The
history of paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, and spanning continents and millennia, the history of painting is an ongoing river of creativity, that continues into the 21st century. Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational, religious and
classicalClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
motifs, after which time more purely
abstractAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
and
conceptualConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
approaches gained favor.
Developments in Eastern painting historically parallel those in
Western paintingThe history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
, in general, a few centuries earlier.
African artAfrican art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of people, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African...
,
Islamic artIslamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
,
Indian artIndian Art is the visual art produced on the Indian subcontinent from about the 3rd millennium BC to modern times. To viewers schooled in the Western tradition, Indian art may seem overly ornate and sensuous; appreciation of its refinement comes only gradually, as a rule. Voluptuous feeling is...
,
Chinese artChinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...
, and
Japanese artJapanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art...
each had significant influence on Western art, and, eventually, vice-versa.
Initially serving utilitarian purpose, followed by imperial, private, civic, and
religiousReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
patronage, Eastern and Western painting later found audiences in the
aristocracyAristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
and the
middle classThe middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
. From the Modern era, the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
through the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
painters worked for the church and a wealthy aristocracy. Beginning with the
BaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
era artists received private commissions from a more educated and prosperous middle class. Finally in the west the idea of "
art for art's sake"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, l'art pour l'art, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...
" began to find expression in the work of the
RomanticRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
painters like Francisco de Goya,
John ConstableJohn Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
, and J.M.W. Turner. During the 19th century the rise of the commercial
art galleryAn art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
provided patronage in the 20th Century.
Recommended articles: 20th-century Western painting, Western paintingThe history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
, PaintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, Outline of painting history Outline of painting history is a brief outline with templates and links to Wikipedia articles and subjects related to Art History and specifically the history of painting as an art form.- Ancient painting :*Art of Ancient Egypt*Knossos...
, Landscape artLandscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
.
Pre-history
The oldest known paintings are at the Grotte Chauvet in France, claimed by some historians to be about 32,000 years old. They are engraved and painted using red ochre and black pigment and show horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, mammoth or humans often hunting. There are examples of
cave paintingCave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s all over the world—in France, India, Spain, Portugal, China, Australia etc. Various conjectures have been made as to the meaning these paintings had to the people that made them. Prehistoric men may have painted animals to "catch" their soul or
spiritThe English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
in order to hunt them more easily or the paintings may represent an animistic vision and homage to surrounding
natureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, or they may be the result of a basic need of expression that is innate to human beings, or they could have been for the transmission of practical information.
In
PaleolithicThe Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
times, the representation of humans in cave paintings was rare. Mostly, animals were painted, not only animals that were used as food but also animals that represented strength like the
rhinocerosRhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
or large
FelidaeFelidae is the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called a felid. Felids are the strictest carnivores of the thirteen terrestrial families in the order Carnivora, although the three families of marine mammals comprising the superfamily pinnipedia are as carnivorous as the...
, as in the
Chauvet CaveThe Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...
. Signs like dots were sometimes drawn. Rare human representations include handprints and half-human / animal figures. The Chauvet Cave in the
ArdècheArdèche is a department in south-central France named after the Ardèche River.- History :The area has been inhabited by humans at least since the Upper Paleolithic, as attested by the famous cave paintings at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. The plateau of the Ardeche River has extensive standing stones ,...
Departments of France contains the most important preserved cave paintings of the Paleolithic era, painted around 31,000 BC. The
AltamiraAltamira is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands....
cave paintings in Spain were done 14,000 to 12,000 BC and show, among others,
bisonMembers of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
s. The hall of bulls in
LascauxLascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
,
DordogneDordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
, France, is one of the best known cave paintings from about 15,000 to 10,000 BC.
If there is meaning to the paintings, it remains unknown. The caves were not in an inhabited area, so they may have been used for seasonal rituals. The animals are accompanied by signs which suggest a possible magic use. Arrow-like symbols in
LascauxLascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
are sometimes interpreted as
calendarA calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...
or
almanacAn almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
use. But the evidence remains inconclusive. The most important work of the
MesolithicThe Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
era were the
marching warriors, a rock painting at Cingle de la Mola,
CastellónCastellón or Castelló is a province in the northern part of the Valencian Community, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia to the south, Teruel to the west, Tarragona to the north, and by the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The western side of the province is in the mountainous...
, Spain dated to about 7000 to 4000 BC. The technique used was probably spitting or blowing the pigments onto the rock. The paintings are quite naturalistic, though stylized. The figures are not three-dimensional, even though they overlap
The earliest known Indian paintings (see section below) were the rock paintings of
prehistoricPrehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
times, the
petroglyphPetroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s as found in places like the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, (see above) and some of them are older than 5500 BC. Such works continued and after several millennia, in the 7th century, carved pillars of
AjantaThe Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE. The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya...
,
MaharashtraMaharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
state present a fine example of Indian paintings, and the colors, mostly various shades of red and orange, were derived from minerals.
Eastern painting
The history of Eastern painting includes a vast range of influences from various cultures and religions. Developments in Eastern painting historically parallel those in
Western paintingThe history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
, in general a few centuries earlier.
African artAfrican art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of people, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African...
,
Islamic artIslamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
,
Indian artIndian Art is the visual art produced on the Indian subcontinent from about the 3rd millennium BC to modern times. To viewers schooled in the Western tradition, Indian art may seem overly ornate and sensuous; appreciation of its refinement comes only gradually, as a rule. Voluptuous feeling is...
,
Chinese artChinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...
,
Korean ArtKorean art is art originating or practiced in Korea or by Korean artists, from ancient times to today. Korea is noted for its artistic traditions in pottery, music, calligraphy, and other genres, often marked by the use of bold color, natural forms, and surface decoration.-Introduction:The earliest...
, and
Japanese artJapanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art...
each had significant influence on Western art, and, vice-versa.
Chinese paintingChinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals...
is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals. It was only during the
Warring States PeriodThe Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC...
(403-221 B.C.) that artists began to represent the world around them.
Japanese paintingis one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of...
is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the
Japanese artJapanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art...
s, encompassing a wide variety of genre and styles. The history of Japanese painting is a long history of synthesis and competition between native
Japanese aestheticsThe modern study of a Japanese aesthetics in the Western sense only started a little over two hundred years ago. But, by the term Japanese aesthetic, we tend to mean not this modern study, but a set of ancient ideals that include wabi , sabi , and yûgen...
and adaptation of imported ideas. The history of
Korean paintingKorean painting includes paintings made in Korea or by overseas Koreans on all surfaces. It includes art as old as the petroglyphs through post-modern conceptual art using transient forms of light...
is dated to approximately
108Year 108 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Trebonius and Bradua...
C.E., when it first appears as an independent form. Between that time and the paintings and frescoes that appear on the
GoryeoThe Goryeo Dynasty or Koryŏ was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by Emperor Taejo. Korea gets its name from this kingdom which came to be pronounced Korea. It united the Later Three Kingdoms in 936 and ruled most of the Korean peninsula until it was removed by the Joseon dynasty in 1392...
dynasty tombs, there has been little research. Suffice to say that until the
JoseonJoseon , was a Korean state founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries. It was founded in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Goryeo at what is today the city of Kaesong. Early on, Korea was retitled and the capital was relocated to modern-day Seoul...
dynasty the primary influence was
ChineseChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
painting though done with Korean landscapes, facial features, Buddhist topics, and an emphasis on celestial observation in keeping with the rapid development of Korean astronomy.
East Asian painting
See also Chinese paintingChinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals...
, Japanese paintingis one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of...
, Korean paintingKorean painting includes paintings made in Korea or by overseas Koreans on all surfaces. It includes art as old as the petroglyphs through post-modern conceptual art using transient forms of light...
.
China, Japan and Korea have a strong tradition in painting which is also highly attached to the art of
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
and
printmakingPrintmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
(so much that it is commonly seen as painting). Far east traditional painting is characterized by water based techniques, less realism, "elegant" and stylized subjects, graphical approach to depiction, the importance of
white spaceIn page layout, illustration and sculpture, white space is often referred to as negative space. It is that portion of a page left unmarked: the space between graphics, margins, gutters, space between columns, space between lines of type or figures and objects drawn or depicted...
(or
negative spaceNegative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real"...
) and a preference for
landscapeLandscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
(instead of human figure) as a subject. Beyond ink and color on silk or paper scrolls, gold on
lacquerIn a general sense, lacquer is a somewhat imprecise term for a clear or coloured varnish that dries by solvent evaporation and often a curing process as well that produces a hard, durable finish, in any sheen level from ultra matte to high gloss and that can be further polished as required...
was also a common medium in painted East Asian artwork. Although silk was a somewhat expensive medium to paint upon in the past, the invention of
paperPaper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
during the 1st century AD by the Han court eunuch
Cai LunCai Lun , courtesy name Jingzhong , was a Chinese eunuch. He is traditionally regarded as the inventor of paper and the papermaking process, in forms recognizable in modern times as paper...
provided not only a cheap and widespread medium for writing, but also a cheap and widespread medium for painting (making it more accessible to the public).
The ideologies of
ConfucianismConfucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
, Daoism, and
BuddhismBuddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
played important roles in East Asian art. Medieval Song Dynasty painters such as
Lin TingguiLin Tinggui was a Chinese painter of the Southern Song Dynasty...
and his
Luohan Laundering http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectId=1691 (housed in the Smithsonian
Freer Gallery of ArtThe Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...
) of the 12th century are excellent examples of Buddhist ideas fused into classical Chinese artwork. In the latter painting on silk (image and description provided in the link), bald-headed Buddhist Luohan are depicted in a practical setting of washing clothes by a river. However, the painting itself is visually stunning, with the Luohan portrayed in rich detail and bright, opaque colors in contrast to a hazy, brown, and bland wooded environment. Also, the tree tops are shrouded in swirling fog, providing the common "negative space" mentioned above in East Asian Art.
In Japonisme, late 19th century artists like the Impressionists,
Van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
,
Henri de Toulouse-LautrecHenri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
and Whistler admired traditional Japanese
Ukiyo-e' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
artists like
Hokusaiwas a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting...
and
Hiroshigewas a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. He was also referred to as Andō Hiroshige and by the art name of Ichiyūsai Hiroshige ....
and their work was influenced by it.
Chinese painting
The earliest (surviving) examples of Chinese painted artwork date to the Warring States Period (481 - 221 BC), with paintings on silk or tomb murals on rock, brick, or stone. They were often in simplistic stylized format and in more-or-less rudimentary geometric patterns. They often depicted mythological creatures, domestic scenes, labor scenes, or palatial scenes filled with officials at court. Artwork during this period and the subsequent
Qin DynastyThe Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
(221 - 207 BC) and
Han DynastyThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
(202 BC - 220 AD) was made not as a means in and of itself or for higher personal expression. Rather artwork was created to symbolize and honor funerary rights, representations of mythological deities or spirits of ancestors, etc. Paintings on silk of court officials and domestic scenes could be found during the Han Dynasty, along with scenes of men hunting on horseback or partaking in military parade. There was also painting on three dimensional works of art on figurines and statues, such as the original-painted colors covering the soldier and horse statues of the
Terracotta ArmyThe Terracotta Army or the "Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses", is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China...
. During the social and cultural climate of the ancient Eastern Jin Dynasty (316 - 420 AD) based at Nanjing in the south, painting became one of the official pastimes of Confucian-taught bureaucratic officials and
aristocratsThe aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
(along with music played by the
guqinThe guqin is the modern name for a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family...
zither, writing fanciful
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
, and writing and reciting of
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
). Painting became a common form of artistic self-expression, and during this period painters at court or amongst elite social circuits were judged and ranked by their peers.
The establishment of classical Chinese landscape painting is accredited largely to the Eastern Jin Dynasty artist
Gu KaizhiGu Kaizhi , is a celebrated painter of ancient China. His style name was 'Changkang' . He was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu province and first painted at Nanjing in 364. In 366, he became an officer . Later he was promoted to royal officer . He was also a talented poet and calligrapher...
(344 - 406 AD), one of the most famous artists of Chinese history. Like the elongated scroll scenes of Kaizhi,
Tang DynastyThe Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
(618 - 907 AD) Chinese artists like
Wu DaoziWu Daozi was a Chinese artist of the Tang Dynasty, famous for initiating new myths in his artwork.The myth follows the creation by Wu Daozi of a mural commissioned by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang China...
painted vivid and highly detailed artwork on long horizontal handscrolls (which were very popular during the Tang), such as his
Eighty Seven Celestial People. Painted artwork during the Tang period pertained the effects of an idealized landscape environment, with sparse amount of objects, persons, or activity, as well as monochromatic in nature (example: the murals of Price Yide's tomb in the Qianling Mausoleum). There were also figures such as early Tang-era painter
Zhan ZiqianZhan Ziqian was a famous painter of ancient China from Yangxin county , Shandong province. His birth and death dates are unknown...
, who painted superb landscape paintings that were well ahead of his day in portrayal of realism. However, landscape art did not reach greater level of maturity and realism in general until the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907 - 960 AD). During this time, there were exceptional landscape painters like
Dong YuanDong Yuan was a Chinese painter.He was born in Zhongling . Dong Yuan was active in the Southern Tang Kingdom of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period...
(refer to this article for an example of his artwork), and those who painted more vivid and realistic depictions of domestic scenes, like
Gu HongzhongGu Hongzhong was a Chinese painter during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history.Little is known about Gu Hongzhong's life. He was most likely a court painter for the Southern Tang Emperor Li Yu. Gu was active from 943 to 960 C.E. His most well-known work is the Night...
and his
Night Revels of Han Xizai.
During the Chinese
Song DynastyThe Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
(960 - 1279 AD), not only landscape art was improved upon, but portrait painting became more standardized and sophisticated than before (for example, refer to Emperor Huizong of Song), and reached its classical age maturity during the
Ming DynastyThe Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
(1368 - 1644 AD). During the late 13th century and first half of the 14th century, Chinese under the Mongol-controlled
Yuan DynastyThe Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
were not allowed to enter higher posts of government (reserved for Mongols or other ethnic groups from Central Asia), and the
Imperial examinationThe Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...
was ceased for the time being. Many Confucian-educated Chinese who now lacked profession turned to the arts of painting and theatre instead, as the Yuan period became one of the most vibrant and abundant eras for Chinese artwork. An example of such would be
Qian XuanQian Xuan courtesy name Shun Ju , pseudonyms Yu Tan , Xi Lan Weng , and Zha Chuan Weng was a Chinese painter from Hu Zhou Qian Xuan courtesy name Shun Ju (舜举), pseudonyms Yu Tan (玉潭, "Jade Pool"), Xi Lan Weng (习嬾翁), and Zha Chuan Weng (霅川翁) was a Chinese painter from Hu Zhou Qian Xuan courtesy...
(1235–1305 AD), who was an official of the Song Dynasty, but out of patriotism, refused to serve the Yuan court and dedicated himself to painting. Examples of superb art from this period include the rich and detailed painted murals of the Yongle Palace
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_39769.htmhttp://www.tcc.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=245&c=55, or "Dachunyang Longevity Palace", of 1262 AD, a
UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage site. Within the palace, paintings cover an area of more than 1000 square meters, and hold mostly Daoist themes. It was during the Song Dynasty that painters would also gather in social clubs or meetings to discuss their art or others' artwork, the praising of which often led to persuasions to trade and sell precious works of art. However, there were also many harsh critics of others art as well, showing the difference in style and taste amongst different painters. In 1088 AD, the polymath scientist and statesman
Shen KuoShen Kuo or Shen Gua , style name Cunzhong and pseudonym Mengqi Weng , was a polymathic Chinese scientist and statesman of the Song Dynasty...
once wrote of the artwork of one Li Cheng, who he criticized as follows:
Although high level of stylization, mystical appeal, and surreal elegance were often preferred over realism (such as in
shan shuiShan shui refers to a style of Chinese painting that involves or depicts scenery or natural landscapes, using a brush and ink rather than more conventional paints. Mountains, rivers and often waterfalls are prominent in this art form.-History:...
style), beginning with the medieval Song Dynasty there were many Chinese painters then and afterwards who depicted scenes of nature that were vividly real. Later Ming Dynasty artists would take after this Song Dynasty emphasis for intricate detail and realism on objects in nature, especially in depictions of animals (such as ducks, swans, sparrows, tigers, etc.) amongst patches of brightly-colored flowers and thickets of brush and wood (a good example would be the anonymous Ming Dynasty painting
Birds and Plum Blossoms http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/zoomObject.cfm?ObjectId=4693, housed in the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.). There were many renowned Ming Dynasty artists;
Qiu YingQiu Ying was a Chinese painter who specialized in the gongbi brush technique.Qiu Ying's courtesy name was Shifu , and his pseudonym was Shizhou . He was born to a peasant family in Taicang and studied painting under Zhou Chen in Suzhou...
is an excellent example of a paramount Ming era painter (famous even in his own day), utilizing in his artwork domestic scenes, bustling palatial scenes, and nature scenes of river valleys and steeped mountains shrouded in mist and swirling clouds. During the Ming Dynasty there were also different and rivaling schools of art associated with painting, such as the
Wu SchoolWu or Wumen School is the term applied to a group of painters of the Southern School during the Ming period of Chinese history. It was not an academy or educational institution, but rather a group united largely by the artistic theories of its members...
and the Zhe School.
Classical Chinese painting continued on into the early modern
Qing DynastyThe Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, with highly realistic portrait paintings like seen in the late Ming Dynasty of the early 17th century. The portraits of
Kangxi EmperorThe Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
,
Yongzheng EmperorThe Yongzheng Emperor , born Yinzhen , was the fifth emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the third Qing emperor from 1722 to 1735. A hard-working ruler, Yongzheng's main goal was to create an effective government at minimal expense. Like his father, the Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng used military...
, and
Qianlong EmperorThe Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796...
are excellent examples of realistic Chinese portrait painting. During the Qianlong reign period and the continuing 19th century, European
BaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
styles of painting had noticeable influence on Chinese portrait paintings, especially with painted visual effects of lighting and shading. Likewise, East Asian paintings and other works of art (such as
porcelainPorcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
and lacquerware) were highly prized in Europe since initial contact in the 16th century.
Japanese painting
Japanese painting (絵画) is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese arts, encompassing a wide variety on genre and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the history Japanese painting is a long history of synthesis and competition between native Japanese
aestheticsAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and adaptation of imported ideas.
Ukiyo-e' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
, "pictures of the floating world", is a genre of Japanese
woodblock printsWoodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....
(or
woodcutWoodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s) and
paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, the theatre and pleasure quarters. It is the main artistic genre of
woodblock printing in JapanWoodblock printing in Japan is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre; however, it was also used very widely for printing books in the same period. Woodblock printing had been used in China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type, but was only...
. Japanese printmaking especially from the
Edo periodThe , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
exerted enormous influence on
Western paintingThe history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
in France during the 19th century.
Indian painting
Indian paintings historically revolved around the religious deities and kings. Indian art is a collective term for several different schools of art that existed in the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. The paintings varied from large frescoes of
AjantaThe Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE. The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya...
to the intricate
MughalMughal painting is a particular style of South Asian painting, generally confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums, which emerged from Persian miniature painting, with Indian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist influences, and developed largely in the court...
miniature paintings to the metal embellished works from the Tanjore school. The paintings from the Gandhar–
TaxilaTaxila is a Tehsil in the Rawalpindi District of Punjab province of Pakistan. It is an important archaeological site.Taxila is situated about northwest of Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi in Panjab; just off the Grand Trunk Road...
are influenced by the Persian works in the west. The eastern style of painting was mostly developed around the
NalandaNālandā is the name of an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India.The site of Nalanda is located in the Indian state of Bihar, about 55 miles south east of Patna, and was a Buddhist center of learning from the fifth or sixth century CE to 1197 CE. It has been called "one of the...
school of art. The works are mostly inspired by various scenes from
Indian mythologyHindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
.
History
The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of
prehistoricPrehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
times, the
petroglyphPetroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s as found in places like the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, and some of them are older than 5500 BC. Such works continued and after several millennia, in the 7th century, carved pillars of
AjantaThe Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE. The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya...
,
MaharashtraMaharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
state present a fine example of Indian paintings, and the colors, mostly various shades of red and orange, were derived from minerals.
Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India are
rock-cutRock-cut architecture is the practice of creating buildings and other physical structures by carving natural rock. In India the term 'cave' is often applied, and in China 'cavern,' but one must differentiate natural caves from rock-cut architecture which is man-made and designed along the...
cave monuments dating back to the 2nd century BCE and containing paintings and sculpture considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art.
Madhubani painting
Madhubani painting]]Madhubani painting or Mithila painting is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India and the adjoining parts of Terai in Nepal. In the present time the main artists include Smt Bharti Dayal ' Ganga devi ' Smt Bua Devi ,late Smt Jagdamba Devi,late Smt Sita...
is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India. The origins of Madhubani painting are shrouded in antiquity.
Rajput painting
Rajput paintingRajput painting, also known as Rajasthani Painting, is a style of Indian painting, evolved and flourished during the 18th century in the royal courts of Rajputana, India, flowing from the style of Mughal painting, itself derived from the Persian miniature. Each Rajput kingdom evolved a distinct...
, a style of
Indian paintingIndian painting has a very long history, although the seasonally humid Indian climate was difficult for the long-term preservation of paintings and there are far fewer survivals than of other forms of Indian art. The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of pre-historic times, the...
, evolved and flourished, during the 18th century, in the royal courts of
RajputanaRājputāna was the pre-1949 name of the present-day Indian state of Rājasthān, the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. George Thomas was the first in 1800 A.D., to term this region as Rajputana...
, India. Each Rajput kingdom evolved a distinct style, but with certain common features. Rajput paintings depict a number of themes, events of epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Krishna's life, beautiful landscapes, and humans. Miniatures were the preferred medium of Rajput painting, but several manuscripts also contain Rajput paintings, and paintings were even done on the walls of palaces, inner chambers of the forts, havelies, particularly, the havelis of Shekhawait.
The colors extracted from certain minerals, plant sources, conch shells, and were even derived by processing precious stones, gold and silver were used. The preparation of desired colors was a lengthy process, sometimes taking weeks. Brushes used were very fine.
Mughal painting
Mughal paintingMughal painting is a particular style of South Asian painting, generally confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums, which emerged from Persian miniature painting, with Indian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist influences, and developed largely in the court...
is a particular style of
Indian paintingIndian painting has a very long history, although the seasonally humid Indian climate was difficult for the long-term preservation of paintings and there are far fewer survivals than of other forms of Indian art. The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of pre-historic times, the...
, generally confined to illustrations on the book and done in miniatures, and which emerged, developed and took shape during the period of the
Mughal EmpireThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
16th -19th centuries).
Tanjore painting
Tanjore paintingTanjore painting is an important form of classical South Indian painting native to the town of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, India. The art form dates back to about 1600 AD, a period when the Nayakas of Tanjavur encouraged art—chiefly, classical dance and music—as well as literature, both in Telugu...
is an important form of classical
South IndiaSouth India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
n painting native to the town of Tanjore in
Tamil NaduTamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The art form dates back to the early 9th century, a period dominated by the
CholaThe Chola dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which was one of the longest-ruling in some parts of southern India. The earliest datable references to this Tamil dynasty are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BC left by Asoka, of Maurya Empire; the dynasty continued to govern over varying territory until...
rulers, who encouraged art and literature. These paintings are known for their elegance, rich colors, and attention to detail. The themes for most of these paintings are
HinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
Gods and Goddesses and scenes from
Hindu mythologyHindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
. In modern times, these paintings have become a much sought after souvenir during festive occasions in South India.
The process of making a Tanjore painting involves many stages. The first stage involves the making of the preliminary sketch of the image on the base. The base consists of a cloth pasted over a wooden base. Then chalk powder or
zinc oxideZinc oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula ZnO. It is a white powder that is insoluble in water. The powder is widely used as an additive into numerous materials and products including plastics, ceramics, glass, cement, rubber , lubricants, paints, ointments, adhesives, sealants,...
is mixed with water-soluble
adhesiveAn adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. The types of materials that can be bonded are vast but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials...
and applied on the base. To make the base smoother, a mild
abrasiveAn abrasive is a material, often a mineral, that is used to shape or finish a workpiece through rubbing which leads to part of the workpiece being worn away...
is sometimes used. After the drawing is made, decoration of the jewellery and the apparels in the image is done with semi-precious stones. Laces or threads are also used to decorate the jewellery. On top of this, the gold foils are pasted. Finally, dyes are used to add colors to the figures in the paintings.
The Madras School
During British rule in India, the crown found that Madras had some of the most talented and intellectual artistic minds in the world. As the British had also established a huge settlement in and around Madras, Georgetown was chosen to establish an institute that would cater to the artistic expectations of the royals in London. This has come to be known as the
Madras SchoolThe Government College of Fine Arts in Chennai is the oldest art institution in India. The institution was established in 1850 by surgeon Alexander Hunter as a private art school. In 1852, after being taken over by the government, it was renamed as the Government School of Industrial Arts...
. At first traditional artists were employed to produce exquisite varieties of furniture, metal work, and curios and their work was sent to the royal palaces of the Queen.
Unlike the Bengal School where 'copying' is the norm of teaching, the Madras School flourishes on 'creating' new styles, arguments and trends.
The Bengal School
The
Bengal School of Art was an influential style of art that flourished in India during the
British RajBritish Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
in the early 20th century. It was associated with Indian
nationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, but was also promoted and supported by many British arts administrators.
The Bengal School arose as an avant garde and nationalist movement reacting against the
academic artAcademic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...
styles previously promoted in India, both by Indian artists such as
Raja Ravi VarmaRaja Ravi Varma was an Indian painter from the princely state of Travancore who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana...
and in British art schools. Following the widespread influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the
WestThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
, the British art teacher
Ernest Binfield HavelErnest Binfield Havell , who published under the name E.B. Havell, was an influential English arts administrator, art historian and author of numerous books about Indian art and architecture. He was a member of the Havell family of artists and art educators...
attempted to reform the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of Art by encouraging students to imitate
MughalMughal painting is a particular style of South Asian painting, generally confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums, which emerged from Persian miniature painting, with Indian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist influences, and developed largely in the court...
miniatures. This caused immense controversy, leading to a strike by students and complaints from the local press, including from nationalists who considered it to be a retrogressive move. Havel was supported by the artist
Abanindranath TagoreAbanindranath Tagore was the principal artist of the Bengal school and the first major exponent of swadeshi values in Indian art. He was also a noted writer, particularly for children...
, a nephew of the poet
Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
. Tagore painted a number of works influenced by Mughal art, a style that he and Havel believed to be expressive of India's distinct spiritual qualities, as opposed to the "materialism" of the West. Tagore's best-known painting,
Bharat Mata (Mother India), depicted a young woman, portrayed with four arms in the manner of Hindu deities, holding objects symbolic of India's national aspirations. Tagore later attempted to develop links with Japanese artists as part of an aspiration to construct a pan-Asianist model of art.
The Bengal School's influence in India declined with the spread of modernist ideas in the 1920s. In the post-independence period, Indian artists showed more adaptability as they borrowed freely from european styles and amalgamated them freely with the Indian motifs to new forms of art. While artists like
Francis Newton SouzaFrancis Newton Souza , commonly referred to as F. N. Souza, was an Indian artist. He was a founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay, and was the first post-independence Indian artist to achieve high recognition in the West...
and
Tyeb MehtaTayyabb Mehta was a noted Indian painter. He was part of the noted Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, which included greats like F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza and M.F...
were more western in their approach, there were others like
Ganesh PyneGanesh Pyne is a Calcutta-born Indian artist.- Biographical :Pyne was born in Calcutta in 1937. He was a student at the Government College of Arts & Craft, Calcutta between 1955 and 1959...
and Maqbool Fida Husain who developed thoroughly indigenous styles of work. Today after the process of liberalization of market in India, the artists are experiencing more exposure to the international art-scene which is helping them in emerging with newer forms of art which were hitherto not seen in India.
Jitish KallatJitish Kallat is an Indian artist who works in varied media. He was born in 1974 in Mumbai . He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art in Mumbai in 1996....
had shot to fame in the late 90s with his paintings which were both modern and beyond the scope of generic definition. However while artists in India in the new century are trying out new styles, themes and metaphors, it would not have been possible to get such quick recognition without the aid of the business houses which are now entering the art field like they had never before.
Modern Indian painting
Amrita Sher-GilAmrita Sher-Gil , was an eminent Indian painter, sometimes known as India's Frida Kahlo, and today considered an important woman painter of 20th century India, whose legacy stands at par with that of the Masters of Bengal Renaissance; she is also the 'most expensive' woman painter of India.-Early...
was an Indian painter, sometimes known as India's
Frida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
, and today considered an important women painter of 20th century India, whose legacy stands at par with that of the Masters of
Bengal RenaissanceThe Bengal Renaissance refers to a social reform movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the region of Bengal in Undivided India during the period of British rule...
; she is also the 'most expensive' woman painter of India.
Today, she is amongst
Nine Masters, whose work was declared as
art treasures by The
Archaeological Survey of IndiaThe Archaeological Survey of India is a department of the Government of India, attached to the Ministry of Culture . The ASI is responsible for archaeological studies and the preservation of archaeological heritage of the country in accordance with the various acts of the Indian Parliament...
, in 1976 and 1979, and over 100 of her paintings are now displayed at
National Gallery of Modern ArtThe National Gallery of Modern Art is the leading Indian art gallery. The main museum at New Delhi was established on March 29, 1954 by the Government of India, with subsequent branches at Mumbai and Bangalore...
,
New DelhiNew Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
.
During the colonial era, Western influences started to make an impact on Indian art. Some artists developed a style that used Western ideas of composition, perspective and realism to illustrate Indian themes. Others, like
Jamini Roy-Early life:Jamini Roy was born in 1887 into a middle-class family of land-owners in a village called Beliatore in the District of Bankura in Bengal .When he was sixteen he was sent to study at the Government School of Art in Calcutta...
, consciously drew inspiration from folk art.
By the time of Independence in 1947, several schools of art in India provided access to modern techniques and ideas. Galleries were established to showcase these artists. Modern Indian art typically shows the influence of Western styles, but is often inspired by Indian themes and images. Major artists are beginning to gain international recognition, initially among the Indian diaspora, but also among non-Indian audiences.
The Progressive Artists' Group, established shortly after India became independent in 1947, was intended to establish new ways of expressing India in the post-colonial era. The founders were six eminent artists - K. H. Ara, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade, M.F. Husain,
S.H. RazaSyed Haider Raza Alias S.H. Raza is an eminent Indian artist who has lived and worked in France since 1950, but maintains strong ties with India....
and
F. N. SouzaFrancis Newton Souza , commonly referred to as F. N. Souza, was an Indian artist. He was a founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay, and was the first post-independence Indian artist to achieve high recognition in the West...
, though the group was dissolved in 1956, it was profoundly influential in changing the idiom of Indian art. Almost all India's major artists in the 1950s were associated with the group. Some of those who are well-known today are Bal Chabda,
Manishi DeyManishi Dey was an Indian painter of the Bengal school of art. He was born in Dhaka on 22. September 1909 and died 1966 in Kolkata. He was the younger brother of Mukul Dey, a pioneering Indian teacher and engraver....
,
Mukul DeyMukul Chandra Dey was a student of Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan. He is considered as a pioneer of drypoint-etching in India....
,
V. S. GaitondeVasudeo S. Gaitonde was regarded as India's foremost abstract artist. He received Padma Shri Award in 1971.-Personal life and education:...
,
Ram KumarRam Kumar is a contemporary Indian artist who has been described as one of India's foremost abstract painters. Educated as an economist with an M.A. from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, Ram Kumar took classes at the Sharda Ukil School of Art, and then went to Paris and studied further there under...
,
Tyeb MehtaTayyabb Mehta was a noted Indian painter. He was part of the noted Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, which included greats like F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza and M.F...
, and
Akbar PadamseeAkbar Padamsee is a contemporary Indian artist.He received his diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, in 1951...
. Other famous painters like
Jahar DasguptaJahar Dasgupta, is senior contemporary painter from India.-Biography:Jahar Dasgupta was born in Jamshedpur in the year 1942. He was admitted to Kalabhavan, Santiniketan in 1959 and took his primary lessons under legendary mentors like Nand Lal Bose, Ramkinkar Baiz and Benode Behari Mukherjee...
, Prokash Karmakar,
John WilkinsJohn Wilkins , was an Indian artist was born on June 20, 1927 at Kolar Gold Fields.-Biography:John Wilkins was one of the leading painters from India which include Tyeb Mehta, S.H. Raza, M.F...
, Narayanan Ramachandran, and Bijon Choudhuri enriched the art culture of India. They have become the icons of modern Indian art. Art historians like Prof. Rai
Anand KrishnaRai Anand Krishna is an art historian and museologist, who has not only helped in restoration and chronicling of Indian art but also created a breed of professional art researchers. Scholars from India and abroad have eagerly sought his evaluation of their work...
have also referred to those works of modern artistes that reflect Indian ethos. Geeta Vadhera has had acclaim in translating complex, Indian spiritual themes onto canvas like Sufi thought, the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Geeta.
Indian Art got a boost with the economic liberalization of the country since early 1990s. Artists from various fields now started bringing in varied styles of work. Post liberalization Indian art works not only within the confines of academic traditions but also outside it. Artists have introduced new concepts which have hitherto not been seen in Indian art.
Devajyoti RayDevajyoti Ray is an Indian painter and installation artist whose works attained significance in the post-liberalization phase of Indian economy. His works have been exhibited internationally and have been acquired by many art academies...
has introduced a the new genre of art called
PseudorealismPseudorealism, also spelled pseudo-realism, is a term used in a variety of discourses connoting any artistic and dramatic technique, or work of art, film and literature perceived as superficial, not-real or non-realistic...
. Pseudorealist Art is an original art style that has been developed entirely on the Indian soil. Pseudorealism takes into account the Indian concept of abstraction and uses it to transform regular scenes of Indian life into a fantastic images.
In post-liberalization India, many artists have established themselves in the international art market like the abstract painter
Natvar BhavsarNatvar Bhavsar is an Indian artist, based in Soho, New York City, noted as an abstract expressionist and color field artist. Bhavsar's paintings appear in more than 800 private and public collections, including the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New...
and sculptor
Anish KapoorAnish Kapoor CBE RA is a British sculptor of Indian birth. Born in Mumbai , Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design.He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice...
whose mammoth postminimalist artworks have acquired attention for their sheer size. Many art houses and galleries have also opened in USA and Europe to showcase Indian artworks.
Philippines
Filipino painting as a whole can be seen as an amalgamation of many cultural influences, though it tends to be more Western in its current form with Eastern roots.
Early Filipino painting can be found in red slip (clay mixed with water) designs embellished on the ritual pottery of the Philippines such as the acclaimed
Manunggul JarThe Manunggul Jar is a secondary burial jar excavated from a Neolithic burial site in Manunggul cave of Lipuun dating from 890-710 B.C...
.Evidence of Philippine pottery-making dated as early as 6000 BC has been found in Sanga-sanga Cave, Sulu and Laurente Cave, Cagayan. It has been proven that by 5000 BC, the making of pottery was practiced throughout the country. Early Filipinos started making pottery before their Cambodian neighbors and at about the same time as the Thais as part of what appears to be a widespread Ice Age development of pottery technology.Further evidences of painting are manifested in the tattoo tradition of early Filipinos, whom the Portugese explorer referred to as
Pintados or the 'Painted People' of the Visayas. Various designs referencing flora and fauna with heavenly bodies decorate their bodies in various colored pigmentation. Perhaps, some of the most elaborate painting done by early Filipinos that survive to the present day can be manifested among the arts and architecture of the
MaranaoMaranao is the term used for the people of Lanao, a predominantly Muslim region in the Philippines island of Mindanao. They are famous for their artwork, sophisticated weaving, wood and metal craft, and their epic literature...
who are well known for the
NāgaNaga or NAGA may refer to:* Nāga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.-People:* Nayan / Nayar/Nair people of Kerala Society* Naga people, a diverse ethnic identity in Northeast India...
Dragons and the
SarimanokThe Sarimanok is a legendary bird of the Maranao people who originate from Mindanao, a major island in the Philippines. It comes from the words "sari" and "manok." "Sari" means cloth or garment, which is generally of assorted colors...
carved and painted in the beautiful Panolong of their Torogan or King's House.
