This Early 20th Century Art Movement Embraced Spontaneity Silliness and Even the Absurb

The Early 20th Century

The early on 20th century was marked by rapid industrial, economic, social, and cultural change, which influenced the worldview of many and set the stage for new artistic movements.

Learning Objectives

Place how industrial, economical, social, and cultural change set the stage for the art movements of the early on 20th century

Key Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• The showtime two decades of the 20th century were marked by enormous industrial, economic, social, and cultural developments.
• International trade brought with it increasing growth and prosperity, forth with a rise in poverty and slums in major cities. Urbanization, advances in science and technology, and the spread of appurtenances and information were markers of the times.
• With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, art became heavily influenced by the want to abstruse life and escape the horrific possibilities of the human being condition. Artists began to question and play around with themes of reality, perspective, space, and time.

Cardinal Terms

• urbanization: The modify in a country or region when its population migrates from rural to urban areas.

The outset two decades of the 20th century were marked by enormous industrial, economic, social and cultural change. International trade brought with it increasing growth and prosperity, along with a rise in poverty and slums in major cities. Urbanization, architectural advances, increases in engineering science, and the spread of appurtenances and information were markers of the times. Competition between nations was reflected in attempts to bear witness off advances in technology, concern, and compages, amid other things. Prominent scientific advancements of the time included Einstein'southward Theory of Relativity and Freud's evolution of modern psychology.

After the relative peace of about of the 19th century, rivalry between European powers erupted in 1914 with the outbreak of the start World War. Over 60 meg European soldiers were mobilized from 1914–1918 as countries around the world were called into the conflict. With the widespread expiry and destruction of the greatest war the earth had ever seen, fine art increasingly became a means for escapism, a manner to abstract life and escape the difficulties of the homo condition.

A ration political party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Boxing of the Somme, July 1916: The death and destruction of World War I contributed to the desire of artists to abstract life.

The economic and social changes of the early 20th century greatly influenced the North American and European worldview which, in turn, shaped the development of new styles of art. Artists began to question and experiment with themes of reality, perspective, space and fourth dimension, and representation. Einstein's Theory of Relativity contributed to the development of cubism, and developments in psychology greatly influenced the subject thing of a number of creative schools of idea. The rapid ascent of engineering impacted artists both directly and indirectly, from the invention of new artistic materials to subject matter and themes.

Fauvism

The Fauves were a group of early on 20th century Modern artists based in Paris whose works challenged Impressionist values.

Learning Objectives

Contrast the characteristics of Fauvism, as found in the work of Matisse and Derain, from those of its predecessor Impressionism

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Fauvist movement, led by Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, officially lasted for only four years: 1904–1908.
• Brilliant colour, simplification, abstraction, and unusual brush strokes are hallmarks of the Fauvist style. Fauvist influences and references include Van Gogh's Post- Impressionism and the Neo-Impressionist technique of Pointillism.
• Gustave Moreau, a controversial professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, mentored several of the Fauves, including Matisse, and greatly influenced their work.

Key Terms

• Mail-Impressionism: (Art) a genre of painting that rejected the naturalism of impressionism, using color and grade in more than expressive manners.
• pointillism: In art, the use of pocket-size areas of color to construct an paradigm.
• Fauvism: An artistic motility of the concluding function of the 19th century that emphasized spontaneity and the employ of extremely bright colors.

Fauvism is the mode of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modernistic artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a fashion began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had 3 exhibitions. The leaders of the motion were Henri Matisse and André Derain.

Charing Cross Bridge, London by André Derain, 1906: The vibrant, surprising apply of color in this work is characteristic of the Fauvist style.

Autonomously from Matisse and Derain, other artists included Albert Marquet, Charles Camoin, Louis Valtat, the Belgian painter Henri Evenepoel, Maurice Marinot, Jean Puy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri Manguin, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, Georges Rouault, the Dutch painter Kees van Dongen, the Swiss painter Alice Bailly, and Georges Braque (subsequently Picasso's partner in Cubism).

