History of art picks: Fauvism

 Hello to all the lovely creatures out there!

In today's post we will be talking about the art movement of Fauvism!

Fauvism as an art movement and style of painting started in France at the beginning of the 20th century. This artistic style was characteristic of the so-called les Fauves (the wild beasts) a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color palettes, over the representational or realistic that Impressionism had created. While Fauvism as a style began around 1904 and continued beyonf 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years (1905-1908) and had three exhibitions. Leaders of the movement are considered Andre Derain and Henri Matisse.

Henri Matisse - Woman with a Hat - 1905

Gustave Moreau was the inspiration behind the movement, as he was considered a controversial professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, also as Symbolist painter. He taught Matisse, Marquet, Manguin, Rouault and Camoin during the 1890s. In the Salon d'Automne in 1905, the critic Louis Vauxcelles after viewing the boldly colored works of Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, Robert Deborne and Jean Puy disparaged the painters as "fauves" (wild beasts). thus actually providing the name which the movement was named after, Fauvism.

Following the Salon d'Automne of 1905, which marked the beginning of Fauvism, the Salon des Indépendants of 1906 marked the first time all the Fauves would exhibit together. The third group exhibition of the Fauves happened at the Salon d'Automne of 1906, held from 6 October to 15 November. Paul Cézanne, who died during the show on 22 October, was represented by ten works.

Robert Delaunay - L'homme à la tulipe (Portrait de Jean Metzinger) - 1906

The paintings of the Fauves were characterized by seemingly wild brush work and strident colors, while their subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction. Fauvism can be classified as an extreme development of Van Gogh's Post-Impressionism, with influences from Pointillism of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionist painters like Paul Signac for example. Fauvism has been compared to Expressionism, both in its use of pure color and unconstrained brushwork. Moreover, some of the Fauves were among the first avant-garde artists to collect and study African and Oceanic art, alongside other forms of non-Western and folk art, leading several Fauves to the later developed art movement of Cubism.

Henri Matisse - Le bonheur de vivre (The Joy of Life) - 1905-6

Besides Matisse and Derain, other artists included Robert Deborne, Albert Marquet, Charles Camoin, Bela Czobel, Louis Valtat, Jean Puy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri Manguin, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, Adolphe Wansart, Georges Rouault, Jean Matzinger, Kees van Dongen, Emilie Charmy and George Braque.

André Derain - Le séchage des voiles (The Drying Sails) - 1905

I hope that Fauvism sparked your interest as much as it did for me the first time I read about it. I find it a quite interesting art movement because of the variety of art movements it is influenced by, and the amount of art movements it influenced after!

As always thank you for reading and I will see you in a next post!

xoxoxo