Filipinos began creating paintings in the European tradition during 17th century Spanish period. The earliest of these paintings were Church frescoes, religious imagery from Biblical sources, as well as engravings, sculptures and lithographs featuring Christian icons and European nobility. Most of the paintings and sculptures between the 19th, and 20th century produced a mixture of religious, political, and landscape art works, with qualities of sweetness, dark, and light. Early
modernistModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
painters such as Damián Domingo was associated with religious, and secular paintings. The art of
Juan LunaJuan Luna y Novicio was an Ilocano Filipino painter, sculptor and a political activist of the Philippine Revolution during the late 19th century...
and
Felix HidalgoFélix Resurrección Hidalgo y Padilla was a Filipino artist. He is acknowledged as one of the great Filipino painters of the late 19th century, and is significant in Philippine history for having been an acquaintance and inspiration for members of the Philippine reform movement which included José...
showed a trend for political statement. Artist such as
Fernando AmorsoloFernando Amorsolo y Cueto is one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines. Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light...
used post-modernism to produce paintings that illustrated Philippine culture, nature and harmony. While other artist such as
Fernando ZóbelFernando Zóbel de Ayala , is a Filipino businessman, from the prominent Ayala-Zóbel family. Zóbel graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982. He also completed a program in International Management at INSEAD in France....
used realities and
abstractAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
on his work. In early 80s other unique folk artist exist one of these is
Elito CircaElito Villaflor Circa , better known as "Amangpintor", is a Filipino painter and was recognized in his hometown as a folk painter...
as amangpintor the famous Filipino folk painter. He uses his own hair to make his paintbrushes, and signs his name with his own blood on the right side of his paintings. He developed his own styles without professional training or guidance from masters.
South-East Asia
Egypt, Greece and Rome
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, a civilization with very strong traditions of architecture and
sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
(both originally painted in bright colours) also had many mural paintings in temples and buildings, and painted illustrations on
papyrusPapyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
manuscriptA manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s. Egyptian wall painting and decorative painting is often graphic, sometimes more symbolic than realistic. Egyptian painting depicts figures in bold outline and flat
silhouetteA silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...
, in which symmetry is a constant characteristic.
Egyptian paintingAncient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...
has close connection with its written language - called
Egyptian hieroglyphsEgyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
. Painted symbols are found amongst the first forms of written language. The Egyptians also painted on
linenLinen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....
, remnants of which survive today. Ancient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate. The ancient Egyptians created paintings to make the
afterlifeThe afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
of the deceased a pleasant place. The themes included journey through the afterworld or their protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld. Some examples of such paintings are paintings of the gods and goddesses
RaRa is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...
,
HorusHorus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
,
AnubisAnubis is the Greek name for a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. In the ancient Egyptian language, Anubis is known as Inpu . According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name was vocalized as Anapa...
,
NutIn the Ennead of Egyptian mythology, Nut was the goddess of the sky.-Goddess of the sky:...
,
OsirisOsiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
and
IsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
. Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. In the
New KingdomThe New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt....
and later, the
Book of the DeadThe Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...
was buried with the entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife.
To the north of
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
was the
Minoan civilizationThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
on the island of
CreteCrete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. The wall paintings found in the palace of
KnossosKnossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
are similar to that of the
EgyptiansEgyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
but much more free in style. Around 1100 B.C., tribes from the north of Greece conquered Greece and the Greek art took a new direction.
Ancient GreeceAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
had great painters, great sculptors (though both endeavours were regarded as mere manual labour at the time), and great architects. The
ParthenonThe Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...
is an example of their architecture that has lasted to modern days. Greek marble sculpture is often described as the highest form of
ClassicalClassicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
art. Painting on
pottery of Ancient GreeceAs the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...
and
ceramicsIn art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
gives a particularly informative glimpse into the way society in Ancient Greece functioned. Black-figure vase painting and Red-figure vase painting gives many surviving examples of what Greek painting was. Some famous Greek painters on wooden panels who are mentioned in texts are
ApellesApelles of Kos was a renowned painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of this artist rated him superior to preceding and subsequent artists...
,
Zeuxis and Parrhasius.Zeuxis was a painter who flourished during the 5th century BC.-Life and work:Zeuxis was born in Heraclea, probably Heraclea Lucania in southern Italy, around 464 BC and was presumably the pupil of Apollodorus. Zeuxis often thought himself misunderstood by his public and Aristotle did not like...
, however no examples of Ancient Greek panel painting survive, only written descriptions by their contemporaries or later Romans. Zeuxis lived in 5-6 BC and was said to be the first to use
sfumatoSfumato is one of the four canonical painting modes of the Renaissance .The most prominent practitioner of sfumato was Leonardo da Vinci, and his famous painting of the Mona Lisa exhibits the technique. Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or...
. According to
Pliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, the realism of his paintings was such that birds tried to eat the painted grapes. Apelles is described as the greatest painter of
AntiquityClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
for perfect technique in drawing, brilliant color and modeling.
Roman artRoman art has the visual arts made in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work...
was influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. However, Roman painting does have important unique characteristics. The only surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings, many from villas in
CampaniaCampania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, in Southern Italy. Such painting can be grouped into 4 main "styles" or periods and may contain the first examples of trompe-l'œil, pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape. Almost the only painted portraits surviving from the Ancient world are a large number of
coffin-portraitsMummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits is the modern term given to a type of naturalistic painted portraits on wooden boards attached to mummies from the Coptic period. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world...
of bust form found in the Late Antique cemetery of Al-Fayum. Although these were neither of the best period nor the highest quality, they are impressive in themselves, and give an idea of the quality that the finest ancient work must have had. A very small number of
miniaturesThe word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment...
from Late Antique illustrated books also survive, and a rather larger number of copies of them from the Early Medieval period.
Middle Ages
The rise of Christianity imparted a different spirit and aim to painting styles.
Byzantine artByzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
, once its style was established by the 6th century, placed great emphasis on retaining traditional
iconographyIconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
and style, and has changed relatively little through the thousand years of the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
and the continuing traditions of Greek and Russian Orthodox
iconAn icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
-painting. Byzantine painting has a particularly hieratic feeling and icons were and still are seen as a reflection of the divine. There were also many wall-paintings in
frescoFresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
, but fewer of these have survived than Byzantine mosaics. In general Byzantium art borders on
abstractionAbstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
, in its flatness and highly stylised depictions of figures and landscape. However there are periods, especially in the so-called Macedonian art of around the 10th century, when Byzantine art became more flexible in approach.
In post-Antique Catholic Europe the first distinctive artistic style to emerge that included painting was the
Insular artInsular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...
of the British Isles, where the only surviving examples (and quite likely the only medium in which painting was used) are miniatures in
Illuminated manuscriptAn illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s such as the
Book of KellsThe Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...
. These are most famous for their abstract decoration, although figures, and sometimes scenes, were also depicted, especially in
Evangelist portraitEvangelist portraits are a specific type of miniature included in ancient and mediæval illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, and later in Bibles and other books, as well as other media. Each Gospel of the Four Evangelists, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, may be prefaced by a portrait of...
s.
CarolingianCarolingian art comes from the Frankish Empire in the period of roughly 120 years from about AD 780 to 900 — during the reign of Charlemagne and his immediate heirs — popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The art was produced by and for the court circle and a group of...
and
Ottonian artIn pre-romanesque Germany, the prevailing style was what has come to be known as Ottonian art. With Ottonian architecture, it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance named for the emperors Otto I, Otto II, and Otto III...
also survives mostly in manuscripts, although some wall-painting remain, and more are documented. The art of this period combines Insular and "barbarian" influences with a strong Byzantine influence and an aspiration to recover classical monumentality and poise.
Walls of
RomanesqueRomanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
and
GothicGothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
churches were decorated with
frescoFresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
es as well as sculpture and many of the few remaining murals have great intensity, and combine the decorative energy of Insular art with a new monumentality in the treatment of figures. Far more miniatures in
Illuminated manuscriptAn illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s survive from the period, showing the same characteristics, which continue into the
Gothic periodGothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
.
Panel painting becomes more common during the
RomanesqueRomanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
period, under the heavy influence of Byzantine icons. Towards the middle of the 13th century,
Medieval artThe medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...
and Gothic painting became more realistic, with the beginnings of interest in the depiction of volume and
perspectivePerspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
in Italy with
CimabueCimabue , also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto di Giuseppe, was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence....
and then his pupil Giotto. From Giotto on, the treatment of composition by the best painters also became much more free and innovative. They are considered to be the two great medieval masters of painting in western culture. Cimabue, within the Byzantine tradition, used a more realistic and dramatic approach to his art. His pupil, Giotto, took these innovations to a higher level which in turn set the foundations for the western painting tradition. Both artists were pioneers in the move towards naturalism.
Churches were built with more and more windows and the use of colorful
stained glassThe term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
become a staple in decoration. One of the most famous examples of this is found in the
cathedralA cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
of
Notre Dame de ParisNotre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
. By the 14th century Western societies were both richer and more cultivated and painters found new patrons in the nobility and even the
bourgeoisieIn sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
. Illuminated manuscripts took on a new character and slim, fashionably dressed court women were shown in their landscapes. This style soon became known as International style and
temperaTempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
panel paintings and altarpieces gained importance.
Renaissance and Mannerism
The
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
is said by many to be the
golden ageA golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure .-Golden Age in society:...
of painting. Roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th century. In Italy artists like
Paolo UccelloPaolo Uccello , born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his...
,
Fra AngelicoFra Angelico , born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent"...
,
MasaccioMasaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...
,
Piero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
,
Andrea MantegnaAndrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
,
Filippo LippiFra' Filippo Lippi , also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Italian Quattrocento .-Biography and works:...
,
GiorgioneGiorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...
,
TintorettoTintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
,
Sandro BotticelliAlessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
,
Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, Michelangelo Buonarroti,
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
,
Giovanni BelliniGiovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
, and
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
took painting to a higher level through the use of
perspectivePerspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
, the study of
human anatomyHuman anatomy is primarily the scientific study of the morphology of the human body. Anatomy is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross anatomy is the study of anatomical structures that can be seen by the naked eye...
and proportion, and through their development of an unprecedented refinement in drawing and painting techniques.
Flemish, Dutch and German painters of the Renaissance such as
Hans Holbein the YoungerHans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
,
Albrecht DürerAlbrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
,
Lucas CranachLucas Cranach the Elder , was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving...
,
Matthias GrünewaldMatthias Grünewald or "Mathis" , "Gothart" or "Neithardt" , , was a German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.Only ten paintings—several consisting...
, Hieronymous Bosch, and
Pieter BrueghelPieter Bruegel the Elder was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes . He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but he is also the one generally meant when the context does...
represent a different approach from their Italian colleagues, one that is more realistic and less idealized. Genre painting became a popular idiom amongst such Northern painters as Pieter Brueghel. A new
verisimilitudeVerisimilitude is the quality of realism in something .-Competing ideas:The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory...
in depicting reality became possible with the adoption of
oil paintingOil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
, whose invention was traditionally, but erroneously, credited to
Jan Van EyckJan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
(an important transitional figure who bridges painting in the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
with painting of the early
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
). Unlike the Italians whose work drew heavily from the art of ancient Greece and Rome, the northerners retained a stylistic residue of the sculpture and illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. These tendencies are also see in the
art of Tudor EnglandThe artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I....
, which was heavily influenced by Protestant refugees from the
Low CountriesThe Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
.
Renaissance painting reflects the revolution of ideas and science (
astronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
,
geographyGeography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
) that occur in this period, the
ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, and the invention of the
printing pressA printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
. Dürer, considered one of the greatest of printmakers, states that painters are not mere
artisanAn artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
s but
thinkersAn intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
as well. With the development of
easelAn easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it.-Etymology:The word is an old Germanic synonym for donkey...
painting in the Renaissance, painting gained independence from architecture. Following centuries dominated by religious imagery, secular subject matter slowly returned to Western painting. Artists included visions of the world around them, or the products of their own imaginations in their paintings. Those who could afford the expense could become patrons and commission portraits of themselves or their family.
In the 15th and 16th centuries,
panel paintingA panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
s which could be hung on walls and moved around at will, became increasingly popular for both churches and private houses, rather than
frescoFresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
wall-paintings or paintings incorporated into on permanent structures, such as
altarpieceAn altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
s. The
High RenaissanceThe expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
gave rise to a stylized art known as
MannerismMannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
. In place of the balanced compositions and rational approach to perspective that characterized art at the dawn of the 16th century, the Mannerists sought instability, artifice, and doubt. The unperturbed faces and gestures of
Piero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
and the calm Virgins of Raphael are replaced by the troubled expressions of
PontormoJacopo Carucci , usually known as Jacopo da Pontormo, Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine school. His work represents a profound stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine...
and the emotional intensity of
El GrecoEl Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
. Some decades later
Northern MannerismNorthern Mannerism is the term in European art history for the versions of Mannerism practiced in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th century...
dominated Netherlandish and German art until the arrival of the Baroque.
Baroque and Rococo
Baroque painting is associated with the
BaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
cultural movementA cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture, but as...
, a movement often identified with Absolutism and the Counter Reformation or Catholic Revival; the existence of important Baroque painting in non-absolutist and Protestant states also, however, underscores its popularity, as the style spread throughout Western Europe.
Baroque painting is characterized by great drama, rich, deep color, and intense light and dark shadows. Baroque art was meant to evoke emotion and passion instead of the calm rationality that had been prized during the Renaissance. During the period beginning around 1600 and continuing throughout the 17th century, painting is characterized as Baroque. Among the greatest painters of the Baroque are
CaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
, Rembrandt,
Frans HalsFrans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
,
Rubens,
VelázquezDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
,
PoussinNicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
, and Jan Vermeer. Caravaggio is an heir of the
humanistHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
painting of the
High RenaissanceThe expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
. His
realisticRealism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
approach to the human figure, painted directly from life and dramatically spotlit against a dark background, shocked his contemporaries and opened a new chapter in the history of painting.
Baroque painting often dramatizes scenes using light effects; this can be seen in works by Rembrandt, Vermeer,
Le NainThe three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain , Louis Le Nain , and Mathieu Le Nain...
and
La TourGeorges de La Tour was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648...
.
During the 18th century,
RococoRococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
followed as a lighter extension of Baroque, often frivolous and erotic.
RococoRococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
developed first in the decorative arts and interior design in France.
Louis XVLouis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
's succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France exemplified by the works of
Antoine WatteauJean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement...
and
François BoucherFrançois Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...
. Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns, but by this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions.
The Rococo style spread with French artists and engraved publications. It was readily received in the Catholic parts of Germany,
BohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, and Austria, where it was merged with the lively German Baroque traditions. German Rococo was applied with enthusiasm to churches and palaces, particularly in the south, while
Frederician RococoFrederician Rococo is a form of rococo, which developed in Prussia during the reign of Frederick the Great and combined influences from both France and the Netherlands. Its most famous adherent was the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. Furthermore, the painter Antoine Pesne and even...
developed in the
Kingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
.
The French masters Watteau,
BoucherFrançois Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...
and
FragonardJean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five...
represent the style, as do
Giovanni Battista TiepoloGiovanni Battista Tiepolo , also known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice...
and
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon ChardinJean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities...
who was considered by some as the best French painter of the 18th century - the
Anti-Rococo.
Portraitthumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
ure was an important component of painting in all countries, but especially in England, where the leaders were
William HogarthWilliam Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
, in a blunt realist style, and
Francis HaymanFrancis Hayman was an English painter and illustrator who became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768 and later its first librarian....
, Angelica Kauffman (who was Swiss),
Thomas GainsboroughThomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
and
Joshua ReynoldsSir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
in more flattering styles influenced by Antony Van Dyck. While in France during the Rococo era
Jean-Baptiste GreuzeJean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter.-Early life:He was born at Tournus, Saône-et-Loire. He is generally said to have formed his own talent; this is, however, true only in the most limited sense, for at an early age his inclinations, though thwarted by his father, were encouraged by a...
(the favorite painter of
Denis DiderotDenis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....
),
Maurice Quentin de La TourMaurice Quentin de La Tour was a French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour.-Biography:...
, and Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun were highly accomplished
Portrait paintersPortrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
and
History paintersHistory painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...
.
William HogarthWilliam Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his
Analysis of Beauty (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in
ClassicismClassicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
). The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like
VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
and
Jacques-François BlondelJacques-François Blondel was a French architect. He was the grandson of François Blondel , whose course of architecture had appeared in four volumes in 1683 -Biography:...
began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors.
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/sammlung6/allg/buch.xml?docname=blondel1737 By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of
NeoclassicalNeoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
artists like Jacques Louis David.
19th century: Neo-classicism, History painting, Romanticism, Impressionism, Post Impressionism, Symbolism
After
RococoRococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
there arose in the late 18th century, in architecture, and then in painting severe neo-classicism, best represented by such artists as David and his heir
IngresJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
. Ingres' work already contains much of the sensuality, but none of the spontaneity, that was to characterize
RomanticismRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
.
This movement turned its attention toward landscape and nature as well as the human figure and the supremacy of natural order above mankind's will. There is a
pantheistPantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
philosophy (see
SpinozaBaruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
and
HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
) within this conception that opposes
EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
ideals by seeing mankind's destiny in a more tragic or pessimistic light. The idea that human beings are not above the forces of
NatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
is in contradiction to
Ancient GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
and Renaissance ideals where mankind was above all things and owned his fate. This thinking led romantic artists to depict the
sublimeIn psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defence mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly converting the initial impulse in the long term...
, ruined churches, shipwrecks, massacres and madness.
By the mid-19th century painters became liberated from the demands of their patronage to only depict scenes from religion, mythology, portraiture or history. The idea "art for art's sake" began to find expression in the work of painters like Francisco de Goya, John Constable, and J.M.W. Turner. Romantic painters turned landscape painting into a major genre, considered until then as a minor genre or as a decorative background for figure compositions.
Some of the major painters of this period are
Eugène DelacroixFerdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
,
Théodore GéricaultJean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...
,
J. M. W. TurnerJoseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
,
Caspar David FriedrichCaspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
and
John ConstableJohn Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
. Francisco de Goya's late work demonstrates the Romantic interest in the irrational, while the work of
Arnold BöcklinArnold Böcklin was a Swiss symbolist painter.-Life and art:He was born at Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin , was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk trade. His mother, Ursula Lippe, was a native of the same city...
evokes mystery and the paintings of Aesthetic movement artist
James McNeill WhistlerJames Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
evoke both sophistication and
decadenceThe Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
. In the United States the Romantic tradition of landscape painting was known as the
Hudson River SchoolThe Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
: exponents include
Thomas ColeThomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
,
Frederic Edwin ChurchFrederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters...
,
Albert BierstadtAlbert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
,
Thomas MoranThomas Moran from Bolton, England was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist...
, and
John Frederick KensettJohn Frederick Kensett was an American artist and engraver. He attended school at Cheshire Academy, and studied engraving with his immigrant father, Thomas Kensett, and later with his uncle, Alfred Dagget...
.
LuminismLuminism is an American landscape painting style of the 1850s – 1870s, characterized by effects of light in landscapes, through using aerial perspective, and concealing visible brushstrokes...
was a movement in American landscape painting related to the
Hudson River SchoolThe Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
.
