Fauvism Les Fauves (Wild Beasts)
•
Fauvism was the first twentieth-century movement in modern art. Inspired by
the examples of van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne.
•
It grew out of a loosely allied group of French painters with shared interests.
Henri Matisse was eventually recognized as the leader of Les Fauves, or "The
Wild Beasts”.
•
Matisse like the group emphasised the use of intense color as a vehicle for
describing light and space as well as for communicating the artist's emotional
state.
•
Fauvism proved to be an important movement that came before Cubism and
Expressionism and an inspiration for future types of abstraction.
Beginnings
Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)
was a Symbolist painter and
teacher at the Ecole Des
Beaux Arts. He was a liberal
teacher who encouraged his
students to branch out and
experiment. Matisse and
Rouault were the two most
famous students who became
a part of the Fauves
movement.
‘ Salome’ by Moreau, oil on canvas, 1876
‘ St George’ by Moreau, oil painting, 1890
He taught his students, ‘You must think about colour, have imagination with it.. If you have no
imagination you’ll never paint beautiful colour. You must copy nature and imagination- that is
what makes an artist. Colour must be thought, dreamt and imagined’.
Post-Impressionists such as van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne were considered the
leaders in avant-garde art. Collectively, their experiments with paint application, subject
matter, form and, most importantly, pure unmixed colour, were the seeds that brought forth
Fauvism.
Fauvism,Wild beasts,(1900-20)
Madame Matisse (Green Stripes), 1905
Matisse by Derain, 1905
Estaque, Winding Road by Andre Derain 1920
‘Old King’, oil, by Rouault,1916 ‘ A Day in the Country’ by Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958), 1905
Portrait by Kees Van Dongen
Key Ideas
•
Fauvism never developed into a clear movement in the manner of Impressionism or Surrealism. It
grew from the work of several friends that were artists who shared common enthusiasms. Many, such
as Matisse, Marquet, and Rouault, had been pupils of the Symbolist Gustave Moreau, and admired his
emphasis on personal expression.
•
The Fauves generally rejected the fantastic imagery of the Post-Impressionists, and returned to the
more traditional subjects once favoured by the Impressionists, such as landscapes, cityscapes, and
scenes of bourgeois leisure.
•
Rather than extend the scientific investigations of artists such as Seurat and Signac, Fauves such as
Matisse and Derain were inspired by them to employ pattern and contrasting colours for the purposes
of personal expression.
•
The Fauves became renowned for using pure and unmixed colors, which they intensified further by
applying paint in thick daubs and smears.
•
Although the Fauves were not well-versed in academic colour theory, they sought out unique and
unnatural colour combinations in their paintings without trying to paint realistically; in this sense,
colour existed on the canvas as an independent characteristic, with its own rhythm and mood.
Henri Matisse Develops His Style
Ww
Orpheus, by Guatav Moreau 1865
The Dinner Table, Matisse, 1897
The Moorish Floor, Matisse, 1920-22
Matisse, the principal founding artist of Fauvism, was like many of his contemporaries a great admirer of
the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, Moreau's teachings
that personal expression was among the most important attributes of a great painter were very influential
for Matisse, who turned away from using subtle hues of mixed paints and began applying bright, unmixed
color to his paintings as a means of personal expression. Matisse was also inspired by Moreau’s oriental
style of painting whether it was women’s clothes or in the interior of a painting.
Fauvism was influenced by Impressionism
La Grande Jette by George Seurat
•
Still Life with Pitcher and Fruit c. 1898 by Henri Matisse
Considerable importance to the young Matisse were the applied techniques and visual
style of Georges Seurat who invented Pointillism.
•
Although Matisse did not apply Pointillist theory to his own work, Seurat's unique
application of tiny dots of paint in varying colors to create a harmonious visual tone
was something that fascinated Matisse.
•
It led him to develop "colour structure," or large areas of colour that served to create a
deliberate, decorative effect and sense of mood.
