How Was an Artist Who Rejected All Forms of Representational Art

The Early 20th Century

The early 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 20th century

Primal Takeaways

Key Points

• The commencement two decades of the 20th century were marked by enormous industrial, economic, social, and cultural developments.
• International trade brought with information technology 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 goods and information were markers of the times.
• With the outbreak of Globe War I in 1914, art became heavily influenced past the want to abstract life and escape the horrific possibilities of the human condition. Artists began to question and play effectually with themes of reality, perspective, space, and fourth dimension.

Key Terms

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

The first 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 goods and information were markers of the times. Competition between nations was reflected in attempts to show off advances in technology, business organisation, and compages, among other things. Prominent scientific advancements of the time included Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Freud's development of modern psychology.

Afterward the relative peace of nearly of the 19th century, rivalry between European powers erupted in 1914 with the outbreak of the first World War. Over sixty one thousand thousand European soldiers were mobilized from 1914–1918 every bit countries around the world were called into the conflict. With the widespread expiry and destruction of the greatest state of war the world had ever seen, fine art increasingly became a means for escapism, a mode to abstract life and escape the difficulties of the human condition.

A ration party of the Imperial Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Boxing of the Somme, July 1916: The death and destruction of Globe 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 plow, 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 bailiwick matter of a number of artistic schools of thought. The rapid ascent of technology impacted artists both directly and indirectly, from the invention of new artistic materials to subject matter and themes.

Fauvism

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

Learning Objectives

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

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Fauvist motility, led by Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, officially lasted for only four years: 1904–1908.
• Vivid colour, simplification, abstraction, and unusual castor strokes are hallmarks of the Fauvist manner. Fauvist influences and references include Van Gogh's Mail- 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 profoundly influenced their piece of work.

Fundamental Terms

• Postal service-Impressionism: (Art) a genre of painting that rejected the naturalism of impressionism, using color and grade in more expressive manners.
• pointillism: In art, the use of small areas of color to construct an image.
• Fauvism: An creative movement of the concluding office of the 19th century that emphasized spontaneity and the use of extremely bright colors.

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

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

Apart 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 past seemingly wild brush work and strident colors, while their subject thing had a high degree of simplification and abstraction. Fauvism tin can exist classified as an extreme development of Van Gogh's Post-Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionist painters, in item 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'southward work.

Gustave Moreau, a controversial professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and a Symbolist painter, was the movement's inspirational instructor. Moreau taught Matisse, Marquet, Manguin, Rouault, and Camoin during the 1890s, and was viewed by critics equally the group's philosophical leader until Matisse was recognized equally such in 1904. Moreau's wide-mindedness, originality, and affirmation of the expressive say-so 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 later 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 as les Fauves, or "the wild beasts," which the artists then appropriated as the title for their movement. The painting that was singled out for special condemnation, Matisse'south Woman with a Hat, was subsequently bought by the major patrons of the avant-garde scene in Paris, Gertrude and Leo Stein.

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

Primitivism and Cubism

As one of the most influential artists of the 20^th century, Pablo Picasso is widely known for his involvement 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

Fundamental Points

• 1906–1909 is referred to as Picasso's African menstruation, during which he produced Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and several other paintings incorporating primitivist elements.
• Picasso was inspired past African artifacts also equally the work of Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin.
• The formal elements of Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon bridged Picasso's African Flow and subsequent Cubist work.
• Picasso and Georges Braque co-founded the Cubist movement, one of the most influential movements in Mod Art.
• Cubism stressed basic abstract geometric forms that presented the bailiwick from many angles simultaneously.

Key Terms

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

African Menses and Primitivism (1906–1910)

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

Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of "primitive" cultures. Around 1906, Picasso, Matisse, Derain, and other Paris-based artists had acquired an interest in Primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art, and tribal masks, in function due to the works of Paul Gauguin that had recently achieved recognition in Paris'due south advanced circles. Gauguin'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 Earth by Paul Gauguin, 1893: Picasso was greatly influenced past Gauguin'south African inspired works similar The Moon and The World.

In 1907, Picasso experienced a "revelation" while viewing African fine 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 two figures on the right side of the composition. This painting is likewise considered a protocubist work bridging Picasso's African and Cubist periods. Other works of Picasso's African Period include Bosom of a Woman (1907, in the National Gallery, Prague); Mother and Child (Summertime 1907, in the Musée Picasso, Paris); Nude with Raised Artillery (1907, in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain); and 3 Women (Summertime 1908, in the Hermitage Museum, St. petersburg).

Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso, 1907: This work is influenced by primitivism and is considered to exist one of the primeval examples of Cubist painting.

