20th Century Art Movements

FAUVISM
• Fauvism was a joyful style of
painting that delighted in using
bold colors.
• It was developed in France at the
beginning of the 20th century by
Henri Matisse and André Derain.
• The artists who painted in this
style were known as 'Les Fauves'.
• 'Les Fauves' believed that color
should be used at its highest pitch
to express the artist's feelings Goldfish, Matisse 1911 The Open Window, Matisse 1905
about a subject, rather than simply
to describe what it looks like.
• Fauvist paintings have two main
characteristics: extremely
simplified drawing and intensely
exaggerated color.

The Pool of London, Derain 1906

EXPRESSIONISM Red Tower at Halle, Kirchner, 1915

• The 'self expression' in the art of

Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard
Munch inspired Expressionist
artists in the 20th century.
• German Expressionism is a style of
art that is charged with an
emotional or spiritual vision of the
world.

Still from the 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Self Portrait with Horn,

Max Beckmann 1938-40
 ABSTRACT
• Abstract art attempts to shift the
focus to one or more of those
elements so the viewer can
witness those elements in a new
and unusual way that the viewer
hasn't witnessed before.
• The word 'abstract' means to Fugue in Two Colors, Frantisek Kupka 1912
withdraw part of something in Abstract composite, Anne Bonnet
order to consider it separately.
• In Abstract art that 'something' is
one or more of the visual elements
of a subject: its line, shape, tone,
pattern, texture, or form.

Squares with Concentric Circles, Kandinsky 1913

There is no must in art, because art is free. Wassily Kandinsky
 Three Musicians, Picasso 1921
CUBISM
• Cubism was invented around
1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso
and Georges Braque.
• It was the first abstract style
of modern art.
• Cubist paintings ignore the
traditions of perspective
drawing and show you many
views of a subject at one time.
• The Cubists believed that the
traditions of Western art had
become exhausted and to
revitalize their work, they
drew on the expressive Woman with a guitar, Braque 1913
energy of art from other
cultures, particularly African
art. Seated Woman (Marie-Therese), Picasso 1937

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

FUTURISM
• Futurism was a revolutionary
Italian movement that celebrated
modernity.
• The Futurists adopted the visual
vocabulary of Cubism to express Movement and Sensation, Balla
their ideas - but with a slight twist.
In a Cubist painting the artist
records selected details of a
subject as he moves around it,
whereas in a Futurist painting the
subject itself seems to move
around the artist.
• The main figures associated with
the movement were the artists,
Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Cyclist, Boccioni 1913
Gino Severini, the musician Luigi
Development of a Bottle in Space, Boccioni 1913
Russolo and the architect Antonio
Sant'Elia.
DE STIJL
• De Stijl was a Dutch 'style' of pure
abstraction developed by Piet
Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg and
Bart van der Leck.
• Mondrian was the outstanding Composition VII (the three
graces), Van Doesburg 1917.
artist of the group.
• Mondrian gradually refined the
elements of his art to a grid of
lines and primary colors.
• He saw primary colors in a
universal harmony way: yellow
radiated the sun's energy; blue
receded as infinite space and red Composition with Yellow, Blue
materialized where blue and and Red, Mondrian 1937-42
yellow met.

Red & Blue chair designed by

Gerrit Rietveld, 1917
DADA
• It was a form of artistic anarchy
born out of disgust for the social,
political and cultural establishment
of the time which it held
responsible for Europe's descent
into World War.
• Dadaism was an ‘anti art’ stance as
it was intent on destroying the
artistic values of the past.
• Dada’s weapons in the war against
the art establishment were ABCD (Self-portrait),
confrontation and provocation. Raoul Hausmann 1923-24 L.H.O.O.Q., Marcel Duchamp 1919
• They confronted the artistic Readymade: pencil markings on a
establishment with the "Mona Lisa" reproduction print
irrationality of their collages and
assemblages.
SURREALISM
• Surrealism was the positive
response to Dada's negativity. Its
aim was to liberate the artist's
The Persistence of Memory, Dali 1931
imagination by tapping into the
unconscious mind to discover a
'superior' reality - a 'sur-reality'.
• To achieve this the Surrealists
drew upon the images of dreams,
the effects of combining
disassociated images, and the
spontaneous form of drawing
without the conscious control of
the mind.
• The most influential of the
Surrealist artists were Max Ernst,
Joan Miró, Salvador Dali and René
Time Transfixed, Magritte 1938
Magritte.

Uba Imperator, Ernst 1923

Abstract Expressionism
• Abstract Expressionism was fueled
by the idea of the subconscious, to
paint without thought was in full
flow by 1946.
• The pioneers of Abstract
Expressionism were Jackson
Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko,
Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Eyes in the Heat, Pollock 1946
Franz Kline, and Philip Guston. Painting Number 2, Kline 1954
• The modern/contemporary art was
the first American art style to exert
an influence on a global scale.
• Abstract Expressionism was also
known as ‘Action Painting’, a title
which implied that the physical act
of painting was as important as
the result itself.

Cherries, Guston 1976

Pop Art
• Pop Art was hugely successful and
became an icon of the 1960s. The
champions of Pop Art were Roy
Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and
Tom Wesselmann.
• It coincided with the globalization
of pop music and youth culture,
personified by Elvis and The
Beatles.
Campbell’s Soup Cans, Warhol 1962
• Pop Art was brash, colorful, young,
fun and hostile to the artistic
establishment. Marilyn Monroe, Warhol 1962
• The images of celebrity and
consumerism by Andy Warhol and
the comic book iconography of Roy
Lichtenstein represent the style as
we know it today.

Whaam, Lichtenstein 1963

OP ART
• Op Art is short for 'optical art'. It
was an abstract style that emerged
in the 1960's based on the
illusionistic effects of line, shape,
pattern and color.
• Op Artists such as Victor Vasarely,
Bridget Riley and Richard Movement in Squares, Riley 1961
Anuszkiewicz popularized the
movement.
• Time magazine referred to the new
wave as Op art and how it
manipulated the eye.
• Op Art was very popular with the
public and was quickly Intrinsic Harmony, Anuszkiewicz 1965
commercialized by the design and
fashion industries.

Vega-Nor, Vasarely 1969

MINIMALISM
• Minimalism was not only a
reaction against the emotionally
charged techniques of Abstract
Expressionism but also a further
refinement of pure abstraction.
• It used hard-edged forms and
geometric grid structures. Color
was used to define space or
surface.
Harran II, Stella 1967
• Ad Reinhardt, whose late paintings
anticipate Minimalism, put it
simply, ‘The more stuff in it, the
busier the work of art, the worse it
is. More is less. Less is more...’
• Frank Stella, Don Judd, Robert
Morris, John McCracken and Sol
LeWitt were important
contributors to Minimalism.
• Minimalism was a style which Free Ride, Tony Smith 1962
could be easily translated into
architecture and furnishing and it
was.
’23’, McCracken 1964
PHOTO-REALISM
• Photo-realism, also called Super-
realism, American art movement
that began in the 1960s, taking
photography as its inspiration. Paris Street Scene, Estes 1972
• Photo-realist painters created
highly illusionistic images that
referred not to nature but to the Self-Portrait, Close 1997
reproduced image.
• Artists such as Richard Estes, Ralph
Goings, Audrey Flack, Robert
Bechtle, and Chuck Close
attempted to reproduce what the
camera could record.
• Photo-realists typically projected a
photographed image onto a canvas
and then used an airbrush to
reproduce the effect of a photo
printed on glossy paper

Ralph’s Diner, Goings 1981-82

Resources

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