Surrealism

It was an artistic movement that brought together artists, thinkers and researchers in hunt of sense of expression of the unconscious. They were searching for the definition of new aesthetic, new humankind and a new social order. Surrealists had their forerunners in Italian Metaphysical Painters (Giorgio de Chirico) in early 1910's. 
   As the artistic movement, Surrealism came into being after the French poet Andre Breton 1924 published the first Manifeste du surrealisme. In this book Breton suggested that rational thought was repressive to the powers of creativity and imagination and thus inimical to artistic expression. An admirer of Sigmund Freud and his concept of the subconscious, Breton felt that contact with this hidden part of the mind could produce poetic truth. 
    Famous Surrealist artists include Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, MC Escher, Joan Miro, Rene Magritte, and Man Ray.

Salvador Dali

Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and designer. After passing through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929 and his talent for self-publicity rapidly made him the most famous representative of the movement. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism (one of his most famous acts was appearing in a diving suit at the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936), claiming that this was the source of his creative energy. He took over the Surrealist theory of automatism but transformed it into a more positive method which he named `critical paranoia'. According to this theory one should cultivate genuine delusion as in clinical paranoia while remaining residually aware at the back of one's mind that the control of the reason and will has been deliberately suspended. He claimed that this method should be used not only in artistic and poetical creation but also in the affairs of daily life. His paintings employed a meticulous academic technique that was contradicted by the unreal `dream' space he depicted and by the strangely hallucinatory characters of his imagery. He described his pictures as `hand-painted dream photographs' and had certain favorite and recurring images, such as the human figure with half-open drawers protruding from it, burning giraffes, and watches bent and flowing as if made from melting wax (The Persistence of Memory, MOMA, New York; 1931).

In 1937 Dalí visited Italy and adopted a more traditional style; this together with his political views (he was a supporter of General Franco) led Breton to expel him from the Surrealist ranks. He moved to the USA in 1940 and remained there until 1955. During this time he devoted himself largely to self-publicity; his paintings were often on religious themes (The Crucifixion of St John of the Cross, Glasgow Art Gallery, 1951), although sexual subjects and pictures centring on his wife Gala were also continuing preoccupations. In 1955 he returned to Spain and in old age became a recluse.

Apart from painting, Dalí's output included sculpture, book illustration, jewellery design, and work for the theatre. In collaboration with the director Luis Buñuel he also made the first Surrealist films---Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Age d'or (1930)---and he contributed a dream sequence to Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945). He also wrote a novel, Hidden Faces (1944) and several volumes of flamboyant autobiography. Although he is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, his status is controversial; many critics consider that he did little if anything of consequence after his classic Surrealist works of the 1930s. There are museums devoted to Dalí's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St Petersburg in Florida.

Pittura Metafisica

Pittura Metafisica (Ital. for "metaphysic painting") denotes a style that came up in Italy as early as in 1911/12, lasting up into the 1920s. The term originates from the main master and founding father of Pittura Metafisica, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). Artists such as Carlo Carrà (1881-1966) and Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) followed his example around 1917/18. 
A fundamental feature of the Pittura Metafisica, in its literal sense, is the depiction of the object's "super-natural" features (Greek "metá" = beyond; "phýsis" = nature), the object's content beyond its visible features. These ideas had clearly been influenced by Giorgio de Chirico's younger brother Andrea, who was working as a writer and painter under the pseudonym Alberto Savinio. Philosophical concepts of Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer also occupied fundamental roles in this context.
The painters of the Pittura Metafisica created coulisse-like and perspectively exaggerated views that seemed like dreams filled with over-sharply modeled figures and objects, which have been taken from their original contexts and rearranged in new and strange relations. Man is also treated as an object - as "manichino", a faceless jointed doll, or as a construct of stereometric basic forms. Isolation, alienation, inexplicability and mysteriousness coin the atmosphere of the calm, motionless Pittura Metafisica that wanted to be less a way of painting than a means of observing. 
In their concept of materiality, but also in terms of style, the artists of the Pittura Metafisica referred to the solemn and strict austerity of the Early Renaissance (Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello). The simultaneosuly upcoming dynamic Futurism can be perceived as a counter movement to the Pittura Metafisica - Carlo Carrà, up until 1915 one of the leading artists of Futurism, explained his turn to the Pittura Metafisica with the rediscovery of the "principio italiano", which was prevailing in Renaissance.
The Pittura Metafisica had effects beyond the borders of Italy, especially on New Oobjectivity and Surrealism, which both came up up a little later.

