20th-century Western painting  

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 +[[Image:Black Square by Malevich.jpg|thumb|left|200px|''[[Black Square]]'' (1915) by [[Kazimir Malevich]]]]
 +[[Image:Blue Horse by Franz Marc.jpg|thumb|200px|''[[Blue Horse]]'' ([[1911]]) by [[Franz Marc]]]]
{{Template}} {{Template}}
-:''[[history of painting]], [[20th century art]]'' 
-The heritage of painters like [[Van Gogh]], [[Cézanne]], [[Gauguin]], and [[Seurat]] was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century [[Henri Matisse]] and several other young artists revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called [[Fauvism]]. [[Pablo Picasso]] made his first [[Cubism|cubist]] paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: [[cube]], [[sphere]] and [[cone (geometry)|cone]].+'''20th century Western painting''' begins with the heritage of painters like [[Vincent van Gogh]], [[Paul Cézanne]], [[Paul Gauguin]], [[Georges Seurat]] and [[Henri de Toulouse Lautrec]] all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century [[Henri Matisse]] and several other young artists including the pre-cubist [[Georges Braque]], [[André Derain]], [[Raoul Dufy]] and [[Maurice de Vlaminck]] revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called [[Fauvism]]. [[Henri Matisse]]'s second version of ''[[The Dance (painting)|The Dance]]'' signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with [[primitive art]]: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and [[hedonism]].
-====Pioneers of the 20th century====+Initially influenced by [[Toulouse Lautrec]], [[Gauguin]] and other late 19th century innovators [[Pablo Picasso]] made his first [[Cubism|cubist]] paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: [[cube]], [[sphere]] and [[cone (geometry)|cone]]. With the painting [[Les Demoiselles d'Avignon]] 1907, Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of [[African tribal masks]] and his own new [[Cubist]] inventions. [[Analytic cubism]] was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and [[Georges Braque]], exemplified by ''Violin and Candlestick, Paris,'' from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by [[Synthetic cubism]], practised by Braque, Picasso, [[Fernand Léger]], [[Juan Gris]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Marcel Duchamp]] and several other artists into the 1920s. [[Synthetic cubism]] is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, [[collage]] elements, [[papier collé]] and a large variety of merged subject matter.
-The heritage of painters like [[Van Gogh]], [[Cézanne]], [[Gauguin]], and [[Seurat]] was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century [[Henri Matisse]] and several other young artists including the pre-cubist [[Georges Braque]], [[André Derain]], [[Raoul Dufy]] and [[Maurice de Vlaminck]] revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called [[Fauvism]] - (as seen in the gallery above). [[Henri Matisse]]'s second version of ''[[The Dance (painting)|The Dance]]'' signifies a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflects Matisse's incipient fascination with [[primitive art]]: the intense warm colors against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and [[hedonism]]. [[Pablo Picasso]] made his first [[Cubism|cubist]] paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: [[cube]], [[sphere]] and [[cone (geometry)|cone]]. With the painting [[Les Demoiselles d'Avignon]] 1907, (see gallery) Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of [[African tribal masks]] and his own new [[Cubist]] inventions. [[Analytic cubism]] (see gallery) was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and [[Georges Braque]], exemplified by ''Violin and Candlestick, Paris,'' (seen above) from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by [[Synthetic cubism]], practised by Braque, Picasso, [[Fernand Léger]], [[Juan Gris]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Marcel Duchamp]] and countless other artists into the 1920s. [[Synthetic cubism]] is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, [[collage]] elements, [[papier collé]] and a large variety of merged subject matter.+During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of [[cubism]], several movements emerged in Paris. [[Giorgio de Chirico]] moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea (the poet and painter known as [[Alberto Savinio]]). Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade a member of the jury at the [[Salon d'Automne]], where he exhibited three of his dreamlike works: ''Enigma of the Oracle'', ''Enigma of an Afternoon'' and ''Self-Portrait''. During 1913 he exhibited his work at the [[Salon des Indépendants]] and Salon d’Automne, his work was noticed by [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and several others. His compelling and mysterious paintings are considered instrumental to the early beginnings of [[Surrealism]]. ''Song of Love'' 1914) is one of the most famous works by de Chirico and is an early example of the [[Surrealism|surrealist]] style, though it was painted ten years before the movement was "founded" by [[André Breton]] in 1924 .
 + 
 +In the first two decades of the 20th century and after cubism, several other important movements emerged; [[Futurism (art)|Futurism]] ([[Giacomo Balla|Balla]]), [[Abstract art]] ([[Kandinsky]]) [[Der Blaue Reiter]] ([[Wassily Kandinsky]] and [[Franz Marc]]), [[Bauhaus]] ([[Kandinsky]] and [[Paul Klee|Klee]]), [[Orphism]], ([[Robert Delaunay|Delaunay]] and [[František Kupka|Kupka]]), [[Synchromism]] ([[Morgan Russell|Russell]] and [[Stanton Macdonald-Wright|Macdonald-Wright]]), [[De Stijl]] ([[Theo van Doesburg|van Doesburg]] and [[Piet Mondrian|Mondrian]]), [[Suprematism]] ([[Malevich]]), [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivism]] ([[Tatlin]]), [[Dadaism]] ([[Duchamp]], [[Picabia]] and [[Jean Arp|Arp]]), and [[Surrealism]] ([[Giorgio de Chirico|de Chirico]], [[André Breton]], [[Joan Miró|Miró]], [[René Magritte|Magritte]], [[Salvador Dalí|Dalí]] and [[Max Ernst|Ernst]]). Modern painting influenced all the visual arts, from [[Modernist]] [[architecture]] and [[design]], to [[avant-garde]] film, theatre and [[modern dance]] and became an experimental laboratory for the expression of visual experience, from [[photography]] and [[concrete poetry]] to [[advertising|advertising art]] and [[fashion]]. Van Gogh's painting exerted great influence upon 20th century [[Expressionism]], as can be seen in the work of the [[Fauves]], [[Die Brücke]] (a group led by German painter [[Ernst Kirchner]]), and the Expressionism of [[Edvard Munch]], [[Egon Schiele]], [[Marc Chagall]], [[Amedeo Modigliani]], [[Chaim Soutine]] and others.
 + 
 + 
 +====Pioneers of abstraction====
 + 
 +[[Wassily Kandinsky]], a Russian painter, [[printmaker]] and art [[theorist]], one of the most famous 20th-century artists is generally considered the first important painter of [[Modern Art|modern]] [[abstract art]]. As an early [[modernist]], in search of new modes of visual expression, and spiritual expression, he theorized as did contemporary [[occultists]] and [[theosophists]], that pure visual abstraction had corollary vibrations with sound and music. They posited that pure abstraction could express pure spirituality. His earliest abstractions were generally titled as the example in the (above gallery) ''Composition VII'', making connection to the work of the composers of music. Kandinsky included many of his theories about abstract art in his book ''[[Concerning the Spiritual in Art]]''. [[Piet Mondrian]]'s art was also related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908 he became interested in the [[Theosophy|theosophical]] movement launched by [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky]] in the late 19th century. Blavatsky believed that it was possible to attain a knowledge of nature more profound than that provided by empirical means, and much of Mondrian's work for the rest of his life was inspired by his search for that spiritual knowledge. Other major pioneers of early abstraction include Swedish painter [[Hilma af Klint]], Russian painter [[Kazimir Malevich]], and [[Swiss]] painter [[Paul Klee]]. [[Robert Delaunay]] was a French artist who is associated with [[Orphism (art)|Orphism]], (reminiscent of a link between pure abstraction and cubism). His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of [[Paul Klee]]. His key contributions to abstract painting refer to his bold use of color, and a clear love of experimentation of both depth and tone. At the invitation of [[Wassily Kandinsky]], Delaunay and his wife the artist [[Sonia Delaunay]], joined The Blue Rider ([[Der Blaue Reiter]]), a [[Munich]]-based group of [[Abstract art|abstract]] [[artists]], in 1911, and his art took a turn to the abstract. Still other important pioneers of abstract painting include [[Czechs|Czech]] painter, [[František Kupka]] as well as American artists [[Stanton MacDonald-Wright]] and [[Morgan Russell]] who, in 1912, founded [[Synchromism]], an art movement that closely resembles [[Orphism (art)|Orphism]].
 + 
 +====Fauvism, Der Blaue Reiter, Die Brücke====
Les Fauves (French for ''The Wild Beasts'') were early 20th century painters, experimenting with freedom of expression through color. The name was given, humorously and not as a compliment, to the group by art critic [[Louis Vauxcelles]]. [[Fauvism]] was a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century artists whose works emphasized [[painterly]] qualities, and the imaginative use of deep color over the representational values. Fauvists made the subject of the painting easy to read, exaggerated perspectives and an interesting prescient prediction of the Fauves was expressed in 1888 by [[Paul Gauguin]] to [[Paul Sérusier]], Les Fauves (French for ''The Wild Beasts'') were early 20th century painters, experimenting with freedom of expression through color. The name was given, humorously and not as a compliment, to the group by art critic [[Louis Vauxcelles]]. [[Fauvism]] was a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century artists whose works emphasized [[painterly]] qualities, and the imaginative use of deep color over the representational values. Fauvists made the subject of the painting easy to read, exaggerated perspectives and an interesting prescient prediction of the Fauves was expressed in 1888 by [[Paul Gauguin]] to [[Paul Sérusier]],
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''"How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure [[ultramarine]]; these red leaves? Put in [[vermilion]]."'' ''"How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure [[ultramarine]]; these red leaves? Put in [[vermilion]]."''
-The leaders of the movement were [[Henri Matisse]] and [[André Derain]] friendly rivals of a sort, each with his own followers. Ultimately [[Matisse]] became the ''yang'' to [[Picasso]]'s ''yin'' in the 20th century. Fauvist painters included [[Albert Marquet]], [[Charles Camoin]], [[Maurice de Vlaminck]], [[Raoul Dufy]], [[Othon Friesz]], the Dutch painter [[Kees van Dongen]], and Picasso's partner in Cubism, [[Georges Braque]] amongst others.+The leaders of the movement were [[Henri Matisse]] and [[André Derain]] — friendly rivals of a sort, each with his own followers. Ultimately [[Matisse]] became the ''yang'' to [[Picasso]]'s ''yin'' in the 20th century. Fauvist painters included [[Albert Marquet]], [[Charles Camoin]], [[Maurice de Vlaminck]], [[Raoul Dufy]], [[Othon Friesz]], the Dutch painter [[Kees van Dongen]], and Picasso's partner in Cubism, [[Georges Braque]] amongst others.
-Fauvism, as a movement, had no concrete theories, and was short lived, beginning in 1905 and ending in 1907, they only had three exhibitions. Matisse was seen as the leader of the movement, due to his seniority in age and prior self-establishment in the academic art world. His 1905 portrait of Mme. Matisse ''The Green Line,'' (above), caused a sensation in Paris when it was first exhibited. He said he wanted to create art to delight; art as a decoration was his purpose and it can be said that his use of bright colors tries to maintain serenity of composition. In 1906 at the suggestion of his dealer [[Ambroise Vollard]], [[André Derain]] went to London and produced a series of paintings like ''Charing Cross Bridge, London'' (above) in the [[Fauvism|Fauvist]] style, paraphrasing the famous series by the [[Impressionist]] painter [[Claude Monet]]. Masters like [[Henri Matisse]] and [[Pierre Bonnard]] continued developing their narrative styles independent of any movement throughout the 20th century. +Fauvism, as a movement, had no concrete theories, and was short lived, beginning in 1905 and ending in 1907, they only had three exhibitions. Matisse was seen as the leader of the movement, due to his seniority in age and prior self-establishment in the academic art world. His 1905 portrait of Mme. Matisse ''The Green Line,'' (above), caused a sensation in Paris when it was first exhibited. He said he wanted to create art to delight; art as a decoration was his purpose and it can be said that his use of bright colors tries to maintain serenity of composition. In 1906 at the suggestion of his dealer [[Ambroise Vollard]], [[André Derain]] went to London and produced a series of paintings like ''[[Charing Cross Bridge, London]]'' in the [[Fauvism|Fauvist]] style, paraphrasing the famous series by the [[Impressionist]] painter [[Claude Monet]].
By 1907 Fauvism no longer was a shocking new movement, soon it was replaced by [[Cubism]] on By 1907 Fauvism no longer was a shocking new movement, soon it was replaced by [[Cubism]] on
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In 1907 [[Guillaume Apollinaire|Appolinaire]], commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable." In 1907 [[Guillaume Apollinaire|Appolinaire]], commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable."
-[[Analytic cubism]] (see gallery) was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and [[Georges Braque]] from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by [[Synthetic cubism]], practised by Braque, Picasso, [[Fernand Léger]], [[Juan Gris]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Marcel Duchamp]] and countless other artists into the 1920s. [[Synthetic cubism]] is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, [[collage]] elements, [[papier collé]] and a large variety of merged subject matter.+Der Blaue Reiter was a German movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with [[Die Brücke]], a group of German [[expressionist]] artists formed in [[Dresden]] in 1905. Founding members of [[Die Brücke]] were [[Fritz Bleyl]], [[Erich Heckel]], [[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner]] and [[Karl Schmidt-Rottluff]]. Later members included [[Max Pechstein]], [[Otto Mueller]] and others. This was a seminal group, which in due course had a major impact on the evolution of [[modern art]] in the 20th century and created the style of [[Expressionism]].
-During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of [[cubism]], several movements emerged in Paris. [[Giorgio De Chirico]] moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea (the poet and painter known as [[Alberto Savinio]]). Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade a member of the jury at the Salon d’Automne, where he exhibited three of his dreamlike works: ''Enigma of the Oracle'', ''Enigma of an Afternoon'' and ''Self-Portrait''. During 1913 he exhibited his work at the [[Salon des Indépendants]] and Salon d’Automne, his work was noticed by [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and several others. His compelling and mysterious paintings are considered instrumental to the early beginnings of [[Surrealism]]. (see gallery)+[[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[Franz Marc]], [[August Macke]], [[Alexej von Jawlensky]], whose psychically expressive painting of the Russian dancer ''Portrait of [[Alexander Sakharoff]],'' 1909 is in the gallery above, [[Marianne von Werefkin]], [[Lyonel Feininger]] and others founded the [[Der Blaue Reiter]] group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting ''Last Judgement'' from an exhibition. Der Blaue Reiter lacked a central artistic manifesto, but was centered around Kandinsky and Marc. Artists [[Gabriele Münter]] and [[Paul Klee]] were also involved.
-====Pioneers of Modern art====+The name of the movement comes from a painting by Kandinsky created in 1903. It is also claimed that the name could have derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, ''blue'' is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal.
-In the first two decades of the 20th century and after [[cubism]], several other important movements emerged; [[Futurism (art)|Futurism]] ([[Giacomo Balla|Balla]]), [[Abstract art]] ([[Kandinsky]]), [[Der Blaue Reiter]]), [[Bauhaus]], ([[Kandinsky]]) and ([[Paul Klee|Klee]]), [[Orphism]], ([[Robert Delaunay]] and [[František Kupka]]), [[Synchromism]] ([[Morgan Russell]]), [[De Stijl]] ([[Piet Mondrian|Mondrian]]), [[Suprematism]] ([[Malevich]]), [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivism]] ([[Tatlin]]), [[Dadaism]] ([[Duchamp]], [[Picabia]], [[Jean Arp|Arp]]) and [[Surrealism]] ([[Giorgio De Chirico|De Chirico]], [[André Breton]], [[Joan Miró|Miró]], [[René Magritte|Magritte]], [[Salvador Dalí|Dalí]], [[Max Ernst|Ernst]]). Modern painting influenced all the visual arts, from [[Modernist]] [[architecture]] and [[design]], to [[avant-garde]] film, theatre and [[modern dance]] and became an experimental laboratory for the expression of visual experience, from [[photography]] and [[concrete poetry]] to [[advertising|advertising art]] and [[fashion]]. Van Gogh's painting exerted great influence upon 20th century [[Expressionism]], as can be seen in the work of the [[Fauves]], [[Die Brücke]] (a group led by German painter [[Ernst Kirchner]]), and the [[Expressionism]] of [[Edvard Munch]], [[Egon Schiele]], [[Marc Chagall]], [[Amedeo Modigliani]], [[Chaim Soutine]] and others..+
-[[Wassily Kandinsky]] a Russian [[Painting|painter]], [[printmaker]] and art [[theorist]], one of the most famous 20th-century artists is generally considered the first important painter of [[Modern Art|modern]] [[abstract art]]. As an early [[modernist]], in search of new modes of visual expression, and spiritual expression, he theorized as did contemporary [[occultists]] and [[theosophists]], that pure visual abstraction had corollary vibrations with sound and music. They posited that pure abstraction could express pure spirituality. His earliest abstractions were generally titled as the example in the (above gallery) ''Composition VII'', making connection to the work of the composers of music. Kandinsky included many of his theories about abstract art in his book ''Concerning the Spiritual in Art.'' [[Robert Delaunay]] was a French artist who is associated with [[Orphism (art)|Orphism]], (reminiscent of a link between pure abstraction and cubism). His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of [[Paul Klee]]. His key contributions to abstract painting refer to his bold use of color, and a clear love of experimentation of both depth and tone. At the invitation of [[Wassily Kandinsky]], Delaunay and his wife the artist [[Sonia Delaunay]], joined The Blue Rider ([[Der Blaue Reiter]]), a [[Munich]]-based group of abstract [[artists]], in 1911, and his art took a turn to the abstract. Other Major pioneers of early abstraction include Russian [[Painting|painter]] [[Kasimir Malevich]], who after the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|Russian Revolution]] in 1917, and after pressure from the [[Stalinist]] [[regime]] in 1924 returned to painting imagery and ''Peasants and Workers in the field,'' and [[Swiss (people)|Swiss]] [[Painting|painter]] [[Paul Klee]] whose masterful color experiments made him an important pioneer of [[abstract painting]] at the [[Bauhaus]].Still other important pioneers of abstract painting include the Swedish artist [[Hilma af Klint]], [[Czechs|Czech]] painter, [[František Kupka]] and [[Synchromism]], an art movement founded in 1912 by American [[artists]] [[Stanton MacDonald-Wright]] and [[Morgan Russell]] that closely resembles [[Orphism (art)|Orphism]].+====Expressionism, Symbolism, American Modernism, Bauhaus====
