MODERN ART

Early 20th century artistic

styles

SYMBOLISM
A predecessor of Expressionism and Surrealism

Edvard Munch
Death in the Sickroom

Painted in the post-impressionism period

Norwegian
His themes are pain, death and perverse
love
In The Scream he gives us a version of
neurotic panic breaking forth in prolonged
anxiety- Gardeners Art Through the Ages.
Presented pictures of tensions and
psychic anguish that beset men and the
loneliness that is inescapable.

Evening on Karl Johann Street

The Scream

EXPRESSIONISM
Basically a German style
Die Brucke-the bridge
Dealt with emotions which were often dark
and powerful even though colors were
exaggerated and intense
The artists state of mind over objectivity
was of utmost importance

KIRCHNER

Self Portrait with Model

A Group of Artists

KOKOSCHKA

Bride of the Wind or The Tempest

BECKMAN

1884-1950
An independent and forceful Expressionist who
left some of the most memorable works for the
German school.
His works showed some of the darkest times in
the 20th century as a reaction to Nazism.
His message is bitter, its reference to human
cruelty and suffering in general.
He fled Germany as Nazism spread and his art
was labeled degenerate.

Dancing Bar in Baden Baden

"The composition is beautifully organized. The ripple of

the dance movement is indicated by the visual rhythm of
the parallel arms, indicating the direction of the dancing
couples.
Seven hands point diagonally to the lower right. This is
counteracted by one hand in the lower left corner, and
another in the upper right pointing upward at a right angle
to the general motion.
This crowd clings together, but not from mutual
sympathy.
These men and women are unified by their utter egotism.
They know exactly what they want to squeeze out of
each other-the men want sex, the women money-but
they enjoy the squeeze. Stephen Lackner

FAUVISM
Characterized by strong colors
The name Fauve means wild beasts
and was coined after a 1905 exhibition
Unlike Expressionism, Fauve work tends
to be joyful

MATISSE

Woman with a Green Stripe

Strongly influenced by Cezanne

and Gauguin
One the Fauves (the beasts)
His love of colors, nature and
joyous subjects.
Art should be as restful as a
comfortable chair after a hard day.

Goldfish

Bowl of Apples

Pink nude is an important work in the transition to

Matisse's later painting style and to his cutouts. This
work is the first in which he used cut paper to change
and shape the image.
In the 1930s Matisse began simplifying, flattening and
abstracting forms and space. Images became signs for
what they represented as Matisse attempted to capture
the essence of his subject. He began by painting an
image and then eliminating detail to create smooth,
flattened areas. Bright colors were used and there was
an increased emphasis on the spaces (negative shapes)
between the represented objects.

Pink Nude

With the aid of assistants he set about creating

cup paper collages , often on a large scale,
called gouaches dcoups.
By maneuvering scissors through prepared
sheets of paper, he inaugurated a new phase of
his career.
The cut-out was not an abdication from painting
and sculpting: he called it painting with
scissors.
Matisse said, "Only what I created after the
illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated.

Beasts of the Sea

DADAISM
Total weirdness based on the reaction to
the atrocities of World War I
Designed to shock
Works were created out of unconventional
materials and often were based on chance
The term Dada was chosen randomly
from the dictionary

DUCHAMP

Rose Selavy

Dada is against everything even Dada! Reaction to

WWI the disillusion that is left after the war.

Nude Descending the Staircase

The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even

SURREALISM
Similar to Dada
Based on the study of the unconscious
and subconscious, Freud and dream
analysis
Began as a literary movement: influences
from T.S. Eliot.
Philosopher: Nietzsche
Intended to discover and explore the more
real than real world behind the real.

DE CHIRICO

Melancholy and Mystery of a Street

Philosophers Conquest

MAGRITTE

Golconda

Beginning in 1926, when Magritte first aimed to create

paintings that would, in his words, challenge the real
world, and concluding in 1938a historically and
biographically significant moment just prior to the
outbreak of World War II
Displacement, transformation, metamorphosis, the
misnaming of objects, and the representation of
visions seen in half-waking states are among Magrittes
innovative image-making tactics during these essential
years.

Son of Man

Time Transfixed

Clairvoyance

DALI

Painted dream images:

Persistence of Memory

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory

Soft Construction with Beans

TRANSITIONAL
These artists defy a category. They have
been labeled Dadaists, Surrealists,
Abstractioniststhey are all and none

KLEE

Paul Klee Self Portrait

Golden Fish

MIRO

Harlequins Carnival

The Poetess

Born in Russia in 1887

Many of his paintings reflect life in the Russian
village of his boyhood.
Refer to his dream life and the persecution of Jews
in Russia by pogroms.

CHAGALL

Chagall La Mariie

A Mid Summer Nights Dream

I and the Village

I and the Village is a "narrative

self-portrait" featuring memories
of Marc Chagall's childhood in the
town of Vitebsk, in Russia. T
The dreamy painting is ripe with
images of the Russian landscape
and symbols from folk stories. The
picture can be broken down into
five distinct sections.).

The first at the top right includes a rendering of

Chagall's home town, with a church, a series of
houses and two people.
The woman and some of the houses in the village are
upside down, further emphasizing the dreamlike
quality of the work. B
elow that we see a green-faced man who some say
is Chagall himself. At the bottom of the work, we see a
hand holding a flowering branch.
Next to that, an object which some say is a child's
bouncing ball - perhaps a plaything from Chagall's
earlier days.
Finally, we see the image of a milkmaid layered atop
the head of a lamb - a motif common to Chagall.
(Cows, bulls and lambs figure in many of Chagall's
paintings as cosmic symbols

ABSTRACTION
Minimal reference to natural objects
Subject matter is of little importance
The elements of design, materials and
composition are of key importance
There are several styles of abstraction,
including Bauhaus, De Stijl and, later,
abstract expressionism (late 20 th century)

KANDINSKY

Couple Riding a Horse

Study for Composition 2

MONDRIAN

The Red Tree

Broadway Boogie Woogie

Degenerate 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 Bolshevik 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 and plays were censored.