We started today’s lecture with a quick discussion about Paul Gaugin and his works in both Brittany and in Tahiti. When he was working in France most of his works and a Post-Impressionistic flavor, relying on color and simple geometric forms to create simple, dream-like, and totally personal images like his Jacob Wrestling the Angel, which shows a small group of women experiencing a shared vision of Jacob and the Angel as evidenced by the arbitrarily-chosen yet striking red ground. His later works, ones done amidst the lush tropical Polynesian landscapes, draw from various artistic traditions like those of the Tahitians to create painted collages of icons and symbols that describe Gaugin’s personal and artistic philosophies.
Informed by the color and forms of Gaugin and van Gogh, the Fauves set out to take the application of color to its logical end. In his Femme au Chapeau, Henri Matisse employs radiant primary and secondary colors to outline the shape of a well-to-do lady — a classical subject with a unique, abstract application of color. Similarly, in his painting The Joy of Life, Matisse paints a classical bacchanal utterly consumed by color. Ignoring conventions of space and perspective, the painting is an abstract, yet deeply pleasant, symphony of color and line that is meant only to be a sensuous and delightful image.
German Expressionism would build off of this revolutionary application of color and use it to criticize the vacuity of early 20th-century German culture. The two main groups that dominated this period, die Brücke and der Blaue Reiter, were greatly inspired by the works of Nietzche and Freud respectively. Ernst Kirchner’s Street, Dresden uses off-putting greens contrasted with a bubble-gum pink street to imbue the modern German cityscape and its inhabitants, with a revolting and repulsive aire. Reiter painters, like Franz Marc, sought personal solace in nature and depicted natural forms in striking, abstract rays that appear shattered on the canvas.