Pop Art

The Art of Popular Culture

Whaam! (oil and Magna (acrylic resin) on canvas, 1963)

Tate Gallery, London

Pop Art was the art of popular culture. It was the visual art movement that characterised a sense of optimism during the post war consumer boom of the 1950's and 1960's. It coincided with the globalization of pop music and youth culture, personified by Elvis and the Beatles. Pop Art was brash, young and fun and hostile to the artistic establishment. It included different styles of painting and sculpture from various countries, but what they all had in common was an interest in mass-media, mass-production and mass-culture.

BRITISH POP ART

Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) I was a Rich Man's Plaything (collage, 1947)

Tate Gallery, London

The word 'POP' was first coined in 1954, by the British art critic Lawrence Alloway, to describe a new type of art that was inspired by the imagery of popular culture. Alloway, alongside the artists Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi, was among the founding members of the Independent Group, a collective of artists, architects, and writers who explored radical approaches to contemporary visual culture during their meetings at ICA in London between 1952 and 1955. They became the forerunners to British Pop art. At their first meeting Paolozzi gave a visual lecture entitled 'Bunk' (short for 'bunkum' meaning nonsense) which took an ironic look at the allAmerican lifestyle. This was illustrated by a series collages created from American magazines that he received from GI's still resident in Paris in the late 1940s. 'I was a Rich Man's Plaything', one of the 'Bunk' series, was the first visual artwork to include the word 'POP'.

Richard Hamilton (1922- ) Just what is it that makes todays homes so different, so appealing? (collage, 1956) Kunsthalle Tbingen Some young British artists in the 1950s, who grew up with the wartime austerity of ration books and utility design, viewed the seductive imagery of American popular culture and its consumerist lifestyle with a romantic sense of irony and a little bit of envy. They saw America as being the land of the free - free from the crippling conventions of a class ridden establishment that could suffocate the culture they envisaged: a more inclusive, youthful culture that embraced the social influence of mass media and mass production. Pop Art became their mode of expression in this search for change and its language was adapted from Dada collages and assemblages. The Dadaists had created irrational combinations of random images to provoke a reaction from the establishment of their day. British Pop artists adopted a similar visual technique but focused their attention on the mass imagery of popular culture which they waved as a challenge in the face of the establishment. Richard Hamiltons collage of 1956, Just What Is It That Makes Todays Homes So Different, So Appealing? is the ultimate catalogue of pop art imagery: comics, newspapers, advertising, cars, food, packaging, appliances, celebrity, sex, the space age, television and the movies. A black and white version of this collage was used as the cover for the catalogue of the 'This Is Tomorrow' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1956. This show heralded a widening of our understanding of what culture is and inspired a new generation of young British artists that included Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Joe Tilson, Derek Boshier, Richard Smith and R.B Kitaj.

AMERICAN POP ART

Pop art in America evolved in a slightly differently way to its British counterpart. American Pop Art was both a development of and a reaction against Abstract Expressionist painting. Abstract Expressionism was the first American art movement to achieve global acclaim but, by the mid1950's, many felt it had become too introspective and elitist. American Pop Art evolved as an attempt to reverse this trend by reintroducing the image as a structural device in painting, to pull art back from the obscurity of abstraction into the real world again. This was a model that had been tried and tested before. Picasso had done something similar forty years previously when he collaged 'real world' printed images onto his still lifes, as he feared that his painting was becoming too abstract. Around 1955, two remarkable artists emerged who would lay the foundations of a bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. They were Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, the forerunners of American Pop Art.

Jasper Johns (1930- )

Numbers in Color, 1958-59 (encaustic and newspaper on canvas)

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Jasper Johns early artworks question how we look at, perceive and make art. He does not distinguish between subject and object in his work, or art and life for that matter. In his eyes they are both the same thing. Johns believes that we should not look upon a painting as a representation or illusion but as an object with its own reality. Like the forerunners of British Pop Art, Johns was influenced by Dada ideas, in particular the 'readymades' (found objects) of Marcel Duchamp, whose bottle racks and bicycle wheels challenged the definition of the art object. However, it was not 'found objects' that Johns introduced as a subject for his paintings, but found images - flags, targets, letters and numbers - and it was this iconography of familiar signs that appealed to Pop. He saw them as "pre-formed, conventional, depersonalised, factual, exterior elements." Johns' depersonalized images provided an antidote to the obscure personal abstraction of late Abstract Expressionism. His use of such neutral icons offered him a subject that was immediately recognisable but so ordinary that it left him free to work on other levels. His subjects provided him with a structure upon which he could explore the visual and physical qualities of his medium. The results were a careful balance between representation and abstraction. Johns painted in encaustic, an archaic medium that dates from the first century which fuses pigment in hot wax. He combined encaustic with newspaper collage to create a seductive expanse of paint where his sensitive mark-making articulates the surface of the work. His fascination with the overall unity of the surface plane in a picture places him in a tradition that stretches back through Cubism and Czanne to Chardin. Johns' art plays with visual ideas that have layers of meaning and communicate on various levels. It is both sensual and cerebral - an art about art and the way we relate to it.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925- 2008)

Retroactive 1 (oil and silkscreen on canvas, 1964)

Wadsworth Atheneum

Robert Rauschenberg also used 'found images' in his art but, unlike Johns' images, they are combined in a relationship with one another or with real objects. The work of both these artists is often referred to as Neo-Dada as it draws on found elements, first explored by Dadaists like Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters. Inspired by Schwitters who created collages from the refuse he picked up on the street, Rauschenberg combined real objects, that he found in his New York neighborhood, with collage and painting. He said, I actually had a house rule. If I walked completely round the block and didn't have enough to work with, I could take one other block and walk around it in any direction but that was it. He called these multi-media assemblages combines, which had to look at least as interesting as anything that was going on outside the window. Rauschenberg believed that painting is more like the real world if it's made out the real world. Collage was Rauschenbergs natural language and he added to its vocabulary by developing a method of combining oil painting with photographic silkscreen. This allowed him to experiment with contemporary images gathered from newspapers, magazines, television and film which he could reproduce in any size and color as a compositional element on a canvas or print. He used these elements in a way that mirrors our experience of mass-media. Everyday we are bombarded with images from television, newspapers and magazines, disregarding most but retaining a few that relate, either consciously or subconsciously, to our individual experience and understanding.