DADA

Dada was an artistic and literary movement that began in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland. It arose as a reaction to World War I, and the nationalism, and rationalism, which many thought had brought war about. Influenced by ideas and innovations from several early avant-gardes - Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism - its output was wildly diverse, ranging from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting and collage. Dada's aesthetic, marked by its mockery of materialistic and nationalistic attitudes, proved a powerful influence on artists in many cities, including Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York and Cologne, all of which generated their own groups. The movement is believed to have dissipated with the arrival of Surrealist in France.
Key Ideas

Dada was born out of a pool of avant-garde painters, poets and filmmakers who flocked to neutral Switzerland before and during WWI.

The movement came into being at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in February 1916. The Cabaret was named after the eighteenth century French satirist, Voltaire, whose playCandide mocked the idiocies of his society. As Hugo Ball, one of the founders of Zurich Dada wrote, "This is our Candide against the times."

So intent were members of Dada on opposing all the norms of bourgeois culture that the group was barely in favor of itself: "Dada is anti-Dada," they often cried.

Dada art varies so widely that it is hard to speak of a coherent style. It was powerfully influenced by Futurist and Expressionist concerns with technological advancement, yet artists like Hans Arp also introduced a preoccupation with chance and other painterly conventions.


Richard Hulsenberg
Born on 23 April 1892 in Frankenau, Hessen, Germany, died 1974. Late in his life he lived in New York under the name of Charles R. Hulbeck and practised Jungian psycho-analysis. Took a prominent part in the foundation of the Zürich and Berlin dada movements. He had been an expressionist poet and writer. Came to Zürich in February 1916 as a ware-resistor and immediately came into contact with the "Cabaret Voltaire." He returned to Berlin in January, 1917, initiating the Dada group there. Hugo Ball wrote of him, in his "Escape from Time," on 11 February 1916:

"Huelsenbeck has arrived. He pleads for an intensification of rhythm (Negro rhythm). He would best love to drum literature and to perdition."

Edited the "Dada Almanach" in Berlin in 1920 and wrote "En Avant Dada," a history of dadaism. in the same year. The author of numerous other dada publications. He claimed throughout his life that "dada is still existing," thus placing himself in direct opposition to the other founders of dadaism.

Synchromism

Synchromism, often wrongly spelt as Synchronism, was an American art movement founded in the year 1912-13. Co-founded by Abstractionists Morgan Russell (1886-1953) and Stanton MacDonald-Wright, this purely abstract style was the first to bring America on the international stage of Fine Arts. It is easy to draw a parallel between Synchromism and its Contemporary Art form Orphism, which was essentially a trend or specialization in the Cubist Art that placed a premium on the understanding and the use of colors. Orphism was considered the crucial piece leading to the evolution of Abstract Art from Cubism. The body of works in Orphism was related to the Greek God Orpheus, who represented music, fine arts, and the musical instrument lyre. Synchromism never restricted itself to a particular subject or a group of subjects. Nevertheless, in techniques and forms it remained similar to Orphism

The underlying philosophy of Synchromism is to identify and recreate the colors symmetry, which is considered a similar phenomenon as the harmonization of musical symphonies. The co-founders argued that juxtaposed or lyrically arranged, colors are capable of conveying the message just as the finely orchestrated musical notes. Therefore, the 'early' paintings in Synchromism tend to reduce the use of blended shades, flowing tones, and hues. However, as the trend moved towards complexity in the later stages, such elements began forming a part of Synchromism.S

Section D'or

Paris-based association of Cubist painters; the group was active from 1912 to about 1914.

The group’s name was suggested by the painter Jacques Villon, who had developed an interest in the significance of mathematical proportions such as the ancient concept of the golden section, thesection d’or. The name thus reflects the Cubist artists’ concern with geometric forms, although Villon and Juan Gris were the only Cubists who directly applied such concepts to their work. The principal members of the group were Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Roger de La Fresnaye, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Louis Marcoussis, Jean Metzinger, Francis Picabia, and André Dunoyer de Segonzac.

In 1912 the group first exhibited together at the Galerie la Boétie in Paris, and it also published a short-lived magazine entitled Section d’Or. The start of World War I in 1914 ended the activities of the group, which had never been more than a loose association.

A French term meaning 'golden section', this refers to an irrational proportion known since the time of EUCLID (c.3rd century BC) and once thought to possess a hidden harmonic proportion in tune with the universe.

It may be defined as a line divided in such a way that the smaller part is to the larger as the larger is to the whole.

ROBERT DELUNAY
French painter Robert Delaunay was one of the first artists to introduce vibrant color into Cubism, trend eventually known as Orphism. An important figure in 20th century art, Delaunay is often overshadowed by his contemporaries such as Picasso, Matisse and Barque. Delaunay and his wife, Sonia Terk Delaunay, worked on a large, impressive abstract mural together for the Paris Exposition in 1937.