''[[Expressionism]]'' and ''[[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]'' are broad rubrics that describes several important and related movements in 20th century painting that dominated much of the [[avant-garde]] art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionism was painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both Surrealism and Symbolism and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal. [[Fauvism]], [[Die Brücke]], and [[Der Blaue Reiter]] are three of the best known groups of [[Expressionist]] and Symbolist painters. Artists as interesting and diverse as [[Marc Chagall]], whose painting ''[[I and the Village]],'' (above) tells an autobiographical story that examines the relationship between the artist and his origins, with a lexicon of artistic [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]. [[Gustav Klimt]], [[Egon Schiele]], [[Edvard Munch]], [[Emil Nolde]], [[Chaim Soutine]], [[James Ensor]], [[Oskar Kokoschka]], [[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner]], [[Max Beckmann]], [[Franz Marc]], [[Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz]], [[Georges Rouault]], [[Amedeo Modigliani]] and some of the Americans abroad like [[Marsden Hartley]], and [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], were considered influential expressionist painters. Although [[Alberto Giacometti]] is primarily thought of as an intense [[Surrealist]] [[sculptor]], he made intense expressionist paintings as well. ''[[Expressionism]]'' and ''[[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]'' are broad rubrics that describes several important and related movements in 20th century painting that dominated much of the [[avant-garde]] art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionism was painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both Surrealism and Symbolism and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal. [[Fauvism]], [[Die Brücke]], and [[Der Blaue Reiter]] are three of the best known groups of [[Expressionist]] and Symbolist painters. Artists as interesting and diverse as [[Marc Chagall]], whose painting ''[[I and the Village]],'' (above) tells an autobiographical story that examines the relationship between the artist and his origins, with a lexicon of artistic [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]. [[Gustav Klimt]], [[Egon Schiele]], [[Edvard Munch]], [[Emil Nolde]], [[Chaim Soutine]], [[James Ensor]], [[Oskar Kokoschka]], [[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner]], [[Max Beckmann]], [[Franz Marc]], [[Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz]], [[Georges Rouault]], [[Amedeo Modigliani]] and some of the Americans abroad like [[Marsden Hartley]], and [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], were considered influential expressionist painters. Although [[Alberto Giacometti]] is primarily thought of as an intense [[Surrealist]] [[sculptor]], he made intense expressionist paintings as well.
 +In the USA during the period between World War I and World War II painters tended to go to Europe for recognition. [[Modernist]] artists like [[Marsden Hartley]], [[Patrick Henry Bruce]], [[Gerald Murphy]] and [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], created reputations abroad. While [[Patrick Henry Bruce]], and [[Marsden Hartley]] experimented with [[expressionism]]. During the 1920s photographer [[Alfred Stieglitz]] exhibited [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], [[Arthur Dove]], [[Alfred Henry Maurer]], [[Charles Demuth]], [[John Marin]] and other artists including European Masters [[Henri Matisse]], [[Auguste Rodin]], [[Henri Rousseau]], [[Paul Cézanne]], and [[Pablo Picasso]], at his New York City gallery ''[[the 291]]'' In Europe masters like [[Henri Matisse]] and [[Pierre Bonnard]] continued developing their narrative styles independent of any movement.
-====Pioneers of abstraction====+====Dada and Surrealism====
-[[Piet Mondrian]]'s art was also related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908 he became interested in the [[Theosophy|theosophical]] movement launched by [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky]] in the late 19th century. Blavatsky believed that it was possible to attain a knowledge of nature more profound than that provided by empirical means, and much of Mondrian's work for the rest of his life was inspired by his search for that spiritual knowledge.+
-[[De Stijl]] also known as [[neoplasticism]], was a Dutch [[art]]istic movement founded in 1917. The term ''[[De Stijl]]'' is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands.+[[Marcel Duchamp]] came to international prominence in the wake of the New York City [[Armory Show]] in 1913 where his [[Nude Descending a Staircase]] became the cause celebre. He subsequently created the ''[[The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even]], [[Large Glass]]''. The ''[[Large Glass]]'' pushed the art of painting to radical new limits being part painting, part collage, part construction. Duchamp (who was soon to renounce artmaking for [[chess]]) became closely associated with the [[Dada]] movement that began in neutral [[Zürich, Switzerland]], during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestoes, art theory), theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in [[art]] through [[anti-art]] cultural works. [[Francis Picabia]], [[Man Ray]], [[Kurt Schwitters]], [[Tristan Tzara]], [[Hans Richter (artist)|Hans Richter]], [[Jean Arp]], [[Sophie Taeuber-Arp]], along with Duchamp and many others are associated with the Dadaist movement. Duchamp and several [[Dadaists]] are also associated with Surrealism, the movement that dominated European painting in the 1920s and 1930s.
- +
-''De Stijl'' is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic [[Theo van Doesburg]] propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Vilmos Huszàr]], and [[Bart van der Leck]], and the architects [[Gerrit Rietveld]], [[Robert van 't Hoff]], and [[J.J.P. Oud]]. The artistic [[philosophy]] that formed a basis for the group's work is known as ''neoplasticism'' — the new plastic art (or ''Nieuwe Beelding'' in Dutch).+
- +
-Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new [[utopia]]n ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure [[abstract art|abstraction]] and universality by a reduction to the essentials of [[form]] and colour; they simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only [[primary colors]] along with black and white. Indeed, according to the [[Tate Gallery]]'s online article on neoplasticism, Mondrian himself sets forth these delimitations in his essay 'Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art'. He writes, "... this new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary, it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour." The Tate article further summarizes that this art allows "only primary colours and non-colours, only squares and rectangles, only straight and horizontal or vertical line." The [[Guggenheim Museum]]'s online article on De Stijl summarizes these traits in similar terms: "It [De Stijl] was posited on the fundamental principle of the geometry of the straight line, the square, and the rectangle, combined with a strong asymmetricality; the predominant use of pure primary colors with black and white; and the relationship between positive and negative elements in an arrangement of non-objective forms and lines."+
- +
-De Stijl movement was influenced by [[Cubist]] painting as well as by the mysticism and the ideas about "ideal" geometric forms (such as the "perfect straight line") in the [[neoplatonic]] philosophy of [[mathematician]] [[M.H.J. Schoenmaekers]]. The works of De Stijl would influence the [[Bauhaus]] style and the [[International style (architecture)|international style]] of architecture as well as clothing and interior [[design]]. However, it did not follow the general guidelines of an "ism" (Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism), nor did it adhere to the principles of art schools like Bauhaus; it was a collective project, a joint enterprise.+
- +
-====Dada and Surrealism====+
-[[Marcel Duchamp]], came to international prominence in the wake of his notorious success at the New York City [[Armory Show]] in 1913, (soon after he denounced artmaking for [[chess]]). After Duchamp's [[Nude Descending a Staircase]] became the international cause celebre at the 1913 Armory show in New York he created the ''[[The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even]], [[Large Glass]]'' (see above). The ''[[Large Glass]]'' pushed the art of painting to radical new limits being part painting, part collage, part construction. Duchamp became closely associated with the [[Dada]] movement that began in neutral [[Zürich, Switzerland]], during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestoes, art theory), theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in [[art]] through [[anti-art]] cultural works. [[Francis Picabia]] (see above), [[Man Ray]], [[Kurt Schwitters]], [[Tristan Tzara]], [[Hans Richter]], [[Jean Arp]], [[Sophie Taeuber-Arp]], along with Duchamp and many others are associated with the Dadaist movement. Duchamp and several [[Dadaists]] are also associated with Surrealism, the movement that dominated European painting in the 1920s and 1930s.+
-In 1924 [[André Breton]] published the ''[[Surrealist Manifesto]].'' The [[Surrealist]] movement in painting became synonymous with the [[avant-garde]] and which featured artists whose works varied from the abstract to the super-realist. With works on paper like ''Machine Turn Quickly,'' (above) Francis Picabia continued his involvement in the [[Dada]] movement through 1919 in [[Zürich]] and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in [[Surrealism|Surrealist]] art. [[Yves Tanguy]], [[René Magritte]] and [[Salvador Dalí]] are particularly known for their realistic depictions of dream imagery and fantastic manifestations of the imagination. [[Joan Miró]]'s ''The Tilled Field'' of 1923-1924 verges on abstraction, this early painting of a complex of objects and figures, and arrangements of sexually active characters; was Miro's first [[Surrealist]] [[masterpiece]]. The more abstract [[Joan Miró]], [[Jean Arp]], [[André Masson]], and [[Max Ernst]] were very influential, especially in the United States during the 1940s.+In 1924 [[André Breton]] published the ''[[Surrealist Manifesto]].'' The [[Surrealist]] movement in painting became synonymous with the [[avant-garde]] and which featured artists whose works varied from the abstract to the super-realist. With works on paper like ''Machine Turn Quickly,'' (above) Francis Picabia continued his involvement in the [[Dada]] movement through 1919 in [[Zürich]] and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in [[Surrealism|Surrealist]] art. [[Yves Tanguy]], [[René Magritte]] and [[Salvador Dalí]] are particularly known for their realistic depictions of dream imagery and fantastic manifestations of the imagination. [[Joan Miró]]'s ''The Tilled Field'' of 1923-1924 verges on abstraction, this early painting of a complex of objects and figures, and arrangements of sexually active characters; was Miro's first [[Surrealist]] [[masterpiece]].The more abstract [[Joan Miró]], [[Jean Arp]], [[André Masson]], and [[Max Ernst]] were very influential, especially in the United States during the 1940s.
Throughout the 1930s, Surrealism continued to become more visible to the public at large. A [[British Surrealist Group|Surrealist group developed in Britain]] and, according to Breton, their 1936 [[London International Surrealist Exhibition]] was a high water mark of the period and became the model for international exhibitions. Surrealist groups in Japan, and especially in [[Latin America]], the Caribbean and in Mexico produced innovative and original works. Throughout the 1930s, Surrealism continued to become more visible to the public at large. A [[British Surrealist Group|Surrealist group developed in Britain]] and, according to Breton, their 1936 [[London International Surrealist Exhibition]] was a high water mark of the period and became the model for international exhibitions. Surrealist groups in Japan, and especially in [[Latin America]], the Caribbean and in Mexico produced innovative and original works.
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Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, and perception, sometimes evoking empathy from the viewer, sometimes laughter and sometimes outrage and bewilderment. Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, and perception, sometimes evoking empathy from the viewer, sometimes laughter and sometimes outrage and bewilderment.
-1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: in one example (see gallery above) liquid shapes become the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his ''[[The Persistence of Memory]]'', which features the image of watches that sag as if they are melting. Evocations of time and its compelling mystery and absurdity.+1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: in one example liquid shapes become the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his ''[[The Persistence of Memory]]'', which features the image of watches that sag as if they are melting. Evocations of time and its compelling mystery and absurdity.
The characteristics of this style - a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological - came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the [[Modernism|modernist]] period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with one's individuality." The characteristics of this style - a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological - came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the [[Modernism|modernist]] period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with one's individuality."
-Max Ernst whose 1923 painting ''Men Shall Know Nothing of This,'' (seen above) studied philosophy and psychology in Bonn and was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane. This painting may have been inspired by the [[psychoanalyst]] [[Sigmund Freud]]'s study of the delusions of a paranoiac, Daniel Paul Schreber. Freud identified Schreber's fantasy of becoming a woman as a ''[[castration complex]].'' The central image of two pairs of legs refers to Schreber's hermaphroditic desires. Ernst's inscription on the back of the painting reads: ''The picture is curious because of its symmetry. The two sexes balance one another.''+Max Ernst (''[[Men Shall Know Nothing of This]]'') studied philosophy and psychology in Bonn and was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane. This painting may have been inspired by the [[psychoanalyst]] [[Sigmund Freud]]'s study of the delusions of a paranoiac, Daniel Paul Schreber. Freud identified Schreber's fantasy of becoming a woman as a ''[[castration complex]].'' The central image of two pairs of legs refers to Schreber's hermaphroditic desires. Ernst's inscription on the back of the painting reads: ''The picture is curious because of its symmetry. The two sexes balance one another.''
-During the 1920s [[André Masson]]'s work was enormously influential in helping the newly arrived in Paris and young artist [[Joan Miró]] find his roots in the new [[Surrealist]] painting. Miró acknowledged in letters to his dealer [[Pierre Matisse]] the importance of Masson as an example to him in his early years in Paris. +During the 1920s [[André Masson]]'s work was enormously influential in helping the young artist [[Joan Miró]] find his roots in the new [[Surrealist]] painting. Miró acknowledged in letters to his dealer [[Pierre Matisse]] the importance of Masson as an example to him in his early years in Paris.
Long after personal, political and professional tensions have fragmented the Surrealist group into thin air and ether, Magritte, Miro, Dalí and the other Surrealists continue to define a visual program in the arts. Long after personal, political and professional tensions have fragmented the Surrealist group into thin air and ether, Magritte, Miro, Dalí and the other Surrealists continue to define a visual program in the arts.
-====Between the Wars====+====Neue Sachlichkeit, Social realism, regionalism, American Scene painting, Symbolism====
-Der Blaue Reiter was a German movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with [[Die Brücke]] which was founded the previous decade in 1905 and was a group of German [[expressionist]] artists formed in [[Dresden]] in 1905. Founding members of [[Die Brücke]] were [[Fritz Bleyl]], [[Erich Heckel]], [[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner]] and [[Karl Schmidt-Rottluff]]. Later members included [[Max Pechstein]], [[Otto Mueller]] and others. The group was one of the seminal ones, which in due course had a major impact on the evolution of [[modern art]] in the 20th century and created the style of [[Expressionism]].+
-[[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[Franz Marc]], [[August Macke]], [[Alexej von Jawlensky]], whose psychically expressive painting of the Russian dancer ''Portrait of [[Alexander Sakharoff]],'' 1909 is in the gallery above, [[Marianne von Werefkin]], [[Lyonel Feininger]] and others founded the [[Der Blaue Reiter]] group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting ''Last Judgement'' from an exhibition. Der Blaue Reiter lacked a central artistic manifesto, but was centered around Kandinsky and Marc. Artists [[Gabriele Munter|Gabriele Münter]] and [[Paul Klee]] were also involved.+During the 1920s and the 1930s and the [[Great Depression]], the European art scene was characterized by Surrealism, late Cubism, the [[Bauhaus]], [[De Stijl]], Dada, [[Neue Sachlichkeit]], and Expressionism; and was occupied by masterful [[modernist]] color painters like [[Henri Matisse]] and [[Pierre Bonnard]].
-The name of the movement comes from a painting by Kandinsky created in 1903 (see illustration). It is also claimed that the name could have derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, ''blue'' is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal.+In Germany [[Neue Sachlichkeit]] ("New Objectivity") emerged as [[Max Beckmann]], [[Otto Dix]], [[George Grosz]] and others politicized their paintings. The work of these artists grew out of expressionism, and was a response to the political tensions of the [[Weimar Republic]], and was often sharply satirical.
-In the USA during the period between World War I and World War II painters tended to go to Europe for recognition. Artists like [[Marsden Hartley]], [[Patrick Henry Bruce]], [[Gerald Murphy]] and [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], created reputations abroad. In New York City, [[Albert Pinkham Ryder]] and [[Ralph Blakelock]] were influential and important figures in advanced American painting between 1900 and 1920. During the 1920s photographer [[Alfred Stieglitz]] exhibited [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], [[Arthur Dove]], [[Alfred Henry Maurer]], [[Charles Demuth]], [[John Marin]] and other artists including European Masters [[Henri Matisse]], [[Auguste Rodin]], [[Henri Rousseau]], [[Paul Cézanne]], and [[Pablo Picasso]], at his gallery ''[[the 291]].''+[[American Scene painting]] and the [[Social Realism]] and [[Regionalism (art)|Regionalism]] movements that contained both political and social commentary dominated the art world in the USA. Artists like [[Ben Shahn]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], [[Grant Wood]], [[George Tooker]], [[John Steuart Curry]], [[Reginald Marsh (artist)|Reginald Marsh]], and others became prominent. In [[Latin America]] besides the [[Uruguay]]an painter [[Joaquín Torres García]] and [[Rufino Tamayo]] from Mexico, the [[Mural|muralist movement]] with [[Diego Rivera]], [[David Siqueiros]], [[José Orozco]], [[Pedro Nel Gómez]] and [[Santiago Martinez Delgado]] and the [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] paintings by [[Frida Kahlo]] began a renaissance of the arts for the region, with a use of color and historic, and political messages. [[Frida Kahlo]]'s Symbolist works also relate strongly to Surrealism and to the [[Magic Realism]] movement in literature. The psychological drama in many of Kahlo's self portraits (above) underscore the vitality and relevance of her paintings to artists in the 21st century.
-''[[Expressionism]]'' and ''[[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]'' are broad rubrics that describes several important and related movements in 20th century painting that dominated much of the [[avant-garde]] art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. [[Expressionism]] was painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both [[Surrealism]] and [[Symbolism]] and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal. [[Fauvism]], [[Die Brücke]], and [[Der Blaue Reiter]] are three of the best known groups of [[Expressionist]] and [[Symbolist]] painters. Artists as interesting and diverse as [[Marc Chagall]], [[Gustav Klimt]], [[Egon Schiele]], [[Edvard Munch]], [[Emil Nolde]], [[Chaim Soutine]], [[James Ensor]], [[Oskar Kokoschka]], [[Ernst Ludwig Kirchner]], [[Max Beckmann]], [[Franz Marc]], [[Otto Dix]], [[Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz]], [[Georges Rouault]], [[Amedeo Modigliani]] and some of the Americans abroad like [[Marsden Hartley]], and [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], were considered influential expressionist painters. Although [[Alberto Giacometti]] is primarily thought of as an intense [[Surrealist]] [[sculptor]], he made intense expressionist paintings of figures as well.+Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, "[[Man at the Crossroads]]", in the lobby of the RCA Building at [[Rockefeller Center]]. When his patron [[Nelson Rockefeller]] discovered that the mural included a portrait of [[Lenin]] and other [[communist]] imagery, he fired Rivera, and the unfinished work was eventually destroyed by Rockefeller's staff. The film ''[[Cradle Will Rock]]'' includes a dramatization of the controversy. [[Frida Kahlo]] (Rivera's wife's) works are often characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings 55 are [[Self portrait|self-portraits]], which frequently incorporate symbolic portrayals of her physical and psychological wounds. Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her paintings' bright colors and dramatic symbolism. [[Christian]] and [[Jewish]] themes are often depicted in her work as well; she combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition—which were often bloody and violent—with [[surrealist]] renderings. While her paintings are not overtly Christian—she was, after all, an avowed communist—they certainly contain elements of the macabre Mexican Christian style of religious paintings.