Rauschenberg's paintings capture this visual 'noise' in a framework of images whose narratives suggest some kind of ironic allegory. Rauschenberg was interested in our changing perception and interpretation of images: "I'm sure we don't read old paintings the way they were intended." In 'Retroactive 1', Rauschenberg plays with the way we have read paintings since the early Renaissance. The composition recalls early religious icons where the central figure of Christ or a saint would have been surrounded by some smaller narrative panels. An iconic image of the venerated President Kennedy, the most powerful man in the world who was assassinated in the previous year, holds the central position as he forcefully issues a warning. He points to the red image on his right which looks deceptively like Masaccio's 'Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden' c.1432 from the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. With the symbolic association of 'red' and the mushroom-shaped cloud hovering above the president's head, this could easily be interpreted as a cold war reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis, ironically using a creation allegory to represent the Doomsday scenario. However, Rauschenberg is not that simple. If you look more closely you discover that the red image is not a section of Masaccio's fresco, but a detail from a stroboscopic flash photograph for Life magazine (10/10/1952) by Gjon Mili of a real life reconstruction of a painting by Rauschenberg's mentor: 'Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2' (1912) by Marcel Duchamp. While a single apple is a metaphor for Original Sin in Renaissance paintings of Adam and Eve, in 'Retroactive 1' an astronaut parachutes back to earth only to land in an upturned box of the 'forbidden fruit' - a symbol of how man's potential for evil has multiplied in the modern world (in Latin, the words for 'apple' and 'evil' are identical in their plural form: 'mala'). Rauschenberg extends his metaphor by illustrating in the top right of the painting what the astronaut is returning to: Eden after the Fall - a world polluted by industrialisation. 'Retroactive 1' is a very appropriate title for the work as it relates to a canon of images, events and ideas across time.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

Marilyn Diptych (silkscreen on canvas, 1962)

Tate Gallery, London

If there was one artist who personified Pop Art it was Andy Warhol. He originally worked as a 'commercial artist' and his subject matter was derived from the imagery of mass-culture: advertising, comics, newspapers, TV and the movies. Warhol embodied the spirit of American popular culture and elevated its imagery to the status of museum art. He used second-hand images of celebrities and consumer products which he believed had an intrinsic banality that made them more interesting. He felt that they had been stripped of their meaning and emotional presence through their mass-exposure. Typically subverting the values of the art establishment, Warhol was fascinated by this banality which he celebrated in a series of subjects ranging from celebrities to soup cans. Whether it was a painting of 'Campbell's Chicken Noodle' or a 'Car Crash', a portrait of 'Elizabeth Taylor' or the 'Electric Chair', Warhol's detached approach was always the same: "I think every painting should be the same size and the same color so they're all interchangeable and nobody thinks they have a better or worse painting." Warhol saw this aesthetic of mass-production as a reflection of contemporary American culture: "What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." The obvious irony of this statement is that the price of that Coke bottle hits the stratosphere as soon as Warhol signs it. As Cubism stands on the shoulders of Czanne, Warhol's art is dependant on Duchamp's 'readymades. He was really a Dadaist in spirit - an 'agent provocateur'. His many whimsical proclamations about art were deliberately enigmatic and contrary, avoiding clarification and forcing his audience to speculate on their meaning: "I'd prefer to remain a mystery. I never like to give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I'm asked." Warhol's evasive attitude was a strategy, the result of which was self publicity. He cultivated his own image like a business model which was inseparable from his art. He said, "I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art." Warhol was against the idea of skill and craftsmanship as a way of expressing the artist's personality. He claimed to have removed both craftsmanship and personality from his own art: "The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do.............If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There's nothing behind it." His works were produced through the mechanical processes of film and silkscreen printing or made by others in his studio which was called 'The Factory'. Warhol's paradoxical statements such as, "I am a deeply superficial person" or "art should be meaningful in the most shallow way" are echoed in his work. The left hand panel of his Marilyn Diptych is a crudely colored photograph of the actress whose sense of 'self' is degraded through the repetition of her image, whereas the right hand panel is a physically degraded black and white image (as the printing ink runs out on the silkscreen) that reflects the ephemeral qualities of fame. Their combined panels are a memorable discourse on the nature of celebrity and its power to both create and destroy its acquaintances. The 'diptych' format was originally used in medieval painting for religious images of personal devotion, an appropriate choice considering Warhol's fascination for Marilyn Monroe. The work was exhibited in Warhol's first New York exhibition at the Stable Gallery in November 1962, just weeks after Marilyn's death from 'acute barbiturate

poisoning'. The Marilyn Diptych, along with his other famous Marilyn paintings, is based on a 1953 publicity photograph for the film 'Niagara' that Warhol purchased only days after she died.

Roy Lichtenstein (1923- 1997)

The Artist's Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey) (oil, Magna (acrylic resin) and sand on canvas, 1973)
Walker Art Centre

Roy Lichtenstein developed a pop art style that was based on the visual vernacular of masscommunication: the comic strip. It was a style that was fixed in its format: black outlines, bold colors and tones rendered by Benday dots (a method of printing tones in comic books from the 1950's and 60's). What actually changed through the development of Lichtenstein's art was his subject matter which evolved from comic strips to an exploration of modernist art styles: Cubism, Futurism, Art Deco, De Stijl, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. Roy Lichtenstein's early work had a hint of Americana - "Expressionistic Cubism ....of cowboys and Indians" was how he put it - but it was still based on the painterly conventions that he had been taught to respect. Bored with the glut of Expressionist feeling that was around at the time, Lichtenstein attacked this sagging tradition with paintings like 'Look Mickey' (1961), a large scale cartoon image which "was done from a bubble gum wrapper" (a detail of this work can be seen in The Artist's Studio No.1, 1973). His comic strip images had an initial shock value, but like much of Pop they were quickly embraced by the galleries and collectors. Lichtenstein remarked, "It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough so that no one would hang it.......everybody was hanging everything. It was almost acceptable to hang a dripping paint rag, everybody was accustomed to this. The one thing everyone hated was commercial art; apparently they didn't hate that enough, either."

