Fauvism
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions.<ref name=elderfield13>John Elderfield, The "Wild Beasts" Fauvism and Its Affinities, 1976, Museum of Modern Art, p.13, ISBN 0-87070-638-1</ref><ref>Freeman, Judi, et al., The Fauve Landscape, 1990, Abbeville Press, p. 13, ISBN 1-55859-025-0.</ref> The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.<ref name=elderfield13/>
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Artists and style
Besides 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).<ref name=elderfield13/>
The paintings of the Fauves were characterised by seemingly wild brush work and strident colours, while their subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction.<ref name=tate-fauvism>Tate (2007). Glossary: Fauvism. Retrieved on 2007-12-19 from http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=102.</ref> Fauvism can be classified as an extreme development of Van Gogh's Post-Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat<ref name=tate-fauvism/> and other Neo-Impressionist painters, in particular Paul Signac. Other key influences were Paul Cézanne<ref>Freeman, 1990, p. 15.</ref> and Paul Gauguin, whose employment of areas of saturated colour—notably in paintings from Tahiti—strongly influenced Derain's work at Collioure in 1905.<ref>Teitel, Alexandra J. (2005). "History: How did the Fauves come to be?". "Fauvism: Expression, Perception, and the Use of Color", Brown University. Retrieved on 2009-06-18 from http://www.brown.edu/Courses/CG11/2005/Group149/history.htm.</ref> In 1888 Gauguin had said to Paul Sérusier:<ref>Collins, Bradley, Van Gogh and Gauguin: Electric Arguments and Utopian Dreams, 2003, Westview Press, p. 159, ISBN 0-81334-157-4.</ref>
| “ | How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion. | ” |
Fauvism can also be seen as a mode of Expressionism.<ref name=tate-fauvism/>
Origins
Gustave Moreau was the movement's inspirational teacher;<ref>Freeman, p. 243</ref> a controversial professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and a Symbolist painter, he 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 as such in 1904.<ref>Freeman, p. 243.</ref> Moreau's broad-mindedness, originality and affirmation of the expressive potency of pure colour was inspirational for his students.<ref name=dempsey>Dempsey, Amy. Styles, Schools and Movements: An Encyclopedic Guide to Modern Art, pp.66-69, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, 2002.</ref> Matisse said of him, "He did not set us on the right roads, but off the roads. He disturbed our complacency."<ref name=dempsey/> This source of empathy was taken away with Moreau's death in 1898, but the artists discovered other catalysts for their development.<ref name=dempsey/>
In 1896, Matisse, then an unknown art student, visited the artist John Peter Russell on the island of Belle Île off Brittany.<ref name=abc>"Book talk: The Unknown Matisse...", ABC Radio National, interview with Hilary Spurling, 8 June 2005. Retrieved 1 January 2008.</ref> Russell was an Impressionist painter; Matisse had never previously seen an Impressionist work directly, and was so shocked at the style that he left after ten days, saying, "I couldn't stand it any more."<ref name=abc/> The next year he returned as Russell's student and abandoned his earth-coloured palette for bright Impressionist colours, later stating, "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me."<ref name=abc/> Russell had been a close friend of Vincent van Gogh and gave Matisse a Van Gogh drawing.<ref name=abc/>
In 1901, Maurice de Vlaminck encountered the work of Van Gogh for the first time at an exhibition, declaring soon after that he loved Van Gogh more than his own father; he started to work by squeezing paint directly onto the canvas from the tube.<ref name=dempsey/>
In parallel with the artists' discovery of contemporary avant-garde art came an appreciation of pre-Renaissance French art, which was shown in a 1904 exhibition, French Primitives.<ref name=dempsey/> Another aesthetic feeding into their work was African sculpture, which Vlaminck, Derain and Matisse were early collectors of.<ref name=dempsey/>
Many of the Fauve characteristics first cohered in Matisse's painting, Luxe, Calme et Volupté ("Luxury, Calm and Pleasure"), which he painted in the summer of 1904, whilst in Saint-Tropez with Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross.<ref name=dempsey/>
Salon D'Automne 1905
The artists shared their first exhibition at the 1905 Salon d'Automne. The group gained their name, after critic Louis Vauxcelles described their show of work with the phrase "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" ("Donatello among the wild beasts"), contrasting the paintings with a Renaissance-type sculpture that shared the room with them.<ref name=oup-fauvism>Chilver, Ian (Ed.). "Fauvism", The Oxford Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved from enotes.com, 26 December 2007.</ref> Henri Rousseau was not a Fauve, but his large jungle scene The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope was exhibited near Matisse's work and may have had an influence on the pejorative used.<ref>Smith, Roberta (2006)"Henri Rousseau: In imaginary jungles, a terrible beauty lurks" The New York Times, 14 July 2006. Accessed 29 December 2007</ref> Vauxcelles' comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage.<ref name=oup-fauvism/><ref>Elderfield,p.43</ref> The pictures gained considerable condemnation, such as "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public" from the critic Camille Mauclair (1872–1945), but also some favourable attention.<ref name=oup-fauvism/> The painting that was singled out for attacks was Matisse's Woman with a Hat, which was bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein: this had a very positive effect on Matisse, who was suffering demoralisation from the bad reception of his work.<ref name=oup-fauvism/>
Gallery
- Self-portrait in studio by André Derain.jpg
André Derain, Self-portrait in the Studio, 1903, National Gallery of Australia, Sydney, Australia
- Matisse Les toits.jpg
- Matissetoits.gif
Henri Matisse, Les toits de Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Matisse-Open-Window.jpg
- Bonheur Matisse.jpg
- Young Sailor II.jpg
- Derain CharingCrossBridge.png
André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
- SeineChatou.JPG
Maurice de Vlaminck, The River Seine at Chatou, 1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Dongen-Hat.jpg
Kees van Dongen, Woman with Large Hat, 1906
- Matisse Souvenir de Biskra.jpg
- La Petite Lima.jpg
Charles Camoin, La Petite Lina 1907, Oil on canvas, Le Musée Cantini, Marseille
- Landscape in Provence (Paysage de Provence) - André Derain.jpg
André Derain, Landscape in Provence (Paysage de Provence) (c. 1908), Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn
See also
Further reading
- Gerdts, William H. (1997). The Color of Modernism: The American Fauves. New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries. pp. 160 p. http://www.hollistaggart.com/publications/index.htm#fauves.
- Whitfield, Sarah (1991). Fauvism. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20227-3.
Notes and references
External links
- Fauve Painting from the Permanent Collection at the National Gallery of Art
- Fauvism: The Wild Beasts of Early Twentieth Century Art
- Rewald, Sabine. Fauvism. In Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2004)
- Gelett Burgess, The Wild Men of Paris, Matisse, Picasso and Les Fauves, 1910
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