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Summary: Arnason & Mansfield History of Modern Art: H5
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Summary of the book: Arnason & Mansfield History of Modern art. Contains H5.
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Summary Arnason: Chapter 5, 90-106:- Arriving of 20th century: la belle époque arrived: industrial and commercial expansion
renewed optimism. A willingness to experiment, to attempt what seemed
impossible only months earlier, emboldened progressive artists along with their
counterparts in industry and science. new styles: Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism.
New styles also evolved rapidly; the avant-garde styles of the early 20 th century were
quickly developed then often immediately modified or abandoned: very different
from 19th century.
- This passion for innovation was also true in the science and engineering department.
Aside from the general optimism at the start of the century, artistic innovation must
also be understood as a response to a particular aesthetic demand. Originality had
become an increasingly important measure of aesthetic success for progressive
artists since Romanticism. But there was still a realisation that artists were part of an
artistic tradition. How to balance this with innovation was a concern for modern
artists.
- The quest for originality had already led artists like Gauguin to turn away from
Western formulas and instead pursue primitivism. This interest in non-Western art
peaked in the early 20th century with a particular focus on African cultures. African
forms were seen as markers of novelty and thereby originality. The Avant-Garde’s
understanding of non-Western cultures was highly mediated by the desires and
assumptions of their own societies. The tension between Western and non-Western
forms, between tradition and innovation is seen in the work of Matisse and the
Fauves.
Fauvism:
- The starting point of Fauvism was identified by Henri Matisse. He and his fellow
Fauves – André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, George Rouault, Raoul Dufy and
others- allowed their search for immediacy and clarity to show forth with bold almost
unbearable candor. They combined Symbolist literary aesthetics, with fin-de-siècle
morbidity, Impressionism’s direct embrace of nature and Post-Impressionism’s
heightened colour contrasts and emotional, expressive depth. They emancipated
colour from its role of describing external reality and concentrated on the medium’s
ability to communicate directly the artist’s experience of that reality by exploiting the
pure chromatic intensity of paint.
- Fauvism arrived in the changes in art and society was coming to be seen as a part of
the new, modern world order. Fauve paintings made a deep impression on the new
generation of avant-garde artists coming to Paris.
- The Fauves’ emphasis on achieving personal authenticity meant that they would
never form a coherent movement. But before drifting apart in 1907, they did made
definite and unique contributions: they extended the boundaries of representation,
based in part on their exposure to non-Western sources, such as African art. For
subject matter they turned to portraiture, still life and landscape. They revisualized
Impressionism’s culture of leisure as a pagan ideal of “the joy of life”. Also: the
paintings they made were conceived as an autonomous creation, freed from serving
narrative or symbolic trends.
, “Purity of Means” in Practice: Henry Matisse’s Early Career
- 1890s: Matisse discovered the pointillist paintings of Seurat and his followers, Neo-
Impressionists.
- 1898: experiment with figures and still lifes in non-descriptive colours begins.
- 1890: Matisse met Eugene Carriere and Maurice de Vlaminck: principal Fauve trio.
Earliest Works:
- In earlier times, Moreau was his teacher, who focused on copying the old masters.
This instilled in Matisse a concern for artistic tradition and his relationship to it. He
copied a painting by a 17th century Dutch master and also made his own composition
of a still life, Dinner Table. This was his first truly modern work. It was also very
complicated and constructed.
- Male Model carried this process of simplification and contraction further, even to
distortion of perspective, to achieve a sense of delimited space. The modelling of the
figure in abrupt facets of colour was a response to the paintings of Cézanne. He did
choose a conventional subject: a male nude. Around the same time, Matisse started
working on a related sculpture: the serf. It was adapted in attitude and concept from
a Rodin sculpture, walking man. Very expressive.
- Matisse exhibited at various salons, but the most notorious was the Salon d’Automne
of 1905.
Matisse’s Fauve Period:
- The fauves accomplished the liberation of colour which Gauguin, Van Gogh etc had
been experimenting. They wished to use pure colour, not to describe objects in
nature, not simply to set up retinal vibrations, not to accentuate a romantic or
mystical subject, but to build new pictorial values apart from all these. For the
Fauves, all pictorial elements could be realized through the use of pure colour.
- Neo-Impressionist composition: Luxe, calme et volupté. The title is taken from
Baudelaire’s poem. Matisse combined the mosaic landscape manner of Signac with
figure organization that recalls Cézanne’s many compositions of bathers. The whole
activity is transported to a timeless, arcadian world populated by languid nudes. He
offered a radical reinterpretation of the grand pastoral tradition in landscape
painting, like 17th century painter Poussin.
- Matisse’s idyllic world is exclusively female. The nude male figure was considered the
most important subject for young artists to learn to manage. Nude women were
confined to the lesser genres. The shift in the avant-garde can be explained in terms
of their rejection of academic hierarchies. And: the long-standing association
between femininity and nature. The female body was a metaphor for essential,
uncorrupted nature. In this way, the nude female served the avant-garde in much the
same way that non-Western motifs did: as guarantors of aesthetic authenticity.
- Sculptor Aristide Maillol: reassuring source in classical antiquity, seen in The
Mediterranean. His style simplified the body into idealized, geometric forms and
imparted a quality of psychological withdrawal and composed reserve.
- Matisse, The Open Window: simple fragment of the wall of a room with a view of the
harbour at Collioure. This is the place where Matisse and Derain produced the first
Fauve paintings. There is a variety of paint handling; typical of Matisse’s early Fauve
compositions. Between his painterly marks, Matisse left bare patches of canvas,
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