150 Years of Modern Art - Fauvism and Cubism

The first article says, 1, Impressionism pulled art from the previous altar of religion to the life of ordinary people, and Post-Impressionism represented by Cézanne focused on the presentation of things themselves from multiple perspectives.2 After that, artists were not satisfied with superficial things, and began to focus on the expression of inner emotions, and the Fauvism was born.3 In the beginning of the 20th century, the theory of relativity and the analysis of human consciousness were put forward, debated, and challenged, and seduced those who had the Ideas of artists to pursue conceptual things, abstract things began to appear, the artist disassembled, analyzed.4, after the artist began to use reality, appropriation of reality, humble materials and noble art fusion together.

I. Primitivism, 1880-1930 / Fauvism, 1905-1910: the primitive cry

Primitivism runs through the whole modern art. The term "primitive" refers to the imitation or borrowing of elements from ancient primitive cultures that can be childlike, innocent and authentic, unlike Western culture, which has been tainted by materialism. Representatives include Matisse and Derain. Unlike the Impressionists, who realistically reproduced life, they considered the expression of color and emotion to be more important.

Derain's Ships in Port Collioure clearly expresses the heat of the harbor, rustic, simple and vivid. These emotionally wild and uninhibited works, richly riotous in color, tell us strongly how wonderful the world is.

Matisse and Picasso were both obsessed with the primitive art culture of Africa, and they liked to compete with each other secretly. The two artists were "as if one was the North Pole and the other the South Pole". Picasso from the hot coast of southern Spain, Matisse from the cold north of France. Matisse's portrait of his wife, The Woman in the Hat, and Picasso's portrait of his lover, Portrait of Gertrude Stein. Matisse's work is more abbreviated than that of the Impressionists, more colorful than Van Gogh's, and more flamboyant than Gauguin's most passionate works. This reserved man reveals his love for his lady in a feast of lively colors. Picasso used a soft brown color scheme instead of Matisse's lively greens and reds, and it gives a different impression; it appears more serious and timeless. If we juxtapose the two, it is hard to believe that they are even from the same period. The gestures of the artists in the two paintings are so different: Matisse's reflects the speed and vigor of modern life, Picasso's reflects the superstructure that supports it; the former is an unthinking outpouring of emotion, the latter is a thoughtful response; the former is free jazz, the latter is a formal concert.

The Joy of Being Born is a quintessential Fauvist work, and Matisse's starting point is idyllic. He presents a candy-colored visual landscape: making love, music, sunbathing, dancing, picking flowers, relaxing. The ease, elegance and fluidity of the lines bring visual pleasure.

Picasso's Maiden of Avignon led to the emergence of Cubism, which in turn led to Futurism, abstract art, and so on.

Rousseau's paintings are characterized by a childish innocence. Picasso, who was fascinated by the ancient and the mystical, felt that the art of this customs officer had gone beyond the depiction of the natural world into the realm of the supernatural.

One of the many successes of Rodin's famous The Kiss (1901-1914) lies in its double illusion: the large block of marble that is both the graceful bodies of the two young lovers and the uneven rock on which they sit as they kiss. Unlike Rodin, Brancusi had no intention of concealing the physical characteristics of the stone; in fact, he chose the rough stone precisely for its rugged surface.

Giacometti, The Walking Man. The seemingly burnt, frail walking man, as if about to be consumed by fear, leans slightly forward into an uncertain future. The six-foot-tall figure is bony and emaciated, as if it were a stick, and the modeling emphasizes vertical lines, which, as Cézanne pointed out half a century ago, enhances the viewer's sense of spatial depth and adds to the existentialist drama of the lone, perpetually trapped Walking Man: a prisoner in modern society, thirsty for hope but surrounded only by the ubiquitous desolation of the world.

A new dimension in sculptural art: the concept of perforation in a three-dimensional work of art. The overall shape of The Perforated Form is very much like seeing a man trapped in a sack through a hole blown through by a cannonball. Moore quickly picked up on Hepworth's idea, declaring 1932 the "Year of the Hole".

Picasso, Matisse, Rousseau, Brancusi, Modigliani, Giacometti, Moore, and many others fell in love with tribal and ancient art, captivated by its uninhibited frankness and the emotional power of simple forms. These modern artists have been linked to stories as old as mankind ever since, and their work harks back to the past and leads to the future.

Second, Cubism: Another Perspective, 1907-1914.

With Einstein's theory of relativity in 1905, and Freud's controversial analysis of the subconscious mind enthralling, the truths on which civilization rested were debated during this period, and this ideological climate led ambitious and inquisitive artists to pursue something conceptual. Represented by Picasso and Georges Braque.

Picasso studied objects like a surgeon dissecting a cadaver, which is the essence of Cubism: choosing a subject and deconstructing it through a lot of analytical observation. He re-emphasized the line, which had been abandoned by Impressionism.

Braque, who abandoned Impressionism and the Fauvist style of the time, rich in decorative curves, reduced the excesses of color in pursuit of maximum compactness across the entire structure of the picture. Both he and Picasso realized that only a muted use of color could successfully blend multiple views of the same object on a single canvas - a multitude of bright colors would instead make it difficult for the painter to combine them and present the viewer with an unrecognizable mess. A strong sense of fullness of cloth, incomprehensible geometric shapes, like the shapes of things before they were born. The complete abstraction is one of the unavoidable directions of Cubism.

By cubism, Picasso took another innovative step, such as " perforation ". Instead of the past technique of twisting and distorting patterns to present a subject from multiple viewpoints, Picasso began to move an element - such as a breast - and leave a hole in the object of representation. This breast would appear elsewhere, such as on the shoulder, making the whole image even more fragmented than in his previous Cubist works.

In order to guide and inform the viewer of the subject matter, Picasso began to include letters and words in his work.

The artist appropriated real elements from everyday life as part of his paintings: an act that completely rewrote the rules of the game regarding the relationship between art and life. The significance goes far beyond making Cubism accessible. By adding pieces of a tarpaulin, Picasso elevated its status from a worthless rag to the sublime realm of a work of art.

Picasso's Still Life with a Rattan Chair, the top half of this oval painting, is pure Cubism. Shredded newspapers, a pipe and a glass are mixed together like a pile of cards scattered on the ground. The other half of the painting, however, is very, very different. Picasso glued on a piece of cheap oilcloth, a material often used as a poor substitute for drawer liner or wrapping paper. Printed on the tarpaulin is a pattern of crossed parallel lines on the seat of a wicker chair. He added a border to the painting with a piece of twine.

Before it was conceptual, analyzing, to now using reality, appropriating it. Art can be born from anything. Humble materials merge with noble art. Appropriating objects from everyday life and reproducing them in new artistic contexts, such as the Campbell's soup cans of Andy Warhol and the balloon dogs of Jeff Koons that followed.

Artists of the Cubist period had gone as far as they could in their search for a new approach to artistic expression. World War I brought Cubism to a close.