Modern Art

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface (support base). In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete. Paintings may be decorated with gold leaf, and some modern paintings incorporate other materials including sand, clay, and scraps of paper.

Painting is a mode of expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, composition or abstraction and other aesthetics may serve to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, be loaded with narrative content, symbolism, emotion or be political in nature.

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What is generally called the Modern art movement can be considered to date from the revolution in art brought about by the French Impressionists painters during the second half of the 19th Century and continuing in all its manifestations throughout close to a hundred years.

The Driving Forces

From Impressionism onwards the dramatic events of two world wars, political and social upheavals, and scientific and technological advances were all mirrored in art movements extending from Cubism, Fauvism and Expressionism to the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, to Surrealism and Abstract. During and following WWII, with the emigration of many artists to the US, New York became the new center for Abstract and Modern art. Pop Art and Op Art are Modern art movements that were fundamentally American and British.

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During this extremely short period in the history of art some of the most widely popular and enduringly admired paintings were created by a diverse group of European artists centered mainly in France, and particularly in Paris, during the second half of the 19th Century.

The French art scene in the mid 19th Century was firmly under the influence and control of the Academie des Beau Arts with its annual Salon de Paris competitions. The older established painters, the Salon juries, and the art critics maintained a tight hold on traditional styles and methods of painting as well as on subject matter. Realistic portraits rather than landscapes, and lofty religious and historical subjects were the norm, all rendered in subdued and conservative colors. Careful attention to exact detail was highly prized.

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“In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new… They see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves…Novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only… making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.”

-Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

An artists, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born French and is perhaps best known for capturing the debauched and theatrical life of ‘fin de siècle’ Paris that resulted in an oeuvre of provocative images of the bohemian nightlife.

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“Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.”-Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was a very famous French artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and drawings, during the Impressionism period and was known as one of the founders of Impressionism. Known for his convincing portrayal of human figures in contemporary settings, Degas paintings display excellent use of light.

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas’s innovative compositions, excellent understanding of human movements (Ballet paintings), and skillful drawings contributed in making him one of the masters of modern art towards the end of the 19th century.

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Vincent van Gogh is definitely one of the greatest and most prolific artists in the history of art after Rembrandt! Van Gogh’s life and work has been a constant source of inspiration and influence for many, since his highly tragic death in 1890. The life led by Vincent van Gogh is considered the archetypical artist’s struggle to gain acceptance via his work in the society.

Vincent Van Gogh’s name is taken in the same breath as that of Cezanne, and Gauguin the greatest of Post-Impressionist artists, even though he was the torchbearer for Expressionism in modern art. Surprisingly, Vincent van Gogh art was produced in just one decade. Van Gogh’s art is haunting in spirit, conveys through its vibrant colors, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms the anguish of a mentally ill genius. Many of Vincent van Gogh paintings are iconic in status, and are symbols of a cult movement. Van Gogh painted numerous self-portraits as well as the very famous ‘The Starry Night’ (1889), ‘The Sunflowers’ (1888) series, ‘The Irises’, ‘The Café Terrace’ and many self portraits.

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Cubism is considered by some historians to be the single most influential art movement of the 20th Century, especially in its lasting influence on Western art. It was not strictly a movement or a style of one specific period since “cubism” is a term which can be used to describe a painting or sculpture of any period which was created following a geometric analysis or synthesis of form.

The Originators
Cubism in France followed closely on the heels of the Post Impressionist painters who by the end of 1800 had firmly and finally dismantled the old standards and techniques previously blown apart by the revolutionary Impressionists. Paul Cézanne was experimenting in his later work with geometric forms, favoring right angles and a flat monochromatic palette, and Gauguin was introducing ‘primitive’ African art motifs with a strong emotional color palette.

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Following the French Revolution a surge of social reforms and interest in the new ideals of democracy and equality changed some of the expectations of what role art and painting should play in society.

Realism in art meant depicting subjects at face value or as they appeared in everyday life, unadorned by sentiment or imagination. A reaction again romanticism and, a genre which dominated French literature and artwork in the late 18th and early 19th century, realism was expected to portray truth, however sordid or ugly. In England it was a reaction against Victorian materialism and the conventional themes of the Royal Academy.

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Art Deco was an elegant art movement of the 1920’s and 1930’s that influenced decorative art, fashion and architecture. The machine age sought to streamline objects and remove the flowery, extraneous elements from the work of the earlier Art Nouveau. Popular images included stylized people, svelte animals, tall buildings, sleek vehicles and exotic scenes. Artists of the period include fashion designer Erte’s Kiss of Fire, Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait de Madame Allen Botte, glass artist Rene Lalique and graphic designer Cassandre, known for vintage advertisements such as Normandie.

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Dalí was born 08:45 a.m. May 11, 1904, at number 20 Monturiolin street in the town of Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, the son of comfortable middle-class notary Salvador Dalí i Cusí and Felipa Domenech Ferres. Dalí attended Municipal Drawing School, where he first received formal art training. In 1916 Dalí discovered modern painting on a summer vacation to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris.

The next year Dalí’s father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theater in Figueres in 1919. In 1921 his mother died of cancer, and his father married the sister of his deceased wife, which the younger Salvador somewhat resented.

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