Moving Movements, History of Modern Painting, 1900 - 10

FIRST TEN YEARS OF PREVIOUS CENTURY: RISING OF FAUVISM, EXPRESSIONISM AND CUBISM,
BUT NOT THE END OF IMPRESSIONISM AND SYMBOLISM

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.

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.
In France Vuillard painted fast, little contours, a lot of colours, squares, stripes and dots, all together. In the years '30 he will paint realistic again. Also Loiseau is a very good painter, but also less quality art was coming up.
In Italy Balla, Boccioni and da Volpedo made a wonderful kind of pointillism, although the famous work "Quarto Estado" by de Volpedo was painted very realistic. The Spanish painters were not of the best, but an exception was Bastida.
The Art Nouveau was a style of "decadence": a mood of resignation and disillusion, without belief in a Supreme Being or progress in society. Painting was not aimed to serve mankind, but to personal reasons, as to cure, a kind of therapy. Some painters made good work in their "dark period", afterwards they degenerate. For example Spilliaert, who made wonderful work between 1900 and 1910, often in a mixed technique of ink, pastel, gouache and watercolour, with distinct contours, strong effects of light and darkness, in a hallucinating mood. Around 1913 his symbolism disappeared largely, to make place for a banal kind of impressionism.
Also Redon started to work more decorative, in bouquets, still lifes and portraits. But he also continued to make masterpieces: "Clouds of Flowers" (1903) is a sailing boat aside and all what is left are the air and the sea, a crisscross of colours without form. "Buddha" (1903) before his tree, is surrounded by strange creatures. Redon's technique sometimes reminds Degas: several colour strokes mixed, as thin layers sliding over each other.
The Russian Vroebel, who was tortured by bursts of madness, made his seraphim with six wings in 1904, the hand with the lantern could have been painted by the much later Dubuffet!
Carrière made his mysterious scenes very veil and used only ochres, nevertheless always warm, never dull. Kupka worked in the greatest diversity: "Les joies" (1900) reminds Pissarro, "La Vague" is sharp and wonderful, "Les baigneuses" (1906) looks impressionism, "Le principe de la vie" (1900-1903) more surrealistic, such as his Sphinxes in: "La voie du silence". Mehoffer made in 1903 his "Strange Garden": a sun-drenched flower garden with a giant dragonfly.
Munch was still working in his expressive Nabism with round forms. Gradually he renounced it and colour stripes came up. The following years he will bear more resemblance to German expressionism.
In Poland Stanislavski, Weiss and Slevinski painted wonderful in Art Nouveau.

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.
From the colonies or the trade, from photos or films from far away countries, from the new trend of make far travels and from performances of foreign groups, the public could also watch the different forms of dance themselves. The expressivity of it also made a thorough impression on the painters, for example the African dance or the Derwisj. They also remind the expression of the old European folk dances.
Al these forms of dance, with expression as centre, let grow the appreciation for the expressive lines and forms. In Art Nouveau the line was put down carefully, but ever more painters wanted to express their force, emotions and movements in their brush strokes. Especially Germany was strong in expression. Already in the Renaissance the German works had more expression then elsewhere, in poses as well in the use of colour. Afterwards it looks as if the potential was slumbering, till the right moment arrived to flourish.

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