The Avant-Garde Before the Great War The decades of the fin-de-siècle period in Europe were fruitful ones, years of innovation and experimentation in painting. “Ism” followed “ism:” Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, German Expressionism, ended only by...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906) Famous for wanting to reform Impressionism, Paul Cézanne approached nature in quite a fashion that distinguished him from the Impressionists and the other Post-impressionists. Like Paul Gauguin, he understood the...
The Painters of Modern Life Although the Pre-Raphaelite artists initiated the artistic interest in contemporary urban life and the problems of modern people, the Parisian artists are given credit for learning how to express modernité in formal terms. The French...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) Writing to his devoted brother, Théo, Vincent van Gogh said, “I have a terrible lucidity sometimes when nature is so beautiful these days and then I do not feel myself anymore and the painting...
Post-Impressionist Artists: Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891) Georges Seurat began as an “Impressionist,” or, at least he appeared in one of their last shows, but his goal was to reform Impressionism. In comparison to the older artists’ more direct approach to art,...
Advanced Guard before the Avant-Garde There is some historical disagreement over when and where the avant-garde movement in the visual arts began. But it is clear that that the notion that changes in art come from the margins not the center came into existence and...