The hard-edged commercial style of Lichtenstein's comic book paintings was an antidote to the incoherent splashes of late Abstract Expressionism, but it was not simply intended as an act of Pop/Dada protest, "I don't think that Pop would have existed without Dada having existed before it, but I don't really think that Pop is Dada. I don't think that I look on my work as being anti-art or anything that's different from the mainstream of painting since the Renaissance." Although there is an element of irony and humor in Lichtenstein's style, his work lies within the classical tradition of control in the use of line, shape, tone and color as compositional elements. The discipline of the work is cerebral with little left to impulse or emotion or what he calls 'the character of art'. "My work sanitizes it (emotion) but it is also symbolic of commercial art sanitizing human feelings. I think it can be read that way........People mistake the character of line for the character of art. But its really the position of line thats important, or the position of anything, any contrast, not the character of it." Lichtenstein does not exactly copy his comic book images; he subtly refines them, conscious of their transformed appearance on a larger scale and aware of their aesthetic interpretation within the context of the museum. (You can get an idea of this effect on David Barsalou's Lichtenstein Project.) As his style developed he move away from using the imagery of comics to interpreting modernist art styles, but still in his comic book vernacular. Lichtenstein was able to maintain this singular style for over thirty five years, not simply by varying his subject matter, but by viewing his art as an independent entity with an existence and development that he controlled, "I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me."

Claes Oldenburg (1922- ) and Coosje van Bruggen (1942-2009)

Spoonbridge and Cherry photo: Mike Hicks (alluminium, stainless steel and paint, 1985-88)
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Claes Oldenburg was the Pop Artist who gravitated towards sculpture more than any of his contemporaries. At the start of 1960's he was involved in various 'Happenings': spontaneous, improvised, artistic events where the experience of the participants was more important than an end product - a kind of consumer art encounter for a consumer culture. Oldenburg found his inspiration in the imagery of consumer merchandise, "I am for Kool-art, 7-UP art, Pepsi-art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol Art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L & M art, Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New art, How art, Fire sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art." In 1961 he opened 'the Store' where he sold plaster replicas of fast foodstuff and junk merchandise whose crudely painted surfaces were an obvious parody of Abstract Expressionism. He used the front shop of 'The Store' as a gallery while he replenished his stock from his studio in the back shop. Oldenburg's work is full of humorous irony and contradiction: on one hand he makes hard objects like a bathroom sink out soft sagging vinyl, while on the other he makes soft objects like a cheeseburger out of hard painted plaster. He also subverts the relative size of objects by taking small items like the spoon and cherry above and recreating them on an architectural scale. He said, "I like to take a subject and deprive it of its function completely." By undermining the form, scale and function of an object Oldenburg contradicts its meaning and forces the spectator to reassess its presence. When you see his large scale public works in their environmental settings, they have a powerful surrealist quality like Gulliver at Brobdingnag. Claes Oldenburg has collaborated with Dutch/American pop sculptor Coosje van Bruggen since 1976. They were married in 1977. Coosje van Bruggen died in January, 2009.

Pop Art Notes

Pop Art was a brash, young and fun art movement of the 1960's.

Pop Art coincided with the globalization of Pop Music and youth culture.

Pop Art included different styles of painting and sculpture but all had a common interest in mass-media, mass-production and mass-culture. Although Pop Art started in Britain, its is essentially an American movement. Pop art was strongly influence by the ideas of the Dada movement. Pop Art in America was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism.

The art of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg is seen as a bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. The artist who personifies Pop Art more than any other is Andy Warhol. Warhol's paintings of Marilyn Monroe are the most famous icons of Pop Art.

Roy Lichtenstein developed an instantly recognizable style of Pop Art inspired by the American comic strip. Claes Oldenburg was the greatest sculptor of the Pop Art movement, creating many large scale public works.

Expressionism
The Spirit of Expressionist Art

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) Davos under Snow (oil on canvas, 1923)
Kirchner Museum, Davos

Expressionism is a term that embraces an early 20th century style of art, music and literature that is charged with an emotional and spiritual vision of the world.

The Roots of Expressionism

Matthias Grnewald (c.1475-1528) The Crucifixion Panel from the Isenheim Altarpiece (oil on wood, 1515)
Muse d'Unterlinden

Expressionism is associated with Northern Europe in general and Germany in particular. The Expressionist spirit has always existed in the German psyche. Its embryonic forms can be recognized in the physical and spiritual suffering depicted in Grnewald's Crucifixion above, in the tortured vision of Martin Schongauers engraving of the 'Temptation of Saint Anthony' below.

Martin Schongauer (1448-1491) Temptation of Saint Anthony (engraving on copper c.1480)

Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

At the end of the 19th century, this Expressionist spirit resurfaced in the paintings of two awkward and isolated personalities one was the Dutchman, Vincent Van Gogh and the other a Norwegian, Edvard Munch. While the Impressionists were admiring the colour and beauty of the natural landscape, Van Gogh and Munch took a radically different perspective. They chose to look inwards to discover a form of self-expression that offered them an individual voice in a world that they perceived as both insecure and hostile. It was this more subjective search for a personal emotional truth that drove them on and ultimately paved the way for the Expressionist art forms of the 20th century that explored the inner landscape of the soul.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Sunflowers (oil on canvas, 1888)

National Gallery, London

Paintings like Van Goghs Sunflowers (1888) opened our eyes to the intensity of expressive colour. He used colour to express his feelings about a subject, rather than to simply describe it. In a letter to his brother Theo he explained, Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before my eyes, I use colour more arbitrarily to express myself forcibly. His heightened vision helped to liberated colour as an emotional instrument in the repertoire of 20th century art and the vitality of his brushwork became a key influence in the development of both the Fauves' and the Expressionists painting technique.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) The Scream (oil, tempera and pastel on board, 1893)
National Gallery, Oslo

Munchs painting of The Scream (1893) was equally influential. It provides us with a psychological blueprint for Expressionist art: distorted shapes and exaggerated colours that amplify a sense of anxiety and alienation. The Scream is Munchs own voice crying in the wilderness, a prophetic voice that declares the Expressionist message, fifteen years before the term was invented. "I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun set. I felt a tinge of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, dead tired. And I looked at the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and city. My friends walked on. I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature."

German Expressionism (circa. 1905-25)

Expressionism was a militant spirit. The German Expressionists saw themselves as revolutionary shock troops with art as their weapon. They wanted to liberate themselves from the repressive right-wing social and political establishment in pre WW1 Germany, but they were also desperate to free their art from the shackles of French painting which had monopolised modern art since Impressionism.