The paintings of the Fauves were characterized by seemingly wild castor work and strident colors, while their subject area affair had a loftier degree of simplification and abstraction. Fauvism can be classified equally an farthermost development of Van Gogh'due south Post-Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionist painters, in particular Paul Signac. Other key influences were Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, whose employment of areas of saturated color—notably in paintings from Tahiti—strongly influenced Derain's work.

Gustave Moreau, a controversial professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and a Symbolist painter, was the move's inspirational teacher. Moreau taught Matisse, Marquet, Manguin, Rouault, and Camoin during the 1890s, and was viewed by critics as the grouping's philosophical leader until Matisse was recognized every bit such in 1904. Moreau'south broad-mindedness, originality, and affirmation of the expressive potency of pure color was inspirational for his students.

Derain and Matisse worked together through the summer of 1905 in the Mediterranean hamlet of Collioure, and afterwards that year displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. The vivid, unnatural colors led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to derisively dub their works equally les Fauves, or "the wild beasts," which the artists and then appropriated as the championship for their movement. The painting that was singled out for special condemnation, Matisse's Woman with a Hat, was subsequently bought past the major patrons of the avant-garde scene in Paris, Gertrude and Leo Stein.

Woman with a Hat by Henri Matisse, 1905.: This painting was rejected past critics when initially exhibited, just was soon acquired by avant-garde collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein.

Primitivism and Cubism

Every bit one of the nearly influential artists of the twenty^th century, Pablo Picasso is widely known for his interest in Cubism and Primitivism.

Learning Objectives

Identify Picasso's unique importance to the development of both Primitivism and Cubism in the early 20th century

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• 1906–1909 is referred to as Picasso'south African menstruation, during which he produced Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and several other paintings incorporating primitivist elements.
• Picasso was inspired past African artifacts too every bit the piece of work of Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin.
• The formal elements of Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon bridged Picasso's African Catamenia and subsequent Cubist piece of work.
• Picasso and Georges Braque co-founded the Cubist movement, i of the most influential movements in Mod Fine art.
• Cubism stressed bones abstract geometric forms that presented the subject from many angles simultaneously.

Key Terms

• primitivism: Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, a do that was central to the development of modernistic fine art.

African Period and Primitivism (1906–1910)

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the European cultural elite were discovering African, Micronesian, and Native American art. African artifacts were being brought back to Paris museums post-obit the expansion of the French empire into Africa. The press was abuzz with exaggerated stories of cannibalism and exotic tales about the African kingdom of Dahomey. The mistreatment of Africans in the Belgian Congo was exposed in Joseph Conrad's popular book, Eye of Darkness.

Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark ability and simplicity of styles of "archaic" cultures. Effectually 1906, Picasso, Matisse, Derain, and other Paris-based artists had acquired an interest in Primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art, and tribal masks, in part due to the works of Paul Gauguin that had recently achieved recognition in Paris'southward advanced circles. Gauguin'due south powerful posthumous retrospective exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1903 and 1906 had a powerful influence on Picasso's paintings.

The Moon and the World by Paul Gauguin, 1893: Picasso was profoundly influenced by Gauguin's African inspired works similar The Moon and The Earth.

In 1907, Picasso experienced a "revelation" while viewing African art at the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro. African art influenced Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), especially in its treatment of the 2 figures on the right side of the limerick. This painting is also considered a protocubist work bridging Picasso's African and Cubist periods. Other works of Picasso'due south African Period include Bosom of a Woman (1907, in the National Gallery, Prague); Female parent and Child (Summer 1907, in the Musée Picasso, Paris); Nude with Raised Artillery (1907, in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain); and Three Women (Summertime 1908, in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg).

Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso, 1907: This piece of work is influenced by primitivism and is considered to be i of the earliest examples of Cubist painting.

Cubism (1909–1912)

Cubism, established by Picasso and his colleague Georges Bracque, was marked past a revolutionary departure from representational art. In Cubist artwork, objects were analyzed, cleaved upwards, and reassembled in an abstracted form instead of being depicted from one viewpoint. Picasso, Braque, and other Cubists depicted subjects from a multitude of viewpoints to create a greater scope of context. Cubism has been considered the most influential fine art movement of the 20th century.

