Expressionism: A Bold New Movement

ELUMBA GESTAFELIZARTA IBARRAGABORGALAGAR

Expressionism• In the early 1900s, there arose in the Western art world a

movement that came to be known as expressionism. Expressionist artists created works with more emotional force, rather than with realistic or natural images. To achieve this, they distorted outlines, applied strong colors, and exaggerated forms. They worked more with their imagination and feelings, rather than with what their eyes saw in the physical world.

• Among the various styles that arose within the expressionist art movements were:

neoprimitivism fauvism dadaism surrealism social realism

Neoprimitivism• Neoprimitivism was an art style that incorporated

elements from the native arts of the South Sea Islanders and the wood carvings of African tribes which suddenly became popular at that time.

• Among the Western artists who adapted these elements was Amedeo Modigliani, who used the oval faces and elongated shapes of African art in both his sculptures and paintings.

Name: Amedeo Clemente ModiglianiBorn: 12 July 1884Livorno, Tuscany, ItalyDied: 24 January 1920 (aged 35)Paris, FranceNationality: ItalianEducation: Accademia di Belle Arti, FlorenceKnown for Painting, sculptureNotable work: Redheaded Girl in Evening Dress

Madame Pompadour Jeanne Hébuterne in Red Shawl

Yellow SweaterAmedeo Modigliani, 1919Oil on canvas

HeadAmedeo Modigliani, c. 1913Stone

FAUVISMFauvism was a style that used bold vibrant colors and visual distortions. Its name was drived from les fauves (“wild beasts”), referring to the group of French expressionist painters who painted in this style. Perhaps the most known among them was Henri Matisse. Name: Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse

Born : 31 December 1869Le Cateau-Cambrésis, NordDied: 3 November 1954 (aged 84)Nice, Alpes-MaritimesNationality: FrenchEducation: Académie Julian, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave MoreauNotable work: Woman with a Hat, 1905

Nu bleu, 1907 La Danse, 1909

Blue WindowHenri Matisse, 1911Oil on canvas

Woman with HatHenri Matisse, 1905Oil on canvas

Dadaism• Dadaism was a style characterized by dream

fantasies, memory images, and visual tricks and surprises—as in the paintings ofMarc Chagall and Giorgio de Chirico below. Although the works appeared playful, the movement arose from the pain that a group of European artists felt after the suffering brought byWorld War I. Wishing to protest against the civilization that had brought on such horrors, these artists rebelled against established norms and authorities, and against the traditional styles in art. They chose the child’s term for hobbyhorse, dada, to refer to their new “non-style.”

Melancholy and Mystery of a Street Giorgio de Chirico, 1914Oil on canvas

I and the VillageMarc Chagall, 1911Oil on canvas

Surrealism• Surrealism was a style that depicted an illogical,

subconscious dream world beyond the logical, conscious, physical one. Its name came from the term “super realism,” with its artworks clearly expressing a departure fromreality—as though the artists were dreaming, seeing illusions, or experiencing an altered mental state.

Persistence of MemorySalvador Dali, 1931Oil on canvas

• Many surrealist works depicted morbid or gloomy subjects, as in those by Salvador Dali. Others were quite playful and even humorous, such as those by Paul Klee and Joan Miro.

Diana Paul Klee, 1932 Oil on wood

Personages with StarJoan Miro, 1933Oil on canvas

Social Realism• The movement known as social realism.expressed

the artist’s role in social reform. Here, artists used their works to protest against the injustices, inequalities, immorality, and ugliness of the human condition. In different periods of history, social realists have addressed different issues: war, poverty, corruption, industrial and environmental hazards, and more—in the hope of raising people’s awareness and pushing society to seek reforms. Ben Shahn’s Miners’ Wives, for example, spoke out against the hazardous conditions faced by coal miners, after a tragic accident killed 111workers in Illinois in 1947, leaving their wives and children in mourning.

Miners’ WivesBen Shahn, 1948Egg tempera on board

GuernicaPablo Picasso, 1937Oil on canvas (Size: 11’ 5 1/2” x 25’ 5 3/4”)

• Pablo Picasso’s Guernica has been recognized as the most monumental and

• comprehensive statement of social realismagainst the brutality of war. Filling onewall of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, it was Picasso’s outcry against the German air raid of the town of Guernica in his native Spain. Created in the mid-1900s, Guernica combined artistic elements developed in the earlier decades with those still to come. It made use of the exaggeration, distortion, and shock technique of expressionism. At the same time, it had elements of the emerging style that would later be known as cubism.