In 1912 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner wrote to his fellow Expressionist artist Emile Nolde, 'German art has to fly on its own wings. We have a duty to separate ourselves from the French.....it is time for an independent German art.' Paradoxically, they drew on the exaggerated colours and simplified forms of Fauvism (a French movement) as an the main inspiration for their painting style. They loved the primitive aggression of the Fauvists technique but found the Fauvist's ideas incompatible with the Expressionist mind-set. Fauvist art was an optimistic style that celebrated the joy of life, but an Arcadian lifestyle sheltered from the problems of the real world. Expressionist art confronted the world head on. It was essentially pessimistic about the future of Germany and contemptuous of its contemporary conservative attitudes. Consequently, the Expressionists looked to the past for their inspiration. They drew upon the influences of medieval German Gothic art, folk art and primitive art, particularly African art, as the unrefined and untutored qualities of these styles would provoke outrage from the artistic establishment. German Expressionism evolved into two main artistic factions: those who were more socially and politically conscious were accommodated by Die Brcke, while those of a more spiritual nature were drawn towards Der Blaue Reiter.

Die Brcke (The Bridge)

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) Madchen aus Kowno (Girl from Kowno) (woodcut, 1918)
Brcke Museum

Die Brcke was founded in Dresden in 1905 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) , Karl SchmidtRottluff (1884-1976), Erich Heckel (1883-1970) and Fritz Bleyl (1880-1966). The meaning of the name suggested they would build Die Brcke (the bridge) from the great German artistic past of Drer and Grunewald over the contemporary artistic bourgeoisie to a new and better future. They even wrote a manifesto which Kirchner carved in wood proclaiming, 'Putting our faith in a new generation of creators and art lovers, we call upon all youth to unite. And being youth, the bearers of the future, we want to wrest from the comfortably established older generation freedom to live and move. Anyone who directly and honestly reproduces that force which impels him to create belongs to us.' The members of Die Brucke adopted a bohemian lifestyle and lived as an artistic community in a working class district of Dresden, deliberately isolating themselves from the 'comfortably established'. They believed that artists should have total freedom of expression, unrestricted by social or artistic conventions. Like many artistic movements they looked back to move forward. Gothic art, which had both a German lineage and an appropriately dark temperament, became Die Brucke's natural inspiration. Its jagged forms were easily fused with the primal visual vocabulary of the African and Oceanic art that they had discovered in the Ethnographic Museum in Dresden. The main artistic form that emerged from this fusion of styles was the woodcut. The woodcut had been a traditional German print medium for narrative illustration. When fused with the vocabulary of 'primitive' art, the medium became a powerful tool for personal expression. A modern alterative to this traditional technique was the linocut, a medium invented by Die Brcke.

Emile Nolde (1867-1956) Crucifixion (oil on canvas, 1912)

Nolde-Stiftung Seebull

The Die Brcke manifesto was an open invitation to other artists with similar values to join the group. Emil Nolde, whose painting was following a similar path to Die Brcke, joined in 1906. However, Nolde only remained a member for a few months as the community lifestyle did not live up to his expectations. He was older and had a more conservative nature than the young Die Brcke activists. Nolde's favourite subjects were dark brooding seascapes that recalled the landscape of his youth and biblical themes that reflected his strict religious upbringing. He was fascinated by the expressive intensity of the Isenheim Altarpiece and created his own version: a nine section polyptych of the life of Christ. The central Crucifixion panel above, obviously based on Grnewald's masterpiece, is a classic piece Expressionist painting - a stylistic fusion of primitive drawing with the exaggerated colour of the Fauves, held together by a German Gothic composition.

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) was not exactly an Expressionist group, more a meeting of diverse talents who contributed to the publication of an almanac 'Der Blaue Reiter' and two exhibitions of the same name. Der Blaue Reiter (the almanac) was published in May 1912 by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. The title was taken from a drawing of a blue horseman that was used for the cover of the almanac. Kandinsky stated, 'We both loved blue: Marc - horses, myself - riders. So the name invented itself.' While Die Brcke artists adopted 'primitive' art as a raw style that would subvert the traditions of the establishment, Der Blaue Reiter artists were attracted by the more mystical aspects of the style, particularly its relationship with the spiritual and supernatural. Primitive art had a certain purity that set it apart from the materialism and corruption of the time - 'a bridge into the world of the spirit' as Marc put it. Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions took place in Munich and preceded the publication of the almanac. The first, an exhibition of paintings by Kandinsky, Marc, Auguste Macke and some others, took place in December 1911, and the second, a graphics exhibition which included a wider range of artists from further afield, opened in the spring of 1912. The aim of Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions was to highlight the similarities in different approaches to creating art, for example, finding common ground between the primitive and the contemporary. They outlined this objective in the catalogue for the first exhibition, 'We do not seek to propagate any precise or particular form; our object is to show, in the variety of the forms represented, how the inner desire of artists realises itself in multiple fashion.' Der Blaue Reiter came to an end after the deaths of Franz Marc and Auguste Macke during World War 1.

Expressive Abstraction

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) Composition IV (oil on canvas, 1911)

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen, Dusseldorf

Kandinsky's painting was moving away from the depiction of realistic forms into the more spiritual realms of abstraction. Since childhood he had studied music, playing both the piano and cello. He also had a highly developed sense of synaesthetic response (experiencing colours in response to hearing sounds) and he recognised that colour could trigger our emotions much in the same way as music touches our soul. This link between the visual and the aural inspired his experiments with colour as an abstract element for the subject of a painting. The idea was reinforced by a chance experience in 1908, 'I was returning, immersed in thought from my sketching, when on opening the studio door I was suddenly confronted by a picture of incandescent beauty. Bewildered, I stopped and stared at it. The painting lacked all subject, depicted no identifiable object and was entirely composed of bright colour patches. Finally, I approached closer and saw it for what it really was - my own painting, standing on its side on the easel.....One thing became clear to me: that objectiveness, the depiction of objects, needed no place in my paintings, and was indeed harmful to them.' In his publication, of 1911, 'CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART' he states that 'Colour cannot stand alone; it cannot dispense with boundaries of some kind ........A never-ending extent of red can only be seen in the mind; when the word red is heard, the colour is evoked without definite boundaries.' His paintings of this period are attempts to release this psychic quality of colour by freeing it from the task of describing physical objects. In moving towards abstraction by breaking down the boundaries of realistic forms, Kandinsky tries to tap into the more expressive power of colour as it exists in the mind. Although, as in the musically and abstractly titled 'Composition IV' above, there are still vague references to figures and objects in the landscape, colour emerges as an ephemeral force that energises the entire canvas. Kandinsky was the first artist to push painting towards total abstraction. He is quoted as saying, "Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well,

that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential."