The leading
Barbizon SchoolThe Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
painter
Camille CorotJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century...
painted in both a romantic and a
realisticRealism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
vein; his work prefigures
ImpressionismImpressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, as does the paintings of
Eugène BoudinEugène Boudin was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors.Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores...
who was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was also an important influence on the young
Claude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, whom in 1857 he introduced to Plein air painting. A major force in the turn towards
RealismRealism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
at mid-century was
Gustave CourbetJean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
. In the latter third of the century Impressionists like
Édouard ManetÉdouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
,
Claude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
,
Pierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
,
Camille PissarroCamille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
,
Alfred SisleyAlfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...
,
Berthe MorisotBerthe Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.In 1864, she exhibited for the first...
,
Mary CassattMary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
, and
Edgar DegasEdgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
worked in a more direct approach than had previously been exhibited publicly. They eschewed allegory and narrative in favor of individualized responses to the modern world, sometimes painted with little or no preparatory study, relying on deftness of drawing and a highly chromatic pallette. Manet, Degas, Renoir, Morisot, and Cassatt concentrated primarily on the human subject. Both Manet and Degas reinterpreted classical figurative canons within contemporary situations; in Manet's case the re-imaginings met with hostile public reception. Renoir, Morisot, and Cassatt turned to domestic life for inspiration, with Renoir focusing on the female nude. Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley used the landscape as their primary motif, the transience of light and weather playing a major role in their work. While Sisley most closely adhered to the original principals of the Impressionist perception of the landscape, Monet sought challenges in increasingly chromatic and changeable conditions, culminating in his series of monumental works of
Water LiliesWater Lilies is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet . The paintings depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of Monet's artistic production during the last thirty years of his life...
painted in
GivernyGiverny is a commune in the Eure department in north-western France. It is best known as the location of Claude Monet's garden and home.-Location:Giverny sits on the "right bank" of the River Seine where the river Epte meets the Seine...
.
Pissarro adopted some of the experiments of
Post-ImpressionismPost-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
. Slightly younger Post-Impressionists like
Vincent van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
,
Paul GauguinEugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, and Georges Seurat, along with
Paul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
led art to the edge of
modernismModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
; for Gauguin Impressionism gave way to a personal symbolism; Seurat transformed Impressionism's broken color into a scientific optical study, structured on frieze-like
compositions; Van Gogh's turbulent method of paint application, coupled with a sonorous use of color, predicted
ExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
, and Cézanne, desiring to unite classical composition with a revolutionary abstraction of natural forms, would come to be seen as a precursor of 20th century art.
The spell of Impressionism was felt throughout the world, including in the United States, where it became integral to the painting of American Impressionists such as
Childe HassamFrederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...
, John Twachtman, and
Theodore RobinsonTheodore Robinson was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close friendship with Claude Monet...
. It also exerted influence on painters who were not primarily Impressionistic in theory, like the portrait and landscape painter
John Singer SargentJohn Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
. At the same time in America at the turn of the 20th century there existed a native and nearly insular realism, as richly embodied in the figurative work of
Thomas EakinsThomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
, the
Ashcan SchoolThe Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...
, and the landscapes and seascapes of
Winslow HomerWinslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, all of whose paintings were deeply invested in the solidity of natural forms. The visionary landscape, a motive largely dependent on the ambiguity of the nocturne, found its advocates in
Albert Pinkham RyderAlbert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
and
Ralph Albert BlakelockRalph Albert Blakelock was a romanticist painter from the United States.-Biography:Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, 1847. His father was a successful physician. Blakelock initially set out to follow in his footsteps, and in 1864 began studies at the Free Academy of the...
.
In the late 19th century there also were several, rather dissimilar, groups of
Symbolist paintersSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
whose works resonated with younger artists of the 20th century, especially with the
FauvistsFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
and the
SurrealistsSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Among them were
Gustave MoreauGustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.- Biography :Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie...
,
Odilon RedonBertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
,
Pierre Puvis de ChavannesPierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter, who became the president and co-founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists.-Life:...
,
Henri Fantin-LatourHenri Fantin-Latour was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.-Biography:...
,
Arnold BöcklinArnold Böcklin was a Swiss symbolist painter.-Life and art:He was born at Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin , was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk trade. His mother, Ursula Lippe, was a native of the same city...
,
Edvard MunchEdvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
,
Félicien RopsFélicien Rops was a Belgian artist, and printmaker in etching and aquatint.-Early life:Rops was born in Namur as the only son to Nicholas Rops and Sophie Maubile. He was educated at the University of Brussels...
, and
Jan TooropJean Theodoor Toorop , better known as Jan Toorop, was an Indo painter, whose works straddle the space between the Symbolist painters and Art Nouveau.-Biography:...
, and Gustave Klimt amongst others including the
Russian SymbolistsRussian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It represented the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art, and was mostly known for its contributions to Russian poetry.-Russian symbolism in...
like
Mikhail VrubelMikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.-Early...
.
Symbolist paintersSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
mined
mythologyThe term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul, seeking evocative paintings that brought to mind a static world of silence. The symbols used in Symbolism are not the familiar emblems of mainstream
iconographyIconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
but intensely personal, private, obscure and ambiguous references. More a philosophy than an actual style of art, the Symbolist painters influenced the contemporary
Art NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
movement and
Les NabisLes Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...
. In their exploration of dreamlike subjects, symbolist painters are found across centuries and cultures, as they are still today; Bernard Delvaille has described
René MagritteRené François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
's surrealism as "Symbolism plus
FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
".
20th century Modern and Contemporary
The heritage of painters like Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Seurat was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and several other young artists revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
.
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
made his first
cubistCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids:
cubeIn geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. The cube can also be called a regular hexahedron and is one of the five Platonic solids. It is a special kind of square prism, of rectangular parallelepiped and...
,
sphereA sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...
and
coneA cone is an n-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a base to a point called the apex or vertex. Formally, it is the solid figure formed by the locus of all straight line segments that join the apex to the base...
.
Pioneers of the 20th century
The heritage of painters like Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Seurat was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and several other young artists including the pre-cubist
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
,
André DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
,
Raoul DufyRaoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...
and
Maurice de VlaminckMaurice de Vlaminck was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.-Life:Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family...
revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
- (as seen in the gallery above).
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
's second version of
The DanceThe Dance are two related paintings made by Henri Matisse between 1909 and 1910. The first, preliminary version is Matisse's study for the second version...
signifies a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflects Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm colors against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and
hedonismHedonism is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure .-Etymology:The name derives from the Greek word for "delight" ....
.
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
made his first
cubistCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids:
cubeIn geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. The cube can also be called a regular hexahedron and is one of the five Platonic solids. It is a special kind of square prism, of rectangular parallelepiped and...
,
sphereA sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...
and
coneA cone is an n-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a base to a point called the apex or vertex. Formally, it is the solid figure formed by the locus of all straight line segments that join the apex to the base...
. With the painting
Les Demoiselles d'AvignonHe followed his success by developing into his Rose period from 1904 to 1907, which introduced a strong element of sensuality and sexuality into his work...
1907, (see gallery) Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of
African tribal masksRitual and ceremonial masks are an essential feature of the traditional culture and art of the peoples of Subsaharan and West Africa. While the specific implications associated to ritual masks widely vary in different cultures, some traits are common to most African cultures: for example, masks...
and his own new Cubist inventions. analytic Cubism (see gallery) was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, exemplified by
Violin and Candlestick, Paris, (seen above) from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by synthetic cubism, practised by Braque, Picasso,
Fernand LégerJoseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
,
Juan GrisJosé Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
,
Albert GleizesAlbert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...
,
Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
and countless other artists into the 1920s. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces,
collageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
elements,
papier colléPapier collé is a painting technique and type of collage. With papier collé the artist pastes pieces of flat material into a painting in much in the same way as a collage, except the shape of the pasted pieces are objects themselves...
and a large variety of merged subject matter.
Les Fauves (French for
The Wild Beasts) were early 20th century painters, experimenting with freedom of expression through color. The name was given, humorously and not as a compliment, to the group by art critic
Louis VauxcellesLouis Vauxcelles was an influential French art critic. He is credited with coining the terms Fauvism , and Cubism ....
.
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
was a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century artists whose works emphasized
painterlyPainterliness is a translation of the German term , a word popularized by Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin in order to help focus, enrich and standardize the terms being used by art historians of his time to characterize works of art...
qualities, and the imaginative use of deep color over the representational values. Fauvists made the subject of the painting easy to read, exaggerated perspectives and an interesting prescient prediction of the Fauves was expressed in 1888 by
Paul GauguinEugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
to
Paul SérusierPaul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabi movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.- Education :...
,
"How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarineUltramarine is a blue pigment consisting primarily of a double silicate of aluminium and sodium with some sulfides or sulfates, and occurring in nature as a proximate component of lapis lazuli...
; these red leaves? Put in vermilionVermilion is an opaque orangish red pigment, similar to scarlet. As a naturally occurring mineral pigment, it is known as cinnabar, and was in use around the world before the Common Era began. Most naturally produced vermilion comes from cinnabar mined in China, and vermilion is nowadays commonly...
."
The leaders of the movement were
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and
André DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
— friendly rivals of a sort, each with his own followers. Ultimately Matisse became the
yang to Picasso's
yin in the 20th century. Fauvist painters included
Albert MarquetAlbert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement.-Life and work:Marquet was born in 1875 at Bordeaux. In 1890 he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work...
,
Charles CamoinCharles Camoin[p] was a French painter associated with the Fauves.Born in Marseille, France, Camoin met Henri Matisse in Gustave Moreau's class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris...
,
Maurice de VlaminckMaurice de Vlaminck was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.-Life:Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family...
,
Raoul DufyRaoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...
,
Othon FrieszAchille-Émile Othon Friesz who later called himself just Othon Friesz , a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement....
, the Dutch painter
Kees van DongenCornelis Theodorus Maria van Dongen , usually known as Kees van Dongen or just Van Dongen, was a Dutch painter and one of the Fauves. He gained a reputation for his sensuous, at times garish, portraits....
, and Picasso's partner in Cubism,
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
amongst others.
Fauvism, as a movement, had no concrete theories, and was short lived, beginning in 1905 and ending in 1907, they only had three exhibitions. Matisse was seen as the leader of the movement, due to his seniority in age and prior self-establishment in the academic art world. His 1905 portrait of Mme. Matisse
The Green Line, (above), caused a sensation in Paris when it was first exhibited. He said he wanted to create art to delight; art as a decoration was his purpose and it can be said that his use of bright colors tries to maintain serenity of composition. In 1906 at the suggestion of his dealer
Ambroise VollardAmbroise Vollard is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century...
,
André DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
went to London and produced a series of paintings like
Charing Cross Bridge, London (above) in the
FauvistFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
style, paraphrasing the famous series by the Impressionist painter
Claude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
. Masters like
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and
Pierre BonnardPierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
continued developing their narrative styles independent of any movement throughout the 20th century.
By 1907 Fauvism no longer was a shocking new movement, soon it was replaced by
CubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
on the critics' radar screen as the latest new development in
Contemporary ArtContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
of the time.
In 1907
AppolinaireWilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable."
Analytic cubism (see gallery) was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by Synthetic cubism, practised by Braque, Picasso,
Fernand LégerJoseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
,
Juan GrisJosé Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
,
Albert GleizesAlbert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...
,
Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
and countless other artists into the 1920s. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces,
collageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
elements,
papier colléPapier collé is a painting technique and type of collage. With papier collé the artist pastes pieces of flat material into a painting in much in the same way as a collage, except the shape of the pasted pieces are objects themselves...
and a large variety of merged subject matter.
During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of
cubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, several movements emerged in Paris.
Giorgio De ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea (the poet and painter known as
Alberto SavinioAlberto Savinio, real name Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico was an Italian writer, painter, musician, journalist, essayist, playwright, set designer and composer. He was the younger brother of 'metaphysical' painter Giorgio De Chirico...
). Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade a member of the jury at the Salon d'Automne, where he exhibited three of his dreamlike works:
Enigma of the Oracle,
Enigma of an Afternoon and
Self-Portrait. During 1913 he exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne, his work was noticed by
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and
Guillaume ApollinaireWilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
and several others. His compelling and mysterious paintings are considered instrumental to the early beginnings of
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. (see gallery) During the first half of the 20th century in Europe masters like
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
,
André DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
, and
Giorgio De ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
continued painting independent of any movement.
Pioneers of Modern art
In the first two decades of the 20th century and after
CubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, several other important movements emerged;
futurismFuturism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
(
BallaGiacomo Balla was an Italian painter.-Biography:Born in Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy, the son of an industrial chemist, as a child Giacomo Balla studied music....
),
abstract artAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
(Kandinsky),
Der Blaue ReiterDer Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
),
Bauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
, (Kandinsky) and (
KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
),
OrphismOrphism or Orphic Cubism , the term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, was a little known art movement during the time of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors influenced by Fauvism and the dye chemist Eugène Chevreul...
, (
Robert DelaunayRobert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...
and
František KupkaFrantišek Kupka was a Czech painter and graphic artist. He was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement and Orphic cubism...
),
SynchromismSynchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell. Their abstract "synchromies", based on a theory of color that analogized it to music, were among the first abstract paintings in American art...
(
Morgan RussellMorgan Russell was a U.S. abstract painter. He was born and raised in New York City in 1886. He was, along with artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright, the founder of Synchromism an important modernist movement in early 20th century art.-Biography:Initially he studied architecture and after 1903 he...
),
De StijlDe Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
(
MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
),
SuprematismSuprematism was an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. It was not until later that suprematism received conventional museum preparations...
(Malevich),
ConstructivismConstructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
(Tatlin), Dadaism (Duchamp, Picabia,
ArpJean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....
) and
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
(
De ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
,
André BretonAndré Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
,
MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
,
MagritteRené François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
,
DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
,
ErnstMax Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
). Modern painting influenced all the visual arts, from Modernist architecture and design, to
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
film, theatre and
modern danceModern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
and became an experimental laboratory for the expression of visual experience, from photography and
concrete poetryConcrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
to advertising art and fashion. Van Gogh's painting exerted great influence upon 20th century
ExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
, as can be seen in the work of the
FauvesFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
,
Die BrückeDie Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
(a group led by German painter Ernst Kirchner), and the Expressionism of
Edvard MunchEdvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
,
Egon SchieleEgon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...
,
Marc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
,
Amedeo ModiglianiAmedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
,
Chaim SoutineChaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
and others..
Wassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist, one of the most famous 20th-century artists is generally considered the first important painter of
modernModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
abstract art. As an early Modernist, in search of new modes of visual expression, and spiritual expression, he theorized as did contemporary occultists and theosophists, that pure visual abstraction had corollary vibrations with sound and music. They posited that pure abstraction could express pure spirituality. His earliest abstractions were generally titled as the example in the (above gallery)
Composition VII, making connection to the work of the composers of music. Kandinsky included many of his theories about abstract art in his book
Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Robert DelaunayRobert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...
was a French artist who is associated with
OrphismOrphism or Orphic Cubism , the term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, was a little known art movement during the time of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors influenced by Fauvism and the dye chemist Eugène Chevreul...
, (reminiscent of a link between pure abstraction and cubism). His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of
Paul KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
. His key contributions to abstract painting refer to his bold use of color, and a clear love of experimentation of both depth and tone. At the invitation of
Wassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, Delaunay and his wife the artist
Sonia DelaunaySonia Delaunay was a Jewish-French artist who, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. Her work extends to painting, textile design and stage set design...
, joined The Blue Rider (
Der Blaue ReiterDer Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
), a
MunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
-based group of abstract artists, in 1911, and his art took a turn to the abstract.
Other major pioneers of early abstraction include Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, who after the Russian Revolution in 1917, and after pressure from the Stalinist regime in 1924 returned to painting imagery and
Peasants and Workers in the field, and Swiss painter
Paul KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
whose masterful color experiments made him an important pioneer of abstract painting at the
Bauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
. Still other important pioneers of abstract painting include the Swedish artist
Hilma af KlintHilma af Klint was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings were amongst the first abstract art. She belonged to a group called 'The Five' and the paintings or diagrams were a visual representation of complex philosophical ideas.- Early life :...
, Czech painter
František KupkaFrantišek Kupka was a Czech painter and graphic artist. He was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement and Orphic cubism...
as well as American artists
Stanton MacDonald-Wright and
Morgan RussellMorgan Russell was a U.S. abstract painter. He was born and raised in New York City in 1886. He was, along with artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright, the founder of Synchromism an important modernist movement in early 20th century art.-Biography:Initially he studied architecture and after 1903 he...
who, in 1912, founded
SynchromismSynchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell. Their abstract "synchromies", based on a theory of color that analogized it to music, were among the first abstract paintings in American art...
, an art movement that closely resembles
OrphismOrphism or Orphic Cubism , the term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, was a little known art movement during the time of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors influenced by Fauvism and the dye chemist Eugène Chevreul...
.
ExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and
SymbolismSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
are broad rubrics that describes several important and related movements in 20th century painting that dominated much of the avant-garde art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionism was painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both Surrealism and Symbolism and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal.
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
,
Die BrückeDie Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
, and
Der Blaue ReiterDer Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
are three of the best known groups of Expressionist and Symbolist painters.
Artists as interesting and diverse as
Marc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, whose painting
I and the VillageI and the Village is a 1911 painting by the Russian-French artist Marc Chagall. It is currently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.The work contains many soft, dreamlike images overlapping each other in a...
, (above) tells an autobiographical story that examines the relationship between the artist and his origins, with a lexicon of artistic
SymbolismSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
.
Gustav KlimtGustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...
,
Egon SchieleEgon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...
,
Edvard MunchEdvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
,
Emil NoldeEmil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
,
Chaim SoutineChaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
,
James EnsorJames Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
,
Oskar KokoschkaOskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
,
Ernst Ludwig KirchnerErnst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
,
Max BeckmannMax Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
,
Franz MarcFranz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement...
, Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz,
Georges RouaultGeorges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...
,
Amedeo ModiglianiAmedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
and some of the Americans abroad like
Marsden HartleyMarsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
, and
Stuart DavisStuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
, were considered influential expressionist painters. Although
Alberto GiacomettiAlberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
is primarily thought of as an intense Surrealist sculptor, he made intense expressionist paintings as well.
Pioneers of abstraction
Piet MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
's art was also related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908 he became interested in the
theosophicalTheosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
movement launched by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in the late 19th century. Blavatsky believed that it was possible to attain a knowledge of nature more profound than that provided by empirical means, and much of Mondrian's work for the rest of his life was inspired by his search for that spiritual knowledge.
De StijlDe Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917. The term
De StijlDe Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands.
De Stijl is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic
Theo van DoesburgTheo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, practicing in painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl.-Biography:-Early life:...
propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters
Piet MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
,
Vilmos HuszárVilmos Huszár was a Hungarian painter and designer. He lived in The Netherlands, where he was one of the founder members of the art movement De Stijl....
