Fauvism and Expressionism represent the two distinct ways in which artists of the early 20th century approach creation and grapple with the progress of modernity. In André Derain’s Mountain at Collioure, we observed the artist’s attempts to subvert reality in the complete abstraction of space and depth, as well as the usage of color for its own enjoyment, rather than any intention to express any underlying message. This represents the spirit of Fauvism. Similarly, in Henri Mattise’s Le Bonheur de vivre, the arbitrary application of colors, organization of shapes, figures and space showcase the focus on conveying the idea, the feelings of the scene. There’s, however, a complete rejection of the previously existing artistic institution that links this movement with the next prominent groups of works seen in this period: Expressionism.

For expressionist artists, there is an even wider divergence against any intention to visually portray reality. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s painting, Street, Dresden, along with his print, Tribulation of Love, with sharp contrasts, a lack of coherent composition (with crowded space placed between completely blank spots), and clear, expressive brush strokes, are great representations of this movement. We sensed a sort of hyperfixation on creating structured yet chaotic images that reflects abstract ideas through the now-meaning-filled colors. There was also an emergence of different manners of artistic interpretation of the human’s psyche, with Freud’s psychoanalytic method and Rimbaud’s assignment of colors to emotions. This all accumulates into an artistic movement that puts forward the most important factor being the human’s emotions, ideas, and psychology.

Today’s class started by wrapping up our discussion from the previous class with the work of Paul Gaugin. His works from his time spent in France relied heavily on color and simple geometric forms to create expressive and personal images that displayed Post-Impressionistic characteristics. For example, his “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” portrayed a group of women envisioning Jacob and the Angel on a red ground figure. We also looked at Gaugin’s later works painted during his time in Polynesia. 

We then shifted our discussion into the Fauves, who aimed to take the application of color to its logical end. We discussed a few works of Henri Matisse, who used color in a new way that completely overwhelmed the figures he was portraying. The paintings are experiments in color and completely ignore ideas of space and perspective that might be portrayed naturalistically.

Today’s class we continue our discussion on post-impressionism. I found today’s class particularly interesting because of the quotes from the artists we heard, which gave us an inside look about their artistic processWe discussed two different artists that focused on form in their work, Cezanne and Seurat, and two artists that focused on personal expression, Van Gogh and Gaugin. 

We first focused on the works of Cezanne and Seurat, who simplified the figures they were looking at into the most basic geometric forms and shapes. Cezanne attempted to “paint the cylinder, the sphere, and the cone.” Seurat used a method of pointillism that was developed after many highly specific drawing studies. This approach was highly methodical and attempted to create optical mixing, although it was not entirely successful and the shapes remained largely separated from one another. 

We then shifted our discussion to the works of Van Gogh and Gaugin, who preferred a more subjective exploration in their pieces. We spoke about Van Gogh’s “Night Cafe” and the strong contrast between the red and green. The green pool table in the foreground pushing backward fought with the red background pushing forward to create a tense, unpleasant space that was also ambiguous and one you could picture yourself in. This same color palette effect was seen in his self portrait, a reddish background contrasted with a greenish foreground. Gaugin also furthered this shift from realism in his vivid color palette and use of flat shapes.

As we looked at the arts of the Post-Impressionistic movements, there was a division between the approach to the instability of the time into artists whose focus was in form and those who placed first their own personal perspective. The first group includes artists like Paul Cézanne, who repeatedly painted a location (that he himself knew really well) to express the permanence and unchanging nature of his world. Here, we observed the gradual movement towards further abstraction of shapes, from blended outlines to flat colors being used to represent shadows, with clear and sharp outlines. There is also a lack of interest in capturing exactly the moment when the painting took place, as shown with the use of strong compositions and carefully-calculated choices i.e the reduction of realistic details. 

The second group of artists involves those who use art as a tool to express their individualism and their psychological world, including Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, both of whom take the reduction and abstraction of reality to an extreme. While Gaugin strives to return to the most “primitive artistic materials” for his artworks; Van Gogh was fully immersing himself in the meanings of colors and how each color represents an aspect of one’s psyche, as well as how colors play into how the artworks would be observed. Unrealistic values (highly saturated tones and pure colors) were used by both artists directly on the canvas to convey a sense of drama and emotional intensity. A strengthened sense of moralizing message was also important to this movement, as shown in Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, in which the psychological development of a human lifetime is depicted as a vision.

With the creation of the heliograph in 1827, photography as an artistic medium finally exists. There were a variety of artworks made using this new medium, along with the invention of constant new techniques, which reflects the constantly evolving technologies of the time, as well as the focus on automatic/ more convenient ways of creating/ acquiring arts. This also opens the door for the creation of photojournalism, with Timothy O’Sullivan’s A harvest of Death, allowing for the report of current, contemporary events. 

We then moved on to the start of Impressionism, the artistic movement that places utmost importance on, rather than naturalism, capturing the feelings and emotions of a certain moment. Rather than structured forms and clear, three-dimensional divisions of objects, we saw a focus placed upon the “impression” of reality, of colors and abstracted shapes. In Manet’s works such as Luncheon on the Grass or Olympia, we saw an artistic reference to the arts of Titian, with the naked figures placed against the dark background. There is even less suggestion of a spatial reality with the lack of shadows and any background setting details. With Manet, we observed an added interest to a modernization of art, of directly engaging viewers into the narrative (the model was looking towards the audience). This goes to show that the point of Impressionism was always to arouse emotions and a sense of closeness to the subjects of depiction. For artists like Renoir or James Whistler, it was even less about presenting shapes that resemble life, and more about the discovery of an abstracted form of reality.