Der Blaue Reiter

Der Blaue Reiter
The Der Blaue Reiter movement was a German expressionist art period lasting from 1911 to 1914. The name Der Blaue Reiter was taken from one of Kandinsky’s works, Le Cavalier bleu. The movement was led by Kadinsky, Klee, Marc, and Macke – a group of expressionist artists greatly influenced by the Brucke artists of the previous decade – the Der Blaue Reiter did not believe in the main objective of the Brucke movement (simply focusing on one group of artists). The Der Blaue Reiter artists attempted to find spiritual truths that they felt impressionists had not conveyed. The art movement was not stylistically unified as demonstrated by the range of pure abstractions created by Kadinsky versus the romantic images of Marc. The Der Blaue Reiter believed in changeability, new ideas, and the mixing of different ideas of spirituality and art.
Wassily Kandinsky  1866-1944

Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. One of famous 20th-century artists, he is credited with painting the first modern abstract works. 
Kandinsky's purely abstract works followed a long period of development based on his personal artistic experiences. Fascination and unusual stimulation by color in his childhood, than his study of the folk art in the region, in particular the use of bright colors on a dark background; he used later in his paintings and reflected in much his early work.
For the most part, Kandinsky's paintings did not emphasize any human figures. There are some exceptions: "Sunday, Old Russia (1904)" and "Riding Couple (1907)". Fauvism is also apparent in these early works. Perhaps the most important of Kandinsky's paintings from the decade of the 1900s was "The Blue Rider (1903)". The type of intentional disjunction applied in this painting, allows viewers to participate in the creation of the artwork would become an increasingly conscious technique used by the artist in subsequent years-culminating in his great "abstract expressionist" works of the 1911-1914. In The Blue Rider Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colors than of specific details. 

Futurism

    FUTURISM

   Futurism came into being with the appearance of a manifesto published by the poet Filippo Marinetti on the front page of the February 20, 1909, issue of Le Figaro. It was the very first manifesto of this kind. The Futurists loved speed, noise, machines, pollution, and cities; they embraced the exciting new world that was then upon them rather than hypocritically enjoying the modern world's comforts while loudly denouncing the forces that made them possible. Fearing and attacking technology has become almost second nature to many people today; the Futurist manifestos show us an alternative philosophy.

   Futurism was inspired by the development of Cubism and went beyond its techniques. The Futurist painters made the rhythm of their repetitions of lines. Inspired by some photographic experiments, they were breaking motion into small sequences, and using the wide range of angles within a given time-frame all aimed to incorporate the dimension of time within the picture. Brilliant colors and flowing brush strokes also additionally were creating the illusion of movement. Futurism influenced many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism and Surrealism. 
   Although Futurism itself is now regarded as extinct, having died out during the 1920s, powerful echoes of Marinetti's thought, still remain in modern, popular culture and art. Futurism influenced many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism and Surrealism. 

    Main represantatives of Futurism are;Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carra, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severi
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Les Fauves and Die Brücke

Les Fauves

    Fauvism is a movement in French painting that revolutionized the concept of color in modern art. Fauves earned their name ("les fauves"-wild beasts) by shocking exhibit visitors on their first public appearance, in 1905.
   At the end of the nineteenth century, neo Impressionist painters were already using pure colors, but they applied those colors to their canvases in small strokes. The fauves rejected the impressionist palette of soft, shimmering tones in favor of radical new style, full of violent color and bold distortions.
   These painters never formed a movement in the strict sense of the word, but for years they would nurse a shared ambition, before each went his separate and more personal way.
    Main representatives od Les Fauves are; Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Andre Derain, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, Albert Marquet, Charles Camoin, Georges Braque, Othon Friesz, Henry- Charles Manguin, Jean Puy.

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, noted for his use of color and his fluid, brilliant and original draughtsmanship. As a painter, Matisse is one of the best-known artists of the twentieth century. Although he was initially labeled as a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing is apparent in a body of work spanning over a half-century, and won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.

Die Brücke

   Die Brucke was the association of artist expressionists from Dresden, Germany. Their first exhibition was held in 1906.
   Die Brucke made use of a technique that was controlled, intentionally unsophisticated and crude, developing a style hallmarked by expressive distortions and emphases. Die Brucke artists often used color similar to the Fauves, and they were also influenced by art form from Africa and Oceania. 
   Some of the painters in the group sympathized with the revolutionary socialism of the day and drew inspiration from Van Gogh's ideas on artists' communities. Die Brucke expressionists believed that their social criticism of the ugliness of modern life could lead to a new and better future.