, and
Bart van der LeckBart van der Leck was a Dutch painter, designer, and ceramacist. With Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian he founded the De Stijl art movement....
, and the architects
Gerrit RietveldGerrit Thomas Rietveld was a Dutch furniture designer and architect. One of the principal members of the Dutch artistic movement called De Stijl, Rietveld is famous for his Red and Blue Chair and for the Rietveld Schröder House, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.-Biography:Rietveld was born in...
,
Robert van 't HoffRobert van 't Hoff , born Robbert van 't Hoff, was a Dutch architect and furniture designer. His Villa Henny, designed in 1914, was one of the earliest modernist houses and one of the first to be built out of reinforced concrete...
, and J.J.P. Oud. The artistic
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
that formed a basis for the group's work is known as
neoplasticism — the new plastic art (or
Nieuwe Beelding in Dutch).
Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new
utopiaUtopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure
abstractionAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only
primary colorsPrimary Colors: A Novel of Politics is a roman à clef, a work of fiction that purports to describe real life characters and events — namely, Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992...
along with black and white. Indeed, according to the
Tate GalleryThe Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
's online article on neoplasticism, Mondrian himself sets forth these delimitations in his essay 'Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art'. He writes, "... this new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary, it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour." The Tate article further summarizes that this art allows "only primary colours and non-colours, only squares and rectangles, only straight and horizontal or vertical line." The
Guggenheim MuseumThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
's online article on De Stijl summarizes these traits in similar terms: "It [De Stijl] was posited on the fundamental principle of the geometry of the straight line, the square, and the rectangle, combined with a strong asymmetricality; the predominant use of pure primary colors with black and white; and the relationship between positive and negative elements in an arrangement of non-objective forms and lines."
De Stijl movement was influenced by Cubist painting as well as by the mysticism and the ideas about "ideal" geometric forms (such as the "perfect straight line") in the neoplatonic philosophy of
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
M.H.J. Schoenmaekers. The works of De Stijl would influence the
Bauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
style and the
international styleThe International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
of architecture as well as clothing and
interior designInterior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
. However, it did not follow the general guidelines of an "ism" (Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism), nor did it adhere to the principles of art schools like Bauhaus; it was a collective project, a joint enterprise.
Dada and Surrealism
Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, came to international prominence in the wake of his notorious success at the New York City
Armory ShowMany exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
in 1913, (soon after he denounced artmaking for
chessChess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
). After Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase became the international cause celebre at the 1913 Armory show in New York he created the
The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, EvenThe Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even , most often called The Large Glass , is an artwork by Marcel Duchamp....
, Large Glass (see above). The
Large Glass pushed the art of painting to radical new limits being part painting, part collage, part construction. Duchamp became closely associated with the
DadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
movement that began in neutral
ZurichZurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestoes, art theory), theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through
anti-artAnti-art is a loosely-used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage point of art...
cultural works.
Francis PicabiaFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
(see above),
Man RayMan Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
,
Kurt SchwittersKurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
,
Tristan TzaraTristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...
,
Hans RichterHans Richter was a painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer. He was born in Berlin into a well-to-do family and died in Minusio, near Locarno, Switzerland.-Germany:...
,
Jean ArpJean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....
,
Sophie Taeuber-ArpSophie Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, painter and sculptor. Born in Davos, Switzerland, Sophie Täuber began her art studies in her homeland, at the School of Applied Arts in St. Gallen...
, along with Duchamp and many others are associated with the Dadaist movement. Duchamp and several Dadaists are also associated with Surrealism, the movement that dominated European painting in the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1924
André BretonAndré Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
published the
Surrealist ManifestoTwo Surrealist Manifestos were issued by the Surrealist movement, in 1924 and 1929. The first was written by André Breton, the second was supervised by him. Breton drafted a third Surrealist manifesto which was never issued.-First manifesto:...
. The Surrealist movement in painting became synonymous with the
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and which featured artists whose works varied from the abstract to the super-realist. With works on paper like
Machine Turn Quickly, (above) Francis Picabia continued his involvement in the
DadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
movement through 1919 in
ZurichZurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in
SurrealistSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
art.
Yves TanguyRaymond Georges Yves Tanguy , known as Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.-Biography:Tanguy was born in Paris, France, the son of a retired navy captain. His parents were both of Breton origin...
,
René MagritteRené François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
and
Salvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
are particularly known for their realistic depictions of dream imagery and fantastic manifestations of the imagination.
Joan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
's
The Tilled Field of 1923-1924 verges on abstraction, this early painting of a complex of objects and figures, and arrangements of sexually active characters; was Miro's first Surrealist masterpiece. The more abstract
Joan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
,
Jean ArpJean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....
,
André MassonAndré-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
, and
Max ErnstMax Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
were very influential, especially in the United States during the 1940s.
Throughout the 1930s, Surrealism continued to become more visible to the public at large. A
Surrealist group developed in BritainThe British Surrealist Group was involved in the organisation of the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936.The London Bulletin was published by the Surrealist Group in England, according to the June 1940 edition , edited by E. L. T...
and, according to Breton, their 1936
London International Surrealist ExhibitionThe International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.The exhibition was organised by:* Hugh Sykes Davies* David Gascoyne* Humphrey Jennings* Rupert Lee* Diana Brinton Lee...
was a high water mark of the period and became the model for international exhibitions. Surrealist groups in Japan, and especially in Latin America, the Caribbean and in Mexico produced innovative and original works.
Dalí and
MagritteRené François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
created some of the most widely recognized images of the movement. The 1928/1929 painting
This Is Not A Pipe, by
MagritteRené François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
is the subject of a
Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
1973 book,
This is not a Pipe (English edition, 1991), that discusses the painting and its
paradoxSimilar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
. Dalí joined the group in 1929, and participated in the rapid establishment of the visual style between 1930 and 1935.
Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, and perception, sometimes evoking empathy from the viewer, sometimes laughter and sometimes outrage and bewilderment.
1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: in one example (see gallery above) liquid shapes become the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his
The Persistence of MemoryThe Persistence of Memory is a 1931 painting by artist Salvador Dalí, and is one of his most recognizable works. The painting has been in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1934...
, which features the image of watches that sag as if they are melting. Evocations of time and its compelling mystery and absurdity.
The characteristics of this style - a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological - came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the
modernistModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with one's individuality."
Max Ernst whose 1920 painting
Murdering Airplane, studied philosophy and psychology in Bonn and was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane. His paintings may have been inspired by the psychoanalyst
Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
's study of the delusions of a paranoiac, Daniel Paul Schreber. Freud identified Schreber's fantasy of becoming a woman as a
castration complex. The central image of two pairs of legs refers to Schreber's hermaphroditic desires. Ernst's inscription on the back of the painting reads:
The picture is curious because of its symmetry. The two sexes balance one another.
During the 1920s
André MassonAndré-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
's work was enormously influential in helping the newly arrived in Paris and young artist
Joan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
find his roots in the new Surrealist painting. Miró acknowledged in letters to his dealer
Pierre MatissePierre Matisse was an art dealer active in New York City. He was the youngest child of French painter Henri Matisse.-Background and early years:...
the importance of Masson as an example to him in his early years in Paris.
Long after personal, political and professional tensions have fragmented the Surrealist group into thin air and ether, Magritte, Miro, Dalí and the other Surrealists continue to define a visual program in the arts. Other prominent surrealist artists include
Giorgio de ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
,
Méret Oppenheim-External links:**** http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/man_ray.html...
,
ToyenMarie Čermínová , known as Toyen, was a Czech painter, draftsperson and illustrator and a member of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
,
Grégoire MichonzeGrégoire Michonze was a Russian-French painter, born in 1902 in Kishinev , Russia Grégoire Michonze (1902–1982) (variant name Grégoire Michonznic, Grogórij Mišónznik) was a Russian-French painter, born in 1902 in Kishinev (Bessarabia), Russia Grégoire Michonze (1902–1982) (variant name Grégoire...
,
Roberto MattaRoberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren , better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art....
,
Kay SageKatherine Linn Sage , usually known as Kay Sage, was an American Surrealist artist and poet.-Biography:...
,
Leonora CarringtonLeonora Carrington OBE was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.-Early life:...
,
Dorothea TanningDorothea Tanning is an American painter, printmaker, sculptor and writer. She has also designed sets and costumes for ballet and theatre.-Biography:...
, and
Leonor FiniLeonor Fini was an Argentine surrealist painter.-Life and work:Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she was raised in Trieste, Italy. She moved to Milan at the age of 17, and then to Paris, in either 1931 or 1932...
among others.
Between the Wars
Der Blaue Reiter was a German movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with
Die BrückeDie Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
which was founded the previous decade in 1905 and was a group of German expressionist artists formed in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
in 1905. Founding members of Die Brücke were
Fritz BleylHilmar Friedrich Wilhelm Bleyl, known as Fritz Bleyl, was a German artist of the Expressionist school, and one of the four founders of artist group Die Brücke . He designed graphics for the group including, for their first show, a poster, which was banned by the police...
,
Erich HeckelErich Heckel was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the Die Brücke group which existed 1905-1913.-Biography:Heckel was born in Döbeln . His parents were born in Saxony...
,
Ernst Ludwig KirchnerErnst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
and
Karl Schmidt-RottluffKarl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke.-Life and work:...
. Later members included
Max PechsteinHermann Max Pechstein was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke group.-Life and career:...
,
Otto MuellerOtto Mueller or Müller was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Brücke expressionist movement.-Life and work:...
and others. The group was one of the seminal ones, which in due course had a major impact on the evolution of
modern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
in the 20th century and created the style of
ExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
.
Wassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
,
Franz MarcFranz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement...
,
August MackeAugust Macke was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter . He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art which saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which...
,
Alexej von JawlenskyAlexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association , Der Blaue Reiter group and later the Die Blaue Vier .-Life and work:Alexej von Jawlensky was born in Torzhok, a town in Tver...
, whose psychically expressive painting of the Russian dancer
Portrait of Alexander SakharoffAlexander Sakharoff was a dancer, teacher, and choreographer.He was born Alexander Zuckermann in Mariupol on May 13, 1886 , Ukraine.Alexander was one of the most innovative soloist dancers of the first decades of the 20th century...
, 1909 is in the gallery above,
Marianne von WerefkinMarianne von Werefkin , born Marianna Wladimirowna Werewkina , was a Russian-Swiss Expressionist painter.-Life and career:...
,
Lyonel FeiningerLyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist.-Life and work:...
and others founded the
Der Blaue ReiterDer Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting
Last Judgement from an exhibition. Der Blaue Reiter lacked a central artistic manifesto, but was centered around Kandinsky and Marc. Artists
Gabriele MünterGabriele Münter was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. Artists and writers associated with German Expressionism shared a rebellious attitude toward the materialism and mores of German imperial and bourgeois society...
and
Paul KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
were also involved.
The name of the movement comes from a painting by Kandinsky created in 1903 (see illustration). It is also claimed that the name could have derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky,
blue is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal.
In the USA during the period between World War I and World War II painters tended to go to Europe for recognition. Artists like
Marsden HartleyMarsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
,
Patrick Henry BrucePatrick Henry Bruce was an American cubist painter.-Biography:A descendant of Patrick Henry, Bruce was born in Campbell County, Virginia, the second of four children. His family had once owned a huge plantation, Berry Hill, worked by over 3,000 slaves...
, Gerald Murphy and
Stuart DavisStuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
, created reputations abroad. In New York City,
Albert Pinkham RyderAlbert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
and
Ralph BlakelockRalph Albert Blakelock was a romanticist painter from the United States.-Biography:Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, 1847. His father was a successful physician. Blakelock initially set out to follow in his footsteps, and in 1864 began studies at the Free Academy of the...
were influential and important figures in advanced American painting between 1900 and 1920. During the 1920s photographer
Alfred StieglitzAlfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
exhibited
Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
,
Arthur DoveArthur Garfield Dove was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.-Youth and education:...
,
Alfred Henry MaurerAlfred Henry Maurer was an American modernist painter. He exhibited his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early 20th century.-Biography:...
,
Charles DemuthCharles Demuth was an American watercolorist who turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism....
,
John MarinJohn Marin was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.-Biography:...
and other artists including European Masters
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
,
Auguste RodinFrançois-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
,
Henri RousseauHenri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...
,
Paul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
, and
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, at his gallery
the 291.
ExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and
SymbolismSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
are broad rubrics that describes several important and related movements in 20th century painting that dominated much of the
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionism was painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both Surrealism and Symbolism and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal.
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
,
Die BrückeDie Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
, and
Der Blaue ReiterDer Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
are three of the best known groups of Expressionist and Symbolist painters. Artists as interesting and diverse as
Marc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
,
Gustav KlimtGustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...
,
Egon SchieleEgon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...
,
Edvard MunchEdvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
,
Emil NoldeEmil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
,
Chaim SoutineChaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
,
James EnsorJames Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
,
Oskar KokoschkaOskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
,
Ernst Ludwig KirchnerErnst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
,
Max BeckmannMax Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
,
Franz MarcFranz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement...
,
Otto DixWilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...
, Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz,
Georges RouaultGeorges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...
,
Amedeo ModiglianiAmedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
and some of the Americans abroad like
Marsden HartleyMarsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
, and
Stuart DavisStuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
, were considered influential expressionist painters. Although
Alberto GiacomettiAlberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
is primarily thought of as an intense Surrealist sculptor, he made intense expressionist paintings of figures as well.
Social consciousness
During the 1920s and the 1930s and the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Surrealism, late Cubism, the
Bauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
,
De StijlDe Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
, Dada, German Expressionism, Expressionism, and modernist and masterful color painters like
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and
Pierre BonnardPierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
characterized the European art scene. In Germany
Max BeckmannMax Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
,
Otto DixWilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...
,
George GroszGeorg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and others politicized their paintings, foreshadowing the coming of World War II. While in America
American Scene paintingAmerican scene painting refers to a naturalist style of painting and other works of art of the 1920s through the 1950s in the United States. American scene painting is also known as Regionalism....
and the
social realismSocial Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
and
regionalismRegionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...
movements that contained both political and social commentary dominated the art world. Artists like
Ben ShahnBen Shahn was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content.-Biography:...
,
Thomas Hart BentonThomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
,
Grant WoodGrant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
,
George TookerGeorge Clair Tooker, Jr. was a figurative painter whose works are associated with the Magic realism and Social realism movements...
,
John Steuart CurryJohn Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
,
Reginald MarshReginald Marsh was an American painter, born in Paris, most notable for his depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Crowded Coney Island beach scenes, popular entertainments such as vaudeville and burlesque, women, and jobless men on the Bowery are subjects that reappear...
, and others became prominent. In Latin America besides the
UruguayUruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
an painter
Joaquín Torres GarcíaJoaquín Torres García , was a Uruguayan plastic artist and art theorist, also known as the founder of Constructive Universalism...
and
Rufino TamayoRufino Tamayo was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico. Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences....
from Mexico, the
muralist movementMexican muralism is a Mexican art movement. The most important period of this movement took place primarily from the 1920s to the 1960s, though it exerted an influence on later generations of Mexican artists...
with
Diego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
, David Siqueiros, José Orozco,
Pedro Nel GómezPedro Nel Gómez was a Colombian engineer, architect, painter, and sculptor. He started the Colombian Muralist Movement with Santiago Martinez Delgado, strongly influenced by the Mexican movement. With the fresco mural technique, Pedro Nel Gómez created 2,200 square meters of murals in public...
and
Santiago Martinez DelgadoSantiago Martínez Delgado was a Colombian painter, sculptor, art historian and writer. He established a reputation as a prominent muralist during the 1940s and is also known for his watercolors, oil paintings, illustrations and woodcarvings....
and the
SymbolistSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
paintings by
Frida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
began a renaissance of the arts for the region, with a use of color and historic, and political messages.
Frida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
's Symbolist works also relate strongly to Surrealism and to the
Magic RealismMagic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
movement in literature. The psychological drama in many of Kahlo's self portraits (above) underscore the vitality and relevance of her paintings to artists in the 21st century.
American GothicAmerican Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood, in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's inspiration came from a cottage designed in the Gothic Revival style with a distinctive upper window and a decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that...
is a painting by
Grant WoodGrant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
from 1930. Portraying a
pitchforkA pitchfork is an agricultural tool with a long handle and long, thin, widely separated pointed tines used to lift and pitch loose material, such as hay, leaves, grapes, dung or other agricultural materials. Pitchforks typically have two or three tines...
-holding farmer and a younger woman in front of a house of
Carpenter GothicCarpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...
style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th century
American artAmerican Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...
. Art critics had favorable opinions about the painting, like
Gertrude SteinGertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and
Christopher MorleyChristopher Morley was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. He also produced stage productions for a few years and gave college lectures.-Biography:Christopher Morley was born in Haverford, Pennsylvania...
, they assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend towards increasingly critical depictions of rural America, along the lines of
Sherwood AndersonSherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...
's
1919 Winesburg, OhioWinesburg, Ohio is a 1919 short story cycle by the American author Sherwood Anderson. The work is structured around the life of protagonist George Willard, from the time he was a child to his growing independence and ultimate abandonment of Winesburg as a young man...
,
Sinclair LewisHarry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
' 1920
Main Street- Plot summary :Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart....
, and
Carl Van VechtenCarl Van Vechten was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.-Biography:...
's
The Tattooed Countess in literature. However, with the onset of the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit.
Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, "
Man at the CrossroadsMan at the Crossroads was a mural by Diego Rivera.The Rockefellers wanted to have a mural put on the ground-floor wall of Rockefeller Center. Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to do it because he favored their modern style, but neither was available...
", in the lobby of the RCA Building at
Rockefeller CenterRockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
. When his patron
Nelson RockefellerNelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
discovered that the mural included a portrait of Lenin and other communist imagery, he fired Rivera, and the unfinished work was eventually destroyed by Rockefeller's staff. The film
Cradle Will RockCradle Will Rock is a 1999 drama film which chronicles the process and events that surrounded the production of the original 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock by Marc Blitzstein...
includes a dramatization of the controversy.
Frida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
(Rivera's wife's) works are often characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings 55 are
self-portraitsSelf Portrait is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's tenth studio album, released by Columbia Records in June 1970.Self Portrait was Dylan's second double album, and features mostly cover versions of well-known pop and folk songs. Also included are a handful of instrumentals and original compositions...
, which frequently incorporate symbolic portrayals of her physical and psychological wounds. Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her paintings' bright colors and dramatic symbolism. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work as well; she combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition—which were often bloody and violent—with surrealist renderings. While her paintings are not overtly Christian - she was, after all, an avowed communist - they certainly contain elements of the macabre Mexican Christian style of religious paintings.
