Modernism: Fauvism, Early Picasso, Cubism - Meet the modern thinkers

INTRODUCTION TO MODERNISM

Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

Modernism has many different groups who follow different styles. Following are some of them.

Fauvism includes a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. Fauve artists used pure, brilliant colours aggressively applied straight from the paint tubes to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas. The Fauves painted directly from nature, as the Impressionists had before them, but Fauvist works were invested with a strong expressive reaction to the subjects portrayed.

Cubism, a highly influential visual arts style of the 20th century that was created principally by the artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro, and refuting time-honored theories that art should imitate nature. Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, color, and space; instead, they presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects.

FAUVISM

Henri Matisse

The leader of the group was Henri Matisse, who had arrived at the Fauve style after experimenting with the various Post-Impressionist approaches of Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat. Matisse’s studies led him to reject traditional renderings of three-dimensional space and to seek instead a new picture space defined by movement of colour. He exhibited his famous “Woman with the Hat” at the 1905 exhibition. In this painting, brisk strokes of color - blues, greens, and reds - form an energetic, expressive view of the woman. The crude paint application, which left areas of raw canvas exposed, was appalling to viewers at the time.

Joy of Life (Le Bonheur de Vivre)

During his Fauve years Matisse often painted landscapes in the south of France during the summer and worked up ideas developed there into larger compositions upon his return to Paris. "Joy of Live", the second of his important imaginary compositions, is typical of these. He used a landscape he had painted in Collioure to provide the setting for the idyll, but it is also influenced by ideas drawn from Watteau, Poussin, Japanese woodcuts, Persian miniatures, and 19th century Orientalist images of harems. The scene is made up of independent motifs arranged to form a complete composition. The massive painting and its shocking colors received mixed reviews at the Salon des Indépendants. Critics noted its new style - broad fields of color and linear figures, a clear rejection of Paul Signac's celebrated Pointillism.

Harmony in red

“The Dessert: Harmony in Red” was originally commissioned as "Harmony in Blue", but Matisse was disappointed with the result so painted over it with his preferred red.

The colour selection generates a feeling of warmth and comfort, whilst contrasting richly and intensely with other elements within the composition. Matisse used a common theme for the painting – a room decorated with vases, fruits and flowers –yet took the painting beyond the normal parameters of his work.

Despite the flatness of the red colour, the artist managed to create within it the impression of space; an area within which the maid leaning over the vase could move and within which the harsh view of the chair seemed oddly natural. The window, through which a green garden with flowering plants is visible, allows the eye to move into the depths of the canvas. The painting is a celebrated triumph of pattern and decoration and is considered by critics to be one of the most powerful examples of fauvist art.

Dance (first version)

In the painting, the figures express the light pleasure and joy that was so much a part of the earlier Fauve masterpiece. The figures are drawn loosely, with almost no interior definition. They have been likened to bean bag dolls because of their formless and unrestricted movements. The bodies certainly do not seem to be restrained by way, and the dancers inhabit a brilliant blue and green field.

Goldfish

Looking at this painting, the goldfish immediately catches our attention due to their color. The bright scarlet strongly contrasts with more subtle pinks and greens that surround the fish bowl and pinky-turquoise background. Pairs of colors, like blue and orange, as well as green and red, are complementary colors. They appear opposite each other on a colour wheel, and, when placed next to one another in the painting, make each other look even brighter. This technique was used extensively by the Fauves, and is particularly striking in Matisse’s earlier works.

But why was the painter so interested in goldfish? These fish were introduced to Europe from East Asia in the 17th century. But hardly he was interested in them before viewing a large exhibition of Islamic art in Munich in 1910, and then spending two months in Spain studying Moorish art. Actually, goldfish have obtained his special attention during his visit to Tangier, Morocco. Matisse was impressed how the local population would day-dream for hours, gazing into goldfish bowls.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was the most dominant and influential artist of the first half of the 20th century. Associated most of all with pioneering Cubism, alongside Georges Braque, he also invented collage and made major contributions to Symbolism and Surrealism. He saw himself above all as a painter, yet his sculpture was greatly influential, and he also explored areas as diverse as printmaking and ceramics.

