THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
art for art's sake → didn't need a motivation to exist.
MODERNISM
experimental, exploring boundaries of what art can be
contextualization:
– idea that new technologies would make everything possible. Sentiment of hope and optimism.
Invention of radio, cars, planes.
Universal exposition not only for arts but scientific and new technologies.
– Simultaneously feeling of alienation: modern world is scary.
– Nationalism no longer based on shared traditions but on ethnicity (nationalism was great in
Germany and France). Emphasis on fraternity linked to identity. Nationalism also changed the
alliances game in Europe (no longer short-term alliances based on common interests)
– Imperialism: European Nations are colonizing the world and dividing other regions. Notion of white
supremacy.
– New perception of reality → scientific discoveries (Einstein's theory of relativity): approach to time
and space shifts. Nitezsche says God is dead, Freud changes the perception of reality.
LITERATURE: stream of consciousness. Emphasis not on the story but the inner world of the narrator
James Joyce: depiction of reality (Ulysses) and decoding of subconscious (Vinnegand's Wake).
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway = crawling into her head
Franz Kafka: no longer being able to trust our rational mind. In his world, the individual lives frightened in the
universe. The individual collides with the new world. Alienation of the modern era
Umbrella movement: modernism is both a cultural movement and an artistic style. Modern era for historians
starts with the industrialization, but in art it's the 20 th century.
Fragmentation:
– desire for renewal, breaking from traditions:deliberate rejection from old styles. Experimentation
with forms, materials, techniques. Art had to reflect modern societies.
Traditional approach to art should be cancelled. Elite approach. Art was a duty to break from
tradition (how can you celebrate modernity when modernity is what brought us war?).
– Idea of avant garde: movements had manifestos
– search for abstraction: photography took away the monopoly of artists to depict reality. Abstraction
= moving away to the representational approach to art.
Shift towards the conception of reality (NOT the representation of it) in the mind of the artist and
the audience.
BEFORE WW1
Fauvism: first real avant garde movement of the 20th century, but NO manifesto
Salon d'Automne – Paris: alternative for the Salon, this was for innovative art. Fauvists in 1905 were put in
the same room, using “an orgy of pure color tones”, as a “donatello surrounded by wild beasts”.
The exhibition was a scandal. Colors were not real:
abstraction of color, simplification of form.
Sources of inspiration were Van Gogh and Gaugin.
– rejection of tridimensional space: flatness
– bright colors, spontaneous brushwork.
Henry Matisse leader
The open window: bold brushstrokes, rejection of 3-
dimensional space. Complementary colors (red + green,
orange + blue).
Canon ! Portrait of Madame Matisse / The green stripe
(1905): abstraction of color: color is not representational. Elite
art. expressive brushstroke (the closer you get the more you
can feel the brushwork), you can see the hand of the artist. It
represented a western woman. Color is NOT used to
express Matisse's feelings, it's not meant to express her
feelings. Feelings are not part of fauvism, the abstraction of
color is an exercize, an excuse to experiment with it.
The dessert: harmony in red: further experimentational.
Bigger and larger canvases. Flatness. It's rather simple
because of the importance of color.
The red studio
, Cubism (1907-8)
complete contrast with fauvism: no bright colors.
Paul Cezanne father of cubism: his landscapes showed the underline geometric forms
– emphasizing order, reflection and construction
– reduce objects to their initial shape and form, geometric scheme
– depiction of object from different povs at the same time
Reality is not the topic, but rather the imput our brain puts on reality will be what's put on canvas.
Pablo Picasso
canon ! Les Demoiselles d'Auvignon (1907): it's
five prostituts, very sexual scene because they're
looking at us. It's not erotic, it's almost violent.
Scandalous.
Le bonheur de vivre – Matisse: spatial ambiguity.
It was a response to Picasso's Demoiselles.
But Picasso has even more spatial ambiguity. It's
incoherent, very frontal and flat. Forms are sharp,
fragmentation of the image.
Combination of different viewpoints. Everything is
shown at the same time. Interest for primite art
(primitive masks inspiring the models' faces).
The idea was that in Africa, Oceania, people had
not been tainted by western culture, so they were
naive but still connected to nature.
Braque Houses at l'estaque: more geometry,
formal structure. Depht is suggested, spatial
ambiguity is clear.
Analytical cubism: abstraction from fragmentary appearance of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes.
Color is completely irrelevant cause it distracted from what was really important: abstraction of form.
Le Portugais – Braque: showing more povs at the same time. Letters used as details. Very abstract
La Coquille Saint Jacques – Picasso: the shape of the canvas determines
the shape of the painting. Different modes of representation combined.
Synthetic cubism: adding textures and patterns (collages)
Papiers Collés: collage in which you could only use paper. You were not
painting paintings but BUILDING paintings. You could use color in a non-
traditional way (if paper is blue, then the painting is gonna have blue).
More simplification of form. Modern, flat, rythimic.
canon ! Guitar, sheet music and wine glass – Picasso (1912): papier
collè, combining elements. He created a guitar by combining forms and
papers.
SCULPTURE
Constantine Brancusi: gets more and more abstract. Purified formal
language
Futurism (1909 manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti on Le figaro)
– nationalism, sexism. Reflect and celebrate their time.
– producing new art, but they don't want to be avant gard outside of society: don't wanna retreat from
society, but incorporate it. Art had to be reinvented, celebrating the new world, demonstrating the
possibilities of progress and technology.
– Celebrated the idea of war. Abstraction of MOVEMENT, dynamism, energy of mordern life.
Depicting the phases of movement, the object as it travels by.
– Violent movement. War as the world's only hygiene.
Umberto Boccioni: Development of a bottle in space: militarism, patriotism. Deconstructing movement and
mass in concrete reality.
Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio
art for art's sake → didn't need a motivation to exist.
MODERNISM
experimental, exploring boundaries of what art can be
contextualization:
– idea that new technologies would make everything possible. Sentiment of hope and optimism.
Invention of radio, cars, planes.
Universal exposition not only for arts but scientific and new technologies.
– Simultaneously feeling of alienation: modern world is scary.
– Nationalism no longer based on shared traditions but on ethnicity (nationalism was great in
Germany and France). Emphasis on fraternity linked to identity. Nationalism also changed the
alliances game in Europe (no longer short-term alliances based on common interests)
– Imperialism: European Nations are colonizing the world and dividing other regions. Notion of white
supremacy.
– New perception of reality → scientific discoveries (Einstein's theory of relativity): approach to time
and space shifts. Nitezsche says God is dead, Freud changes the perception of reality.
LITERATURE: stream of consciousness. Emphasis not on the story but the inner world of the narrator
James Joyce: depiction of reality (Ulysses) and decoding of subconscious (Vinnegand's Wake).
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway = crawling into her head
Franz Kafka: no longer being able to trust our rational mind. In his world, the individual lives frightened in the
universe. The individual collides with the new world. Alienation of the modern era
Umbrella movement: modernism is both a cultural movement and an artistic style. Modern era for historians
starts with the industrialization, but in art it's the 20 th century.
Fragmentation:
– desire for renewal, breaking from traditions:deliberate rejection from old styles. Experimentation
with forms, materials, techniques. Art had to reflect modern societies.
Traditional approach to art should be cancelled. Elite approach. Art was a duty to break from
tradition (how can you celebrate modernity when modernity is what brought us war?).
– Idea of avant garde: movements had manifestos
– search for abstraction: photography took away the monopoly of artists to depict reality. Abstraction
= moving away to the representational approach to art.
Shift towards the conception of reality (NOT the representation of it) in the mind of the artist and
the audience.
BEFORE WW1
Fauvism: first real avant garde movement of the 20th century, but NO manifesto
Salon d'Automne – Paris: alternative for the Salon, this was for innovative art. Fauvists in 1905 were put in
the same room, using “an orgy of pure color tones”, as a “donatello surrounded by wild beasts”.
The exhibition was a scandal. Colors were not real:
abstraction of color, simplification of form.
Sources of inspiration were Van Gogh and Gaugin.
– rejection of tridimensional space: flatness
– bright colors, spontaneous brushwork.
Henry Matisse leader
The open window: bold brushstrokes, rejection of 3-
dimensional space. Complementary colors (red + green,
orange + blue).
Canon ! Portrait of Madame Matisse / The green stripe
(1905): abstraction of color: color is not representational. Elite
art. expressive brushstroke (the closer you get the more you
can feel the brushwork), you can see the hand of the artist. It
represented a western woman. Color is NOT used to
express Matisse's feelings, it's not meant to express her
feelings. Feelings are not part of fauvism, the abstraction of
color is an exercize, an excuse to experiment with it.
The dessert: harmony in red: further experimentational.
Bigger and larger canvases. Flatness. It's rather simple
because of the importance of color.
The red studio
, Cubism (1907-8)
complete contrast with fauvism: no bright colors.
Paul Cezanne father of cubism: his landscapes showed the underline geometric forms
– emphasizing order, reflection and construction
– reduce objects to their initial shape and form, geometric scheme
– depiction of object from different povs at the same time
Reality is not the topic, but rather the imput our brain puts on reality will be what's put on canvas.
Pablo Picasso
canon ! Les Demoiselles d'Auvignon (1907): it's
five prostituts, very sexual scene because they're
looking at us. It's not erotic, it's almost violent.
Scandalous.
Le bonheur de vivre – Matisse: spatial ambiguity.
It was a response to Picasso's Demoiselles.
But Picasso has even more spatial ambiguity. It's
incoherent, very frontal and flat. Forms are sharp,
fragmentation of the image.
Combination of different viewpoints. Everything is
shown at the same time. Interest for primite art
(primitive masks inspiring the models' faces).
The idea was that in Africa, Oceania, people had
not been tainted by western culture, so they were
naive but still connected to nature.
Braque Houses at l'estaque: more geometry,
formal structure. Depht is suggested, spatial
ambiguity is clear.
Analytical cubism: abstraction from fragmentary appearance of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes.
Color is completely irrelevant cause it distracted from what was really important: abstraction of form.
Le Portugais – Braque: showing more povs at the same time. Letters used as details. Very abstract
La Coquille Saint Jacques – Picasso: the shape of the canvas determines
the shape of the painting. Different modes of representation combined.
Synthetic cubism: adding textures and patterns (collages)
Papiers Collés: collage in which you could only use paper. You were not
painting paintings but BUILDING paintings. You could use color in a non-
traditional way (if paper is blue, then the painting is gonna have blue).
More simplification of form. Modern, flat, rythimic.
canon ! Guitar, sheet music and wine glass – Picasso (1912): papier
collè, combining elements. He created a guitar by combining forms and
papers.
SCULPTURE
Constantine Brancusi: gets more and more abstract. Purified formal
language
Futurism (1909 manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti on Le figaro)
– nationalism, sexism. Reflect and celebrate their time.
– producing new art, but they don't want to be avant gard outside of society: don't wanna retreat from
society, but incorporate it. Art had to be reinvented, celebrating the new world, demonstrating the
possibilities of progress and technology.
– Celebrated the idea of war. Abstraction of MOVEMENT, dynamism, energy of mordern life.
Depicting the phases of movement, the object as it travels by.
– Violent movement. War as the world's only hygiene.
Umberto Boccioni: Development of a bottle in space: militarism, patriotism. Deconstructing movement and
mass in concrete reality.
Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio
