This Art Movement Originated in Paris During the Early 20th Century

The Early 20th Century

The early 20th century was marked past rapid industrial, economic, social, and cultural change, which influenced the worldview of many and set the stage for new artistic movements.

Learning Objectives

Identify how industrial, economic, social, and cultural change set the stage for the fine art movements of the early on 20th century

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The beginning two decades of the 20th century were marked by enormous industrial, economic, social, and cultural developments.
• International merchandise brought with it increasing growth and prosperity, along with a rise in poverty and slums in major cities. Urbanization, advances in science and engineering science, 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 desire to abstract life and escape the horrific possibilities of the man condition. Artists began to question and play around with themes of reality, perspective, infinite, and time.

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 modify. International trade brought with it increasing growth and prosperity, along with a rising in poverty and slums in major cities. Urbanization, architectural advances, increases in technology, and the spread of goods and data were markers of the times. Competition betwixt nations was reflected in attempts to show off advances in engineering science, concern, and architecture, among other things. Prominent scientific advancements of the time included Einstein'due south Theory of Relativity and Freud's development of modernistic psychology.

After the relative peace of most of the 19th century, rivalry between European powers erupted in 1914 with the outbreak of the first World War. Over 60 1000000 European soldiers were mobilized from 1914–1918 as countries around the world were chosen into the conflict. With the widespread death and destruction of the greatest war the world had ever seen, art increasingly became a means for escapism, a way to abstruse life and escape the difficulties of the human condition.

A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916: The death and devastation of World War I contributed to the want of artists to abstruse life.

The economical and social changes of the early 20th century greatly influenced the N American and European worldview which, in turn, 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'due south Theory of Relativity contributed to the development of cubism, and developments in psychology greatly influenced the subject affair of a number of artistic schools of thought. The rapid rise 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 group of early 20th century Modern artists based in Paris whose works challenged Impressionist values.

Learning Objectives

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

Cardinal Takeaways

Key Points

• The Fauvist movement, led by Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, officially lasted for only four years: 1904–1908.
• Vivid color, simplification, abstraction, and unusual brush strokes are hallmarks of the Fauvist style. Fauvist influences and references include Van Gogh's Post- 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 work.

Central Terms

• Mail-Impressionism: (Fine art) a genre of painting that rejected the naturalism of impressionism, using color and form in more expressive manners.
• pointillism: In art, the use of modest areas of colour to construct an image.
• Fauvism: An creative movement of the concluding part of the 19th century that emphasized spontaneity and the employ of extremely bright colors.

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

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

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 by seemingly wild brush work and strident colors, while their field of study affair had a high caste of simplification and abstraction. Fauvism can be classified as an extreme development of Van Gogh's Post-Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionist painters, in particular 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's work.

Gustave Moreau, a controversial professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and a Symbolist painter, was the move's inspirational teacher. Moreau taught Matisse, Marquet, Manguin, Rouault, and Camoin during the 1890s, and was viewed by critics as the group's philosophical leader until Matisse was recognized every bit such in 1904. Moreau'due south broad-mindedness, originality, and affidavit 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 village of Collioure, and later on that yr 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 motility. The painting that was singled out for special condemnation, Matisse's Adult female 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 by Henri Matisse, 1905.: This painting was rejected by critics when initially exhibited, but was soon acquired by avant-garde collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein.

Primitivism and Cubism

Equally one of the most influential artists of the twenty^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

Key Points

• 1906–1909 is referred to as Picasso's African flow, during which he produced Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and several other paintings incorporating primitivist elements.
• Picasso was inspired past African artifacts too equally the piece of work of Mail service-Impressionist creative person Paul Gauguin.
• The formal elements of Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon bridged Picasso's African Period and subsequent Cubist work.
• Picasso and Georges Braque co-founded the Cubist motility, i of the most influential movements in Modernistic Art.
• Cubism stressed basic abstruse geometric forms that presented the bailiwick from many angles simultaneously.

Key Terms

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

African Period and Primitivism (1906–1910)

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the European cultural elite 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 about the African kingdom of Dahomey. The mistreatment of Africans in the Belgian Congo was exposed in Joseph Conrad'due south popular volume, Heart of Darkness.