This striking painting is one of Picasso's most moving pictures from his Blue Period, so named for the blue coloration that permeated his work at the time (autumn 1901-1904). Frequently he depicted solitary figures set against almost empty backgrounds, the blue palette imparting a mood of melancholy and desolation to images that suggest unhappiness and dejection, poverty, despondency, and despair. Most prevalent among his subjects were the old, the destitute, the blind, the homeless, and the otherwise underprivileged outcasts of society.

“Breakfast of a Blind Man”, painted in 1903, summarizes the stylistic characteristics of Picasso's Blue Period: rigorous drawing, simple hieratic compositions and forms, and of course, a blue tonality. The composition presents a forlorn figure seated at a frugal repast. In a letter, preserved in the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Picasso gives a very precise description of the composition: "I am painting a blind man at the table. He holds some bread in his left hand and gropes with his right hand for a jug of wine." An empty bowl and a white napkin complete the still life on the table. The man's slightly contorted figure, long thin hands, unadorned surroundings, and his blindness make his disenfranchised condition all the more poignant. The highlights on his face and neck, hands, bread, and napkin put the figure in relief against the austere background.

The painting is not merely a portrait of a blind man; it is also Picasso's commentary on human suffering in general. The meager meal of bread and wine invites references to the figure of Christ and the principal dogma of Catholic faith, whereby bread and wine represent Christ's body and blood, sacramental associations that Picasso as a Spaniard would have known. Additionally, the work elicits affinities to Picasso's own situation at the time, when, impoverished and depressed, he closely identified with the unfortunates of society.

Picasso’s “Tragedy” is a 1903 painting that portrays three figures gathered together on a beach.

There is no sign of disaster on site however the manner in which the adult's figures pose or stand without comforting one another, looking down desperately means all is not well. The man and woman are looking down inwardly in an innately familiar pose. The child seems too young to understand what is going on looks beseechingly towards the woman. They seem so distraught to lend any help or respond to the child. Thus the calamity in this painting is subjective rather than in reference to any particular single event.

There is something instinctively beautiful about Picasso's "Tragedy" that is seemingly absurd on the second thought. The Picasso’s work of art takes us to Picasso's grey-blue beach which draws us closer to the unnamed tragedies and the figures involved. It quickly dawns on you how bizarre it is to be enticed by something so dreadful.

CUBISM

Paul Cezanne

Cezanne is said to have formed the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. His often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used “broken brushwork” technique that built up to form complex fields.

Mont Sainte-Victoire

This is one of the last landscapes of Mont Sainte-Victoire, favored by Cezanne at the end of his life. The view is rendered in what is essentially an abstract vocabulary. Rocks and trees are suggested by mere daubs of paint as opposed to being extensively depicted. The overall composition itself, however, is clearly representational and also follows in the ethos of Japanese prints. The looming mountain is reminiscent of a puzzle of various hues, assembled into a recognizable object. This and other such late works of Cézanne proved to be very important to the emerging modernists.

In this mature work, the colors and forms possessed equal pictorial weight. The primary means of constructing the new perspective included the juxtaposition of cool and warm colors as well as the bold overlapping of forms. The light was no longer an "outsider" in relation to depicted objects; rather light emanated from within.

Study of Trees

In nearly abstract watercolor landscapes dating from the latter part of his life, Cézanne achieved a perfect balance, or equilibrium, between color, form, and relatively untouched areas of the paper. The brushstrokes themselves seemed to speak a visual poetry entirely apart from the painting's subject. In this study of trees, which invariably comes from the long tradition of Japanese woodcuts, Cézanne is moving further toward abstraction by constructing the landscape view through various constellations of color. What seems an "unfinished" composition nonetheless successfully suggests the feeling of nature without fully representing it, the overall canvas structured by intersecting diagonals that tip and turn out of the picture plane, like leaves shifting in the sunlight. This lively arrangement, along with the artist's obvious acknowledgment of the raw canvas as a positive component, directly anticipates the "incomplete" landscapes of the Fauves and provides future generations with a method to experiment with pictorial possibilities beyond the rigid tradition of naturalistic representation.