Violin and Candlestick past Georges Braque, 1910: Georges Braque, with Picasso, was one of the founders of Cubism.

Cubism had a global reach equally a motility, influencing similar schools of thought in literature, music, and architecture. Item offshoots beyond France included the movements of Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, and De Stijl, which all adult in response to Cubism. Early Futurist paintings have some commonalities with Cubism: the fusing of the past and the present and the representation of different views of the subject area pictured at the aforementioned time, also called multiple perspective, simultaneity or multiplicity. Constructivism was influenced past Picasso's technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements. Other common threads between these disparate movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms, and the clan of mechanization and modern life.

Cubist Sculpture

Just as in painting, Cubist sculpture is rooted in Paul Cézanne's reduction of painted objects into component planes and geometric solids (cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones). And but as in painting, it became a pervasive influence and contributed fundamentally to Constructivism and Futurism.

Cubist sculpture developed in parallel to Cubist painting. During the autumn of 1909 Picasso sculpted Head of a Woman (Fernande) with positive features depicted past negative space and vice versa. Marcel Duchamp was responsible for another extreme development inspired by Cubism. The ready-made arose from a articulation consideration that the work itself is considered an object (simply as a painting), and that it uses the cloth detritus of the world (every bit collage and paper mache in the Cubist construction and Aggregation). The adjacent logical pace, for Duchamp, was to nowadays an ordinary object as a self-sufficient work of fine art representing only itself. In 1913 he attached a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and in 1914 selected a bottle-drying rack as a sculpture in its own right.

Other Forms of Cubism

Futurism and Constructivism developed from Cubism in Italy and Russian federation respectively.

Learning Objectives

Differentiate the artistic styles of Futurism and Constructivism from their Cubist origins

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Cubist work represents an artistic subject from multiple perspectives simultaneously.
• Italian Futurism and Russian Constructivism are two movements that were profoundly influenced by Cubism.
• Divisionism, a technique in which color and lite are deconstructed, is an important attribute of Futurist and Cubist work.
• Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Pierre Reverdy, and William Faulkner all applied Cubist principles to written work.
• Cubist poets and writers also influenced Dada and Surrealism.

Cardinal Terms

• futurism: An early 20th century avant-garde fine art motion focused on speed, the mechanical, and the modern, which took a deeply antagonistic attitude to traditional creative conventions; (originated past F.T. Marinetti, amid others).
• divisionism: In fine art, the utilise of small areas of colour to construct an image.
• constructivism: A Russian motion in modern art characterized by the creation of nonrepresentational geometric objects using industrial materials.

Cubism

Cubism was an advanced art move of the early on 20th century pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, and later joined by Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, and Fernand Léger. The movement revolutionized European painting and sculpture and inspired related movements in music, literature, and compages. Cubism has been considered the near influential art movement of the 20th century.

Violin and Candlestick by Georges Braque, 1910: Georges Braque, with Picasso, was one of the founders of Cubism.

In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken upward, and reassembled in an abstracted form. Instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to stand for the subject in a greater context.

Constructivism

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russian federation in 1919. It entailed a rejection of the thought of democratic art and was in favor of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a keen impact on modern fine art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl move. It is difficult to isolate a particular aesthetic mutual to the Constructivist philosophy as it is and so broad, but it can be roughly distinguished past its use of bright, bold color and geometric designs, especially in graphic pattern.

The First Working Grouping of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova, Alexander Vesnin, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and the theorists Aleksei Gan, Boris Arvatov, and Osip Brik) developed a definition of Constructivism equally the combination of faktura: the detail material properties of an object, and tektonika, its spatial presence. Initially the Constructivists worked on three-dimensional constructions every bit a means of participating in manufacture. Subsequently the definition would be extended to designs for two-dimensional works such equally books and posters.

Proun Vrashchenia by El Lissitzky c. 1919: The geometric forms and bright colors in this painting are characteristic of the Constructivist artful.

