Art Nouveau (1890 – 1905)

Is an ornamental style of art that flourished primarily in Europe and North America. It
influenced architecture, interior design, jewelry and glass design, posters and illustration.
- It is a French terms which means “New Art”
- New art because it was a deliberate attempt to modernize design by creating a new
style that was free of the historic imitation that dominated much of 19th century art
design.
- But it wasn’t until 30 years later that it became an established art movement when
the term was popularized by an art gallery which showed the works of artist in the
style that became known as art Nouveau
This artistic movement was embraced by painters, architects, and sculptors.
- It was not only applied in fine arts (visual art considered to have been made for its
aesthetics, and intellectual purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness.
Specifically painting, sculptures, watercolor, drawing, graphics, and architecture),
but it also found its way in the interior design and the decorative arts such as textile,
jewelry, lighting, and household utensils.

Pioneering Art Nouveau artist;

 Painter Gustav Klimt (Austria)
 Architect Antoni Gaudi (Spain)
 The illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (England)
 The jewelry designer Rene Lalique (France)
 The glass designer Louis Comfort Tiffany (United States)
 inspired by both geometric and organic forms and preferred sophisticated designs
that united angular and flowing forms which resembles the stems, vines, blossoms
and flowers of plants.
 There are no hierarchy between fine arts and decorative arts
 Colors tend to be muted and somber mustered, siege green, olive green, and brown
sometimes teamed with lilac, violet, purple and peacock blue
Art Nouveau and Art Deco are early expressions of modernity.
Art Nouveau is flowery and decorative, features curving lines and organic forms that
celebrate nature, Art Deco is more industrial and full of straight lines, geometry and sharp
edges sleek and stream lined.
 Antoni Gaudi, Casa Mila (1905 – 1907)
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (1907 – 1908) Barcelona, Spain
Expressionism (1905 – 1933)
“Everyone who renders directly and honestly whatever drives him to create is one of us.” –
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
The known groups of expressionist that developed in Germany:

- Die Brucke or The Bridge (1905 – 1913)

[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel, and Fritz Bleyl founded Die
Brucke]

- Der Blaue Reiter or The Blue Rider (1909 – 1914)

[Wassily Kandinsky, Auguste Macke, Alexej von Jawensky, and Franz Marc were some of
the founding members of Der Blaue Reiter]

- Expressionism started orimarily as a German movement, but most of its precursors

were not German.
Some key figures in Expressionism:
 Edvard Munch
 Oskar Kokoschka
 Franz Marc
 Ernst Ludwig Kircher

Expressionist artists sought not to record their observation of the objective reality, but to
interpret the emotions and subjective responses aroused within a person.
 While Impressionists aimed at reproducing nature, the concern of Expressionists was
in the expression if their feelings about the people, objects, or events that they saw.
 To accomplish this, Expressionist artists exaggerated and distorted representations,
employed bold and intense colors and strong outlines, and incorporated primitivism
and fantasy.
Artists usually used swaying, swirling, and dramatic executed strokes in portraying their
subjects. They often confronted the urban world and alienated individuals victimized by
capitalism and urbanization.
Expressionism new standards in creating and evaluating art;

- Art is considered as coming from the within the artists.

- The quality of an artwork is now measured based on the emotions evoked instead of
its formal elements.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Blick auf Davos (1924)

Cubism (1902 – 1922)
Pioneering artist:
 Georges Braque
 Pablo Picasso in Paris, France
- Critic Louis Vauxcelles first used the term Cubism, when he described Braque’s
painting Houses at l’Estaque (1908) as being composed of cubes.
Methods of Cubism:

- Initially influenced by the angular forms in the landscape painting of Paul Cezanne
and other Postimpressionism artists.
- Basically redefined the nature of art and its possibilities and signaled completely
novel ways of portraying reality.
Well-known Cubist Artists:
 Fernand Leger
 Robert and Sonia Delaunay
 Juan Gris and Piet Mondrian
Cubist artists showed new realities in their artworks that illustrated totally fragmented objects
presented in many angles.
Cubism is usually classified into two stages:
(1) Analytic Cubism (1907 – 1912) – artists showed objects not how the eye perceived them,
but how the mind perceived forms. They analyzed and fragmented forms instead of copying
these forms.
(2) Synthetic Cubism (1913 – 1920) – artists began using foreign materials such as
newspaper and chair caning as abstract signs.
 If Impressionism and Fauvism sought to convey deeply personal sensations of
certain scenes or objects, Cubism valued the depiction of the intellectual idea of an
object, as well as how it was related to others.

BIG IDEA!

The challenges of the 20th century, from

the Industrial Revolution to World War I,
gave rise to different artistic movements
that were both an extension and a
rejection of each other.

George Braque, Houses at l’Estaque (1908), oil on canvas

Futurism (1909 – 1920s)
- This art movement emphasized machine and modernization.
- There were parallel movements in England, Russia, and other parts of the world.
- This art movement originated in Italy, had a lukewarm reception in France.
- Futurism philosophy began in literature and spread to other types of art such as
sculpture, architecture, industrial design, music, and cinema.
Key artists of Futurism:
 Umberto Boccioni
 Giacomo Balla
 Carlo Carra
 Gino Severini
 Natalia Goncharova
 Luigi De Guidici
Futurist artists condemned the old and celebrated the machine age, focusing the vitality of
the urban world, specially its advanced science and technology.

- They sought to represent modern experience and arouse all kinds of sensations
- A futurist painting basically brings to mind the sight, the noise, the heat, the smell,
and even the “taste” of the city.
- Futurism was the only 20th century avant-garde artistic movement to be associated
with far-right politics.

Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912)

Natalia Goncharova, The Cyclist (1913)