Beyond Expressionism
After the disintegration of the more formal Expressionist groups in Germany, Expressionism continued to evolve in a variety of ways through the work of individual artists like Paul Klee and Max Beckmann. The Expressionist spirit resurfaced in art across the world throughout the 20th century: Francis Bacon in Britain, the Abstract Expressionists in the USA and eventually returning to Germany in the form of Anselm Kiefer in the last quarter of the century.

Paul Klee (1879-1940) Ad Parnassum (oil on board, 1932)

Kunstmuseum, Bern

The Swiss artist Paul Klee took part in the second Der Blaue Reiter exhibition. Through the influence of Kandinsky, Marc and Macke, Klee became interested in the abstract use of colour. Klee, like Kandinsky was a talented musician and the relationship between art and music was a driving force in his art. The painting above illustrates this link between the arts. The title 'Ad Parnassum' (towards Parnassus) refers to both Mount Parnassus (the home of the Muses - the nine goddesses of the arts in Greek mythology) and 'Gradus Ad Parnassum' (the Path to Parnassus - the name of a classic 18th century textbook on musical counterpoint). The bold triangle at the top of the picture represents Mount Parnassus, the orange circle symbolises the sun and the arch at the bottom indicates the door to the temple. The most important element of

this painting is the way that Klee uses colour to express a musical idea. The underpainted patches of background colours are like the deep base chords of a musical composition while the brighter mosaic-like surface of dots act like a counterpoint to complete the harmony.

Max Beckmann (1884-1950) The Departure (triptych - oil on canvas, 1932-33)

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Max Beckman continued Die Brcke's spirit of protest and relationship with the art of the past in his disturbing allegories of victimisation and alienation. These powerful images, triggered by his traumatic experiences of the trenches in the medical corps during WW1, often used the religious format of a triptych for their composition, recalling Renaissance art like the Isenheim Altarpiece.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (oil on canvas, 1953)
Des Moines Art Center

Francis Bacon, the British painter, also used the triptych format in his convulsive images of postwar angst and abandonment. While personally denying any Expressionist influence in his art, his electrifying version of Pope Innocent X, (again recalling the art of the past as it was based on the Velzquez painting of 1650), reinvents the original Expressionist prototype: 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch.

Expressionism Notes
Expressionism is a style of art that is highly charged with an emotional or spiritual vision of the world The 'self expression' in the art of Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch inspired Expressionist artists in the 20th century.

German Expressionism also drew inspiration from German Gothic and 'primitive art'. German Expressionism was divided into two factions: Die Brcke and Der Blaue Reiter

Die Brcke (The Bridge) was an artistic community of young Expressionist artists in Dresden. Their aim was to overthrow the conservative traditions of German art. Their 'bridge' was a path to a new and better future for German art. Der Blaue Reiter was a publication of essays on the Expressionist art forms. The aim of Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions was to find the common creative ground between these diverse art forms.

After the various Expressionist groups disbanded, Expressionism spread and evolved in the work of many individual artists across the world.

Impressionism
Impressionism and the Impressionists

Claude Monet (1840-1926) Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge (oil on canvas, 1899)
Art Museum,Princeton University

Impressionism is the name given to a style of painting in France at the end of the 19th century. The Impressionists were not a formal artistic group as such, more a collective of artists seeking recognition for their innovative techniques and approach to using colour in art.

The Impressionist Artists

Alfred Sisley (1839-99) Flood at Port Marly (oil on canvas, 1876)

Muse d'Orsay, Paris

Many artists contributed to the first exhibition of Impressionist painting in 1874 but Claude Monet (1840-1926), Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Camille Pissarro (1831-1903), Edgar Degas (18341917), Alfred Sisley (1839-99) and Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) were the main figures who formed the backbone of the movement.

Impressionist Painting Technique

Claude Monet (1840-1926) Wheatstacks - End of Summer (oil on canvas, 1890-91)

Art Institute of Chicago

The Impressionists were excited by contemporary developments in colour theory which helped their search for a more exact analysis of the effects of colour and light in nature. They abandoned the conventional idea that the shadow of an object was made up from its colour with some brown or black added. Instead, they enriched their colours with the idea that the shadow of an object is broken up with dashes of its complementary colour. For example, in an Impressionist painting the shadow on an orange may have some strokes of blue painted into it to increase its vitality. The Impressionists sought to capture the atmosphere of a particular time of day or the effects of different weather conditions on the landscape. In order to capture these fleeting effects they had to work quickly. They applied their paint in small brightly coloured strokes which meant sacrificing much of the outline and detail of their subject. Their painting technique put them at odds with the conservative Acadmie of the French artistic establishment who valued subtle colour and precise detail which was carefully crafted with great skill in the artist's studio. What the Acadmie failed to appreciate was the freshness of Impressionist colour and the energy of their brushwork which revealed a spontaneity that had only previously been valued in the sketches of the old masters. However, the public grew to love the vitality of the Impressionist technique and in time Impressionism grew to become the most popular movement in the history of art.

The Influence of Photography on Impressionism

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) Four Dancers (oil on canvas, 1899)

National Gallery, Washington DC

The Impressionists further upset the Acadmie with their composition techniques. Traditionally, artists had created images where the lines, shapes, tones and colours were arranged in a way that led the eye to the focal point of the painting. This was the most important area of the picture and was usually situated in a central position. It was considered poor composition if the background or edges of the painting detracted from the focal point. True to form, the Impressionists broke this rule. At this time, photography was in its early stages of development. As there was often a difference between what the photographer saw in the viewfinder of his camera and what actually appeared on the negative, photographers would crop their pictures to improve their composition. This resulted in some unusual arrangements which emphasised shapes and forms at the edge of the image. Some of Impressionists, like Degas' in his 'Four Dancers', embraced the asymmetrical effects of cropping and made it a prominent feature of their compositions.

The Influence of Japanese Prints on Impressionism

Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido - No.26 Nissaka (woodblock print, 1831-34)
Ando Hiroshige

The bold designs of Japanese woodblock prints, which were popular in France at the time, were another influence on the Impressionists. Their asymmetrical arrangements contrasting large areas of flat colour with patches of intricate pattern offered a compositional format that the Impressionists could use to develop their ideas about colour. Sometimes, even the most avantgarde artists need the security of knowing that the path they have chosen to follow has some roots in tradition. The compositions of the Ukiyo-e masters such as Hokusai and Hiroshige offered the Impressionists this precedent of tradition, albeit from another culture, and consequently the confidence to forge ahead with their new ideas.