-====Social Consciousness====+Political activism was an important piece of [[David Siqueiros]]' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. His art was deeply rooted in the [[Mexican Revolution]], a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal. He briefly gave up painting to focus on organizing miners in Jalisco. He ran a political art workshop in New York City in preparation for the 1936 General Strike for Peace and [[May Day]] [[parade]]. The young [[Jackson Pollock]] attended the workshop and helped build [[float (parade)|floats]] for the parade. Between 1937 and 1938 he fought in the [[Spanish Civil War]] alongside the Spanish Republican forces, in opposition to [[Francisco Franco]]'s military coup. He was [[exile]]d twice from Mexico, once in 1932 and again in 1940, following his assassination attempt on [[Leon Trotsky]].
- +
-During the 1920s and the 1930s and the [[Great Depression]], Surrealism, late Cubism, the [[Bauhaus]], [[De Stijl]], Dada, German Expressionism, Expressionism, and [[modernist]] and masterful color painters like [[Henri Matisse]] and [[Pierre Bonnard]] characterized the European art scene. In Germany [[Max Beckmann]], [[Otto Dix]], [[George Grosz]] and others politicized their paintings, foreshadowing the coming of World War II. While in America [[American Scene painting]] and the [[Social Realism]] and [[Regionalism (art)|Regionalism]] movements that contained both political and social commentary dominated the art world. Artists like [[Ben Shahn]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], [[Grant Wood]], [[George Tooker]], [[John Steuart Curry]], [[Reginald Marsh (artist)|Reginald Marsh]], and others became prominent. In [[Latin America]] besides the [[Uruguay]]an painter [[Joaquín Torres García]] and [[Rufino Tamayo]] from Mexico, the [[Mural|muralist movement]] with [[Diego Rivera]], [[David Siqueiros]], [[José Orozco]], [[Pedro Nel Gómez]] and [[Santiago Martinez Delgado]] and the [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] paintings by [[Frida Kahlo]] began a renaissance of the arts for the region, with a use of color and historic, and political messages. [[Frida Kahlo]]'s Symbolist works also relate strongly to Surrealism and to the [[Magic Realism]] movement in literature. The psychological drama in many of Kahlo's self portraits (above) underscore the vitality and relevance of her paintings to artists in the 21st century.+
- +
-''[[American Gothic]]'' is a [[painting]] by [[Grant Wood]] from 1930 (see gallery). Portraying a [[pitchfork]]-holding farmer and a younger woman in front of a house of [[Carpenter Gothic]] style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th century [[American art]]. Art critics had favorable opinions about the painting, like [[Gertrude Stein]] and [[Christopher Morley]], they assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend towards increasingly critical depictions of rural America, along the lines of [[Sherwood Anderson]]'s ''1919 [[Winesburg, Ohio (novel)|Winesburg, Ohio]]'', [[Sinclair Lewis]]' 1920 ''[[Main Street (novel)|Main Street]]'', and [[Carl Van Vechten]]'s ''The Tattooed Countess'' in literature. However, with the onset of the [[Great Depression]], the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit.+
- +
-Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, "[[Man at the Crossroads]]", in the lobby of the RCA Building at [[Rockefeller Center]]. When his patron [[Nelson Rockefeller]] discovered that the mural included a portrait of [[Lenin]] and other [[communist]] imagery, he fired Rivera, and the unfinished work was eventually destroyed by Rockefeller's staff. The film ''[[Cradle Will Rock]]'' includes a dramatization of the controversy. [[Frida Kahlo]] (Rivera's wife's) works are often characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings 55 are [[Self portrait|self-portraits]], which frequently incorporate symbolic portrayals of her physical and psychological wounds. Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her paintings' bright colors and dramatic symbolism. [[Christian]] and [[Jewish]] themes are often depicted in her work as well; she combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition--which were often bloody and violent--with [[surrealist]] renderings. While her paintings are not overtly Christian - she was, after all, an avowed communist - they certainly contain elements of the macabre Mexican Christian style of religious paintings.+
- +
-Political activism was an important piece of [[David Siqueiros]]' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. His art was deeply rooted in the [[Mexican Revolution]], a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal. He briefly gave up painting to focus on organizing miners in Jalisco. He ran a political art workshop in New York City in preparation for the 1936 General Strike for Peace and [[May Day]] [[parade]]. The young [[Jackson Pollock]] attended the workshop and helped build [[float (parade)|float]]s for the parade. Between 1937 and 1938 he fought in the [[Spanish Civil War]] alongside the Spanish Republican forces, in opposition to [[Francisco Franco]]'s military coup. He was [[exile]]d twice from Mexico, once in 1932 and again in 1940, following his assassination attempt on [[Leon Trotsky]].+
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-====World conflict====+
During the 1930s radical leftist politics characterized many of the artists connected to [[Surrealism]], including [[Pablo Picasso]]. On 26 April 1937, during the [[Spanish Civil War]], the [[Basque Country (autonomous community)|Basque]] town of [[Gernika]] was the scene of the "[[Bombing of Gernika]]" by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overthrow the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Gernika survived. Pablo Picasso painted his mural sized ''[[Guernica (painting)|Guernica]]'' to commemorate the horrors of the bombing. During the 1930s radical leftist politics characterized many of the artists connected to [[Surrealism]], including [[Pablo Picasso]]. On 26 April 1937, during the [[Spanish Civil War]], the [[Basque Country (autonomous community)|Basque]] town of [[Gernika]] was the scene of the "[[Bombing of Gernika]]" by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overthrow the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Gernika survived. Pablo Picasso painted his mural sized ''[[Guernica (painting)|Guernica]]'' to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.
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In its final form, ''Guernica'' is an immense black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (23 ft) wide mural painted in oil. The mural presents a scene of death, violence, brutality, suffering, and helplessness without portraying their immediate causes. The choice to paint in black and white contrasts with the intensity of the scene depicted and invokes the immediacy of a newspaper photograph. In its final form, ''Guernica'' is an immense black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (23 ft) wide mural painted in oil. The mural presents a scene of death, violence, brutality, suffering, and helplessness without portraying their immediate causes. The choice to paint in black and white contrasts with the intensity of the scene depicted and invokes the immediacy of a newspaper photograph.
-Picasso painted the mural sized painting called ''[[Guernica (painting)|Guernica]]'' in protest of the bombing. The painting was first exhibited in Paris in 1937, then [[Scandinavia]], then London in 1938 and finally in 1939 at Picasso's request the painting was sent to the United States in an extended loan (for safekeeping) at [[MoMA]]. The painting went on a tour of museums throughout the USA until its final return to the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York City where it was exhibited for nearly thirty years. Finally in accord with [[Pablo Picasso]]'s wish to give the painting to the people of Spain as a gift, it was sent to Spain in 1981.+Picasso painted the mural sized painting called ''[[Guernica (painting)|Guernica]]'' in protest of the bombing. The painting was first exhibited in Paris in 1937, then Scandinavia, then London in 1938 and finally in 1939 at Picasso's request the painting was sent to the United States in an extended loan (for safekeeping) at [[MoMA]]. The painting went on a tour of museums throughout the USA until its final return to the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York City where it was exhibited for nearly thirty years. Finally in accord with [[Pablo Picasso]]'s wish to give the painting to the people of Spain as a gift, it was sent to Spain in 1981.
-During the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, through the years of World War II American art was characterized by [[Social Realism]] and [[American Scene Painting]] (as seen above) in the work of [[Grant Wood]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Ben Shahn]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], and several others. ''[[Nighthawks]]'' (1942) is a painting by [[Edward Hopper]] that portrays people sitting in a downtown [[diner]] late at night. It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. It is currently in the collection of the [[Art Institute of Chicago]]. The scene was inspired by a [[diner]] (since demolished) in [[Greenwich Village]], Hopper's home neighborhood in [[Manhattan]]. Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]]. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.+During the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, through the years of World War II American art was characterized by [[Social Realism]] and [[American Scene Painting]] in the work of [[Grant Wood]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Ben Shahn]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], and several others. ''[[Nighthawks]]'' (1942) is a painting by [[Edward Hopper]] that portrays people sitting in a downtown [[diner]] late at night. It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. It is currently in the collection of the [[Art Institute of Chicago]]. The scene was inspired by a [[diner]] (since demolished) in [[Greenwich Village]], Hopper's home neighborhood in [[Manhattan]]. Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]]. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.
-The Dynamic for artists in Europe during the 1930s deteriorated rapidly as the Nazi's power in Germany and across Eastern Europe increased. The climate became so hostile for artists and art associated with [[Modernism]] and [[Abstract art|abstraction]] that many left for the Americas. ''[[Degenerate art]]'' was a term adopted by the [[Nazi]] regime in Germany to describe virtually all [[modern art]]. Such [[art]] was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or [[Jewish Bolshevism|Jewish Bolshevist]] in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely.+''[[American Gothic]]'' is a [[painting]] by [[Grant Wood]] from 1930. Portraying a [[pitchfork]]-holding farmer and a younger woman in front of a house of [[Carpenter Gothic]] style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th century [[American art]]. Art critics had favorable opinions about the painting, like [[Gertrude Stein]] and [[Christopher Morley]], they assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend towards increasingly critical depictions of rural America, along the lines of [[Sherwood Anderson]]'s ''1919 [[Winesburg, Ohio (novel)|Winesburg, Ohio]]'', [[Sinclair Lewis]]' 1920 ''[[Main Street (novel)|Main Street]]'', and [[Carl Van Vechten]]'s ''The Tattooed Countess'' in literature. However, with the onset of the [[Great Depression]], the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit.
-''Degenerate Art'' was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in [[Munich]] in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria. German artist [[Max Beckmann]] and scores of others fled Europe for New York. In New York City a new generation of young and exciting [[Modernist]] painters led by [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Willem de Kooning]], and others were just beginning to come of age.+====Abstract expressionism====
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-[[Arshile Gorky]]'s portrait of [[Willem de Kooning]] (above) is an example of the evolution of [[Abstract Expressionism]] from the context of figure painting, [[cubism]] and [[surrealism]]. Along with his friends de Kooning and [[John D. Graham]] Gorky created bio-morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.+
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-====Towards Mid Century====+
The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American [[abstract expressionism]], a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from [[Henri Matisse]], [[Pablo Picasso]], Surrealism, [[Joan Miró]], Cubism, [[Fauvism]], and early Modernism via great teachers in America like [[Hans Hofmann]] and [[John D. Graham]]. American artists benefited from the presence of [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Fernand Léger]], [[Max Ernst]] and the [[André Breton]] group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and [[Peggy Guggenheim]]'s gallery ''[[The Art of This Century]]'', as well as other factors. The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American [[abstract expressionism]], a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from [[Henri Matisse]], [[Pablo Picasso]], Surrealism, [[Joan Miró]], Cubism, [[Fauvism]], and early Modernism via great teachers in America like [[Hans Hofmann]] and [[John D. Graham]]. American artists benefited from the presence of [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Fernand Léger]], [[Max Ernst]] and the [[André Breton]] group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and [[Peggy Guggenheim]]'s gallery ''[[The Art of This Century]]'', as well as other factors.
-Post-[[Second World War]] American painting called Abstract expressionism included artists like [[Jackson Pollock]], [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Clyfford Still]], [[Franz Kline]], [[Adolph Gottlieb]], [[Mark Tobey]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[James Brooks (painter)|James Brooks]], [[Philip Guston]], [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Conrad Marca-Relli]], [[Jack Tworkov]], [[William Baziotes]], [[Richard Pousette-Dart]], [[Ad Reinhardt]], [[Hedda Sterne]], [[Jimmy Ernst]], [[Bradley Walker Tomlin]], and [[Theodoros Stamos]], among others. American Abstract expressionism got its name in 1946 from the art critic [[Robert Coates (critic)|Robert Coates]]. It is seen as combining the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as [[Futurism (art)|Futurism]], the [[Bauhaus]] and Synthetic Cubism. Abstract expressionism, [[Action painting]], and [[Color Field]] painting are synonymous with the [[New York School]]. +Post-[[Second World War]] American painting called Abstract expressionism included artists like [[Jackson Pollock]], [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Clyfford Still]], [[Franz Kline]], [[Adolph Gottlieb]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Mark Tobey]], [[James Brooks (painter)|James Brooks]], [[Philip Guston]], [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Conrad Marca-Relli]], [[Jack Tworkov]], [[William Baziotes]], [[Richard Pousette-Dart]], [[Ad Reinhardt]], [[Hedda Sterne]], [[Jimmy Ernst]], [[Bradley Walker Tomlin]], and [[Theodoros Stamos]], among others. American Abstract expressionism got its name in 1946 from the art critic [[Robert Coates (critic)|Robert Coates]]. It is seen as combining the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as [[Futurism (art)|Futurism]], the [[Bauhaus]] and Synthetic Cubism. Abstract expressionism, [[Action painting]], and [[Color Field]] painting are synonymous with the [[New York School]].
Technically Surrealism was an important predecessor for Abstract expressionism with its emphasis on spontaneous, [[Surrealist automatism|automatic]] or subconscious creation. [[Jackson Pollock]]'s dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of [[André Masson]]. Another important ear<nowiki>ly m</nowiki>anifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist [[Mark Tobey]], especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings. Technically Surrealism was an important predecessor for Abstract expressionism with its emphasis on spontaneous, [[Surrealist automatism|automatic]] or subconscious creation. [[Jackson Pollock]]'s dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of [[André Masson]]. Another important ear<nowiki>ly m</nowiki>anifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist [[Mark Tobey]], especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.
-====Abstract Expressionism====+Additionally, Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic "[[action painting]]s", with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to the violent and grotesque ''Women'' series of [[Willem de Kooning]]. Woman V is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings, Woman I collection: [[The Museum of Modern Art]], New York City, in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian [[Meyer Schapiro]] saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme; Woman II collection: [[The Museum of Modern Art]], New York City, [[Woman III]], [[Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art]], Woman IV, [[Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art]], [[Kansas City, Missouri]]. During the summer of 1952, spent at [[East Hampton (town), New York|East Hampton]], de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on Woman I by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time. The ''Woman series'' are decidedly [[Figurative art|figurative paintings]]. Another important artist is [[Franz Kline]], as demonstrated by his painting ''Number 2,'' 1954 as with [[Jackson Pollock]] and other Abstract Expressionists, was labelled an "[[Action Painting|action painter]] because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas.
-Additionally, Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic "[[action painting]]s", with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to the violent and grotesque ''Women'' series of [[Willem de Kooning]]. As seen above in the gallery Woman V is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings, Woman I collection: [[The Museum of Modern Art]], New York City, in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian [[Meyer Schapiro]] saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme; Woman II collection: [[The Museum of Modern Art]], New York City, [[Woman III]], [[Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art]], Woman IV, [[Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art]], [[Kansas City, Missouri]]. During the summer of 1952, spent at [[East Hampton]], de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on Woman I by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time. The ''Woman series'' are decidedly [[Figurative art|figurative paintings]]. Another important artist is [[Franz Kline]], as demonstrated by his painting ''Number 2,'' 1954 (see gallery) as with [[Jackson Pollock]] and other Abstract Expressionists, was labelled an "[[Action Painting|action painter]] because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas.+
-[[Clyfford Still]], [[Barnett Newman]], (see above), [[Adolph Gottlieb]], and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in [[Mark Rothko]]'s work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what [[Clement Greenberg]] termed the [[Color field]] direction of abstract expressionism. Both [[Hans Hofmann]] (see gallery) and [[Robert Motherwell]] (gallery) can be comfortably described as practitioners of [[action painting]] and [[Color field|Color field painting]]. +[[Clyfford Still]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Adolph Gottlieb]], and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in [[Mark Rothko]]'s work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what [[Clement Greenberg]] termed the [[Color field]] direction of abstract expressionism. Both [[Hans Hofmann]] and [[Robert Motherwell]] (gallery) can be comfortably described as practitioners of [[action painting]] and [[Color field|Color field painting]].