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

In 1907, Picasso experienced a "revelation" while viewing African art at the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro. African fine art influenced Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), specially in its handling of the two figures on the correct side of the composition. This painting is also 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 (Summer 1907, in the Musée Picasso, Paris); Nude with Raised Arms (1907, in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain); and Three Women (Summer 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 be one of the primeval examples of Cubist painting.

Cubism (1909–1912)

Cubism, established past Picasso and his colleague Georges Bracque, was marked by a revolutionary departure from representational art. In Cubist artwork, objects were analyzed, broken up, 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 most influential art movement of the 20th century.

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

Cubism had a global accomplish as a movement, influencing similar schools of thought in literature, music, and architecture. Particular offshoots beyond France included the movements of Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, and De Stijl, which all developed in response to Cubism. Early Futurist paintings take some commonalities with Cubism: the fusing of the by and the present and the representation of different views of the subject pictured at the same fourth dimension, also called multiple perspective, simultaneity or multiplicity. Constructivism was influenced by Picasso's technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements. Other common threads between these disparate movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms, and the association of mechanization and modern life.

Cubist Sculpture

Merely as in painting, Cubist sculpture is rooted in Paul Cézanne'southward 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 Head of a Adult female (Fernande) with positive features depicted by negative space and vice versa. Marcel Duchamp was responsible for another extreme evolution inspired by Cubism. The prepare-made arose from a articulation consideration that the work itself is considered an object (just as a painting), and that it uses the cloth detritus of the world (as collage and paper mache in the Cubist structure and Assemblage). The next logical step, for Duchamp, was to nowadays an ordinary object as a self-sufficient piece of work of fine art representing just itself. In 1913 he attached a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and in 1914 selected a canteen-drying rack as a sculpture in its own correct.

Other Forms of Cubism

Futurism and Constructivism developed from Cubism in Italy and Russia 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 artistic subject 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 of import attribute of Futurist and Cubist work.
• Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Pierre Reverdy, and William Faulkner all applied Cubist principles to written work.
• Cubist poets and writers likewise influenced Dada and Surrealism.

Key Terms

• futurism: An early on 20th century advanced fine art move focused on speed, the mechanical, and the mod, which took a deeply antagonistic mental attitude to traditional artistic conventions; (originated by F.T. Marinetti, among others).
• divisionism: In art, the utilize of small areas of color to construct an image.
• constructivism: A Russian movement in modern fine art characterized past the cosmos of nonrepresentational geometric objects using industrial materials.

Cubism

Cubism was an avant-garde art movement of the early 20th century pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, and later 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 architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century.

Violin and Candlestick past 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 one viewpoint, the creative person depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to stand for the subject in a greater context.

Constructivism

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russian federation in 1919. It entailed a rejection of the thought of democratic art and was in favor of art equally a exercise for social purposes. Constructivism had a great bear upon on modern fine art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement. It is difficult to isolate a particular aesthetic common to the Constructivist philosophy as it is and then wide, but it tin be roughly distinguished by its use of bright, assuming color and geometric designs, specially in graphic pattern.

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 every bit the combination of faktura: the particular material backdrop of an object, and tektonika, its spatial presence. Initially the Constructivists worked on three-dimensional constructions as a ways of participating in industry. Subsequently the definition would be extended to designs for 2-dimensional works such as books and posters.

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

Futurism

Futurism was an Italian movement that emphasized and glorified themes associated with gimmicky concepts of the future such equally speed, technology, youth, and violence, besides as objects such as the car, the aeroplane, and the industrial city. In 1910 and 1911 futurist painters fabricated apply of the technique of divisionism, which entails breaking lite and colour 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 ways of analyzing energy in paintings and visually expressing their desired focus on dynamism, movement, and speed. The adoption of Cubism determined the style of much subsequent Futurist painting.

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

German Expressionism

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

Learning Objectives

Hash out the importance of the group Dice Brücke and artists such as Kirchner, Kollwitze, Schiele, and Modersohn-Becker in the evolution of German Expressionism

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Kathe Kollwitz, Egon Schiele, and Paula Modersohn-Becker are amongst the independent High german Expressionists who were unaffiliated with other Expressionist groups simply yet successful.
• Kollwitz is best remembered for her compassionate series, The Weavers.
• Many of Egon Schiele'south contemporaries institute the explicit sexual themes of his work disturbing.
• Paula Modersohn-Becker is among the outset recognized female artists to create nude self-portraits.

