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Abstraction Artists Figure Inspiration Portrait

Fauvism and Expressionism

Fauvism and Expressionism influenced:

Project 4.1 Portrait of a Friend

Fauvism is the name applied to the work produced from around 1905 to 1910 by a group of French artists led by  Henri Matisse and André Derain, but including Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Georges Rouault, and Maurice de Vlaminck ). It was inspired by post-impressionism of Vincent van GoghPaul GauguinGeorges Seurat, and Paul Cézanne.  The name les fauves (‘the wild beasts’) was coined by the critic Louis Vauxcelles when he saw the work of Henri Matisse and André Derain in an exhibition, the salon d’automne in Paris, in 1905.

Fauvism was characterised by:

  • use of strong saturated colours as independent elements that projected a mood and established a structure for a painting  without having to be true to the natural world. They were interested in scientific colour theories and often juxtaposed complementary colours to increase vibrancy.
  • concern with strong and unified compositional balance of colour and shape elements to give an immediate strong and unified visual impression
  • fierce dynamic brushwork juxtaposed with areas of flat colour
  • all elements aimed to promote the artist’s individual expression, their direct experience of their subjects, emotional response to nature, and intuition were all more important than academic theory or elevated subject matter.

It was an important precursor to Expressionism, Cubism and future modes of abstraction.

Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (RussianАлексей Георгиевич Явленский) (13 March 1864 – 15 March 1941) was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist’s Association (Neue Künstlervereinigung München), Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group and later the Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four).

website: http://www.alexej-von-jawlensky.com/

References

    • Connaissance des arts (2017). Andre Derain: 1904-1914 La Decennie Radicale. Paris: Connaissance des arts.
    • Barnett, V. E., Ed. (2017). Alexei Jawlensky. Munich, London, New York: Prestel.
    • Derain, A. (2017). Andre Derain. London and Paris: FAGE.
    • Muller, J. E. (1967). Fauvism. London: Thames and Hudson.

Tate website: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/fauvism

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-fauvism.htm