art movements Flashcards
Renaissance (approx. 1400 - 1520)
Renaissance (approx. 1400 - 1520)
Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome.
The term “Renaissance Art” refers to the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of that period of European history, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments that occurred in philosophy, literature, music, and science.
Renaissance Art reached its zenith in the late 1400s and early 1500s centuries in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects such as the Virgin Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary audiences of the period in the context of religious rituals.
Today, they are viewed as great works of art, but at the time they were seen and used mostly as devotional objects.
Park West carries the work of several classic and modern artists who were inspired by the Renaissance aesthetic, including works by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn and more contemporary figures like Csaba Markus, Tomasz Rut, and Peter Nixon.
Famous Renaissance Artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael
Impressionism (approx. 1870 - 1890)
Impressionism (approx. 1870 - 1890)
A 19th-century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence in the 1870s and 1880s.
The genesis of impressionism was the invention of photography—photography replaced the need for representational, realistic painting.
The impressionists and their precursors, the Barbizon painters, were the first to “free” painting from its slavery to the visual illusion of reality and allow the two-dimensional surface to be recognized and respected for what it was.
Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include:
An unfinished texture with visible brush strokes
Open composition
Emphasis on light and its changing qualities—often accentuating the effects of the passage of time
Ordinary subject matter
The inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception
Unusual visual angles
The name of the movement is derived from critic and humorist Louis Leroy’s scathing review in the Le Charivari newspaper, making wordplay with the title of Claude Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise (Impression, Soleil Levant).” He inadvertently gave the artists the name by which they would become best known. Derisively titling his article The Exhibition of the Impressionists, Leroy declared that Monet’s painting was at most, a sketch, and could hardly be termed a finished work.
Famous Impressionists: Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt
Fauvism (approx. 1905 - 1910)
Pronounced fow·vi·zuhm
Originator—Henri Matisse
This movement’s use of non-naturalistic colors was one of the first avant-garde developments in European art.
Many Art historians credit the advent of Modernism beginning with the appearance of the Fauves in Paris at the Salon d’automne in 1905.
Fauvism believed in using color as an emotional force.
The use of non-representational color defined the movement. Fauvists would use color based on emotion, rather than reality. (For example, painting the grass red and a tree blue)
The term “Fauvism” is derived from the French word “Fauve,” which translates literally to “wild beast.”
“Instead of trying to render what I see before me, I use color in a completely arbitrary way to express myself powerfully.” —Vincent van Gogh
Inspired by van Gogh, the Fauves took this idea further, translating their feelings into color.
Famous Fauves: Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin
Cubism
Cubism was a bold and exciting way of making art! Instead of painting things the way our eyes normally see them, artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque showed multiple angles at the same time—almost like cutting up an image and rearranging the pieces into a new perspective.
Pablo Picasso – He was one of the first to use Cubism, breaking faces and objects into geometric shapes, almost like a puzzle.
Georges Braque – He worked alongside Picasso and helped develop Cubism by painting things from different viewpoints at once.
Paul Klee – He used Cubism in a more playful and colorful way, blending it with imagination to create dreamlike, abstract art.
Surrealism (approx. 1924 - 1939)
Surrealism aims to revolutionize human experience. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s artists find magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional. At the core of their work is the willingness to challenge imposed values and norms, and a search for freedom.
Surrealism taught the world to see art not merely visually and literally, but to appreciate it on a subconscious level as well.
Many surrealists used automatic drawing or writing to unlock ideas and images from their unconscious minds. Others have wanted to depict dream worlds or hidden psychological tensions. Surrealist artists have also drawn inspiration from mysticism, ancient cultures and Indigenous art as a way of imagining alternative realities.
Surrealism started as a off-spring of Dada movement, focusing on the subconscious rather than the nonsensical
This movement started as a literary movement, and then evolved into an artistic movement as well with the influence of Andre Breton, who is considered the father of Surrealism
Surrealism took two forms: Some artists, like Spanish painter Joan Miro and German artist Max Ernst, practiced improvised art, distancing themselves as much as possible from conscious control - also known as abstract or automatism surrealism. Others, like the Spaniard Salvador Dali and Belgian painter Rene Magritte, used scrupulously realistic techniques to present hallucinatory scenes that defy common sense - also known as figurative surrealism.
Famous surrealists include Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Frida Kahlo, Man Ray, Joan Miro and Max Ernst.
Kinetic Art and Op Art (approx. 1955 -)
Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or that depends on motion for its effect.
Kinetic art originated with late 19th-century Impressionist artists like Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet. They all experimented with accentuating the movement of human figures on canvas.
Kinetic artists are fascinated by the possibilities of movement in art—its potential to create new and more interactive relationships with the viewer and new visual experiences.
Op art is a form of abstract art that creates optical illusions.
Op art typically employs abstract patterns composed with a stark contrast of foreground and background—often in black and white—to produce effects that confuse and excite the eye.
Op art is characterized by virtual motion, while kinetic art is drawn to real motion.
One of the exhibitions that solidified the genre of kinetic art was Le Movement in 1955 at Galerie Denise Rene in Paris. The exhibition included works by Agam, Vasarely, Calder, and a few additional artists.
Famous Kinetic Artists: Yaacov Agam, Alexander Calder, Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Josef Albers
Famous Op Artists: Yaacov Agam, Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Wen-Ying Tsai, Bridget Riley, Getulio Alviani
Abstract Expressionism (1946-1956)
The first primarily American art movement
Works of Abstract Expressionism are non-representational, capturing the physical act of painting and the individual unconscious, influenced by the Surrealism Movement.
Also called “action painting” and the New York School, Abstract Expressionism stressed energy, action, kineticism, and freneticism in the creation process.
Abstract Expressionists liberated themselves from geometric abstraction (such as Cubism) and the need to suggest recognizable images. Giving free rein to impulse and chance, the impassioned act of painting became valuable in itself.
Coming after action painters such as Pollock and de Kooning, a second grouping of Abstract Expressionist artists including Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still.
They were deeply interested in religion and myth and created simple compositions with large areas of color intended to produce a contemplative or meditational response in the viewer.
Famous Abstract Expressionists: Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Klein, Mark Rothko
Pop Art (1954 - 1970)
Originator—Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi
Pop art started in the United Kingdom, but became a true art movement in New York City, thanks to the efforts of artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns.
Considered by some to be the first “postmodern” art, Pop Art embraces popular culture and advertising, rejecting the division between critically esteemed “fine art” and the “lower” art forms of commercial and comic art.
Pop art challenged artistic tradition by asserting that an artist’s use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is appropriate within the perspective of fine art. Through the appropriation of these images and transformation of them into “high art,” their meaning and reflections on contemporary culture can be revealing.
The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.
Andy Warhol’s artwork reflected his attitudes on American postwar culture. He once stated, “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same thing as the poorest… No amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.”
Pop art often takes as its imagery that what is currently in use in advertising. Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists. Consider the Campbell’s Soup Cans labels, by Andy Warhol.
Famous Pop Artists: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Keith Haring