Henri Matisse + André Derain create their first
Fauve paintings in the south of France
In 1905, Matisse invited André Derain to visit him in the fishing port town of Collioure in the south
of Francwhere Matisse had made his home after leaving Paris. The two men spent the summer
working and maturing their styles and technique. While a great many paintings were produced
during that time, a stand-out piece is Matisse's Olive Trees, Collioure (1905) wherein the artist
delicately applied small daubs of pure color to create a composition that is both representational
and abstract. When considering Matisse's early body of work as well as that of other Fauvist
artists, this painting can be considered the first definitively Fauvist work of art.
Matisse's Olive Trees, Collioure (1905)
Derain's Olive Trees, Collioure (1905)
Les Fauves ( The Wild Beasts)
At the Salon d'Automne, 14th of November
1905, held an exhibition at the Grand Palais in
Paris. Included were several works by
Matisse, Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and
Albert Marquet. Their work received a luke
warm response from the public, the paintings
on display were quite distinctive, particularly
in the use of bold, vivid color and heavy brush
work. Les Fauves ( The Wild Beasts) name
was created by a critic at this exhibition.
Press clipping of the Les Fauves exhibition at
Salon d’Autome on the left
Matisse's ‘Open
Window’, Collioure
was shown in the
exhibition, in a
newspaper and
here in colour.
Fauvism and Cubism
An important motif in Matisse's early work , unlike the other Fauves, was his
depiction of faces. His wife in The Green Line, aka Mme. Matisse (1905), and Blue
Nude (1907), which clearly indicate a fascination with African sculpture.
Pablo Picasso (twelve years Matisse's junior), who incorporated African and Iberian
masks into his own work, including a number of self-portraits and most notably the
iconic Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) was influenced by Matisse’s portraits.
Fauvism to Cubism
The Great Trees, L’ Estaque, 1906
"Olive Tree Near L'Estaque”, 1906
Road near L'Estaque, 1909
Georges Braque was a practicing Fauve for a short but significant period. He began
to favour a more restricted color palette. He focused more on subtle gradations of
colour and scale, much in the style of Cézanne. This led Braque to fill his canvases with
an abundance of shapes and forms, as with his 1908 work Road near L'Estaque.
Fauvismwas a crucial precursor to the artist's development of the Cubist style.
Henri Matisse, from
"Notes of a Painter"
Cubism
Cubism is an early 20th-century style and
movement in art, especially painting,
in which perspective with a single viewpoint
was abandoned and use was made
of simple geometric shapes, interlocking
planes, and, later, collage.
Bathers c. 1890 by Paul Cézanne
Les Demoiselles d‘Avignon by Picasso, 1907
One of the most influential art styles of the 20th century, Cubism was created by Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque at the beginning of the 20th century in France. It
began in 1907 with Picasso’s unveiling of his painting Les Desmoiselles d’ Avignon, which
showed influence of primitive African and Spanish sculpture and Cézanne’s innovative
ideas. Analytical Cubism After seeing Les Demoiselles d‘Avignon for the first time, Braque
stopped trying to depict, as Cézanne and Picasso had done , but painted objects form
several viewpoints on one canvas. Soon, Braque and Picasso began working together .
‘The Bay from L'Estaque’, 1886, by Paul Cézanne
Cézanne influenced Braque’s landscapes.
When Matisse made a quick sketch of one
of Braque’s landscapes to show how it
was, ‘made up of little cubes’, as a way of
describing Braque’s painting style. An
critic referred to this type of painting as
‘Houses in l'Estaque’, 1908, by Braque
Cubism and the name stuck.
Anaylitical Cubism
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973). Still Life with Compote and Glass, 1914-15.
Oil on canvas. 25 1/4 x 31 1/2 in. (64.1 x 80 cm)
In the analytic phase (1907–12) the cubist palette was severely limited, largely to black, browns, grays, and
off-whites. In addition, forms were rigidly geometric and compositions subtle and intricate. Cubist
abstraction as represented by the analytic works of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris intended
an appeal to the intellect. The cubists sought to show everyday objects as the mind, not the eye, perceives
them—from all sides at once. The trompe l'oeil element of collage was also some times used.