Futurism

Futurism was an Italian movement that emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the time to come such equally speed, technology, youth, and violence, besides as objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. In 1910 and 1911 futurist painters made use of the technique of divisionism, which entails breaking light and color down into a field of stippled dots and stripes. Severini was the first to come into contact with Cubism. Following a visit to Paris in 1911, the Futurist painters adopted the methods of the Cubists. Cubism offered them a means of analyzing free energy in paintings and visually expressing their desired focus on dynamism, motility, and speed. The adoption of Cubism adamant the style of much subsequent Futurist painting.

Abstruse Speed + Sound, by Giacomo Balla 1913–1914: This is a seminal work from the Futurist movement which was influenced past Cubism.

German Expressionism

German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning before WWI and peaking in Berlin during the 1920s.

Learning Objectives

Discuss the importance of the group Dice Brücke and artists such as Kirchner, Kollwitze, Schiele, and Modersohn-Becker in the evolution of High german Expressionism

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Kathe Kollwitz, Egon Schiele, and Paula Modersohn-Becker are among the independent German Expressionists who were unaffiliated with other Expressionist groups simply nonetheless successful.
• Kollwitz is best remembered for her empathetic series, The Weavers.
• Many of Egon Schiele's contemporaries found the explicit sexual themes of his work agonizing.
• Paula Modersohn-Becker is among the showtime recognized female artists to create nude self-portraits.

Cardinal Terms

• Weimar Republic: The democratic regime of Frg from 1919 to the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler in 1933.
• expressionism: A motion in the arts in which the artist does not depict objective reality, but rather a subjective expression of inner experience.
• Fauvism: An artistic movement of the terminal part of the 19th century that emphasized spontaneity and the utilise of extremely bright colors.

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, beginning with poetry and painting, that originated in Frg at the showtime of the 20th century. Information technology emphasized subjective feel, manipulating perspective for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express meaning or emotional feel rather than physical reality.

Expressionism was adult as an avant-garde fashion earlier the Commencement World War and remained pop during the Weimar Republic, particularly in Berlin. The fashion extended to a wide range of the arts, including painting, literature, theatre, dance, picture, architecture, and music.

Expressionist painters had many influences, among them Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and several African artists. They were also aware of the Fauvist move in Paris, which influenced Expressionism's tendency toward arbitrary colors and jarring compositions.

Dice Brücke

In 1905, a group of four High german artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke (the Bridge) in the city of Dresden. Afterwards members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller. The group aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional bookish manner and find a new fashion of artistic expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present. They responded both to past artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald, and Lucas Cranach the Elder, every bit well every bit contemporary international avant-garde movements. As part of the affidavit of their national heritage, they revived older media, peculiarly woodcut prints. Die Brücke is considered to be a key group of the German Expressionist motion, though they did not employ the word itself. The group is often compared to both Primitivism and Fauvism due to their use of high-keyed, non-naturalistic color to express extreme emotion like the Fauvists and a crude drawing technique that eschewed complete abstraction, like the Primitivists.

Der Blaue Reiter

A few years after, in 1911, a like-minded grouping of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German language artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter. Like Dice Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter is considered a major characteristic of the German Expressionist motility.

Within the group, artistic approaches and aims varied from artist to creative person, notwithstanding, there was a shared want to limited spiritual truths through their fine art. Der Blaue Reiter equally a group believed in the promotion of modern fine art, the connection betwixt visual art and music, the spiritual and symbolic associations of color, and a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting. Members were interested in European medieval fine art and Primitivism, as well as the contemporary, non-figurative art scene in France. As a consequence of their encounters with Cubist, Fauvist and Rayonist ideas, they moved towards abstract art.

Kathe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose piece of work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition, and the tragedy of war, in the showtime half of the 20th century. Initially her work was grounded in Naturalism, and later took on Expressionistic qualities. Inspired by a performance of Gerhart Hauptmann'due south The Weavers, which dramatized the oppression of the Silesian weavers in Langembielau and their failed revolt in 1842, Kollwitz produced a cycle of half dozen works on the Weavers theme. Rather than a literal analogy of the drama, the works were a free and naturalistic expression of the workers' misery, hope, backbone, and, eventually, doom. The Weavers became Kollwitz' well-nigh widely acclaimed work.

