Modernism
Paul Cezanne, Mount Visual Analysis Landscapes over houses/trees
Sainte-Victoire, 1904 + Subject Split into thirds – seen through the delineation and the different
Matter colours
Basic shapes – such as squares for the houses
o Layering/repetition,
Front of the panel
Wall of colour – so it would show it was a painting and not an
illusion
Intimacy of vision – creating his own visual language
Context Revisited over and over again, unlike to impressionist where
they would try to work quick as they would have to capture
light and the moment
Mates with Renoir who was an Impressionist himself
Known for still-life in apples and landscape
From Aix-en-Provence
Quotes
Portrait of Matisse, Visual Analysis Complimentary colour pairs
Andre Derain, 1905 + Subject Derain had use different shades of blue to create shadows on his
Matter face, creating depth whilst only being a layer of paint
Glasses = wise, old
Painters shirt and pipe characterises him and not seeming to be
flat
Impasto – short brush strokes, visible
The plain background allows for the portrait to stick out instead
of blending in
Varied brush strokes gives the illusion that it has been sculpted
out of painting
Context Went on holiday together in Colluire, South of France
Fauvism – Salon d’Automne, 1905 – set by artist who did get
into French Academy
Quotes “We are always intoxicated by colour” – Andre Derain on colour
The Open Window, Visual Analysis Complimentary colours pairs makes it easy to differentiate and
Henri Matisse, 1905 + Subject maximum intensity for the colours.
Matter Variety of brush strokes – impasto + long blended marks
Visible canvas – quick unfinish appearance
Faded background brushstrokes getting smaller
No light/shadow – no dark
Holding onto the ideas of the past = perspective
Still life – windows of windows
Context Went on holiday together in Colluire, South of France
Fauvism – Salon d’Automne, 1905 – set by artist who did get
into French Academy
Quotes ‘Glimpses of pink water and red masts beyond a balcony’ – Robert
Hughes
Henri Matisse, Blue Visual Analysis Delinated outlines – black lines and shape + form
Nude, 1907, Fauvism + Subject Repetition of curves – emphasis on shapes
– Female Figure in Matter Complimentary colour pairs
Paintings/Sculpture Curtain of paint – very little depth of pictorial space
Visible, staccato mark – emphasis painting
See process of hos it was painted
Disproportionate – thick legs and large bum
Angular shapes
Reclining figure – nude female
Looking down – almond eyes and severs expression
His inspiration behind its creation started when he sculptured –
then shattered pieces inspired him to paint – Reclining Nude 1
Context Souvenier de Biskra – not white European
, o Algeria – trip abroad + colony
o Who / what is the souvenir
FAUVISM
Attacked by the critics – called ‘perverse’, “vulgar”
Attack on French Academic – not elegant, refined beauty
Armory Show in 1915
C19th Nude
o Manet – Olympia
o Ingres – La Grande Odelesque
Quotes “I will condense the meaning of this by seeking its essential lines” –
Henri Matisse, Notes of a Painter, 1908
Constantin Brancusi, Visual Analysis Block like form sculpture two figures
The Kiss, 1908, + Subject Reveals the structure of limestone
Primitivism Matter Arms wrapping around each other – align with corner of the
block
Defined only by a single incised line
Raw, cubic, rough, and archaic
Avant garde – tradition of stone and wood carving – folk art
o Rejecting academic tradition which is smooth and
refined
o Emphasis on materials
o PRIMITIVE TRUTH from Romania
o Direct carving
Male and female – embracing – biology reproduction – basic +
primitive
Multiple versions of the Kiss
Interested in “nature of the object”
Context Rodin – broke rules in the way he handled the surface,
fragmented the figure and took the issue of ideal classical body
Brancusi was an outsider in Paris art establishment – entre of
the art world
Took inspiration from Paul Gaugin – moving out of Europe/
Paris
“Truth in Nature” – Theosophy
Quotes o ‘His work celebrated the Otherness of sculpture, its ability to
appear self-contained and perfect”- Robert Hughes, Shock of
the New, 1980
o “His style was as clear as water” Robert Hughes, Shock of the
New, 1980
o “In Brancusi’s sculpture the ‘primitive’ and folkloric
encountered and quintessentially modernist reduction of form”
Henri Matisse, Music, Visual Analysis No tonal modelling – no depth and flat
1910, Fauvism – + Subject Delination
Primitivism Matter Simple
Curtain of paint – front of the picture plane
Blue sky
3 colours – complimentary colour pairs + harmonious colours
o Teal, blue/green = hill/land
o Opposites make colours more intense
No tonal modelling = no depth and quite flat
Figures with musical instruments
o Different height – Suggest space + different plain
o Limited information and detail, only instruments and
open mouths indicating singing
Figures bigger than average human
Gender indeterminate