the shock of the new: part two - art history from impressionism to surrealism

This is the second part of a series on the art movements that shaped the arts that we know today. I only focused on painting as it is the form I'm most familiar with, and the discussions are just overviews (very brief overviews, I must add). Nonetheless, I hope you stil find this informative and worth your while. And don't forget to enjoy the pictures!

Impressionism signaled the coming of modern art. This movement, which originated in Paris, France is the first to totally break free from the established norms set by the pre-modernism movements which primemovers considered as rigid, conventional and traditional. In the spirit of independence, Impressionists shied away from depicting historial events and instead put on canvas scenes of everyday life - a trend that was allegedly a sign of a growing interest on popular culture. But more than the drastic change in subject matter, Impressionists introduced styles and techniques uniquely their own. Instead of painting in clearly delineated lines, brushstrokes became shorter and broken, highlighting loose imagery. Another characteristic that set them apart from previous masters is their use of dreamy colors that emphasizes the variations and play of light.

Although Edouard Manet is considered the father of Impressionists, painters like Claude Monet and Edgar Degas have also been regarded as the movement's most popular proponents. The movement's day in the sun lasted from the 1870s to the 1890s.

Postimpressionism was the movement to come from France after Manet. Though they still applied Impressionist principles: distinct brushstrokes, real-life subject matter, thick color and paint; they emphasized more the painter's personal response to his subject as opposed to the subject's immediate appearance. Their interpretation of the subject leaned towards the emotional or the spiritual and depicted this using geometric forms. The objective being, the distortion of the form for the desired expressive effect. Moreover, they practiced what they believed as their right to use unnatural and arbitrary color.

The movement which lasted from the 1880s to 1900 was led by Paul Cezaane and Henri Matisse.

Expressionism came to fore during the late 19th century to the 1920s. It was also a reaction to the rigid conventions popular in Europe during that time. In this movement, Expressionist painters, mostly from France and Germany, attempted to paint emotional experiences in forms that showed exagerrated or distorted figures. They totally did away with representing the world in realistic fashion and instead emphasized that the essential qualities of the subject are the emotions roused by it and not its physical appearance. Moreover, they used colors in heavier and thicker tones, that have overall effects that could described as violent, and exagerrated lines.

Although the major painters of the movement were Dutch Vincent van Gogh, the Norwegian Edvard Munch and French Paul Gaugin, the most important Expressionist group came from Germany under the umbrella called Die Brücke (or The Bridge),

Almost concurrent with Expressionism, Fauvism is a relatively short-lived movement that rejected the Impressionists' penchant for soft tones and instead opted for the Expressionists' aggressive palette. Their expertise in lyrical painting is typified by their subjective imagery and use of experimental colors. Fauvism was derived from les fauves which translates to "the wild beasts". One major achievement of the movement is the establishment of color as an expressive element of painting personal to the artist - as in a woman's nose could be painted green.

Spearheading the campaign was Henri Matisse followed by other proponents such as Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. The period, which started its run in 1898, slowed to a saunter in 1908.

Arguably Cubism started with Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). I say arguably because some art historians argue that the movement originated with the influence of Paul Cezanne on the works of Picasso and Georges Braque. Cezanne is said to have pioneered the simplication and flattening of forms and intoduced passage, a technique in which an object is allowed to penetrate another object physically. However, it was Picasso who took this technique to the extreme by making the transformation drastic, simplifying forms into geometic shapes that have cubic, three-dimensional quality. Picasso, along with Braque, also introduced another dimension, the undermining of the illusion of space by turning their back on the conventional depiction of perspective - creating figues that seem to appear one on top of the other.

The coining of the term Cubism is attributed to art critic Louis Vauxelles. The movement (arguably) started in 1907 and "ended" in 1915.

Dadaism, or simply Dada, was developed during World War I in Switzerland. The group behind the movement aimed to protest against established aesthetics criteria and to show their disgust toward borgeois and capitalist values which they believed led to people into war. The name dada itself is from the French for "hobbyhorse", it is a nonsense word but for the group, it illustrated their total displeasure with pleasing and attractive art even pronouncing that their movement was indeed anti-art. More than anything else, Dada's main characteristic is based on content which leaned towards political and social satires.

Though Dadaism was more of a culural movement, the major painters behind it include Marcel Duchamp, who inrtoduced readymades - everyday objects made into art by changing their context - and Francis Picabia. The movement began in 1916 and closed shop in 1922.

After World War I, seeing massive destruction and loss of human life, the Surrealist movement was created as an offshoot of Dada but putting a more positive approach to those that Dada ridiculed - culture, reason, technology and art. The movement was heavily influenced by psycholgist Sigmund Freud's work on the distinction between the id and ego and the interpretation of dreams. On the same vein, the group also went back to mythologies as source of inspiration.

Three major techniques are attributed to the movement. The exquisite corpse, or the drawing of imagery from the unconscious; frotagge the use of chance and accident which is achieved by painting or penciling on canvas that is placed above rough wood or metalwork; and automatism - perhaps the most important technique - which entails the wandering of the hand across the canvas without the intrusion of the conscious mind.

Chief among the painters in the movement were Spain's Salvador Dali and Joan Miro and Germany's Max Ernst. The period enjoyed world renown from the 1920s to the 1940s.

.

.

.