Impressionist Landscape Painting

Camille Pissarro (1831-1903) Gele Blanche - Hoarfrost (oil on canvas, 1873)

Muse d'Orsay, Paris

The Impressionists were the first group of artists to embrace painting 'en plein air' (painting outside). This was partially due to the introduction of paint in tubes which, for the first time, enabled artists to carry all their studio equipment around in a case. They also found it necessary to paint outdoors because they were committed to observing the effects of light on colour in nature. Consequently landscapes, both in the town and countryside, became their most natural and influential subject and is what we immediately associate with Impressionism today.

Impressionist Portraiture and Figure Composition

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) At the Moulin Rouge (oil on canvas, 1892/95)

Art Institute of Chicago

Impressionist portraits and figure compositions of identifiable individuals were painted by Renoir, Degas and Lautrec. 'At the Moulin Rouge' is a figure composition by Lautrec which is strongly influenced by photographic cropping and the design of Japanese prints. In this revolutionary work, Lautrec includes a self portrait beside his tall cousin, Gabriel Tapi de Clyran, as they walk away from the can-can dancer La Goulue who is seen fixing her hair. Just in front of them is a seated group that includes the entertainers La Maracona and the red-headed Jane Avril, the writer and critic Edouard Dujardin and the photographer Paul Sescau. The woman whose green lamp lit face is cropped by the edge of the picture is thought to be another dancer, May Milton.

Impressionist Still Life Painting

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Fruit of the Midi (oil on canvas, 1881)
Art Institute of Chicago

Still life was not hugely popular with the Impressionists, mainly because it was not a 'plein air' subject suited to capturing the atmospheric qualities of light and color. However there are a few outstanding examples such as Renoir's 'Fruit of the Midi' whose fruit and vegetables are carefully chosen to create a range of prismatic colours that span the Impressionist spectrum. Whether in their landscapes, figure paintings or still lifes, the Impressionists celebrated and transformed the commonplace, finding beauty in misty harbour at sunrise, dignity in the labour of the common man, joy in leisure of the middle classes, and radiance in a bowl of fruit.

The Salon de Paris

During the 19th century, the Acadmie des Beaux Arts was the pillar of the French artistic establishment and it held an annual open exhibition at the Salon de Paris. The jury of the Acadmie saw itself as the protector of the artistic traditions of its day and upheld these by controlling the standard of paintings that were accepted into the Salon exhibitions. Any new work that challenged their standards was rejected and many of the young innovative Impressionist painters of the day frequently found themselves excluded from this mainstream exhibition.

The Salon des Refuses

Claude Monet (1840-1926) Impression Sunrise (oil on canvas, 1872)

Muse Marmottan, Paris

In 1863, an alternative exhibition called the Salon des Refuses was mounted comprising paintings and sculptures rejected by the official Salon. Ironically, Les Refuses attracted more attention than the original exhibition and provided the ideal platform for displaying new Impressionist art to the public. However, future Salon des Refuses did not become a regular feature and in 1874 some of the rejected artists organised an alternative exhibition in the studio of the Parisian photographer, Nadar. It was this exhibition which unearthed the name that embodied a new approach to painting. Louis Leroy, a journalist and critic for the satirical magazine 'Le Charivari', wrote a scathing review entitled The Exhibition of the Impressionists. Impressionist was meant as a term of ridicule aimed, in particular, at Claude Monets painting of the misty morning harbour at Le Havre, 'Impression: Sunrise'. However, the sarcastic title appealed to both the artists and the public and the name stuck. The exhibition at Nadar's became the first of eight Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886.

Beyond Impressionism

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun (oil on canvas, 1890)
Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Impressionism was the first movement in the canon of modern art and had a massive effect on the development of art in the 20th century. Like most revolutionary styles Impressionism was gradually absorbed into the mainstream and its limitations became frustrating to the succeeding generation. Artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Czanne, Paul Gauguin and Georges Seurat, although steeped in the traditions of Impressionism, pushed the boundaries of the style in different creative directions and in doing so laid the foundations of art in the 20th century. For historical convenience these artists have been labeled as Post Impressionists but, apart from their Impressionist influence, they don't have much in common. Van Gogh pushed art towards Expressionism, Czanne towards Cubism, and Gauguin and Seurat towards Fauvism and Divisionism.

Impressionism Notes
The name 'Impressionism' comes from a sarcastic review by Louis Leroy of Monet's painting, 'Impression, Sunrise' (1873). Impressionism was a style of painting that used a more scientific analysis of colour to capture the effects of light in nature. The main artists associated with Impressionism were Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec. The Impressionists painted with small strokes of pure colours which mixed in the eye of the spectator when viewed from a distance.

The Impressionists were the first group of artists to embrace painting 'en plein air' (painting outside).

The Impressionists had to paint quickly to capture the atmosphere of a particular time of day or the effects of different weather conditions on the landscape. The speed of the Impressionists' painting technique forced them to sacrifice accurate line and detail in favour of atmospheric effect. The subject most suited to the Impressionist technique was landscape, but they also painted portraits, still lifes and figure compositions. Impressionist compositions were strongly influenced by the development of photography and the discovery of Japanese woodcuts. Impressionism is now seen as the first movement in modern art, and had a huge influence on the development of art in the 20th century.

Cubism
Cubism - the first style of abstract art

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Factory, Horta de Ebro (oil on canvas, 1909)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed. Cubism was an attempt by artists to revitalise the tired traditions of Western art which they believed had run their course. The Cubists challenged conventional forms of representation, such as perspective, which had been the rule since the Renaissance. Their aim was to develop a new way of seeing which reflected the modern age. In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress than in the previous four centuries. During this period inventions such as photography, cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane heralded the dawn of a new age. The problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the modernity of the era using the tired and trusted traditions that had served art for the last four centuries. Photography had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting the age and for artists to sit illustrating cars, planes and images of the new technologies was not exactly rising to the challenge. Artists needed a more radical approach - a 'new way of seeing' that expanded the possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of communication and travel. This new way of seeing was called Cubism - the first abstract style of modern art. Picasso and Braque developed their ideas on Cubism around 1907 in Paris and their starting point was a common interest in the later paintings of Paul Czanne.