Key Terms

• Weimar Republic: The democratic regime of Deutschland from 1919 to the assumption of power past Adolf Hitler in 1933.
• expressionism: A movement in the arts in which the artist does not depict objective reality, but rather a subjective expression of inner feel.
• Fauvism: An artistic move of the last function of the 19th century that emphasized spontaneity and the use of extremely vivid colors.

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, get-go with poetry and painting, that originated in Germany at the start of the 20th century. It emphasized subjective experience, manipulating perspective for emotional effect in guild to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express significant or emotional feel rather than concrete reality.

Expressionism was adult every bit an advanced way before the Offset World War and remained popular during the Weimar Commonwealth, particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a broad range of the arts, including painting, literature, theatre, dance, moving picture, architecture, and music.

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

Die Brücke

In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke (the Bridge) in the metropolis of Dresden. Afterward members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller. The group aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and observe a new mode of artistic expression, which would course a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the nowadays. They responded both to past artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald, and Lucas Cranach the Elder, besides as contemporary international avant-garde movements. Every bit part of the affirmation of their national heritage, they revived older media, particularly woodcut prints. Dice Brücke is considered to be a key grouping of the German Expressionist motion, though they did not use the word itself. The group is often compared to both Primitivism and Fauvism due to their apply of loftier-keyed, non-naturalistic colour to limited extreme emotion similar the Fauvists and a crude drawing technique that eschewed complete brainchild, like the Primitivists.

Der Blaue Reiter

A few years afterwards, in 1911, a agreeing group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Passenger) 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 as Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter. Like Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter is considered a major feature of the German language Expressionist motion.

Within the group, artistic approaches and aims varied from artist to artist, still, there was a shared desire to express spiritual truths through their art. Der Blaue Reiter equally a group believed in the promotion of modern art, the connection between visual fine art and music, the spiritual and symbolic associations of color, and a spontaneous, intuitive arroyo to painting. Members were interested in European medieval art and Primitivism, as well as the contemporary, not-figurative art scene in France. As a result of their encounters with Cubist, Fauvist and Rayonist ideas, they moved towards abstruse art.

Kathe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a German language painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and oftentimes searing account of the human condition, and the tragedy of war, in the showtime one-half of the 20th century. Initially her work was grounded in Naturalism, and afterward took on Expressionistic qualities. Inspired by a performance of Gerhart Hauptmann's The Weavers, which dramatized the oppression of the Silesian weavers in Langembielau and their failed defection in 1842, Kollwitz produced a cycle of six works on the Weavers theme. Rather than a literal analogy of the drama, the works were a free and naturalistic expression of the workers' misery, hope, courage, and, eventually, doom. The Weavers became Kollwitz' most widely acclaimed piece of work.

Female parent with her Dead Son past 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 piece of work is noted for its intensity, besides as for the many self-portraits he produced. The twisted trunk shapes and expressive line that narrate Schiele'due south paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Schiele was influenced by his mentor, Klimt, also as past Edvard Munch, Jan Toorop, and Vincent van Gogh. Schiele explored themes not only of the human form, but also of human being sexuality. Many viewed Schiele's work as being grotesque, erotic, pornographic, or agonizing, focusing on sex, death, and discovery.

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

Paula Mendersohn-Becker

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) was a German painter and i of the most of import representatives of early on Expressionism. In a brief career, cut short by her death at the historic period 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 by French mail impressionists Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. On her last trip to Paris in 1906, she produced a series of paintings about which she felt corking 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 past Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1906: Female nude self-portraits were uncommon subjects in this era.

Abstract Sculpture

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

Learning Objectives

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

Key Takeaways

Central Points

• Auguste Rodin is seen as the progenitor of modern sculpture.
• Picasso and boyfriend cubist artists developed new means of constructing works of fine art using collage, or sculptural assemblage using disparate materials. This is known as Cubist constructionism.
• Surrealism farther expanded upon contemporary definitions of sculpture by introducing the concept of the " readymade."
• Constantin Brâncuşi rejected naturalism in sculpture as well as any form of representational art. His minimal, abstract artworks effort to depict the essence of an object.