Mother with her Expressionless Son by Käthe Kollwitz: This Kollwitz sculpture is a WWII state of war memorial.

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter in the early on 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, as well every bit for the many cocky-portraits he produced. The twisted body shapes and expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the creative person as an early on exponent of Expressionism. Schiele was influenced by his mentor, Klimt, as well as by Edvard Munch, Jan Toorop, and Vincent van Gogh. Schiele explored themes not only of the human form, simply also of homo sexuality. Many viewed Schiele's work as beingness grotesque, erotic, pornographic, or disturbing, focusing on sex activity, decease, and discovery.

Sitzender weiblicher Akt mit aufgestützen Ellbogen past Egon Schiele: Schiele'southward delineation of female nudes scandalized his contemporaries.

Paula Mendersohn-Becker

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) was a High german painter and one of the near of import representatives of early on Expressionism. In a brief career, cut brusk past her death at the age of 31, she created a number of groundbreaking images of peachy intensity. Modersohn-Becker studied briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was influenced by French postal service impressionists Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. On her last trip to Paris in 1906, she produced a series of paintings about which she felt peachy excitement and satisfaction. During this period of painting, she produced her initial nude self-portraits—something unprecedented by a female painter—and portraits of friends such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Werner Sombart.

Selbstporträt by Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1906: Female nude cocky-portraits were uncommon subjects in this era.

Abstract Sculpture

Modern abstract sculpture developed alongside other avant-garde movements of the early 20th century like Cubism and Surrealism.

Learning Objectives

Talk over the development of abstruse sculpture through the periods of Cubism and Surrealism, naming the important works of Rodin, Picasso, Duchamp, and Brâncuşi

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Auguste Rodin is seen every bit the progenitor of modern sculpture.
• Picasso and fellow cubist artists adult new means of constructing works of art using collage, or sculptural assemblage using disparate materials. This is known as Cubist constructionism.
• Surrealism further expanded upon contemporary definitions of sculpture by introducing the concept of the " readymade."
• Constantin Brâncuşi rejected naturalism in sculpture also equally any form of representational art. His minimal, abstruse artworks try to depict the essence of an object.

Key Terms

• abstract art: Art that is not intended to depict objects in the natural world, merely instead uses colour and form in a non-representational way.
• naturalism: A artistic motility that seeks to encapsulate reality or familiar experience in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or fifty-fifty supernatural treatment.
• coulage: Automatic or involuntary sculpture made past pouring a molten material (such as metal, wax, or chocolate) into common cold water. As the material cools it takes on what appears to be a random (or aleatoric) form, though the physical properties of the materials involved may pb to a conglomeration of discs or spheres.

Rodin

Auguste Rodin, along with artists like Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin, developed a radical new approach to the creation of sculpture in the 19th century. Rodin was a naturalist, less concerned with monumental expression than with character and emotion. Departing from centuries of tradition, he turned away from the idealism of the Greeks and the decorative beauty of the Baroque and neo-Baroque movements. His sculpture emphasized the individual and the concreteness of mankind, suggesting emotion through detailed, textured surfaces, and the interplay of light and shadow.

The modern sculpture movement substantially began during the Rodin exhibit at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. At this event, Rodin showed his Burghers of Calais, Balzac and Victor Hugo statues, along with The Thinker. Though all of these are representational works of art, Rodin's approach to form paved the way for increasingly experimental and abstract art.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin: Rodin's experiments with form, visible in The Thinker, launched modern abstract sculpture.

Influence of Cubism

Cubist sculpture developed in parallel with Cubist painting, centered in Paris beginning around 1909 and evolving through the early on 1920s. The style is about closely associated with the formal experiments of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Others were quick to follow Braque and Picasso'southward lead in Paris, including Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Alexander Archipenko, Joseph Csaky, Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens, and Ossip Zadkine.