Abstract Expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early twentieth century such as [[Wassily Kandinsky]]. Although it is true that spontaneity or of the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. An exception might be the drip paintings of Pollock. Abstract Expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early twentieth century such as [[Wassily Kandinsky]]. Although it is true that spontaneity or of the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. An exception might be the drip paintings of Pollock.
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Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American [[Social realism]] had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the [[Great Depression]] but also by the [[Socialist Realism|Social Realists]] of Mexico such as [[David Alfaro Siqueiros]] and [[Diego Rivera]]. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of those painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early 1940s at galleries in New York like ''[[The Art of This Century Gallery]]''. The late 1940s through the mid 1950s ushered in the [[McCarthy era]]. It was after World War II and a time of political conservatism and extreme artistic [[censorship]] in the United States. Some people have conjectured that since the subject matter was often totally abstract, Abstract expressionism became a safe strategy for artists to pursue this style. Abstract art could be seen as apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. However those theorists are in the minority. As the first truly original school of painting in America, Abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its ability (or need) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty. Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American [[Social realism]] had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the [[Great Depression]] but also by the [[Socialist Realism|Social Realists]] of Mexico such as [[David Alfaro Siqueiros]] and [[Diego Rivera]]. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of those painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early 1940s at galleries in New York like ''[[The Art of This Century Gallery]]''. The late 1940s through the mid 1950s ushered in the [[McCarthy era]]. It was after World War II and a time of political conservatism and extreme artistic [[censorship]] in the United States. Some people have conjectured that since the subject matter was often totally abstract, Abstract expressionism became a safe strategy for artists to pursue this style. Abstract art could be seen as apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. However those theorists are in the minority. As the first truly original school of painting in America, Abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its ability (or need) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty.
-Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the [[New York School]], and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an "all-over" approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges. The canvas as the ''arena'' became a credo of [[Action painting]], while the ''integrity of the picture plane'' became a credo of the Color Field painters.+Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the [[New York School]], and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an [[all-over painting|"all-over"]] approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges. The canvas as the ''arena'' became a credo of [[Action painting]], while the ''integrity of the picture plane'' became a credo of the Color Field painters.
-During the 1950s Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of [[abstract expressionism]], especially the work of [[Mark Rothko]], [[Clyfford Still]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Robert Motherwell]] and [[Adolph Gottlieb]]. It essentially described abstract paintings with large, flat expanses of color that expressed the sensual, and visual feelings and properties of large areas of nuanced surface. [[Art critic]] [[Clement Greenberg]] perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The overall expanse and gestalt of the work of the early color field painters speaks of an almost religious experience, awestruck in the face of an expanding universe of sensuality, color and surface. During the early to mid-1960s Color Field painting was the term used to describe artists like [[Jules Olitski]], [[Kenneth Noland]], and [[Helen Frankenthaler]], whose works were related to second generation abstract expressionism, and to younger artists like [[Larry Zox]], and [[Frank Stella]], - all moving in a new direction. Artists like [[Clyfford Still]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Jules Olitski]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Larry Zox]], and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. In ''Mountains and Sea,'' from 1952, (see above) a seminal work of [[Colorfield painting]] by [[Helen Frankenthaler]] the artist used the stain technique for the first time. +During the 1950s Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of [[abstract expressionism]], especially the work of [[Mark Rothko]], [[Clyfford Still]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Robert Motherwell]] and [[Adolph Gottlieb]]. It essentially described abstract paintings with large, flat expanses of color that expressed the sensual, and visual feelings and properties of large areas of nuanced surface. [[Art critic]] [[Clement Greenberg]] perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The overall expanse and gestalt of the work of the early color field painters speaks of an almost religious experience, awestruck in the face of an expanding universe of sensuality, color and surface. During the early to mid-1960s Color Field painting was the term used to describe artists like [[Jules Olitski]], [[Kenneth Noland]], and [[Helen Frankenthaler]], whose works were related to second generation abstract expressionism, and to younger artists like [[Larry Zox]], and [[Frank Stella]], - all moving in a new direction. Artists like [[Clyfford Still]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Jules Olitski]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Larry Zox]], and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. In ''Mountains and Sea,'' from 1952, a seminal work of [[Colorfield painting]] by [[Helen Frankenthaler]] the artist used the stain technique for the first time.
In Europe there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada and the works of [[Matisse]]. Also in Europe, [[Tachisme]] (the European equivalent to Abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation. [[Serge Poliakoff]], [[Nicolas de Staël]], [[Georges Mathieu]], [[Vieira da Silva]], [[Jean Dubuffet]], [[Yves Klein]] and [[Pierre Soulages]] among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting. In Europe there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada and the works of [[Matisse]]. Also in Europe, [[Tachisme]] (the European equivalent to Abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation. [[Serge Poliakoff]], [[Nicolas de Staël]], [[Georges Mathieu]], [[Vieira da Silva]], [[Jean Dubuffet]], [[Yves Klein]] and [[Pierre Soulages]] among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting.
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Eventually abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as [[Neo-Dada]], Color Field painting, [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[shaped canvas]] painting, [[Lyrical Abstraction]], [[Neo-expressionism]] and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements, notably [[Pop art]]. Eventually abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as [[Neo-Dada]], Color Field painting, [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[shaped canvas]] painting, [[Lyrical Abstraction]], [[Neo-expressionism]] and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements, notably [[Pop art]].
-====Pop Art ====+====Realism, Landscape, Figuration, Still-Life, Cityscape====
-The term "Pop Art" was used by [[Lawrence Alloway]] in England in 1958 to describe paintings that celebrated consumerism of the post World War II era. This movement rejected Abstract expressionism and its focus on the hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art which depicted, and often celebrated material consumer culture, advertising, and iconography of the mass production age. The early works of [[David Hockney]] and the works of [[Richard Hamilton (artist)|Richard Hamilton]] [[Peter Blake (artist)|Peter Blake]] and [[Eduardo Paolozzi]] were considered seminal examples in the movement. +
-[[Pop Art]] in America was to a large degree initially inspired by the works of [[Jasper Johns]], [[Larry Rivers]], and [[Robert Rauschenberg]]. Although the paintings of [[Gerald Murphy]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]] and [[Charles Demuth]] during the 1920s and 1930s set the table for [[Pop Art]] in America. In New York City during the mid 1950s [[Robert Rauschenberg]] and [[Jasper Johns]] created works of art that at first seemed to be continuations of [[Abstract expressionist]] painting. Actually their works and the work of [[Larry Rivers]], were radical departures from abstract expressionism especially in the use of banal and literal imagery and the inclusion and the combining of mundane materials into their work. The innovations of Johns' specific use of various images and objects like chairs, numbers, targets, beer cans and the [[American Flag]]; Rivers paintings of subjects drawn from popular culture such as [[George Washington]] crossing the [[Delaware]], and his inclusions of images from advertisements like the camel from [[Camel cigarettes]], and Rauschenberg's surprising constructions using inclusions of objects and pictures taken from popular culture, hardware stores, junkyards, the city streets, and [[taxidermy]] gave rise to a radical new movement in [[American art]]. Eventually by 1963 the movement came to be known worldwide as [[Pop Art]]. +During the 1930s through the 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as [[Abstract Expressionism]], Color Field painting, [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[shaped canvas]] painting, and [[Lyrical Abstraction]]. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction allowing imagery to continue through various new contexts like the [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] in the 1950s and new forms of [[expressionism]] from the 1940s through the 1960s. In Italy during this time, [[Giorgio Morandi]] was the foremost still life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Throughout the 20th century many painters practiced [[Realism (visual arts)|Realism]] and used expressive imagery; practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like [[Milton Avery]], [[John D. Graham]], [[Fairfield Porter]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Andrew Wyeth]], [[Balthus]], [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Lucian Freud]], [[Leon Kossoff]], [[Philip Pearlstein]], [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Grace Hartigan]], [[Robert De Niro, Sr.]], [[Elaine de Kooning]] and others. Along with [[Henri Matisse]], [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Pierre Bonnard]], [[Georges Braque]], and other 20th century masters.
-American [[Pop-Art]] is exemplified by artists: [[Andy Warhol]], [[Claes Oldenburg]], [[Wayne Thiebaud]], [[James Rosenquist]], [[Jim Dine]], [[Tom Wesselmann]] and [[Roy Lichtenstein]] among others. [[Pop art]] merges popular and mass culture with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix. In October 1962 the [[Sidney Janis]] Gallery mounted ''The New Realists'' the first major [[Pop Art]] group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City. [[Sidney Janis]] mounted the exhibition in a 57th Street storefront near his gallery at 15 E. 57th Street. The show sent shockwaves through the [[New York School]] and reverberated worldwide. Earlier in the fall of 1962 an historically important and ground-breaking ''[[New Painting of Common Objects]]'' exhibition of [[Pop Art]], curated by [[Walter Hopps]] at the [[Pasadena Art Museum]] sent shock waves across the Western United States.+[[Arshile Gorky]]'s portrait of [[Willem de Kooning]] (above) is an example of the evolution of [[Abstract Expressionism]] from the context of figure painting, [[cubism]] and [[surrealism]]. Along with his friends de Kooning and [[John D. Graham]] Gorky created bio-morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.
-While in the downtown scene in New York City's [[East Village, Manhattan|East Village]] [[Tenth street galleries|10th Street galleries]] artists were formulating an American version of [[Pop Art]]. [[Claes Oldenburg]] had his storefront, and the [[Green Gallery]] on [[57th Street (Manhattan)|57th Street]] began to show [[Tom Wesselmann]] and [[James Rosenquist]]. Later [[Leo Castelli]] exhibited other American artists including the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Benday dots, a technique used in commercial reproduction. There is a connection between the radical works of Duchamp, and [[Man Ray]], the rebellious Dadaists - with a sense of humor; and Pop Artists like [[Alex Katz]], [[Claes Oldenburg]], [[Andy Warhol]], [[Roy Lichtenstein]] and the others.+''[[Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X]],'' 1953 is a painting by the Irish born artist [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]] and is an example of Post World War II European [[Expressionism]]. The work shows a distorted version of the [[Portrait of Innocent X]] painted by the Spanish artist [[Diego Velázquez]] in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, over a total of forty-five works. When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely "wanted an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false [[Fauvism|fauve]] manner." The Pope in this version seethes with anger and aggression, and the dark colors give the image a grotesque and nightmarish appearance. The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent, and seem to fall through the Pope's face.
-While throughout the 20th century many painters continued to practice landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, like [[Milton Avery]], [[John D. Graham]], [[Fairfield Porter]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Balthus]], [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]], [[Nicolas de Staël]], [[Andrew Wyeth]], [[Lucian Freud]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Philip Pearlstein]], [[David Park]], [[Nathan Oliveira]], [[David Hockney]], [[Malcolm Morley]], [[Richard Estes]], [[Ralph Goings]], [[Audrey Flack]], [[Chuck Close]], [[Susan Rothenberg]], [[Eric Fischl]], [[Vija Celmins]] and [[Richard Diebenkorn]].+After World War II the term [[School of Paris]] often referred to [[Tachisme]], the European equivalent of American Abstract expressionism and those artists are also related to [[COBRA (avant-garde movement)|Cobra]]. Important proponents being [[Jean Dubuffet]], [[Pierre Soulages]], [[Nicholas de Staël]], [[Hans Hartung]], [[Serge Poliakoff]], and [[Georges Mathieu]], among several others. During the early 1950s [[Jean Dubuffet|Dubuffet]] (who was always a figurative artist), and [[Nicolas de Staël|de Staël]], abandoned abstraction, and returned to imagery via figuration and landscape. De Staël 's work was quickly recognised within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. His return to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) during the early 1950s can be seen as an influential precedent for the American [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]], as many of those abstract painters like [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[David Park]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Wayne Thiebaud]], [[Nathan Oliveira]], [[Joan Brown]] and others made a similar move; returning to imagery during the mid-1950s. Much of de Staël 's late work - in particular his thinned, and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s predicts Color Field painting and [[Lyrical Abstraction]] of the 1960s and 1970s. [[Nicolas de Staël]] 's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop art of the 1960s.
-====Figurative, Landscape, Still-Life, and Realism====+====Pop art====
-During the 1930s through the 1960s abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as [[Abstract Expressionism]], Color Field painting, [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[shaped canvas]] painting, and [[Lyrical Abstraction]]. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction, allowing figurative imagery to continue through various new contexts like the [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] in the 1950s and new forms of [[expressionism]] from the 1940s through the 1960s. In Italy during this time, [[Giorgio Morandi]] was the foremost still life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Throughout the 20th century many painters practiced [[Realism (visual arts)|Realism]] and used expressive imagery; practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like [[still-life]] painter [[Giorgio Morandi]], [[Milton Avery]], [[John D. Graham]], [[Fairfield Porter]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Andrew Wyeth]], [[Balthus]], [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]], [[Leon Kossoff]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Lucian Freud]], [[Philip Pearlstein]], [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Grace Hartigan]], [[Robert De Niro, Sr.]], [[Elaine de Kooning]] and others. Along with [[Henri Matisse]], [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Pierre Bonnard]], [[Georges Braque]], and other 20th century masters.+
- +
-''[[Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X]],'' 1953 (see above) is a painting by the Irish born artist [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]] and is an example of Post World War II European [[Expressionism]]. The work shows a distorted version of the [[Portrait of Innocent X]] painted by the Spanish artist [[Diego Velázquez]] in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, over a total of forty-five works. When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely "wanted an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false [[Fauvism|fauve]] manner." The Pope in this version seethes with anger and aggression, and the dark colors give the image a grotesque and nightmarish appearance. The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent, and seem to fall through the Pope's face.+
-Italian painter [[Giorgio Morandi]] was an important 20th century, early pioneer of Minimalism. Born in [[Bologna, Italy]] in 1890, throughout his career, Morandi concentrated almost exclusively on still lives and landscapes, except for a few self-portraits. With great sensitivity to tone, color, and compositional balance, he would depict the same familiar bottles and vases again and again in paintings notable for their simplicity of execution. Morandi executed 133 etchings, a significant body of work in its own right, and his drawings and watercolors often approach abstraction in their economy of means. Through his simple and repetitive motifs and economical use of color, value and surface, Morandi became a prescient and important forerunner of [[Minimalism]]. He died in Bologna in 1964.+[[Pop art]] in America was to a large degree initially inspired by the works of [[Jasper Johns]], [[Larry Rivers]], and [[Robert Rauschenberg]]. Although the paintings of [[Gerald Murphy]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]] and [[Charles Demuth]] during the 1920s and 1930s set the table for Pop art in America. In New York City during the mid 1950s [[Robert Rauschenberg]] and [[Jasper Johns]] created works of art that at first seemed to be continuations of [[Abstract expressionist]] painting. Actually their works and the work of Larry Rivers, were radical departures from abstract expressionism especially in the use of banal and literal imagery and the inclusion and the combining of mundane materials into their work. The innovations of Johns' specific use of various images and objects like chairs, numbers, targets, beer cans and the [[American Flag]]; Rivers paintings of subjects drawn from popular culture such as [[George Washington]] crossing the [[Delaware]], and his inclusions of images from advertisements like the camel from [[Camel cigarettes]], and Rauschenberg's surprising constructions using inclusions of objects and pictures taken from popular culture, hardware stores, junkyards, the city streets, and [[taxidermy]] gave rise to a radical new movement in [[American art]]. Eventually by 1963 the movement came to be known worldwide as Pop art.