The Influence of Czanne on Cubism

Paul Czanne (1839-1906) Bibemus Quarry (oil on canvas, 1895)

Museum Folkwang

Czanne was not primarily interested in creating an illusion of depth in his painting and he abandoned the tradition of perspective drawing. Perspective, which had been used since the Early Renaissance, was a geometric formula that solved the problem of how to draw three-dimensional objects on a two dimensional surface. Czanne felt that the illusionism of perspective denied the fact that a painting is a flat two-dimensional object. He liked to flatten the space in his paintings to place more emphasis on their surface - to stress the difference between a painting and reality. He saw painting in more abstract terms as the construction and arrangement of colour on a twodimensional surface. It was this flat abstract approach that appealed to the Cubists and their early paintings, such as Picasso's 'Factory at Horta de Ebbo' (1909) and Braque's 'Viaduct at L'Estaque' (1908,) took it to an extreme.

The Cubist Vision

Georges Braque (1882-1963) Viaduct at L'Estaque (oil on canvas, 1908)

Pompidou Centre, Paris

The limitations of perspective were also seen as an obstacle to progress by the Cubists. The fact that a picture drawn in perspective could only work from one viewpoint restricted their options. As the image was drawn from a fixed position, the result was frozen, like a snapshot - but the Cubists wanted to make pictures that reached beyond the rigid geometry of perspective. They wanted to introduce the idea of 'relativity' - how the artist perceived and selected elements from the subject, fusing both their observations and memories into the one concentrated image. To do this the Cubists examined the way that we see. When you look at an object your eye scans it, stopping to register on a certain detail before moving on to the next point of interest and so on. You can also change your viewpoint in relation to the object allowing you to look at it from above, below or from the side. Therefore, the Cubists proposed that your sight of an object is the sum of many different views and your memory of an object is not constructed from one angle, as in perspective, but from many angles selected by your sight and movement. Cubist painting, paradoxically abstract in form, was an attempt at a more realistic way of seeing. A typical Cubist painting depicts real people, places or objects, but not from a fixed viewpoint. Instead it will show you many parts of the subject at one time, viewed from different angles, and reconstructed into a composition of planes, forms and colours. The whole idea of space is reconfigured: the front, back and sides of the subject become interchangeable elements in the design of the work.

The Cubists - Picasso, Braque and Gris

Juan Gris (1887-1927) Violin and Glass (oil on canvas, 1915)

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque conceived and developed Cubism but other artists also adopted the style. The Spanish artist Juan Gris, who is often referred to as the 'Third Musketeer of Cubism', was the best of these and he refined the Cubist vocabulary into his own instantly recognisable visual language. Other notable artists associated with Cubism were Fernand Leger, Robert Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Louis Marcoussis, Marie Laurencin and Roger de La Fresnaye.

The Influence of African Art on Cubism

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Left: Head of a Woman, (oil on canvas, 1907) Right: Dan Mask
www.zyama.com

The Cubists believed that the traditions of Western art had become exhausted and another remedy they applied to revitalize their work was to draw on the expressive energy of art from other cultures, especially African art. However, they were not interested in the true religious or social symbolism of these cultural objects, but valued them superficially for their expressive style. They viewed them as subversive elements that could be used to attack and subsequently refresh the tired tradition of Western art. This inspiration to cross-reference art from different cultures probably came from Paul Gauguin, the French post-impressionist artist, whose paintings and prints were influenced by the native culture of Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands where he spent his final years.

Analytical Cubism

Georges Braque (1882-1963) Violin and Jug (oil on canvas, 1910)

Kunstmuseum, Basel

Cubism had two distinct phases. The early phase which lasted until about 1912 was called Analytical Cubism. Here the artist analysed the subject from many different viewpoints and reconstructed it within a geometric framework, the overall effect of which was to create an image that evoked a sense of the subject. These fragmented images were unified by the use of a subdued and limited palette of colours.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Still Life with Chair Caning (oil on canvas, 1912)
Muse Picasso, Paris

Around 1912, the styles of Picasso and Braque were becoming predictable. Their images had grown so similar that their paintings of this period are often difficult to tell apart. Their work was increasingly abstract and less recognisable as the subject of their titles. Cubism was running out of creative steam. In an attempt to revitalise the style and pull it back from total abstraction, Picasso began to glue printed images from the 'real world' onto the surface of his still lifes. His painting 'Still Life with Chair Caning', was the first example of this 'collage' technique and it opened the door for himself and other artists to the second phase of the Cubist style: Synthetic Cubism.

Synthetic Cubism

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Still Life with Mandolin and Guitar (oil on canvas, 1924)
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Influenced by the introduction of bold and simple collage shapes, Synthetic Cubism moved away from the unified monochrome surfaces of Analytic Cubism to a more direct, colourful and decorative style. Although synthetic cubist images appear more abstract in their use of simplified forms, the other elements of their composition are applied quite traditionally. Interchanging lines, colours, patterns and textures, that switch from geometric to freehand, dark to light, positive to negative and plain to patterned, advance and recede in rhythms across the picture plain.

Beyond Cubism

Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) Dynamism of a Soccer Player (oil on canvas, 1913)

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Cubism was born in France but emigrated across Europe and integrated with the artistic consciousness of several countries. It emerged as Futurism in Italy (illustrated above), Vorticism in England, Suprematism and Constructivism in Russia, and Expressionism in Germany. It also influenced several of the major design and architectural styles of the 20th century and prevails to this day as mode of expression in the language of art.

Cubism Notes
Cubism was invented around 1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism was the first abstract style of modern art. A Cubist painting ignores the traditions of perspective drawing and shows you many views of a subject at one time. The Cubists introduced collage into painting. The Cubists were influenced by art from other cultures, particularly African masks. There are two distinct phases of the Cubist Style: Analytical Cubism (pre 1912) and Synthetic Cubism (post 1912)

Cubism influenced many other styles of modern art including Orphism, Futurism, Vorticism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Expressionism.

Fauvism
A New Approach to Color in Art

Paul Gauguin (1884-1903) Vision After The Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel) (oil on canvas, 1888)
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

The Roots of Fauvism

Fauvism has its roots in the post-impressionist paintings of Paul Gauguin. It was his use of symbolic colour that pushed art towards the style of Fauvism. Gauguin proposed that colour had a symbolic vocabulary which could be used to visually translate a range of emotions. In 'Vision after the Sermon' where Gauguin depicts Jacob wrestling with an angel, he paints the background a flat red to emphasise the mood and subject of the sermon: Jacob's spiritual battle fought in a blood red field of combat. Gauguin believed that colour had a mystical quality that could express our feelings about a subject rather than simply describe a scene. By breaking the established descriptive role that colour had in painting, he inspired the younger artists of his day to experiment with new possibilities for colour in art.