Political activism was an important piece of David Siqueiros' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. His art was deeply rooted in the
Mexican RevolutionThe Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
, a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal. He briefly gave up painting to focus on organizing miners in Jalisco. He ran a political art workshop in New York City in preparation for the 1936 General Strike for Peace and
May DayMay Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
paradeA parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
. The young
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
attended the workshop and helped build
floatA float is a decorated platform, either built on a vehicle or towed behind one, which is a component of many festive parades, such as those of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the Carnival of Viareggio, the Maltese Carnival, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Key West Fantasy Fest parade, the...
s for the parade. Between 1937 and 1938 he fought in the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
alongside the Spanish Republican forces, in opposition to
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's military coup. He was
exileExile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
d twice from Mexico, once in 1932 and again in 1940, following his assassination attempt on
Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
.
World conflict
During the 1930s radical leftist politics characterized many of the artists connected to
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, including
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. On 26 April 1937, during the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, the
BasqueThe Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
town of Gernika was the scene of the "Bombing of Gernika" by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overthrow the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Gernika survived. Pablo Picasso painted his mural sized
GuernicaGuernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War...
to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.
In its final form,
Guernica is an immense black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (23 ft) wide mural painted in oil. The mural presents a scene of death, violence, brutality, suffering, and helplessness without portraying their immediate causes. The choice to paint in black and white contrasts with the intensity of the scene depicted and invokes the immediacy of a newspaper photograph.
Picasso painted the mural sized painting called
GuernicaGuernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War...
in protest of the bombing. The painting was first exhibited in Paris in 1937, then
ScandinaviaScandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, then London in 1938 and finally in 1939 at Picasso's request the painting was sent to the United States in an extended loan (for safekeeping) at
MoMAMoma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
. The painting went on a tour of museums throughout the USA until its final return to the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City where it was exhibited for nearly thirty years. Finally in accord with
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
's wish to give the painting to the people of Spain as a gift, it was sent to Spain in 1981.
During the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
of the 1930s, through the years of World War II American art was characterized by
Social RealismSocial Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
and
American Scene PaintingAmerican scene painting refers to a naturalist style of painting and other works of art of the 1920s through the 1950s in the United States. American scene painting is also known as Regionalism....
(as seen above) in the work of
Grant WoodGrant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
,
Edward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
,
Ben ShahnBen Shahn was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content.-Biography:...
,
Thomas Hart BentonThomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
, and several others.
NighthawksNighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is considered Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art...
(1942) is a painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown
dinerA diner, also spelled dinor in western Pennsylvania is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially in the Midwest, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout...
late at night. It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. It is currently in the collection of the
Art Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
. The scene was inspired by a
dinerA diner, also spelled dinor in western Pennsylvania is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially in the Midwest, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout...
(since demolished) in
Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, Hopper's home neighborhood in
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on
Pearl HarborThe attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.
The Dynamic for artists in Europe during the 1930s deteriorated rapidly as the Nazi's power in Germany and across Eastern Europe increased. The climate became so hostile for artists and art associated with
ModernismModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and
abstractionAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
that many left for the Americas.
Degenerate artDegenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
was a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all
modern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or
Jewish BolshevistJewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely.
Degenerate Art was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in
MunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria. German artist
Max BeckmannMax Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
and scores of others fled Europe for New York. In New York City a new generation of young and exciting Modernist painters led by
Arshile GorkyArshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
,
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, and others were just beginning to come of age.
Arshile GorkyArshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
's portrait of someone who might be
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
(above) is an example of the evolution of
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
from the context of figure painting,
cubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
and
surrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Along with his friends de Kooning and
John D. GrahamJohn D. Graham was a Ukrainian-born American Modernist / figurative painter.He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine...
Gorky created bio-morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.
Towards mid-century
The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
,
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Surrealism,
Joan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Cubism,
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
, and early Modernism via great teachers in America like
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
and
John D. GrahamJohn D. Graham was a Ukrainian-born American Modernist / figurative painter.He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine...
. American artists benefited from the presence of
Piet MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
,
Fernand LégerJoseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
,
Max ErnstMax Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
and the
André BretonAndré Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and
Peggy GuggenheimMarguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
's gallery
The Art of This Century, as well as other factors. The figurative work of Francis Bacon,
Frida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
,
Edward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
, Lucien Freud
Andrew WyethAndrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
and others served as a kind of alternative to abstract expressionism. One of the most well-known images in 20th-century American art is Wyeth's painting,
Christina's WorldChristina's World is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth, and one of the best-known American paintings of the middle 20th century...
, currently in the collection of the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It depicts a woman lying on the ground in a treeless, mostly tawny field, looking up at and crawling towards a gray house on the horizon; a barn and various other small outbuildings are adjacent to the house. This
temperaTempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
work, done in a realist style, is nearly always on display at the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York.
Post-Second World War American painting called Abstract expressionism included artists like
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
,
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
,
Arshile GorkyArshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
,
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
,
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
,
Clyfford StillClyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
,
Franz KlineFranz Jozef Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys...
,
Adolph GottliebAdolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
,
Mark TobeyMark George Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin. Widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe, Tobey is the most noted among the "mystical painters of the Northwest." Senior in age and experience, Tobey had a strong influence on the...
,
Barnett NewmanBarnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
,
James BrooksJames Brooks was an American muralist, abstract painter and winner of the Logan Medal of the Arts. Brooks was a friend of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner on Eastern Long Island. In 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park...
,
Philip GustonPhilip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
,
Robert MotherwellRobert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
,
Conrad Marca-RelliConrad Marca-Relli was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris...
,
Jack TworkovJack Tworkov was a Polish born American abstract expressionist painter.He was born in Biała Podlaska, Russian Empire and immigrated to the United States in 1913 with his mother and younger sister who would later become known as Janice Biala...
,
William BaziotesWilliam Baziotes was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.-Life and career:...
,
Richard Pousette-DartRichard Pousette-Dart was an American Abstract Expressionist painter.-Biography:He was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Valhalla, New York. Although Richard never attended art school, his father, Nathaniel J. Pousette-Dart, was a painter and writer on art. He moved to Manhattan in 1937...
,
Ad ReinhardtAdolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
,
Hedda SterneHedda Sterne was an artist best remembered as the only woman in a group of Abstract Expressionists known as "The Irascibles" which consisted of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and others...
,
Jimmy ErnstJimmy Ernst was an American painter born in Germany.-Early life:Jimmy Ernst was born in 1920 in Cologne, Germany, the son of surrealist painter Max Ernst and Luise Straus, a well-known art historian and journalist. His parents divorced in 1922 and Ernst staying with his mother in Cologne...
,
Esteban VicenteEsteban Vicente Pérez , was an American painter born in Turégano, Spain. He was one of the first generation of New York School abstract expressionists.-Early life:...
,
Bradley Walker TomlinBradley Walker Tomlin belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. He participated in the famous ‘’Ninth Street Show.’’ According to John I. H...
, and
Theodoros StamosTheodoros Stamos , was a Greek American artist. He is one of the youngest painters of the original group of abstract expressionist painters , which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko...
, among others. American Abstract expressionism got its name in 1946 from the art critic
Robert CoatesRobert Myron Coates was an American writer and a long-term art critic for the New Yorker. He coined the term "abstract expressionism" in 1946 in reference to the works of Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.As a writer of fiction, he is considered a member of the Lost Generation,...
. It is seen as combining the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as
futurismFuturism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
, the
Bauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
and synthetic cubism. Abstract expressionism,
action paintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
, and
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting are synonymous with the
New York SchoolThe New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
.
Technically Surrealism was an important predecessor for abstract expressionism with its emphasis on spontaneous,
automaticAutomatism has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and drawing initially practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar, or perhaps parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation of free jazz....
or subconscious creation.
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of
André MassonAndré-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
. Another important ear
ly manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist
Mark TobeyMark George Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin. Widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe, Tobey is the most noted among the "mystical painters of the Northwest." Senior in age and experience, Tobey had a strong influence on the...
, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.
Abstract expressionism
Additionally, Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic "
action paintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
s", with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to the violent and grotesque
Women series of
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
. As seen above in the gallery
Woman V is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings,
Woman I collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian
Meyer SchapiroMeyer Schapiro was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for forging new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art...
saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme;
Woman II collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City,
Woman IIIWoman III is a painting by abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning. Woman III is one of a series of six paintings by de Kooning done between 1951 and 1953 in which the central theme was a woman...
,
Tehran Museum of Contemporary ArtTehran's Museum of Contemporary Art is an art museum in Tehran, Iran.Inaugurated in 1977, and built adjacent to Tehran's Laleh Park, the museum was designed by Iranian architect Kamran Diba, who employed elements from traditional Persian architecture. The building can be listed as a contemporary...
,
Woman IV,
Nelson-Atkins Museum of ArtThe Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neoclassical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art....
,
Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
. During the summer of 1952, spent at
East HamptonThe Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
, de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on
Woman I by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time. The
Woman series are decidedly
figurative paintingsFigurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
. Another important artist is
Franz KlineFranz Jozef Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys...
, as demonstrated by his painting
High Street, 1950 (see gallery) as with
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
and other Abstract Expressionists, was labelled an "action painter" because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas.
Clyfford StillClyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
,
Barnett NewmanBarnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
, (see above),
Adolph GottliebAdolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
, and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
's work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what
Clement GreenbergClement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
termed the
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
direction of abstract expressionism. Both
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
(see gallery) and
Robert MotherwellRobert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
(gallery) can be comfortably described as practitioners of
action paintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
and Color Field painting.
Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early 20th century such as
Wassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
. Although it is true that spontaneity or of the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. An exception might be the drip paintings of Pollock.
Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American
Social realismSocial Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
but also by the
Social RealistsSocialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
of Mexico such as
David Alfaro SiqueirosJosé David Alfaro Siqueiros was a social realist painter, known for his large murals in fresco that helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance, together with works by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and also a member of the Mexican Communist Party who participated in an...
and
Diego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of those painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early 1940s at galleries in New York like
The Art of This Century GalleryThe Art of This Century gallery was opened by Peggy Guggenheim at 30 W. 57th Street in New York City on October 20, 1942. The gallery occupied two commercial spaces on the seventh floor of a building that was part of the midtown arts district including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of...
. The late 1940s through the mid 1950s ushered in the McCarthy era. It was after World War II and a time of political conservatism and extreme artistic censorship in the United States. Some people have conjectured that since the subject matter was often totally abstract, Abstract expressionism became a safe strategy for artists to pursue this style. Abstract art could be seen as apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. However those theorists are in the minority. As the first truly original school of painting in America, Abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its ability (or need) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty.
Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the
New York SchoolThe New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
, and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an
"all-over"All-over painting refers to the non-differential treatment of the surface of a work of two-dimensional art, for instance a painting. This concept is most popularly thought of as emerging in relation to the so-called "drip" paintings of Jackson Pollock and the "automatic writing" or "abstract...
approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges. The canvas as the
arena became a credo of action painting, while the
integrity of the picture plane became a credo of the Color Field painters. Many other artists began exhibiting their abstract expressionist related paintings during the 1950s including
Alfred LeslieAlfred Leslie is an American artist and filmmaker. He first achieved success as an Abstract Expressionist painter, but changed course in the early 1960s and became a painter of realistic figurative paintings.-Biography:...
,
Sam FrancisSamuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
,
Joan MitchellJoan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
,
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
,
Cy TwomblyEdwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
,
Milton ResnickMilton Resnick was a major abstract expressionist painter and teacher known for his mystical, abstract and figurative paintings. Born in Bratslav, Russia, he emigrated to the United States in 1922.-Biography:...
,
Michael GoldbergMichael Goldberg was an American abstract expressionist painter and teacher known for his gestural action paintings, abstractions and still-life paintings. His work was recently seen in September 2007 in a solo exhibition at Knoedler & Company in New York City, as well as several exhibitions at...
,
Norman BluhmNorman Bluhm , was an American painter classified as an abstract expressionist, and as an action painter.- Biography :...
,
Ray ParkerRaymond Parker was born in 1922 and he died in 1990. He was known as an Abstract expressionist painter who also is associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction...
,
Nicolas CaroneNicolas Carone belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris...
,
Grace HartiganGrace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter of the New York School in the 1950s.-Biography and early career:...
,
Friedel DzubasFriedel Dzubas was a German-born American abstract painter.-Life and work:Friedel Dzubas studied art in his native land before fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and settling in New York City. In Manhattan during the early 1950s, he shared a studio with fellow abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler...
, and
Robert GoodnoughRobert Goodnough was an American abstract expressionist painter. A veteran of World War II, Goodnough was one of the last of the original generation of the New York School; , even though he began exhibiting his work in galleries in New York City in the...
among others.
During the 1950s Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, especially the work of
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman,
Robert MotherwellRobert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
and
Adolph GottliebAdolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
. It essentially described abstract paintings with large, flat expanses of color that expressed the sensual, and visual feelings and properties of large areas of nuanced surface. Art critic
Clement GreenbergClement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The overall expanse and gestalt of the work of the early color field painters speaks of an almost religious experience, awestruck in the face of an expanding universe of sensuality, color and surface. During the early-to-mid-1960s Color Field painting was the term used to describe artists like
Jules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
,
Kenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
, and
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
, whose works were related to second generation abstract expressionism, and to younger artists like
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
, and
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
, - all moving in a new direction. Artists like Clyfford Still,
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
,
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
, Morris Louis,
Jules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
,
Kenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
,
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
,
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. In
Mountains and Sea, from 1952, (see above) a seminal work of
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting by
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
the artist used the stain technique for the first time.
In Europe there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada and the works of Matisse. Also in Europe,
TachismeTachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
(the European equivalent to Abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation.
Serge PoliakoffSerge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
,
Nicolas de StaëlNicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
,
Georges MathieuGeorges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
, Vieira da Silva,
Jean DubuffetJean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
,
Yves KleinYves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
and
Pierre SoulagesPierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver, and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rodez in 1919, Soulages also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, "...both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up...
among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting.
Eventually abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as
Neo-DadaNeo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
, Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction,
Op artOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
,
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, Minimal art,
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
painting,
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
,
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements, notably
Pop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
.
Pop art
The term "pop art" was used by
Lawrence AllowayLawrence Alloway was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US...
in England in 1958 to describe paintings that celebrated consumerism of the post World War II era. This movement rejected abstract expressionism and its focus on the hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art which depicted, and often celebrated material consumer culture, advertising, and iconography of the mass production age. The early works of
David HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
and the works of
Richard HamiltonRichard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...
Peter BlakeSir Peter Thomas Blake, KBE, CBE, RDI, RA is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He lives in Chiswick, London, UK.-Career:...
and
Eduardo PaolozziSir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA , was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere, while, working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization...
were considered seminal examples in the movement.
Pop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
in America was to a large degree initially inspired by the works of
Jasper JohnsJasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
,
Larry RiversLarry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...
, and
Robert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
. Although the paintings of Gerald Murphy,
Stuart DavisStuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
and
Charles DemuthCharles Demuth was an American watercolorist who turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism....
during the 1920s and 1930s set the table for pop art in America. In New York City during the mid 1950s
Robert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
and
Jasper JohnsJasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
created works of art that at first seemed to be continuations of Abstract expressionist painting. Actually their works and the work of
Larry RiversLarry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...
, were radical departures from abstract expressionism especially in the use of banal and literal imagery and the inclusion and the combining of mundane materials into their work. The innovations of Johns' specific use of various images and objects like chairs, numbers, targets, beer cans and the American flag; Rivers paintings of subjects drawn from popular culture such as
George WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
crossing the
DelawareDelaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
, and his inclusions of images from advertisements like the camel from Camel cigarettes, and Rauschenberg's surprising constructions using inclusions of objects and pictures taken from popular culture, hardware stores, junkyards, the city streets, and
taxidermyTaxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...
gave rise to a radical new movement in
American artAmerican Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...
. Eventually by 1963 the movement came to be known worldwide as pop art.
American pop art is exemplified by artists:
Andy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
,
Claes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
,
Wayne ThiebaudWayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...
,
James RosenquistJames Rosenquist is an American artist and one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement.-Background and education:...
,
Jim DineJim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...
,
Tom WesselmannTom Wesselmann was an American artist associated with the Pop art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.-Early years:...
and
Roy LichtensteinRoy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
among others. Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix. In October 1962 the
Sidney JanisSidney Janis was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited the work of most of the emerging leaders of Abstract Expressionism, but also that of such important European artists as...
Gallery mounted
The New Realists the first major pop art group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City.
Sidney JanisSidney Janis was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited the work of most of the emerging leaders of Abstract Expressionism, but also that of such important European artists as...
mounted the exhibition in a 57th Street storefront near his gallery at 15 E. 57th Street. The show sent shockwaves through the
New York SchoolThe New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
and reverberated worldwide. Earlier in the fall of 1962 an historically important and ground-breaking
New Painting of Common ObjectsThe exhibition "New Painting of Common Objects" at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1962 was the first museum survey of American pop art. The eight artists included were: Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, Phillip Hefferton, Robert Dowd, Edward Ruscha, Joe Goode and Wayne Thiebaud...
exhibition of pop art, curated by
Walter HoppsWalter Hopps was an American museum director and curator of contemporary art. His obituary in the Washington Post described him as a "sort of a gonzo museum director -- elusive, unpredictable, outlandish in his range, jagged in his vision, heedless of rules."Hopps was born in Eagle Rock, Los...
at the Pasadena Art Museum sent shock waves across the Western United States.
While in the downtown scene in New York City's
East VillageThe East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
10th Street galleriesThe Tenth Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operated on very low budgets, often without any staff. Some artists became members...
artists were formulating an American version of
Pop ArtPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
.
Claes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
had his storefront, and the
Green GalleryThe Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 and was located at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York, United States. The director of the gallery was Richard Bellamy , and it was one of the first uptown galleries to show the work of the downtown New York avant-garde...
on
57th Street57th Street is one of New York City's major east-west thoroughfares, which runs east-west in the Midtown section of the borough of Manhattan, from the New York City Department of Sanitation's dock on the Hudson River at the West Side Highway to a small park overlooking the East River built on a...
began to show
Tom WesselmannTom Wesselmann was an American artist associated with the Pop art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.-Early years:...
and
James RosenquistJames Rosenquist is an American artist and one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement.-Background and education:...
. Later
Leo CastelliLeo Castelli was an American art dealer. He was best known to the public as an art dealer whose gallery showcased cutting edge Contemporary art for five decades...
exhibited other American artists including the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Benday dots, a technique used in commercial reproduction. There is a connection between the radical works of Duchamp, and
Man RayMan Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, the rebellious Dadaists - with a sense of humor; and pop artists like
Alex KatzAlex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
(who became known for his parody's of portrait photography and suburban life), Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and the others.
