|
||||
![]() |
||||
Moving Movements, History of Modern Painting, 1900 - 10 |
||||
FIRST TEN YEARS OF PREVIOUS CENTURY: RISING OF FAUVISM, EXPRESSIONISM AND CUBISM, |
||||
In 1900 the telegraph connected the entire world. Only in the United States there were more then 1,4 million telephones, 8000 recorded automobiles and 24 million light bulbs. In 1900 Freud wrote his Traumdeutung and the First French woman got a function in court. Einstein's relativity theory dates from 1905 and in 1912 Bohr delivered the first illustrative model of an atom. In 1905 the first Russian revolution took place, with revolts and strikes. In 1908 Orville Wrights' first airplane flight took an hour. |
click the thumbnails Claude Monet Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne Maximilien Luce Leon de Smet Károly Ferenczy Pelliza da Volpedo Pelliza da Volpedo Gaetano Previati Leon Spilliaert Odilon Redon Eugene Carriere Frantisek Kupka Frantisek Kupka Mehoffer André Derain Henri Matisse Henri Matisse Orthon Friesz Orthon Friesz Alexei von Jawlensky Witold Wojtkiewicz Wassily Kandinsky Gustav Klimt Vassili Ivanovitsj Denissov Boris Dmitrjevitsj Grigorjev Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka TivaTheo van Rysselberghe
|
|||
Several styles were flourishing When La libre Esthétique organised an exposition of impressionism in 1904, a lot of the first impressionists were already death: Pissarro, Manet, Sisley, Morisot,
Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec. Monet painted
his "Le parlement, ciel orageux" in 1901, almost abstract and resembling Turner. Cézanne worked colourful in spots, wet in wet, but also on dried ground, with sharp contours or shadow edges. Signac's strokes became bigger, vertical or horizontal on the canvas placed as bricks in a wall. Luce painted in a multicoloured pointillism: city views, but also social politics. Cross' pointillism catches the eye by light-darkness effects and special colours. New impressionists came, such as Leon De Smet in Belgium: with multicoloured, very light strokes his canvas radiates a unique atmosphere, with forms fading in vibrating light. In Hungary Ferenczy is the first really beautiful impressionist. |
||||
|
||||
At "Madame Matisse and the green Stripe"(1905) of Matisse one notice that the real colour has no importance anymore, the face is a colourful painting on its own. The colour has its own life with the Fauvists, colour for the colour, or in other words: the figuration stays, but the colours are abstract. At the "Gipsy" (1906) a feast of colours is visible in thick paint and coarse brush strokes. Very "primitive"
as with a child drawing, the brush strokes don't have to follow always the contours. In 1907 Matisse starts another style: even more primitive, more austere, little on the canvas and more drawn then painted. Also Bracque painted Fauvist, for example "Harbour of Antwerp": a colourful spectacle of colours, full of big strokes. De Vlaminck painted in more strokes, spots and longer stripes mixed, the subject often unrecognisable. Friesz let his colour spots and strokes flow in each other, on other places he demarcates clearly and tight. Dufy's style is more as drawing with several colours. With their bordered areas, in which several strong colours, the Fauvists look as an exploded Gauguin. They have also something left from pointillism in their use of strokes. |
||||
Expressionism With the revaluation of the line the Art Nouveau gave the initial impetus to more expressivity: its powerful lines did go beyond the whiplash, mainly in body contours. The human pose became a source of expression. It was the time of the search for new forms of dancing, reacting against the formal grace of ballet with lack of expression. Loïe Fuller gave the first start. Her movements were extended by all kind of cloths, which she let radiate in the new electric theatre spotlights. In 1893 she warmed the hearts of the symbolists. She was also a good business woman and had a great success in Europe and America. In the eyes of the world of dance she was judged as being moderate, but a lot of artists were fond of her. In fact she was showing what will be called in the future "kinetic art". The form of cloths whirling around had a strange resemblance to the lines of the Art Nouveau and Nabism. Loïe Fuller also coached
Isodora Duncan, who choosed another way in dance. She was inspired for example on old Greek dance. She wanted a dance, which expressed emotion in its poses, movement and mime, which was spontaneous and bodily and could be sensual or mystical. Ruth Saint-Denis created her own kind of dance inspired on Eastern dances, where she emphasised the mystical expression, without following the meaning of the symbols given to it in the original culture. In such a way, she made a universal Eastern dance, close to the Theosophy of that period. Her group, the Denishawn (with her husband,
Ted Shawn), will become the foundation of the later modern dance. |
||||