Expressionism

Expressionism

    Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting. It is originated in Germany. Expressinism is artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements.    The expressionistic tradition was significantly, rose to the emergence with a series of paintings of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh from the last year and a half of his life. There was recorded his heightened emotional state. One of the earliest and most famous examples of Expressionism is Gogh's "The Starry Night." Whatever was cause, it cannot be denied that a great many artists of this period assumed that the chief function of art was to express their intense feelings to the world.
     In the years just around 1910 the expressionistic approach pioneered by Ensor, Munch, and van Gogh, in particular, was developed in the work of three artists' groups: the Fauves, Die Brucke, Der Blaue Reiter.      Main representatives of Expressionism are; Vincent van Gogh, James Ensor, Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Marc Chagal, Salvador Dali, Henri Metisse, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive piece. Expressive luminosity of color and blotchy brushwork are Vincent van Gogh's distinguishing characteristics which made him the model of expressionist painters at the turn of the century.     Initially, van Gogh worked only with somber colors, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. Although his own painting style was primarily developed autodidactically, he incorporated impressionistic brighter colors and their style of painting into his, uniquely recognizable style. It was fully developed after he settled in Arles, and this stay in Provence. It is seen as the zenith of his creative work.

     He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness. In 1890, he died from the consequences of the attempt of suicide.

     Van Gogh's pictures, which were not saleable during his lifetime, are today auctioned at very high prices. He is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.

SYMBOLISM AND LES NABIS

SYMBOLISM
      Symbolism refers to movements in both literature and the visual arts during the late 19th Century. Symbolism was seen in France. In symbolism art became infused with mysticism. French Symbolism is a continuation of Romantism and it is opposed to Impressionism.          The term Symbolism means the systematic use of symbols or pictorial conventions to express an allegorical meaning. Symbolism is an important element of most religious arts and reading symbols plays a main role in psychoanalysis. Thus, the Symbolist painters used these symbols from mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul.
         Not so much a style of art, Symbolism was more an international ideological trend. Symbolists believed that art should apprehend more absolute truths which could only be accessed indirectly. Thus, they painted scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena in a highly metaphorical and suggestive manner. They provided particular images or objects with esoteric attractions.
      Sybolism includes such artists as, John Henry Fusseli and Caspar David Friedrich . Anticipating Freud and Jung, the Symbolists mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul. More a philosophical approach than an actual style of art, they influenced their contemporaries in the Art Nauveau movement and Les Nabis. The leading Symbolists included Gustave Mouraveu, Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon.

   LES NABIS

      Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist artists and illustrators in Paris who became very influential in the field of graphic art .      Their name derived from the Hebrew word navi, which means prophet. The group was comprised of Post-Impressionist artists who became interested in graphic art. The movement shared many of the ideas of the Art Nouveau style and Symbolism. Les Nabis began as a rebel group of young artists who met and formed at the Academie Julian in Paris. In addition to fine arts, members of the group also worked in printmaking, poster design, illustration, textiles, furniture, and set design.       Some of the representatives of Les Nabis are; Pierre Bonnard, Felix Vallaton, Denis Maurice and Eduard Muillard.

Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism

IMPRESSIONISM
   Impressionism is a 19th century artistic movement which was seen in France. It was first seen in painting and later on in music. Impressionism sometimes called optical realism because of its almost scientific interest in the actual visual experience and effect of light and movement on appeareance of objects.    Impressionist motto - human eye is a marvelous instrument. Impact worldwide was lasting and huge. The name 'Impressionists' came as artists embraced the nickname a conservative critic used to ridicule the whole movement. Painting 'Impression: Sunrise' by Claude Monet fathered derogatory referral. Impressionist fascination with light and movement was at the core of their art. Exposure to light and/or movement was enough to create a justifiable and fit artistic subject out of literally anything. Impressionists learned how to transcribe directly their visual sensations of nature, unconcerned with the actual depiction of physical objects in front of them. Two ideas of Impressionists are expressed here. One is that a quickly painted oil sketch most accurately records a landscape's general appearance. The second idea that art benefits from a naïve vision untainted by intellectual preconceptions was a part of both the naturalist and the realist traditions, from which their work evolved.

NEO-IMPRESSIONISM (after 1880)
   Neo-Impressionism outgrew the Impressionism. Many Impressionists in the years after 1880 began to reconsider their earlier approaches or make important adjustments to them. What many of them found objectionable in their earlier art was not its truth value but its lack of permanence. Despite the fundamental similarity of conception, later works differ from earlier works in two fundamental respects. The elements, especially the figures, are more solidly and conventionally defined, and composition is more conservative. They moved far from her early commitment to depicting only contemporary moments. This pattern of rejection and reform was originated by Georges-Pierre Seur, who made use of a technique called pointillism (known as confettiism). This new technique is based on the skillful putting side by side touches of pure color. The brain then blends the colors automatically in the involuntary process of optical mixing. Other neo-impressionists include Camille Pisarro, Paul Signac, Theodoor van Rysselberghe, and Henry Edmond Cross.