While throughout the 20th century many painters continued to practice landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, like
Milton AveryMilton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
,
John D. GrahamJohn D. Graham was a Ukrainian-born American Modernist / figurative painter.He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine...
,
Fairfield PorterFairfield Porter was an American painter and art critic. He was the brother of photographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation Commissioner Michael W. Straus....
,
Edward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
,
BalthusBalthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....
, Francis Bacon,
Nicolas de StaëlNicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
,
Andrew WyethAndrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
,
Lucian FreudLucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
,
Frank AuerbachFrank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
,
Philip PearlsteinPhilip Pearlstein is an American painter, and part of the contemporary Realist school.-Biography:Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and received his Masters in art history at New York University. He was a friend of Andy Warhol from...
, David Park,
Nathan OliveiraNathan Oliveira was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to Portuguese parents...
,
David HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
,
Malcolm MorleyMalcolm Morley is an English artist now living in the United States. He is best known as a photorealist.-Early life:Morley was born in north London. He had a troubled childhood, and did not discover art until serving a three-year stint in Wormwood Scrubs prison...
,
Richard EstesRichard Estes is an American artist, best known for his photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with such painters...
,
Ralph GoingsRalph Goings is an American painter closely associated with the Photorealism movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s...
,
Audrey FlackAudrey Flack is an American photorealist painter, printmaker, and sculptor.Flack studied fine arts in New York from 1948 to 1953. She earned a graduate degree and an honorary doctorate from Cooper Union in New York City, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Yale University. She studied art history at...
,
Chuck CloseCharles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
,
Susan RothenbergSusan Rothenberg is a contemporary painter who lives and works in New Mexico, USA.-Background:Rothenberg was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945...
,
Eric FischlEric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
,
Vija CelminsVija Celmins is an American artist.-Early life:Vija Celmins immigrated to the United States with her family from Latvia when she was ten years old. She and her family settled in Indiana...
and
Richard DiebenkornRichard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
.
Figurative, Landscape, Still-Life, and Realism
During the 1930s through the 1960s abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction,
Op artOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
,
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, Minimal art,
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
painting, and
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction, allowing figurative imagery to continue through various new contexts like the Bay Area Figurative Movement in the 1950s and new forms of
expressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
from the 1940s through the 1960s. In Italy during this time,
Giorgio MorandiGiorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
was the foremost still life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Throughout the 20th century many painters practiced
RealismRealism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
and used expressive imagery; practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like still-life painter
Giorgio MorandiGiorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
,
Milton AveryMilton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
,
John D. GrahamJohn D. Graham was a Ukrainian-born American Modernist / figurative painter.He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine...
,
Fairfield PorterFairfield Porter was an American painter and art critic. He was the brother of photographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation Commissioner Michael W. Straus....
,
Edward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
,
Andrew WyethAndrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
,
BalthusBalthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....
, Francis Bacon,
Leon KossoffLeon Kossoff is a British expressionist painter, known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England....
,
Frank AuerbachFrank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
,
Lucian FreudLucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
,
Philip PearlsteinPhilip Pearlstein is an American painter, and part of the contemporary Realist school.-Biography:Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and received his Masters in art history at New York University. He was a friend of Andy Warhol from...
,
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
,
Arshile GorkyArshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
,
Grace HartiganGrace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter of the New York School in the 1950s.-Biography and early career:...
,
Robert De Niro, Sr.Robert Henry De Niro, Sr. was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.-Life and career:...
,
Elaine de KooningElaine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine...
and others. Along with
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
,
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
,
Pierre BonnardPierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
,
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, and other 20th century masters.
Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent XStudy after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is a 1953 painting by the Irish artist Francis Bacon. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which...
, 1953 (see above) is a painting by the Irish born artist Francis Bacon and is an example of Post World War II European
ExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
. The work shows a distorted version of the
Portrait of Innocent XThe Portrait of Pope Innocent X is an oil on canvas portrait by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, finished during a trip to Italy around 1650. Many artists and art critics consider it the finest portrait ever created. It is housed in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome...
painted by the Spanish artist
Diego VelázquezDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, over a total of forty-five works. When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely "wanted an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false
fauveFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
manner." The Pope in this version seethes with anger and aggression, and the dark colors give the image a grotesque and nightmarish appearance. The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent, and seem to fall through the Pope's face.
Italian painter
Giorgio MorandiGiorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
was an important 20th century, early pioneer of Minimalism. Born in Bologna, Italy in 1890, throughout his career, Morandi concentrated almost exclusively on still lives and landscapes, except for a few self-portraits. With great sensitivity to tone, color, and compositional balance, he would depict the same familiar bottles and vases again and again in paintings notable for their simplicity of execution. Morandi executed 133 etchings, a significant body of work in its own right, and his drawings and watercolors often approach abstraction in their economy of means. Through his simple and repetitive motifs and economical use of color, value and surface, Morandi became a prescient and important forerunner of
MinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
. He died in Bologna in 1964.
After World War II the term
School of ParisSchool of Paris refers to two distinct groups of artists — a group of medieval manuscript illuminators, and a group of non-French artists working in Paris before World War I...
often referred to
TachismeTachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
, the European equivalent of American Abstract expressionism and those artists are also related to
CobraCOBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen , Brussels , Amsterdam .-History:...
. Important proponents being
Jean DubuffetJean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
,
Pierre SoulagesPierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver, and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rodez in 1919, Soulages also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, "...both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up...
, Nicholas de Staël,
Hans HartungHans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.-Life:...
,
Serge PoliakoffSerge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
, and
Georges MathieuGeorges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
, among several others. During the early 1950s
DubuffetJean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
(who was always a figurative artist), and
de StaëlNicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
, abandoned abstraction, and returned to imagery via figuration and landscape. De Staël 's work was quickly recognised within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. His return to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) during the early 1950s can be seen as an influential precedent for the American Bay Area Figurative Movement, as many of those abstract painters like
Richard DiebenkornRichard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
, David Park,
Elmer BischoffElmer Nelson Bischoff was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art.-Biography:Elmer Bischoff, second...
,
Wayne ThiebaudWayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...
,
Nathan OliveiraNathan Oliveira was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to Portuguese parents...
,
Joan BrownJoan Brown was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement....
and others made a similar move; returning to imagery during the mid-1950s. Much of de Staël 's late work - in particular his thinned, and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s predicts Color Field painting and
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
of the 1960s and 1970s.
Nicolas de StaëlNicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop art of the 1960s.
Art brut, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement, neo-Dada, photorealism
During the 1950s and 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting,
post-painterly abstractionPost-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto....
,
op artOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
,
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, minimal art,
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
painting,
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
, and the continuation of
Abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction with
art brutThe term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...
,
fluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
,
neo-DadaNeo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
,
New RealismNouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan...
, allowing imagery to re-emerge through various new contexts like
pop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
, the Bay Area Figurative Movement and later in the 1970s
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
. The Bay Area Figurative Movement of whom David Park,
Elmer BischoffElmer Nelson Bischoff was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art.-Biography:Elmer Bischoff, second...
,
Nathan OliveiraNathan Oliveira was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to Portuguese parents...
and
Richard DiebenkornRichard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
whose painting
Cityscape 1, 1963 is a typical example (see above) were influential members flourished during the 1950s and 1960s in
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Although throughout the 20th century painters continued to practice
RealismRealism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
and use imagery, practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like
Milton AveryMilton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
,
Edward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
,
Jean DubuffetJean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
, Francis Bacon,
Frank AuerbachFrank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
,
Lucian FreudLucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
,
Philip PearlsteinPhilip Pearlstein is an American painter, and part of the contemporary Realist school.-Biography:Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and received his Masters in art history at New York University. He was a friend of Andy Warhol from...
, and others. Younger painters practiced the use of imagery in new and radical ways.
Yves KleinYves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
,
Martial RaysseMartial Raysse is a French artist born in Golfe-Juan on 12 February 1936. He lives in Issigeac - France.-Biography: Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in Vallauris and began to paint and write poetry at age 12. After studying and practising athleticism at a high level, he began to accumulate...
,
Niki de Saint PhalleNiki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
,
Wolf VostellWolf Vostell was a German painter, sculptor, noise music maker and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement...
,
David HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
,
Alex KatzAlex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
,
Malcolm MorleyMalcolm Morley is an English artist now living in the United States. He is best known as a photorealist.-Early life:Morley was born in north London. He had a troubled childhood, and did not discover art until serving a three-year stint in Wormwood Scrubs prison...
,
Ralph GoingsRalph Goings is an American painter closely associated with the Photorealism movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s...
,
Audrey FlackAudrey Flack is an American photorealist painter, printmaker, and sculptor.Flack studied fine arts in New York from 1948 to 1953. She earned a graduate degree and an honorary doctorate from Cooper Union in New York City, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Yale University. She studied art history at...
,
Richard EstesRichard Estes is an American artist, best known for his photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with such painters...
,
Chuck CloseCharles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
,
Susan RothenbergSusan Rothenberg is a contemporary painter who lives and works in New Mexico, USA.-Background:Rothenberg was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945...
,
Eric FischlEric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
,
John BaederJohn Baeder is an American painter closely associated with the Photorealist movement. He is best known for his detailed paintings of American roadside diners and eateries.-Early life:...
and
Vija CelminsVija Celmins is an American artist.-Early life:Vija Celmins immigrated to the United States with her family from Latvia when she was ten years old. She and her family settled in Indiana...
were a few who became prominent between the 1960s and the 1980s.
Fairfield PorterFairfield Porter was an American painter and art critic. He was the brother of photographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation Commissioner Michael W. Straus....
(see above) was largely self-taught, and produced representational work in the midst of the
Abstract ExpressionistAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
movement. His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the
New York SchoolThe New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
of writers, including
John AshberyJohn Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
,
Frank O'HaraFrancis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
, and
James SchuylerJames Marcus Schuyler was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection The Morning of the Poem...
. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on
Great Spruce Head Island, MaineGreat Spruce Head Island is a privately owned island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. It has long belonged to the family of the painter Fairfield Porter and his brother, photographer Eliot Porter, both of whom did creative work there. For example, Eliot's book Summer Island is a visual tribute to the...
.
Also during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against painting. Critics like Douglas Crimp viewed the work of artists like
Ad ReinhardtAdolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
, and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are:
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
, Earth art,
video artVideo art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
,
installation artInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
,
arte poveraArte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...
,
performance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
,
body artBody art is art made on, with, or consisting of, the human body. The most common forms of body art are tattoos and body piercings, but other types include scarification, branding, scalpelling, shaping , full body tattoo and body painting.More extreme body art can involve things such as mutilation...
,
fluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
,
mail artMail art is a worldwide cultural movement that began in the early 1960s and involves sending visual art through the international postal system. Mail Art is also known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art...
, the situationists and
conceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
among others.
Neo-Dada is also a movement that started 1n the 1950s and 1960s and was related to Abstract expressionism only with imagery. Featuring the emergence of combined manufactured items, with artist materials, moving away from previous conventions of painting. This trend in art is exemplified by the work of
Jasper JohnsJasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
and
Robert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, whose "combines" in the 1950s were forerunners of Pop Art and
Installation artInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, and made use of the assemblage of large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography.
Robert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, (see
untitled combine, 1963, above),
Jasper JohnsJasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
,
Larry RiversLarry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...
, John Chamberlain,
Claes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
,
George SegalGeorge Segal was an American painter and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. He was presented with a National Medal of Arts in 1999.-Works:...
,
Jim DineJim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...
, and
Edward KienholzEdward Kienholz was an American installation artist whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close collaboration with his artistic partner and wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz...
among others were important pioneers of both abstraction and Pop Art; creating new conventions of art-making; they made acceptable in serious contemporary art circles the radical inclusion of unlikely materials as parts of their works of art.
New abstraction from the 1950s through the 1980s
Color Field painting clearly pointed toward a new direction in American painting, away from
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
. Color Field painting is related to
post-painterly abstractionPost-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto....
,
suprematismSuprematism was an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. It was not until later that suprematism received conventional museum preparations...
,
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
,
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
and
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
.
During the 1960s and 1970s abstract painting continued to develop in America through varied styles. Geometric abstraction, Op art,
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, Color Field painting and
minimalMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
painting, were some interrelated directions for advanced abstract painting as well as some other new movements. Morris Louis was an important pioneer in advanced
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting, his work can serve as a bridge between
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, Color Field painting, and minimal art. Two influential teachers
Josef AlbersJosef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
and
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
introduced a new generation of American artists to their advanced theories of color and space.
Josef AlbersJosef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
is best remembered for his work as an Geometric abstractionist painter and theorist. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series
Homage to the Square, (see gallery). In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically on the canvas. Albers' theories on art and education were formative for the next generation of artists. His own paintings form the foundation of both
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
and Op art.
Josef AlbersJosef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
,
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
,
Ilya BolotowskyIlya Bolotowsky was a leading early 20th-century painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric abstraction and was much influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.Born to Jewish parents in St...
,
Burgoyne DillerBurgoyne A. Diller was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known works are characterized by orthogonal geometric forms that reflect his strong interest in the De Stijl movement and the work of Piet Mondrian in particular...
,
Victor VasarelyVictor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
,
Bridget RileyBridget Louise Riley CH CBE is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of Op art.-Early life:...
,
Richard AnuszkiewiczRichard Anuszkiewicz is an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Life and work:Richard Anuszkiewicz trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio , and then with Josef Albers at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut where he earned his...
,
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
, Morris Louis,
Kenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
,
Ellsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
,
Barnett NewmanBarnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
,
Larry PoonsLawrence Poons , better known as Larry Poons, is an abstract painter who was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician...
,
Ronald DavisRonald Davis , born 1937, is an American painter whose work is associated with Geometric abstraction, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Hard-edge painting, Shaped canvas painting, Color field painting, and 3D Computer Graphics...
,
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
,
Al HeldAl Held was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings.-Background and education:...
and some others like
Mino ArgentoMino Argento is an Italian artist, whose works comprise abstract paintings on canvas and paper.-Life and work:Mino Argento was born in Rome, Italy in 1927. He worked in architecture as a young man...
, are artists closely associated with Geometric abstraction, Op art, Color Field painting, and in the case of Hofmann and Newman Abstract expressionism as well.
In 1965, an exhibition called
The Responsive Eye, curated by William C. Seitz, was held at the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, in New York City. The works shown were wide ranging, encompassing the
MinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
of
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
, the Op art of Larry Poons, the work of
Alexander LibermanAlexander Semeonovitch Liberman was a Russian-American magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer, and sculptor. He held senior artistic positions during his 32 years at Condé Nast Publications.-Biography:When his father took a post advising the Soviet government, the family moved to Moscow...
, alongside the masters of the Op Art movement:
Victor VasarelyVictor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
,
Richard AnuszkiewiczRichard Anuszkiewicz is an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Life and work:Richard Anuszkiewicz trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio , and then with Josef Albers at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut where he earned his...
, Bridget Riley and others. The exhibition focused on the perceptual aspects of art, which result both from the illusion of movement and the interaction of color relationships. Op art, also known as optical art, is used to describe some paintings and other works of art which use
optical illusionAn optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
s. Op art is also closely akin to geometric abstraction and
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
. Although sometimes the term used for it is perceptual abstraction.
Op art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing. Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.
Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like
Clyfford StillClyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
,
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
,
Hans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
, Morris Louis,
Jules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
,
Kenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
,
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
,
John HoylandJohn Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.-Life:...
,
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of
modern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
, artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image.
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
,
Kenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
,
Ellsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
,
Barnett NewmanBarnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
,
Ronald DavisRonald Davis , born 1937, is an American painter whose work is associated with Geometric abstraction, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Hard-edge painting, Shaped canvas painting, Color field painting, and 3D Computer Graphics...
, Neil Williams,
Robert MangoldRobert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
, Charles Hinman,
Richard TuttleRichard Dean Tuttle is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line.- Biography :...
, David Novros, and Al Loving are examples of artists associated with the use of the
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many
Geometric abstract artGeometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective compositions...
ists,
minimalistsMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
, and Hard-edge painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly
abstractAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or minimalist in character. The Andre Emmerich Gallery, the
Leo CastelliLeo Castelli was an American art dealer. He was best known to the public as an art dealer whose gallery showcased cutting edge Contemporary art for five decades...
Gallery, the Richard Feigen Gallery, and the
Park Place GalleryPark Place Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in SoHo in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo"...
were important showcases for
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting,
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
painting and
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
in New York City during the 1960s. There is a connection with
post-painterly abstractionPost-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto....
, which reacted against
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
s' mysticism, hyper-subjectivity, and emphasis on making the act of painting itself dramatically visible - as well as the solemn acceptance of the flat rectangle as an almost ritual prerequisite for serious painting. During the 1960s Color Field painting and Minimal art were often closely associated with each other. In actuality by the early 1970s both movements became decidedly diverse.
Washington Color School, Shaped Canvas, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction
Another related movement of the late 1960s
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
is a European term that was borrowed by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. It is also the name of an exhibition that originated in the Aldrich Museum and traveled to the
Whitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
and other museums throughout the United States between 1969 and 1971.
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
in the late 1960s is characterized by the paintings of
Dan ChristensenDan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....
,
Ronnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
,
Peter YoungPeter Young, is an American painter who was born in Pittsburgh, Pa, January 2, 1940. He is primarily known for his abstract paintings that have been widely exhibited in the United States and in Europe since the 1960s. His work is associated with Minimal Art, Post-minimalism, and Lyrical Abstraction...
and others, and along with the
fluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
movement and
postminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
(a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of
ArtforumArtforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression.
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to
DadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
and
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
is best exemplified in the sculptures of
Eva HesseEva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
. Lyrical Abstraction,
conceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
,
postminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
, Earth art,
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
,
performance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
,
installation artInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, along with the continuation of fluxus,
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
,
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting,
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, minimal art,
op artOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
,
pop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
,
photorealismPhotorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
and
New RealismNouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan...
extended the boundaries of
contemporary artContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general.
Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with color field painting and abstract expressionism,
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
as exemplified by the 1968
Ronnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
painting
For William Blake, (above) especially in the freewheeling usage of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in abstract expressionism and color field painting. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and
action paintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in action painting there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility.,
Hard-edge painting, minimalism, postminimalism, monochrome painting
Agnes MartinAgnes Bernice Martin was an American abstract painter, often referred to as a minimalist; Martin considered herself an abstract expressionist.She won a National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1998....
,
Robert MangoldRobert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
(see above),
Brice MardenBrice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
,
Jo BaerJosephine Gail "Jo" Baer, born Josephine Kleinberg August 7, 1929, is an American artist, whose works are associated with minimalist art...