|
||||
But in line and colour he was still far from Die Brücke. Die Brücke was founded in 1905 in Dresden by Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff and Bleyl. Kirchner was the leading person. Especially Van Gogh had made a great impression on him, he did find Signac or Pissarro too disciplined. Die Brücke is often taken as an example how artists could hold together in an association. It is a perfect example to show how wrong that idea is, Die Brücke had been of little importance. Most of the painters already had achieved their typical style before becoming a member, they kept on working a while in a similar direction and later on they grew away from each other. Moreover a lot of German expressionists had anything to do with Die Brücke. Die Brücke held on for only eight years, it was dissimilated in 1913. Nolde was invited to become member, which he was in 1906 and 1907. In 1908 he painted childish simple, quickly made, flat, fierce but sometimes dull colours, neglecting the laws of perspective, with a preference for fierce green. Contours still appear, even double ones, also around details. Some of them were called members without having anything to do with the other members, such as Amiet, Gallen-Kallela, Van Dongen or Kubista (a Czech). Pechstein was a member from 1906, Mueller only form 1910. |
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
In Russia sixteen young artists established a new symbolist circle in Moscow, with artists from several Russian cities (especially Saratov at the Volga was an important artistic place). Pavel Koeznetsov and Pjotr Oetkin were in charge. In 1907 an exposition was held in Moscow with the name "The blue Rose". All was carefully-tended, totally in blue and grey colours, the works as well as the interior. The concept and the name were borrowed from the work of the Belgian poet-dramaturge Maurice Maeterlinck, passionately loved by the Russian artists. At the moment of the exhibition his "L'oiseau bleu" was running in Moscow in world première. Earlier, in 1904, there was an exhibition in Saratov named "The red Rose". The rose always has been a favourite symbol in art: because the flower and thorns represent the inseparability of joy and grieve, good and evil, love and sorrow, because of the mystery of the buttons which don't open immediately... Due on Maeterlinck's work the name had been changed in "The blue Rose", with painters as Pjotr Oetkin, Pavel Koeznetsov, Alexander Matvejev, Anna Goloebkina, Anatoli Arapov, Denissov and Grigorjev. Malevitch worked in aquarelle or gouache such as "The Flower Harvest" (1908), pure expressionism á la Brücke. Other works by him are more stylised, as with the Nabis, but filled with patterns, referring to the folk art. Hammerhøi painted mysterious desolate interiors in Denmark. In Austria Kokosjka painted expressionism from 1908, in a very varying style. Schiele's expressionism got form between 1907 and 1909, he remains closer to Art Nouveau, with clear influence of Klimt, but also differences. Especially his oil paintings are expressionism both in colour and in structures, for instances "Mother with two children III" from 1915 - 17. Hungary and Poland stuck closely to Paris in art. The Hungarian Contvary however, didn't care his fellow-countrymen, nor the rest of Europe. He also worked very varied, nevertheless he has his own style, a way of working that make him recognisable. Now he reminds us to the later De Chirico, sometimes to Rousseau. His landscape mood is clearly symbolist, his use of coloured areas is Nabi. |
||||
![]() |
||||
Csontvary, Ruins of the Greek Theater in Taormina, 1904 - '05 |
||||
His strong colours as well as the poses and faces of his figures, look expressionism, although he was totally on his own, never lived in Paris nor in Germany and never took lessons with some other artist. In his "Ruins of Taormina" (1904 - 5), five meter seventy long and painted precisely, the colours look as from expressionism: the air is partly strong yellow, the mountains ultramarine, the sea is divided in coloured areas, the buildings are pink. His "Baalbek" (7,16 m long, from 1906) is in green-blue and vivid red areas and squares. Shapes are deformed for the expressivity, as in "Horsemen at the Coast" (1909) or the sailing boats in "Castellamare di Stabia" (1902). His "Roman Bridge in Mostar" is half cubism and very expressive, the use of squares reminds Cezanne, although with Contvary they are clearly marked out. The colours are intense and have a dramatic effect. Contvary was a pharmacist until he got a vision wherein he was told he was preoccupied to become the greatest painter of all ages. His vision is regarded in literature as a burst of madness, but one must agree he can be regarded as one of the greatest. Copyright for the text of all pages of this History of Modern Painting: Johan Framhout; text written in 1990-92; revisionned and put on the internet in 2005; translation in English 2012 |
||||
![]() |