-After World War II the term [[School of Paris]] often referred to [[Tachisme]], the European equivalent of American Abstract expressionism and those artists are also related to [[COBRA (avant-garde movement)|Cobra]]. Important proponents being [[Jean Dubuffet]], [[Pierre Soulages]], [[Nicholas de Staël]], [[Hans Hartung]], [[Serge Poliakoff]], and [[Georges Mathieu]], among several others. During the early 1950s [[Jean Dubuffet|Dubuffet]] (who was always a figurative artist), and [[Nicolas de Staël|de Staël]], abandoned abstraction, and returned to imagery via figuration and landscape. De Staël 's work was quickly recognised within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. His return to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) during the early 1950s can be seen as an influential precedent for the American [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]], as many of those abstract painters like [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[David Park]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Wayne Thiebaud]], [[Nathan Oliveira]], [[Joan Brown]] and others made a similar move; returning to imagery during the mid-1950s. Much of de Staël 's late work - in particular his thinned, and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s predicts Color Field painting and [[Lyrical Abstraction]] of the 1960s and 1970s. [[Nicolas de Staël]] 's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop art of the 1960s.+Pop art is exemplified by artists: [[Andy Warhol]], [[Claes Oldenburg]], [[Wayne Thiebaud]], [[James Rosenquist]], [[Jim Dine]], [[Tom Wesselmann]] and [[Roy Lichtenstein]] among others. Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix. In October 1962 the [[Sidney Janis]] Gallery mounted ''The New Realists'' the first major Pop art group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City. [[Sidney Janis]] mounted the exhibition in a 57th Street storefront near his gallery at 15 E. 57th Street. The show sent shockwaves through the [[New York School]] and reverberated worldwide. Earlier in the fall of 1962 a historically important and ground-breaking ''[[New Painting of Common Objects]]'' exhibition of Pop art, curated by [[Walter Hopps]] at the [[Pasadena Art Museum]] sent shock waves across the Western United States. ''[[Campbell's Soup Cans]]'' (sometimes referred to as ''32 Campbell's Soup Cans'') is the title of an [[Andy Warhol]] [[work of art]] that was produced in 1962. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20&nbsp;inches in height x 16&nbsp;inches in width (50.8 x 40.6&nbsp;cm) and each consisting of a painting of a [[Campbell Soup Company|Campbell's Soup]] can—one of each [[canned soup]] variety the company offered at the time. The individual paintings were produced with a semi-mechanised [[silkscreen]] process, using a non-[[painterly]] style. They helped usher in [[Pop art]] as a major [[art movement]] that relied on themes from [[popular culture]]. These works by [[Andy Warhol]] are repetitive and they are made in a non-painterly commercial manner.
 + 
 +Earlier in England in 1956 the term "Pop Art" was used by [[Lawrence Alloway]] to describe paintings that celebrated consumerism of the post World War II era. This movement rejected Abstract expressionism and its focus on the hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art which depicted, and often celebrated material consumer culture, advertising, and iconography of the mass production age. The early works of [[David Hockney]] whose paintings emerged from England during the 1960s like ''[[A Bigger Splash]],'' and the works of [[Richard Hamilton (artist)|Richard Hamilton]] [[Peter Blake (artist)|Peter Blake]] and [[Eduardo Paolozzi]] are considered seminal examples in the movement.
 + 
 +While in the downtown scene in New York's [[East Village, Manhattan|East Village]] [[Tenth street galleries|10th Street galleries]] artists were formulating an American version of Pop art. [[Claes Oldenburg]] had his storefront, and the [[Green Gallery]] on 57th Street began to show [[Tom Wesselmann]] and [[James Rosenquist]]. Later [[Leo Castelli]] exhibited other American artists including the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Benday dots, a technique used in commercial reproduction and seen in ordinary [[comic books]] and in paintings like ''Drowning Girl,'' 1963, in the gallery above. There is a connection between the radical works of Duchamp, and [[Man Ray]], the rebellious Dadaists - with a sense of humor; and Pop Artists like [[Alex Katz]], [[Claes Oldenburg]], [[Andy Warhol]], [[Roy Lichtenstein]] and the others.
====Art Brut, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement, Neo-Dada, Photorealism==== ====Art Brut, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement, Neo-Dada, Photorealism====
-During the 1950s and 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as [[Color Field]] painting, [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[shaped canvas]] painting, [[Lyrical Abstraction]], and the continuation of [[Abstract expressionism]]. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction with [[Outsider art|Art brut]], [[Fluxus]], [[Neo-Dada]], [[New Realism]], allowing imagery to re-emerge through various new contexts like [[Pop art]], the [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] and later in the 1970s [[Neo-expressionism]]. The [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] of whom [[David Park]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Nathan Oliveira]] and [[Richard Diebenkorn]] whose painting ''Cityscape 1,'' 1963 is a typical example (see above) were influential members flourished during the 1950s and 1960s in [[California]]. Although throughout the 20th century painters continued to practice [[Realism (visual arts)|Realism]] and use imagery, practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like [[Milton Avery]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Jean Dubuffet]], [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Lucian Freud]], [[Philip Pearlstein]], and others. Younger painters practiced the use of imagery in new and radical ways. [[Yves Klein]], [[Arman]], [[Martial Raysse]], [[Christo]], [[Niki de Saint Phalle]], [[David Hockney]], [[Alex Katz]], [[Malcolm Morley]], [[Ralph Goings]], [[Audrey Flack]], [[Richard Estes]], [[Chuck Close]], [[Susan Rothenberg]], [[Eric Fischl]], and [[Vija Celmins]] were a few who became prominent between the 1960s and the 1980s. [[Fairfield Porter]] (see above) was largely self-taught, and produced representational work in the midst of the [[abstract expressionism|Abstract Expressionist]] movement. His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the [[New York School]] of writers, including [[John Ashbery]], [[Frank O'Hara]], and [[James Schuyler]]. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on [[Great Spruce Head Island, Maine]]. + 
 +During the 1950s and 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as [[Color Field]] painting, [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[shaped canvas]] painting, [[Lyrical Abstraction]], and the continuation of [[Abstract expressionism]]. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction with [[Outsider art|Art brut]], [[Fluxus]], [[Neo-Dada]], [[New Realism]], allowing imagery to re-emerge through various new contexts like [[Pop art]], the [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] and later in the 1970s [[Neo-expressionism]]. The [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] of whom [[David Park]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Nathan Oliveira]] and [[Richard Diebenkorn]] whose painting ''Cityscape 1,'' 1963 is a typical example were influential members flourished during the 1950s and 1960s in [[California]]. Although throughout the 20th century painters continued to practice [[Realism (visual arts)|Realism]] and use imagery, practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like [[Milton Avery]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[Jean Dubuffet]], [[Francis Bacon (painter)|Francis Bacon]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Lucian Freud]], [[Philip Pearlstein]], and others. Younger painters practiced the use of imagery in new and radical ways. [[Yves Klein]], [[Arman]], [[Martial Raysse]], [[Christo]], [[Niki de Saint Phalle]], [[David Hockney]], [[Alex Katz]], [[Malcolm Morley]], [[Ralph Goings]], [[Audrey Flack]], [[Richard Estes]], [[Chuck Close]], [[Susan Rothenberg]], [[Eric Fischl]], and [[Vija Celmins]] were a few who became prominent between the 1960s and the 1980s. [[Fairfield Porter]] was largely self-taught, and produced representational work in the midst of the [[abstract expressionism|Abstract Expressionist]] movement. His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the [[New York School]] of writers, including [[John Ashbery]], [[Frank O'Hara]], and [[James Schuyler]]. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on [[Great Spruce Head Island, Maine]].
Also during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against painting. Critics like Douglas Crimp viewed the work of artists like [[Ad Reinhardt]], and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are: [[Postminimalism]], [[Earth art]], [[Video art]], [[Installation art]], [[arte povera]], [[performance art]], [[body art]], [[fluxus]], [[mail art]], the [[situationists]] and [[conceptual art]] among others. Also during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against painting. Critics like Douglas Crimp viewed the work of artists like [[Ad Reinhardt]], and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are: [[Postminimalism]], [[Earth art]], [[Video art]], [[Installation art]], [[arte povera]], [[performance art]], [[body art]], [[fluxus]], [[mail art]], the [[situationists]] and [[conceptual art]] among others.
-Neo-Dada is also a movement that started 1n the 1950s and 1960s and was related to Abstract expressionism only with imagery. Featuring the emergence of combined manufactured items, with artist materials, moving away from previous conventions of painting. This trend in art is exemplified by the work of [[Jasper Johns]] and [[Robert Rauschenberg]], whose "combines" in the 1950s were forerunners of Pop Art and [[Installation art]], and made use of the assemblage of large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography. [[Robert Rauschenberg]], (see ''untitled combine,'' 1963, above), [[Jasper Johns]], [[Larry Rivers]], [[John Chamberlain (sculptor)|John Chamberlain]], [[Claes Oldenburg]], [[George Segal (artist)|George Segal]], [[Jim Dine]], and [[Edward Kienholz]] among others were important pioneers of both abstraction and Pop Art; creating new conventions of art-making; they made acceptable in serious contemporary art circles the radical inclusion of unlikely materials as parts of their works of art.+Neo-Dada is also a movement that started 1n the 1950s and 1960s and was related to Abstract expressionism only with imagery. Featuring the emergence of combined manufactured items, with artist materials, moving away from previous conventions of painting. This trend in art is exemplified by the work of [[Jasper Johns]] and [[Robert Rauschenberg]], whose "combines" in the 1950s were forerunners of Pop Art and [[Installation art]], and made use of the assemblage of large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography. [[Robert Rauschenberg]], [[Jasper Johns]], [[Larry Rivers]], [[John Chamberlain (sculptor)|John Chamberlain]], [[Claes Oldenburg]], [[George Segal (artist)|George Segal]], [[Jim Dine]], and [[Edward Kienholz]] among others were important pioneers of both abstraction and Pop Art; creating new conventions of art-making; they made acceptable in serious contemporary art circles the radical inclusion of unlikely materials as parts of their works of art.
-====New abstraction from the 1950s through the 1980s====+====Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Hard-Edge, Color field, Minimal Art, New Realism====
-[[Color Field painting]] clearly pointed toward a new direction in American painting, away from [[abstract expressionism]]. Color Field painting is related to [[Post-painterly abstraction]], [[Suprematism]], [[Abstract Expressionism]], [[Hard-edge painting]] and [[Lyrical Abstraction]]. +
-During the 1960s and 1970s abstract painting continued to develop in America through varied styles. [[Geometric abstraction]], Op art, [[hard-edge painting]], Color Field painting and [[Minimalism|minimal]] painting, were some interrelated directions for advanced abstract painting as well as some other new movements. [[Morris Louis]] (see gallery) was an important pioneer in advanced [[Colorfield painting]], his work can serve as a bridge between [[Abstract expressionism]], [[Colorfield painting]], and [[Minimal Art]]. Two influential teachers [[Josef Albers]] and [[Hans Hofmann]] introduced a new generation of American artists to their advanced theories of color and space. [[Josef Albers]] is best remembered for his work as an [[Geometric abstraction]]ist painter and theorist. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series ''Homage to the Square,'' (see gallery). In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically on the canvas. Albers' theories on art and education were formative for the next generation of artists. His own paintings form the foundation of both [[hard-edge painting]] and Op art.+During the 1960s and 1970s abstract painting continued to develop in America through varied styles. [[Geometric abstraction]], Op art, [[hard-edge painting]], Color Field painting and [[Minimalism|minimal]] painting, were some interrelated directions for advanced abstract painting as well as some other new movements. [[Morris Louis]] was an important pioneer in advanced [[Colorfield painting]], his work can serve as a bridge between [[Abstract expressionism]], [[Colorfield painting]], and [[Minimal Art]]. Two influential teachers [[Josef Albers]] and [[Hans Hofmann]] introduced a new generation of American artists to their advanced theories of color and space. [[Josef Albers]] is best remembered for his work as an [[Geometric abstraction]]ist painter and theorist. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series ''Homage to the Square,'' . In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically on the canvas. Albers' theories on art and education were formative for the next generation of artists. His own paintings form the foundation of both [[hard-edge painting]] and Op art.
-[[Josef Albers]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Ilya Bolotowsky]], [[Burgoyne Diller]], [[Victor Vasarely]], [[Bridget Riley]], [[Richard Anuszkiewicz]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Larry Poons]], [[Ronald Davis]], [[Larry Zox]], and [[Al Held]] are artists closely associated with [[Geometric abstraction]], Op art, Color Field painting, and in the case of Hofmann and Newman Abstract expressionism as well. +[[Josef Albers]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Ilya Bolotowsky]], [[Burgoyne Diller]], [[Victor Vasarely]], [[Bridget Riley]], [[Richard Anuszkiewicz]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Larry Poons]], [[Ronald Davis]], [[Larry Zox]], and [[Al Held]] are artists closely associated with [[Geometric abstraction]], Op art, Color Field painting, and in the case of Hofmann and Newman Abstract expressionism as well. [[Agnes Martin]], [[Robert Mangold]], [[Brice Marden]], [[Jo Baer]], [[Robert Ryman]], [[Richard Tuttle]], Neil Williams, David Novros, Paul Mogenson, are examples of artists associated with [[Minimalism]] and (exceptions of Martin, Baer and Marden) the use of the [[shaped canvas]] also during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many [[Geometric abstract art]]ists, minimalists, and [[Hard-edge]] painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the [[shaped canvas]] is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or [[minimalist]] in character. The [[Bykert Gallery]], and the [[Park Place Gallery]] were important showcases for [[Minimalism]] and [[shaped canvas]] painting in New York City during the 1960s.
In 1965, an exhibition called ''The Responsive Eye'', curated by William C. Seitz, was held at the [[Museum of Modern Art]], in New York City. The works shown were wide ranging, encompassing the[Minimalism of [[Frank Stella]], the Op art of Larry Poons, the work of [[Alexander Liberman]], alongside the masters of the Op Art movement: [[Victor Vasarely]], [[Richard Anuszkiewicz]], [[Bridget Riley]] and others. The exhibition focused on the perceptual aspects of art, which result both from the illusion of movement and the interaction of color relationships. Op art, also known as optical art, is used to describe some paintings and other works of art which use [[optical illusion]]s. Op art is also closely akin to [[geometric abstraction]] and [[hard-edge painting]]. Although sometimes the term used for it is perceptual abstraction. In 1965, an exhibition called ''The Responsive Eye'', curated by William C. Seitz, was held at the [[Museum of Modern Art]], in New York City. The works shown were wide ranging, encompassing the[Minimalism of [[Frank Stella]], the Op art of Larry Poons, the work of [[Alexander Liberman]], alongside the masters of the Op Art movement: [[Victor Vasarely]], [[Richard Anuszkiewicz]], [[Bridget Riley]] and others. The exhibition focused on the perceptual aspects of art, which result both from the illusion of movement and the interaction of color relationships. Op art, also known as optical art, is used to describe some paintings and other works of art which use [[optical illusion]]s. Op art is also closely akin to [[geometric abstraction]] and [[hard-edge painting]]. Although sometimes the term used for it is perceptual abstraction.
- 
Op art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing. Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping. Op art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing. Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.
-Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like [[Clyfford Still]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Jules Olitski]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Larry Zox]], and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of [[modern art]], artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image.+====Shaped canvas, Washington Color School, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction ====
-[[Frank Stella]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Ronald Davis]], Neil Williams, [[Robert Mangold]], Charles Hinman, [[Richard Tuttle]], David Novros, and Al Loving are examples of artists associated with the use of the [[shaped canvas]] during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many [[Geometric abstract art]]ists, [[minimalism|minimalists]], and [[Hard-edge]] painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the [[shaped canvas]] is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly [[abstract art|abstract]], formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or [[minimalist]] in character. The Andre Emmerich Gallery, the [[Leo Castelli]] Gallery, the Richard Feigen Gallery, and the [[Park Place Gallery]] were important showcases for [[Color Field painting]], [[shaped canvas]] painting and [[Lyrical Abstraction]] in New York City during the 1960s. There is a connection with [[post-painterly abstraction]], which reacted against [[abstract expressionism]]s' mysticism, hyper-subjectivity, and emphasis on making the act of painting itself dramatically visible - as well as the solemn acceptance of the flat rectangle as an almost ritual prerequisite for serious painting. During the 1960s Color Field painting and [[Minimal art]] were often closely associated with each other. In actuality by the early 1970s both movements became decidedly diverse.+Color Field painting clearly pointed toward a new direction in American painting, away from [[abstract expressionism]]. Color Field painting is related to [[Post-painterly abstraction]], [[Suprematism]], Abstract Expressionism, [[Hard-edge painting]] and [[Lyrical Abstraction]].
-====Washington Color School, Shaped Canvas, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction====+Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like [[Clyfford Still]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Hans Hofmann]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Jules Olitski]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Larry Zox]], and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists made references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of [[modern art]], artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image. [[Gene Davis]] along with [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Morris Louis]] and several others was a member of the [[Washington Color School]] painters who began to create [[Color Field painting]]s in [[Washington, D.C.]] during the 1950s and 1960s, ''Black, Grey, Beat'' is a large vertical stripe painting and typical of Gene Davis's work.
-Another related movement of the late 1960s [[Lyrical Abstraction]] is a European term that was borrowed by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the [[Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum]], Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. It is also the name of an exhibition that originated in the Aldrich Museum and traveled to the [[Whitney Museum of American Art]] and other museums throughout the United States between 1969 and 1971.+