Cubism (1909–1912)

Cubism, established by Picasso and his colleague Georges Bracque, was marked by a revolutionary deviation from representational art. In Cubist artwork, objects were analyzed, broken upward, and reassembled in an abstracted form instead of existence 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 nigh influential fine art movement of the 20th century.

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

Cubism had a global reach every bit a motion, influencing similar schools of thought in literature, music, and compages. Particular offshoots beyond French republic included the movements of Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, and De Stijl, which all developed in response to Cubism. Early Futurist paintings have some commonalities with Cubism: the fusing of the past and the nowadays and the representation of different views of the subject pictured at the same time, besides called multiple perspective, simultaneity or multiplicity. Constructivism was influenced by Picasso'southward 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

Merely 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 just 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 Caput of a Woman (Fernande) with positive features depicted by negative infinite and vice versa. Marcel Duchamp was responsible for some other extreme evolution inspired by Cubism. The set up-made arose from a articulation consideration that the work itself is considered an object (just as a painting), and that it uses the material detritus of the world (as collage and newspaper mache in the Cubist construction and Aggregation). The adjacent logical stride, for Duchamp, was to present an ordinary object every bit a self-sufficient piece of work of fine art representing but itself. In 1913 he attached a cycle bicycle to a kitchen stool and in 1914 selected a bottle-drying rack as a sculpture in its own correct.

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

Cardinal Points

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

Key Terms

• futurism: An early 20th century avant-garde fine art movement focused on speed, the mechanical, and the modern, which took a securely combative attitude to traditional artistic conventions; (originated by F.T. Marinetti, amongst others).
• divisionism: In fine art, the utilize of minor areas of color to construct an image.
• constructivism: A Russian movement in modern art characterized past the creation of nonrepresentational geometric objects using industrial materials.

Cubism

Cubism was an advanced art movement of the early 20th century pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, and afterwards 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 about influential fine 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 up, and reassembled in an abstracted form. Instead of depicting objects from i viewpoint, the artist depicts the bailiwick from a multitude of viewpoints to correspond the subject area in a greater context.

Constructivism

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russian federation in 1919. Information technology entailed a rejection of the idea of autonomous art and was in favor of fine art every bit a practise for social purposes. Constructivism had a great impact on modernistic art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement. It is hard to isolate a item aesthetic common to the Constructivist philosophy every bit information technology is so broad, merely information technology tin be roughly distinguished by its use of bright, bold colour and geometric designs, especially in graphic design.

The First Working Group 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 as the combination of faktura: the particular 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 industry. After the definition would be extended to designs for two-dimensional works such every bit books and posters.

Proun Vrashchenia by El Lissitzky c. 1919: The geometric forms and brilliant colors in this painting are feature of the Constructivist aesthetic.

Futurism

Futurism was an Italian movement that emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future such equally speed, technology, youth, and violence, besides as objects such equally the automobile, the airplane, and the industrial metropolis. In 1910 and 1911 futurist painters made apply of the technique of divisionism, which entails breaking calorie-free 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, motion, and speed. The adoption of Cubism determined the way of much subsequent Futurist painting.

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

German language Expressionism

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

Learning Objectives

Discuss the importance of the grouping Die Brücke and artists such as Kirchner, Kollwitze, Schiele, and Modersohn-Becker in the development of German Expressionism

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Kathe Kollwitz, Egon Schiele, and Paula Modersohn-Becker are amongst the independent German language Expressionists who were unaffiliated with other Expressionist groups just nonetheless successful.
• Kollwitz is all-time remembered for her compassionate serial, The Weavers.
• Many of Egon Schiele's contemporaries found the explicit sexual themes of his work disturbing.
• Paula Modersohn-Becker is amidst the first recognized female artists to create nude self-portraits.

Cardinal Terms

• Weimar Democracy: The autonomous authorities of Germany from 1919 to the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler in 1933.
• expressionism: A motility in the arts in which the artist does not describe objective reality, just rather a subjective expression of inner feel.
• Fauvism: An artistic move of the terminal function of the 19th century that emphasized spontaneity and the use of extremely brilliant colors.

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, beginning with poetry and painting, that originated in Deutschland at the start of the 20th century. It emphasized subjective experience, 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 developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War and remained popular during the Weimar Republic, especially in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including painting, literature, theatre, trip the light fantastic, film, architecture, and music.