Juan Gris 1887-1927
Voilin and Chequered board 1913
The Spanish artist Juan Gris (his real name was José Victoriano González-Pérez), a friend and
neighbour of Picasso in Paris, was the best of these and he refined the cubist vocabulary into
his own instantly recognizable visual language. He is often referred to as 'the third cubist'.
Synthetic Cubism
Synthetic Cubism took the movement to its extreme -- all sense of three-dimensionality
disappeared. Instead of breaking down and reassembling facets of the original image, it
was a matter of synthesizing entirely new, expansive structures. Sometimes the subject
was recognizable as a unified structure; at other times, it was hardly legible. Instead, artists
started using collage methods; overlapping various media; and including words, graphics
and patterns, to achieve a desired thematic result. Colours were much brighter, geometric
forms were more distinct, and textures began to emerge with additives like sand, paper or
gesso.
During 1912-13, Picasso and Braque began painting papiers collés- a method of pasting coloured or
printed pieces of paper onto canvas.
‘Still life with Chair Caning’ by Pablo Picasso 1912
The trompe l'oeil element of collage was also some times used.
Georges Braque, 1908-1963, was the son of a painter-decorator and, from 1899 to
1901, was apprenticed in that trade. Many of the techniques and effects thus
learned – wood-graining, marbling, lettering, wall-papering, mixing sand with paint
to achieve a variety of textures – he subsequently brought into fine art painting.
Futurism (1909-16)
While the Cubists were working in France, in Italy, a group of artists were discussing other
artistic ideas. From 1909 to 1916, the Futurists as they called themselves, produced art
that they believed shrugged off Italian traditions of art and looked to the future, embracing
what they perceived as the glorious new modern technology.
Left: Giacomo Balla, "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash" (1912). Right: Marcel Duchamp, "Nude Descending a Staircase No 2"
(1912)
The group wanted to embrace new ideas and destroy the past through war. They described war as
’the world ‘s only hygiene’. They also had ideas about glorifying violence. Artist were encouraged
to find ways of representing dynamism and motion in their art. All machines and new technology
and even war, fast and modern and worth depicting in fine art, not least because they thought that
it would help dispense with social prejudices. As well as modern technology, industrialisation, the
Futurists were inspired by Expressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Cubism.
Glorifying violence The Futurist’s created a Futurist Manifesto, a document declaring the groups
style, which praised: youth, machines, movement, power and speed in 1909.
The Charge of the Lancers, by Umberto Boccioni 1915
Rhythm and sequence Velocity and vitality was what Futurists aimed to
express. Futurists painted painted with rhythmical, repetitive lines broken
sequences or blurred forms, demonstrating a familiarity with photography and
the recent discovery of x-ray. Rejecting the past The artist thought that
museums should be burned down and academies of art . The Futurists saw
themselves as revolutionaries.
‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’,1913 by Umberto Boccioni ‘Music’ by Luigi Russolo, 1911
The effects of war The Futurists underestimated the futility of war or the
devastating power of the machine gun, which they had revered.
Two of the group Boccioni and the Futurist architect Antonio Sant’Elia were
both killed in action in 1916 and Russolo was badly wounded.
Gino Severini, War train, Gino Severini, 1915
Vorticism
C R W Nevinson 1914
The Arrival, C R W Nevinson, 1914
A Battery Shelled,Wyndham Lewis,1919
Dazzle Ship in a Dry dock, Edward
Wadsworth, 1919
Vorticism was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th
century. It was partly inspired by Cubism.
While Vorticists shared the Futurists’ fascination with dynamism and industry, they rejected
the Futurists’ celebration of industrial advancement. Vorticism, aiming to capture movement
within the image, “proud of its polished sides,” sought the stillness at movement’s center (like
a vortex), whereas Futurism sought movement itself.