Cardinal Terms

• abstract art: Art that is non intended to depict objects in the natural earth, but instead uses color and form in a non-representational mode.
• naturalism: A artistic movement that seeks to encapsulate reality or familiar feel in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment.
• coulage: Automatic or involuntary sculpture made past pouring a molten material (such as metal, wax, or chocolate) into cold water. As the cloth cools it takes on what appears to be a random (or aleatoric) grade, though the physical properties of the materials involved may lead to a conglomeration of discs or spheres.

Rodin

Auguste Rodin, along with artists like Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin, developed a radical new arroyo to the creation of sculpture in the 19th century. Rodin was a naturalist, less concerned with monumental expression than with graphic symbol and emotion. Departing from centuries of tradition, he turned away from the idealism of the Greeks and the decorative dazzler of the Bizarre and neo-Bizarre movements. His sculpture emphasized the private and the concreteness of mankind, suggesting emotion through detailed, textured surfaces, and the interplay of light and shadow.

The modern sculpture movement substantially began during the Rodin exhibit at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. At this outcome, 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 arroyo to course paved the way for increasingly experimental and abstruse art.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin: Rodin's experiments with class, visible in The Thinker, launched modernistic abstruse sculpture.

Influence of Cubism

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

During his catamenia 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 art. Just as collage was a radical evolution in two dimensional art, so was Cubist construction a radical development in three dimensional sculpture.

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

Influence of Surrealism

The advent of Surrealism led to objects beingness described as "sculpture" that would non have been termed equally such previously. Surrealist sculpture fabricated apply of many of the same techniques equally other forms of Surrealist art, such as games to tap into the unconscious mind such as coulage, a kind of automatic or involuntary sculpture fabricated by pouring a molten textile into cold water. Every bit the material cools it takes on what appears to be a random course, though the physical properties of the materials involved may atomic number 82 to a conglomeration of discs or spheres. The artist may use a variety of techniques to affect the outcome. Involuntary sculpture is described past Surrealists equally sculpture created by absent-mindedly manipulating something, such as rolling and unrolling a picture ticket, bending a newspaper clip, etc.

Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp had a deep impact on the evolution of abstraction in sculpture. He originated the apply of the "found object" or "readymade" with pieces similar Fountain (1917), a urinal that was displayed as art. Duchamp experimented a great deal with sculpture, creating readymades, assemblages, and kinetic works. His notion that annihilation can be art that an artist names art is an idea that has resonated throughout many historical and gimmicky movements. Though never considered himself to be a Surrealist, he was involved socially with many primal members of the movement and his ideas were of influence.

Duchamp participated in the blueprint of the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition, which was held at the Galerie des Beaux-arts, Paris. The evidence featured more than than threescore artists from unlike countries, including approximately 300 paintings, objects, collages, photographs, and installations. The surrealists wanted to create an exhibition which in itself would be a artistic deed, and André Breton named Duchamp, Wolfgang Paalen, Human Ray, Salvador Dali, and Max Ernst to help do so.

Brâncuşi

The piece of work of Constantin Brâncuşi at the commencement of the century paved the way for later abstract sculpture. In revolt confronting the naturalism of Rodin and his tardily 19th-century contemporaries, Brâncuşi distilled subjects downwardly to their essences equally illustrated past his Bird in Space series (1924). These elegantly refined abstract forms became synonymous with 20th century sculpture.

Brâncuşi'southward touch, 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's cribbing of a urinal as a slice of art challenged the prevailing definition of sculpture.

Dada and Surrealism

Dada and Surrealism were multidisciplinary cultural movements of the European avant-garde that emerged in Zurich and Paris respectively during the time of WWI.

Learning Objectives

Identify the origins, characteristics, and political ideologies of Dada

Cardinal Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• Dada was a political movement opposed to artistic and social conformity also as 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 creative purposes.
• Dada spread throughout Europe and North America following WWI; by the early on 1920s the heart 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 listen, and various psychological schools of idea.
• Surrealist artists and writers regarded their work equally an expression of the philosophical motion, with the artwork beingness an artifact.