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

Die Brücke

In 1905, a grouping of four German language artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke (the Span) in the city of Dresden. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller. The grouping aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and find a new way of creative expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) betwixt the past and the present. They responded both to past artists such every bit Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald, and Lucas Cranach the Elderberry, too as contemporary international avant-garde movements. As part of the affirmation of their national heritage, they revived older media, particularly woodcut prints. Die Brücke is considered to exist a key group of the German Expressionist movement, though they did not apply the word itself. The grouping is often compared to both Primitivism and Fauvism due to their use of high-keyed, non-naturalistic colour to express extreme emotion like the Fauvists and a rough drawing technique that eschewed complete abstraction, similar the Primitivists.

Der Blaue Reiter

A few years later, in 1911, a agreeing group 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 equally Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter. Similar Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter is considered a major feature of the German Expressionist motion.

Within the group, artistic approaches and aims varied from creative person to artist, however, at that place was a shared desire to express spiritual truths through their art. Der Blaue Reiter as a group believed in the promotion of modern 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 art and Primitivism, also as the contemporary, non-figurative fine art scene in France. Equally a outcome 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 work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the homo condition, and the tragedy of war, in the first half of the 20th century. Initially her work was grounded in Naturalism, and subsequently took on Expressionistic qualities. Inspired by a operation of Gerhart Hauptmann'southward The Weavers, which dramatized the oppression of the Silesian weavers in Langembielau and their failed defection in 1842, Kollwitz produced a wheel of six works on the Weavers theme. Rather than a literal illustration of the drama, the works were a free and naturalistic expression of the workers' misery, hope, courage, and, somewhen, doom. The Weavers became Kollwitz' most widely acclaimed work.

Mother with her Expressionless Son by Käthe Kollwitz: This Kollwitz sculpture is a WWII 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 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, also as for the many self-portraits he produced. The twisted body shapes and expressive line that narrate Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Schiele was influenced by his mentor, Klimt, besides as by Edvard Munch, January Toorop, and Vincent van Gogh. Schiele explored themes not only of the homo form, only also of human sexuality. Many viewed Schiele's work every bit existence grotesque, erotic, pornographic, or disturbing, focusing on sex, decease, and discovery.

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

Paula Mendersohn-Becker

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) was a German language painter and ane of the most of import representatives of early Expressionism. In a brief career, cut short by her death at the age of 31, she created a number of groundbreaking images of great intensity. Modersohn-Becker studied briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was influenced past French post impressionists Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. On her last trip to Paris in 1906, she produced a serial of paintings about which she felt great 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 self-portraits were uncommon subjects in this era.

Abstruse Sculpture

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

Learning Objectives

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

Key Takeaways

Primal Points

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

Key Terms

• abstruse fine art: Art that is not intended to depict objects in the natural world, simply instead uses color and course in a non-representational way.
• naturalism: A artistic motion that seeks to encapsulate reality or familiar experience in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment.
• coulage: Automated or involuntary sculpture made by pouring a molten material (such as metal, wax, or chocolate) into cold water. As the material cools information technology takes on what appears to be a random (or aleatoric) form, though the concrete properties of the materials involved may pb to a conglomeration of discs or spheres.

Rodin

Auguste Rodin, forth with artists like Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin, developed a radical new approach to the cosmos 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 flesh, suggesting emotion through detailed, textured surfaces, and the coaction of low-cal and shadow.

The modernistic sculpture movement essentially began during the Rodin showroom 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 fine art, Rodin's approach to form paved the style for increasingly experimental and abstract art.

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

Influence of Cubism

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

During his flow of Cubist innovation, Picasso revolutionized the art of sculpture by combining disparate objects and materials into one sculptural work—the sculptural equivalent of collage in two dimensional fine art. Just as collage was a radical development in 2 dimensional art, and so was Cubist construction a radical development in three dimensional sculpture.

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

Influence of Surrealism

The advent of Surrealism led to objects existence described as "sculpture" that would not take been termed equally such previously. Surrealist sculpture made use of many of the same techniques as other forms of Surrealist art, such equally games to tap into the unconscious mind such as coulage, a kind of automated or involuntary sculpture made past pouring a molten material into cold water. Equally the cloth cools information technology takes on what appears to exist a random form, though the physical properties of the materials involved may lead to a conglomeration of discs or spheres. The artist may use a diverseness of techniques to touch on the outcome. Involuntary sculpture is described past Surrealists as sculpture created by absent-mindedly manipulating something, such equally rolling and unrolling a movie ticket, bending a paper clip, etc.

Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp had a deep impact 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 every bit art. Duchamp experimented a cracking deal with sculpture, creating readymades, assemblages, and kinetic works. His notion that anything tin exist art that an artist names art is an thought that has resonated throughout many historical and gimmicky 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 testify featured more 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 creative act, and André Breton named Duchamp, Wolfgang Paalen, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, and Max Ernst to help do then.

Brâncuşi

The work of Constantin Brâncuşi at the starting time of the century paved the mode for later on abstruse sculpture. In defection against the naturalism of Rodin and his late 19th-century contemporaries, Brâncuşi distilled subjects downwardly to their essences every bit illustrated by his Bird in Space series (1924). These elegantly refined abstruse forms became synonymous with 20th century sculpture.

Brâncuşi'due south impact, with his vocabulary of reduction and abstraction, 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 by Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp'southward appropriation of a urinal as a piece of art challenged the prevailing definition of sculpture.

Dada and Surrealism

Dada and Surrealism were multidisciplinary cultural movements of the European advanced that emerged in Zurich and Paris respectively during the fourth dimension of WWI.

Learning Objectives

Identify the origins, characteristics, and political ideologies of Dada

Key Takeaways

Fundamental Points

• Dada was a political movement opposed to artistic and social conformity also every bit the capitalist forces that led to WWI.
• Dada artists worked in non-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 Due north America following WWI; past the early 1920s the center of Dada activity was Paris.
• Dada informed many of the major avant-garde 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 idea.
• Surrealist artists and writers regarded their work as an expression of the philosophical movement, with the artwork being an artifact.

Key Terms

• readymade: Everyday objects found or purchased and alleged fine art. The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified as an antitoxin to what he chosen "retinal art." By simply 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 by the assemblage of diverse media; especially for a work of art like text, film, etc.
• social realism: An artistic movement that depicted social and racial injustice and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles.

Dadaism

Dada was a multi-disciplinary fine art motion that rejected the prevailing artistic standards past producing "anti-art" cultural works. Dadaism was intensely anti-war, anti-bourgeois, and held strong political affinities with the radical left. For many participants, the movement was a protestation confronting 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 broadly in society—that corresponded to the war. Many Dadaists believed that the reason and logic of bourgeois backer society had led people into state of war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and encompass anarchy and irrationality.

The origin of the name Dada is unclear. Some believe that it is a nonsensical discussion while others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, aye" in Romanian. Another theory posits that the proper name "Dada" came during a meeting of when a knife stuck into a French–German lexicon happened to signal to dada, a French give-and-take for "hobbyhorse." Probable, the origin of the name Dada is another endeavour to devalue a system of logic, namely that of linguistic communication.

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

Plaque commemorating the birth of Dada motion: This plaque is from the Cabaret Voltaire, the start 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 especially 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 also worked in photomontage, a variation on collage that utilized bodily or reproductions of photographs printed in the press. In Cologne, Max Ernst used photographs taken from the front end during World War I to comment on the war. Another variation on collage used by Dadaists was assemblage, the assembly of everyday objects to produce meaningful or meaningless pieces of piece of work, including war objects and trash.

When World War I ended in 1918, well-nigh of the Zurich Dadaists returned to their home 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 Earth State of war I. Frenchmen Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia met American artist Man Ray in New York City in 1915. The trio shortly became the center of radical anti-fine art activities in the The states.

During this time, Duchamp began exhibiting "readymades" (everyday objects found or purchased and declared art) and was active in the Society of Independent Artists. In 1917, he submitted the now famous Fountain to the Order of Independent Artists exhibition. Initially an object of scorn inside the arts customs, the Fountain has since become nearly canonized by some as ane of the most recognizable modernist works of sculpture. The commission presiding over Britain'due south prestigious Turner Prize in 2004, for example, called it "the most influential work of modern art."

Fountain past Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp's appropriation of a urinal as a piece 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 by Tristan Tzara, Paris Dada soon issued manifestos, organized demonstrations, staged performances, and a number of journals.

While wide, the Dada motion was unstable. By 1924, artists had gone on to other ideas and movements including surrealism and social realism. Some theorists argue that Dada was the get-go of postmodern art.

Surrealism

Surrealism was a cultural motion beginning 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 mind, and diverse psychological schools of idea. The work oft features unexpected juxtapositions, non sequiturs, and elements of surprise.

Get-go and foremost, Surrealist artists and writers regarded their work every bit an expression of the philosophical movement, with the artwork being an artifact. 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 middle of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the world, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, moving-picture show, and music of many countries and languages, besides equally political idea and exercise, philosophy, and social theory.

Equally the Surrealists developed their philosophy, they believed that Surrealism would advocate the idea that ordinary and representative expression was vital and of import, but that expression must exist fully open up to the imagination. Freud's work with complimentary association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists equally they developed methods to liberate their imaginations.

Like Dada, Surrealism aimed to revolutionize homo feel, in terms of the personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. Surrealists wanted to gratuitous people from false rationality, and also from restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed that the true aim of Surrealism was "long alive the social revolution, and information technology solitary!"

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

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