MODERNISM
Modernism allowed artists to assert their freedom to create in a new
style and provide them with a mission to define the meaning of their
times..
Early 20th Century Art was influenced by…
• the beginning of the atomic age
• existentialism (Nietzsche)- “God is Dead”
• the invention of psychoanalysis
• Freud-inner drives control human behavior
• Jung-collective unconscious
• The Russian Revolution
• The Great War (humanity’s inhumanity)
• The Great Global Depression
• the rise of the “Avant Garde”
Mrs. Germano sums up the early 1900s with
the three types:
THE EXPRESSIVE (color)
THE ABSTRACT (shape)
THE WEIRD (form & fantasy)
Expressionism
The use of uncharacteristic colors chosen by the artist…
 to release of the artist’s inner vision
 to evoke feelings from the viewer
Fauvism
German Expressionism
Der Blaue Reiter
Fauvism
 very short-lived (1904-1908)
 influenced from the work of Post-Impressionists like
Gauguin & Cezanne
 full of violent, ARBITRARY color and bold distortion, brutal
brushstrokes
 Shocking to the critics and the public
 “Fauves”- French for ‘Wild Beasts’
 Artists wore the label with pride
 Color’s structural, expressive, and aesthetic capabilities
Henri Matisse, The Joy of Life, 1905-06. FAUVISM
Henri Matisse, The Joy of Life, 1905-06
Flat planes of color, bold outlines come from Gauguin - also humanity in a state of
nature - pagan scene like a bacchanal
“genius of omission”- radical simplification
The act of painting was joyous for him and his paintings show this
Henri Matisse
The Red Studio,
1911.
Believed that color was the formal element most responsible for pictorial
coherence… Color was not meant to imitate nature, but to express inner
emotions
Henri Matisse, The Dance, 1909. FAUVISM
Henri Matisse,
Green Stripe, 1905.
FAUVISM
Henri Matisse,
La Musique,
1939.
FAUVISM
Georges Rouault
Fauvism with political connotations
Reminiscent of stained glass
because Rouault was an
apprentice of the trade
A figure of merciless authority
clutching flowers
Georges Rouault
The Old King, 1916-37.
FAUVISM
German Expressionism
“Die Brucke” (The Bridge)
•Color is important, but equal to
that of distortion of images and
violent brushstrokes
•Movement centered in Dresden,
Germany and led by Ernst
Kirschner
•Thought of themselves as bridging
the old age of art with the new
•Influenced by medieval craft
guilds- lived and worked together
equally
•Focused on the detrimental effects
of industrialization
Ernst Kirschner,
Self Portrait as a Soldier, 1915.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
Ernst Kirschner,
Two Women in the Street,
1914.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
Kathe Kollwitz
Worked almost
exclusively in
printmaking and
drawing
Themes of inhumanity
and injustice
The plight of workers
and war victims
Son died during first
week of WWI
Kathe Kollwitz, The Survivors, 1923.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
Kathe Kollwitz, The Grieving Parents, 1932. GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
Kathe Kollwitz, Woman With Dead Child, 1903 etching. GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM
The Outbreak, Kathe Kollwitz, 1903, etching
Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider)
Another German Expressionist
movement that produced feeling as
visual FORM – not just color
Vassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913.
Complete abstraction- non-objective work - elimination of representation
Knew about music, literature, science (the atomic theory) - material
objects have no structure or purpose
Orchestration of color, form, line, and space- blueprints for an enlightened
and liberated society, emphasizing spirituality
Vassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913. DER BLAUE REITER
Vassily Kandinsky, Composition VI, 1913. DER BLAUE REITER
Vassily Kandinsky,
Contrasting Sounds, 1924.
DER BLAUE REITER
Kandinsky. Concentric Circles.
Franz Marc, Dog Lying In the Snow, 1910-11. DER BLAUE REITER
Franz Marc, Yellow Cow, 1911. DER BLAUE REITER
Franz Marc,
Foxes, 1913.
DER BLAUE REITER
Franz Marc, The Lamb, 1913-14. DER BLAUE REITER
Franz Marc, Fighting Forms, 1914. DER BLAUE REITER
1913
Armory Show
New York City
First American show to exhibit works
by Impressionist, PostImpressionist, Cubist, Fauvist and
Early 20th Century Europeans
Over 1250 works by 300 artists
Started in New York, then traveled
to Chicago and Boston
The NY Times called it
“pathological”…
It was a good show, but don’t do it again… critic
Marsden Hartley was an American living
in Munich and was directly influenced by
these European movements
Marsden Hartley,
Portrait of a German Officer
1914.
Gustav Klimt
The Kiss
1907-08.
VIENNA SUCCESSION
(Austrian Art Nouveau)
Gustav Klimt
Adele Bloch-Bauer I
1907.
VIENNA SUCCESSION
(Austrian Art Nouveau)
Gustav Klimt
Judith with Head of Holofernes,
1901.
VIENNA SUCCESSION
(Austrian Art Nouveau)