-[[Lyrical Abstraction]] in the late 1960s is characterized by the paintings of [[Dan Christensen]], [[Ronnie Landfield]], [[Peter Young (artist)|Peter Young]] and others, and along with the [[Fluxus]] movement and [[Postminimalism]] (a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of [[Artforum]] in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. [[Postminimalism]] often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to [[Dada]] and [[Surrealism]] is best exemplified in the sculptures of [[Eva Hesse]]. Lyrical Abstraction, [[Conceptual Art]], [[Postminimalism]], [[Earth Art]], [[Video]], [[Performance art]], [[Installation art]], along with the continuation of [[Fluxus]], [[Abstract Expressionism]], [[Color Field]] [[Painting]], [[Hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal Art]], [[Op art]], [[Pop Art]], [[Photorealism]] and [[New Realism]] extended the boundaries of [[Contemporary Art]] in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general. +[[Frank Stella]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Ronald Davis]], Neil Williams, [[Robert Mangold]], Charles Hinman, [[Richard Tuttle]], David Novros, and Al Loving are examples of artists associated with the use of the [[shaped canvas]] during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many [[Geometric abstract art]]ists, [[minimalism|minimalists]], and [[Hard-edge]] painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the [[shaped canvas]] is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or [[minimalist]] in character. From 1960 [[Frank Stella]] produced paintings in [[aluminum]] and [[copper]] paint and are his first works using [[shaped canvas]]es (canvases in a shape other than the traditional rectangle or square), often being in L, N, U or T-shapes. These later developed into more elaborate designs, in the ''Irregular Polygon'' series (67), for example. Also in the 1960s, Stella began to use a wider range of colors, typically arranged in straight or curved lines. Later he began his ''Protractor Series'' (71) of paintings, in which [[circle|arcs]], sometimes overlapping, within square borders are arranged side-by-side to produce full and half circles painted in rings of concentric color. ''Harran II,'' 1967, is an example of the ''Protractor Series''. These paintings are named after circular cities he had visited while in the Middle East earlier in the 1960s. The Irregular Polygon canvases and Protractor series further extended the concept of the [[shaped canvas]].
-[[Lyrical Abstraction]] shares similarities with [[Color Field]] [[Painting]] and [[Abstract Expressionism]] [[Lyrical Abstraction]] as exemplified by the 1968 Ronnie Landfield painting ''For William Blake,'' (above) especially in the freewheeling usage of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in [[Abstract Expressionism]] and [[Color Field]] [[Painting]]. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from [[Abstract Expressionism]] and [[Action Painting]] of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in [[Action Painting]] there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility.+The Andre Emmerich Gallery, the [[Leo Castelli]] Gallery, the Richard Feigen Gallery, and the [[Park Place Gallery]] were important showcases for Color Field painting, [[shaped canvas]] painting and [[Lyrical Abstraction]] in New York City during the 1960s. There is a connection with [[post-painterly abstraction]], which reacted against abstract expressionisms' mysticism, hyper-subjectivity, and emphasis on making the act of painting itself dramatically visible - as well as the solemn acceptance of the flat rectangle as an almost ritual prerequisite for serious painting. During the 1960s Color Field painting and [[Minimal art]] were often closely associated with each other. In actuality by the early 1970s both movements became decidedly diverse.
-====Hard-edge painting, Minimalism, Postminimalism, Monochrome painting====+Another related movement of the late 1960s [[Lyrical Abstraction]] is a term that was originally coined by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the [[Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum]], Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. It is also the name of an exhibition that originated in the Aldrich Museum and traveled to the [[Whitney Museum of American Art]] and other museums throughout the United States between 1969 and 1971.
-[[Agnes Martin]], [[Robert Mangold]] (see above), [[Brice Marden]], [[Jo Baer]], [[Robert Ryman]], [[Richard Tuttle]], Neil Williams, David Novros, Paul Mogenson, are examples of artists associated with [[Minimalism]] and (exceptions of Martin, Baer and Marden) the use of the [[shaped canvas]] also during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many [[Geometric abstract art]]ists, minimalists, and [[Hard-edge]] painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the [[shaped canvas]] is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or [[minimalist]] in character. The [[Bykert Gallery]], and the [[Park Place Gallery]] were important showcases for [[Minimalism]] and [[shaped canvas]] painting in New York City during the 1960s. +Lyrical Abstraction in the late 1960s is characterized by the paintings of [[Dan Christensen]], [[Ronnie Landfield]], [[Peter Young (artist)|Peter Young]] and others,and along with the [[Fluxus]] movement and [[Postminimalism]] (a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of [[Artforum]] in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to Dada and Surrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures of [[Eva Hesse]]. Lyrical Abstraction, [[Conceptual Art]], [[Postminimalism]], [[Earth Art]], [[Video]], [[Performance art]], [[Installation art]], along with the continuation of [[Fluxus]], Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, [[Hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal Art]], Op art, Pop art, [[Photorealism]] and [[New Realism]] extended the boundaries of [[Contemporary Art]] in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general.
-During the 1960s and 1970s artists as powerful and influential as [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Adolph Gottlieb]], [[Phillip Guston]], [[Lee Krasner]], [[Cy Twombly]], [[Robert Rauschenberg]], [[Jasper Johns]], [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[Josef Albers]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Agnes Martin]], [[Al Held]], [[Sam Francis]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Gene Davis (painter)|Gene Davis]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Joan Mitchell]], [[Friedel Dzubas]], and younger artists like [[Brice Marden]], [[Robert Mangold]], [[Sam Gilliam]], [[Sean Scully]], [[Pat Steir]], [[Elizabeth Murray (artist)|Elizabeth Murray]], [[Larry Poons]], [[Walter Darby Bannard]], [[Larry Zox]], [[Ronnie Landfield]], [[Ronald Davis]], [[Dan Christensen]], Joan Snyder, [[Ross Bleckner]], [[Archie Rand]], [[Susan Crile]], and dozens of others produced vital and influential paintings.+====Monochrome, Minimalism, Postminimalism====
-During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against abstract painting. Some critics viewed the work of artists like [[Ad Reinhardt]], and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are: [[Postminimalism]], [[Earth art]], [[Video art]], [[Installation art]], [[arte povera]], [[performance art]], [[body art]], [[fluxus]], [[mail art]], the [[situationists]] and [[conceptual art]] among others.+[[Lyrical Abstraction]] shares similarities with Color Field painting and Abstract Expressionism especially in the freewheeling usage of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in Action Painting there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in [[Lyrical Abstraction]] as exemplified by the 1971 [[Ronnie Landfield]] painting ''Garden of Delight,'' (above) there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility.
 +During the 1960s and 1970s artists as powerful and influential as [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Adolph Gottlieb]], [[Phillip Guston]], [[Lee Krasner]], [[Cy Twombly]], [[Robert Rauschenberg]], [[Jasper Johns]], [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[Josef Albers]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Agnes Martin]], [[Al Held]], [[Sam Francis]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Gene Davis (painter)|Gene Davis]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Joan Mitchell]], [[Friedel Dzubas]], and younger artists like [[Brice Marden]], [[Robert Mangold]], [[Sam Gilliam]], [[Sean Scully]], [[Pat Steir]], [[Elizabeth Murray (artist)|Elizabeth Murray]], [[Larry Poons]], [[Walter Darby Bannard]], [[Larry Zox]], [[Ronnie Landfield]], [[Ronald Davis]], [[Dan Christensen]], Joan Snyder, [[Richard Tuttle]], [[Ross Bleckner]], [[Archie Rand]], [[Susan Crile]], and dozens of others produced vital and influential paintings.
-However still other important innovations in abstract painting took place during the 1960s and the 1970s characterized by [[Monochrome painting]] and [[Hard-edge painting]] inspired by [[Ad Reinhardt]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Milton Resnick]], and [[Ellsworth Kelly]]. Artists as diversified as [[Agnes Martin]], [[Al Held]], [[Larry Zox]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Larry Poons]], [[Brice Marden]] and others explored the the power of simplification. The convergence of [[Color Field]] painting, [[Minimal art]], [[Hard-edge painting]], [[Lyrical Abstraction]], and [[Postminimalism]] blurredthe distinction between movements that became more apparent in the 1980s and 1990s. The [[Neo-expressionism]] movement is related to earlier developments in [[Abstract expressionism]], [[Neo-Dada]], [[Lyrical Abstraction]] and [[Postminimal]] painting.+Still other important innovations in abstract painting took place during the 1960s and the 1970s characterized by [[Monochrome painting]] and [[Hard-edge painting]] inspired by [[Ad Reinhardt]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Milton Resnick]], and [[Ellsworth Kelly]]. Artists as diversified as [[Al Held]], [[Larry Zox]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Larry Poons]], [[Brice Marden]] and others explored the power of simplification. The convergence of [[Color Field]] painting, [[Minimal art]], [[Hard-edge painting]], [[Lyrical Abstraction]], and [[Postminimalism]] blurredthe distinction between movements that became more apparent in the 1980s and 1990s. The [[Neo-expressionism]] movement is related to earlier developments in [[Abstract expressionism]], [[Neo-Dada]], [[Lyrical Abstraction]] and [[Postminimal]] painting.
 + 
 +====Neo-expressionism====
-====Neo Expressionism==== 
In the late 1960s the [[abstract expressionist]] painter [[Philip Guston]] helped to lead a transition from abstract expressionism to [[Neo-expressionism]] in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects. These works were inspirational to a new generation of painters interested in a revival of expressive imagery. His painting ''Painting, Smoking, Eating'' 1973, seen above in the gallery is an example of Guston's final and conclusive return to representation. In the late 1960s the [[abstract expressionist]] painter [[Philip Guston]] helped to lead a transition from abstract expressionism to [[Neo-expressionism]] in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects. These works were inspirational to a new generation of painters interested in a revival of expressive imagery. His painting ''Painting, Smoking, Eating'' 1973, seen above in the gallery is an example of Guston's final and conclusive return to representation.
-In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was also a return to painting that occurred almost simultaneously in Italy, Germany, France and [[UK|Britain]]. These movements were called [[Transavantguardia]], [[Neue Wilde]], [[Figuration Libre]], [[Neo-expressionism]] and the [[School of London]] respectively. These painting were characterized by large formats, free expressive mark making, figuration, myth and imagination. All work in this genre came to be labeled [[neo-expressionism]]. Critical reaction was divided. Some critics regarded it as driven by profit motivations by large commercial galleries. This type of art continues in popularity into the 21st century, even after the art crash of the late 1980s. [[Anselm Kiefer]] is a leading figure in European [[Neo-expressionism]] by the 1980s, (see ''To the Unknown Painter'' 1983, in the gallery above) Kiefer's themes widened from a focus on [[Germany|Germany's]] role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involves not only national identity and collective memory, but also [[occult]] [[symbolism]], [[theology]] and [[mysticism]]. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.+In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was also a return to painting that occurred almost simultaneously in Italy, Germany, France and [[UK|Britain]]. These movements were called [[Transavantguardia]], [[Neue Wilde]], [[Figuration Libre]], [[Neo-expressionism]] and the [[School of London]] respectively. These painting were characterized by large formats, free expressive mark making, figuration, myth and imagination. All work in this genre came to be labeled [[neo-expressionism]]. Critical reaction was divided. Some critics regarded it as driven by profit motivations by large commercial galleries. This type of art continues in popularity into the 21st century, even after the art crash of the late 1980s. [[Anselm Kiefer]] is a leading figure in European [[Neo-expressionism]] by the 1980s, (see ''To the Unknown Painter'' 1983) Kiefer's themes widened from a focus on [[Germany|Germany's]] role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involves not only national identity and collective memory, but also [[occult]] [[symbol]]ism, [[theology]] and [[mysticism]]. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.
-During the late 1970s in the United States painters who began working with invigorated surfaces and who returned to imagery like [[Susan Rothenberg]] gained in popularity, especially as seen above in paintings like ''Horse 2,'' 1979. During the 1980s American artists like [[Eric Fischl]], (see ''Bad Boy,'' 1981, above), [[David Salle]], [[Jean-Michel Basquiat]], [[Julian Schnabel]], and [[Keith Haring]], and Italian painters like [[Mimmo Paladino]], [[Sandro Chia]], and [[Enzo Cucchi]], among others defined the idea of [[Neo-expressionism]] in America.+During the late 1970s in the United States painters who began working with invigorated surfaces and who returned to imagery like [[Susan Rothenberg]] gained in popularity, especially as seen above in paintings like ''Horse 2,'' 1979. During the 1980s American artists like [[Eric Fischl]], (see ''[[Bad Boy]],'' 1981), [[David Salle]], [[Jean-Michel Basquiat]], [[Julian Schnabel]], and [[Keith Haring]], and Italian painters like [[Mimmo Paladino]], [[Sandro Chia]], and [[Enzo Cucchi]], among others defined the idea of [[Neo-expressionism]] in America.
-Neo-expressionism was a style of [[Modernism|modern]] [[painting]] that became popular in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. It developed in Europe as a reaction against the conceptual and [[minimalism|minimalistic]] art of the 1960s and 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in a virtually abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. The veteran painters [[Philip Guston]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Leon Kossoff]], [[Gerhard Richter]], [[A. R. Penck]] and [[Georg Baselitz]], along with slightly younger artists like [[Anselm Kiefer]], [[Eric Fischl]], [[Susan Rothenberg]], [[Francesco Clemente]], [[Jean-Michel Basquiat]], [[Julian Schnabel]], [[Keith Haring]], and many others became known for working in this intense expressionist vein of painting.+Neo-expressionism was a style of [[Modernism|modern]] [[painting]] that became popular in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. It developed in Europe as a reaction against the conceptual and [[minimalism|minimalistic]] art of the 1960s and 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in a virtually abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. The veteran painters [[Philip Guston]], [[Frank Auerbach]], [[Leon Kossoff]], [[Gerhard Richter]], [[A. R. Penck]] and [[Georg Baselitz]], along with slightly younger artists like [[Anselm Kiefer]], [[Eric Fischl]], [[Susan Rothenberg]], [[Francesco Clemente]], [[Damien Hirst]], [[Jean-Michel Basquiat]], [[Julian Schnabel]], [[Keith Haring]], and many others became known for working in this intense expressionist vein of painting.
Painting still holds a respected position in [[contemporary art]]. Art is an open field no longer divided by the objective versus non-objective dichotomy. Artists can achieve critical success whether their images are representational or abstract. What has currency is content, exploring the boundaries of the medium, and a refusal to recapitulate the works of the past as an end goal. Painting still holds a respected position in [[contemporary art]]. Art is an open field no longer divided by the objective versus non-objective dichotomy. Artists can achieve critical success whether their images are representational or abstract. What has currency is content, exploring the boundaries of the medium, and a refusal to recapitulate the works of the past as an end goal.
-===Contemporary painting into the 21st Century=== 
-At the beginning of the 21st century Contemporary painting and Contemporary art in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of [[Cultural pluralism|pluralism]]. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current [[art criticism]] today is brought about by [[Cultural pluralism|pluralism]]. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an ''anything goes'' attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic [[superhighway]] filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit. 
-[[Hard-edge painting]], [[Geometric abstraction]], [[Appropriation (art)|Appropriation]], [[Hyperrealism]], [[Photorealism]], [[Expressionism]], [[Minimalism]], [[Lyrical Abstraction]], [[Pop Art]], [[Op Art]], [[Abstract Expressionism]], [[Color Field painting]], [[Monochrome painting]], [[Neo-expressionism]], [[Collage]], [[Intermedia]] painting, [[Assemblage]] painting, [[Digital painting]], [[Postmodern]] painting, [[Neo-Dada]] painting, [[Shaped canvas]] painting, environmental [[mural painting]], traditional [[figure]] painting, [[Landscape painting]], [[Portrait painting]], are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.+===Contemporary painting into the 21st century===
 + 
 +At the beginning of the 21st century Contemporary painting and Contemporary art in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of [[Cultural pluralism|pluralism]]. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current [[art criticism]] today is brought about by [[Cultural pluralism|pluralism]]. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an ''anything goes'' attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic [[superhighway]] filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.
 + 
 +[[Hard-edge painting]], [[Geometric abstraction]], [[Appropriation (art)|Appropriation]], [[Hyperrealism]], [[Photorealism]], [[Expressionism]], [[Minimalism]], [[Lyrical Abstraction]], Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, [[Monochrome painting]], [[Neo-expressionism]], [[Collage]], [[Intermedia]] painting, [[Assemblage]] painting, [[Digital painting]], [[Postmodern]] painting, Neo-Dada painting, [[Shaped canvas]] painting, environmental [[mural painting]], [[Graffiti]], traditional [[figure]] painting, [[Landscape painting]], [[Portrait painting]], are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.
 + 
 +== See also ==
 +*[[20th century art]]
 +*[[Western painting]]
 +*[[Annunciation (van Eyck, Washington)]]
 +*[[Art periods]]
 +*[[Early Renaissance painting]]
 +*[[Hierarchy of genres]]
 +*[[History of art]]
 +*[[History of painting]]
 +*[[History painting]]
 +*[[List of painters]]
 +*[[Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects]]
 +*[[Painting]]
 +*[[Self portrait]]
 +*[[Visual arts of the United States]],
 +*[[Art of Australia]],
 +*[[Indian painting]]
 +*[[Painting in the Americas before Colonization]]
 +*[[Native American art]]
 +*[[Western European paintings in Ukrainian museums]]
 +==Sources==
 +*[[Clement Greenberg]], ''Art and Culture,'' Beacon Press, 1961
 +*''The Triumph of [[Modernism]]'': The Art World, 1985-2005, [[Hilton Kramer]], 2006, ISBN 0 1-56663-708
 +*''Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock'' (A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts), [[Kirk Varnedoe]], 2003
 +* O'Connor, Francis V. ''[[Jackson Pollock]]'' Exhibition Catalogue, (New York, [[Museum of Modern Art]], [1967]) OCLC 165852
 +*''[[Lyrical Abstraction]]'', Exhibition Catalogue, [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], NYC, 1971.
 +*David Piper, The Illustrated Library of Art, Portland House, New York, 1986, ISBN 0-517-62336-6
 +*Agee, William C.; Rose, Barbara, 1979, ''Patrick Henry Bruce: American Modernist'' (exhibition catalogue), Houston: Museum of Fine Arts
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20th century Western painting begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubist Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Henri Matisse's second version of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism.