In class, we discussed the distinct shift of focus in art towards the representation of reality in an accurate manner, which occurred in the latter half of the 19th century. This could be seen in some of Francisco de Goya’s art, with the distance created between the observer and the scene – a sense of intellectual observation of the event depicted. It’s understandable, then, that this movement started showing itself clearly in landscape paintings. We saw this tendency intensified with Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s work, View of Rome, which places the first and foremost attention to the reproduction of the real world, rather than relying on any emotional response for reaction. 

Jean Francois Millet showed a completely different approach to this movement, with paintings like The Sower, recreating the image of completely ‘base’ activities, actions which can be observed anywhere in the world of the average middle-class, rural working lives. This showcased the parallel in artistic depictions of reality and the current social conditions of the time, with revolutions as well as the overtaking of the monarchy happening. The “gritty” nature of these paintings, albeit completely true-to-life, also showed the artist’s partiality and sympathetic attitude towards the workers. An especially apt quote that fully encapsulates the spirit of “traditional” mediums of art for this time period is one of Piero della Francesca: “an abstract object, invisible or non-existent, does not belong to the realm of painting.” In other words: arts should be used as a tool to reflect reality, rather than trying to transcend it.

After wrapping up post-impressionism we moved towards other movements. The other movements such as symbolism and synthetism were a use of many styles and shifted from modern and post-impressionism. This movement created more art that depicted foreign settings and life stories. In the artwork, we looked at we noticed influences from Gauguin and Van Gogh who used colors as a form of expression. After we were able to notice the difference in styles we moved to Fauvism and Expressionism which were used in disparaging manners. The shift in art and use of expression allowed more past-related art that lacked depth but the use of many colors. After we discussed the use of expressionism in art we then looked at the different art impacted by this movement in Germany. The art became more abstract and due to other artist influences the art conveyed raw emotions. At the near end of class, we moved on to Cubism which was widely influenced by Paul Cezanne and his form. The use of cubism lacked emotion but was more fluent in shapes and composition.

On Tuesday we started with post-impressionism and two different styles used. One form of impressionism was a form that Paul Cezanne and Georges-Pierre Seurat influenced. The other form was personal expression influenced by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. The use of form was the composition and configuration of people and landscapes. In many of Seurat and Cezannes’s art, they used horizontal lines and rigid themes. In the works that we dissected we noticed the cool colors being placed in the background and warm colors in the front of the paintings, we noticed that there was a major difference between the artists that used personal expression. Van Gogh and Gauguin used many different colors to express their emotions in the paintings. In their paintings, we can see more Japanese influence and impressionism in their artworks. We also elaborate on how color was used to convey emotions and was studied and explained by Michel Cheurel. In this class, we were able to see more arbitrary art and flat work by Gauguin and his disdain for humans.

We finished the movement of realism and the influence of camera obscura. In this online lecture, we shifted our attention to impressionism. In impressionism, we discuss the visibility of brushstrokes in art and the importance of light in artwork. The theme of impressionism is a continuation of realism that captures modern society and activities. The most influential artist that we discussed in class was Edouard Manet. We also discussed the term flaneur which refers to a new attitude. In this art form, we notice the use of observations for art. In this class, I noticed that along with realism impressionism, the observation of life was the focus of art and how it was depicted in art. The effect of flat art and lack of depth was not accepted but became a theme in impressionism.  With impressionism, we also elaborated on how art should allude to art of the past but depict the modern world. As we have already noticed in more modern art the art we see is influenced by past art and enhanced with modern techniques. We then discussed the pattern of impressionist painting outside and capturing the scene in front of the artist in series. Painting in series became a factor of impressionism because it was common for artists to capture different moments in the scene they were observing. The theme in series art is to capture the time of day and seasons to express or demonstrate the change in color and light but not scenery.  We also capture the shift in influence to Japanese influence. The style allowed the French artist to see art differently. We also see a shift from impressionism with James Abbott McNeil Whistler who was interested in harmony and capturing music in art. The shift from impressionism was noticed in the lack of painters who stopped selling their work in the 1800’s.

For today’s class lecture, the focus was Early 20th-century art. This type of art did not fit a specific style, rather there was a very large variety in the appearance of the paintings we looked at. This made for a very engaging lecture and discussion. I found that the paintings that stuck out to me the most were the very colorful paintings by the artist Henri Matisse. I found this very colorful style with some abstract elements to be very interesting. It reminded me of some modern art that we see made today.

There was an initiative earlier in the semester where the modern artist Steve Keene offered to make paintings for Colby students who wrote a paragraph about their favorite piece of art. I participated in this and have found that my painting has many similar elements to Henri Matisse’s. Though I do not think there is any connection or even inspiration, I do find the connection between Early 20th-century art and modern art to be very interesting.

The very small and distinct brush strokes of Andre Derian’s Mountains at Collioure also stuck out to me as a very impressive painting. The concept of using these small brush strokes to make the larger picture seems relatively simple, but in practice, I imagine it is very challenging. I was particularly impressed how Derain used color to aid the painting since he was not getting as much detail from each brush stroke.