAIT WITH AN AMBER NECKLACE—Reduced curves of her head to flat regions, and expressive colors. Oversized eyes, seem to tell a message but remain mysterious.

    • Wassily Kandinsky—Led The Blue Rider group. Tried to lead viewers to spiritual rejuvenation.

      • BLUE MOUNTAIN(DER BLAUE BERG)—Described as a choir of colors, influenced by the vivid, freely expressive color of the Fauves. Subject matter is secondary to powerful visual elements.

      • COMPOSITION IV—Shift to nonrepresentational imagery to free his art from the need to depict something. He said art should speak directly to the emotions of the viewer—similar to how music can be both pleasing and displeasing. In COMPOSITION IV he set to make “the soul [vibrate].”

      • Hoped his nonrepresentational art would lead to a era of spirituality.

22.2: Cubism

  1. Cubism:

    • Pablo Picasso—While living in Pairs, Pablo Picasso shared ideas with Georges Braque; together they discovered cubism. Cubist painters emphasized pictorial composition over personal expression.

      • LES DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON(YOUNG LADIES OF AVIGNON)—Radical departure from traditional composition. Set the stage for Cubism.

      • Picasso created a new vocabulary of art influenced by Cezanne’s reconstruction of nature, and African Sculptures such as the Kota RELIQUARY FIGURE and the MASK from Ivory Coast. The meanings had little importance, his interest was in their form.

    • Georges Braque—Took Paul Cezanne’s, GARDANNE, a step further.

      • HOUSES AT L’ESTAQUE—Instead of a regular perspective, Braque’s shapes rush and pile up rhythmically in a shallow space. Buildings and trees seem interlocked. When Matisse saw this piece he declared it nothing but cubes(Cubists versus Expressionistic Fauves).

  2. Analytical Cubism:

    • Analytical Cubism—Style of Cubism developed by Pablo Picasso and Braque from 1910-1911 in which they analyzed their subjects from various angles, then painted abstract, geometric references to those views. Similar to how we see by building a mental image through brief, focused glances.

      • THE PORTUGUESE—Georges Braque’s portrait of a man sitting at a cafe strumming a guitar. Depicts how cubism is a reconstruction of objects based on geometric simplification in overlapping 2D planes.

  3. Synthetic Cubism:

    • Synthetic cubism—Modification of Analytical Cubism with color, textured and patterned surfaces, and the use of cutout shapes. Artists used pieces of newspaper, sheet music, wallpaper, and similar items, not represented but actually presented in a new way.

      • VIOLIN, FRUIT AND WINEGLASS—Piece by Picasso that depicts a real Paris newspaper, pieces that would be in the background of other pieces now brought forward and presented. Rather than drawing fruits he cut out prints and pasted them onto what is now known as papier colle or collages.

    • Analytical cubism involved breaking down subjects into various aspects, whereas synthetic cubism involved putting various aspects together.

      • GUITAR—Pablo Picasso piece that extended the Cubist revolution to sculpture. Made of sheet metal. Before, GUITAR, it was common to mold or carve sculptures, this changed that.

22.3: Toward Abstract Sculpture

  1. At the beginning of the 20th century the most influential sculptor was Auguste Rodin. Romanian Constantin Brancusi followed under Rodin, but later Brancusi moved toward abstraction.

    • Constantin Brancusi

      • SLEEP—Radical, yet gradual, break with the past. Similar to Rodin’s romantic naturalism.

      • SLEEPING MUSE I—Brancusi simplified the subject as he moved from naturalism to abstraction.

      • NEWBORN [I]—Stripped down to essentials. “Simplicity is not an end in art, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, in approaching the real sense of things.”

      • CYCLADIC II—Ancient sculptures from the Cyclades has a distinctive, highly abstract elegance.Brancusi spent time sketching works in the ancient Mediterranean section of the Louvre.

      • BIRD IN SPACE—Brancusi eliminates surface embellishments. He abstracted forms to their essence; to invite contemplation. Implied soaring motion of the “bird.” Reflective polish adds weightless quality. Inspired by the Wright Brothers initiation of human flight—“all my life I have sought the essence of flight.”

22.4: Early Modern Art in The United States

Armory show in Boston and Chicago—that brought in 300,000 viewers—promoted Cubism and other forms of abstract art in the Untied States.

  1. Photography and Painting:

    • Alfred Stieglitz—Turning photography into art.

      • THE STEERAGE—Picasso stated “this photographer is working in the same spirit as I am;” as in Stieglitz had the same eye for abstraction as Picasso. Stieglitz saw the complex scene as an array of interacting forces of light, shade, shape, and directional force.

    • Alfred Stieglitz held a gallery called “291” after its address on Fifth Avenue. Had few visitors but a heavy influence. First to show works by Matisse, Cezanne, Brancusi, Picasso, and Braque. Published a magazine “camera work,” that spoke of photography and modern aesthetics. 291 also exhibited children’s and African art. Displayed work of Georgia O’Keeffe.

    • Georgia O’Keeffe—Her work was Innovative, loosely brushed abstractions based on nature. When teaching in the Texas Panhandle, she took lonely walks in the Windswept prairie. She found the emptiness stimulating and made a series of abstract watercolor works named Evening Star.

      • EVENING STAR NO. VI—based on her sighting of Venus.

  2. Creators: Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Art and Lives Intertwined

    • Lifelong relationship evolved from admiration to marriage to mutual influence to separation to respect.

      • THE RADIATOR BUILDING—NIGHT, NEW YORK—During their time living in New York she took tighter brushes and city subjects. Painted Stieglitz name in bright red neon.

    • Their relationship became unsteady with Stieglitz time in New Mexico. O’Keeffe moved to the Southeast and continued her landscape paintings. Stieglitz also took an interest in the sky.

      • EQUIVALENTS—Series of abstract photographs.

    • Stiglietz opened his gallery called An American Place and displayed O’Keeffe’s works until his passing.

  3. Architecture

    • Frank Lloyd Wright began minimizing walls or omitting them completely.

      • ROBIE HOUSE—Striking cantilevered roof reaches out. Influenced the course of modern architecture.

22.5 Futurism and the Celebration of Motion

  1. Futurism—A group movement originating in Italit in 1909 that celebrated both natural and mechanical motion and speed.

    • Inspired by Cubism but added a sense of speed and motion and a celebration of the machine. Two notable names: Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni.

    • ABSTRACT SPEED-THE CAR HAS PASSED—Giacomo Balla depicts “rushing air and dynamic feeling of a vehicle passing.”

    • UNIQUE FORMS OF CONTINUITY IN SPACE—Umberto Boccioni depicts muscular forms that leap outward in flamelike bursts of energy. Representing this time of dreaming of the future with the invention of planes, trains, and automobiles.

    • Marcel Duchamp—Worked independently from the Futurists; brought dimension of motion to Cubism.

      • NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE, NO. 2–Sequential, diagonally placed, abstract references. Rhythmic repetition to display motion.

    • Sonia Delaunay-Terk—Expressed motion through color contrasts.

      • LE BAL BULLIER—Depicts couples moving across the floor in a nightclub. Composed by flat shapes that overlap in shallow space.