Pablo Picasso

This painting, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", is a large oil painting created in 1907 by Pablo Picasso. The work, part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, portrays five nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó, a street in Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none is conventionally feminine. The women appear slightly menacing and are rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. The figure on the left exhibits facial features and dress of Egyptian or southern Asian style. The two adjacent figures are shown in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right are shown with African mask-like features. The racial primitivism evoked in these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force."

“Guernica” is one of the most famous paintings of all time. Like so many famous works of art, the meaning of Picasso's “Guernica” is not immediately clear and left wide open to analysis and interpretation. The chaos caused by Europe's political instability is evident in Guernica's composition, with humans and animals jumbled together into a background of broken hard-edged geometric shapes, reminiscent of Cubism. The newspaper print background texture of the horse may also be a throwback to Picasso's early "Journal" Cubist artwork. While art critics enjoy analyzing the use of color in Picasso's "rose" or "blue" periods, in the mostly monochromatic painting Guernica the predominant "color" is mostly black, reminiscent perhaps of death itself. It is most likely influenced by another Spanish artist, Francisco de Goya, who often painted not only war paintings, but also bullfighting art. Humans and animals are on an equal footing in this painting, with the artist perhaps illustrating not only the simultaneous brutalization and dehumanization of humanity during wartime, but also the base, animalistic response that all living things, animals and humans, share in the face of fear and death.

Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay was a French artist. With his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, he co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract. His key influence related to bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone.

Red Eiffel Tower (La tour rouge)

Delaunay painted his first Eiffel Tower in 1909 to celebrate his engagement to Sonia Terk. He went on to produce around fifteen versions and the tower became a major motif for artists in recognition of the major role that technological development and innovation had in the first part of the 20th century. The Cubist influence is present in both the fragmented panes of the composition and in the multiple viewpoints of the tower - by looking both up at it's towering height and down on to the smaller buildings. The rich red color is heightened in contrast to the pale blue background, which again emphasizes the tower's dominance on the Parisian skyline. His work was described as a synthesis of Impressionism and Cubism but the dynamic robotic-like presence, wing-like forms and plumes of smoke or clouds are more reminiscent of the Futurist project. As Mark Rosenthal noted , Delaunay "effectively replaced the pastoral landscape of the Impressionists with a modern paen of French glory" even reducing his color palette to the red, white, and blue of the French flag.

La Ville de Paris

This painting figured prominently in the art world of pre-World War I Paris and was one of the first acquisitions of Jean Cassou, a freelance journalist and later the director of the Museum of Modern Art during the turbulent days of the Socialist Blum government prior to World War II. First shown in the Salon des Independants in 1912, the work caused a sensation and was noted by Apollinaire to be an example of the new movement, Orphism. In 1913, the painting, along with other, smaller compositions, was sent to New York for the now infamous Armory Show. Sadly the work was never shown due to its great scale, causing indignation for the Delaunays and their close circle of friends.

As is characteristic of his early work, Delaunay mixes codes and symbols of the city he lived in. Here though, he moves beyond the literal to the allegorical - presenting Paris through a montage of three nude women. The first presents Paris as the historical city, with a view of the Quai du Louvre in the background. The second depicts the classical Paris that is represented by a reference to the Judgment of Paris. The third and final panel is recognizable from Delaunay's previous Eiffel Tower series as the modern metropolis. This painting shows Delaunay's innovative grasp on time and space - themes he would explore further as he moved towards abstraction.

Fernand Leger

Though Fernand Léger built his reputation as a Cubist, his style varied considerably from decade to decade, fluctuating between figuration and abstraction and showing influence from a wide range of sources. Léger worked in a variety of media including paint, ceramic, film, theater and dance sets, glass, print, and book arts. While his style varied, his work was consistently graphic, favoring primary colors, pattern, and bold form.