During his period of Cubist innovation, Picasso revolutionized the fine art of sculpture by combining disparate objects and materials into ane sculptural work—the sculptural equivalent of collage in two dimensional art. Just equally collage was a radical development in two dimensional art, so was Cubist construction a radical development in three dimensional sculpture.

Head of a Woman by Picasso, 1909: Picasso was a pioneer in early on 20th century Cubist sculpture.

Influence of Surrealism

The advent of Surrealism led to objects beingness described equally "sculpture" that would not have been termed as such previously. Surrealist sculpture fabricated use of many of the same techniques as other forms of Surrealist art, such as games to tap into the unconscious heed such every bit coulage, a kind of automatic or involuntary sculpture made past pouring a molten material into cold h2o. Equally the material cools information technology takes on what appears to be a random form, though the physical properties of the materials involved may lead to a conglomeration of discs or spheres. The creative person may utilise a variety of techniques to affect the issue. Involuntary sculpture is described by Surrealists equally sculpture created by absent-mindedly manipulating something, such as rolling and unrolling a movie ticket, angle a paper clip, etc.

Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp had a deep bear on on the evolution of abstraction in sculpture. He originated the use of the "found object" or "readymade" with pieces like Fountain (1917), a urinal that was displayed equally art. Duchamp experimented a great bargain with sculpture, creating readymades, assemblages, and kinetic works. His notion that anything can exist art that an artist names art is an idea that has resonated throughout many historical and contemporary movements. Though never considered himself to be a Surrealist, he was involved socially with many key members of the movement and his ideas were of influence.

Duchamp participated in the design of the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition, which was held at the Galerie des Beaux-arts, Paris. The bear witness featured more than 60 artists from different countries, including approximately 300 paintings, objects, collages, photographs, and installations. The surrealists wanted to create an exhibition which in itself would be a artistic human action, and André Breton named Duchamp, Wolfgang Paalen, Human being Ray, Salvador Dali, and Max Ernst to help do and then.

Brâncuşi

The work of Constantin Brâncuşi at the offset of the century paved the way for afterwards abstract sculpture. In revolt against the naturalism of Rodin and his late 19th-century contemporaries, Brâncuşi distilled subjects downwards to their essences as illustrated by his Bird in Space series (1924). These elegantly refined abstruse forms became synonymous with 20th century sculpture.

Brâncuşi's touch, with his vocabulary of reduction and brainchild, is seen throughout the 1930s and 1940s, and exemplified by artists including Gaston Lachaise, Sir Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Ásmundur Sveinsson, Julio González, Pablo Serrano, and Jacques Lipchitz.

Fountain past Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp's appropriation of a urinal equally a piece of art challenged the prevailing definition of sculpture.

Dada and Surrealism

Dada and Surrealism were multidisciplinary cultural movements of the European avant-garde that emerged in Zurich and Paris respectively during the time of WWI.

Learning Objectives

Identify the origins, characteristics, and political ideologies of Dada

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Dada was a political movement opposed to creative and social conformity every bit well every bit the capitalist forces that led to WWI.
• Dada artists worked in not-traditional media including collage, photomontage, and assemblage. Dada artist Michel Duchamp pioneered the notion of the "readymade;" everyday objects appropriated for artistic purposes.
• Dada spread throughout Europe and N America following WWI; by the early 1920s the center of Dada activeness was Paris.
• Dada informed many of the major advanced movements of the 20th century century, including Surrealism and Social Realism.
• Surrealism began in the 1920s and had a lot in common with Dadaism.
• Surrealist works drew inspiration from intuition, the ability of the unconscious mind, and various psychological schools of thought.
• Surrealist artists and writers regarded their work equally an expression of the philosophical movement, with the artwork existence an antiquity.

Key Terms

• readymade: Everyday objects found or purchased and declared art. The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified every bit an antidote to what he called "retinal fine art." By just choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning, joining, titling, and signing it, the object became art.
• collage: A composite object or collection (abstract or physical) created past the assemblage of various media; especially for a work of fine art like text, film, etc.
• social realism: An artistic movement that depicted social and racial injustice and economical hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles.