Two Fauvist Artists: Matisse and Derain

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) The Roofs of Collioure (oil on canvas, 1905)

The Hermitage, St Petersburg

At the start of the 20th century, two young artists, Henri Matisse and Andr Derain formed the basis of a group of painters who enjoyed painting pictures with outrageously bold colours. The group were nicknamed 'Les Fauves' which meant 'wild beasts' in French. Their title was coined by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles who was amused by the exaggerated colour in their art. At the Salon d'automne of 1905 he entered a gallery where Les Fauves were exhibiting their paintings. Surprised by the contrast with a typical renaissance sculpture that stood in the centre of this room, he exclaimed with irony, "Donatello au mileau des fauves!" ( Donatello in the middle of the wild beasts! ). The name stuck.

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) The Open Window, Collioure (oil on canvas, 1905)
The National Gallery of Art, Washington

In 1905, Matisse and Derain went to stay in the port of Collioure in the south of France and the Fauvist pictures that they painted there revolutionised attitudes towards colour in art. The sheer joy of expression that they achieved through their liberated approach to colour was a shot in the arm for the art of painting. In Matisse's painting 'The Open Window, Collioure' colour is used at its maximum intensity. The window frames, clay flower pots and masts on the yachts have all been painted in a blazing red. These are a bold complement to the range of greens that punctuate the painting. In order to arrange the various colours of the work into an effective composition he creates a counterchange between the greenish wall on the left and its reflected colour in the right hand window, with the purple wall on the right and its reflected colour in the left hand window. To unify the interior/exterior relationship of space, the dense spectrum of colours used inside the room is echoed more sparingly in the distant view through the window. At first glance, the apparent freedom of his style seems to deny any skill or technique, but when you begin to analyse his effective use of visual elements you start to realise that there is an instinctive sensibility at work. The key to his success in using such exaggerated colours was the realisation that he had to simplify his drawing. He understood that if he intensified the quality of

colour for expressive effect, he must reduce the amount of detail used in drawing the shapes and forms of the image. By applying the same kind of simplification and spontaneity to his drawing and brushwork, Matisse was amplifying the sense of joy that he had achieved through colour. He wrote, "We move towards serenity through the simplification of ideas and form.......Details lessen the purity of lines, they harm the emotional intensity, and we choose to reject them. It is a question of learning - and perhaps relearning the 'handwriting' of lines. The aim of painting is not to reflect history, because this can be found in books. We have a higher conception. Through it, the artist expresses his inner vision."

Andr Derain (1880-1954) Portrait of Henri Matisse (oil on canvas, 1906)

The Tate Gallery, London

In 1906, after the success of the Salon d'automne exhibition of the previous year, Andr Derain was commissioned by Ambroise Vollard, the french art dealer, to create a series of paintings

about London. The subject had been previously tackled by Whistler and Monet who had focused on the foggy atmosphere of the industrial city. Derain's vision was a radical departure from this traditional view as he painted the capital in a palette more suited to a Mediterranean holiday resort. Altogether he produced thirty paintings in what has become a very popular series depicting many views along the Thames.

Andr Derain (1880-1954) The Pool of London (oil on canvas, 1906)

The Tate Gallery, London

Derain's manages to balance the expressive and descriptive qualities of colour in 'The Pool of London'. He uses the conflict between warm and cool colours to express the noise and activity of this busy dockyard. An illusion of depth in the painting is created by using stronger and warmer tones in the foreground, which gradually become weaker and cooler towards the background. This organised arrangement of tones in a landscape is called Aerial Perspective. The drawing of the image is typically simplified into shapes and forms whose details can be conveyed by unmodified brushstrokes of roughly the same size. This gives the painting an overall unity that you would not expect in a composition of such conflicting colours.

Fauvism and Beyond

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) Henley Regatta (gouache, 1933)

Private Collection

Henri Matisse and Andr Derain may be the two most important figures associated with the Fauve movement, but other great artists such as Maurice de Vlaminck, Albert Marquet, Georges Rouault, Raoul Dufy and the cubist Georges Braque all contributed their own variations to the style.

Andr Derain (1880-1954) Turning Road at L'Estaque (oil on canvas, 1906)

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Texas

Fauvism was not a formal movement with a manifesto of rules and regulations. It was more an instinctive coming together of artists who wished to express themselves by using bold colours, simplified drawing and expressive brushwork. 'Les Fauves' simply believed that colour had a spiritual quality which linked directly to your emotions and they loved to use it at the highest possible pitch. Within a few years, Fauvist techniques were adopted and developed by the German Expressionists and their various splinter groups. Fauvism was gradually subsumed into the canon of modern art, but its influence liberated the use of colour for future generations of artists, who ultimately explored colour as an abstract subject in its own right.

Fauvism Notes
Fauvism was a style of painting developed in France at the beginning of the 20th century by Henri Matisse and Andr Derain. The artists who painted in this style were known as 'Les Fauves'.

The title 'Les Fauves' (the wild beasts) came from a sarcastic remark by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles. Les Fauves believed that colour should be used to express the artist's feelings about a subject, rather than simply to describe what it looks like. Fauvist paintings have two main characteristics: simplified drawing and exaggerated colour. Les Fauves were a great influence on the German Expressionists.

What are the key characteristics of Dada art?

Dada began in Zurich and became an international movement. Or non-movement, as it were. Dada had only one rule: Never follow any known rules. Dada was intended to provoke an emotional reaction from the viewer (typically shock or outrage). If its art failed to offend traditionalists, Dada writing - particularly Tristan Tzara's manifestoes - proved a fine, nose-thumbing Plan B.

Dada art is nonsensical to the point of whimsy. Almost all of the people who created it were ferociously serious, though. Abstraction and Expressionism were the main influences on Dada, followed by Cubism and, to a lesser extent, Futurism. There was no predominant medium in Dadaist art. All things from geometric tapestries to glass to plaster and wooden reliefs were fair game. It's worth noting, though, that assemblage, collage, photomontage and the use of ready made objects all gained wide acceptance due to their use in Dada art. For something that supposedly meant nothing, Dada certainly created a lot of offshoots. In addition to spawning numerous literary journals, Dada influenced many concurrent trends in the visual arts (especially in the case of Constructivism). The best-known movement Dada was directly responsible for is Surrealism.