Nudes in the Forest

This painting was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911 and is considered Léger's first major work showcasing his break from Impressionism and his alliance with Cubism, particularly in his monochromatic palette and his breaking of form into geometric shapes. Léger's focus on drawing and form rather than color also indicates his influence from Paul Cézanne. Léger's Cubism, however, was distinct from mainstream Cubism. Léger does not abandon three-dimensionality and volumetric form to the same degree as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque whose canvases from this period lack all but the merest illusion of space. Léger's interest in nature, his use of cylindrical form, and his focus on machine-like forms further distinguishes his work from that of other Cubists, while the latter aligns him with Italian Futurism, reflecting the period's optimism about the benefits of urbanization and an industrialized society. These unique qualities led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to dub Léger's style as "Tubism."

The City

"The City" demonstrates Léger's interest in depicting the dynamism and dissonance of urban space rather than pictorial unity or a static image. His fascination with all things modern beyond conventional high art subject matter is evident in the references to traffic lights, billboards, graphic design; he stated that he was especially influenced by the place Clichy in Paris with its large posters. Also obvious is a focus on other colors beyond the primary. He remarked on his use of color in this period: "Color rushes in like a torrent. It swallows up the walls, the streets, etc. When one opens a window, a piece of shrill publicity blows in the wind... Exuberance of color and noise." In "The City", colors play an equal role with form in depicting the chaos of the city; they collide as volumes and flat shapes both recede and move forward in space, seeming to overlap like pieces of a collage, giving the viewer the impression of standing on a busy, noisy street corner.

Marcel Duchamp

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was a French-American painter, sculptor, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. He was careful about his use of the term Dada and was not directly associated with Dada groups. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century.

Fountain

The most notorious of the ready-mades, this painting was submitted to the 1917 Society of Independent Artists under the pseudonym R. Mutt. The initial R stood for Richard, French slang for "moneybags" whereas Mutt referred to JL Mott Ironworks, the New York-based company, which manufactured the porcelain urinal. After the work had been rejected by the Society on the grounds that it was immoral, critics who championed it disputed this claim, arguing that an object was invested with new significance when selected by an artist for display. Testing the limits of what constitutes a work of art, Fountain staked new grounds. What started off as an elaborate prank designed to poke fun at American avant-garde art, proved to be one of most influential artworks of the 20th century.

Etant donnes

“Etant donnes” consists of a diorama viewed through two eyeholes. The scene depicts a nude woman, possibly dead, with her legs splayed, holding an illuminated gas lamp. A mountainous landscape, based on a photo Duchamp shot in Switzerland, creates the background setting. "Etant donnes" is considered Duchamp's second major work. He made an entire manual for its installation, which is reproduced in facsimile and available in print. At first glance, this is a direct reference to Courbet's painting, “Origine du Monde” (1866). Yet upon closer consideration, the piece can be viewed as a reflection on the boundaries between artist and spectator, as a means to question self-consciousness, or as a meditation on spiritual purpose through the symbolism of a lit lamp.

George Braque

Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most important contributions to the history of art were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he played in the development of Cubism.

Houses of l'Estaque

Braque's paintings made over the summer of 1908 at l'Estaque are considered the first Cubist paintings. After being rejected by the Salon d'Automne, they were fortunately exhibited that fall at Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler's Paris gallery. These simple landscape paintings showed Braque's determination to break imagery into dissected parts. The brown and green palette here also predicts a palette that Braque employed in many paintings to come.

Fruit on a Table-cloth with a Fruit Dish

The subject matter of this painting commemorates a banquet held in Braque's honor upon returning from the war. Picasso and Gris made headway in Synthetic Cubism, while Braque resumed the development of his own style, still Cubist, but more concentrated on color and texture. Fruit on a Table-cloth with a Fruit Dish shows a table display flattened out in the pictorial plane as Braque had done many times before, but here he replicates the texture of wood and marble, and even shades the fruit.