Dadaism

Dada was a multi-disciplinary art move that rejected the prevailing creative standards by producing "anti-art" cultural works. Dadaism was intensely anti-state of war, anti-bourgeois, and held stiff political affinities with the radical left. For many participants, the movement was a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests, which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity—in art and more than broadly in society—that corresponded to the state of war. Many Dadaists believed that the reason and logic of conservative capitalist society had led people into state of war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality.

The origin of the name Dada is unclear. Some believe that it is a nonsensical word while others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent utilize of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, yeah" in Romanian. Another theory posits that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of when a knife stuck into a French–German language dictionary happened to point to dada, a French word for "hobbyhorse." Likely, the origin of the name Dada is another attempt to cheapen a organisation of logic, namely that of language.

Dada began in Zurich in 1916. Key figures in the Dada movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, and Raoul Hausmann, among others. The motion influenced later on styles similar avant-garde, and movements including Surrealism, Nouveau réalisme, pop art and Fluxus.

Plaque commemorating the nascency of Dada motility: This plaque is from the Cabaret Voltaire, the commencement venue where Dada artists showcased their work in 1916.

Dada was an informal international movement with participants in Europe and North America that employed all kinds of media but are known peculiarly for collage, writing, photomontage and performance. Dadaists worked in collage, creating compositions by pasting together transportation tickets, maps, plastic wrappers and other artifacts of daily life. Dada artists too worked in photomontage, a variation on collage that utilized actual or reproductions of photographs printed in the press. In Cologne, Max Ernst used photographs taken from the front during World State of war I to annotate on the war. Another variation on collage used by Dadaists was assemblage, the assembly of everyday objects to produce meaningful or meaningless pieces of work, including war objects and trash.

When Globe State of war I concluded in 1918, well-nigh of the Zurich Dadaists returned to their domicile countries, while some began Dada activities in other cities.

Dada poster from 1923: This poster for a Dada soiree references the medium of collage.

Like Zurich, New York City was a refuge for writers and artists from World War I. Frenchmen Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia met American artist Man Ray in New York Urban center in 1915. The trio presently became the middle of radical anti-art activities in the Us.

During this fourth dimension, Duchamp began exhibiting "readymades" (everyday objects found or purchased and declared art) and was agile in the Society of Independent Artists. In 1917, he submitted the now famous Fountain to the Society of Contained Artists exhibition. Initially an object of scorn inside the arts community, the Fountain has since become almost canonized by some as 1 of the almost recognizable modernist works of sculpture. The committee presiding over Britain'south prestigious Turner Prize in 2004, for example, chosen it "the near influential work of modern fine art."

Fountain past Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp's appropriation of a urinal as a slice of art challenged the prevailing definition of sculpture.

By 1921, most of the original Dadaists moved to Paris, where Dada experienced its last major incarnation. Inspired past Tristan Tzara, Paris Dada soon issued manifestos, organized demonstrations, staged performances, and a number of journals.

While broad, the Dada motion was unstable. By 1924, artists had gone on to other ideas and movements including surrealism and social realism. Some theorists fence that Dada was the start of postmodern art.

Surrealism

Surrealism was a cultural movement first in the 1920s that sprang directly out of Dadaism and overlapped in many senses. Surrealist works drew inspiration from intuition, the power of the unconscious listen, and various psychological schools of thought. The work oftentimes features unexpected juxtapositions, non sequiturs, and elements of surprise.

Start and foremost, Surrealist artists and writers regarded their work every bit an expression of the philosophical move, with the artwork beingness an antiquity. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement. Surrealism adult out of the Dada activities during World State of war I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the world, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, too as political idea and practice, philosophy, and social theory.

As the Surrealists developed their philosophy, they believed that Surrealism would advocate the idea that ordinary and representative expression was vital and important, merely that expression must be fully open to the imagination. Freud's work with free clan, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists as they developed methods to liberate their imaginations.

Like Dada, Surrealism aimed to revolutionize man feel, in terms of the personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. Surrealists wanted to free people from false rationality, and also from restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed that the true aim of Surrealism was "long live the social revolution, and it alone!"

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/european-art-in-the-early-20th-century/

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