Initially influenced by Toulouse Lautrec, Gauguin and other late 19th century innovators Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: cube, sphere and cone. With the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907, Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of African tribal masks and his own new Cubist inventions. Analytic cubism was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, exemplified by Violin and Candlestick, Paris, from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by Synthetic cubism, practised by Braque, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Albert Gleizes, Marcel Duchamp and several other artists into the 1920s. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé and a large variety of merged subject matter.

During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of cubism, several movements emerged in Paris. Giorgio de Chirico moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea (the poet and painter known as Alberto Savinio). Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade a member of the jury at the Salon d'Automne, where he exhibited three of his dreamlike works: Enigma of the Oracle, Enigma of an Afternoon and Self-Portrait. During 1913 he exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d’Automne, his work was noticed by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire and several others. His compelling and mysterious paintings are considered instrumental to the early beginnings of Surrealism. Song of Love 1914) is one of the most famous works by de Chirico and is an early example of the surrealist style, though it was painted ten years before the movement was "founded" by André Breton in 1924 .

In the first two decades of the 20th century and after cubism, several other important movements emerged; Futurism (Balla), Abstract art (Kandinsky) Der Blaue Reiter (Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc), Bauhaus (Kandinsky and Klee), Orphism, (Delaunay and Kupka), Synchromism (Russell and Macdonald-Wright), De Stijl (van Doesburg and Mondrian), Suprematism (Malevich), Constructivism (Tatlin), Dadaism (Duchamp, Picabia and Arp), and Surrealism (de Chirico, André Breton, Miró, Magritte, Dalí and Ernst). Modern painting influenced all the visual arts, from Modernist architecture and design, to avant-garde film, theatre and modern dance and became an experimental laboratory for the expression of visual experience, from photography and concrete poetry to advertising art and fashion. Van Gogh's painting exerted great influence upon 20th century Expressionism, as can be seen in the work of the Fauves, Die Brücke (a group led by German painter Ernst Kirchner), and the Expressionism of Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine and others.


Contents

Pioneers of abstraction

Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist, one of the most famous 20th-century artists is generally considered the first important painter of modern abstract art. As an early modernist, in search of new modes of visual expression, and spiritual expression, he theorized as did contemporary occultists and theosophists, that pure visual abstraction had corollary vibrations with sound and music. They posited that pure abstraction could express pure spirituality. His earliest abstractions were generally titled as the example in the (above gallery) Composition VII, making connection to the work of the composers of music. Kandinsky included many of his theories about abstract art in his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Piet Mondrian's art was also related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908 he became interested in the theosophical movement launched by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in the late 19th century. Blavatsky believed that it was possible to attain a knowledge of nature more profound than that provided by empirical means, and much of Mondrian's work for the rest of his life was inspired by his search for that spiritual knowledge. Other major pioneers of early abstraction include Swedish painter Hilma af Klint, Russian painter Kazimir Malevich, and Swiss painter Paul Klee. Robert Delaunay was a French artist who is associated with Orphism, (reminiscent of a link between pure abstraction and cubism). His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee. His key contributions to abstract painting refer to his bold use of color, and a clear love of experimentation of both depth and tone. At the invitation of Wassily Kandinsky, Delaunay and his wife the artist Sonia Delaunay, joined The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), a Munich-based group of abstract artists, in 1911, and his art took a turn to the abstract. Still other important pioneers of abstract painting include Czech painter, František Kupka as well as American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell who, in 1912, founded Synchromism, an art movement that closely resembles Orphism.

Fauvism, Der Blaue Reiter, Die Brücke

Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were early 20th century painters, experimenting with freedom of expression through color. The name was given, humorously and not as a compliment, to the group by art critic Louis Vauxcelles. Fauvism was a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities, and the imaginative use of deep color over the representational values. Fauvists made the subject of the painting easy to read, exaggerated perspectives and an interesting prescient prediction of the Fauves was expressed in 1888 by Paul Gauguin to Paul Sérusier,

"How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion."

The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain — friendly rivals of a sort, each with his own followers. Ultimately Matisse became the yang to Picasso's yin in the 20th century. Fauvist painters included Albert Marquet, Charles Camoin, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, the Dutch painter Kees van Dongen, and Picasso's partner in Cubism, Georges Braque amongst others.

Fauvism, as a movement, had no concrete theories, and was short lived, beginning in 1905 and ending in 1907, they only had three exhibitions. Matisse was seen as the leader of the movement, due to his seniority in age and prior self-establishment in the academic art world. His 1905 portrait of Mme. Matisse The Green Line, (above), caused a sensation in Paris when it was first exhibited. He said he wanted to create art to delight; art as a decoration was his purpose and it can be said that his use of bright colors tries to maintain serenity of composition. In 1906 at the suggestion of his dealer Ambroise Vollard, André Derain went to London and produced a series of paintings like Charing Cross Bridge, London in the Fauvist style, paraphrasing the famous series by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

By 1907 Fauvism no longer was a shocking new movement, soon it was replaced by Cubism on the critics radar screen as the latest new development in Contemporary Art of the time. In 1907 Appolinaire, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable."

Der Blaue Reiter was a German movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with Die Brücke, a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. Founding members of Die Brücke were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members included Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller and others. This was a seminal group, which in due course had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the 20th century and created the style of Expressionism.

Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, whose psychically expressive painting of the Russian dancer Portrait of Alexander Sakharoff, 1909 is in the gallery above, Marianne von Werefkin, Lyonel Feininger and others founded the Der Blaue Reiter group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgement from an exhibition. Der Blaue Reiter lacked a central artistic manifesto, but was centered around Kandinsky and Marc. Artists Gabriele Münter and Paul Klee were also involved.

The name of the movement comes from a painting by Kandinsky created in 1903. It is also claimed that the name could have derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal.

Expressionism, Symbolism, American Modernism, Bauhaus

Expressionism and Symbolism are broad rubrics that describes several important and related movements in 20th century painting that dominated much of the avant-garde art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionism was painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both Surrealism and Symbolism and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal. Fauvism, Die Brücke, and Der Blaue Reiter are three of the best known groups of Expressionist and Symbolist painters. Artists as interesting and diverse as Marc Chagall, whose painting I and the Village, (above) tells an autobiographical story that examines the relationship between the artist and his origins, with a lexicon of artistic Symbolism. Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, Chaim Soutine, James Ensor, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz, Georges Rouault, Amedeo Modigliani and some of the Americans abroad like Marsden Hartley, and Stuart Davis, were considered influential expressionist painters. Although Alberto Giacometti is primarily thought of as an intense Surrealist sculptor, he made intense expressionist paintings as well. In the USA during the period between World War I and World War II painters tended to go to Europe for recognition. Modernist artists like Marsden Hartley, Patrick Henry Bruce, Gerald Murphy and Stuart Davis, created reputations abroad. While Patrick Henry Bruce, and Marsden Hartley experimented with expressionism. During the 1920s photographer Alfred Stieglitz exhibited Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Alfred Henry Maurer, Charles Demuth, John Marin and other artists including European Masters Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Picasso, at his New York City gallery the 291 In Europe masters like Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard continued developing their narrative styles independent of any movement.

Dada and Surrealism

Marcel Duchamp came to international prominence in the wake of the New York City Armory Show in 1913 where his Nude Descending a Staircase became the cause celebre. He subsequently created the The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, Large Glass. The Large Glass pushed the art of painting to radical new limits being part painting, part collage, part construction. Duchamp (who was soon to renounce artmaking for chess) became closely associated with the Dada movement that began in neutral Zürich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestoes, art theory), theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, Tristan Tzara, Hans Richter, Jean Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, along with Duchamp and many others are associated with the Dadaist movement. Duchamp and several Dadaists are also associated with Surrealism, the movement that dominated European painting in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1924 André Breton published the Surrealist Manifesto. The Surrealist movement in painting became synonymous with the avant-garde and which featured artists whose works varied from the abstract to the super-realist. With works on paper like Machine Turn Quickly, (above) Francis Picabia continued his involvement in the Dada movement through 1919 in Zürich and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in Surrealist art. Yves Tanguy, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí are particularly known for their realistic depictions of dream imagery and fantastic manifestations of the imagination. Joan Miró's The Tilled Field of 1923-1924 verges on abstraction, this early painting of a complex of objects and figures, and arrangements of sexually active characters; was Miro's first Surrealist masterpiece.The more abstract Joan Miró, Jean Arp, André Masson, and Max Ernst were very influential, especially in the United States during the 1940s.

Throughout the 1930s, Surrealism continued to become more visible to the public at large. A Surrealist group developed in Britain and, according to Breton, their 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition was a high water mark of the period and became the model for international exhibitions. Surrealist groups in Japan, and especially in Latin America, the Caribbean and in Mexico produced innovative and original works.

Dalí and Magritte created some of the most widely recognized images of the movement. The 1928/1929 painting This Is Not A Pipe, by Magritte is the subject of a Michel Foucault 1973 book, This is not a Pipe (English edition, 1991), that discusses the painting and its paradox. Dalí joined the group in 1929, and participated in the rapid establishment of the visual style between 1930 and 1935.

Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, and perception, sometimes evoking empathy from the viewer, sometimes laughter and sometimes outrage and bewilderment.

1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: in one example liquid shapes become the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his The Persistence of Memory, which features the image of watches that sag as if they are melting. Evocations of time and its compelling mystery and absurdity.

The characteristics of this style - a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological - came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the modernist period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with one's individuality."

Max Ernst (Men Shall Know Nothing of This) studied philosophy and psychology in Bonn and was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane. This painting may have been inspired by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's study of the delusions of a paranoiac, Daniel Paul Schreber. Freud identified Schreber's fantasy of becoming a woman as a castration complex. The central image of two pairs of legs refers to Schreber's hermaphroditic desires. Ernst's inscription on the back of the painting reads: The picture is curious because of its symmetry. The two sexes balance one another.

During the 1920s André Masson's work was enormously influential in helping the young artist Joan Miró find his roots in the new Surrealist painting. Miró acknowledged in letters to his dealer Pierre Matisse the importance of Masson as an example to him in his early years in Paris.

Long after personal, political and professional tensions have fragmented the Surrealist group into thin air and ether, Magritte, Miro, Dalí and the other Surrealists continue to define a visual program in the arts.

Neue Sachlichkeit, Social realism, regionalism, American Scene painting, Symbolism

During the 1920s and the 1930s and the Great Depression, the European art scene was characterized by Surrealism, late Cubism, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, Dada, Neue Sachlichkeit, and Expressionism; and was occupied by masterful modernist color painters like Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard.

In Germany Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity") emerged as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz and others politicized their paintings. The work of these artists grew out of expressionism, and was a response to the political tensions of the Weimar Republic, and was often sharply satirical.

American Scene painting and the Social Realism and Regionalism movements that contained both political and social commentary dominated the art world in the USA. Artists like Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, George Tooker, John Steuart Curry, Reginald Marsh, and others became prominent. In Latin America besides the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García and Rufino Tamayo from Mexico, the muralist movement with Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, José Orozco, Pedro Nel Gómez and Santiago Martinez Delgado and the Symbolist paintings by Frida Kahlo began a renaissance of the arts for the region, with a use of color and historic, and political messages. Frida Kahlo's Symbolist works also relate strongly to Surrealism and to the Magic Realism movement in literature. The psychological drama in many of Kahlo's self portraits (above) underscore the vitality and relevance of her paintings to artists in the 21st century.

Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, "Man at the Crossroads", in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. When his patron Nelson Rockefeller discovered that the mural included a portrait of Lenin and other communist imagery, he fired Rivera, and the unfinished work was eventually destroyed by Rockefeller's staff. The film Cradle Will Rock includes a dramatization of the controversy. Frida Kahlo (Rivera's wife's) works are often characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings 55 are self-portraits, which frequently incorporate symbolic portrayals of her physical and psychological wounds. Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her paintings' bright colors and dramatic symbolism. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work as well; she combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition—which were often bloody and violent—with surrealist renderings. While her paintings are not overtly Christian—she was, after all, an avowed communist—they certainly contain elements of the macabre Mexican Christian style of religious paintings.

Political activism was an important piece of David Siqueiros' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. His art was deeply rooted in the Mexican Revolution, a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal. He briefly gave up painting to focus on organizing miners in Jalisco. He ran a political art workshop in New York City in preparation for the 1936 General Strike for Peace and May Day parade. The young Jackson Pollock attended the workshop and helped build floats for the parade. Between 1937 and 1938 he fought in the Spanish Civil War alongside the Spanish Republican forces, in opposition to Francisco Franco's military coup. He was exiled twice from Mexico, once in 1932 and again in 1940, following his assassination attempt on Leon Trotsky.

During the 1930s radical leftist politics characterized many of the artists connected to Surrealism, including Pablo Picasso. On 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Gernika was the scene of the "Bombing of Gernika" by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overthrow the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Gernika survived. Pablo Picasso painted his mural sized Guernica to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.

In its final form, Guernica is an immense black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (23 ft) wide mural painted in oil. The mural presents a scene of death, violence, brutality, suffering, and helplessness without portraying their immediate causes. The choice to paint in black and white contrasts with the intensity of the scene depicted and invokes the immediacy of a newspaper photograph.

Picasso painted the mural sized painting called Guernica in protest of the bombing. The painting was first exhibited in Paris in 1937, then Scandinavia, then London in 1938 and finally in 1939 at Picasso's request the painting was sent to the United States in an extended loan (for safekeeping) at MoMA. The painting went on a tour of museums throughout the USA until its final return to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City where it was exhibited for nearly thirty years. Finally in accord with Pablo Picasso's wish to give the painting to the people of Spain as a gift, it was sent to Spain in 1981.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, through the years of World War II American art was characterized by Social Realism and American Scene Painting in the work of Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, and several others. Nighthawks (1942) is a painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. It is currently in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The scene was inspired by a diner (since demolished) in Greenwich Village, Hopper's home neighborhood in Manhattan. Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.

American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood from 1930. Portraying a pitchfork-holding farmer and a younger woman in front of a house of Carpenter Gothic style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art. Art critics had favorable opinions about the painting, like Gertrude Stein and Christopher Morley, they assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend towards increasingly critical depictions of rural America, along the lines of Sherwood Anderson's 1919 Winesburg, Ohio, Sinclair Lewis' 1920 Main Street, and Carl Van Vechten's The Tattooed Countess in literature. However, with the onset of the Great Depression, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit.

Abstract expressionism

The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American abstract expressionism, a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Surrealism, Joan Miró, Cubism, Fauvism, and early Modernism via great teachers in America like Hans Hofmann and John D. Graham. American artists benefited from the presence of Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst and the André Breton group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and Peggy Guggenheim's gallery The Art of This Century, as well as other factors.

Post-Second World War American painting called Abstract expressionism included artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Mark Tobey, James Brooks, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Conrad Marca-Relli, Jack Tworkov, William Baziotes, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne, Jimmy Ernst, Bradley Walker Tomlin, and Theodoros Stamos, among others. American Abstract expressionism got its name in 1946 from the art critic Robert Coates. It is seen as combining the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as Futurism, the Bauhaus and Synthetic Cubism. Abstract expressionism, Action painting, and Color Field painting are synonymous with the New York School.

Technically Surrealism was an important predecessor for Abstract expressionism with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of André Masson. Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.

Additionally, Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic "action paintings", with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to the violent and grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning. Woman V is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings, Woman I collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian Meyer Schapiro saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme; Woman II collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Woman III, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Woman IV, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. During the summer of 1952, spent at East Hampton, de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on Woman I by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time. The Woman series are decidedly figurative paintings. Another important artist is Franz Kline, as demonstrated by his painting Number 2, 1954 as with Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, was labelled an "action painter because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas.

Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in Mark Rothko's work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what Clement Greenberg termed the Color field direction of abstract expressionism. Both Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell (gallery) can be comfortably described as practitioners of action painting and Color field painting.

Abstract Expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early twentieth century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or of the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. An exception might be the drip paintings of Pollock.

Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American Social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the Great Depression but also by the Social Realists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of those painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early 1940s at galleries in New York like The Art of This Century Gallery. The late 1940s through the mid 1950s ushered in the McCarthy era. It was after World War II and a time of political conservatism and extreme artistic censorship in the United States. Some people have conjectured that since the subject matter was often totally abstract, Abstract expressionism became a safe strategy for artists to pursue this style. Abstract art could be seen as apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. However those theorists are in the minority. As the first truly original school of painting in America, Abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its ability (or need) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty.

Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the New York School, and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an "all-over" approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges. The canvas as the arena became a credo of Action painting, while the integrity of the picture plane became a credo of the Color Field painters.

During the 1950s Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of abstract expressionism, especially the work of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb. It essentially described abstract paintings with large, flat expanses of color that expressed the sensual, and visual feelings and properties of large areas of nuanced surface. Art critic Clement Greenberg perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The overall expanse and gestalt of the work of the early color field painters speaks of an almost religious experience, awestruck in the face of an expanding universe of sensuality, color and surface. During the early to mid-1960s Color Field painting was the term used to describe artists like Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, and Helen Frankenthaler, whose works were related to second generation abstract expressionism, and to younger artists like Larry Zox, and Frank Stella, - all moving in a new direction. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. In Mountains and Sea, from 1952, a seminal work of Colorfield painting by Helen Frankenthaler the artist used the stain technique for the first time.

In Europe there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada and the works of Matisse. Also in Europe, Tachisme (the European equivalent to Abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation. Serge Poliakoff, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Mathieu, Vieira da Silva, Jean Dubuffet, Yves Klein and Pierre Soulages among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting.

Eventually abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as Neo-Dada, Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, shaped canvas painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Neo-expressionism and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements, notably Pop art.

Realism, Landscape, Figuration, Still-Life, Cityscape

During the 1930s through the 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, shaped canvas painting, and Lyrical Abstraction. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction allowing imagery to continue through various new contexts like the Bay Area Figurative Movement in the 1950s and new forms of expressionism from the 1940s through the 1960s. In Italy during this time, Giorgio Morandi was the foremost still life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Throughout the 20th century many painters practiced Realism and used expressive imagery; practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like Milton Avery, John D. Graham, Fairfield Porter, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, Balthus, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, Philip Pearlstein, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Grace Hartigan, Robert De Niro, Sr., Elaine de Kooning and others. Along with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, and other 20th century masters.

Arshile Gorky's portrait of Willem de Kooning (above) is an example of the evolution of Abstract Expressionism from the context of figure painting, cubism and surrealism. Along with his friends de Kooning and John D. Graham Gorky created bio-morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.

Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953 is a painting by the Irish born artist Francis Bacon and is an example of Post World War II European Expressionism. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, over a total of forty-five works. When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely "wanted an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner." The Pope in this version seethes with anger and aggression, and the dark colors give the image a grotesque and nightmarish appearance. The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent, and seem to fall through the Pope's face.

After World War II the term School of Paris often referred to Tachisme, the European equivalent of American Abstract expressionism and those artists are also related to Cobra. Important proponents being Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Nicholas de Staël, Hans Hartung, Serge Poliakoff, and Georges Mathieu, among several others. During the early 1950s Dubuffet (who was always a figurative artist), and de Staël, abandoned abstraction, and returned to imagery via figuration and landscape. De Staël 's work was quickly recognised within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. His return to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) during the early 1950s can be seen as an influential precedent for the American Bay Area Figurative Movement, as many of those abstract painters like Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Wayne Thiebaud, Nathan Oliveira, Joan Brown and others made a similar move; returning to imagery during the mid-1950s. Much of de Staël 's late work - in particular his thinned, and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s predicts Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicolas de Staël 's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop art of the 1960s.

Pop art

Pop art in America was to a large degree initially inspired by the works of Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, and Robert Rauschenberg. Although the paintings of Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis and Charles Demuth during the 1920s and 1930s set the table for Pop art in America. In New York City during the mid 1950s Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns created works of art that at first seemed to be continuations of Abstract expressionist painting. Actually their works and the work of Larry Rivers, were radical departures from abstract expressionism especially in the use of banal and literal imagery and the inclusion and the combining of mundane materials into their work. The innovations of Johns' specific use of various images and objects like chairs, numbers, targets, beer cans and the American Flag; Rivers paintings of subjects drawn from popular culture such as George Washington crossing the Delaware, and his inclusions of images from advertisements like the camel from Camel cigarettes, and Rauschenberg's surprising constructions using inclusions of objects and pictures taken from popular culture, hardware stores, junkyards, the city streets, and taxidermy gave rise to a radical new movement in American art. Eventually by 1963 the movement came to be known worldwide as Pop art.

Pop art is exemplified by artists: Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Wayne Thiebaud, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann and Roy Lichtenstein among others. Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix. In October 1962 the Sidney Janis Gallery mounted The New Realists the first major Pop art group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City. Sidney Janis mounted the exhibition in a 57th Street storefront near his gallery at 15 E. 57th Street. The show sent shockwaves through the New York School and reverberated worldwide. Earlier in the fall of 1962 a historically important and ground-breaking New Painting of Common Objects exhibition of Pop art, curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum sent shock waves across the Western United States. Campbell's Soup Cans (sometimes referred to as 32 Campbell's Soup Cans) is the title of an Andy Warhol work of art that was produced in 1962. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches in height x 16 inches in width (50.8 x 40.6 cm) and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each canned soup variety the company offered at the time. The individual paintings were produced with a semi-mechanised silkscreen process, using a non-painterly style. They helped usher in Pop art as a major art movement that relied on themes from popular culture. These works by Andy Warhol are repetitive and they are made in a non-painterly commercial manner.

Earlier in England in 1956 the term "Pop Art" was used by Lawrence Alloway to describe paintings that celebrated consumerism of the post World War II era. This movement rejected Abstract expressionism and its focus on the hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art which depicted, and often celebrated material consumer culture, advertising, and iconography of the mass production age. The early works of David Hockney whose paintings emerged from England during the 1960s like A Bigger Splash, and the works of Richard Hamilton Peter Blake and Eduardo Paolozzi are considered seminal examples in the movement.

While in the downtown scene in New York's East Village 10th Street galleries artists were formulating an American version of Pop art. Claes Oldenburg had his storefront, and the Green Gallery on 57th Street began to show Tom Wesselmann and James Rosenquist. Later Leo Castelli exhibited other American artists including the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Benday dots, a technique used in commercial reproduction and seen in ordinary comic books and in paintings like Drowning Girl, 1963, in the gallery above. There is a connection between the radical works of Duchamp, and Man Ray, the rebellious Dadaists - with a sense of humor; and Pop Artists like Alex Katz, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and the others.

Art Brut, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement, Neo-Dada, Photorealism

During the 1950s and 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, shaped canvas painting, Lyrical Abstraction, and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction with Art brut, Fluxus, Neo-Dada, New Realism, allowing imagery to re-emerge through various new contexts like Pop art, the Bay Area Figurative Movement and later in the 1970s Neo-expressionism. The Bay Area Figurative Movement of whom David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Nathan Oliveira and Richard Diebenkorn whose painting Cityscape 1, 1963 is a typical example were influential members flourished during the 1950s and 1960s in California. Although throughout the 20th century painters continued to practice Realism and use imagery, practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like Milton Avery, Edward Hopper, Jean Dubuffet, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Philip Pearlstein, and others. Younger painters practiced the use of imagery in new and radical ways. Yves Klein, Arman, Martial Raysse, Christo, Niki de Saint Phalle, David Hockney, Alex Katz, Malcolm Morley, Ralph Goings, Audrey Flack, Richard Estes, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, Eric Fischl, and Vija Celmins were a few who became prominent between the 1960s and the 1980s. Fairfield Porter was largely self-taught, and produced representational work in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist movement. His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the New York School of writers, including John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on Great Spruce Head Island, Maine.

Also during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against painting. Critics like Douglas Crimp viewed the work of artists like Ad Reinhardt, and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are: Postminimalism, Earth art, Video art, Installation art, arte povera, performance art, body art, fluxus, mail art, the situationists and conceptual art among others.

Neo-Dada is also a movement that started 1n the 1950s and 1960s and was related to Abstract expressionism only with imagery. Featuring the emergence of combined manufactured items, with artist materials, moving away from previous conventions of painting. This trend in art is exemplified by the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose "combines" in the 1950s were forerunners of Pop Art and Installation art, and made use of the assemblage of large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine, and Edward Kienholz among others were important pioneers of both abstraction and Pop Art; creating new conventions of art-making; they made acceptable in serious contemporary art circles the radical inclusion of unlikely materials as parts of their works of art.

Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Hard-Edge, Color field, Minimal Art, New Realism

During the 1960s and 1970s abstract painting continued to develop in America through varied styles. Geometric abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimal painting, were some interrelated directions for advanced abstract painting as well as some other new movements. Morris Louis was an important pioneer in advanced Colorfield painting, his work can serve as a bridge between Abstract expressionism, Colorfield painting, and Minimal Art. Two influential teachers Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann introduced a new generation of American artists to their advanced theories of color and space. Josef Albers is best remembered for his work as an Geometric abstractionist painter and theorist. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series Homage to the Square, . In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically on the canvas. Albers' theories on art and education were formative for the next generation of artists. His own paintings form the foundation of both hard-edge painting and Op art.

Josef Albers, Hans Hofmann, Ilya Bolotowsky, Burgoyne Diller, Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Frank Stella, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, Larry Poons, Ronald Davis, Larry Zox, and Al Held are artists closely associated with Geometric abstraction, Op art, Color Field painting, and in the case of Hofmann and Newman Abstract expressionism as well. Agnes Martin, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Jo Baer, Robert Ryman, Richard Tuttle, Neil Williams, David Novros, Paul Mogenson, are examples of artists associated with Minimalism and (exceptions of Martin, Baer and Marden) the use of the shaped canvas also during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many Geometric abstract artists, minimalists, and Hard-edge painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the shaped canvas is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or minimalist in character. The Bykert Gallery, and the Park Place Gallery were important showcases for Minimalism and shaped canvas painting in New York City during the 1960s.

In 1965, an exhibition called The Responsive Eye, curated by William C. Seitz, was held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City. The works shown were wide ranging, encompassing the[Minimalism of Frank Stella, the Op art of Larry Poons, the work of Alexander Liberman, alongside the masters of the Op Art movement: Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Bridget Riley and others. The exhibition focused on the perceptual aspects of art, which result both from the illusion of movement and the interaction of color relationships. Op art, also known as optical art, is used to describe some paintings and other works of art which use optical illusions. Op art is also closely akin to geometric abstraction and hard-edge painting. Although sometimes the term used for it is perceptual abstraction. Op art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing. Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.

Shaped canvas, Washington Color School, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction

Color Field painting clearly pointed toward a new direction in American painting, away from abstract expressionism. Color Field painting is related to Post-painterly abstraction, Suprematism, Abstract Expressionism, Hard-edge painting and Lyrical Abstraction.

Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists made references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of modern art, artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image. Gene Davis along with Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis and several others was a member of the Washington Color School painters who began to create Color Field paintings in Washington, D.C. during the 1950s and 1960s, Black, Grey, Beat is a large vertical stripe painting and typical of Gene Davis's work.

Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, Ronald Davis, Neil Williams, Robert Mangold, Charles Hinman, Richard Tuttle, David Novros, and Al Loving are examples of artists associated with the use of the shaped canvas during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many Geometric abstract artists, minimalists, and Hard-edge painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the shaped canvas is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or minimalist in character. From 1960 Frank Stella produced paintings in aluminum and copper paint and are his first works using shaped canvases (canvases in a shape other than the traditional rectangle or square), often being in L, N, U or T-shapes. These later developed into more elaborate designs, in the Irregular Polygon series (67), for example. Also in the 1960s, Stella began to use a wider range of colors, typically arranged in straight or curved lines. Later he began his Protractor Series (71) of paintings, in which arcs, sometimes overlapping, within square borders are arranged side-by-side to produce full and half circles painted in rings of concentric color. Harran II, 1967, is an example of the Protractor Series. These paintings are named after circular cities he had visited while in the Middle East earlier in the 1960s. The Irregular Polygon canvases and Protractor series further extended the concept of the shaped canvas.

The Andre Emmerich Gallery, the Leo Castelli Gallery, the Richard Feigen Gallery, and the Park Place Gallery were important showcases for Color Field painting, shaped canvas painting and Lyrical Abstraction in New York City during the 1960s. There is a connection with post-painterly abstraction, which reacted against abstract expressionisms' mysticism, hyper-subjectivity, and emphasis on making the act of painting itself dramatically visible - as well as the solemn acceptance of the flat rectangle as an almost ritual prerequisite for serious painting. During the 1960s Color Field painting and Minimal art were often closely associated with each other. In actuality by the early 1970s both movements became decidedly diverse.

Another related movement of the late 1960s Lyrical Abstraction is a term that was originally coined by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. It is also the name of an exhibition that originated in the Aldrich Museum and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art and other museums throughout the United States between 1969 and 1971.

Lyrical Abstraction in the late 1960s is characterized by the paintings of Dan Christensen, Ronnie Landfield, Peter Young and others,and along with the Fluxus movement and Postminimalism (a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of Artforum in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to Dada and Surrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures of Eva Hesse. Lyrical Abstraction, Conceptual Art, Postminimalism, Earth Art, Video, Performance art, Installation art, along with the continuation of Fluxus, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Hard-edge painting, Minimal Art, Op art, Pop art, Photorealism and New Realism extended the boundaries of Contemporary Art in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general.

Monochrome, Minimalism, Postminimalism

Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with Color Field painting and Abstract Expressionism especially in the freewheeling usage of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in Action Painting there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction as exemplified by the 1971 Ronnie Landfield painting Garden of Delight, (above) there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility. During the 1960s and 1970s artists as powerful and influential as Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Phillip Guston, Lee Krasner, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Richard Diebenkorn, Josef Albers, Elmer Bischoff, Agnes Martin, Al Held, Sam Francis, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Gene Davis, Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Joan Mitchell, Friedel Dzubas, and younger artists like Brice Marden, Robert Mangold, Sam Gilliam, Sean Scully, Pat Steir, Elizabeth Murray, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Dan Christensen, Joan Snyder, Richard Tuttle, Ross Bleckner, Archie Rand, Susan Crile, and dozens of others produced vital and influential paintings.

Still other important innovations in abstract painting took place during the 1960s and the 1970s characterized by Monochrome painting and Hard-edge painting inspired by Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, Milton Resnick, and Ellsworth Kelly. Artists as diversified as Al Held, Larry Zox, Frank Stella, Larry Poons, Brice Marden and others explored the power of simplification. The convergence of Color Field painting, Minimal art, Hard-edge painting, Lyrical Abstraction, and Postminimalism blurredthe distinction between movements that became more apparent in the 1980s and 1990s. The Neo-expressionism movement is related to earlier developments in Abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, Lyrical Abstraction and Postminimal painting.

Neo-expressionism

In the late 1960s the abstract expressionist painter Philip Guston helped to lead a transition from abstract expressionism to Neo-expressionism in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects. These works were inspirational to a new generation of painters interested in a revival of expressive imagery. His painting Painting, Smoking, Eating 1973, seen above in the gallery is an example of Guston's final and conclusive return to representation.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was also a return to painting that occurred almost simultaneously in Italy, Germany, France and Britain. These movements were called Transavantguardia, Neue Wilde, Figuration Libre, Neo-expressionism and the School of London respectively. These painting were characterized by large formats, free expressive mark making, figuration, myth and imagination. All work in this genre came to be labeled neo-expressionism. Critical reaction was divided. Some critics regarded it as driven by profit motivations by large commercial galleries. This type of art continues in popularity into the 21st century, even after the art crash of the late 1980s. Anselm Kiefer is a leading figure in European Neo-expressionism by the 1980s, (see To the Unknown Painter 1983) Kiefer's themes widened from a focus on Germany's role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involves not only national identity and collective memory, but also occult symbolism, theology and mysticism. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.

During the late 1970s in the United States painters who began working with invigorated surfaces and who returned to imagery like Susan Rothenberg gained in popularity, especially as seen above in paintings like Horse 2, 1979. During the 1980s American artists like Eric Fischl, (see Bad Boy, 1981), David Salle, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and Keith Haring, and Italian painters like Mimmo Paladino, Sandro Chia, and Enzo Cucchi, among others defined the idea of Neo-expressionism in America.

Neo-expressionism was a style of modern painting that became popular in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. It developed in Europe as a reaction against the conceptual and minimalistic art of the 1960s and 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in a virtually abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. The veteran painters Philip Guston, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Gerhard Richter, A. R. Penck and Georg Baselitz, along with slightly younger artists like Anselm Kiefer, Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, Francesco Clemente, Damien Hirst, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, and many others became known for working in this intense expressionist vein of painting.

Painting still holds a respected position in contemporary art. Art is an open field no longer divided by the objective versus non-objective dichotomy. Artists can achieve critical success whether their images are representational or abstract. What has currency is content, exploring the boundaries of the medium, and a refusal to recapitulate the works of the past as an end goal.

Contemporary painting into the 21st century

At the beginning of the 21st century Contemporary painting and Contemporary art in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of pluralism. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current art criticism today is brought about by pluralism. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an anything goes attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.

Hard-edge painting, Geometric abstraction, Appropriation, Hyperrealism, Photorealism, Expressionism, Minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Monochrome painting, Neo-expressionism, Collage, Intermedia painting, Assemblage painting, Digital painting, Postmodern painting, Neo-Dada painting, Shaped canvas painting, environmental mural painting, Graffiti, traditional figure painting, Landscape painting, Portrait painting, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.

See also

Sources




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