Our study of Post-Impressionism was continued in class today. Fauvism came from wild beast in French, as an artistic exhibit with a classical sculpture in the middle was described as being surrounded by wild beasts with paintings of the Post-Impressionist style on the walls. Henri Matisse is a well known artists from this period who was interested in nonwestern art, specially African, South American, and Japanese styles. His painting Mountains at Collioure depicted a real scene but was free with color choices. The abstract forms and colors evolve the sense of reality communicated. The abstraction doesn’t give off an anxiety, just an enjoyment of color.
German Expressionism was a development of Post-Impressionist style in Germany. Two groups, Die Brücke (the bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter, were the avant-garde revolutionaries pushing the forms of artistic expression. Ernst Kirchner painted Street, Dresden in 1908 depicting a real-life scene of people walking along. But the alien colors (greens, yellows, and red) create an uncomfortable scene. The disturbing representation makes an everyday image into an alien, otherworldly experience. His woodcut Tribulations of Love evokes similar uncomfortable emotions, stirring up chaos and pain in the mix of faces, symbols, and shadows. Kandinsky, in the Der Blaue Reiter group, was strongly influenced by the reverse glass painting style. His figures therefore has strong outlines and evolved with his style to become more and more abstract, making it difficult to discern what the forms represent. Self-labeled as “nonobjective expressionism,” Kandinsky’s work was mainly about expressing a feeling rather than a specific scene.