Key Terms

• readymade: Everyday objects establish or purchased and declared art. The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified every bit an antidote to what he called "retinal art." By but choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning, joining, titling, and signing it, the object became art.
• collage: A blended object or drove (abstruse or concrete) created by the aggregation of various media; especially for a piece of work of art similar text, film, etc.
• social realism: An creative move that depicted social and racial injustice and economical hardship through unvarnished pictures of life'southward struggles.

Dadaism

Dada was a multi-disciplinary art motility that rejected the prevailing artistic standards by producing "anti-art" cultural works. Dadaism was intensely anti-state of war, anti-conservative, and held strong political affinities with the radical left. For many participants, the movement was a protest against 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 than broadly in lodge—that corresponded to the state of war. Many Dadaists believed that the reason and logic of bourgeois capitalist club had led people into state of war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality.

The origin of the name Dada is unclear. Some believe that it is a nonsensical word while others maintain that information technology originates from the Romanaian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco'south frequent use of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, yes" in Romanaian. Some other theory posits that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of when a knife stuck into a French–High german dictionary happened to point to dada, a French discussion for "hobbyhorse." Likely, the origin of the name Dada is another attempt to devalue a system of logic, namely that of language.

Dada began in Zurich in 1916. Key figures in the Dada movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, and Raoul Hausmann, among others. The motility influenced afterwards styles like advanced, and movements including Surrealism, Nouveau réalisme, pop art and Fluxus.

Plaque commemorating the birth of Dada movement: This plaque is from the Cabaret Voltaire, the beginning venue where Dada artists showcased their work in 1916.

Dada was an informal international move 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 actual or reproductions of photographs printed in the press. In Cologne, Max Ernst used photographs taken from the front during World War I to comment on the state of war. Another variation on collage used by Dadaists was assemblage, the assembly of everyday objects to produce meaningful or meaningless pieces of work, including war objects and trash.

When World War I ended in 1918, nearly 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 World War I. Frenchmen Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia met American artist Homo Ray in New York City in 1915. The trio soon became the center of radical anti-art activities in the U.s..

During this time, Duchamp began exhibiting "readymades" (everyday objects institute or purchased and alleged art) and was active in the Society of Contained Artists. In 1917, he submitted the at present famous Fountain to the Social club of Independent Artists exhibition. Initially an object of scorn within the arts community, the Fountain has since go virtually canonized past some as ane of the most recognizable modernist works of sculpture. The committee presiding over Britain's prestigious Turner Prize in 2004, for case, chosen it "the near influential work of modern art."

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp'due south appropriation of a urinal as a piece of fine art challenged the prevailing definition of sculpture.

Past 1921, nearly of the original Dadaists moved to Paris, where Dada experienced its terminal major incarnation. Inspired by Tristan Tzara, Paris Dada soon issued manifestos, organized demonstrations, staged performances, and a number of journals.

While wide, the Dada movement was unstable. By 1924, artists had gone on to other ideas and movements including surrealism and social realism. Some theorists fence that Dada was the outset of postmodern art.

Surrealism

Surrealism was a cultural motion outset in the 1920s that sprang direct out of Dadaism and overlapped in many senses. Surrealist works drew inspiration from intuition, the ability of the unconscious mind, and various psychological schools of idea. The piece of work oft features unexpected juxtapositions, not sequiturs, and elements of surprise.

First and foremost, Surrealist artists and writers regarded their piece of work as an expression of the philosophical movement, with the artwork being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was in a higher place all a revolutionary movement. Surrealism adult out of the Dada activities during World War I and the near of import center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the motility spread around the earth, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, picture show, and music of many countries and languages, as well equally political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.

As the Surrealists developed their philosophy, they believed that Surrealism would advocate the thought that ordinary and representative expression was vital and of import, but that expression must be fully open to the imagination. Freud's work with free association, dream assay, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists as they developed methods to liberate their imaginations.

Like Dada, Surrealism aimed to revolutionize human experience, in terms of the personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. Surrealists wanted to gratuitous people from imitation rationality, and also from restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed that the true aim of Surrealism was "long live the social revolution, and it lonely!"

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

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