,
Robert RymanRobert Ryman is an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He is best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lives and works in New York.-Early life and career:...
,
Richard TuttleRichard Dean Tuttle is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line.- Biography :...
, Neil Williams, David Novros, Paul Mogenson, are examples of artists associated with
MinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and (exceptions of Martin, Baer and Marden) the use of the
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
also during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many
Geometric abstract artGeometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective compositions...
ists, minimalists, and hard-edge painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or minimalist in character. The
Bykert GalleryBykert Gallery was an influential contemporary art gallery in New York City between 1966 and 1975, run by Klaus Kertess and Jeff Byers, who had been classmates at Yale College, class of 1958...
, and the
Park Place GalleryPark Place Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in SoHo in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo"...
were important showcases for
MinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
painting in New York City during the 1960s.
During the 1960s and 1970s artists such as
Robert MotherwellRobert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
,
Adolph GottliebAdolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
, Phillip Guston,
Lee KrasnerLee Krasner was an influential abstract expressionist painter in the second half of the 20th century. On October 25, 1945, she married artist Jackson Pollock, who was also influential in the Abstract Expressionism movement....
,
Cy TwomblyEdwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
,
Robert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
,
Jasper JohnsJasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
,
Richard DiebenkornRichard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
,
Josef AlbersJosef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
,
Elmer BischoffElmer Nelson Bischoff was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art.-Biography:Elmer Bischoff, second...
, Agnes Martin,
Al HeldAl Held was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings.-Background and education:...
,
Sam FrancisSamuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
,
Ellsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
, Morris Louis,
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
,
Gene DavisGene Davis was an American painter known especially for his paintings of vertical stripes of color, and was a member of the group of abstract painters in Washington DC during the 1960s known as the Washington Color School....
,
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
,
Kenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
,
Joan MitchellJoan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
,
Friedel DzubasFriedel Dzubas was a German-born American abstract painter.-Life and work:Friedel Dzubas studied art in his native land before fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and settling in New York City. In Manhattan during the early 1950s, he shared a studio with fellow abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler...
, and younger artists like Brice Marden,
Robert MangoldRobert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
,
Sam GilliamSam Gilliam is internationally recognized as one of America's foremost Color Field Painter and Lyrical Abstractionist artists....
,
John HoylandJohn Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.-Life:...
,
Sean ScullySean Scully is an Irish-born American painter and printmaker who has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee. His work is collected in major museums worldwide.-Life and work:...
,
Pat SteirPat Steir is an American painter and printmaker.-Education:Steir was born in 1940 in Newark, New Jersey, and currently lives in New York City. She attended the Pratt Institute in New York from 1956 to 1958, and Boston University College of Fine Arts from 1958 to 1960. She then returned to Pratt,...
,
Elizabeth MurrayElizabeth Murray was an American painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Her works are in many major public collections, including those of the Solomon R...
,
Larry PoonsLawrence Poons , better known as Larry Poons, is an abstract painter who was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician...
,
Walter Darby BannardWalter Darby Bannard , also known as Darby Bannard, is an American abstract painter.Bannard attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Princeton University, where he struck up a friendship and working relationship with Frank Stella, which continued after graduation and eventuated in the extreme...
,
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
,
Ronnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
,
Ronald DavisRonald Davis , born 1937, is an American painter whose work is associated with Geometric abstraction, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Hard-edge painting, Shaped canvas painting, Color field painting, and 3D Computer Graphics...
,
Dan ChristensenDan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....
, Joan Snyder,
Ross Bleckner-Life and work:"'I always absolutely thought there was a difference between being a young artist and an important young artist,' said Mr. Bleckner, who grew up in Hewlett, L.I., graduated in 1971 from New York University and earned an M.F.A...
,
Archie RandArchie Rand is an artist from Brooklyn, New York. Rand's work as a painter and muralist is displayed around the world, including in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale de...
,
Susan CrileSusan Crile is an artist, primarily a painter and printmaker. She has had over 50 solo exhibitions, and her work is in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Phillips Collection, and...
, and dozens of others produced a wide variety of paintings.
During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against abstract painting. Some critics viewed the work of artists like
Ad ReinhardtAdolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
, and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are:
postminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
, Earth art,
video artVideo art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
,
installation artInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
,
arte poveraArte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...
,
performance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
,
body artBody art is art made on, with, or consisting of, the human body. The most common forms of body art are tattoos and body piercings, but other types include scarification, branding, scalpelling, shaping , full body tattoo and body painting.More extreme body art can involve things such as mutilation...
,
fluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
,
happeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
,
mail artMail art is a worldwide cultural movement that began in the early 1960s and involves sending visual art through the international postal system. Mail Art is also known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art...
, the situationists and
conceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
among others.
However still other important innovations in abstract painting took place during the 1960s and the 1970s characterized by
monochrome paintingMonochromatic painting has been an important component of avant-garde visual art throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Painters have created the exploration of one color, the examination of values changing across a surface, the expressivity of texture and nuance, expressing a wide...
and
hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
inspired by Ad Reinhardt,
Barnett NewmanBarnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
,
Milton ResnickMilton Resnick was a major abstract expressionist painter and teacher known for his mystical, abstract and figurative paintings. Born in Bratslav, Russia, he emigrated to the United States in 1922.-Biography:...
, and
Ellsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
. Artists as diverse as Agnes Martin, Al Held,
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
,
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
,
Larry PoonsLawrence Poons , better known as Larry Poons, is an abstract painter who was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician...
, Brice Marden and others explored the power of simplification. The convergence of
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting, minimal art, hard-edge painting,
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
, and postminimalism blurred the distinction between movements that became more apparent in the 1980s and 1990s. The
neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
movement is related to earlier developments in
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
,
neo-DadaNeo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
, Lyrical Abstraction and postminimal painting.
Neo Expressionism
In the late 1960s the abstract expressionist painter
Philip GustonPhilip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
helped to lead a transition from abstract expressionism to
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects. These works were inspirational to a new generation of painters interested in a revival of expressive imagery. His painting
Painting, Smoking, Eating 1973, seen above in the gallery is an example of Guston's final and conclusive return to representation.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was also a return to painting that occurred almost simultaneously in Italy, Germany, France and Britain. These movements were called Transavantguardia, Neue Wilde,
Figuration LibreFiguration Libre is a French art movement of the 1980s. It is the French equivalent of Bad Painting and Neo-expressionism in America and Europe, Junge Wilde in Germany and Transvanguardia in Italy. The term was coined by Fluxus artist Ben Vautier.The group was formed in 1981 by Robert Combas, Remi...
,
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
, the school of London, and in the late 80s the Stuckists respectively. These painting were characterized by large formats, free expressive mark making, figuration, myth and imagination. All work in this genre came to be labeled
neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
. Critical reaction was divided. Some critics regarded it as driven by profit motivations by large commercial galleries. This type of art continues in popularity into the 21st century, even after the art crash of the late 1980s.
Anselm KieferAnselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
is a leading figure in European
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
by the 1980s, (see
To the Unknown Painter 1983, in the gallery above) Kiefer's themes widened from a focus on Germany's role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involves not only national identity and collective memory, but also
occultThe word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
symbolA symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism,
theologyTheology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and
mysticismMysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.
During the late 1970s in the United States painters who began working with invigorated surfaces and who returned to imagery like
Susan RothenbergSusan Rothenberg is a contemporary painter who lives and works in New Mexico, USA.-Background:Rothenberg was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945...
gained in popularity, especially as seen above in paintings like
Horse 2, 1979. During the 1980s American artists like
Eric FischlEric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
, (see
Bad Boy, 1981, above),
David SalleDavid Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...
,
Jean-Michel BasquiatJean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
,
Julian SchnabelJulian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....
, and
Keith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
, and Italian painters like
Mimmo PaladinoMimmo Paladino is an Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker.-Paintings and drawing:Mimmo Paladino was born Domenico Paladino in Paduli, Campania, southern Italy...
,
Sandro ChiaSandro Chia is an Italian painter and sculptor.A native of Florence, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with fellow countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Enzo Cucchi....
, and
Enzo CucchiEnzo Cucchi is an Italian painter. A native of Morro d'Alba, province of Ancona, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with fellow countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Sandro Chia...
, among others defined the idea of
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
in America.
Neo-expressionism was a style of
modernModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
painting that became popular in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. It developed in Europe as a reaction against the conceptual and
minimalisticMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
art of the 1960s and 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in a virtually abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. The veteran painters
Philip GustonPhilip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
,
Frank AuerbachFrank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
,
Leon KossoffLeon Kossoff is a British expressionist painter, known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England....
,
Gerhard RichterGerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...
, A. R. Penck and
Georg BaselitzGeorg Baselitz is a German painter who studied in the former East Germany, before moving to what was then the country of West Germany...
, along with slightly younger artists like
Anselm KieferAnselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
,
Eric FischlEric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
,
Susan RothenbergSusan Rothenberg is a contemporary painter who lives and works in New Mexico, USA.-Background:Rothenberg was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945...
,
Francesco ClementeFrancesco Clemente is an Italian and American contemporary artist. Influenced by thinkers as diverse as Gregory Bateson, William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, and J Krishnamurti, the art of Francesco Clemente is inclusive and nomadic, crossing many borders, intellectual and geographical.Dividing his time...
,
Jean-Michel BasquiatJean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
,
Julian SchnabelJulian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....
,
Keith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
, and many others became known for working in this intense expressionist vein of painting.
Painting still holds a respected position in
contemporary artContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
. Art is an open field no longer divided by the objective versus non-objective dichotomy. Artists can achieve critical success whether their images are representational or abstract. What has currency is content, exploring the boundaries of the medium, and a refusal to recapitulate the works of the past as an end goal.
Contemporary painting into the 21st century
At the beginning of the 21st century Contemporary painting and Contemporary art in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of
pluralismCultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture. Cultural pluralism is often confused with Multiculturalism...
. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current
art criticismArt criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty...
today is brought about by
pluralismCultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture. Cultural pluralism is often confused with Multiculturalism...
. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an
anything goes attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.
Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, geometric abstraction,
appropriationAppropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts . Appropriation can be understood as "the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work."...
, hyperrealism,
photorealismPhotorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
,
expressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
,
minimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
,
Lyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
,
pop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
,
op artOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
,
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
,
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting,
monochrome paintingMonochromatic painting has been an important component of avant-garde visual art throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Painters have created the exploration of one color, the examination of values changing across a surface, the expressivity of texture and nuance, expressing a wide...
,
neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
,
collageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
,
intermediaIntermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
painting,
assemblageAssemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects...
painting,
digital paintingDigital painting is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as watercolor, oils, impasto, etc. are applied using digital tools by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and software. Traditional painting is painting with a physical medium as opposed to a...
, postmodern painting,
neo-DadaNeo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
painting,
shaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
painting, environmental mural painting, traditional
figureHuman physical appearance refers to the outward phenotype or look of human beings. There are infinite variations in human phenotypes, though society reduces the variability to distinct categories...
painting, landscape painting,
portrait paintingPortrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.
Painting in the Americas
During the period before and after European exploration and settlement of the Americas, including North America, Central America, South America and the Islands of the Caribbean, the
AntillesThe Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...
, the
Lesser AntillesThe Lesser Antilles are a long, partly volcanic island arc in the Western Hemisphere. Most of its islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, with the remainder located in the southern Caribbean just north of South America...
and other island groups, indigenous native cultures produced creative works including architecture,
potteryPottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
,
ceramicsIn art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
,
weavingWeaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, carving,
sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
,
paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and murals as well as other religious and utilitarian objects. Each continent of the Americas hosted societies that were unique and individually developed cultures; that produced totems, works of religious symbolism, and decorative and expressive painted works. African influence was especially strong in the art of the Caribbean and South America. The arts of the indigenous people of the Americas had an enormous impact and influence on European art and vice-versa during and after the Age of Exploration. Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands, and England were all powerful and influential colonial powers in the Americas during and after the 15th century. By the 19th century cultural influence began to flow both ways across the Atlantic
Islamic painting
The depiction of humans, animals or any another figurative subjects is forbidden within Islam to prevent believers from
idolatryIdolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
so there is no religiously motivated painting (or sculpture) tradition within Muslim culture. Pictorial activity was reduced to
ArabesqueThe arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements...
, mainly
abstractAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
, with geometrical configuration or floral and plant-like patterns. Strongly connected to architecture and
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
, it can be widely seen as used for the painting of
tileA tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
s in mosques or in illuminations around the text of the Koran and other books. In fact abstract art is not an invention of modern art but it is present in pre-classical,
barbarianBarbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
and non-western cultures many centuries before it and is essentially a decorative or
applied artApplied art is the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use. Whereas fine arts serve as intellectual stimulation to the viewer or academic sensibilities, the applied arts incorporate design and creative ideals to objects of utility, such as a cup, magazine or...
. Notable illustrator
M. C. EscherMaurits Cornelis Escher , usually referred to as M. C. Escher , was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...
was influenced by this geometrical and pattern based art.
Art NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
(
Aubrey BeardsleyAubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
and the architect Antonio Gaudí) re-introduced abstract floral patterns into western art.
Note that despite the taboo of figurative visualization, some muslim countries did cultivate a rich tradition in painting, though not in its own right, but as a companion to the written word. Iranian or Persian art, widely known as Persian miniature, concentrates on the illustration of epic or romantic works of literature. Persian illustrators deliberately avoided the use of shading and perspective, though familiar with it in their pre-islamic history, in order to abide by the rule of not creating any life-like illusion of the real world. Their aim was not to depict the world as it is, but to create images of an ideal world of timeless beauty and perfect order.
In present days, painting by art students or professional artists in Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries follow the same tendencies of Western culture art.
Iran
Oriental historian Basil Gray believes "Iran has offered a particularly unique [sic] art to the world which is excellent in its kind". Caves in Iran's Lorestan province exhibit painted imagery of animals and hunting scenes. Some such as those in Fars Province and Sialk are at least 5,000 years old. Painting in Iran is thought to have reached a climax during the Tamerlane era when outstanding masters such as Kamaleddin Behzad gave birth to a new style of painting.
Paintings of the Qajar period, are a combination of European influences and Safavid miniature schools of painting such as those introduced by
Reza AbbasiRiza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually "Riza" or Reza Abbasi also Aqa Riza or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I...
and classical works by Mihr 'Ali. Masters such as
Kamal-ol-molkMohammad Ghaffari , better known as Kamal-ol-Molk , was an Iranian painter and part of the Ghaffari Clan in Kashan.-Biography:...
, further pushed forward the European influence in Iran. It was during the Qajar era when "Coffee House painting" emerged. Subjects of this style were often religious in nature depicting scenes from Shia epics and the like.
Australia
Africa
African traditional culture and tribes do not seem to have great interest in two-dimensional representations in favour of
sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and
reliefRelief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
. However, decorative painting in African culture is often abstract and geometrical. Another pictorial manifestation is
body paintingBody painting, or sometimes bodypainting, is a form of body art. Unlike tattoo and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, painted onto the human skin, and lasts for only several hours, or at most a couple of weeks. Body painting that is limited to the face is known as face painting...
, and face painting present for example in Maasai and
KĩkũyũThe Kikuyu are Kenya's most populous ethnic group. 'Kikuyu' is the Swahili form of the proper name and pronunciation of Gĩkũyũ although they refer to themselves as the Agĩkũyũ people.There are about 5,300,000 Kikuyu people in Kenya The Kikuyu are Kenya's most populous ethnic group. 'Kikuyu' is the...
culture in their ceremony rituals. Ceremonial
cave paintingCave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
in certain villages can be found to be still in use. Note that
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and other modern artists were influenced by
African sculptureAfrican sculpture varies widely with location. Each region has a unique style and meaning to their sculptures. The type of material and purpose for the sculpture reflects that of the region of creation.-Regional variations:...
and masks in their varied styles.
Contemporary African artists follow western art movements and their paintings have little difference from occidental art works.
Influence on Western art
At the start of the 20th century, artists like
PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
,
MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
,
Vincent van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
,
Paul GauguinEugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
and
ModiglianiAmedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
became aware of, and were inspired by, African art. In a situation where the established avant garde was straining against the constraints imposed by serving the world of appearances, African Art demonstrated the power of supremely well organised forms; produced not only by responding to the faculty of sight, but also and often primarily, the faculty of imagination, emotion and mystical and religious experience. These artists saw in African art a
formalIn art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
perfection and sophistication unified with phenomenal expressive power.
See also
- 20th-century Western painting
- Art periods
Art period n. A phase in the development of the work of an artist, groups of artists or art movement.-Renaissance:Renaissance c. 1300 - c. 1602...
- History of Eastern art
- Hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value....
- History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...
- History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...
- List of painters
- Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, or Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri, as it was originally known in Italian, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th century...
- Native American art
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present...
- Outline of painting history
Outline of painting history is a brief outline with templates and links to Wikipedia articles and subjects related to Art History and specifically the history of painting as an art form.- Ancient painting :*Art of Ancient Egypt*Knossos...
- Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
- Painting in the Americas before Colonization
Painting in the Americas before colonization is the Precolumbian painting traditions of the Americas. Painting was a relatively widespread, popular and diverse means of communication and expression for both religious and utilitarian purpose throughout the regions of the Western Hemisphere...
- Plains hide painting
Plains hide painting is a traditional Plains Indian artistic practice of painting on either tanned or raw animal hides. Tipis, tipi liners, shields, parfleches, robes, clothing, drums, and winter counts could all be painted.-Genres:...
- Self portrait
Self Portrait is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's tenth studio album, released by Columbia Records in June 1970.Self Portrait was Dylan's second double album, and features mostly cover versions of well-known pop and folk songs. Also included are a handful of instrumentals and original compositions...
- Timeline of Italian painters to 1800
- Western art history
Western art is the art of the North American and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC...
,
- Western painting
The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
- Visual arts of Australia
Further reading
- Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
, Art and Culture, Beacon Press, 1961
- Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
, Exhibition Catalogue, Whitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, NYC, 1971.
- O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
Exhibition Catalogue, (New York, Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, [1967]) OCLC 165852
- Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock (A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts), Kirk Varnedoe
John Kirk Train Varnedoe was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia and was an American art historian and writer, a Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a noted curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.-Life:He studied...
, 2003
- The Triumph of Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
: The Art World, 1985–2005, Hilton KramerHilton Kramer is a U.S. art critic and cultural commentator.Kramer was educated at Syracuse University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Indiana University and the New School for Social Research. He worked as the editor of Arts Magazine, art critic for The Nation, and from 1965 to 1982,...
, 2006, ISBN 0 1-56663-708
- David Piper, The Illustrated Library of Art, Portland House, New York, 1986, ISBN 0-517-62336-6
External links